Windows in it’s default setting doesn’t allow you to CMD from a specific folder by “Right-click”, or any other reasonably easy way. Even doing trivial tasks like moving from one folder to another is no easy task. The best way to do this would be go to Starts –> Run –> CMD –> Ok; than browse to your desired folder. Or you could put a cmd.exe in every single folder. None of the options are very convenient.
\\ tags: CMD, Command Prompt
The process of creating a custom “Manufactured and Supported by” logo involves two parts.
1) First you have to create a logo with the size not bigger than 180×114 pixels. Save it as a bitmap file with the name oemlogo.bmp. Save the file inside C:\WINDOWS\system32 subfolder.
2) Create an configuration file with a text editor and save it as oeminfo.ini. Save this file also inside C:\WINDOWS\system32 subfolder. My configuration file looks like this:
If you have been using windows long enough, you should know by now that windows disk defragmenter shipped with the OS is less than optimum solution for your disk defragmentation problem. Disk fragmentation, existing in all modern OS, does not effect system the way NTFS based windows system gets effected. Although with each iteration of windows OS fragmentation of system file has been minimized, it still possess a problem big enough for commercial Disk Defragmenter program to do a profitable business.
Diskeeper, which sells a dumbed down version of it’s program which gets shipped with Microsoft OS, along with PerfectDisk are the leading commercial defragmenter out there. While there has been many free alternative, nothing was good enough to rival their performance, until now. Defraggler is a free disk defragmenter, which is not only a free alternative to commercial counterparts but also very good at it’s job. Defraggler is brought to you by the same guys who made CCleaner, a useful file and registry cleaning software.
\\ tags: Disk Defragmenter, Windows
If you are wanting to download/install software and it asks you to choose either 32 or 64 bit (depending on what your processor is), you may not know unless you built the computer yourself. I have specified below a quick-and-easy way to determine the processor type of your computer. Most of the time it will tell you in System Properties, but I will explain another method below:
System Properties:
In Windows Vista, some Windows users may miss some of the features that you could easily get to in Windows 9x and XP. I have listed below some quick shortcuts using your Windows key that aren’t that evident in Vista. Your Windows key is the key between the Crtl and Alt keys that has the Windows logo on it (assuming you have a Windows keyboard)
\\ tags: Windows
For a mysterious reason T-mobile never tell their blackberry customers that they can use the blackberry device as a modem to access the Internet from a laptop or PC. But as you are about to read the blackberry can be actually configured to be a modem to connect to the Internet using the laptop.
This can be easily done using the T-mobile DASH ( Check link Below) but on the blackberry there are some configurations you need to do. Please note that I have tested this on a T-mobile blackberry Curve, Perl, and blackberry 8800. But from what I have read, the procedure is almost the same for blackberry users with different carriers.
To successfully connect to the Internet on your laptop using the blackberry as a modem, you need to have the Blackberry Desktop Manager software installed on your computer, and be connected to the blackberry.
\\ tags: Blackberry, T-mobile
If you work in a corporate environment, your IT administrators may backup your profile to the main file server. This is because they feel you are incapable of backing up your data and might accidentally delete it! Which happens quick a bit actually!
However, sometimes problems occur and your profile cannot be saved to the server or some other type of error occurs when you try to log off your computer. Usually what happens is that you click Logoff or Shutdown and then have to wait about 5 minutes for the computer to finally get off the Logging off screen.
The problem is unloading the current user profile and it takes Windows several minutes to logoff because Windows keeps trying over and over again until it times out. This problem is sometimes caused by the third-party program that does not shutdown correctly, but it’s hard to pinpoint.
So that’s why Microsoft created the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service, a necessary program for every Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer in a domain environment. I can’t tell you how many users were much happier after I installed this service on their computer.
\\ tags: Windows
If you work in a corporate environment, you and your computer may be the unsuspecting victim of a terrible piece of software from Symantec called Endpoint Protection. It’s a giant behemoth of a program that includes anti-spyware, anti-virus, network threat detection, and all kinds of other super security crap.
I certainly do understand the need for these programs and I use them myself, but Endpoint Protection is a resource hog of enormous proportions. On top of that, it’s almost nearly impossible to turn off or kill. Actually, I’ve tried to kill all the processes related to it and it still continues to run.
The worst part about the program is it’s need to eat up all the processor power on your computer. My computer never fell from 100% CPU usage when the program was running. I tried to uncheck the services and startup programs for it using MSCONFIG to no avail.
Have you ever gotten a computer second-hand? Maybe from a company that was shutting down or from someone who no longer needed theirs? Ideally, you would want to simply reformat the computer and start from scratch, right?
However, that’s not always the case. Let’s say you get a computer that has Windows XP or Windows Vista already installed, but you don’t have the original CD that came with the computer. So you really can’t reformat computer without risking Windows not activating properly.
So what’s the problem with just leaving it the way it is? Well, sometimes when you get a computer, it may have been part of an Active Directory environment, which means it was subject to Group Policies.
Even if you remove the computer from the domain and put it into a workgroup, the local security policies that were changed will not be removed. This can be very annoying because local security policies include settings like preventing users from installing printers, restricting who can use the CD-ROM drive, requiring a smart card, restricted logon hours, password requirements and more!
These are all great in a corporate environment, but will cause all kinds of grief to a normal computer user. So what you can do to solve this problem is to reset the local security settings to their default settings.
\\ tags: Vista, Windows XP
If you have ever used Outlook for more than a month, you’ve probably seen several occasions where the message “The Outlook data file did not close properly“pops up and you have to wait a few minutes for Outlook to repair the file. Pretty annoying, but at least you can view your emails after waiting.
Sometimes, though, your luck may not be that good and your entire data file (PST) gets so damaged or corrupted that Outlook refuses to open the file altogether. In this type of situation, you have to repair the damaged PST file using a couple of free tools. Since Outlook data corruption can occur for several different reasons, you may have to try a couple of the methods below before your issue is fixed.
A simple tool that has been around for a long time from Microsoft which basically tries to repair the header of the PST file and delete anything from the file it does not recognize or understand.
The tool is actually already installed on all Windows 2000 and XP computers in the following directory: (For Office 2007, it’s in C:\Program Files\Micrsoft Office\Office12\)
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033\NT
If it’s not in this directory for whatever reason, click on Start and perform a normal Windows search for the following executable, scanpst.exe. Now click Browse and choose the PST file that is corrupted. If you are not sure where your PST file is stored, it’s usually in this directory:
\\ tags: Outlook
Stumble it!