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3 Ways to Manually Backup & Restore Critical Windows XP Data

Tina — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:01:26 +0000

There are several critical areas of system data that can cause serious computer issues when they become corrupted. For such cases it’s important to have a backup of these files or a way to return to a previous system state.

The registry is the central part of the system data and the one most likely to cause problems. It contains all information about installed software, drivers, plugins, updates, and more. After countless edits due to software being added, changed or removed, errors and bad entries pile up in the registry. This can make your computer slow or even unstable.

Here are 3 ways to backup the registry, two of them along with other critical system data.

1. Export Specific Registry Keys

If you are going to make changes to a specific registry key, you can selectively export or restore this key.

Backup

Click > Start > Run, type > regedit and click > OK. The registry editor will open.

Select the key you wish to backup, right-click to open the menu and click > Export.

Enter a name for the REG file and save it to a safe location.

In the same fashion you can export an entire registry branch or the registry as a whole.

Restore

To restore, you simply double-click the backed up REG file and it will automatically update the registry with its contents.

2. System State Backup

Windows XP Pro and other NT based Windows versions have an internal backup feature, which can be used to backup essential system data, including the Boot file, the COM+ class registration database, and the registry.

Backup

Go to > Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Option.

The Backup or Restore Wizard will open. Click and switch to > Advanced Mode and open the > Backup tab.

Select the files you would like to backup, in this case > System State, which can be found under > My Computer.

Be sure a path is displayed under > Backup media or file name. If this is not the case, click > Browse… and select a destination. You can also change the name of the backup file. Then click > Start Backup.

A window summarizing the backup data will open. Change the backup description and eventually make further settings. Then click > Start once more. This backup can take up to 5 minutes.

Restore

To restore a system state backup, open the Backup or Restore Wizard in Advanced Mode as described above.

Switch to the > Restore and Manage Media tab. Your previous backups should be listed. Select the one you would like to restore and click > Restore Backup.

3. System Restore Point

When you set a system restore point, several files are saved, including files in the Windows File Protection (Dllcache) folder, the local user profile, COM+ and WMI databases, IIS metabase, all files that are monitored due to their file extension and the registry.

With a system restore point you can return to a previous system state. This can be helpful in case changes to the registry, new drivers or program installations have caused damage. Your personal documents, such as browser bookmarks, eMails or photos are not affected.

Backup

To create a system restore point manually, click > Start > Run, type > %SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe and click OK to launch the tool.

On the welcome page select > Create a restore point and click > Next. On the following page enter a name for this restore point and click > Create.

Stefan recently reviewed a tool called Single Click Restore Point, which significantly speeds up this process.

Restore

To restore previous computer settings and an older registry, you open the System Restore welcome page as described above, select > Restore my computer to an earlier time and click > Next.

On the subsequent page select a recent system restore point from the calendar and click > Next.

The Confirm Restore Point Selection page displays the restore point you chose. Click > Next to continue. Your computer will now start to restore the previous Windows XP configuration and reboot.

If you’re running into issues after installing hot fixes or patches from Microsoft, you might want to know How To Roll Back Windows Hot Fixes & Patches in XP. Fortunately, Sharninder has explained it in a recent article.

Did you ever ruin your system or the registry to the point where only a backup could save it?

Image credits: flaivoloka

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QMMander – Cool Open Source Alternative to Windows Explorer

Karl L. Gechlik — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:01:13 +0000

I downloaded this 4.9MB file from Google Code. QMMander is a free open source Windows Explorer alternative and it is pretty cool. It gives you a dual pane experience to relieve you from the pain of having to open two Explorer windows to drag and drop files between.

But that’s not all – no sir re bob! QMMAnder is not a one hit wonder! You can also have two separate listing types going on at the same time. Qmmander is written in C++ and uses Qt, a cross-platform application and GUI framework from Nokia. The Google Code page says that the application is buggy but I have not run into any issues yet.

You can have one window preview showing a detail listing so you can sort by file size, while in the right pane you have big icons so you can easily recognize the file icons you are looking for. The software is also portable and can (should) be run from a USB or thumb drive.

A person’s Explorer tells a lot about them. If you are using the built in Windows Explorer it shows that you do not like to tweak but if you are using something like this – it shows you think outside the box. That’s not just because I am a geek right?

Let’s see what QMMAnder can do! When you first launch the application you will be seeing double – the same thing on both sides, as you can see below:

Let’s fix that and make them two different drives You can see this view below:

Yeah yeah, we all know you can sort by each column by simply clicking on the headers but let’s check out the program’s other options. As we said before, you can change each view. Here is an example:

You change the view on each item by selecting a pane and then clicking on one of these buttons in your toolbar:

The buttons are as follows: details, list, little symbols, big symbols, directory tree or split horizontally instead of vertically (respectively). You can also change these from the options menu as you can see below:

You can also swap the left side with the right or vice versa as well as refresh or switch which side is active. Let’s check out how the horizontal split looks. This seems like it would be a better view for me:

And that is my view! Wow I love it – the detailed listing on top and the tree view on the bottom. This Windows explorer alternative is very versatile and uses very little memory.

What do you guys use for a file browser? I know that Make Use of readers aren’t using Explorer – are you? We would love to hear about what you are using in the comments – so leave us a comment!

Oh and if you do hit any bugs leave them in the comments as well so we can all bombard the author with them! Karl Gechlik over and out.

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Recover Your Windows XP Administrator Password With The Installation Disk

Karl L. Gechlik — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:33 +0000

Have you lost your Windows Administrator Password? There are lots of options to recover it nowadays but almost all of them require a third party piece of software. What if I tell you that you can recover your windows administrator password with your install disk? All you need is your install key (hint: this does not need to be the same key that is installed on your machine but the key needs to match the media).

We will actually be doing a Repair. Once the repair session hits the GUI screen we can launch a command prompt that will let us reset your password, create new accounts or promote another user to be the administrator. Heck we can even make it so the machine logs in as the Administrator automatically! So here’s how you do it.

Grab your CD along with its CD key and boot to your media. Once you boot to your CD, it will say, “Press a key to boot to CD”. Go ahead and press any key.

Let Windows do its thing and start. We will not format or lose any data if you follow my explicit instructions. I was amazed when I got this to work and also sickened by how insecure workstations can be! If you have a third party SCSI, RAID or SATA adapter you will have to point it at the drivers so it can access your hard drive. If this is you then you know what to do already – F6 and point it to the drivers.

Another few minutes will pass by and Windows setup will say that it is starting Windows. Be forewarned – DO NOT HIT THE R KEY ON THE NEXT SCREEN. We will be hitting Enter to start the installation.

On the screen below that says Welcome to Setup make sure you hit the ENTER key and not R. R here will take you to the recovery console – if you do not have the administrators password you will have to start ALL OVER AGAIN! So hit Enter to set up Windows and continue.

The agreement pops up hit the F8 key to continue.

Ah ha! Now on this screen below you will want to highlight your installation of Windows if there is more than one. And hit the R key! Yes, here is where you will hit that key to repair the installation. The process rewrites all the system files and what not.

After you hit that R key the Setup wizard will start to copy the system files from the media to your hard drive/Windows Installation. This took about 4 minutes on my machine.

Windows will now reboot automatically or you can hit ENTER to speed things up a little. When the machine restarts DO NOT BOOT FROM THE CD! DO NOT HIT A KEY TO BOOT FROM YOUR CD! Take the CD out of the drive if you think this is going to be an issue for you.

Once the computer starts back up it will jump into the installer. Here, when you get to about 37 minutes left on the installer it will say Installing Devices on the bottom left hand side of the screen – Hit Shift-F10 at the same time and a command prompt will pop-up! Just like that.

Using some basic command line kung fu we type control userpasswords2 and we can do whatever we want to. You can get at anything from this command prompt you have full root/administrator access!

Once you have the user accounts control panel up, you can add, modify or remove users. Promote a user to administrator status or what have you. Remember only use this for good and not evil.

Log in and you are good to go! Do you have another method to get back into your machine that does not require any media? We would love to hear about it in the comments.

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How To Upgrade From XP To Windows 7 In 4 Easy Steps

Varun Kashyap — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:00:41 +0000

Windows 7 will be released today. We have already given plenty of love to Windows 7. If you are still using Windows XP and want to switch directly to Windows 7, you might get disheartened knowing that there is no direct path to upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7. However, with a bit of planning and with appropriate tools, you can move from XP to Windows 7 with minimal of fuss. If that is what you are looking for, this is the guide for you. Let’s set the ball rolling straight away.

Step 1: The checks

First off, you would want to make sure your existing hardware can support Windows 7. Windows XP has been out for a long time and your hardware might not support the newer and comparatively more demanding versions of Windows like Windows 7. These are the official system requirements:

1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

You can use the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor to see if your computer will run Windows 7. Once you are sure that you are good to go, hop up to the next step.

Step 2: Backup and Migration

It is always a good idea to have backup of your important files and settings that you worked so hard to create. We have shown you various applications to backup your files and settings in the past. If you would rather not install any new software, a simple copy and paste would suffice for the time being. Just make sure to include everything you might need. While you might have set up your folders differently according to your taste, here are some key locations that you should check out and decide if you would like to back them up:

My Documents
My Music
My Pictures
(If you have more than one user account on your computer, make sure to back up their files as well)
Your projects folders and files, if it is your work computer
Browser bookmarks, saved passwords, etc.
Other program data under %AppData% (This doesn’t always work. It is better if you use respective applications to export settings)

Another option you can use to quickly backup and transfer your settings is the Windows Easy Transfer tool that you can find on the Windows 7 DVD. Browse to the folder named support and then to migwiz on your Windows 7 DVD and launch migsetup.exe. This will launch the Windows Easy Transfer tool.

Choose how you would like to transfer the settings:

and then select what to transfer:

and Windows Easy Transfer will do the rest and give you a file you can store, on say a flash drive to transfer the settings to new installation later.

Step 3: Drivers

Next up are the drivers. It is always a good idea to search your computer manufacturer’s website to see if they have newer drivers for Windows 7. Older drivers may not always work, or may not work as intended. This is especially true for drivers made for Windows XP. I was able to use an XP display driver with Windows 7 beta but it didn’t work when Windows 7 RC came out. You might have more luck with Vista drivers on Windows 7, but nothing is guaranteed. So if you are trying to get older drivers to work, you better be prepared to play around after installation.

Step 4: Install

Finally, you are ready to install Windows 7. Pop in the DVD and restart your computer. Boot from the DVD and follow the prompts to install Windows 7.

Choose Custom (Advanced install) when given the choice:

Then choose the system drive (which was your C: on Windows XP) as the partition you would like to set up Windows 7.

Wait for the installation to complete, and boot into Windows 7 once you are done.

Installed, now what?

Already here? Way to go. Now that you have Windows installed there are few additional steps you should take before you are ready to go. First off, make sure you install an antivirus before you start browsing the web or transferring files using USB drives. MS Security Essentials, AVG, Avast and Antivir are good free choices. You might want to look into commercial ones if you want something better. ESET and Kaspersky are good choices over there (Oops! Did I start a flame war?).

Install your favorite applications now. This would be a good time to get the latest versions if you have been postponing pending software updates. Looking for some software recommendations? Check out the Mark pack.

Oh and don’t forget to restore the settings you backed up earlier. If you went the copy-paste route, its time to do some more copy-paste. If you used Windows Easy Transfer instead, click on Start button and type Windows Easy transfer, launch the application and let it know that this is your new computer, then browse to the location you stored those settings to and let it do the rest.

Hope this helps you plan your upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Once you are done, use the comments area and tell us know how it went and if Windows 7 is worth the price tag!

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Vista Switcher – Replace Windows’ Alt-Tab With Something Cooler

Karl L. Gechlik — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:01:33 +0000

Are you looking to spice up your system a little? Maybe you want a little something that your friends do not have? Maybe you want to impress that special someone (if they are as geeky as you are!)

Do you want to add a window switcher that will knock your socks off? Well despite it’s name, Vista Switcher makes your Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 machine switch screens, real slick-like.

The 270KB 32 bit download page is located here and wow, there is also a 64 bit download for you serious 64 bitters out there.

After downloading and running Vista Switcher, you will have a new icon in your system tray. It resembles an X in a box. The icon looks like the image to the left:

If you either hit that icon or you just push the control and tab keys together, it will launch its interface that allows you to not only select the screen you want to go to but it shows you an awesome preview of that screen. There are hot keys that we will get to a little further in if you want to leave your default alt tab functionality.

Check out the program’s interface below:

You can still see your desktop through the transparent window and it does not go away if you release the keys. You can mouse over each item and it will show you a preview. Click on it to switch to that active window.

The application smoothly switches between screens and has a bunch of options which we explore below.

On the general tab you can first off switch your default program language. If your language is not available you can click the Find more translations to do just that. You have the check boxes for Auto starting Vista Switcher, to show or not to show the icon in the system tray, do you want to replace the alt tab action with Vista Switcher and (or) replace the right mouse button plus the wheel to Vista Switcher, and you can set hot keys if you do not want to use the combinations they provide.

This screen above is all about looks, you can change themes, fade out animations, task numbers, items allowed to be shown and preview style.

Next up we have the behavior window that allows you to modify the position of the window if you hate for it to be shown dead center. You can have Vista Switcher disable when you release the mouse and you can also have it show only tasks that are active or not with the last check box.

The exclusion list allows you to exclude specific windows from the switcher. You will see what is actually running on your machine from here.

I love this application and I have installed it on my Windows XP desktop as well as my Vista laptop. Are you using an alt tab replacement? If so we would love to hear about it in the comments!

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How To Get Aero Shake, Aero Peek & Aero Snap Features In Vista & XP

Varun Kashyap — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:01:42 +0000

The release of Windows 7 is just a couple of days away. We have written our fair share about Windows 7 on MakeUseOf. Overall it is an upgrade/new purchase that you should definitely consider. Everything feels snappier and there are some added new features as well. Aero Peek, Aero Shake and Aero Snap for Windows 7, to mention a few of them.

If you are stuck with XP or Vista and would like to have a piece of Aero Peek and Aero Shake, no need to get disheartened. This is what I am talking about:

Users over at the WinMatrix forums (the source of many such innovations) has created an excellent software that brings such functionality to Windows XP and Vista. The application is called WinShake and is available for download here. Make sure you download the latest version (2.02 at the time of writing). Written using AutoHotKey, Winshake offers quite a functionality as you shall see:

An improved show desktop which can only hide minimizable windows, leaving the gadgets and sidebars intact, or hide everything to show the entire desktop. It also remembers the minimized programs and can restore them to their previous state even if you fire up more any more applications or windows.

A very good Aero Shak-ish feature: In Windows 7, holding a window’s title bar and shaking it a little, minimizes all other windows letting you concentrate fully on the window, that is under the mouse pointer. Winshake does something similar – hold the shift key and middle click on any window to shake it and minimize all other windows.

A Ctrl + Middle Click on the right end of the taskbar activates the peek functionality similar to Windows 7 peek functionality. While this one lacks the eye candy it certainly does let you peek at your desktop. Using Ctrl + Middle Click on the close button in the title bar of any window, makes it translucent and lets you peek through it at the window underneath.

There is a taskbar peek function as well that lets you peek at specific windows using the taskbar, but that is part of a nag and you can only use that for seven days after which you would need to buy a code to keep running this specific function. All other functions will however keep running even if you don’t shell out those bucks.

The application also offers shortcut keys for the above functions, which are easier to use as opposed to the mouse control, however you can easily disable them if you desire. Alt-Win-D shows the Desktop, Shift-Alt-Win-D restores the windows, Alt-Win-S activates Shake, Shift-Alt-Win-S restores the windows. Alt-Win-Space can be used to activate peek functionality.

If you don’t like the mouse activation commands, you can customize those too using the system tray icon. In addition to that the tray icon gives you access to other settings as well. You can customize animation speeds and transparency levels that will be used while performing various actions.

The application definitely lacks the eye candy you would get if you use similar functionality on Windows 7. That said, it does a pretty decent job of emulating the functionality and if a very good alternative if you are wanting such functionality on Windows XP or Vista.

Also check out Tina’s article on how to make Windows XP to look like Windows 7. She mentions AeroSnap among other things which brings the Windows Seven’s Aero Snap feature to Windows XP as well.

Give Winshake a spin and pour in your thoughts about it. Know some other applications that emulate Windows 7 features? We would love to hear about them as well.

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How To Create A Bootable USB Drive From Your Windows CD

Varun Kashyap — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:00:48 +0000

We have been using CDs and DVDs to install operating systems on our computers for quite some time now. With the ever increasing popularity of netbooks, things are about to change. In such cases, an external optical drive or a USB drive is required.

There are couple of situations where the use of USB drive brings a certain benefit:

When you are trying to install Windows on a netbook or your optical drive is broken
When you want to create a live USB from an ISO image (requires some extra effort)
Theoretically, the transfer speeds should be better and the installation process is a little faster
You can protect your original install media from wear and tear.

There are a number of ways to create a bootable USB drive, however most of them require copying files manually – making it prone to mistakes. WinToFlash makes the entire task a lot simpler by the magic of automation.

Download WinToFlash from here. It is a portable application, all you have to do is extract the zip file and you are ready to go. Start WinToFlash, pop in the Windows CD/DVD, plug in the USB flash drive and specify the paths. Click ‘Next’ and sit back and watch WinToFlash create a bootable USB drive from the installation media. This might take some time depending upon the size of the installation media.

WinToFlash can also be used transfer Preinstalled Environments (PE’s) to a flash drive. Go to the ‘Tasks’ tab and choose the appropriate option you want to use.

Creating a bootable flash drive from an ISO image is a little more involved. WinToFlash doesn’t let you specify an ISO image as the source for Windows file. To get around this limitation, you can do one of the following:

Extract the ISO file. Most modern archiving software can extract files from an ISO image. I used 7-zip.
Virtually mount the ISO image (try Virtual CD-ROM control panel) and specify the virtual drive as the Windows file path in WinToFlash.

The rest of the process remain unchanged and you will get a bootable USB drive after successful completion.

I want to install Linux using a bootable flash drive?

As the name suggests WinToFlash only works with Windows installation media. If you want to install Linux using a USB drive we suggest you have a look at UNetbootin. It works well with ISO files and can even download the required files if you don’t currently have them on your computer. You can also use built-in tools included in many distributions these days, if you already have Linux installed on another computer.

How do I check if my computer can boot from USB drive?

That is a question I get asked many a times. You can refer to your computer’s manual to check if you are able to boot from a USB drive. If that doesn’t work or you have a custom-built computer than you can always check the BIOS settings to see if there is an option to boot from External drive or USB drive. If there is one, make sure your computer is configured to look for a USB drive before it defaults to boot from the hard disk.

After you are through with the installation, I would suggest that you move the USB drive option back down the order and protect the BIOS settings with a password to minimize the risk of your computer being compromised.

If you have some other nifty ideas on installing/upgrading operating systems without burning a DVD, we would love to hear about them in the comments!

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Tweak Windows XP/Vista/7 to Your Taste with XdN Tweaker

Varun Kashyap — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:30:53 +0000

Windows 7 has been out there in the wild for some time now. Its been there and its better than Vista. However the geeks that we are, we always want more and can’t just get enough of tweaking! Making tweaking Windows 7 easier is “XdN Tweaker”.

XdN Tweaker has been around for some time and we have used it to tweak Windows XP, Vista and now it supports Windows 7. XdN Tweaker provides you with a number of tweaks to get the system working the way you want it to. It provides options to tweak UAC, file and folders views and settings, some user interface tweaks and much more.

You just need to download and install XdN Tweaker or if you prefer you can download the portable version and run it as it is without having to install. This is what you would see when you fire it up:

One of the XdN features that I loved with Vista was the ability to modify UAC prompts, this of course is not a problem with Windows 7 as there is a UAC control is built into Windows 7, so you can simply launch it and adjust the settings according to you needs.

Then there are tweaks for the right click menu. We have shown you various tools in the past that you can use to customize your right click context menu. If you are looking for something quick and simple you will find some pretty handy tweaks XdN Tweaker has to offer. You can quickly disable the Send To menu, add copy to and move to to right click menu.

Another great feature that XdN provides is the ability to remove program associations for a particular file extension. Let’s say you installed iTunes and set it to handle mp3 files but don’t want to launch it everytime you play one, change the association here. Although Windows has provided ways to do this from quite some time now but none of them are as intuitive and straightforward as using XdN Tweaker to get the job done.

There are some Windows 7 specific tweaks like changing the delay for aero peek and to disable the windows arrangement features new and unique to Windows 7 (although I must admit I like them).

There are other nifty options like adding a “Take Ownership” entry to right click menu for files and folders to manipulate files you dont have permission to perform operations on, make folder views persist, tweak the IE interface, enable disable hibernation with a single click, change Windows performance settings, getting info and so on.

No doubt all this can be achieved via registry editing but XdN Tweaker makes the task easier. Do you know some other tools for similar purposes? Do you like to use programs like these or do you prefer getting down and dirty with the registry?

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How To Move My Documents Folder To A Different Drive

Saikat Basu — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:00:17 +0000

Does ‘My Documents’ sound like a contradiction in terms? In Vista, we impersonally call it Documents but do we really pay attention to this folder which is one of the most important ones in our system? Of course, it is not the only folder we have. But it usually is the default one called by the system when it needs to save something. And here lies its value as a time saver or its Achilles Heel – it depends on the way we manage it.

My Documents is the common folder which by default stores all our personal data i.e. our document files, music, movies, downloads and photos. Within it has the My Music, My Videos and a My Pictures folder to stash a particular file type. So it pays to deal with it like an important filing cabinet and not as a junk drawer.

Over time this folder becomes the ‘Big Daddy’ of all folders. Our personal data storehouse thus needs to be handled well and safeguarded from a digital disaster. It can be done by simply moving it to a safer backup location. In this article we are going to show you how to move the My Documents to a different drive.

There are two serious reasons to do this with immediate effect.

Imagine that all your precious documents, photos and sundry other files are organized beautifully in this folder on the system partition (commonly the C Drive). Imagine a system crash. Imagine the loss of never able to recover that data. And now imagine a simple step which could have saved the day.
The usual good word is to partition your hard disk into multiples with a minimum size kept for the system drive. With time My Documents will fatten up as more data is stashed away in it. Moving the folder to a different drive saves space and more importantly safeguards it.

How To Move My Documents Folder in Windows XP

Right click on the My Documents icon on the desktop.

Click on Move and choose your chosen location for the folder. Move it to a different partition. For instance, I have it on my D Drive.

Click Apply and then Ok. A prompt will ask whether you want to move all of the current documents to the new location or not. Choose Yes. All your documents are switched to the new location and it’s all like before except now they are safer from a system crash.

These are the elementary steps which will save you a ton of bother at a future date.

How To Move My Documents Folder in Vista

There is a slight change in Vista as the My Documents has given way to a Documents folder. The default location for this folder is C:\Users\[username]\Documents where [username] is your Windows Vista username and C Drive is the default installation drive. Vista creates Documents folder for each User profile on the computer and stores it in the appropriate profile folder. The process to change the location is relatively same,

Click on the Start button.
Right-click on Document. For multiple users click your account name in the right-hand menu. Select Properties.

In the Properties dialog select the Location tab.

Next, click on Move. In the Destination dialog select the new location for your Documents folder. Click on Select Folder to return to the Properties dialog. The new location appears in the text box.

Click on Ok. Vista prompts you to confirm again and with a Yes click your task is done as the documents get shifted over to the new location.

The brief tutorial might be simplicity itself and experienced users might even scoff at it. But I have seen many neglect this fundamental step of data backup. And isn’t it true that the small things we take for granted are sometimes taken away from us. With few uncomplicated steps, at least it won’t be the documents in our My Documents folder.

Have there been times when you have found movinf My Document folder to a different drive a lifesaver? Or have overlooked it to your loss?

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TaggedFrog – Cool File Tagging App for Windows

T.J. Mininday — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:01:03 +0000

The adoption of tags on the internet has almost become a prerequisite on any blog, website or social networking site. The ability to simply add a keyword to anything allows for much better organization and easier searching when something needs to be referenced in the future.

Most often they are used on blogs but they are also used in various ways on social networking sites such as Delicious, news sites like Newsvine or even online stores like Amazon. Any site that generates regular or changing content will usually have some sort of tag system in place. So why just the web? Why can’t we have it on our PCs as well?

TaggedFrog is a simple and free file tagging app for Windows XP or Vista that allows for the easy addition of files to be tagged with as many descriptive keywords (tags) as you can possibly think of. You can then visualize them in a cloud display which looks very similar to your everyday cloud display you see on many websites today.

You first begin tagging the files by adding and managing the keywords you’d like to create for your files.

An easy drag and drop interface allows for the easy addition of any type of file, document or web link from your computer. Once they are added, you can simply add any of your created tags to that file.

So now, instead of renaming and changing files as they are created, you can quickly and easily add tags to them. This allows for easy filtering and searching of your hundreds of thousands of files.

Along with the tag cloud, you can also set up “favorites” for locating some of the more popular files and tags. If you’d prefer not to go through and tag all of your files manually, you can also set up options to go through your entire hard drive with the nice “Auto Scan and Tag” feature.

The simple and clean interface, and fast search capability of tags, makes TaggedFrog a great alternative to the Windows Vista launch bar, and MUCH better search alternative than on Windows XP. Adding tags in Vista can be very tedious and having a separate application to keep them organized can become very handy when files begin to pile up on your PC.

There are plenty of other search alternatives (Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop, etc…) than a tagging application like this. But if you simply want better organization of files, instead of creating hundreds of directories, and you don’t want to bog down your computer with search indexing, then TaggedFrog is likely the right application for you.

What do you think of tagging files instead of simply searching? Are there any other file tagging applications for Windows that you use?

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Create & Resize Windows Partitions with Free PartitionManager

Karl L. Gechlik — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:01:30 +0000

I am an old school network admin and when I first found out I could re-size active hard drive partitions without losing my data back in the late 90’s on a Windows NT machine – I was ecstatic.

Yes I am so old school I remember when it was called The Partition Magician and it was owned by PowerQuest and NOT Symantec who acquired them in 2003.

But any which way PartitionMagic does a great job at pretty much anything Partition related.

Long story short – PartitionMagic, even though it is not still being developed or improved, will cost you around $50 for a legitimate copy.

Yes people do pay for software when they have no other options – but, today I found a little known application (little known to me at least!) called EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 Home Edition. The free alternative to PartitionMagic will do all the good stuff PartitionMagic did for me, so what’s the catch? It is only free FOR HOME USERS and 32 Bit Operating Systems. Fair enough. Let’s take her for a test drive.

I have a NTFS IDE hard drive sitting on my desk with some old data on it. I believe it is a 80GB drive. Let’s see how hard it will be to split that into two drives without putting the kibosh on my data.

I started by downloading the installer file from Download.com here. It is a 7.9MB zip file. The zip file has one exe file in it that is slightly larger. I ran it, plugged my hard drive into an IDE-USB enclosure for the test and got down to business…

I chose the partition I want to resize and I right-clicked on it. It gave me this context menu.

I chose Resize and I got the screen below. I have not had issues with resizing or moving partitions back in the day but you SHOULD ALWAYS BACKUP before starting any operation that messes with your file structure. So if you haven’t backed up yet… Do it now!

On the next screen you tell the partition resizer how much space you want after you are complete. Then you simply click OK and let it rock and roll.

Now as you can see by the new notification in the lower left hand corner, it says there is one operation pending. Now you need to click ‘apply’ to start it off.

Then another confirmation box will pop up asking you if you are ready to do this now…

Then for most of the resizing/moving partition options Windows will need to reboot to finish its process. Make sure you don’t have any open files and you are ready to continue.

That is it and you are on your way to having another partition created without erasing your disk or dropping some serious duckets.

When your machine comes back up you are golden! Do you have another FREE partition magic-like program you use? If so share it with us….in the comments boys and girls!

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3 Amazing Windows Vista Themes for XP

Tim Watson — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:01:13 +0000

I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve only played around with Windows Vista a tiny bit, but we can all agree that it’s pretty. Until I can upgrade to a new PC, I’ll have to settle with the eye-candy of unofficial, third-party, Windows Vista themes for XP.

All of these Vista themes are free, and can be loaded onto your system once you have installed the Ux Theme Multi-Patcher. Please note that if you have upgraded XP to Service Pack 3, you must use the Patcher program linked here instead.

Installation instructions are included in each theme’s archive file. ZIP archives can be opened by Windows directly, RAR archives can be opened by 7-Zip which is also free. I’ve looked at lots of themes, and I’m sure that these are the best of the best.

Vista Live Pack

I’m a fan of blue themes, and the Vista Live Pack fits in well alongside any Windows Live software. It’s bright without being childish, and comes with a simple but elegant gradient wallpaper.

Razor Vista

I like blue, but I love dark themes. They’re hard to pull off well, but the latest version of Razor Vista looks very slick. I like how the corner buttons are just slightly separated.

Vista Inspirat 2

From the glossy black finish on the compact Taskbar, to the Explorer “Tasks” panel which has been turned horizontal, to the multiple Start Menu options, to the crystal-white glass finish on the windows, I am in love with this theme. It’s the best and most Vista-like I’ve seen yet.

Honorable Mentions: VistaVG Blue Refresh, Royale Vista Hybrid, Windows 7, DZVista and its variants.

Now that you’ve installed Windows Vista theme for XP, you may be intrigued by five more tools to make XP look and behave like Vista. If I’ve missed any gems, please let us know in the comments.

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TaskswitchXP- Windows Alt Tab Replacement with tab preview

Karl L. Gechlik — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:01:40 +0000

When you hit Alt-Tab on your Windows XP computer, you get a rinky dinky little box showing you your open tabs. Press Alt-Tab together now and you’ll see what I mean.

Now a graphical representation of your open programs is OK but a real screenshot or tab preview would be awesome.

How about being able to use your mouse to select open windows after hitting Alt-Tab?

You can achieve something like this with an app called TaskSwitchXP. Let’s take a look at this Windows alt tab replacement program for XP.

TaskSwitchXP uses your Windows Style to make it fit into your theme nicely. By right clicking on a open item in the right pane you see you get a context menu. The context menu lets you do the same things you can from the task manager such as Switch to, Minimize, Minimize To Other Screen as well as Restore, Maximize, Close and my favorite, End Process.

Below you can see the appearance tab from the configuration console. From here you can choose and customize exactly how your new turbo charged Alt Tab will display. You can choose where on the screen it should appear as well as drop shadow, transparency, fade animation. You can override the settings where it takes on the look and feel of your Windows theme here as well.

Under the preview tab there are even more customizable options for the look and feel of the previews for each open task.

That would make your days of switching between 100’s of open programs a breeze (as long as you have enough memory right?).

This app will not bog down your system and it uses very little system resources and uses less than 1 MB memory!

Unlike the standard Windows switcher, TaskSwitchXP will render using your Windows XP Visual Styles. TaskSwitchXP also allows standard Windows XP shadow and transparency effects, fade animation and more.

So if you want to customize your Alt-Tab experience and optimize your productivity when working with multiple windows then you should check out the download available for free here.

This is a Windows only application and we would love to hear your feedback on how you like it or hate it. What do you think – does it compare to the Vista Alt-Tab/Aero effect? Or is it better? Are you aware of any other Windows Alt Tab replacement program?

Do you use something similar?

Well then what are you waiting for? Share it with us in the comments kiddies!

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How To Create An Unattended Windows XP Disk

Jorge Sierra — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:01:21 +0000

An unattended XP disk is a customized installation disk that allows you to perform a Windows installation with minimal effort (once the disk is created). All of the effort takes place in creating the unattended disk, but it is well worth it. With an unattended XP disk, you can preselect all of the options you wish to use for the installation.

When you proceed with an unattended installation, you do still have to manually select the drive where you wish to install Windows (during the blue screen portion of the setup). However, once you’ve done that and started the installation you can walk away, grab a cup of coffee, eat some french toast, brush your teeth, check the weather, and by the time you get back you’ll see your new Windows XP desktop.

To create an unattended disk, you will of course need a Windows XP installation disk. You will also need to download nLite. nLite is a free program that allows you to create customized XP installation disks. Customizations you can perform include the integration of service packs, Windows updates, addition of drivers, preselection of installation options, preselection of components to install, and even more.

As a first step to unattended windows setup reference, you will need to get the latest Windows XP updates for your installation disk. Which updates you will need depends on how old your installation disk is. If you have a very old disk, you may need to download service pack 3 in addition to the updates that have taken place since the release of service pack 3. In the installation instructions below, you will learn how to find out whether or not Service Pack 3 is included on your installation disk.

Launch nLite, select your language, and click Next. Click the browse button to navigate to your the location of your installation CD. You will then be prompted for a location on the hard disk to store the files for processing. Select where you want to store the files and wait for the files to be copied.

Once the files have completed copying, nLite will detect what version of Windows XP is on the installation CD. If it says the installation has Service Pack 3, then you will not need to download the service pack. Otherwise you can download the service pack here. Proceed to the next step.

Since this is the first time you’ve run nLite, you will not have any presets. Just click Next to advance to the Task Selection page. On the task selection page, select Hotfixes, Add-ons, and Update Packs, Unattended, and Bootable ISO. If you had to download Service Pack 3 because you have an older version, select Service Pack as well.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can also include Drivers, select Components for removal, select Options, and Tweaks as well. These are more advanced options that will not be discussed in this particular How-To. Click the Next button to proceed.

If you need to integrate Service Pack 3, you will advance to the Service Pack page. Select the location of where you downloaded Service Pack 3. Once you’re done, click Next to advance to Hotfixes, Add-ons, and Update Packs.

Click the Insert button (in nLite, not on your keyboard) and navigate to the location of the update pack. Click Next to proceed to the Unattended settings. In order to avoid any interaction with the installation (other than selecting/formatting the hard drive in the blue screens), you will need to update the following:

General Tab: Set Unattended Mode to Hide Pages
General Tab: Enter your Product Key
Users Tab: Password for the Administrator login (or check Blank password)
User Tab: Add a new User and set the password (or check Blank password)
User Tab: Set the Autologon to the new user you just added
Owner and Network ID Tab: Computer Name
Owner and Network ID Tab: Workgroup
Owner and Network ID Tab: Full Name
Owner and Network ID Tab: Organization
Regional Tab: Timezone

Once you’ve updated those settings, and any others you would like to update, click Next. Continue when prompted if you would like to start the process. When the process is complete, click Next to proceed to the Bootable ISO section.

Under Mode, select whether you want to Create an Image or perform a Direct Burn to a CD. Direct Burn is probably the easier choice, because nLite will write it directly to disk. When you’ve made your selection click Make ISO. If you decide to burn to an image, use your favorite image burning software to write it to a disk.

That’s all there is to it! Just take the disk, pop it into the target machine, boot it up, select where you want to install/format, and then go take a little walk. Upon your return, your machine will have a fresh installation of Windows XP running on it!

Have you made unattended installation disks before? If so, what tools did you use and where did you obtain your update packs and addons?

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3 Ways to Reset Forgotten Windows Administrator Password

T.J. Mininday — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:01:56 +0000

Passwords, passwords, passwords….something we are going to have deal with as one of our common annoyances for some time to come. Their necessary evil provides another layer of protection for your bank, your online shopping, your tax software and of course the entire operating system. We have so many passwords these days, that we have websites and password managers like LockCrypt and Clipperz, dedicated solely at helping you manage your passwords.

Even with the ability to store and retrieve your security, it does no good if the operating system is inaccessible. Ignoring your PC for a few years, removing a computer from a domain, or simply needing administrative rights on a PC are just a few reasons that the admin password may need to be reset. With Microsoft’s improved security over the last few years, it became more difficult to resent Windows administrator password. However, there are still several ways to get around it and I am bringing you three of the easiest ways to reset forgotten windows password for XP, Vista and Server 2003.

1. Reset Windows Admin Password with Ubuntu

Ubuntu has become, far and away, the most popular distribution of Linux in the world. Its ease of installation and use makes it the ‘go to’ operating system for an open source alternative. In this case you don’t even have to install the OS. You simply use the Live CD that is included with the burned ISO of Ubuntu.

Here are the instructions for resetting the Windows administrator password using Ubuntu Linux.

(Internet Connection Required)

1. Go to Ubuntu and download the latest ISO of the operating system.

2. Use one of the free ISO burning applications to create a bootable Ubuntu CD. Of course you’ll need another PC in order to do this.

3. Use the Live Ubuntu CD to boot into the live version of the OS.

4. Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

5. Then Settings>Repositories

6. Once the ‘Software Sources’ window appears, make sure you select ‘Software restricted by copyright or legal issues’, then click close.

7. Click reload on synaptic package manager.

8. Click Search, and type in ‘chntpw’.

9. Once the ‘chntpw’ app is found, right-click on it and ‘mark for installation’.

10. Click “Apply on Summary Window” and also to confirm changes.

**Remember an internet connection is required for the above steps. If there is no availability for a connection, a USB flash drive will be required.**

12. Next, we must mount the Windows drive. In Ubuntu, go to Places> Select the appropriate drive.

13. The final step of the process is actually resetting the password via the Linux terminal.

14. In Ubuntu go to Applications>Accessories>Terminal.

15. Type ‘cd /media/disk/WINDOWS/system32/config/’ in the terminal window.

16. Type ’sudo chntpw SAM’

17. This by default will change the Administrator password. If you would prefer to change a particular user. Type ’sudo chntpw -u username SAM’.

18. Afterwards, you’ll see a long display of information, most of which can be ignored.

19. The next step is to actually reset the windows password. It is recommended to make the password blank with an asterisk * .

20. You’ll then have to confirm the change with a Y, and reboot.

2. With Barts PreInstalled Environment

Bart’s PreInstalled Environment has been a popular method on offline troubleshooting for Windows System Administrators for some time now whether it be for disk recovery, malware removal or in this instance, password removal. It’s a bootable operating system, just like the Ubuntu Live CD, but with more of a Windows-like feel.

Below are the instructions for using a small EXE file called Password Renew within the PE environment.

(XP CD Required – If your Windows drive is SATA, you may need to follow additional instructions on the PEBuilder site)

1. Go Bart’s website and download the ISO for the PreInstalled Environment.

2. Download Password Renew.

3. Open PEBuilder and for the Windows directory, select the location of the i386 directory on your XP disk. Under the custom directory, select the directory that holds the PasswordRenew.exe file. Select a title for your CD and finally create a name for your ISO file. I’d recommend creating an ISO over burning directly to the CD, because of problems that may arise.

4. Browse to the A43 File Management Utility.

5. Once there, you should browse your CD drive and find your custom directory created in step three.

6. Open Password Renew.

7. This program is very straight forward. Simply press ‘Select Target’ and browse to your Windows directory.

8. Once there, you can will see options to reset a password, create a new administrator or convert a current user to an administrator.

9. You will then have the option to install there after.

10. Reboot, and changes will be applied.

3. With Offline NT Password Disk (Google Cache)

Offline NT Password Disk is a very simple and very fast command line Linux tool to reset your forgotten Windows administrator password. At the time of this writing the site was down, hence the Google Cache link.

1. Download the bootable CD image.

2. Burn the ISO to a CD with one of the ISO burning applications, as we stated before.

3. Boot up your PC with the bootable CD.

4. Drivers for both SATA and IDE drivers typically load automatically.

5. Select the location of your Windows Operating System.

6. Select windows/system32/config as your directory.

7. Select “Password Reset” as your option.

8. I would recommend to reset as a ‘blank password’. This works best.

9. Once blanked, press ‘q’ to quit and write the values to the registry.

As you can see, the dread of forgetting your Windows administrator password can typically be put behind you. These are just a few of the options to reset that hard to remember nemesis, but they are a few of the simplest.

Give us some of your best options for resetting your Windows passwords.

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Use Videos As A Screensaver Or Wallpaper [Windows]

Varun Kashyap — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:01:15 +0000

You have seen pipes, the Windows logo and even slideshows of photos as computer screensavers. How about the prospect of using your family videos (or anything else for that matter) as a screensaver on your Windows desktop?

Well there is a tool from Microsoft that allows you to use videos as a screensaver. Its called Microsoft Video Screensaver.

The download requires you to verify the genuineness of your copy of Windows. Once that is done, the installation is simple and a breeze. You can then access “Video Screensaver” from the “Display Properties” box and then hopping over to the “Screen Saver” tab.

Select “Video Screensaver” from the drop down list and click on “Settings” to choose the video you would like to play. You can choose to play the included default video giving you a view of countries all over the world (kind of lame to be frank) or you can choose your own videos.

Just put all the videos you would like to play in a separate folder if you don’t already have one and point the settings dialog to it. That’s it. You now have a video screensaver waiting for your computer to get idle! I tried the tool with wmv and avi files and it seemed to work flawlessly with both of them.

With that out of the way, now what if you want to get Windows Vista Dreamscene functionality (animated or video wallpapers) ? For similar functionality you can try DreamsceneXP. Dreamscene XP gives you 7 dreamscenes in a variety of resolutions. Follow the following steps to get it running :

Download the dreamscene of your choice.
Extract to any location, Open up display properties and browse to the extracted location and click on index.htm.

Click “apply” and presto you have an animated background!

While Dreamscene limits you to 7 choices, you can use another option (actually more of a hack) to play any of your videos as the desktop background. You can use VLC media player to play a video file in the background as wallpaper.

Choose the video you want to play as background, or optionally create a playlist if you want to play more than one.
Once up and running, right click within the player and check wallpaper.
If you don’t get the wallpaper option go to Settings > Preferences > Video > Output Modules > Direct X and check “Enable Wallpaper Mode”

Also you might want to enable repeating playlist by default so that the background doesn’t turn black after the video finishes running. For this go to Settings > Preferences > Playlist and check “Repeat All”.

There you have it – a video as your desktop background. If the taskbar button bothers you and you want to get rid of it, try something like Trayconizer. Since VLC supports a multitude of formats you can use virtually any file as the background.

Whn it comes to using videos as wallpapers, you may try the previously mentioned methods of using any of your screensavers as the desktop background.

Do you know of any other application that offers a similar functionality? Or have you used the desktop background or screensavers creatively in other ways? Let us know in comments

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Restore Deleted Files Easily With Recuva

Mark O'Neill — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:48:19 +0000

We’ve talked about file recovery tools on MakeUseOf before, including one that I discussed last September in How To securely Retrieve and Delete PC files. But several friends have constantly urged me to try out Recuva, which is made and supported by the same people who created CCleaner (another favourite app of mine and MakeUseOf).

The interface of Recuva is similar to CCleaner, it is simple to use (even a computer moron could use it) and after testing it, it seems to be very effective in restoring deleted files. So I figured it deserved its own write-up on MakeUseOf.

So let’s get the short product description first of all from the Recuva homepage:

Recuva (pronounced “recover”) is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

But as with any deleted file that you want to bring back, the older it is, the harder it will be to bring back. Plus if you are able to bring it back, the older it is, the more corrupted the file will be. So if you want to bring a deleted file back, you need to do it as fast as possible. The more you delay, the less chance there is of recovering it.

After using Recuva for a couple of days, I have ended up being very impressed with it. It is very fast with finding recoverable files and when you click on what you want brought back, it restores the file and sends it back to your hard drive within seconds.

So here’s how the program works.

1. After opening the program, select the drive where the file was deleted then click the “scan” button.

2. Recuva then starts sweeping the specified hard drive looking for files that are able to be restored.

3. You then get a list of all the files that Recuva was able to find. As you can see, some of the files are unidentifiable with just scrambled file names but a lot of other files have their original names intact (more on that later). What I really liked about Recuva is that it has a colour-coded system where you can see right away the status of each file and whether or not it is in any condition to be downloaded successfully or not.

Red means the file is basically screwed and you can forget it. Yellow means the file is in very bad condition but you can still download it and take your chances with it – some of it might be salvageable. Green means that the file is in excellent condition and you can get it back no problem.

4. If there are too many files returned to manage or you are looking for a particular file, you can filter the files. Just specify a file type or a file name in the “filename or path” field or drop down the menu to specify a file type. So for example, by typing in “googleupdate”, I was able to find three particular files.

5. Now say I want to want to recover those 3 files? I just need to tick them and click the “recover” button. Recuva will ask me to specify where on the computer they should go and when I have told it, the files will start downloading. In fact, they are put back on the computer so fast that I didn’t even have time to make a screenshot!

That’s basically all there is to it. Just remember to untick those files in Recuva before you close the program because Recuva remembers those files next time and will keep on downloading them over and over again! So untick them once you have recovered them and you’ll be fine.

Do you use Recuva? If so, what have been your experiences with it? What percentage of files have you managed to recover using this app? Is there any particular file format in your opinion that recovers better than all the others?

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How To Speed Up The Shutdown Of Your Windows

Will Mueller — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:02:01 +0000

The Windows shutdown process may be as slow as the start up unfortunately. But, due to Windows amazing ability of user managed settings, you can change that! So, how can you speed up your Windows Shutdown process ?

(There have been previous articles – in the WinHack column – on how to Speed Up Windows twice, here and here.)

WARNING : BEFORE making any changes to the Windows registry, it is highly recommended to make a backup in case anything goes wrong. To backup your Windows registry, tap your Windows key on the keyboard and “R”. When the Run box comes up, type regedit. When the Registry box comes up, go to ‘File’ then ‘Export’. Save the resulting file to your hard drive.

Ready for some more tweaking? Let’s go!

Auto-Kill All Programs at Shutdown

This tweak can speed up the process a lot by killing tasks quickly and not requiring user input for closing them, e.g. the repetitive Firefox pop-up asking if you really want to quit. Here it is:

Step 1: Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type regedit.

Step 2: Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: Find the Registry Key called AutoEndTasks and right-click then select Modify. Change the value to 1.

Change Application Hang Time

There are a few Registry Keys that are, by default, set to a ridiculous setting. There are three of them that we are going to cover today called WaitToKillApp, HangAppTime, and WaitToKillServiceTimeout.

WaitToKillApp sets the time for Windows to wait before killing the application you are attempting to close, while HangAppTime sets the hang time for the app before closing, and WaitToKillServiceTimeout sets the time for Windows to wait before killing Microsoft Services.

By shortening these you will, obviously, have a faster application response.

Ready? Let’s do it!

Step 1: Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type regedit.

Step 2: Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: Find the Registry Key labeled WaitToKillApp, HangAppTime, and WaitToKillServiceTimeout and right-click them, then select Modify. Change the value to 1000.

Disable Clearing of Paging File

We previously talked about the paging article in another article on speeding up Windows, but today we are talking about how to speed up the use of the Paging File even more.

On shutdown, Windows automatically removes the contents of the Paging File for security, because it may run as a temporary file, holding information such as unencrypted passwords, etc. (If you believe the security of your system will be too far out of control due to the absence of removal of such information, then it is not necessary that you use this hack.)

Let’s do it!

Step 1: Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type regedit.

Step 2: Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management.

Step 3: Find the Registry Key labeled ClearPageFileOnShutdown and right-click it, then select Modify. Change the value to 0.

Hope this helps you get into your tweaking mood! Have fun ~~hacking~~ tweaking! More next time on WinHack!

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Three Quick Registry Tweaks to Customize Windows Like a Pro

Will Mueller — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:01:12 +0000

I have been saying repetitively how wonderful Windows is. The registry particularly can make customization easy and definitely fun. Today, we will be looking at just a few registry tweaks that can increase your ability to customize Windows to an extreme level.

WARNING : BEFORE making any changes to the Windows registry, it is highly recommended to make a backup in case anything goes wrong. To backup your Windows registry, tap your Windows key on the keyboard and “R”. When the Run box comes up, type regedit. When the Registry box comes up, go to ‘File’ then ‘Export’. Save the resulting file to your hard drive.

Lets get started!

Tweak 1 – Become Your Own Computer Manufacturer

It is common for computers to come with information about the manufacturer in Start Menu under the “Run” entry. Wouldn’t it be cool, though, to be your own computer manufacturer?

Well, it is possible with Windows! Let’s do it then:

notepad.exe

Step 2: Copy the following into it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=”TITLE HERE”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@=”ICON HERE”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
“ThreadingModel”=”Apartment”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
“CLSID”=”{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
“CLSID”=”{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}”
“method”=”ShellExecute”
“Command”=”TITLE HERE”
“Param1″=”FUNCTION HERE”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=”"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=”"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
“Attributes”=dword:00000000

Step 3: Change the following values to whatever you like:

TITLE HERE – Add the text that you want to be shows, ex. John’s PC

ICON HERE – The image that is used as a brand logo. It must be a .ico and 24×24. (E.g. C:\\mylogo.ico. The \ has to be replaced by two \\’s.)

FUNCTION HERE – This should be replaced with the function that will be used when clicked. (E.g. A website, a windows executable, etc. http://google.com will redirect to Google when clicked.)

Step 4: Save the file as brand.reg and double-click it. Now, simply log off and back on and you should have your own branded version of Windows!

Tweak 2 – Create Your Own Run Command

I talk a lot about Windows, and using the “Run” command is a large part of it. It is a simple and easy method of accessing programs quickly. If you happen to want to make a shortcut to an application your own way, guess what, you can!

Let’s do it:

regedit

Step 2: Navigate to the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Apps Path

Step 3: Create a new folder/key under Apps Path. (Right-Click Apps Path and click “New,” “Key.”)

Step 4: Title the new folder/key the name of the application, e.g. firefox.exe.

Step 5: Right-Click the default string value (the thing automatically created in your new folder) and click Modify.

Step 6: Change the value to the path of the executable you are attempting to run. E.g. C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe.

Step 7: Create a new “String Value” by right-clicking under the default value (the thing we just edited) and select “New,” “String Value.” Name it Path and enter the value as the same path you previously entered.

Step 8: Done! Now, all you need to do is go to “Start,” “Run,” and type the name of your command!

Tweak 3 – Change Windows Start Menu Delay

The MenuShowDelay registry key sets a delay for different menus. This registry key is one of the most useless keys in Windows.

If, for some reason, you want your start menu to delay for 900 milli-seconds, then you do not need to mess with this at all. If you do, though, want to speed up your computer just a little more then here is how you lower the menu delay:

regedit

2. Navigate to the following:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

3. Find the key labeled “MenuShowDelay” and right-click, then click Modify.

4. Change the value to whatever you like. (The range is 0-999 in milliseconds.)

Hope these tweaks helped you get closer to a nearly perfectly tweaked computer! Are you aware of any other cool registry tweaks? Please share them in comments.

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Change The Windows Logon Screensaver And More (Win XP)

Will Mueller — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:01:11 +0000

All of the Windows operating systems seem to allow an extreme amount of customization and change based on user desires. Today, we will talk about a small part of that – tweaking the Windows logon/boot.

Well, ready to get started? Let’s do it.

Messing around with the actual login can be quite fun as well. Actually, if that does not pump you up enough, what if I told you it was easy? Yes, well, it is! Here are a few cool things you can do with the registry to make your login screen a little more personal:

Add A Login Text Reminder

This little reminder will pop-up everytime you start the computer, right before the login screen boots. You can edit it to say whatever you like.

regedit.ext

2. When the Registry Editor loads, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ Current Version \ Winlogon

3. You should now see a multitude of registry keys that are essential for the logon. To do what we are trying to do, add a text reminder, find the registry key LegalNoticeCaption and right-click, and select Modify.

4. Now, type whatever you like in the box to set a caption/title for the window.

5. For the actual text you would like to display, find the Registry Key right under it titled LegalNoticeText and again right-click it, then select Modify. Type whatever you like in the box.

Set Default Logon Identity

Also conveniently placed in the Winlogon directory is the Registry Key titled AutoAdminLogin, DefaultDomainName, and DefaultUserName. These keys set the default login credentials for the system when the login is loaded. If you simply want to save time by automatically setting the correct username and password everytime, and this computer is not used by a bunch of people then it is fine.

If the computer you are tweaking happens to be used by many people then I would not recommend using this tweak, unless, of course, you are intending on everyone using the same account. Anyway here it is:

regedit.exe

2. When the Registry Editor loads, navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ Current Version \ Winlogon

3. The AutoAdminLogin key should be set to 0 currently if your system does not automatically log you on. If the system does, though, automatically log you on, then this should be set to 1.

4. The DefaultDomainName key is the default user directory the username is selected to do. Usually, this will not need to be changed, unless you are logging onto a server.

5. The DefaultUserName key, obviously, sets the default username. You can change this to whatever you wish to accompany your username.

Change the Logon Screensaver

Changing the logon screensaver may be the best part. The ability to show your friends your ultra-cool ~~hacking~~ tweaking skills and superior computer modding. Anyway, here is an easy way using some cool software. (Note: The installation is quite easy and shouldn’t need much explanation.)

BootSkin

2. Find and download new or used current “BootSkins” provided after installation to change your boot screen. (To download and access new “BootSkins” you can go to WinCustomize.)

Hope these small tweaks help you get a little closer to the perfect computer. Have fun tweaking!

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WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows Computer (Part 2)

Will Mueller — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:01:28 +0000

Welcome to the second part of “Speed Up Your Computer.” If you haven’t read the first part I highly recommend doing so here. Finished? OK, let’s move onto part two.

In the previous article on speeding up Windows, I talked about how to disable unnecessary Microsoft services that could easily slow down your system. Unfortunately yes, there are also non-Microsoft services!

The Other Unnecessary Windows Services to Disable

Sometimes, when installing applications, the software will automatically install a “useful” service to run in the background to make that application run better, only to slow down your computer because you don’t use that application!

To disable these unnecessary memory hogs, simply:

1- Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type msconfig.

2- Click on the “Services” tab and select “Hide All Microsoft Services.”

3- You should now see a bunch of services that have been created by different pieces of software you have on your computer, of course just using memory you really do need. All you need to do is unselect the services you do not want running and click “Apply.”

Disable Page File

Windows automatically uses paging files as somewhat of a seriously unnecessary “extension” of the RAM. In a much shorter tense (of the possibly extremely long explanation), if the paging file is disabled, your computer will likely run that much faster.

To disable the paging file (Note: disable paging file only if your have at least 1GB of RAM):

Right-Click on “My Computer,” and select “Properties.”
Click the “Advanced” tab, and then click “Settings” under the “Performance” section.
Click the “Advanced” tab one more time, and then click “Change,” under the Virtual Memory section.
Click “No Paging File,” and then click Apply button on all three windows. Done, the paging file should be disabled on the next startup.

If you do not have the suggested 1GB of RAM for disabling the paging file, you can still lower the consumption of the paging file for more memory.

It is not necessary for the paging file to be tampered with those under 1GB of RAM, but leaving the computer to automatically adjust the size of the paging file can be a really bad development.

One reason is that applications may take a much longer amount of time to load due to the automatic analysis and adjustment of the paging file size, and doing so may cause fragmentation errors. None of which are that helpful.

So, if you would like to increase the speed of your computer by limiting the paging file, you may do the following:

2- Click the “Advanced” tab, and then click “Settings” under the “Performance” section.

3- Click the “Advanced” tab, and then click “Change,” under the Virtual Memory section.

4- Find the system’s recommended paging file size as dictated on the line labeled “C:\” and multiply by 2.5. Simply enter those values into the Initial Size and the Maximum Size.

Automatically Remove Temporary Files On Shutdown

One thing Windows does great is creating temporary files for EVERYTHING! Nearly every single thing you do on the computer is logged somewhere in a temporary file that can be used for a bunch of different things, but it is quite unlikely that you will – for some reason – need to access your temporary files to load anything note-worthy, so it is probably OK to remove.

To automatically remove these files on shutdown, simply open Notepad and enter the following information in the file:

RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USERNAME\Local Settings\History”
RD /S /q “C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History” RD /S /q
“D:\Temp\”

Simply replace the place where your username is requested and the D:\Temp\ directory where you Temp folder is. (If you are not sure where you temporary folder is go to “Start,” “Run,” and type %temp% to load your temp folder.

Now, save the file as whatever you like and wherever you like, except when saving select “All Files,” instead of the default “Text Documents.” Make sure to include .bat at the end of the filename to save it as a batch file.

Now follow the following steps:

Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type gpedit.msc.
Click “Computer Configuration” and then “Windows Settings.”
Click “Scripts,” and then “Shutdown.”
Click “Add,” and select the file you just created.
Temporary files should be automatically deleted everytime you shutdown.

You are now on your way to the fastest computer in the neighborhood!

Stay tuned for more Windows tweaks in the next WinHacks post!

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Tweak Your Windows Operating System With Xpy

Varun Kashyap — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:01:42 +0000

The current Windows operating systems are far from perfect, One is 7 years old and the other is.. well.. Vista. There are often situations where you would want to change a particular setting (or settings) on your system, you Google for a solution, find one and then you have to mess with the registry.

Enter Xpy, to take care of your tweaking needs!

Xpy allows you to tweak a number of Windows settings easily and improve the overall Windows performance. All you have to do is place a check mark next to the setting you wish to change and then hit “next” and Xpy will take care of the rest.

There are a number of other features (i.e. deleting pagefile on shutdown, removing windows messenger etc.) that make Xpy a tool worth having, however first le’ts have a look at some of the settings you can tweak with Xpy.

The tweaks are classified into several categories:

General
Services
Internet Explorer
Windows Media Player
Windows Messenger
Windows Desktop Search
Usability
Delete Files

And they range from “Enable delete pagefile at shutdown” to “disable selected services” to “Increase maximum connections in Internet Explorer” to “Disable DRM for imported music in WMP” to “Disable balloon popups, Autorun, Desktop Cleanup” to “Deleting Recycle Bin, My Documents, My Computer shortcuts” and much much more.

There are a couple of interesting features that I really like in Xpy.

It allows you to save all the tweaks that you made on the system in a file. Just use Xpy with /file switch and it creates a settings file on the desktop. Next time provide the file as an argument and boom all your settings are applied! This is especially useful if you have to re-install the system or you are responsible for maintaining a number of computers.

Secondly it allows you to restore any changes you made to the system using Xpy. When you run Xpy, after you have applied the tweaks, it gives you the option to restore previous settings or go ahead with further tweaking.

Thirdly it’s portable (doesn’t require an install) and always ready to use!

Some other features include:

- Disable Windows communicating with Microsoft
- Disable questionable services
- Tweak Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player
- Remove Windows Messenger
- Improve privacy and security
- Improve performance

A Mention: The Xpy icon looks scary. It looks as if double-clicking the icon will unleash a wrath of the Devil on your system. Some anti-virus programs may also show it as a suspicious file but as the Xpy page says: “Xpy is not evil, it’s a problem with all NSIS compiled software, but if you are the suspicious type you can always have a look at the source code (SourceForge and Google Code) and build a binary yourself!”

Do you use such software to tweak your system? Or do you prefer editing the registry manually instead? Know of other similar tools? Let us know in the comments!

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WinHack – Speed Up Your Windows XP Computer (Part 1)

Will Mueller — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:01:39 +0000

As you use your computer more and more, speed becomes a larger issue. Maybe you’ve downloaded a bunch of unnecessary freeware or you just have used your computer for quite a while – either way, computers gradually become not so fast.

But today, I will show you how to speed up that computer of yours and make it like new! So here are just a few methods:

Disable Unnecessary Windows Services

Windows comes with a bunch of services, or processes, in the background that help the operating system run and do the daily functions a computer does – except some of these are unnecessary. You really do not need to have all of the Microsoft services running in the background at one time – many of which don’t ever need to run at all.

Of course, many windows services are necessary so you need to be very careful what you disable. But if you disable the correct ones you may just be that much closer to a much faster computer.

To disable Windows services:

1. Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type services.msc
2. You may now disable any of the following services based on your use – or non-use – of them:

(1) Task Scheduler

(2) Automatic Updates – Automatically checks for updates from Microsoft. You can just do so manually by going here.

(3) Smart Card – If you do not use Smart Cards, you can stop it.

(4) Error Reporting Service – This is the thing that pops up everytime a program crashes asking if you want to report what happened to Microsoft. If you always decide not to, then you can disable this one.

(5) Telnet – Used to allow users to connect to your desktop remotely. If you do not need to access your computer remotely, you can disable this.

(6) Remote Registry Service – You really do not need this one. It allows you to remotely edit your registry. Most people definitely do not need this.

(7) Clipbook – Allows you to remotely copy/paste on a private network. It is unlikely many people will use this.

(8) Alerter – This one is completely useless. SP2 automatically disables it for you.

(9) Wireless Zero Configuration – This is necessary if you use Wi-Fi. If not, you can disable this.

(10) Uninterruptible Power Supply – This is unnecessary if, of course, you do not have an uninterruptible power supply.

(11) Windows Messenger – This service can be falsely used for spam. I highly recommend removing it. (Note: It is not related to the IM client.)

Stop Programs From Running in Startup

Part of downloading all of that freeware and even just installing work-related applications, a likely part of the installation process, is the unfortunate automatic setting of starting the application on startup. Gradually, your computer takes forever to startup and eventually it becomes ridiculously slow. You could use an application like StartupDelayer to delay programs from starting up (also check out AutoRuns by Karl and WinPatrol by Mark), but many of those applications do not even need to be running at all.

So here is one way to stop those unnecessary applications from running:

1. Go to “Start,” “Run,” and type msconfig.
2. Click on the “Startup” tab.

You should now see a list of all of the programs that automatically start up. Many of these applications are nicely labeled with the correct names, but some are not. If they are not clearly labeled you can just check the path of the file and hopefully find the name of the program, but if not it is probably better to just not remove it.

When you are disabling services make sure not to disable any of the Microsoft Services. Many of the ones that you see on the startup are necessary. Once you have selected the services you do not need, simply click “Apply.”

Hope this helps some of you to get started on speeding up that computer of yours. Stay tuned for the next installment of WinHack!

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PCHelpware- Lightning Fast Tool for Remote Support (Win)

Ben — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:19:11 +0000

Let’s see here… WHAT!?!?!? $700 just for remote support software?! Ever feel like that? You need to give remote support but don’t want to shell out 700 to a couple thousand bucks, luckily, you don’t have to.

With PcHelpWare from uVNC, you get a portable, free, customizable, professional remote support program. But do you get what you pay for or is this one of the best things in life that are free?

The admin interface is just a bit more “techie” than some of the other remote support programs out there, but offers the same functionality. To create a server (that’s what client needs to download before you can offer him remote support) fill out the relevant information, and click on “Create Server”.

That will run a batch file that generators a small .exe file that who ever needs help can run. Then simply click on “Start” and wait for the user to run the program and click connect. As for the user, the interface couldn’t be simpler.

Here is a detailed list of instructions for the user after they have downloaded the program and run it:

1. Click “Connect”.
2. The End.

Yeah, that’s it. You can also require the user to enter the login and password.

So you’ve sent the file to the user, they’ve downloaded it and clicked connect. Now you have control of their computer, but what can you do?

In short, everything.

The image quality is spectacular, it feels like your actually sitting in front of the user’s computer. It is also lightning fast, the image coming across is almost real time. Need to get a file from point A to point B, with PcHelpware you can transfer files copy paste style, copy the file, click sync clipboard, paste.

You can also chat with the user if you need, go full-screen, and if necessary, lock server input (lock the keyboard and mouse at the user’s computer.)

For all of you security freaks, PcHelpware connects with two different encryption protocols, so everything you do is secure.

Yeah that’s great, but what about that customization you told me about! I’ll say this much, PcHelpware is the most customizable remote support software I’ve seen, but also the least user friendly to customize.

If all you do is edit the default “background.bmp” it is fairly easy, however, you can completely customize where the Login and Password fields are (or remove them completely), the size and shape, and just about anything you can think of. Unfortunately, there really isn’t a graphical way to do this, however uVNC does have a great section on how to customize the server here.

All and all PcHelpware is an absolutely great remote support app. It is 100% free and customizable. It includes many of the features of commercial products: repeaters, works behind firewalls, customization, etc. My one complaint if any is the slightly more complicated back end, but the front end is impossible to beat. Despite a few short comings, PcHelpware more than makes up for them with its price, customization, and speed.

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WinHack – How to Change the Windows Start Button (Win XP)

Will Mueller — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:01:33 +0000

Windows XP is, in my opinion, one of the best operating systems. It is extremely customizable (even if it is not intended to be), compatible with nearly everything, and is quite stable. Here I will show you just one way to customize it, to be precise ‘ how to change windows start button text ‘. It will really remind you how much of a ~~hacker~~ tweaker you really are.

First, to do it the easy way, you need to download a program that will really assist you in helping you find what you are looking for and making sure you do not mess up along the way. After you have downloaded it, run the .exe file, so that we may begin tweaking.

First, open the explorer.exe file located here: C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe . You should now be able to see a list of different folders on the side that are made up of numbers in the “String Table” directory. The one we are looking for is folder 37 with the other sub-directory option being 1033. Inside that file there are multiple lines of text – we want to change the “start” text. You can change it to whatever you want, but keep under 20 characters as the tab becomes too large after that. Also, make sure you do not change any of the text on the other lines.

When you have changed it to whatever you want, click “File,” “Save As,” and save it as explorerhacked.exe. (Note: You can change it to whatever you like, but in this demonstration we are using the explorerhacked file.)

Now, go to “Start,” “Run,” and type in “regedit”. When the Registry Editor loads expand to the following directory: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,SOFTWARE,Microsoft,Windows NT,CurrentVersion, and WinLogon. In that directory find the entry that is titled “Shell” and right-click it. Select “Modify.” Now, type in ExplorerHacked.exe.

Close the Registry Editor and log back in. You should now see your start button changed to whatever you typed in!

Have fun ~~hacking~~ tweaking!

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Recover Your Lost XP, Vista & Office Serial Numbers

Karl L. Gechlik — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:41:33 +0000

Hey, Hey, Hey!

AskTheAdmin here again with another free tool that I can’t live without. As TheAdmiN I have literally over 10,000 servers in production. Most of them are on the same corporate open license program and have the same serial number and need no activation. BUT there are more than a few machines that are not owned by my company and were installed, configured and shipped to us as-is.

When one of these machines crash or are about to fail there is little I can do other than call the respective company’s support staff. I hate relying on other people!

Now perhaps I need to build a quick replacement for one of these machines – say a label printing machine on loan from UPS or in your case maybe your home file server. Now if you don’t have the serial (aka product key) number for reinstalling – it is going to be a real… pardon my French… BITCH!

If the machine is still up and running and you have access to it you can install a tiny program that will give you the serial numbers for installed Microsoft Products including Vista, XP, 2000 and any office suite right up to our current 2007 offering.

It is free, totally safe and something that lives on my memory stick (it’s a portable app). Let’s take a look at how it works.

You can download it securely from SourceForge here. and the main site for it is over here.

No need to install it – just run the ‘exe’ from inside the zip file and it will return a screen that looks similar to this:

Your products will be displayed and there are the corresponding serial keys! Sweet! You will notice off the tools menu an option that looks like this:

It will let you change the registered user name for Windows or Office. Very handy.

When researching the newest version of this tool for my article (I was using a 2 year old version) I found this little chunk of information which made me smile:

It also has a community-updated configuration file that retrieves product keys for many other applications.

So it not only works for M$ applications but through a little forum magic you can make it work with almost anything that stores its password information in the registry! Double Sweet.

And then as if that wasn’t enough I continued reading and saw this:

Another feature is the ability to retrieve product keys from unbootable Windows installations.

Unbootable Windows Installations? This is a straight up life saver! Who knew I could like my little Magical JellyBean App any more! Just do yourself a favor and NOT tell people what it is called! Unless you are prepared for STRANGE and Dirty Looks!

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4 Applications to Give Windows XP Mac Functionality

Kyle Judkins — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:36:55 +0000

I have been a Windows user from the time I was a little tot. I am still a Windows user (and am perfectly happy with it), but sometimes I look over at a Mac and wish I had just a few of their features on my Windows machine. After doing some searching, I have been able to find four applications that give me the few things that I wanted to have on my Windows PC but has traditionally only been available on a Mac.

Rocketdock

As you can tell, Rocketdock is an application launcher that functions in the same way as the Dock does on Mac computers. I have always really liked the Dock on Macs, because it helped keep your desktop and task bar clear of clutter that can get built up over time. Rocketdock also has several docklets available that allows you to customize it to your liking.

RocketDock has been previously mentioned on Make Use Of, such as Tina here.

Yahoo! Widgets

Widgets have always interested me with their ability to keep you up to date on whatever you want while still being hidden behind your desktop. A simple press of a hotkey opens up a world of tools and knowledge. Yahoo! Widgets allows you to bring this functionality to your Windows XP PC. There are almost 5,000 widgets available from Yahoo so you will definitely be able to find what you need.

DExposE2

Expose has always been such a nice feature on Macs that serves as a great alternative to alt+tab. Alt+tab has traditionally served me well, but as I have gotten more and more into being a geek, I tend to have more and more applications open at the same time. This can make alt+tab not as useful when switching between windows or applications. DEexpose2 brings great expose functionality to your Windows computer to give you an alternative to alt+tab.

Launchy

Quicksilver was the first keyboard application launcher I ever heard about, but it was only available for Macs. Quicksilver allows users to quickly perform many different types of tasks through just a couple of keystrokes. In early 2007, Launchy was released and brought Quicksilver-like functionality to Windows XP. Since its release, Launchy has received critical acclaim, and it was also recently written about on Make Use Of by Shankar. You might also want to check out Enso Launcher that was covered by Jimmy. We also talked about it in latest MakeUseOf Podcast as well.

What Mac features would you like to see brought over to the PC?

Kyle Judkins is a 24 year old marketer and part-time tech blogger. He is the author of LostInTechnology where he talks about some basic technology tips and tricks that everyone can use.

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Organize Your Windows Start Menu with SMOz

Kyle Judkins — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:56:22 +0000

As a blogger and tech geek, I have found my start menu getting out of control from time to time due to all of the programs and applications that I download. SMOz is a great program that will help you easily organize your start menu and reduce your clutter.

SMOz is extremely easy to use and makes that start menu reorganization you’ve been wanting to do take just a few minutes.

SMOz comes with a default template that is good right out of the box. The default template has nine different categories and will automatically place some of the more common programs in places they should go (i.e. iTunes in Multimedia).

Programs that are not classified are left in an empty category and can be easily dragged to the destination of your choice.

The beauty of SMOz is that you can fully customize these categories and easily add and remove programs from them.

Your changes are also not made until you apply them, so you can play around with it and make sure you get all of your categories just right.

Here is the finished product after only a couple of minutes of work with SMOz.

Now, that is much more manageable.

It is a given that you are going to download more programs and applications in the future, and there is no need to worry as they will enter the Start Menu properly. All you need to do to organize new programs is open up SMOz and drag the new programs out of the empty category into the appropriate category.

(By) Kyle Judkins is a 24 year old marketer and part-time tech blogger. He is the author of Lost In Technology where he talks about some basic technology tips and tricks that everyone can use.

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Is Your Wireless Network Safe?

Tina — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:15:26 +0000

By now wireless networks are virtually everywhere, easily accessible and often freely available. Most of us have it in our home, surfing the web anywhere inside and outside the house, reading mails in bed first thing in the morning, or listening to streaming music in the kitchen while doing the dishes.

The image to the left was graciously provided by LightFusionStudio via stock.xchng VI.

But is your wireless network safe? Did you take all the commonly recommended precautions? Did you…

change the default router password?
change the default IP subnet?
disable remote router access?
change the default SSID?
disable SSID broadcasting?
turn on the router firewall?
enable data encryption, preferably WPA/TKIP?
enable MAC filtering?

Did you or is this all Greek to you? Net-Security.org has a pretty good article explaining all relevant terminology and why it’s important to take the aforementioned steps.

Now if you did follow all of the advice, is your wireless network safe? Probably not. Even the strongest encryption can be hacked, every firewall has a hole and if someone really wants to break in, they will find a way. It’s not very likely, but it’s still possible.

What remains to be done is monitor your wireless network for suspicious activity. If you don’t find your router’s built in MAC address login and protocols convenient to use, here’s an alternative. AirSnare is a thorough network monitor for both wired and wireless networks from Windows 98 up to Windows XP. It will detect all active MAC addresses and monitor their activity. Warnings will be issued if unknown / unfriendly MAC addresses are detected.

However, before you go ahead and download AirSnare, you should be aware of a few potential issues:

it was last updated in 2006
it may not support all network cards
it may cause problems with Windows 2k
it only works with WinPcap 3.1 (new version 4.0)
the support forum seems broken

Nevertheless, AirSnare can be a valuable tool. The main window shows three major categories on the left: Network Adapters, Unfriendly MAC Addresses and Friendly MAC Addresses. To start monitoring your network connections, double click the respective network adapter(s) or right-click and select >Start. Then watch for detection of unfriendly MAC addresses. You can manually add friendly MAC addresses by right-clicking the category and selecting >Add New or you right-click on a MAC address reported as unfriendly and select >Add to Trusted.

AirSnare optionally scans for MAC, TCP and UPD traffic, and you can track connections via the AirSnare or Ethereal protocols. DHCP requests can be shown in a separate window. Per default there is an audio alarm when potential unauthorized actions, routers, ARP Poisons, MAC Spoofs or Gateway connections are found. The audio alarm can be turned off via >Options menu >General tab >Alert section >remove checkmark infront of Play WAV Alert Sound.

The AirHorn option is a cool idea, but as of Windows XP SP2 won’t work, if the windows firewall is on and the messenger service is turned off on the receiving machine. I couldn’t get the >Send E-mail on alert option to work either.

So what do you do when you detect a questionable MAC address? If there is suspicious activity on your wireless network, you best change your network key, exclude the MAC address via your router, and eventually change your IP subnet. If the activity comes in via the wired network, you should also increase your local security, scan your system for malware, update your firewall, and lock up your network as best as you can.

How do you keep your wireless network safe? What tools are you using and what’s your experience with them? Do you know of a better, free alternative to AirSnare? Please share and leave a comment!

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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Great Alternatives to Quicktime and RealPlayer

Travis Quinnelly — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:48:19 +0000

Running across QuickTime or Real Player content around the net is not hard to do. We all find ourselves occasionally trying to access a .mov file or any of the many Real Player file formats. Either way, you’ve usually got to end up installing QuickTime or Real Player. Here at Make Use Of, we really don’t have a problem with either of these services, they just seem a little bloated for our very limited usage of them.

In comes a great site called CodecGuide.com with two great alternatives for these two aggravating applications.

QuickTime Alternative

QuickTime Alternative is a slim and trim version of the popular QuickTime. It only contains the essential portions of the program crucial to playing QuickTime content that might be embedded into web pages you visit. I mean, who wants to load that QuickTime package only for it to add itself to the startup every time you boot up and trying to check in with Apple’s servers?

From the site:

Advantages of QuickTime Alternative are:

Quick and easy install

Ability to make an unattended installation

No background processes

No unwanted stuff and other nonsense

Smaller size

There is also another variation of the QuickTime Alternative known as QT Lite. The only real difference is that the QT Lite version does not contain the Media Player Classic.

OS: Windows XP/2003/Vista

RealPlayer Alternative

The “Real Alternative” allows you the ability to play RealMedia without requiring you to install the dreaded RealPlayer. Even though RealNetworks really doesn’t have a foothold on the internet media war that they used to, this is a perfect solution to that one site you visit that still streams audio/video in RealPlayer format.

All the “Real” file formats are supported including the ability to view streaming content.

Formats:

.ra
.rm
.rmvb
.ram
.rpm
.rv
.rp
.rt
.rnx
.smi
.smil

From the site:

Some advantages compared to RealPlayer:

Quick and easy install

It’s easy to make an unattended installation

Proper uninstallation

No background processes

Use a player of your own choice

Low on resources

No advertising, no registration forms, nothing annoying

As with the Quicktime Alternative above, the RealPlayer Alternative includes a Lite version without the Media Player Classic.

OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista

(By) Travis is a husband, engineer, entrepreneur, technology swami, visual communicator, WordPress lover and writer in his spare time. You can check out his personal blog at TQuizzle.com.

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