XP Maximized

Windows XP Error Checking Tool

It is a good idea to use the Windows XP error checking tool if you keep getting unexplained error messages or say your computer was shut down in a harmful way. For example an electricity blackout or a pulled cable.

]]> To run this tool go to "My Computer" right click on the local disk C and then go to properties.

Then go to tools - the error checking tool is listed at the top.

Click "Check Now."

Windows gives you several ways to check your computer for errors.

The first way is to click "Start" which causes the tool to begin to scan immediately and will last a minute or two. When it has finished it will give you a message indicating the scan has been completed.

The second method is to select the 1st box which tell the tool to automatically fix the errors it finds. If you click start it will tell you this type of scan is only possible at Windows startup. So if you click "Yes" the next time you start Windows the scan will be completed.

the third method is the check the second box which tells the tool to find and try to recover any bad sectors. this method can take the longest.

Window XP Tricks Video 1

In this video you'll learn how to make a folder invisible and how to make a prank virus.

Windows XP Themes

Ever want to change the look and feel of your Windwows XP? If so here is a great video tutorial that will show you some of the cool choices that are available.

Notice:

The video narrator's mic is pretty crummy so be prepared for poor audio quality, however, this guy knows his stuff and its worth suffering through the bad audio.

Guidelines For Working With The Windows Registry

Your Windows operating system is dependent on the Windows registry because it contains vital information that is required by your software and hardware to carry out various operations. The registry also contains information on how the system should appear and what should be available to different user accounts on the system.

]]> Configuration data is stored in the form of keys and their values in a hierarchical structure. Registry problems start arising when the registry database gets filled up with too many unwanted, obsolete, orphan, and empty registry keys. A bloated registry gets damaged and fragmented easily. As a result, data access from your registry slows down and you may also start receiving registry errors.

To prevent these issues, there a few simple guidelines that you need to follow while working on your Windows computer.

Backup your Registry

The registry works constantly the entire time your PC is operational. This is the reason why there can be several things that may cause irreversible damage to it and prevent your PC from working normally. To avoid this situation, it is important that you make regular registry backups. When you do this, you can easily restore your registry from the last backup of the working registry. There are many ways in which a registry backup can be made. Let us take a look at some of the most common ways:

- You can use the File > Export command of the Registry Editor tool to export and save registry backup in a .reg file.
- Your Windows makes automatic registry backups daily, when the system restore point is created by the System Restore Vista tool. You can use this tool to make manual restore points before making any major changes to your computer.
- You can opt to use a Windows registry cleaner tool to easily create backups in just a few mouse clicks.

Tweak the Registry Entries

By default, there are several entries in the registry that are configured for a base performance. You can change these settings to speed up various processes, such as display time of menus and modify the prefetch settings. Information about registry tweaks is available on various Windows help sites. So, if you want to speed up your computer, you can search for and implement the tweaks that you can use. However, before making any changes, remember to make a registry backup.

Scan and Clean the Registry

To ensure that your registry stays healthy and error free, it is important that you keep it free from unwarranted entries. To do this, you need to regularly scan and clean the registry. A registry cleaner Vista or XP tool can be used to easily perform these tasks. These tools are designed to perform a thorough and deep scan of the registry database and to weed out all unwanted errors from it. You can also use a good registry tool to defrag the registry. Defragging helps in speeding up the registry by reindexing and compressing its files. And, finally as we have already discussed earlier, these tools can be used to perform easy registry backup and restore.

Steps To Dealing With Windows Errors 616

Windows errors are a fact of life for most computer users. Although with each new version, Windows has become a more stable operating system, errors may still occur due to one reason or another. Most of the time, it is not the error, but the complex language of the error message that is most frustrating for the user.

]]> However, even though these error messages may be difficult to understand, in reality, they are the first step to help you identify the cause of the error. You can use these error messages to search for troubleshooting and resolution steps in the Microsoft Knowledgebase and several other third-party websites and message forums. The main goal of these web sites is to help users understand the cause of a particular error and what should be done to resolve the issue. This article covers a few common errors that you may come across while working on your Windows computer and the resolution methods.

Windows Update Error Message: “Error 0x80072EE2”

You may encounter this error message while trying to update your Windows operating system by accessing the Microsoft Windows Update Web site. This error message usually occurs if a program running on your computer is conflicting with the update process. You may also come across the error in case of a network problem. To resolve this issue you may need to do the following:

- Access a website other than Windows update to ensure that your Internet connection is working fine—if your computer is part of a network, you may need to ensure that your computer is able to access the network and your system administrator has provided your user account the permissions needed to access the Internet and download Windows updates.

- If you have a personal firewall installed, check its settings to ensure that they are not preventing the updates from being downloaded and installed.

- Disable download accelerator programs to prevent them from interfering with update downloads.

- Add “Microsoft Update” and “Windows Update” Web sites to the Trusted Sites list in Internet Explorer.

- Remove “Windows Update” and “Microsoft Update” from %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

- Clear the configuration information of the WinHTTP proxy.

Error Message: “Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

The 2007 Microsoft Office system does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of the 2007 Microsoft Office system products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.”

This error message may be displayed when you attempt to install the release version of Office 2007 on your computer. To resolve this issue, you must ensure that you do not have:

- An Office 2007 beta release version on the PC.
- A single component of 2007 beta release version on the PC.
- A single add-on of 2007 beta release version on the PC.

If you find any of these, you must completely remove office 2007 beta release version components before proceeding with Office 2007 release version installation. To get rid of components of the beta release version, you may either use the Add or Remove Programs utility or a reliable third-party program removal tool.

At times, no error message may be displayed and your computer may slow down dramatically making it very difficult for you to work. For instance, users often report svchost.exe vista 100% CPU usage problems. The best way to identify high CPU usage problems is to use the Task Manager. This tool will enable you to identify the process that is consuming large amounts of system resources. You may just need to address issues related to this process to resolve your issues and speed up your PC.

50 Percent Increase In Your Computer Speed In Just Five Minutes

Computer operating speed is of concern to almost everyone. In a recent series of tests PC SPY identified several programs that were responsible for the biggest cause of system performance slow downs.

Number one culprit...

Norton Internet Security which was responsible for slowing down the test computer by a staggering 58 percent.

Here are several other offenders...

]]> - 1000 installed fonts
- Kaspersky Internet Security
- Yahoo Messenger
- AOL Instant Messenger
- McAfee Security Center

Removing or disable these programs and you could see a dramatic increase in speed, without spending any money.

Our suggestion

Remove them.

In the case or Norton, replace it with the Free Windows Defender which can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Or...

Consider signing up for Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare

Spy On IP Address Using Google Earth

Wouldn't it be fun to be able to find an IP address and then track it's geolocation with Google Earth? You never know when you might need to see exactly where that IP address is physically located on the planet.

Here is a video that shows the simple steps to locate the IP address and then georeference its location with Google Earth.

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How To Save Time Booting Your Computer

If you're like me you probably get just as frustrated when you boot up your computer because it just seems to take forever. Most of us develop a routine where we turn our computers on and then knowing it's going to take some time busy ourselves with other things.

Here's a way to put an end to all the waiting. In fact, when you press the power switch your computer can now roar to life in just seconds.

By putting your computrer into hibernation mode all the documents and applications that were opened will be exactly the same as they were when you put it into hibernation.

Bottom line:

Now when you start your PC in the moring it's ready almost instantly - NICE!

]]> To set your computer up for hibernation:

- Go to Control Panel and double-click Power Options.
- Click the Hibernate tab and tick Enable Hibernation. Click OK.

- When you leave your computer, click Start and then Turn Off Computer.
- Hold down SHIFT and a new Hibernate option will appear. Click Hibernate.
- Or, press the sleep button on your keyboard.
- Your computer will save its state to memory and shut down. When you turn on your computer, your files and documents will open on your desktop exactly as you left them.

Trust me - This is one cool feature and saves me a ton of time DAILY!

Speed Up Your XP Wireless Access Point

Each time you connect to a Wi-Fi hot spot, whether it's in a restaurant or at home, it logs the name of the access point that you connected to in the Windows Preferred Network settings.

If you're like us and you accidentally connect to your neighbor's access point, and then find yourself reconnecting again despite your efforts not to, you need to relocate your neighbors access point listing down in your connection list and move your router to the top.

]]>

Here's how to do it.

Click > Start > Connect To > Wireless Network Connection

When the new window opens, click the Properties button in the lower left, then the Wireless Networks tab at the top.

Under Preferred Networks look for your home, work, or favorite router name. Highlight it and use the Move Up button to move the selection to the top of the list.

Done!

This prioritizes the connection to your preferred hot spot's access points.

You can also use the Remove button to eliminate the auto-connection of networks that are no longer used or those that happen to be at your neighbor's house. Although if you're like us you might keep it at the bottom for emergency use—just in case your Internet connection goes in the toilet.

How To Prevent Windows XP From Rebooting

If you are like most other Windows XP users you're probably leaving multiple windows open and the information in those windows has not been saved. One of the worst feelings is returning to your computer and finding out that good old XP has downloaded and installed new security updates AND the update required an automatic restart, OUCH!

Or... if you're like me you get tired of the pesky little pop-up window with a countdown that tries to reboot your computer in 15 seconds.

Well, it turns out that a simple edit to the system Registry will stop all this nonsense and will save you from loosing lost data because of an automatic system reboot.

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NOTE!!!!!!

Your system Registry is VERY sensitive to be messed with and you can potentially create MUCH more trouble for yourself unless you follow these instructions slowly and to the point.

Click > Start > Run > type regedit > press enter

When the Registry Editor is opened:

Click > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies > Microsoft\Windows

Right click Windows > select New\Key w/left mouse button

Type > WindowsUpdate and press Enter > this creates a new folder

Right click the folder > create another new key named AU (auto update)

Turn to the right-hand pane, where an entry reads (Default); right-click on the white space and select New DWORD Value. Enter the string NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers, and press Enter. Now double-click that entry and change the Value Data to a 1, with the Base button of Hexadecimal selected.

Click on File > Exit, after which the Registry autosaves (just as other applications ought to but don't), and reboot.

Once Windows loads this value it should never force an automatic reboot.

Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT Review at CNET

CNET has reviewed the Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT and rate it 8 out of 10. they continue to write - "It all adds up to solid mainstream performance, especially for a sub-$200 3D card. The GeForce 7600 GT bested ATI's pricier competition, the Radeon X1800 GTO, on every Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Doom 3 test resolution. That's impressive considering that ATI's card costs $50 more. On F.E.A.R., the most demanding game in our benchmark suite, the Radeon X1800 GTO came out ahead, at least in single-card mode. When you drop in a second GeForce 7600 GT, though, Nvidia's cards shine. They outpace ATI's Radeon X1800 GTO in CrossFire mode at every resolution on nearly every game test (the two lower-resolution Half-Life 2: Lost Coast tests excepted). That makes two GeForce 7600 GTs a formidable pairing for sheer frame rates, and at less than $400 for two of them, it's also very cost effective."

]]> The good: Brings playable 3D gaming to the masses; easy and cost effective to double up to an SLI configuration.

The bad: ATI's Radeon cards offer more robust support for modern 3D features.

Top 5 Networked-Attached Storage Devices Reviewed At PC World

Network storage solutions can be a solid way for you to archive and store precious data. PC World has reviewed 5 of the top network attached storage devices and hear are their conclusions. "Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS NV is the clear winner with a superfast multidrive 1TB NAS and has lots of features, but its RAID configuration limits usable capacity to 660GB."

]]> #2 - Maxtor Shared Storage II

#3 - HP Media Vault mv2020

#4 - Maxtor Fusion

#5 - Ximeta NetDisk NDU10-500

Put Windows XP on a Diet to Drop Hard Drive Bloat

In an effort to be helpful Microsoft has filled Windows XP with all sorts of helpful applications. However, it is common knowledge that these helpful applications and be just a little too controlling or have other nasty effects on your system. Some of the more well know dead weight (as long as you're not using them)scoundrels are MSN Explorer, Outlook Express e-mail client, and Internet Explorer browser. These hard drive space squatters can eat up as much as 15-20 megs of precious storage space.

]]> Here's how to toss them.

Navigate to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs

Next - click on Add/Remove Windows Components on the left-hand side of the window. You can uncheck options that you do not use, such as Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, and, of course, Messenger.

After unchecking your selections, click Next and XP will busy itself reconfiguring removing your selections and freeing up drive space. Don't be surprised if you're asked to restart your computer.

Warning:

Removing items such as Networking can leave you with a disconnected computer.

If you want to control more components in XP, try the utility in Add or Remove Programs that comes with Microsoft's Service Pack 1. Click Start, then All Programs, then near the top of the column click on Set Program Access and Defaults. From here you can set your default browser, music player, and messenger, among other things.

When Did You Last Install Windows XP?

Who knows, right? Well you never know, someday you might just want to know. There is a hidden utility in Windows XP Pro called Systeminfo and it will also tell you a lot more about your system, including how long it has been running, what patches and updates have been installed and probably more than you want to know about your computer’s motherboard and memory.

Here's how to access it.

]]> To unearth this treasure trove of trivia just go to Run on the Start menu, type ‘cmd’ (without the quotes) then when the DOS type window opens type systeminfo’ (no quotes again) after the flashing prompt press Enter and prepare to be amazed.

Source - BootLog

Crash And Freeze Avoidance In Windows XP

Windows XP has a high tolerance and is very forgiving. However, you can test its limits if you regularly have a lot of folder windows open you may find that Windows crashes or freezes when you switch between folders.

Here's the fix

]]> This is due to the way Windows manages RAM memory; each open folder is allocated the same amount of memory, whether it needs it or not. This isn’t very efficient it puts a big stain on the CPU and memory resources when you switch between folders.

You can reduce the chances of a crash by changing the way Windows handles these processes.

Go to Folder Options in Control Panel and select the View tab. In the Advanced settings window scroll down the list and check the item ‘Launch folder windows in a separate process’. Click OK and it’s done.

[Source - BootLog]