Vista – How To Disable the Remote Desktop Warning: “Remote Desktop cannot verify the identity of the computer you want to connect to…”

The Remote Desktop client on Vista gives a REALLY annoying warning message every time you connect to a preVista computer such as a server running Windows 2003. The warning message looks like the one in the picture below:

Remote Desktop Warning

You can get rid of this warning message by editing the registry or configuring a setting in the client itself. Here is how you do it by editing the Vista registry:

1. Open up the registry editor

2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client

3. Add a new “DWORD” entry named “AuthenticationLevelOverride” and assign it a value of “0” (zero).

4. You should now no longer get that annoying warning message.

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Here is how you do it by configuring a setting in the Remote Desktop Client:

1. Click on “Options”

2. Click on the “Advanced Tab”

3. In “Authentication Options”, select “Always connect, even if authentication fails”

Vista – Open Command Prompt Here Menu Option

In Windows XP you could install an enhancement (Power Toy) which would display a menu option named “Open Command Window Here” whenever you right-clicked on a folder icon. This would allow you to launch a shell already changed to the folder you right-clicked on. This feature is built into Vista. Just hold down the SHIFT key while right-clicking on a folder icon and you will see the menu option “Open Command Window Here”.

OS X – How to Change the MAC Address

Changing the MAC address of your network interface card can be useful for a number of things. Here is how you change it in both Tiger and Leopard:

For Tiger (10.4.x) open up the Terminal application and run the command:

sudo ifconfig en0 ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

where en0 is the network interface you wish to change the MAC address of, and 00:00:00:00:00:00 is the new MAC address you want the interface to use.

For Leopard (10.5.x) open up the Terminal application and run the command:

sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:00:00:00:00:00

10.5 Leopard – Install Complete Sound Effect

The installer application in Leopard has a pleasant sound effect when an installation completes. I thought it would make a good sound effect for cell phones or something else. Here is the sound effect in multiple formats:

To download, right-click over the version of the sound effect you want and select “Save link as…” if using FireFox or “Save target as…” if you are using Internet Explorer.