Many times it is convenient to create a special administrator account that can be used for the task scheduler.

Unfortunately, if your Windows 7 computer is not joined to a domain, any accounts you create are shown at the start-up screen:

It would look better if you could remove this special account from the welcome screen, and only show real user accounts.

How can you remove this from the welcome screen?

Well, it happens that there is a registry key that will allow you to do this. Before I start to tell you what it is – I want to give you a word of warning:

Hide the wrong account, and you could lock yourself out forever. If you hose your system, don’t come crying to me

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, open regedit and drill down to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\

Under this key, you will need to create two sub keys. First create a key named “SpecialAccounts”, and under that key create another named “UserList”.

The final registry path will look like this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList

It is possible those keys already exist, and if they do then, hey, you get to skip a step

Next you need to create a new DWORD value under that key.

The value name is the exact username that you want to hide.

The numerical value is a 0 or a 1. If you set it to 0, then the account will be hidden. Set it to 1, and it will be shown.

You can see here that I have created a value for my SchedAccount:

After closing regedit, and switching back to the welcome screen we can see that the SchedAccount is no longer displayed:

This is a simple and fast way to hide an account, but at the same time please be very careful.

To drive home the point – look at the UAC prompt when I disabled all accounts, except a limited user account:

That YES button looks really clickable doesnt it? Yea right, now were stuck. No way of ever getting admin rights on the system again. Once you are in this state, you will need to restore from backup. So check twice before making those registry changes.

Do not let storage space stop you from deleting current files such as documents and spreadsheets on your computer. If these files have been around for years, back them up and take them out of your computer. Other than taking up space, you just have to consider the worst scenarios such as hard disk crashes or imminent formatting caused by system software malfunctions that are common today.

Formatting a hard drive is the last resort but is the easiest solution when it comes to program conflicts and crashes. While there are programs that try to help you restore a system, it remains that your PC will never be the same again due to buggy installation. Overwriting may be a good option but you will notice that after you do this, your computer slows down a bit more.

So to address speed and consistency of the operating system of your computer, it would be best to clean it from scratch and start a fresh copy of your preferred Windows operating system. It is a hard decision to make but at times you are left with very few choices to make.

If you have files that have been around for over 2 years which you don’t access, just copy them to a CD or a tape drive. Do not leave them on your PC hard drive for easy access. At times you will never know when you would need to recover them and normally, backups are the best way to safeguard them in case something untoward happens to your PC.

One thing about computers is that it is really the data inside that is important. The price for getting a new one will always be there but if you weigh out the cost of one computer desktop compared to the valuable data you have inside, it is pretty obvious that no amount of money can replace the records and files you created, mostly important when you talk about work or educational means.

It is easy to buy a computer or upgrade it as you wish. But once you lose certain files, trying to recall and bring them back may be too much of a burden if not a lost cause since historical data may no longer be feasible to remember.

Some computers last for as long as 5 years. This is assuming you are doing the proper maintenance for both internal systems and external parts of the standard desktop. Imagine the number of files you have by that time which can be deleted at an instant. It will probably make you break down in tears if you think of it.

There are alternatives. The reason why optical media is offered with your computer is for you to have external backups of files just in case something undesirable happens. Whether it is the standard CDR or DVDR, what is important is you have files safe and stored somewhere outside your computer. Remember, one system crash or accidental deletion can not be undone. Backup your files and save yourself the trouble of headaches such as these caused by tactless actions you may suddenly do.

One thing you must love about Windows XP is that they have the system restore option active at times that makes it easier for you to restore at some point after you have properly backed up your system. But along with that backup includes problems such as infected files by viruses or Trojans. That is perhaps if you noticed, that sometimes, when you have to get rid of a dreaded virus, tutorials will tell you to temporarily turn off the system restore option to make sure that you don’t leave any trace of these infections.

But the question is on whether you really need the system restore turned on. Some would turn it off to be safe while others just leave it on. This is to avoid the problems of infections at times but if you are wise, it is best to leave it on, especially if you are not too technically savvy about tinkering your operating system.

A good practice to consider is to of course set a restore point and then turn off the system restore. But before you do, make sure that this restore point is virus free and reliable. That way, you can be sure that once something unfortunate occurs, you can always rely on your backed up system to get back online.

With the system restore turned on, a lot of issues can be avoided. While you may lose some current files, it is better to lose a few rather than reformatting the whole computer and lose a lot!

Your PC can crash at any time. Not a comforting thought I know, but one that should prompt us all to save our work as often as possible. So, for this end of the year post I will extol the virtues of saving regularly, and by extension, of backing up your files.

Firstly let’s deal with saving your files regularly: to do so, simply hold down the Ctrl key and press S.

If you wish to use a different filename each time you save, hold down the Alt key and press F then A. This will open up the ‘Save as…’ dialog box.

Now the backing up your files. Since we are fast approaching a new year, now would be a good time to back up all your essential files. There are a myriad of ways of doing this such as using USB flash drives to backup your current projects, or using a DVD writer to back up many of your files in one go.

Another option is to set up a webmail account with lots of storage capacity as offered by the likes of Yahoo! and Google to which you can email the files you are working on. Or you could try other online storage facilities like box.net.

So make at least one New Years resolution: back up your files.

Folder redirection refers to the redirection of user folders such as Documents, Pictures, Start Menu and Desktop. While in Windows XP, only five folders could be redirected, Vista allows ten folders. Folder redirection is intended to replace the older concept of having a “home folder” for users. The problem with this (and most of us Admins still face this with users) is that there are too many applications that do not allow you to specify a default path for storing data files and users simply accept the default ending up with some files on the network, some in their [potentially roaming] profile and some on the local system.

Folder redirection supports two modes: Basic and Advanced. Basic redirection sends everyone’s folders to the same location and creates special subfolders for each user while advanced lets you to set folder redirection paths for specific groups. (more…)

admins, backups, cut and paste, data files, default path, folders, home folder, local system, network attached storage, redirection, system folder, usb drive, vista, Windows, windows xp