Essential Vista utitlity software

Firewall: My favourite firewall, zonealarm, is not compatible with Vista yet, so I have opt for a new one: PC tools firewall (see its help here). It is working great, and the rule-based access permissions of it for sure is more advanced. Vista's firewall now supports both inbound and outbound control and should be sufficient when behind a firewall router already, but seems not strong enough for a laptop.

Keyboard shortcuts: A list of very handy and useful shortcuts to make life easier. To a complete list see Windows Vista Help Keyboard shortcuts. A brief list is as follows:

Managing Windows
Win+Tab Flip 3D
Ctrl+Win+Tab Persistent Flip 3D
Win+T Cycle through applications on taskbar (showing its live preview)
Win+M Minimize all open windows
Win+Shift+M Undo all window minimization
Win+D Toggle showing the desktop

Starting Programs
Win+1 Open the first program on your Quick Launch bar
Win+2 Open the second program on your Quick Launch bar
Win+n Open the nth program on your Quick Launch bar
Win+U Open the ease of access center
Win+F Open the search window
Win+E Open Explorer
Win+R Open the Run window
Ctrl+Shift+Esc Open Windows Task Manager

Logging In And Out
Win, RightArrow Sleep
Win+L Locks computer
Viewing Folders With Explorer
Alt+LeftArrow Go back
Alt+RightArrow Go forward
Alt+UpArrow Go up a directory
Alt+D Move focus to address bar
Alt+D, Tab Move focus to search bar
Ctrl+Mousewheel Change the view type (extra large, small, list view, detail, etc.)

Windows Sidebar And Gadgets
Move focus to Sidebar Win+Space
Cycle through visible gadgets Win+G

The story of Acer's aweful costumer service

-------- Excerpt --------

Problem: An Acer Aspire notebook with Vista OS wakes automatically a few seconds after being put in sleep/hibernate modes

Solution:

1. No device should be set to wake the system --> use the POWERCFG command
   
2. Make sure the IPv6 option is disabled. (This is the main reason that it took me 2 weeks to figure it out)

-------- The full story --------

I am writing this to have a record solution for maybe another poor user with a similar problem. After 4 months of waiting with the slow procedure of Acer sending me the "free" Vista upgrade for my Acer notebook, I had the chance to install it on my brand new system last week.
Everything went well, except that the system wakes itself automatically after sleep/hibernate modes.
I tried everything, from using "powercfg –devicequery wake_armed" to getting a list of any device that might wake it up (and then disabling any one armed, "powercfg -devicedisablewake (device name from -devicequery)"), to disabling every possible device listed on the device manager one by one. I also played with all the possible parameters of the power management options: Vista's and Acer empowering ones. But the problem still existed.

So I decided to email the costumer service, because my suspicion was maybe the BIOS upgrade didn't go well and I wasn't sure what the latest version number is. After two very useless and longly separated email correspondences, they directed me to call them. When I called, they provided no assistance at all: after 10 minutes of questions, he said that this line is for hardware related problems and I should call their billable line ($3/m, hello ?!?).

It is ok for them not to be able to solve the problem or suggest anything, what I am pissed off about is their lack of mere attempt to help, and mere courage to say they don't know ... This is a brand new system being upgrade with the package they shipped. I am usually adamant to contact the costumer services, only as the very very very last resort. Too bad such a good product comes with such a bad costumer service.

Anyways, while rechecking everything I suspected that maybe there is some compatibility or setting problem with the Vista's newly added feature: IPv6 capability. And ... boom ... that was it. I disabled the IPv6 option and everything is fine now. I suspect that although in the BIOS and the network card's properties wake-on-LAN was disabled, IPv6 was messing emerying up.

Links:

• Acer email support
  
• Acer Europe (Better organization of downloadable stuff)
• Note: in order to open a cmd with administrator previlages, you need to hold ctrl+shift and then click on cmd on the all program list , this is true even when logged with an administrator user account