Tag: configuration
January 10, 2009 by
Jason
Microsoft is releasing Windows 7 to 2.5 million beta testers today. Here are ten tips for those who are preparing to take the plunge:
1. Back-up your system
Whilst we’ve been mightily impressed with the stability of Windows 7 ever since the pre-beta launch, this remains a work in progress. If you’re even considering installing Windows 7 on a mission-critical system, make sure you take a full back-up first, so that you’ve got a fall back if it all goes horribly wonky.
2. Take note of your settings and software keys
If you’re making a fresh install of Windows 7, rather than upgrading a previous OS, make a note of all your crucial settings – such as your wireless network key and Outlook configuration – so that you can get online immediately. Also make sure you can lay your hands on keys for any essential software that you’ll need to re-install in Windows 7. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
January 07, 2009 by
Jason If you need to make firewall settings repeatedly on a single computer as conditions change or, perhaps, on a fleet of computers you’ll find working with Windows Firewall (the Control Panel application) or Windows Firewall With Advanced Security to be a bit cumbersome. The Netsh command, using its Firewall or Advfirewall context, provides an alternative way to view or modify all manner of Windows Firewall settings. For example, you can enable Windows Firewall with this command:
netsh firewall set opmode enable
The Netsh Firewall context can be considered the basic context, where you can find current firewall settings at a high level. It’s roughly comparable to the Windows Firewall application in Control Panel. From the command prompt, you can see the basic configuration by typing:
netsh firewall show config
Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
January 06, 2009 by
Jason You will use the following tools when you prepare images and deploy Windows Vista throughout your organization:
Sysprep This is the updated version, modified for Windows Vista.
Setup A new installation tool for Windows Vista that replaces WINNT and WINNT32.
ImageX The new command-line tool for creating WIM images.
Windows SIM A tool for creating and modifying Unattend.xml files.
PEimg The tool for customizing Windows PE 2.0 images.
Windows DS The new version of RIS, which adds the ability to deploy Windows Vista images as well as Windows PE 2.0 boot images. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
December 23, 2008 by
Jason You’ve read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it’s time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP’s secrets.
1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only). Read More»
Posted in Windows XP | 4 Comments »
December 09, 2008 by
Jason
Yes, firefox is already pretty damn fast but did you know that you can tweak it and improve the speed even more?
That’s the beauty of this program being open source.
Here’s what you do:
In the URL bar, type “about:config” and press enter. This will bring up the configuration “menu” where you can change the parameters of Firefox.
Note that these are what I’ve found to REALLY speed up my Firefox significantly – and these settings seem to be common among everybody else as well. But these settings are optimized for broadband connections – I mean with as much concurrent requests we’re going to open up with pipelining… lol… you’d better have a big connection.
Double Click on the following settins and put in the numbers below – for the true / false booleans – they’ll change when you double click. Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 2 Comments »
November 08, 2008 by
Jason Every time a file is read from your Linux ext3 partition it writes back a attribute to the file detailing the last access time. There are very few programs that actually use this to operate and it slows everything down.
Disabling atime and diratime on your Linux ext3 file systems can improve disk performance up to 40%!
WARNING: If you are using programs such as tmpwatch, mutt, or mail-notify this configuration change could cause those programs that make specific use of atime not to work.
1. Start a terminal.
2. Switch to root using the “su -” command.
3. Backup your fstab – “cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.old”.
4. Open your /etc/fstab in the editor of your choice (nano, kate or gedit recommended). This can be done by issuing the command “nano /etc/fstab”, “kate /etc/fstab”, or “gedit /etc/fstab”. Read More»
Posted in Linux | No Comments »
October 20, 2008 by
Jason Normally, Mozilla Firefox operates from your hard drive, but it’s possible to run it completely in your system’s memory (RAM). It speeds up your browsing because computers can read and write from RAM much faster than it can read and write from the hard drive. The following instructions will walk your through a configuration with Windows.
Steps
1. Download and save Portable Firefox onto your Desktop (see Things You’ll Need below). Double-click on the ZIP file and extract the contents of the archive to the folder “C:\PortableFirefox”. You can use a different directory, but you will have to adapt the rest of this article to that directory.
2. Download RAMDisk and save it to the same location as the ZIP file (see Things You’ll Need below). Double-click RAMDisk.exe. This is a self-extracting archive. When asked where to save the extracted files, save them on your Desktop. This creates a directory called RAMDisk. Read More»
Posted in Firefox | 2 Comments »
October 04, 2008 by
Jason Registry tweaks can fix problems, boost performance and improve Windows features, and the risks are minimal as long as you follow our advice.
There are many ways to change your settings and your applications within Windows. You might click Edit > Preferences or Tools > Options, right-click on a system tray icon, or just poke around in your Control Panel. But the end result is almost always the same. When you’ve tweaked an option and clicked OK, the new setting will be stored in a central database called the registry.
Normally you don’t have to worry about low-level technical details of individual registry settings. But occasionally they can come in useful. If a program won’t start or can’t be reinstalled, for instance, it could be down to a corrupt registry setting: change it and you might fix the problem. Other applications have useful settings that can only be accessed from the registry, too.
There is a potential down side, though. If you delete the wrong registry setting you could corrupt an application, and even prevent Windows from loading on your next reboot. But then Windows Explorer can be dangerous, too, if you start randomly deleting things from the Windows or Program Files folders. Don’t worry though, as long as you’re cautious and sensible – registry editing actually poses very little risk. Read More»
Posted in Computer | 2 Comments »
September 28, 2008 by
Jason Just as Windows Vista moved away Windows XP by sacrificing compatibility, so will Internet Explorer 8 redefine the way Microsoft’s proprietary browser deals with legacy content. This because, by embracing modern web standards in the default configuration, IE8 will also introduce compatibility issues. However, Microsoft is providing the necessary resources designed to mitigate scenarios involving incompatible content. The Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), now at version 5.0 with the Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool (IECTT) and Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluators (IECE) components, is set up to evaluate the level at which an application will play nice with Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7 and even Internet Explorer 8.
“ACT allows compatibility data to be uploaded from individual machines to a central location for analysis, grouping and reporting. Once an issue has been identified, help will be available on how to resolve a particular issue or create a workaround. Furthermore, partners and customers using ACT are able to post comments to the Online Application Community, where they can share data and information about application compatibility testing,” explained Jatinder Mann, IE Program Manager. Read More»
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
September 18, 2008 by
Jason
If you use a 64-bit version of Windows Vista on a computer with multiple processors or on a multi-core (dual-core, quad-core) processor (which is quite usual), you can use a simple setting to accelerate booting of the computer (OS).
Depending on the configuration of your computer, this setting may result in a smaller or substantial improving of the Windows booting time. Please be aware that this setting is not intended for novice users and it can cause booting problems on incompatible (mostly “noname”) computers.
By default, Vista detects and switches to a multi-processor core only after the basic functions of Windows are loaded – for actual booting it uses only a single core (logical processor). With the following setting you will enable using of all available cores/processors also for booting.
Run the MSCONFIG command (Start > Run) and go to the “Boot” tab. There click the “Advanced options” button. In the “BOOT advance options” dialog check the “Number of processors” option and set the number of processor cores you have available in your PC. Exit the command with OK. The following restart should be faster. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | 4 Comments »
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