Another year, another milestone.  And I should have done this two years ago:  Finally, I wrote the certification exam for MOSS 2007 App Development.  Got a score of 840, easily over the passing mark of 700 but short of my goal for 900.

I did prep work and ran through practice exams and it still spanked my behind.  All I can say is that you really need to know your material, from theory to practice, to make the right decisions.  Sure, it’s multiple choice, but it’s challenging multiple choice.  The kind where you’re ready to jot down your answer in 0.02s, and then get that awful feeling that you may have goofed.  And the second-guessing begins.

No matter.  It’s done & dusted for me.  Glad to have it.

By now you’re probably well-acquainted with the “discovery” of so-called “god modes” or “superuser” features in Windows 7.  In actuality, these are nothing more than undocumented developer shortcuts to common control panel dialogs, apps and utils.  In fact, the wild-eyed brouhaha that’s erupted from this has caused some mirth down Redmond way, with Windows Division President, Steven Sinofsky even providing a C|NET reporter with a list of the shortcuts.

Here’s how you can quickly create your own “god mode” shortcut links to experiment with:

Step 1:  Copy the following code into your fave editor and save as a batch file – I called mine “godmodes.bat” (removing the line numbers).  Save this file in a folder on your desktop or other preferred location.

    1 mkdir "GodModeA.{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}"

    2 mkdir "GodModeB.{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}"

    3 mkdir "GodModeC.{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}"

    4 mkdir "GodModeD.{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}"

    5 rem mkdir "GodMode.{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}"

    6 mkdir "GodModeE.{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}"

    7 mkdir "GodModeF.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}"

    8 mkdir "GodModeG.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"

    9 mkdir "GodModeH.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}"

   10 mkdir "GodModeI.{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}"

   11 mkdir "GodModeJ.{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}"

   12 rem mkdir "GodMode.{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}"

   13 mkdir "GodModeK.{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}"

   14 mkdir "GodModeL.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

Note:  The rem’ed entries were included in Sinofsky’s list, but didn’t work when I created them – I’ve included them here for completeness.

Step 2:  Open a command console using Run As Administrator from your Start Menu and execute the batch file created in Step 1 above.

Step 3:  Behold the “God Mode” links that have been created – double-click and explore away!  The most useful one by far is the last one, the “original” God Mode discovery that provides a consolidated list of shortcuts to just about every imaginable Windows 7 control panel feature, property manager or utility.

One more note:  The folder names don’t have to be prefixed with “GodMode” – in fact, any prefix will do.  As the batch file reveals, the trick is in naming the folder with a “.[GUID]” suffix.  I’ve added an alphabetical identifier to each of my entries to keep them in order.