Windows XP comes with Windows Messenger, the integrated version of what’s known as MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger. If you’ve ever tried to uninstall it, or delete it’s folder, you’ve noticed that it magically reappears and will not stay gone.

There is a way to remove it for good. Here’s the instructions to do this very simply in under 30 seconds.

Go to your Start Menu, Start, and then Run and then type in:
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Windows Seven contains a few “Easter eggs” or features for-the-finding. One of these, has been nicknamed “God Mode”, an uber-elite combination of the control panel, system manager, and other assorted control panels, combined to form an AIO (all-in-one) master control panel.

The benefits and applications of such an uber-elite control panel, to any IT savvy computer user, systems administrator, or technician are limitless; Easier and more direct access to troubleshooting and diagnosing system issues, system maintenance, LDAP and domain client-side configuration, etc.

To activate the “God Mode” control panel, we need to create a folder with the specific system registry trigger, included in the folder name. This quick visual guide will cover how to do this in under two minutes. Continue Reading

mIRC is one of the greatest and most popular Windows IRC clients available. Everyone who has used it will agree that mIRC is an excellent tool to put you in touch with other tech-savy individuals throughout the many IRC communities.

The program is reliable and stable, widely adopted, and sports a huge library of third party scripts which can be installed to customize just about everything in the program. Some of the most notable and yet taken-for-granted features about mIRC are it’s advanced post-connection preferences, allowing you to specify macros for actions such as joining a specific series of chat channels, specifying a user name specific to each IRC server, automatically registering a nickname you want to have privileges to, etc, all done automatically after the connection has been established, and each macro being executed appropriately dependent on which IRC network you have connected to.

Those configuration options, while being your best friend, can also be your worse enemy. Unfortunately by default, mIRC stores all the configuration preferences within the Windows registry. In this visual guide, I will show you how to make mIRC portable and able to be easily moved from computer to computer. All of this, while retaining your preferences without the need for the Windows Registry database. Continue Reading

Often times I’ve seen where people attempting to follow troubleshooting instructions from a technical support department run into problems with the instructions.  It may or may not always be the fault of the end user, but typically can be blamed on a lack of clear communication (or miscommunication).

Many times people fail to realize that the term “command prompt” loosely applies to two separate, but very similar utilities made by Microsoft;  “CMD” (cmd.exe) and “command” (command.bat).

“Command” is the depreciated and no longer officially supported command line interface utility for Microsoft Windows. It made it for the last time into Windows XP’s distribution, however has been dropped from any inclusion into future windows releases, including the current Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 Seven.

As seen in the screenshot below, launching “command” from the Start > Run menu brings up the below window.

The first line of the command line interface states Microsoft(R) Windows DOS.

Microsoft Windows command.com Utility. Please note if you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system newer than Microsoft Windows XP, you will get an error message when attempting to run "command" as the utility is no longer included newer windows distributions.

“Command” does not contain all the same logic that “CMD” does, and is limited with the functions, options, and commands that may be executed from within. Due to this, and “CMD” containing newer functions and options, “command” (command.bat) is considered depreciated.

Now, let’s take a look into the revamped “CMD”. Note the differences in the appearance of “command” (command.bat) and “CMD” (cmd.exe).

With the “CMD” (cmd.exe) command line interface window, the first line reads Microsoft Windows XP. (This of course will vary depending if you’re using Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, etc, however the underlying utility, “CMD”, will function the same.) “CMD” was designed after command, but includes many new functions and features built into it’s logic. Functions that work in “CMD” will not necessarily work in the older depreciated “command”.

Microsoft Windows cmd.exe Utility as seen in a Windows XP Professional (updated up to service pack 3) environment.

Knowing now that there is a difference in “CMD” and “command”, hopefully you may save yourself some headaches caused by running a command from within the incorrect command line interface utility.

In an upcoming post I will dig into the basic commands built into “CMD” and their functions.