Did you know about the Vista Godmode? It allows you to activate a “hidden” feature of Vista, the master control panel.
On our sister site Windows7themes.net we already reported about this, but it is also useful on Windows Vista.

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Do you own a Canoscan Lide 50 and you run Windows 7 x64 or Windows Vista x64?
Many people struggled to find a working driver for that setup. The Vista x64 drivers for the CanoScan Lide 60 are working.

Here’s a quick guide how to install your canoscan lide 50 drivers properly.

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Ever wondered how to setup a dual screen properly?

Once the best tool to do that would come with your graphic drivers (if you had a NVidia graphic card).
Nowadays there are some better tools to do it.

DisplayFusion is one of them.

The free version does not offer as much as the pro does, but it’s enough to do some really fancy stuff.

Above, you can see my setup. All you have to do is to open your display properties to detect a 2nd monitor and select “Extend these displays”, after that simply do a right-click on the litte tray icon of Display Fusion and click on “Desktop Wallpaper”.

You are almost done, pick a wallpaper (load from) and set a size mode. Apply it and your wallpaper should now stretch over 2 screens. Easy, huh?

If you want to try out Vista for 30 days, you can get a Vista VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) from Microsoft.

Microsoft also released a Vista VHD for Web Developers and that one will be running for 120 days!
Grab it here. You will need Microsoft’s Virtual PC.

So, you may wonder why the hell would I want a Vista VHD? Well, it might come in handy to try out stuff! If you don’t need it, you can still download a Windows 7 VHD over at http://windows7themes.net

For all of you, who have trouble editing things like the common file dialog or other policies, such as password login or shutdowns, there is an easy solution.

Unfortunately Vista Home does not include GPEDit, which is a comfortable editor to edit all those policies. However, there is a way to lookup the registry settings for every policy.
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Well I finally decided to give WindowBlinds another try.  First of all some general information for all who don’t know this handy tool:

WindowBlinds is a program that enables Windows users to completely change the look and feel of Windows users interface. Users customize Windows by using visual styles (skins) created for WindowBlinds. With these skins, WindowsBlinds can change the look of titlebars, borders, buttons, taskbars, Start menu, progress animations, toolbar icons, Explorer views, and virtually every other part of Windows!

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“Start”, now enter “cmd”or “cmd.exe” (Use STRG + Shift and Enter to run it with admin privileges!)

Run the following command
net user administrator /active:yes

Done. Go back to logon screen and you will see a new user account

This might come in handy if you have problems activating Windows 7, too.

I was looking for some sound schemes for Windows Vista on the net and compiled a short list of useful sources.

This is also a short review of SoundPackager from Stardock, which is a nice tool to manage your sound schemes in Vista or XP.

SoundPackager

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Would you like to record what you hear ? Audacity is a great tool to do exactly that. It’s also a great tool to edit your sound files by the way; you can easily create a sound fade-in/fade-out or remove noise in a sound file.

To record ‘what you hear’ you will have to change a few settings in Vista before you can do so.

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Do you want to create a wallpaper, an icon, a button or anything vista-like? 

This is going to be a short compilation of some very nice tutorials creating vista-like designs.

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