How To Hack Windows Experience Index Values in Windows 7/Windows Vista

Windows Experience Index was introduced in Windows Vista, back then the top score was 5.9. Now in Windows 7 Microsoft has increased the top score to 7.9 for balancing out some of the new recent emerging hardware like Solid State Drive, quad core, hex core CPUs and more.

Here Is How You Can Change the WEI Score

Go to C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore find the file started with Formal.Assessment . WinSAT

Open the file for edit (if you only have the “Initial” then open that for edit, if you have a “Recent” open the most recent one)

Before opening the file for editing, take full ownership of the file.

Search for the String “SystemScore” from there you can change the value in between the tag. You can also change all the following values for Memory, CPU, GPU and disk scores etc.

Once you’ve done that save the file and go back to the System page in the control panel. Woooha !

Magically your PC are now top the line

Enjoy

-anurag guleria-

Add Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu

Here at anuragguleria.blogspot.com, we’re in the business of making things as easy as possible. There’s a registry hack for Windows that will let you add a Copy To Folder or Move To Folder to the right-click menu, which can be very useful when you want to move a file but don’t have the other folder open already.

Right-click on a file:

And up pops a nice dialog that you can use to easily drop a file into the right directory.

Access Hidden Regional Themes in Windows 7

Windows 7 offers you location specific Aero themes based on the language and location you pick during installation.  Here we will take a look at accessing other hidden themes from different countries.

When you first start the Windows 7 installation the first thing you will do is select a language, time and currency format.  This is where Windows determines what themes you’re presented with by default.

To access the other international themes copy and paste the following path into the search box and hit Enter.

C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT

In the MCT folder you will find additional themes for Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Great Britain.

 

You can go in and grab just the Wallpapers…

Or go into the Theme folder double click on the the thumbnail to add it. 

Here you can see I added all of them and now they will be available under the My Themes section for when you want to change them around.

This is a neat little trick that will let you customize Windows 7 with hidden themes already available.  Also if you want to get more themes head over to the Microsoft site.

How To Disable Control Panel in Windows 7

     

If you have a shared computer that your family and friends can access, you might not want them to mess around in the Control Panel, and luckily with a simple tweak you can disable it.

Disable Control Panel with Group Policy

Note: This process uses Local Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows 7. Skip down below for the registry hack version that works on Home editions as well.

First type gpedit.msc into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter.

 

When Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates then select Control Panel in the left Column. In the right column double-click on Prohibit access to the Control Panel.

In the next window, select Enable, click OK, then close out of Local Group Policy Editor.

After the Control Panel is disabled, you’ll notice it’s no longer listed in the Start Menu.

If the user tries to type Control Panel into the Search box in the Start menu, they will get the following message indicating it’s restricted.

Disable Control Panel with a Registry Tweak

You can also tweak the Registry to disable Control Panel. This will work with all versions of Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Making changes in the Registry is not recommended for beginners and you should create a Restore Point, or backup the Registry before making any changes.

Type regedit into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter.

In Registry Editor navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer. Then right-click in the right pane and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Name the value NoControlPanel. Then right-click on the new Value and click Modify…

 

In the Value data field change the value to “1” then click OK. Close out of Registry Editor and restart the machine to complete the process.

When you get back from reboot, you’ll notice Control Panel is no longer listed in the Start menu.

If a user tries to access it by typing Control Panel into the Search box in the Start menu…

They will get the following message indicating it is restricted, just like if you were to disable it via Group Policy.

If you want to re-enable the Control Panel, go back into the Registry and change the NoControlPanel value back to “0” then reboot the computer.

This comes in handy if you have inexperienced users working on your machine and don’t want them messing with Control Panel settings.