Clean old drivers with Driver Sweeper 1.5

Ever want to clean-install your drivers? Ever experienced problems caused by old driver remnants?

Driver Sweeper (a free software cleaner) is the latest solution to your nagging problems, and the newest version even brings along a new clean and modern user interface.
Get it at http://phyxion.net/ today!

Get Vista folder views to stick

Do you experience many times when Vista trys to set your folder view to a setting it thinks the folder is? Hate Windows Vista forgetting your view settings?

The solution is to disable the automatic folder template type recovery by creating the registry entry in Registry Editor (regedit), but first you must reset the folder type and view settings to default.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell
Create a string with name FolderType and value as NotSpecified.

Alternatively, you can automate the process by copying and pasting the following into a *.reg (registry file) and executing it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Reset and delete all saved folder customizations and settings.
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]

; Turn off Vista auto folder type template discovery.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\AllFolders\Shell]
"FolderType"="NotSpecified"

; Modify the storage space to 10000 for saving of up to 10000 folder settings.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00002710

For more information you can refer to My Digital Life's posts here, here and here.

Get Battlefield 2 & 2142 to work on Vista

The Fix

Due to complications with Punkbuster, you will need to carry out various steps before you can play on Punkbuster servers on Vista.
1) Get pbsvc.exe to install the Punkbuster service
2) Get pbsetup.exe to update the ingame Punkbuster service
3) Run Battlefield 2 & 2142 as an Administrator (everytime)

Step 3 is a required step since Punkbuster, even with a service installed, faces problems when trying to update the service / files (PnkBstrA and PnkBstrB service) and without administrator rights, will stop or fail with a PB heartbeat failure. For more information, please refer to the linked page.

Further troubleshooting information

Punkbuster stores its' log files in...
C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\PunkBuster

Punkbuster stores its' update files in...
%localappdata% or C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\PunkBuster