Section: Software
Registry Cleaning and PC maintenance software has got a bad name with so many ‘scareware’ products popping up on websites, telling you that your computer needs attention and offering to put it right. Woe betide anyone who takes up the offer and more often than not you’ll end up with a infected PC, or a bill for a piece of useless software. The other problems is that maintenance software often makes little or no difference, and don’t be misled into thinking they will somehow restore the performance on a terminally sluggish or cluttered machine, that just doesn’t happen in the real world. On the other hand, running a decent cleaner every so often can help to avoid problems later down the line, by removing redundant files and Registry entries, and one freeware utility I have been trialling recently seems to do a pretty good job. Read More»
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Both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 include the next-generation of Windows Firewall, which has become a standard aspect of Microsoft’s client and server operating systems. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, although not marketed as a replacement for more complex solutions designed to manage network traffic, has the advantage that it ships as a default component integrated with the platforms. On top of this, Windows Firewall with Advanced Security is not as simplistic as it might appear. This is why Microsoft has made available for download a complex design guide of the product.
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security “can filter the network traffic permitted to enter the computer from the network, and also control what network traffic the computer is allowed to send to the network. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security supports IPsec, which enables you to require authentication from any computer that is attempting to communicate with your computer. When authentication is required, computers that cannot authenticate cannot communicate with your computer. By using IPsec, you can also require that specific network traffic be encrypted to prevent it from being read or intercepted while in transit between computers,” revealed Microsoft’s Dave Bishop. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 5 Comments »
Microsoft Windows Installer is a component of the Windows operating system. Windows Installer provides a standard foundation for installing and uninstalling software. Software manufacturers can create the setup of their products to use Windows Installer to help make software installation, maintenance, and uninstallation straightforward and easy.
New and improved features in Windows Installer 4.5
* Multiple package transaction
* Embedded UI handler
* Embedded chainer
* Update supersedence resiliency
* Custom action execution on update uninstall
Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 1 Comment »
This second and final part of our quick tour through the world of portable applications will focus mostly on programs that are not necessarily needed by the common user, but may come in handy in certain situations or to the more experienced Windows fans.
Compressing and decompressing files may be a very easy task, but things change when you have to use another computer that doesn’t have a compression utility installed, so here are some of our suggestions. You can try using the trial version of popular archivers WinRAR and PowerArchiver, or consider giving 7-zip, IZArc2Go and PeaZip a go, which are free for both personal and commercial use.
An organizer is not very helpful if you need to access your agenda from more than one computer. To overcome this inconvenience, feel free to install any of the following portable organizers and personal information managers: Sunbird, EverNote, EssentialPIM Pro, Avignon Concept or MSD Organizer. Read More»
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Although I’m a very big fan of Jeff Dunham, this is not an article dedicated to Jose Jalapeno. Its purpose is a bit, let’s say, dorkier, but very useful. Using your computer actually means using applications installed on that computer: browsers, messengers, office suites, audio/video players, graphic viewers etc. But what happens when you go to another computer? You have another person’s applications personalized by that person. What happens when you have to reinstall your Windows? All those applications must be reinstalled and customized again. How can you go from any Windows to another and still have your same applications customized as you like? How to avoid reinstalling software when working on a brand-new Windows? Easy: Use portable applications! All you need is a memory stick; I’ll provide all the information you need in this article. Read More»
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Windows Sysinternals is a collection of advanced system utilities accompanied by technical information, designed to streamline maintenance, management, diagnosis and troubleshooting tasks under the hood of the Windows operating system. The resources are offered as free downloads by Microsoft since 2006, when the Redmond giant acquired the project put together by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. As of May 28, Microsoft has enabled alternative access to the utilities via Live Sysinternals, which is still in tests.
“We’re excited to announce the beta of Sysinternals Live, a service that enables you to execute Sysinternals tools directly from the Web without hunting for and manually downloading them. Simply enter a tool’s Sysinternals Live path into Windows Explorer or a command prompt as live.sysinternals.comtools or view the entire Sysinternals Live tools directory in a browser,” reads the announcement from Microsoft. Read More»
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Binaries tailored specifically to the open source Linux operating system can coexist on the same desktop with Windows Vista and Windows XP programs via Ulteo Virtual Desktop. Essentially, the promise of the Ulteo Virtual Desktop is to deliver Linux applications on Windows via the Ulteo panel. The virtualized environment will permit end users to run native Linux solutions right on the Windows Vista desktop, and integration complete down to the level of sharing the Windows Aero graphical user interface.
“At the moment, you will find a selection of applications that include: Firefox web browser enabled with Flash & Java, the full OpenOffice.org office suite that can deal with your MS Office documents KPdf to deal with your PDF documents, Kopete: the multi-Instant Messaging software that supports MSN and other protocols, Skype, Thunderbird + Enigmail, Gimp and Digikam to manage your pictures and Inkscape and Scribus to create great graphics and newspapers,” reads a fragment of Ulteo’s description. Read More»
Posted in Linux, Software, Windows Vista | 1 Comment »
At the beginning of May, security company PC Tools revealed that Windows Vista “is not so immune.” And in this attempt to wrap the obvious together with statistics from a limited pool of users and serve the result as a revelation, the security outfit went on to claim that “Windows Vista is more susceptible to malware than the eight year old Windows 2000 operating system, and only 37% more secure than Windows XP”. Apparently, PC Tolls had detected 639 unique threats per 1,000 Vista machines, in comparison to just 586 for Windows 2000, 478 for Windows Server 2003, and 1,021 for XP. The conclusion is, of course, nothing short of obvious and was stated as clear as possible, with a challenge to Vista’s malware immunity.
Now, the fact is that citing data from over 450 million computers, in respect to PC Tools’ just 1.4 million machines, Microsoft disputed the findings, and continued to claim that Windows Vista is the safest Windows operating system on the market. Microsoft has repeated this refrain since Vista was launched, and provided ample proof, from the data collected through the Malicious Software Removal Tool to vulnerability counting games involving the main platforms. Read More»
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Are you not able to fire up any commands just because your run prompt is not visible in your windows xp start menu?
We have already posted a procedure on how can you restore your run prompt in start menu, but still even after following the procedure given there if it does not appear then,
You can try this freeware called Command Prompt Bar which provides an alternative Command prompt in the task bar, but you will need to activate this new command prompt which will reside in your windows taskbar. Command Prompt Bar becomes a part of your Windows taskbar and allows you to launch command lines from your windows bar. (as shown in the image below). Read More»
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Microsoft is accompanying the final version of Windows XP SP3 with additional resources aimed to complement the release. Case in point: the Symbols Package for Windows XP Service Pack 3, containing items made available in order to provide developers with the tools necessary to perform debugging actions on the third and last service pack for XP. At this point in time, there are no less than four packages accessible to end users, with both the symbols and DEBUG-symbols packs and their updates.
“These are debug symbol files that cover the files modified by Windows XP Service Pack 3. Standard requirements for symbols packages in previous releases of Windows XP apply. Select either the “Full” package to get all symbols, including those for Service Pack 3. or, select “Update” package, to get only symbols that apply to files changed by Service Pack 3. Symbols for both retail and checked builds are available,” Microsoft explained. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows XP | 1 Comment »
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