Live File System Turns Blank Discs Into Pseudo-Flash Drives
The Online Tech Tips blog delves into a little-discussed feature of Windows Vista that can turn your spare blank discs into drag-and-drop bins for extra files. The Live File System mounts writable CDs and DVDs as pseudo-flash drives, letting you add files to them on a continual basis rather than having to initiate one big burn session. You can't recover space from added files, but if you've got blank discs to spare, Live File System can be a handy write-as-you-go backup method.
Windows Vista only: By default, Windows Vista doesn't allow you to install custom colour and window decoration themes, unless they've been specifically reviewed by Microsoft. With a set of Uxtheme Patches, and a willingness to roll up your sleeves and patch your system, you can enable custom themes and tweak your colours, windows, and other desktop parts to your heart's content. The How-To Geek has a step-by-step guide to installing, patching, and enabling custom themes, and it's highly recommend that anyone trying it out back up their files and create a restore point before pressing on. Having said that, there are some pretty slick themes out there, at 
When icons start disappearing from Windows Vista's system tray—like the networking, volume control, or time display—and you can't restore them from the standard options menus, the itch to re-install can be strong indeed. The How-To Geek, however, finds the balm for disappearing Vista icons in the registry, where a few key options need to be deleted to restore your system tray to functionality. Hit the link for instructions on how to kill out the options yourself, or download a registry hack that does it for you. 
Amit at the Digital Inspiration blog has written up a how-to on launching web sites directly from Windows Vista's Start Search box (and therefore at the tap of a "Windows" key), using Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" function to quickly bring up the first result of a search using your entry. The hack involves using the Group Policy editor (gpedit.msc), which is unfortunately available only in the Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions—unless, of course, one of our intrepid readers can point us toward enabling or unlocking that feature in the Home and Basic versions. Hit the link below for yet another way to make your Windows key into a full-fledged quick-launcher.
Windows Vista tip: Web site OCModShop details how to speed up your hard drive performance in Vista by tweaking an advanced setting to enable write caching and advanced performance on your SATA hard drive. The net effect of this tweak should certainly bring improved disk performance, but there is a catch: If you're not using a backup power supply—either a battery on your laptop or an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on your desktop—enabling these features increases the likelihood of data loss in the event of a power outage. Either way, this tweak is worth a look if you're looking to beef up your disk performance, and besides—you should already be 
Windows Vista only: Shadow Copies, an automated file version saver built into all copies of Windows Vista (and enabled by default), isn't a complete backup solution, but it could be a life-saver in certain situations. As The How-To Geek blog points out, however, it's pretty hard to find, let alone extract files from. Luckily, a forum member at the Geek's site has posted a complete tutorial on accessing and recovering previous file versions using the free utility 
We've shown you how to disable Windows Vista's secure-but-really-annoying User Account Controls feature (a.k.a. the "A program needs your permission ..." pop-up) using