PCTips Box

In order to improve performance and reduce the amount of time spent waiting to view Web pages, Internet Explorer stores many of the Web pages and graphics you have viewed in a folder on your hard drive. Next time you revisit a Web site, Internet Explorer can use the content stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder to display the site content, instead of retrieving them from the Web.

You can manually clear the contents of this folder in Internet Explorer by selecting Internet Options for the Tools menu. From the General tab, simply click the Delete Files button. You can also configure Internet Explorer to empty the contents of this folder when you close your browser. To do so, select the Advanced tab from the Internet Options window. Under the Security section, select the option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed and click OK.

Slow computer getting you down? Wish you could speed up your system so that games won’t crawl by like a slide show permanently set to slow? Well look no further! I shall share five easy steps that you can take to improve your system’s speed! Most of them are free of charge, and all of them should have some effect on your system. So without further ado, we begin with:

1. Remove spyware and adware from your system. Have you noticed recently that ads seem to pop up whenever you go to a Web page? Or that Internet speeds are about that of diseased livestock? Your system’s probably chock full of spyware. What to do? Well, thankfully there are several things you can do. First, download either Spybot-S&D or Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware, and run it. This should remove most if not all of the spyware and adware on your system. Neither of these are particularly robust, however, so we move on to: (more…)

Like busses you wait ages for a Windows Service Pack, then two come along at once. Hard on the heels of Vista SP1, which mostly went without a hitch, we can now look forward to XP Service Pack 3, the last for the operating system, which is now heading towards retirement, probably next year.

If you were around when MS unleashed SP2 you are forgiven for a brief shudder of trepidation, but I think this one should go quite smoothly. Unlike XP SP2, which re-wrote a lot of the operating system’s code, this one focuses on rolling up all previous security updates since the release of SP2, and a reported 1074 fixes and upgrades. Most of them are anonymous behind the scenes things that you’ll be happier not knowing about (because they are mostly deathly dull…), but there are a few interesting bits and bobs. (more…)

1. Download Windows Vista Recovery Disc
2. Windows cannot find svchost.exe
3. Windows Vista SP1 Security Vulnerabilities
4. Download Vista User Interface Language Packs
5. Vista SP1 Performance Analysis Tools
6. Show or hide all of your windows
7. How to turn off User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista
8. Remove Old Files After Vista SP1 Installation
9. Use windows clipboard more effectively with Clipx
10. XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Will Own Linux-Free Desktops until Windows 7
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My friend and I were discussing Vista SP1’s performance since we both run Vista for our rigs. We’re on both ends of the spectrum though, with me running on Home Basic, and he, running on Ultimate. Not the same specs though since his rigs a juiced up gaming box and mine’s a workhorse lappie. One thing we’ve noticed is the memory consumption of physical memory. It’s taking up 1+ GB on a fresh boot. So we’re still running tests on whether this is just normal behavior or a classic Microsoft up.

Anyway, this post is about cleaning up after Vista SP1 has finished installing in your PC. The thing with service pack installations ever since XP SP1 and SP2 is that they don’t really mop up after changing all of your files. In XP, you can see do the clean up via Disk Cleanup and Add/Remove Programs but with XP, there’s no obvious process. (more…)

Microsoft has yet to finish with the delivery process of Windows Vista SP1, and the company is already hammering away at the service pack plugging security holes. According to the Redmond company, Vista SP1 is affected by multiple vulnerabilities that will be addressed with April’s security bulletin releases, scheduled to be issued on April 8, 2008. Out of the total of eight security bulletins planned of the coming week, no less than six impact various editions of the Windows operating system, and Vista SP1 did not manage to escape unscathed.

“As part of our regularly scheduled bulletin release, we’re currently planning to release five Microsoft Security Bulletins rated Critical and three that are rated as Important. These updates may require a restart and will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. As we do each month, the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool will be updated. (more…)

Following the availability of Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft is now offering additional resources tailored on the service pack. Case in point: Windows Performance Tools Kit, version 4.1.1. The Windows Performance Tools Kit is a set of performance analysis tools designed to integrate seamlessly with both Vista SP1 as well as Windows Server 2008 SP1/RTM. On April 1, 2008, Microsoft updated Windows Performance Tools Kit to version 4.1.1, permitting system and application performance analysis for the latest versions of Microsoft’s server and client operating systems. According to Microsoft, the tools are aimed at a select group of users from driver and application developers to hardware manufacturers and systems builders interested in testing the performance of Vista SP1 and Windows Sever 2008. (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…)

Windows Vista computers that come equipped with more than 4 GB of system memory have limited shut-down options. Essentially, the Hibernate option is no longer available on Vista machines that feature in excess of 4 GB of RAM. This scenario affects both the 32-bit and the 64-bit editions of Vista, but at the same time also Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has confirmed that the issue is related to the large quantity of random access memory.

“This issue occurs because hibernation is disabled on computers that have more than 4 GB of RAM. Hibernation requires sufficient disk space to contain the contents of the computer’s memory. Performance is poor on a computer that has more than 4 GB of memory and that has support for hibernation. (more…)

The long awaited, highly anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) will finally be available by Microsoft. For many, SP1 is the promise land for fixing those annoying performance, compatibility and slow file copy problems that have plague Vista since it’s release.

Only time will tell.

Regardless of what happens, pre-cautions should be taken to ensure a successful upgrade to Vista SP1.

Below are five steps you should follow BEFORE installing SP1, that should help with achieving a successful upgrade and ensure no data is lost. (more…)