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MAC-Address is the hardware Network Address for the NIC which is unique for the system. However, there may be time when you need to change the MAC-Address for administrative purpose on a network. Some of the device drivers come with an option to change it from the device properties but not all (like my Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Driver). For those who do not have the luxury of changing the MAC-Address from the device properties there is a way to do this  by editing the Windows Registry.

To change MAC-Address for a Network card in Windows Registry:

1. Click Start – Run, type “regedit”

2. Navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Control
\Class
\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. Under this key, you shoud see numbers in sequence as “0000?, “0001? and so on. Click on one at a time to check the description of the device to match it with that of your Network Card. In my case (0001)

4. Once found, in the right-pane, look for “NetworkAddress” key value. If you find it, right-click and select modify. Enter the desired MAC-Address as a 12 digit number (all in one, no “space” “.” or “-”)

5. If you don’t find the key, right-click in the rightpane, select “New” – “String Value”. Enter the name as “NetworkAddress”. Now modify and set the desired value.

6. Now, disable and enable the Network card from the ControlPanel – Network Connections.

This should reflect the new MAC-Address on your NIC. Should you choose to go back to the original manufacturer set MAC-Address simply delete the key you just created/modified in the Windows Registry.

You can also use a tool like Technitium MAC Address Changer to change the MAC-Address of your NIC

When you create a signature (to be added to all your outgoing emails automatically) in Yahoo! Mail, you can make liberal use of all the fancy text formatting tools available via the Color and Graphics editor (provided you use Internet Explorer on Windows).
You cannot, however, add images to your Yahoo! Mail signature through this route. A little manual editing of the HTML involved or some copying and pasting do the trick, however, if the image you want to insert in your signature is available from a publicly accessible web server.
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If you’ve ever run the Windows XP’s Disk Cleanup utility, you probably discovered that your temporary files occupy a significant amount of space. You might select the Temporary Files check box in order to allow the Disk Cleanup utility to delete the files in the Temp folder, but the Disk Cleanup utility will not remove all of the files. The reason for this oddity is that the configuration for the Disk Cleanup utility does not allow deletion of files accessed in the last seven days.
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The user universe is divided into mousers and keyboarders, with the latter group stoutly insisting that it’s faster to keep your fingers on the keyboard than to stop and pick up the mouse to execute a command. If some of your users are in the keyboard camp, these basic shortcuts will be right up their alley.

The shortcuts

Your users probably have a few favorite keyboard shortcuts for formatting text — like Ctrl + B for applying boldface, Ctrl + I for applying italics, Ctrl + U for underlining, and maybe Ctrl + L to left-align text. But Word provides buttons for those tasks on the Formatting toolbar, so any efficiency gains are kind of a toss-up.

The real convenience lies in knowing some more obscure keyboard shortcuts — ones that have no default button equivalents and that can save users from having to scrounge around dialog boxes looking for the appropriate options. Here are some shortcuts that are especially good for users to have under their belt.

In order to protect Windows Vista from malware and inadvertent disastrous mistakes, Microsoft endowed the operating system with the User Account Control (UAC) system. This system requires all users to use the standard user mode, and then prompts for administrative credentials before performing an operation.

If you like the idea of the UAC system, but you’re not ready to upgrade to Windows Vista, you can use UAC’s predecessor in Windows XP: the RunAs command. Here’s how to use Windows XP’s version of UAC:

1. Log in as the Administrator.

2. Launch User Accounts, locate your user account, and change your account type from Computer Administrator to a Limited account.

3. Log out of the Administrator account and log back in with your new Limited account.

4. Whenever you encounter a situation in which you need administrative credentials, press [Shift] as you right-click the application’s executable file or its icon and select the RunAs command.

5. When you see the RunAs dialog box, choose The Following User option button to select the Administrator account, and then type in the password.

6. Click OK.

Now you can perform any operation that requires administrative credentials.

Note: This tip is for both Windows XP Home and Professional.

If you manage Windows XP Pro systems via Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) with multiple monitors, you’ll want to get the newest version of RDC (Terminal Services Client 6.0) because of its invaluable support for multiple monitors.

After you download RDC (Terminal Services Client 6.0), you can use it from your multiple monitor system and span the desktop of the remote computer across the multiple monitors on your local system.

Two caveats: Your multiple monitors must have the same screen resolution, and the screen resolution on your multiple monitors and the monitor of the computer to which you’re connecting must be under 4096 x 2048.

Follow these steps to launch RDC with multiple monitor support:

1. Open a Command Prompt window and type the command Mstsc /span.
2. Fill in the connection settings in the standard RDC dialog box.
3. Once you’re connected, you can toggle between RDC’s new multiple monitor display and a regular window by pressing [Ctrl][Alt][Break]

Have you ever been working from a Command Prompt and needed to temporarily map a drive letter to a network location for a quick file operation? Of course, you can switch over to Windows Explorer and use the Map Network Drive command on the Tools menu.

While this is a viable solution, it requires multiple steps to create and then you have to perform several more steps to disconnect the network drive. This can be a pain — especially if you just want to work from a Command Prompt.

However, there is another way. You can use the PushD command to quickly create a temporary drive map while remaining in the Command Prompt. You can then use PopD to quickly disconnect the network drive. Here’s how:

1. Open a Command Prompt window.
2. Type the following command line:

PUSHD ServerSharepath

where \\Server\Share\path is the network resource to which you want to map a drive letter.

As soon as you do, the PUSHD command will instantly map a drive letter to the network resource and then change to that drive right in the Command Prompt window. When you’re done, just type POPD and the mapped drive letter will be disconnected and you’ll return to your original drive.

Keep in mind that, the PUSHD command allocates drive letters from Z: on down and will use the first unused drive letter that it finds.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.

Windows PowerShell is a new scripting tool that allows you to perform simple or complex tasks from a centralized interface. Here’s how to add this new extension to your Windows XP Pro system.

Microsoft planned to add a new command-line interface and scripting language (code name “Monad”) to Windows Vista but decided to make it a standalone utility called Windows PowerShell 1.0. It is designed primarily for system administrators, but it also provides benefits to home and small business network users using the Professional OS. Users can add Windows PowerShell to Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista.
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