In some cases when you install packages you might receive an error, stating

The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2869

This happens because UAC(User Account Control) in Vista denies execution of some MSI Custom Actions that interact with the system and require administrative privileges.

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator

2. Locate installation file using cd and dir commands. For instance, to get to your Desktop, try typing cd /d "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop"

3. Launch installation file using msiexec /i SetupFile.msi command, where SetupFile is the name of your setup file that causes error.

This launches installation with administrative privileges and therefore fixes the problem.

In some cases when Windows Update has finished updating your system, you might receive the following window:

When you have a lot of work in progress, lots of open tabs and unsaved documents, you might need to disable this popup and reboot manually after all work is done.

Whereas Windows Vista predicted such an alternative, Windows XP will show this popup, and then finally reboot your computer if no interaction is made.

To temporarily disable this popup, you will need to shut down Windows Automatic Update service.

The simplest way to do this is to type net stop wuauserv in the Run menu. This will stop Automatic Update service and popup will be gone until next restart.

Note: This will not happen if you have Automatic Updates disabled or set up to manual update. Disabling updates, however is a serious security breach and is not recommended.

You could also download a script that will stop Automatic Updates from running. Execute this script every time you need Automatic Updates disabled until restart.

AUDisable.cmd (17,00 bytes)

When computer faced a major virus infestation, it might be necessary to boot computer into safe mode and perform some actions there. What is the difference between normal boot and Safe Mode? Only basic drivers and services are loaded when booting into safe mode, thus not allowing viruses to start themselves. Most of the viruses will not operate in Safe Mode, so you could try curing it. It is not a surprise that some viruses disable safe mode as soon as they take control of computer.

How can be Safe Mode disabled? In most cases viruses simply delete registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot. When you try booting into safe mode on the machine that has this key deleted, you will receive the following BSOD:

Solution:

In this case you will need to find computer with the same version of OS and Service Pack, get these settings from there and then import them into problematic computer. To export settings from working computer, you will need to do the following:

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot and export its contents into a file

This will create a reg file that we will transfer to the machine without SafeBoot.

Alternatively, you could use registry files created on our test machines, but some settings are machine-specific, so these files are provided "as is".

WinXP_SafeBoot.reg (26,81 kb)

Win7_SafeBoot.reg (36,04 kb)

Now when when these reg files are on the computer that needs Safe Mode restored, merge them with the registry. You can do that either by double-clicking or by right-clicking on the reg file and selecting Merge option from the dropdown menu.

SafeBoot should work from now on if the problem was in deleted key.

This article will tell you how to add custom program shortcut to Run menu.

As you might know, WinKey+R combination opens up Run menu.

Once it is opened, typing "iexplore", "winmine" or "regedit" would launch Internet Explorer, Minesweeper or Windows Registry Editor respectively. If Mozilla Firefox or Adobe Photoshop are installed, typing "firefox" or "photoshop" would launch these applications. However, if you wish to launch applications like Winamp, Opera or Foobar from Run menu, you will need to perform the steps described in the following article.

For example, let us create a Run menu shortcut for Foobar2000.

Difficulty mode: Medium

• Type regedit in Run menu to open Windows Registry editor.
• Once it is opened, navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths
  

  

• Right-click on App Paths and create a new Key named Winamp.exe(don't forget to add .exe at the end)
• Open this newly created key and double-click on (Default). Type the full path to Winamp executable: C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe, and click OK.

This will add Winamp as a shortcut to Run menu, thus allowing us to access it in three steps – pressing WinKey+R combination, typing Winamp, pressing enter.

Difficulty mode: Hard

If you wish to add custom commands to Run menu, you could exploit the fact that you could add custom .bat and .cmd files to the App Paths registry keys. In the example below we will add reboot command to the Run menu.

First, we will need to create a cmd script and remember its full path. Script contents must be the following:

@echo off
shutdown -r -t 0 

In this example we will name the file Reboot.cmd and place it into C:\Windows\ folder, so that its full path will be C:\Windows\Reboot.cmd. Then we open regedit  and navigate our way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths as in previous example. Once we are there, we add a Key named Reboot.exe and modify its (Default) key to be C:\Windows\Reboot.cmd. Right after that, we will be able to reboot our computer by typing reboot in the start menu.

Difficulty mode: Easy

If this seems pretty difficult for you, you could use software AppPaths from this site.