Tag: control panel
February 25, 2008 by
Jason
Managing PC memory isn’t as big an issue as it used to be, but freeing up memory can still provide benefits. Rather than spending a lot of time closing old processes, installing Instant Memory Cleaner is a quick solution.
Once installed, this tiny app (and it really is tiny at 1.8MB) sits in your system tray and if you hover your mouse, it will tell you how much memory is available. To free up memory all you have to do is right click on the icon and select ‘Clean Memory’. Within seconds your PC will have more memory available, which will make all those resource hungry apps you run, move along that little bit faster. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Software | No Comments »
February 22, 2008 by
Jason Microsoft constantly collects information about Vista from users. When a problem occurs, Vista usually asks whether you want to send information about the problem to Microsoft and, if you do, it stores these tidbits in a massive database. Engineers then tackle the “issues” (as they euphemistically call them) and hopefully come up with solutions.
One of Vista’s most promising new features is Problem Reports and Solutions, and it’s designed to make solutions available to anyone who goes looking for them. Vista keeps a list of problems your computer is having, so you can tell it to go online and see if a solution is available. If there’s a solution waiting, Vista will download it, install it, and fix your system. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Windows Vista | 1 Comment »
February 20, 2008 by
Jason Internet Explorer has some quirks as we all know. However, if there is any chance that you may uninstall Internet Explorer, there could be some problems. In fact, you may not even be able to start Windows with a full functioning desktop.
Apparently, Internet Explorer version 6 and 7 are not getting along. If you upgrade IE, uninstall, reinstall, or download a version from Yahoo, Google, or Adobe, then you may lose your Windows functions after you shut down your computer. When Windows starts up again, it boots to only a blank desktop screen. A popup window will give an error code of “iertutil.dll is missing or corrupt.” There is not a way to use Windows or see your taskbar. However, we can solve this quickly with the help of another computer and we can prevent this type of situation from happening again with all Windows programs. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Internet | No Comments »
February 14, 2008 by
Jason Step 1:
The biggest problem is that almost every time you install new software, it loads when you boot. I have applications that I rarely use like optical character recognition, and those I turn to several times a day like MS Outlook. By simply loading software only when you need it, you can cut your boot time significantly. To see what is loading now and to pick and choose in Windows XP click on your Start Menu. Go to Run. Type: msconfig. You’ll be presented with tabs. You’re probably operating under Normal Start Up which loads all device drivers and services. Choose Selective Startup instead. Under Selective Startup I’ve checked Process System.INI file, Process Win.INI.file, Load System Services, Load Startup Intems and Use Original Boot.INI. If you are an advanced user and you know what you are doing you can select or deselect these boxes as you choose. If you click everything except Services and then click disable all, followed by OK, you’ll end up booting in Safe Mode. Our goal here is to cut back on the Start Up programs. Click that tab. There you’ll find a long list of applications like ALCMTR and hpsysdrv. I took the time to enter each of them in Google to search for what they did. Sites like processlibrary.com proved useful in determining whether or not I should enable or disable the applications on booting. Right now I’ve only selected about a third of those listed. My machine boots faster and I’ve notice no lack of performance. Read More»
Posted in Computer | No Comments »
February 07, 2008 by
Jason
Windows seems to have an insatiable appetite for fonts. A new installation starts out with the standard ‘core’ fonts, and there are around 20 of them, but within a very short time you could find your fonts folder has somehow acquired scores and sometimes hundreds of new ones. The Windows Font viewer in Control Panel doesn’t really tell you much, unless you open each file, so here’s a better way to see what you’ve got. It’s called Windows Fonts Explorer and there’s really no need to elaborate. Read More»
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
October 07, 2007 by
Jason The System tool in Control Panel uses currentspeed to do its reporting rather than maxspeed, but the System tool may display the wrong clock speed for the Central Processing Unit (CPU).
As of January 2002, Windows XP uses the currentspeed value rather than the maxspeed value because the maxspeed value was reporting inconsistent values.
After startup, the processor may not correctly reflect its correct speed until a program utilizes processor cycles.
The computer basic input/output system (BIOS) in some laptop computers may throttle the processor because of heat, load, power AC/DC. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Hardware, Windows XP | 3 Comments »
This tutorial will show you how to schedule your PC to reboot at a given time and date, using the utility provided. This tutorial will work with Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 98. For this tutorial I will be using windows XP.
First Schedule Windows to Automatically Restart Download. Save it to disk and extract shutdown.exe to your C:\ drive.
Now open the Control Panel by clicking Start > Control Panel Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista, Windows XP | 3 Comments »
As with XP, in Vista you can speed up performance by sacrificing the visual effects. Go to the Control Panel, System and Maintenance, System Properties, Advanced (Tab) and settings. Set the radio button in ‘Adjust for best performance’.
This may produce a marginal improvement on a low spec machine, but it I could not detect a faster response on a machine with a 1.2 Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM. In truth, I was under-whelmed by this Adjust for best performance. A better way to truly speed up your Vista machine is to buy a 1GB USB RAM stick and use Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | 5 Comments »
As default after Vista is installed the Power Options are set to Balenced.
This means that Vista will put your computer in a sleep mode after one hour. When you have a desktop computer this might not be the option you want, for instance when you are going to take a nap after setting up your pc to download a large file which takes more then one hour over night.
The Power Options section in Vista’s Control Panel lets you choose from these three predefined plans. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
Hibernation is not made unavailable when you set the value of the Hibernate after setting to Never by using the Power Options item in Control Panel.
To make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3. When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | 8 Comments »
