PCTips Box

I don’t know about you but I think the default font of the command prompt is ugly and hard to read. This guide shows you how to change the default font from a Raster font to a Consolas font specially designed for developers.

If your computer doesn’t have the Consolas font this guide shows you where to get it and how to configure the command prompt to recognize it.

Change the Command Prompt’s Font

1. Click the Start orb, All Programs, Accessories, and then open the Command Prompt.

2. Right-click the top bar of the command prompt and then select Defaults. (more…)

Whenever Windows stumbles across a file type it doesn’t recognise you are will see a message box that says Windows cannot open this file’ and gives you the option to ‘Use the Web Service’, to find the necessary program. I don’t know about you but I can’t recall a single instance where it has worked and it’s usually much quicker just to Google the file name or extension. Well, thanks to the clever folk at ‘howtogeek’ here’s a way to zap that dialogue box and go straight to the Programs list, that you would get if you chose the second option. It works in both XP and Vista and involves editing the Registry, so pay attention, and bear in mind the usual warnings and disclaimers about backing up the Registry first, and not messing with it if you don’t know what you are doing.

Begin by opening the Registry Editor (‘regedit’ in Run on the Start menu) and pop along to: (more…)

We have been receiving mails from several readers that they are not able to login to Windows. As soon as they login, the windows show applying your settings, saving your settings and logs off automatically without logging in. This situation is really very troublesome and gets onto the nerves of a person who needs his computer badly for some important work.

The main reasons behind this problem is a corruption in the registry key which holds the value of the files which are executed while login to windows. This registry key can get either replaced with some incorrect value or it might get corrupt due to some virus / trojan activity. Lets see how to fix this issue.

We need to remotely access the infected computer from another computer on same network. Then we need to correct the registry key for userinit under winlogon. (more…)

The problem of slow or delayed shutdown is very commonly faced by most of the windows XP users. If you are using windows XP for a long time, you are more likely to have such problem.

Why Slow shutdown?

In Windows XP certain registry keys are responsible for determining how long windows will wait before shutting down all the opened programs and services after the shutdown command has been given by the user.

Lets see how we can fix the slow shutdown in windows XP.

You need to optimise some registry keys values in order to speed up the shutdown process. (more…)

AutoPlay or AutoRun dialog window will pop up when an removable drive, portable device such as digital camera and media player or CD/DVD disc been inserted into computer or placed into optical drive, with plenty of action choices in a list of options for users to choose to perform on the just connected drive and drive contents. Each item in the AutoPlay list is a handler installed by various applications to show as an option for a particular events or content types such as Pictures, Videos, and Mixed.

Windows by default has several AutoPlay handlers, and other third-party programs, especially media player such as MusicMatch Jukebox and RealPlayer, and image burning software such as Nero will add their own AutoPlay handlers and shortcuts into the list. Over the time, the AutoPlay list can get longer and longer, and some entries can become invalid or orphaned when the program has been uninstalled by the AutoPlay handlers are not removed. (more…)

Sometimes making your PC ‘run’ faster is just about changing the way programs run e.g disabling splash screens. This tip will make your machine feel faster, by increasing the speed with which menus load, by removing the delay between clicking on a menu and that menu being displayed, which is enforced by XP.

To enable this tweak do the following:

1. Go to the Start Menu and then click on ‘Run’

2. Type in ‘Regedit’ then click on ‘Ok’ (more…)

After windows restart or even after windows explorer quick launch items got arranged in a alphabetically and also resizes to the default.

According to the default settings of windows it does not save the settings when you customize the quick launch items ,it does not save the quick launch items location and its size also.

This issue of quick launch items location changed and resize applies to both windows XP and windows Vista.

But this can be easily resolved by a registry fix.

Follow the procedure given below. (more…)