Saturday, August 1, 2009

Make your Computer Fresh & Clean with CCleaner (Freeware)

Tired of seeing the URL history, Downloads history, Temporary Files?

Want to make your computer look like how it used to be after a fresh format?

If your answer is Yes for the above questions, your tool is CCleaner.
If Optimization and Privacy are your headaches, CCleaner is your medicine.

Adding Run Command Button to Start Menu of Windows Vista

For Your Information:- Shortcut Key for Run Command Dialog box is (Windows Key + R)

Run command is not seen on the Start Menu of Windows Vista. Classic Start Menu system has been completely removed from Windows 7.

But there are users who love to see Run command in the Start Menu. Some of the users even complain for not including Run in Start Menu as Windows Search bar is slower compared to Run command.

This article will tell you how to enable the Run command button on the Start Menu using Local Policy Editor
Here are the steps to be followed:-

Online Document Viewer (.pdf, .doc, docx, .xlsx, .pptx and many more)

Have you come across a situation in which you had to view a PDF or PPT file but you don't have MS Office or PDF viewer installed on the PC?

This happens most of the time and sadly you cannot ask the PC owner to install MS Office or PDF Viewer for your job.

Luckily if you have Internet access from that PC! Voila! You can view those documents for free online.

This might be a good option for emergency situation where in you don't have time to install.

View Docs Online is a website that helps you in viewing the most common type of documents in a simple and fast way.

Installing Windows XP / Vista / 7 via USB Pen Drive

Are you sick of burning CDs & DVDs and protecting them from scratches?

Are you tired of typing all those commands to install Windows from USB Pen Drive?

Here is the easiest method of burning ISO images to pen drive and making it bootable.

Things you need:-
1) UltraISO - 30 day trial version can be downloaded from http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/
2) Pen Drive - 1 GB (for XP) and 4 GB (for Vista/7)
3) Windows XP / Vista / 7 ISO Image

Here is the 6 step process:-

Friday, July 31, 2009

Accessing MS Office 2007 files in MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003

MS Office 2007 comes up with new file extensions for Word (*.docx), Excel (*.xlsx) and Powerpoint (*.pptx). By default these extensions are not backward compatible with earlier MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003. Hence files with these new extensions cannot be opened using MS Office 2000 / XP / 2003.

As time progresses, you could find that people are moving towards MS Office 2007 as hence it is high time that a fix should be made to open those new extension files in your old MS Office.

Running Multiple Instances of Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger

Multiple Instances of Google Talk
You may want to run more than one instance of Google Talk at once. Here is the way to do it
1) Click Start -> All Programs -> Google Talk -> Google Talk
2) Right Click Google Talk and click Properties
3) You will find this in Target
"C:\Users\Chandrasekar\AppData\Roaming\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /startmenu"
4) Append /nomutex to the link in Target
In my case, "C:\Users\Chandrasekar\AppData\Roaming\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /startmenu" /nomutex
5) Now click Google Talk again and you would see that an another instance of Google Talk will open. You can open as many instances you want.

doPDF - Freeware - Convert your files to PDF

* doPDF acts as a virtual PDF printer driver and hence after the installation it will appear in your Printers and Faxes list.

* To convert to PDF, you just have to print the document that you want to convert using virtual PDF printer.

* Open a document (with MS Word, Notepad or any other software), choose Print and in select printer select doPDF .

Changing Drive Letter in Windows

Sometimes you may want to change the Drive Letter after Partitioning.

Here are the steps to accomplish this task:-

1) Click Start and type in compmgmt.msc in the dialog box
2) Click Disk Management which is under
3) Right click the Drive you want to change the letter and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths
4) Choose the drive and click Change button
5) From the drop down menu, choose the letter you want to assign and Click OK.

Manually removing Newfolder.exe / regsvr.exe / autorun.inf Virus

1) Handling autorun.inf
(a) Search for autorun.inf file on each drives. It is a read only file. Right click on the file and select Properties and uncheck the read only option.
(b) Open the autorun.inf file in notepad and erase all the contents and save the file
(c) After you save the file, restore the permissions of the file to read only by checking the read only option
(d) Click Start and type in msconfig
(e) Go to startup tab. Look for regsvr and uncheck the option and click OK
(f) Click on "Exit without restart"
(g) Navigate to Control Panel and double click Scheduled Tasks and delete all irrelevant tasks listed there.

Fixing Power Calibration Error while burning CD/DVDs

The reason for "Power Calibration Error" is that burning software could not determine the exact calibration rate for burning the DVD. Hence, if you experience "Power Calibration Error" while burning CD/DVD's, here are the few possible solutions that you can try with.

1) Try using a different brand of blank media such as Sony, Moserbaer, Verbatim, etc. Sometimes cheap brand can be the cause of this error.

Shutdown XP Faster in Seconds

Click Start and type in regedit in the run dialog box

Navigate to the following registry keys and make the respective changes:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Double Click WaitToKillServiceTimeout and change the value data to 1000
Double Click HungAppTimeout and change the value data to 1000
Double Click AutoEndTasks and change the value data to 1

ExtractNow - Freeware for Decompressing files

ExtractNow can serve as a free alternative to commercial applications like Winzip and Winrar.
It is a simple utility that extracts multiple archives quickly and easily.

Features:-
* Supports ZIP, RAR, ISO, BIN, IMG, IMA, IMZ, 7Z, ACE, GZ, LHA, TAR, SIT archive formats
* Drag and drop files or folders from Windows Explorer to extract them
* Simple user interface and sleek design in a small package
* Recursively search through folders for archives (Just drag and drop them)
* Delete files or close program after extraction options

Enable Hibernation in Windows Vista / Windows 7

Hibernation is turned off in Windows Vista / Windows 7 by default. Here are the steps to turn on Hibernation.

Just open up an administrative level command prompt.

This can be done by clicking Start and then type in cmd

Right click cmd that comes below Programs and click "Run as Administrator"

Enabling Telnet Client in Windows Vista / Windows 7

By default, Telnet Client is not installed in Windows Vista / Windows 7.

The Telnet Client is required for remote access. It can be installed through the following steps:-

1) Click Start and click Computer

2) Click Uninstall or change a program tab on the top

Fixing Slow Tab Issue in Internet Explorer 8

For those users who are experiences slowness while opening new tabs, here is the way to fix it.

Just open up an administrative level command prompt.

This can be done by clicking Start and then type in cmd

Right click cmd that comes below Programs and click "Run as Administrator"

Fireup Mozilla Firefox to increase Speed

Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter

You will see a warning. Just ignore it and click "I will be careful, I promise"

Make the following changes to the values:-

Disabling Animations during Maximize / Minimize to improve Speed

Use this tweak to avoid the unnecessary delay which is created while you minimize and maximize windows in Windows Vista & Windows 7

It will make your computer faster and better.

Click on the Start Button and type SystemPropertiesPerformance and press Enter

Enable Write Caching to Improve SATA Disk Performance

If you have a SATA disk drive on your computer, you can improve the performance out of your drive by applying the following tweak. This enhances the performance of your hard disk by improving write caching.

It is highly recommended that you apply this tweak only if your computer is connected to a backup power supply in case of a power failure or if your computer is a laptop. Else this tweak can cause you data loss or corruption.

Recover / Get Back 20 Percent of your Available Bandwidth

Microsoft uses 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes.

Here's the way to get it back:-

Click Start -> Run -> type "gpedit.msc" (Do not include double quotes)

Group Policy Editor gets opened once you execute the above command.