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New tips are added to the top along with a date. Not are tips are gathered - just relevant ones. If you want to search through all PC Mechanic tips - go here.
Keep Your Internet Cache Small By default, Windows likes to assign a fairly large amount of hard drive space for your temporary internet files, or cache. In most cases, 50 MB is more than enough. Here is how to change the settings: Internet Explorer:
Quick Access to Programs Under Windows XP, if you use a particular program very often and ALWAYS want it to appear on the top of your start menu even if Windows doesn't include it in the list of commonly used programs, you can use the "Pin To" feature to put it there. A shortcut which is "pinned" in the menu will appear at the very top, left side of the start menu. To put a program there, find it in the Start menu, then right-click on it and choose "Pin to Start Menu". This provides quick access all the time to this program.
Attention Windows Developers (or Wanna-be Developers) http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ These are feature-rich development environment for creating Windows programs and for your beginners, a great way to learn. Included are Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005, and an ASP.Net 2005 developer environment. After November 7th, the price will most likely be $50, so go ahead and grab them now!
Copy Windows Source to Your Hard Drive Whenever you Add/Remove Windows components or occasionally when you install a program you get prompted to insert your Windows CD. This can get pretty annoying, as you have to find the install CD, dust it off, and then resume your installation. Avoid this by copying the Windows source files (on your CD, it is the folder D:\i386) to your hard drive (I usually put them in C:\Windows\i386). Now whenever you are prompted to insert your CD, just browse to the location where you copied the source files, no need to fumble for the CD anymore.
Add Options to the Send To Menu Right clicking on a file or folder and using the Send To feature is a pretty convenient and handy tool. It is even something you can customize so you can include all the programs you want, or exclude those you don't want. Customize it by doing the following: 1. Start > Run I always add Notepad to the list so I can open any file as plain text quickly.
HDV FAQ
Top Computing Sites for Everyone
Multiple Drives: RAID 0 or 1?
Maximum Security: 94 Essential Tips for Staying Safe
Tips and Tricks for Hacking Google
80 Super Security Tips
Ripping Audiobooks
There is a tweak which can help speed up your broadband internet connection if you are using Windows XP Professional. - Click Start, Run.
Sometimes even with Windows, the command line can be your best friend. One of the utilities that can be useful is openfiles.exe. The file can be used on your network to see who has a shared file open. Simply type "openfiles" at the command prompt and hit Enter. You can also use the utility to disconnect any network user who is viewing the files. To find out how, type "openfiles /disconnect /?" at the command prompt. Free WinZIP Replacement: FileZIP FileZip is another free equivalent to WinZIP, for those using WinZIP and getting tired of the shareware nagging. FileZIP supports every file format you'll probably ever use. IT works with archives quite nicely. It has a built-in email client (for some strange reason), support for uncompressing multiple files at a time, shell integration, and creating self-extracting archives. As mentioned, it is free. The program's author has a donate button on his website and those who really like the program should send a few bucks his way, but the program is offered with no strings attached. Enjoy! www.filzip.com Windows XP Tip: Bypassing Welcome Screen Logon Though it may sound rather pointless, there exists an ability in Windows XP to bypass the welcome screen and logon via an NT-style logon dialogue. To do this, simply press "Ctrl + Alt + Del" while at the logon screen (sometimes you must press this combination multiple times). Why do this, though? As a PC tech, I often have to work on PC's where the owner is not present and has not given me adequate or correct credentials to log onto the system. However, many retail PC's, by default, have an "Administrator" or "Owner" account with absolutely NO password. Such an account is somewhat of a security threat, but for you, it can be a vital tool when faced with a lack of credentials! It's time to get legit! Microsoft recently announced the new Windows "Genuine" policy and all that it curtails, plus it is quite unethical to continue to use illegal software. However, when you decide to go legit, you can easily change your cd key with Mike Devlin's cd key changer. (http://www.mike-devlin.com/downloads/index.htm#key_changer). It is the easiest and fastest way to upgrade to a legitimate version of Windows! For those of us who long for PDF creation abilities but lack the pocketbook for Adobe Acrobat, a free and open-source PDF creation tool exists known as "PDFCreator" that will allow you to create new PDF's in Windows simply by printing to the software "PDFCreator" printer (similar to PostScript). Download PDFCreator at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pdfcreator/Patch02-PDFCreator-0_8_0.exe?download and enjoy! Did you know that one of the best tools for Windows data recovery is Linux? When all else fails and you desperately need information off of your hard drive, Linux is your safest bet. One of the best CD-bootable distributions out there is Knoppix (available for free at www.knoppix.org). Knoppix will allow you to not only possibly recover lost data that Windows simply cannot access, but also potentially fix hard drive errors and partition tables. Give it a whirl for all of your data recover needs. Resetting the Administrator Password Resetting the administrator (or any other user's) password is not something to be taken lightly, but is necessary in some situations. An easy way to do this is by using a bootdisk such as the one found at http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ that is completely free of charge. After heeding and reading the warnings, download the boot disk and either create a bootable floppy or a bootable CD from the files online. Files and Settings Transfer Wizard Did you know that Windows XP includes a smooth way to transfer files and settings from an old computer to a new computer? Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Once the program loads, choose "Old Computer," then choose the means that you wish to use to transfer the files (typically you might choose "Other" and save the files to disk for later transfer). Then, click Next and choose what you wish to transfer. Make sure you choose appropriately (for example, don't bother transferring Files if you do not need to). You can click the small Checkbox below the radio boxes to specify exactly which settings you wish to move. Click next, run through any additional options (i.e. specifying specific files to move, etc.) and finish the wizard. Your new PC will be almost identical (in settings) to the one that you created the file from. Let Windows XP optimize your hard drive Use your computer's idle time wisely! Windows contains a feature that allows the PC to optimize (a mysterious term, but I have noticed improvements personally) your hard drive as your computer runs idle. This is a registry hack though, so be careful. Go to Start -> Run -> Regedt32 -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout and find the REG_DWORD "EnableAutoLayout;" set the DWORD = 1 to enable the optimization (create the DWORD if it does not exist). Once set, you should soon notice some performance increase. If not, complain to Microsoft about it. One of the more annoying features found in Windows is the AutoComplete function that happens to show up exactly where you do not need it to. If you are one of the people that hates the autocomplete drop-down box showing up whenever you type a file name in a "Save As" dialogue, there is a nice way to fix this. Go to Start -> Regedt32 -> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoComplete and create a new DWORD named "Autocomplete In File Dialog" whose value is equal to "0" and close the registry editor. Upon your next login, you will no longer be pestered by AutoComplete in file "open" and "save-as" dialogues There is another open-source, freely avaliable DOS emulator for Windows 2000/XP that has been generating a lot of buzz lately. Its name is "DosBOX" and it is possibly a more complete, well-coded, and lighter package than FreeDOS. Additionally, it performs a slightly different function - FreeDOS is meant to function as the operating system, whereas DosBOX operates in the application layer - in other words, DosBOX is an emulator. It runs legacy applications (i.e. great, older games) with relative ease; you may just forget it's an emulator! Give it a try; download it at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosbox/DOSBox0.63-win32-installer.exe?download Stop dxva_sig from appearing on Desktop I noticed recently (on my new installation of Windows) that a file named "dvxa_sig" kept appearing on my desktop. My initial inclination was that it was possibly some kind of trace of a malicious element, but upon a quick search, I learned that it was simply the result of not having the latest codecs installed. To get it to stop appearing, install the latest Windows Media Player version or download a codec pak such as defilerpak (a previous tip of the day, found at http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/). This will end the annoyance of the ever-appearing text file. Creating a self-extracting installation with iexpress Windows 2000 and XP include a useful little tool that is almost unknown to most - it's called "iexpress" and is easily accessible at Start -> Run -> "iexpress." Iexpress allows you to create a self-extracting Windows-style installation wizard. First, you will need to answer iexpress's questions about the behavior of the installation (most will choose extract and then run); then, you will be bombarded with a series of dialogues requesting attributes; finally, you will need to specify the files to be packaged. This is not the most elegant installation tool out there, but it is free and easily avaliable, so it is highly recommended. mplayer2 as an alternative to Windows Media Player Did you know that XP ships with Windows Media Player 6 (the "classic," no-frills version)? To access it, go to Start -> Run -> "mplayer2." It is a bare-bones version of Windows Media Player that won't hog too much memory. Accessing the Quick Launch Folder The Quick Launch buttons, or those found typically right of the Start button, offer convenient and fast access to often-used programs. If you ever want to enter the Quick Launch folder, it has an actual physical location on the file system. Specifically, this location is: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. Use it to create new shortcuts, delete old ones, or if you are very saavy, create quick launch "folders". If you are an avid music fan, chances are that you download or have an
extensive collection of "MP3" format files. However, the files often have "ID3"
information attributes, such as Arist Name or Track Number, that is inaccurate
and can make classifying and organizing music very difficult. For example, if
you use an MP3 player and see a lot of Converting Your Movies for the New iPod One of the most long-awaited features of the new iPod is the ability to play video; unfortunately, most of the video files that you have will not play directly on the iPod. You must first convert those files to a format that the iPod can play; to do this, Videora's converter is your solution. Download it at www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/ and install and open the program. Choose to "Transcode New Video" and select the video file that you wish to convert, then let Videora do its thing. How can you ask for better? Rootkit Scanner (find Hidden Viruses) Rootkits are a special kind of software tool used to hide trojans, viruses and other malware from your anti-virus scanner and other security products. Unfortunately there are extremely effective which means that some of you reading this will be infected even though you believe your PC to be totally clean. Thankfully there is a new class of security product now available called rootkit detectors that use specialized techniques to detect these dangerous intruders. Most of these detectors require quite a bit of technical skill to interpret the results but one of the simplest to use and most effective is also free. It's called BlackLight and is currently available as a free beta from F-Secure until the 1st of October 2005. I suggest everyone download this product and scan their PC. The chances of you being infected are small but for five minutes work it's not worth taking the risk. www.f-secure.com/blacklight/cure.shtml Many newer motherboards are now using the PCI Express interface, or PCI-E. Here is a definition, courtesy of PCWebopedia: An I/O interconnect bus standard (which includes a protocol and a layered architecture) that expands on and doubles the data transfer rates of original PCI. PCI Express is a two-way, serial connection that carries data in packets along two pairs of point-to-point data lanes, compared to the single parallel data bus of traditional PCI that routes data at a set rate. Initial bit rates for PCI Express reach 2.5Gb/s per lane direction, which equate to data transfer rates of approximately 200MB/s. PCI Express was developed so that high-speed interconnects such as 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand and Gigabit Ethernet would have an I/O architecture suitable for their transfer high speeds. The PCI bus has been basically the same for many years now while most other components in the PC have been increasing in speed. It is easy to see how these newer hardwares can completely saturate the PCI bus. So, PCI-E is the new incarnation of PCI which offers increased speed through higher bandwidth, dedicated data lines. The switch to a serial interface rather than parallel also means the connectors are smaller and there is less signal degradation. If you are looking at doing a major PC upgrade, you might want to look at PCI Express as an option. The industry will slowly adopt it as a norm. Identify Windows Processes Looking at the process list in Windows is a trip down confusion lane. You might recognize some of them by filename, but in most cases you won't. In such a case, how would you know if the process is legitimate or some spyware program running in the background? Its easy - search the internet. And while you can go and Google it, I have a site for you - www.processlibrary.com. The site is published by Uniblue Systems, the people behind WinTasks Professional. Do a search for the process name or a DLL and you will get a full description (in English) of what the process is and any potential security risk. Can be quite useful, and Uniblue is in the business, so they keep it pretty up to date. If you want this information right on your PC, check out WinTasks 5. It will help you identify your Windows processes, but also offer you fine-tuned control over them, and hence your whole PC OK, this one is kinda fun. Its a website called the Wayback Machine, and it allows you to view cached copies of popular websites from as far back as 1996. Enter some of your favorites websites (such as PCMech) into the search bar and you get a list of dates. Click on one and you get a blast from the past...you get to see that site as it looked back at that time. And now, in light of our recent layout adjustment at PCMech, I will give you some looks at some of our past layouts: 1998 -
web.archive.org/web/19981201063651/http://pcmech.com/ Looks like we changed our design almost every year, huh? Search for your own sites at the Wayback Machine. Have fun! Turning off the SP2 Security Service (and other annoying services) While SP2’s Security Center may be enlightening to many users, it can be a pest to others. If you are annoyed by Windows constantly warning you of your lack of a virus solution at startup or the fact that Windows Firewall is turned off, you may be one of the annoyed. To turn it off, go to “Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services.” When the Services MMC snap-in comes up, find the service named “Security Center,” double-click it, and when the next window comes up, press “Stop.” Then, select “Disable” from start-up type, and press “OK.” The result is that Security Center is both stopped and will never start up again, until you enable the service again. Note that this can be done with any service, not just “Security Center.” (However, before you start disabling services, make sure that you do not need them – in most cases, a search on Google will yield a quick answer.) Listing Your TCP Connections - Who's connected to your PC ! Do you ever worry that someone or something has external access to your system, or wish that you could see all current connections? While its not the most elegant way of doing so, the “netstat” command can certainly work for you. To use it, simply go to “Start -> Run” and type in “cmd” (or if you use Windows 95/98, type in “command”). When the command prompt opens, type in “netstat –a.” This lists all of your active connections for all protocols. If you wish to view only open TCP connections, type in “netstat –p tcp.” When the connections are displayed, from the left to the right is the Protocol, your address and port, the foreign address and port (or who you are connected to), and the connection state. When investigating for the existence of worms, Trojan horses, and spyware, netstat can prove to be a very useful tool! If you have ever noticed how crisp text appears on certain systems as compared to your own and wished that you could have that same sharpness and clarity, you should turn on ClearType. ClearType is a feature built into Windows XP that allows you to further smooth screen fonts. To turn it on, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance -> Effects, and check "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts." Choose "ClearType" (as opposed to "Standard") and press OK. You should immediately notice a subtle difference! Between searching the Internet and the Earth, Google has found a new place to search for world dominance - your desktop. Specifically, Google Desktop Search allows you to index and search files, chat logs, emails, and even web history on your PC. You might ask yourself, "Doesn't Windows already have such a feature?" The answer is yes, but Google's tool is infinitely more powerful, faster, and intelligent. You can easily search for keywords through the documents that you have created, the emails that you have sent, and so forth. Sounds a little big brother-ish to you? Not to fear, Google means no harm. Or do they? http://desktop.google.com/ Keep Up with Your Video Codecs It can be difficult to keep up with the latest media encoding packs (codecs) but it is necessary to do so if you wish to continue to view certain media files. Fortunately, the "defilerpak" project keeps an eye on all of the latest codecs and puts them neatly in one package, the defilerpak. Download it at http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/. Install and enjoy your MPEG's! Change Default Folder for Explorer You can change the default location where Windows Explorer opens up to. Windows Explorer opens to a default location, usually My Documents, but this is often not the location that you wish to see. You can change where it "points to" by default. To do this, right-click the shortcut to Windows Explorer and press "properties," then change the target from "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe" to "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, [location]" and press OK. Next time you click on Windows Explorer, it will spawn a distinct new explorer window pointed to that location; for example, if I typed in C:\Drop for the location, I would get an explorer window that opened to C:\Drop by default. Identify Windows
Processes If you want this information right on your PC, check out WinTasks 5. It will help you identify your Windows processes, but also offer you fine-tuned control over them, and hence your whole PC. Download Old Software
Check out www.oldversion.com. Shoot the Messenger
This is from grc.com as a description for their free utility called Shoot the Messenger. It is a very small utility that simply disables or enables the Windows Messenger service. Even if you don't use Windows Messenger, many times it is running anyway. It is unnecessary and does open up a potential security hole. Simply download this tiny EXE file, run it and click the button to disable the service. www.grc.com/stm/ShootTheMessenger.htm No Recent
Documents History Alt-Tab
Enhancement for Windows XP The program is free and open source. Go over to www.ntwind.com/taskswitchxp/ for more info. Restore Missing
System Files If the file cannot be found, its probably because the file is located in a CAB file. CAB files are like folders in that they contain a bunch of smaller files. I think of them as CABinents, but that's just me. In this case, just open the CAB file in Explorer, find the file you need and drag it to the location you need it. Fetch Your Windows Product Key If you need to re-install Windows, you will need the product key. Most of the time, the only place this exists is on the CD jacket Windows came with, and if for some reason you can't find that, it can be quite inconvenient. You can search the registry for it, but there is a program to make this task much easier. Its called Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder. "The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Office 97, and Office XP. This version is a quick update to make it work with Windows Server 2003." Go to www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml for more details. The utility is freeware. Thanks to Mark for sending this one in. Remove Startup Items from MSConfig - Do you ever uninstall programs and they are still listed under startup items in msconfig? There is a way to remove these items: 1. Open MSconfig and click on the startup items tab Create Your Own AutoRun File - Many of us these days burn our own CDs for various reasons, and sometimes you may want that CD to begin a program automatically when you insert the CD - just like the CDs you would buy at the store. This is very easy to do. The Autorun feature of Windows is based on a file on the CD called autorun.inf. Windows simply searches for that file which tells it which program on the CD to run automatically, and Windows (usually) dutifully complies. So, to make your own CDs autorun, you simply need to creare your own autorun.inf file. To do so, open your favorite text editor (Notepad will do) and enter two lines: [autorun] where filename.exe is replaced by the name of the program on your CD which you want to run automatically. Save this file as autorun.inf and place it on your CD when you burn it. There are more complex options available to to from autorun files, and you can even use third-party autorun creation programs to allow you to create more complex ones with little hassle. Moon Valley Software puts one out and so does KarenWare. Remove Login for Windows XP - Many Windows XP users are the only users on their computer, yet they are asked for a password every time they boot. This can be annoying for newbies because they don't want the login, but they get a message every few weeks saying their password is about to expire and that it must be reset. There is a way to get rid of this. If you wish to get rid of the login for all users on the machine, then go to the Start Menu > Run and type "control userpasswords2". Select the user account you wish to log into automatically and then un-check the option that says "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer". After saving changes, your computer will now auto-login and you will not have to click through a log-in screen. With this option fixed, you might not even want the Welcome screen. If you want to boot the PC and have it take you directly to the desktop, then go to the Control Panel > User accounts. Then click on "Change the way users log on or off". Un-check "Use the Welcome screen". Click "Apply Options". Changing Motherboard Without Re-installing Windows - Windows 2000 and XP are very picky about the hardware they run on and, in most cases, rebooting these operating systems after swapping out your motherboard will result in a boot failure and BSOD (blue screen of death). There is however a way to avoid re-installing Windows and that is doing a repair installation. After swapping out your motherboard and sucessfully getting to the BIOS, ensure that the boot order includes the CD-ROM. Then, insert your Windows installation CD into the drive and reboot. For XP users, do the following once booted to Windows Setup: (1) Press ENTER to setup Windows XP now. At this point, it will go through the entire setup process as usual, but what it is doing is simply re-installing all of the system files. All of your user settings, registry and data will remain intact. Once the installation is complete, XP users will need to re-activate their installation of Windows with Microsoft once again. Once this is done, you will also need to run Windows Update again to re-patch Windows. After this, you should be up and running. Heal IE's Achilles Heel - Most everybody now knows that Firefox is the new favorite browser amongst those in the know. One of the major reasons this is the case is due to security. Internet Explorer is infamously prone to security problems, and one of the major reasons this is so is ActiveX. ActiveX is a technology which allows the web browser to install and run programs on your machine. The thought behind it was to increase the interactivity between the internet and your PC, and anybody who has used the Windows Update service knows the benefit of it. However, it also opens your PC up to security problems, and anybody who has used IE who has experience the joy of a website installing a bunch of spyware to their PC knows this all too well. Several months back I was doing some research on a client's competitor site and all of a sudden my PC had installation windows popping up with no option to stop them. After all was said and done, I had a few new icons running in my taskbar, changes to the registry, a rewritten homepage and search feature, etc. This brought on my switch to Firefox. The point of this is to disable ActiveX on Internet Explorer. This will go a long way in making IE more secure for you. To do this, go to Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level. Scroll down to ActiveC and Disable it. Those sites which used ActiveX will no longer operate, but what you can do is add these sites to your Trust site list and they will then continue to operate as normal. Test Your PC's Security - Your computer uses ports to communicate over the internet. These ports are not physical ports, but software ports with arbitrarily assigned numbers to represent them. While the ports are necessary to do anything online, hackers can use them to try to gain access to your PC. Using special software which will scan your IP address for open ports, hackers can find ports which would grant them access. However, if a port is hidden, or stealthed, they cannot see the ports. A router with a built-in firewall will conceal the ports because it hides your PC's ports while showing its own ports to the internet, so it offers a level of protection. You can test your PC for open ports, as well as other security tests, using Gibson Research's free Shields-Up service. Head on over to ShieldsUp and test your PC for free. Swish: Flash on the Cheap - This one is for the webmasters out there. Flash animations are one of the more artistic and popular things on the web these days, and there is no doubt that Flash work adds a level of artistry and professionalism to any website if used properly. Macromedia Flash is retails for $499, so its not cheap. Plus, as most anything of this nature, there is a learning curve associated with it. There is a cheaper alternative, however, which also has a number of built-in effects pre-programmed into it. That alternative is known as SwishMax. The program used to be known simply as Swish, but the newer version of the software is called SwishMax. The program supports 230 built-in effects, an internal scripting language and a host of other professional level features. The exported products are full flash movies, only without using FlashMX itself. There is still a learning curve. You must master the basics of creating a Flash movie, just as you would if you were using FlashMX itself. But, once you get the basics, you can then begin to expand your knowhow through exploration. The cool thing is that the program is available as a free trial, then its only $99 to buy. Go to www.swishzone.com for more information. Disabling Unsigned Driver Dialog - In Windows XP, there is a warning box whenever you try to install drives that are unsigned. Many times you can just ignore the warning and install the driver anyway, but sometimes you are just stuck right there. There is a way to disable these messages: (1) Click Start > Run. Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel > System. Then go to the HArdware tab and click on Driver Signing. Choose Ignore in thre resulting window. Speed Up Booting Using Less Fonts Many of the files that load during the boot-up process are fonts. You probably only use a handful of them. I suggest moving some you never use into another folder. You won't be able to access the fonts in Word or Notepad. 1. Create a New Folder by right clicking on desktop. New > Folder. Do IP Lookups - Sometimes on the internet you get an IP address but have no idea who it is. Whether it be an IP address which is being blocked by your firewall or you are doing a lookup to see who is spamming you, you can do a quick lookup of an IP address using a tool which is already on your PC. In Windows 2000/XP, go to Start > Run and type in "command" and press enter. At the command prompt, enter "nslookup xx.xx.xx.xx" (where the xx stuff is the IP address). The output will be first some info about your ISP, then it will give you the IP address you entered and the domain it is resolving to. This can help you get some meaning behind those cryptic numbers. For Windows 9x/ME users, you can head on over to www.dnsstuff.com and do the same (plus they have a lot of other useful tools, too). Remove Ghost Entries from Add/Remove Programs - Every so often, it happens. You have already uninstalled a program yet it is still showing up in your Add/Remove Programs list. Many people will try to uininstall it again from this list, but that will simply produce an error. The way to remove it once and for all is to remove it from the registry. To do so, go to Start > Run and type in "regedit". Once in the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Uninstall. In there, you will see a folder for every program shown on your Add/Remove Programs list. Simply find the one you want to go away, right-click on it and choose Delete. Next time you go to Add/Remove Programs, it should be gone. Replacement for Windows Explorer - When you need to work with files on your PC, you can do it in Windows Explorer, but the capabilities of Explorer are a bit limited. I have been using a utility called PowerDesk for some time and it works quite well. You can set up quick shortcut access to directories you use quite often. You can use dual pane display, basically giving you two "Explorers" in the same window. You can add notes to files, color-code them, etc. It has a myriad of file organization tools. For more information, go to www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Pro_Home.html Change Account Password without Old Password With Windows XP, you can change an account password without knowing the original password. I should mention that this information could be used to get yourself out of a jam, but also for bad by those shady enough to do it. In Windows XP, go to yoru command prompt and type the following command: net users Administrator * or for a username with spaces: net users "Bob Smith" * From there, it should ask you for a new password. You can enter it, but pay attention to what you type because the letters will not output to the screen. Confirm your password choice. When done, it will tell you that you were successful. Pre-patch your XP Setup CD - once;
never have to install SP2 again.
Fred Langa walks you through a 16-step process.
* Minimize all open windows by pressing Windows Key + M Disable Error Reporting in XP - By default, Windows XP will ask to report any program errors to Microsoft. It can be a bit annoying, especially because you're already annoyed the program crashed in the first place. Most of us just hit Don't Send and move on. Well, you can stop Windows from asking every time. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced and click the "Error Reporting" button at the bottom. Choose "Disable error reporting" and hit OK. Stripping your Swap File in XP - All versions of Windows make use of a swap file. This is virtual memory and acts as hard drive storage space for memory items when you run low on actual physical memory. Use of the swap file slows down Windows quite a bit because hard drives are simply nowhere near as fast as system memory. But, you can speed up access to the swap file by using stripping. Stripping is a technique of RAID whereby data is spanned across more than one drive at the same time. Windows XP has code built-in which will stripe the swap file across two drives when you assign sizes to more than one partition. In order to take advantage of this, you need to have two or more hard drives in your system and place the swap file across the two separate drives, not simply two separate partitions on the same drive. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance / Settings. Hit the Advanced tab and go down to the virtual memory section and hit Change. Choose your first partition where you want the swap file, then select Custom Size and enter the size you want. If you set the initial size and max size to the same value, the swap will not be resized on the fly and can lead to better performance. Then choose another partition on a separate drive and do the same. Windows will then split the swap file among the two drives. Easy Batch Files with Batchrun - Batch files are a very nice way to bring automation to your PC and perform repetitive tasks quickly and without your attention. But, some people are turned off by the fact that you need to know command-line syntax to do anything with them. Well, Batchrun, from Outer Technologies, helps you. "Batchrun will let you create batch files using a graphical interface. In the good old days of DOS .bat files took care of this task. They still do, but they're not exactly user friendly. With Batchrun .brs batch files you can launch any number of programs or dialup connections with just a simple click. You can control the starting process with many properties like priority or run mode and control their behavior a tad. You can even do more than starting programs with the built-in file management functions like Copy, Rename, Makedir, Delete and End Process. Batchrun batch files can be launched from Explorer or placed in StartUp folder or on the Desktop." Creating a Windows 2000/XP Boot Disk -Start with a blank, formatted floppy disk. It may seem counterintuitive, but this disk shouldn't be bootable. If you need to format a floppy, simply insert the disk into its drive, double-click My Computer, right-click the floppy drive icon, select Format, and then click Start. Next, open your C: drive in Windows Explorer. If Explorer displays a warning, click Show the contents of this folder. To display the particular files you need, select Tools, Folder Options, then click the View tab. Make sure Show hidden files and folders is selected, and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). At the warning, click Yes, then OK. Copy the files boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and ntldr to your floppy. Remove the disk, open the write-protect switch in its bottom-left corner, and label the floppy "Boot Disk." Return to the Folder Options dialog box and recheck Hide protected operating system files and folders (Recommended). Place this floppy in the drive and reboot your system. Your PC will bypass the basic boot files on your hard drive, but it will otherwise load Windows normally. Lost Passwords - This is a short little tip, but could be helpful to many. I've had it happen several times with Internet Explorer...the browser is saving a password for you, but you actually need to know what it is, but all you see is asterisks. A trick is a password recovery utility. Such a utility is Asterisk Key, a free utility from Lostpassword.com. It will reveal the password for almost any program when hidden by asterisks. I should mention, though, that this can be a security risk on your PC, too, so use it carefully. For info, go to http://www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm Avoid Ejecting CD After Writing - Many times after writing a CD-R or CD-RW, Windows will mindlessly eject the CD whether you actually want to remove the disc or not. This is a stupid feature, in my opinion. But, it can be turned off. Most 3rd party CD burning clients have an option in their preferences to turn this off. Or in Windows XP, go to My Computer, right-click on your CD writer drive, choose Properties, Recording and uncheck "Automatically Eject the CD After Writing". If the option is grayed out, it is because you do not have Windows CC writing enabled on the drive and are likely using a 3rd party program such as Nero Download more than 2 files at a Time - The version of Internet Explorer that comes with Windows XP, by default, limits you to two simultaneous downloads from the internet. For people with broadband, this is ridiculous. But, you can change this yourself with a little registry magic: 1. Open regedit, or a registry editor of your choice. Speed Up Your
Broadband - If you are using Windows XP Professional, you can perform
a little tweak to speed up your broadband connection: Manage Passwords in Firefox - The Password Manager in Firefox is beneficial for anyone who maintains a large number of complicated passwords, but most people who are concerned with security would much rather enter them in manually. If Firefox keeps entering in passwords when you don’t want it to, you can easily kick the program into submission. Go to the Tools menu at the top of Firefox and select Options. From there, click on the Privacy button on the left hand side and select Saved Passwords. By clicking on View Saved Passwords, you can manage what passwords are saved and never saved. Along with this, a Master Password option is available if you’d like to protect your list of passwords. If you don’t want Firefox to remember your passwords anymore, just uncheck the Remember Passwords option. Protecting Against JPEG Viruses - Reports are growing regarding the flaw in Microsoft?s JPEG parsing software. Many people have not even heard about it. The flaw is a buffer overrun that allows someone to execute code. This means that any image you view could contain a virus. Quite a bad problem to have, considering that nearly everyone uses some form of Microsoft product that reads JPEG images. You can solve by updating your Windows Office programs. Microsoft makes this VERY easy to do. Go to this website: http://office.microsoft.com/ProductUpdates/default.aspx If you have never visited before, it ill ask if it can load some software. Say yes. When its done, click on the button: Check for Updates. Install all updates. Check again for updates. install any others that are still needed. Repeat until no further updates are needed. Controlling Pagefile Size - For the best performance, you should set the initial paging file size to 12MB more than your system RAM. To check or modify the paging file settings, right-click My Computer and choose Properties. When the System dialog box opens, click the Performance tab, click Virtual Memory, then Change to check your current settings. If the initial setting isn't the desired RAM + 12MB, select the drive on which you want the paging file to appear (or the one it's currently on) and type in Initial and Maximum settings. This should be RAM + 12MB for Initial and more, if you like, for Maximum (watch that hard disk space though). Now click Set and then click Close to close the dialog box and record your change. You'll have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect Changing Path to My Documents - By default, the "My Documents" folder in Windows leads to some arcane directory path in Documents and Settings. But, what if you want to reroute My Documents so that it leads to another location? Its quite easy. The following is taken from Microsoft's knowledge base: When the properties of the My Documents folder (the desktop icon) are displayed and a group policy has not been established to redirect the folder, you can change the path to the My Documents folder and you can move the contents from the old location to the new location:
Customize Open File Dialog - The normal Windows dialog box for opening a file has a list of 5 shortcuts on the left side, and these shortcuts are very convenient ways to jump around your system to some of those folders you need to open files from routinely. By default, though, Windows shows icons to items like My Documents, Network Neighborhood, My Computer, etc. These are better than nothing, but you may want to point these items at places of your own choosing. I found a handy reference over at PuppyPC.com which shows you how to customize these shortcuts. It involves some registry tweaks. You can view the tutorial at: http://www.puppypc.com/windows/rt/comdlg_placebar.htm. Restore the Show Desktop Icon - Sometimes people delete the icon qhich sits on the Quick Launch bar that quickly brings them back to their desktop. If they want it back, unfortunately there is no checkbox you can check off to bring it back. But, here is how you can do it: Copy and paste the following lines into a Notepad file. Save the file to your Desktop as Show Desktop.scf. Next left click on the file you just created and drag it down to the Quick Launch bar and release. Turn Off Indexing - Windows XP keeps a record of all files on your hard drive so that, when you perform a search, it will run faster. The downside is that it slows down most file operations on your PC because it is having to update the index. If you don't use your file search function very often, turn off your indexing service to gain back a little extra speed. Go to the Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services. Find the Indexing Service. Right-click on it and choose Properties. As the startup type, choose Manual or Disabled. Kill The Thumbnail Cache - Windows XP has a thumbnail view which will provide a display of files in a folder as thumbnails. When it generates the thumbnails, it Windows generates a file called THUMBS.DAT which sits in that directory. not only does this take up hard drive space, but it can be annoying down the road when you try to choose another view (such as Details). Windows may still revert back to thumbnails no matter if you want to view details. This is happening because THUMBS.DAT is present in that directory. Delete it and it won't happen again. However, you can keep this from ever happening very easily. In Explorer, go to Tools / Folder Options, choose the View tab, and then turn off the "Do not cache thumbnails" option. Click OK. Quickly Close Windows - Ever wonder if there's an easy way to close all open windows? If so, check this out. Let's say you double-click My Computer to open it. Now double-click the drive C icon to open it. Then you double-click one of the folders in drive C to open it. Now hold down Shift and click the last window's close box. All the windows you just opened will close. This includes My Computer. Any other open windows that are not related to My Computer will not close. You can also right-click the taskbar and choose Minimize All Windows. This doesn't close them, but it does get them off your desktop and out of the way. If you use a keyboard that includes the Windows key, you can press Windows-M to minimize all the open windows. Just as with the taskbar, this doesn't close any windows--it just minimizes them. Re-install OS with Little Downtime - I am soon looking into doing a full re-install of Windows and all of my software on my main machine. My main reason is to do a spring cleaning on it, regain some speed. I haven't re-install Windows in several years, and my PC is getting a bit clogged with crap, if you know what I mean. This is my main production machine, so I cannot lose good work time. Traditionally, re-installing Windows means hours of downtime to re-install the OS, get it set up the way you want it, re-installing all of your software and transferring your data files back over to it. It can take quite awhile, and I just don't have time. An answer is to simply buy yourself another hard drive and re-install to that. That's my plan. I have bought another hard drive. They are dirt cheap these days. Then, I will temporarily unhook my current hard drives and hook up the new one, set up the new disk and re-install Windows. Now, seeing as I have to be able to work, I can simply re-hook up my old drives and boot like normal. So, basically, I can re-attach the new drive whenever I wish to work on the re-installation project, but when it is time for work, I'll hook up the old drives and go to it like nothing happened. This is simple to do. Just open up your case and mount the new hard drive in a spare drive slot. When you want to boot the PC using that drive, just remove the ribbon cable from the old drive(s) and plug into the new one. When you want to go back to work, swap the cable back over. And the beauty of this, too, is that you still have your full system intact on the old drives in case you need to get any other data files from it to move them to your freshly installed operating system. Yes, this idea does mean you have to fork the money for another hard drive, but it does allow you to use your system to work while working on the re-installation in your spare time on another hard drive. Ghost Your Hard Drive - Yesterday's tip addressed the topic of re-installing Windows, and I gave you an idea on how to go about it without hours of no-production downtime. But, after you go through all of the work, still, of doing all of that, what happens if you want to do it again in a few months or if, god forbid, your hard drive crashes? Well, you have an option and that is to Ghost your hard drive. Now, I capitalize "Ghost" because I have a particular program called Ghost in mind, by Symantec. This utility allows you to create a drive image of your entire computer and store it on a network drive or burn it to CD/DVD - whatever you want to do with it. This drive image is basically a full record of what your PC's file system looks like that that particular unit of time. So, after you have your PC freshly set up and in good working order after hours of setting up everything just like you want it, it might be a good idea to Ghost your drive. Down the road, if you want to restore your PC to its fresh status, simply restore it using your drive image and you're set to go. For more information on Norton Ghost, www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/. Fun with XP's PowerToys - Microsoft has released a series of utilities to act as add-ons to Windows. They've done it for most versions of Windows, and they have also done it for Windows XP users. You can view the avialable add-ons at: www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx The PowerToys on that site include:
Update Windows Time Automatically - Windows XP can be set to automatically connect to a time server in order to keep the computer date and time accurate. Your PC must be connected to the Internet in order for the time to be automatically adjusted. You may also go to http://www.time.gov to adjust the time manually.
REGEDIT Safety - Many times in our tips of the day we suggest changes to your Windows registry. There is always an innate risk to editing the registry, especially if you're unsure what you are doing. A corrupt registry can cause your computer to do all kinds of unpleasant things. You can make editing the registry safer by exporting it first. If you want to edit a value using RegEdit, the safest thing to do is save the key before you make changes. Let's say that you're going to make a change in HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows NT | CurrentVersion | Winlogon Before you make the change, click the Winlogon key and choose Registry, Export Registry File. Give the file a name you can remember (say, "Winlog") and click Save. With this key saved, you can later double-click the REG file to restore the original Registry settings. Organize Your Start Menu - Most people who use Windows simply install all the programs they want, leaving everything to install to /PROGRAM FILES/ and leaving every program to have its own Start Menu group. This can lead to a Start Menu which is so bloated that it must expand all the way across the screen just to show everything. But, what many people do nto realize is that the Startt Menu is simply based off of folders, and it can be re-organized quite easily. Go to your Start Menu, right-click on the Programs folder and choosen Open. You will see the Start Menu folder show up in Windows Explorer. Here you can organize the shortcuts just as you would any other folder of your hard drive. In 2000/XP, bear in mind that it is built for multiple users, and you have different start menus for each user. So, if you do not see all of your programs listed under the PROGRAMS folder, you may need to jump over to the All Users account which will control the Start Menu options which are available to all users on the same PC. How you organize the programs is up to you. I like to group similat programs together, so I have folders for utilities, financial, development, internet, games, etc. Now, instead of my Start Menu flying all the way across the screen, all of my programs are organized by function and the menu is quicker to pull up. Tweaking your Windows Startup with MSCONFIG - One of the things one finds when they start learning more about Windows is that Microsoft has hidden a lot of little utilities into Windows that are quite useful. I say hidden...well, they are there, but the only way to use them is to call them manually using the Run option in your start menu. One such utility is msconfig, or the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. To run this, go to the Start Menu | Run and type "msconfig" at the command line. Upon launching the utility, you will see options to control some of your key Windows INI files. But, most relevant to today's tip is the Startup tab. This tab will show you a list of all programs which are set to launch when you boot up Windows. Some are set to launch because they are in your Startup group in your Start Menu. Others are called upon in your registry and you would not know they were starting up unless you used a utility such as this. To disable any program from starting automatically, simply uncheck the program and save your changes. You will need to do a restart before the changes will take effect. If you are using Windows XP and have the built-in firewall enabled, disable it. Its a bad firewall and I recommend getting a third-party firewall such as ZoneAlarm (www.zonealarm.com). It will be much more secure and much more configurable. To disable the Windows firewall, go to your Control Panel and go to Network Connections. Then double-click on your internet connection, click on Properties and go to the Advanced tab. There, uncheck "Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the Internet". Save your changes and then the Windows firewall will be disabled. Then, its time to go get a real firewall. Many routers have built-in hardware firewalls which are pretty good, but I generally recommend using a software firewall anyway because it provides some extra security by notifying you of outgoing attempts to use the internet by software on your computer. In my pre-Firefox days of spyware, I was notified of things on my computer trying to access the internet by zoneAlarm. Were it not for the popup about the attempted connection, I would not have known the spyware was even there.
Remove
Program From Add/Remove Programs Full Screen Surfing
Copy-Paste In The Windows Command Prompt
If utilize the Windows command prompt and are annoyed with the lack of
typical copy-paste behavior, this tip is for you. Here is how to enable and
perform copy-paste into the Windows command:
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