Tag: command
Some users are experiencing problems with their USB flash drive even when they have been guaranteed that they are compatible with Windows Vista. This is usually due to the wrong software drivers being installed. When you plug in your USB flash drive for the first time you may be required to install the drivers for it, however most USB flash drives do not come with a CD containing their drivers. The majority of drivers for USB flash drives will already have been installed with Windows Vista, so when you are asked to install the driver software for your USB flash drive select Locate and install driver software and then on the next screen choose I don’t have the disc. Show me other options, unless you do have a disc with the driver software on it, in which case allow Windows Vista to search the CD for the correct driver. Assuming that you do not have a CD with the software on it, choose Browse my computer for driver software and then instruct Windows Vista to look for the driver software on the hard drive where you installed Windows Vista. Make sure that the Include subfolders checkbox has been checked and then press Next to search your hard drive for the driver software. Once the software has been found a window may appear telling you that Windows cannot verify the publisher of the software, and as long as you are confident that the drivers are correct, select Install this driver software anyway. You may need to repeat these steps two or three times as new USB devices are found and it is important that you complete these steps for every device, otherwise your USB flash drive will continue to not be recognised. Read More»
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Learn how your hard drive and graphics card impact your system’s performance, and dig deep under the bonnet to discover and fix hardware issues.
In previous guides we have looked at improving your system’s performance by simply removing unwanted programs. The next area we want to understand is the impact your hard drive and graphics card have on your system.
Before we start examining your computer, we need to see what Windows Vista believes is possible from the system when it’s working at its best. Searching for ‘Performance’ in Start Search should lead you to the Performance Information and Tools analysis of your system. If any numbers are low, then you may wish to consider looking at these areas for replacement. My laptop has a lowest rating of 4.3, which is more than adequate, but should one number be low compared to the rest, I would consider replacing that element. If your computer is running low on RAM, for example, it will use the hard drive as an extension of memory, but this deals a fatal blow to your computer’s performance because the hard drive can be 1,000 times slower than memory. In my experience, a Windows Vista PC with just 1GB of memory will struggle unless your system is only lightly used. Read More»
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1. Boot up in no time
Make your PC leap out of bed with these simple tips. Does it seem like the more time you spend with your Windows XP installation, the longer your PC takes to pull itself out of bed when booting up?
It’s not a sign of old age; it’s the ever-growing accumulation of detritus that various applications and hardware deposit on your hard drive when you install them. Whether these items are functional or completely useless, they all take time to load.
Here’s how to trim the bloat and reduce the time it takes your PC to get ready for action.
2.Tools for faster boot times
Before you get started with this project, we recommend that you have the following: Read More»
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I noticed that when you buy a new laptop, some of them, the desktop icons are too large and not proportional to its taskbar and startmenu. To change, press CTRL key and scroll your mouse down and up. Choose the size that is proportional and comfortable with you.
When I bought my laptop loaded with Windows Vista, the first thing that I have noticed is the RUN command in startmenu is missing. To put it back, Right-click in the taskbar -> Choose Properties -> Start menu tabs -> Customize -> scroll-down and check Run window.
Here’s a guide for changing the function of the Start menu power button. I always mistaken this one for shutdown, It goes to sleep rather than shutdown. If you enabled the Run command in start menu click it, if not just press WindowsKey+R. Type “cmd” and press enter. type “powercfg.cpl,1″ without spaces. Scroll-down and find these options ‘Startmenu power button’.
Turn-on Quick search, this is very useful when searching inside a folder. Read More»
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Cleaning your internet browsing history becomes more important as it is a matter of personal privacy issue for most of us.
NVT Internet Privacy Cleaner is one of the freeware’s which lets you clean your internet browsing history.
This programs lets you clean your internet browsing history in a customised way as you can easily select what to erase and what not to erase.
It lets you erase the following things:
Read More»
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For many Windows users, the thought of using the Command Prompt is either a scary experience or something that they will never need. But for some, the command prompt is a powerful tool that can be far more useful than many graphical tools available in Windows.
Being a System Administrator, I constantly use the command prompt, mostly because I access systems remotely and many tasks can be performed quickly with out the graphics over head (even though connecting via Terminal Server is very convenient).
So if you are an avid user of the command line, here are my top 10 built-in (non third party) command line tools for XP, Vista and WIndows server versions (remember these commands are not your typical tools, such as find, copy, move, dir, etc..).
1 - systeminfo - Have a need to display operating system configuration information for a local or remote machine, including service pack levels? Then systeminfo is the tool to use. When I need to connect to a system that I am not familiar with, this is the first tool I run. Read More»
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When you have more than one user account on a Windows Vista PC, every time you restart your PC you’ll see a welcome screen listing all the accounts on the machine. You’ll have to click one and then type in your log-on information in order to start using Windows Vista.
But what if, like many people, you use one primary account nearly all the time and use others only on occasion? You’d like to bypass the welcome screen listing all the user accounts and automatically log in whenever you start Windows Vista but Vista can’t seem to accomplish this simple task.
Actually, you can do it, as you’ll see in this hack. Follow it, and you’ll automatically log in on your primary account and then be able to switch to any other account when you wish:
1. At the Search box or a command prompt, type control userpasswords2 and press Enter. The User Accounts screen appears. Read More»
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Do you know how many cache locations Firefox uses to store web pages and images?
It turns out there are three locations, known as device’s that makes up the cache used by Firefox. They are Memory cache device, Disk cache device and Offline cache device.
In case you are unfamiliar with the “cache”, it is a location that Firefox uses to store web pages, images, etc, that’s used to speed up loading and displaying web pages. So instead of downloading a page from a web site server, if the page has not changed, Firefox will check it’s cache and load the page if it exist.
Now, you may not care much about what’s in the cache, but if you are having problems and need to check the content of the cache, Firefox provides a command that will display all locations.
All you need to do is type the following command in the location bar (address bar) and press enter. Read More»
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Color blindness, sometimes called daltonism, is mostly a color vision deficiency. Colorblind people can’t tell the difference between some chromatic colors and as far as I know there are no tools on Linux OSes that can help them distinguish the hues. I use Ubuntu, and the colorblind applet is part of the gnome-mag package, but for some reason (and I have no idea why) the developers didn’t include it in the distro. So, basically, we’re gonna recompile the gnome-mag package, with the colorblind panel applet.
The following tutorial was tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 with GNOME 2.22.3. Anyway, we are interested in the gnome-mag package version, so you should check yours right now! How? Open Synaptic (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) and search for gnome-mag. You will see the version number on the ‘Installed Version’ column. Read More»
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Deploying Service Pack 3 directly on top of a fresh installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2 will kill all subsequent updates from Microsoft’s servers. The Redmond giant warned that integrating SP3 into the operating system straight after performing a new installation of XP SP2 via Windows Update will result in the failed implementation of any additional releases from Windows Update, Microsoft Update or through Automatic Updates. In this context, installing the third and last service pack for Windows XP onto a freshly-deployed copy of XP SP2 will virtually cut off the operating system from the life-line represented by the company’s updates, served either through WU, MU or AU.
“This problem occurs when the latest Windows Update client has been installed and then you install Windows XP SP3 before restarting the computer. This causes the new Wups2.dll file not to be enabled (registered). When Windows XP SP3 is installed, it does not detect the Wups2.dll file, and it sets the registry to point to the original Wups.dll file version that is included in Windows XP SP2 and Windows XP SP3. Because the registry files that correspond to the Wups2.dll file are missing, update installations are unsuccessful,” Microsoft indicated. Read More»
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