Tag: boot

Windows 7 Interface Tweaks

February 23, 2009 by Jason

1. Right-click everything

At first glance Windows 7 bears a striking resemblance to Vista, but there’s an easy way to begin spotting the differences – just right-click things.

Right-click an empty part of the desktop, for instance, and you’ll find a menu entry to set your screen resolution. No need to go browsing through the display settings any more.

Right-click the Explorer icon on the taskbar for speedy access to common system folders: Documents, Pictures, the Windows folder, and more.

And if you don’t plan on using Internet Explorer then you probably won’t want its icon permanently displayed on the taskbar. Right-click the icon, select ‘Unpin this program from the taskbar’, then go install Firefox, instead.
Read More»

Top 10 – January 2009 Popular Tips

February 01, 2009 by Jason

1. Booting Windows XP with USB Flash Drive

2. How to Get another activation for Windows XP or Windows Vista

3. Download Windows 7 Beta right now

4. Resolve Occasional XP SP3 Stop Errors on Restart

5. Delete Index.dat files on Windows

6. Windows 7 Beta Language Interface Packs

7. Windows 7 Beta Download and Install Guide

8. TOP10 – December 2008 Popular Tips

9. How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7

10. Ten Tips for Windows 7

Read More»

Booting Windows XP with USB Flash Drive

January 02, 2009 by Jason

Almost everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time at all has run into at least one situation in which a problem left a PC unbootable. What if you could return the machine to a bootable state just by inserting a USB flash drive though? Believe it or not, it is actually possible to install a bootable copy of Windows XP onto a flash drive and then boot a PC off of the flash drive. From there, you can use applications that you have installed on the flash drive (anti virus, anti spyware, disk repair, etc.) to fix the PC’s problem. In this article, I will show you how.

What’s the catch?

As with most cool new techniques, there are a few catches. For starters, not every PC is capable of booting from a USB flash drive. For the most part, computers manufactured within the last two years are generally able to boot from a flash drive. Older systems may require a BIOS update, or might not be able to boot from a flash drive at all.

Another catch is that not every flash drive will get the job done. The primary factors that limit your use of a particular flash drive are capacity and speed. Technically, speed isn’t really a limiting factor, but booting Windows will be painfully slow unless you use a flash drive that supports USB 2.0. Read More»

Install Windows XP On Windows Vista Without Formatting Hard Drive

December 08, 2008 by Jason

In this post we are going to share with you the experience we had while trying to Install Windows XP on new laptop which has Windows Vista and how we achieved it virtually.

I bought a HP Pavallion notebook which had Windows Vista, and first thing I wanted was to make it dual boot with Windows Vista and Windows XP. I studied a lot of articles on Internet for installing Windows XP on new laptop. So I did a spilt-streaming of SATA drivers and Windows XP onto a same CD using nLite tool. The CD was able to start the setup, but as soon as the system restarted between, all was gone, it neither booted again with XP setup nor it had Vista on boot-loader anymore.

Finally I was back to face this reality that these new pieces of hardware are not happy to run Windows XP because of driver issues and other compatibility problems. I was disappointed with this for a week or so, after which I realized that we can do a Virtual Install with a tool from Microsoft. This tool is called Virtual PC, so I will tell you how I Installed Windows XP on Windows Vista without any trouble. Read More»

How Stop And Start Windows Services From A Batch File

December 04, 2008 by Jason

One of the several things I like to do to keep my Windows computer running efficiently as possible is to remove unnecessary programs or processes from running that I really don’t need (such as crapware).

The next type of optimization I usually perform is to see if there are processes that I do need, but don’t want them running all the time and wasting valuable resources that can slow down performance. The first place I usually look for these types of processes is Windows Services that are set to auto start during boot up.

Once I identify which service or set of services I don’t need running constantly in the background, I’ll create a simple batch file that can be clicked on to start them up quickly…when I need to have them running.

If you are not familiar where to look for Windows services, there are several ways to access the services console window. The quickest way is to click on Start \ Run and enter services.msc from the run box. Read More»

How to Make a Bootable USB Flash Disk Windows Vista Installer

November 20, 2008 by Jason

Mr Dave Glover of Blogs.MSDN.com wrote a guide on how to create a USB Thumb Drive Vista Installer. The article is interesting because recently a friend of mine wishes to install Windows Vista onto a laptop in which DVD drive is not working anymore (it’s already dead).

BTW, this is really useful for all DVD less laptops. So, I wrote a Complete Step-by-Step Beginner’s Style Guide on how to do it easily, Not Just For the Geeks But For All.

1. Format the USB Stick as NTFS: Open Windows Explorer and Right-Click the Drive > Choose the Format Option

2. In the File System Combo box, Choose NTFS and Click the Start Button to begin.

3. Afterwards, Open the Command Prompt as Administrator: In Start Search type, cmd > Press CTRL + Shift + Enter

or you will get… “Access is denied” Message after launching diskpart command. Read More»

Make Your Windows Vista Super Fast

November 14, 2008 by Jason

So you are using Windows Vista and feel that its slower than Windows XP? Then you have come to the right place.

Following tutorial will help you in tweaking your Windows Vista to the max and you’ll feel a significant improvement in your system performance. So without wasting any time lets start:

1. Following is a registry file containing a few registry modifications, which are completely safe and can increase the performance of Windows Vista. Just download the attached ZIP file, extract it and then run the file:

Tweak Windows Vista

Restore Default Settings (Use this file if you want to restore default Windows settings)

2. Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press key + key), click on Advanced system settings link in left side pane (You can also open it by typing sysdm.cpl in RUN or start menu search box and press Enter). Now click on Settings button in Performance section: Read More»

How do I install Windows XP on a computer with Windows Vista pre-installed?

October 06, 2008 by Jason

If you wish to install Windows XP on a computer that comes with Windows Vista already installed then you will have to create a separate partition on your hard drive to install Windows XP onto. This effectively splits the hard drive into two, and keeps the different versions of Windows separate. To do this you need to open up the Computer Management screen by going to the Start menu and then right-clicking on Computer and selecting Manage.

From the Computer Management screen select Disk Management, right-click on your main hard disk where Windows Vista is installed and then select Shrink Volume. This opens up a window where you can choose how large you want the new drive partition for Windows XP to be. You need to select the size of the new partition carefully, as you will need enough space to be able to install Windows XP successfully (around 10 gigabytes) whilst leaving enough space for Windows Vista. After you have selected the appropriate amount of space click on the Shrink button to begin the process, and once that has completed you should be able to right-click on the new partition (which should be labelled “Unallocated free space”) and select New Simple Volume. Read More»

How to create a USB drive you can install Windows Vista

September 29, 2008 by Jason

Get your hands on a USB drive that’s at least 3GB in size. You’ll also need a Windows Vista installation disk.

Format the USB Drive

1. Insert the USB drive into your computer.

2. Right-click Computer in the Start menu and then select Manage.

3. Select Disk Management under Storage in the left column of the Computer Management window.

4. Right-click the USB drive in the bottom center section of the Computer Management window and select Format. Warning: Make sure you select the right disk to format. Formatting a disk will erase all data on it.

5. Change the file system to NTFS and then click OK to format the USB drive.

6. Wait for the USB drive to be formatted. The formatting progress will be shown in the Computer Management window. Read More»

Install Windows Vista Lite from your Flash Drive

September 29, 2008 by Jason

Open up an administrator mode command prompt by right-clicking on the shortcut and choosing Run as Administrator, then type in diskpart to load up the disk partitioning command line tool.

The most important step is to run the following command, which will give you the numbers of the disks, so you can use it in the next command (and not accidentally remove a partition on another drive).

list disk

Now that you know the correct number for the disk, you can use the select disk command, substituting the number 1 for whatever number your flash drive is set to: Read More»