PCTips Box

Windows XP works with countless different printers, scanners, digital cameras, and other devices. It does so with the help of drivers, unique software programs that help your operating system communicate with individual pieces of hardware. If your computer starts to freeze, crash, or if a hardware device stops working, you can troubleshoot the problem with the Device Manager.

Device Manager shows you how the hardware on your computer is installed and configured, and how the hardware interacts with your computer’s programs.

You’ll typically use Device Manager to check the status of your hardware and update device drivers on your computer. Advanced users who have a thorough understanding of computer hardware might also use Device Manager’s diagnostic features to resolve device conflicts and change resource settings.

Note You may need to be logged on as an administrator or be a member of the Administrators group in order to use some or all of the features in Device Manager. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure. (more…)

It’s possible to have Vista and chow down on your XP cake, too, if you apply a free — for now — virtual machine.

If you’re stuck with a Vista PC, but you really prefer using XP, I’ll show you how to set up XP as a virtual machine on Vista, plus some tricks you can use to get the most out of this setup.

Why you should give virtual machines a free try

It’s unarguable: Windows XP operates more quickly than Vista (a fact that PC World recently demonstrated even with the new Service Pack 1 installed on Vista). Additionally, no one who’s independent of Microsoft’s payroll suggests that device drivers are just as easily available for Vista as they are for XP, or that Vista supports as many software applications that people own. (more…)

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. (more…)