Archive of posts filed under the Microsoft Vista category.

Useful tools: OnTop

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A feature I’d like to see built-in into Windows is the ability to force a window to stay on top of other windows. I was disappointed to notice that even Windows Vista does not have that option.

A simple, small tool to do this, is Ontop. It adds an option to the menu that appears when you right-click on an window title bar:

The tool was developed by PlanetScott for Windows 95, 98 and 2000, but it runs fine on Vista as well. The author’s website now is empty.

Many thanks to Abdussamad’s Webspace, where I found the first reference to this tool.

Download: OnTop 1.0 (zip, 21KB)

Finding the Wireless Network Setup Wizard in Windows Vista

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Windows XP (SP2 and above) has an easy way to add computers or devices (like a wireless printer) to a wireless network. Once you have 1 computer connecting successfully to the wireless network, go to the Control Panel and click the Wireless Network Setup Wizard.

The wizard will guide you through a series of steps which will save all necessary settings on a USB-stick. You can then simply insert the stick into another computer or device that you want to connect to the same network, and the wireless settings will be transferred automatically.

When I switched to Windows Vista, I could not find back that wizard. The Windows Help nor Google brought any relief. I finally gave up and entered the security settings manually.

Today, I had to connect a new Vista machine to the network and I really wanted to find an easy way to get that working. After all, the wizard was working great in XP, so I could not believe it was ditched in Vista. After long searching, I finally discovered where the Wizard sits:

  • Click the Start button, select Network.
  • Click Add a wireless device. The button may be “hidden” if your window is small (that’s the main reason why I didn’t find it in the first place).
  • In the dialog box that appears, click I want to add a wireless device or computer that is not on the list, using a USB flash drive
  • Click the first option: Add the device or computer using a USB flash drive
  • This will start the wizard. First it will ask which wireless network to use:
  • Then it will ask to plug a USB stick into the computer and select it:
  • This will save the settings on the stick. You can now use it to connect other computers or devices to the wireless network.