PCTips Box

Microangelo, the famous icon tool company, has released an updated version of their On Display application that allows users to easily change and replace the default system icons in Windows Vista. With Microangelo On Display you can:

Customize Windows icons quickly and easily. Just right-click on the icon and select “Appearance” from the popup menu. One elegant dialog allows you to change icons just about anywhere on your computer.

Use On Display to change icons displayed by Windows Vista, XP and Windows 2000. If you can’t change an icon with On Display, it probably can’t be done. Folder, shortcut, shell and system icons, On Display can change icons in more places than any other tool available. (more…)

Windows Vista includes an extremely useful utility called Mobility Center, designed for laptop users to give you lightning quick access to all functions that a mobile user would need.

Open Mobility Center

Use the hotkey Win+X to quickly launch mobility center. You could also find it in the Start menu. (more…)

This procedure should work on all Windows OS but we tested her on Windows XP. Now to optimize you Hard-Disk fallow next steps:

1. Run Notepad and open file System.ini which can be found in Windows directory,
2. When you opened this file under [boot] section change shell=explorer.exe into shell=defrag.exe,
3. Restart you computer, (more…)

Malware refers to any software that secretly infiltrates and damages a computer system without the informed consent of the owner. Despite the use of anti-virus and anti-spyware software, malware can still affect even careful users. One of the stated goals of the Microsoft Windows Vista release is to greatly improve the overall security of the Windows operating system and curb the impact of malware. To this end, Microsoft redesigned both the least user and administrative accounts on Vista; the result is perhaps the most secure version of Windows in the age of the Internet.

The concept of least user or standard user accounts has been a part of Windows releases for many years. (more…)

Depending how you look at it Vista’s User Access Protection (UAP) is on it its best or worst features. In short every time you want to do anything that could possibly threaten the PC’s security or change Windows settings a message box pops up onto the screen demanding to know if you really mean it, or it asks you for a password or change your account status. For most users it is unnecessarily, annoying and a touch nannyish. If you are the only one using your PC, and you reckon you know what you are doing one of the first things you will probably want to do is switch it off. (more…)

Many of the in-home service calls I go on end up being training sessions rather than repair jobs. That’s because beginners often have problems because of their inexperience and immediately jump to the conclusion that the computer is “broken.” Here are a few of the most common ones, which I generally handle over the phone during the initial consultation rather than making a trip out to the site: (more…)

Most of us know that changing your Windows Vista logon password regularly is a good habit to help keep your PC secure. Changing your password in Windows Vista is pretty easy and is something you should do if you’re having problems remembering your current password.

Follow the easy steps below to change your Windows Vista logon password:

1. Click on Start and then Control Panel.

2. Click on the User Accounts and Family Safety link. (more…)

When I write a column, I almost never feel I have had enough time using the product under review. Even in the rare instance in which deadlines aren’t bearing down, I often realize later on that I’ve missed a fair amount. In the case of Microsoft’s Windows Vista, flaws that I thought would grow less annoying with extended use have actually become more troublesome.

Most of the time I spent testing Vista was with sluggish pre-release versions. I expected things to improve when I ran the finished software on PCs configured for the new Windows version. I now realize that Vista really is slow unless you throw a lot of hardware at it. Microsoft (MSFT) claims it will run with 512 megabytes of memory. I had recommended a minimum of a gigabyte, but 2 GB is more like it if you want snappy performance. (more…)

Vista comes with a lot of different language packs available for download through the Windows Update. Unlike with XP, with Vista you can change languages as easily as logging off and logging back on, and each user of the computer can use his or her preferred language to interact with the PC. This is really great if you have a foreign exchange student at home, if you are learning a new language, or if you just simply want to have some fun! (more…)

Vista allows you to set the priority by which programs receive CPU cycles. This explains the manual way of telling vista which programs should receive the most and the least priority.
For day to day use, this is not very important. However, if you frequently have large, demanding programs running, it can be helpful to direct vista when to focus CPU cycles toward or away from the program.

For example, usually if you are rendering video, the rest of your system will be very slow as the rendering program is taking priority. However, you can push the priority of the rendering program lower which will speed up other programs trying to run during this time. (more…)