How To Force The System Into Safe Mode

This article describes how to get into Safe Mode in Windows Vista, if the F8 key will not work

1. First click the Start Button

2. Then type “msconfig” in the search box

3. A“System Configuration” window will open

4. Then select the “Boot” tab in the Boot Options section.

5. Check the “Safe Boot/Minimal” check box

6. Finally Restart.

                                    

This will put you in “Safe Mode” with large icons (ie,lower screen resolution) and “Safe Mode” showing on all four corners of the screen (you may have to enter your password to get in).

Complete whatever your task is (possibly Restart again), then go back to “msconfig”, and uncheck the “Safe Boot” box, and restart. Now it should boot normally.




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How To Use Windows 7 or Vista System Restore

Windows 7 and Vista has a feature called System Restore that automatically backs up registry and system files whenever you install new software or drivers. This feature is useful when you install evil software that makes your computer run really slow. But don’t worry, System Restore won’t remove Windows Vista.



Using the System Restore in Windows

There are two places that you can use the system restore feature from. From within Windows, you may type restore into the Start menu search box, and you’ll immediately see System Restore at the top of the start menu:

Or type rstrui into the search box and hit enter.

A screen is displayed where you can choose to roll back the system to the last restore point. You can select “Recommended restore”, and click next, or you may choose a different restore point.

                            

If you choose a different restore point, you will see a list of restore points that you can choose from. 


Click one of them, and you may confirm and then restart your computer to roll the system back.

                                              

Note: For best results, run System Restore from safe mode.

If you receive an error while restoring, then use it from safe mode and it should work fine. To get into Safe mode, reboot and press the F8 key right before Windows starts up.

If the F8 key doesn’t work for you, you can force the system to go into safe mode by following instructions from my post:

How To Force The System Into Safe Mode


And If Your System Doesn't Boot

No need to panic! If you can’t even get into windows, you can boot off the installation dvd, and choose the “Repair your computer” option on the lower left hand side. If you don’t have an installation/repair disc, you can make one with these instructions.

1.Click next on the next screen, and then choose System Restore from the System Recovery dialog. It will take a few seconds to come up, and you will see the same screen that you would see in Windows:

2.Click next, and on the next screen select the drive that your copy of Windows 7 or Vista is installed on.

3.Click Finish, and Windows will roll back to the previous restore point. Really pretty simple stuff.


Final Words

I’d highly recommend keeping the system restore feature always on in Windows 7 or Vista.

How To Make The Windows 7 Taskbar Work More Like Windows XP\Vista

The most visible change in Windows 7 is the “dock style” taskbar, which shows icons instead of buttons, with all application windows combined within a single button.Now some may ask “How do I turn it off?”, and this article will show you just how to do that.

                 


Changing the Windows 7 Taskbar to XP/Vista Style

To revert back to the older style, you’ll need toright-click on any open area of the taskbar and then choose Properties from the menu.

                                        

From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you’ll choose “Never combine”, which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does what it says.

                   

Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably used to in the Windows 7 style.



If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the taskbar will shrink to look very very similar to Vista.


The only problem is that the “pinned” icons still sit on the taskbar, which isn’t the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”.
                              
Now the taskbar looks and works very similar to Windows Vista:



If you wanted to squeeze maximum performance from your PC, you can choose the “Windows Classic” theme under the Desktop \ Personalize section, hence reducing visual effects and eye-candy to the bare minimum.

      

How To Add Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu

Here i shall describe how to add Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu,  which can be very much useful when you want to move a file but don’t have the other folder open already.

Right-click on a file:

                                                                      
A dialog pops up that you can use to easily drop a file into the right directory.

                                                                  
To install this feature , just download, unzip, and double-click on the registry files. You can choose to use the copy to, move to, or both.

Download Copy To / Move To Registry Tweak 

How To Access Hidden Regional Themes in Windows 7

Windows 7 offers you different location specific Aero themes based on the language as well as location you pick during the installation.  Here we will take a look at accessing other hidden themes from various other countries.

When you start the Windows 7 installation for the first time the first thing you will have to do is select a language, time and also a currency format.  This is where Windows determines what themes you’re to be presented with by default.

                  

Being from the US you will then be presented with location specific themes from the US with desktop backgrounds such as scenery from Idaho, Maine, Oregon etc.

       

To access the other international themes, just copy and paste the following path into the search box and then hit Enter.

C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT

In the MCT folder you will then find additional themes for Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Great Britain.

     

You can go in and grab the wallpapers.

        

Or you may go into the Theme folder double click on the the thumbnail to add it. 

     
Here you can see I added all of them and now they will be available under the My Themes section for when you want to change them around.

                              

This trick will let you customize Windows 7 with hidden themes that already available.  If you want to get more themes you may just head over to Microsoft's official site. 


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Access Frequently Used Items in Windows 7 using Jump Lists

Using Jump lists 

In order to access jump lists Right-click on a program icon on the Taskbar, like,for example ,Internet Explorer.  Notice that you can pin those items to the Taskbar if you wish to.

                                     
After you have the jump list open click the first letter of an item to jump between them.

                               

Here is a fine example of the Jump List feature in the Start Menu.  This makes it relatively easy to access recently opened items as well.

                             

Periodically you may also want to clear out the jump list history; to do this Right-click on Start and then choose Properties.
Now under the Start Menu tab uncheck one or both boxes under Privacy to clear the Taskbar or Start menu item history or both.

                                 

This is an awesome new feature in Windows 7 that makes navigating items a lot faster.

How To Turn Windows Firewall On in Windows Vista

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Turn Windows Firewall On

1. Click the Start  button.

2. Then click Control Panel.
3. In the search box, type firewall, and then click Windows Firewall.

Turn Windows Firewall on or off

Click Turn on Windows Firewall under each network location that you want to help protect, and then click OK.

If you want the firewall to prevent all programs from communicating, including programs that you have previously allowed to communicate through the firewall, select the Block all incoming connections, including those in the list of allowed programs check box.

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How to disable Facebook Timeline and get back the old Facebook profile

Step 1

Head to the Facebook Developers page where you had earlier created an app to enable Facebook Timeline.

Step 2

 Click "Edit app."

Step 3

 click "Delete app" in the left sidebar.

Your Facebook Timeline will be disabled as soon as you confirm the deletion process.

How To Optimise Your Internet Speed

                                                

Optimisation 1
Delete the browsing history, cookies, and website cacheof your web browser ( in most there is now a "Clear Private Data" button in the main menu). Clearing out any lingering cookies and freeing the memory will speed up and optimise your browser.


Optimisation 2
Increase the cache size which will speed up your back button action and also speeds up repetitive banners and graphics.Installing a web caching service like Squid Proxy or Opera Turbo can greatly optimise your load times by storing commonly accessed parts on websites locally.


Optimisation 3
Use a faster browser,like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox . These are quick-rendering browsers, and will load pages at greater speeds than other browsers,


Optimisation 4
Close all other background applications from the windows task manager. Some of these applications may be using up the internet bandwith without your knowledge.


Optimisation 5
Remove any inessential add-ons, toolbars or extensions that your browser may have. These can not only slow down your web browser, but can sometimes report back to their authors, compromising your online privacy.


Optimisation 6
Download the free tool TCP Optimiser. TCP Optimizer is regarded as the top tool for this specific job of Internet connection tweaking and has a massive feature list. It is easy to use,and WILL greatly optimise your internet connection speeds. Adjust the settings automatically,or manually using this wonderful tool.


Despite of trying out all these steps, if your connection fails to provide you the speeds mentioned in your data plan, submit a complaint to your ISP.

Windows 7 vs. Windows 8:Which is Better?

                      

Windows 8

Windows 8 may prove to be Microsoft's most secure Operating System to date. The company began repairing its dismal reputation for security with Windows 7; the latest version takes many significant steps to provide a more secure operating environment for PCs. 

The final, Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 8 is now available to developers, IT professionals and businesses with volume licences.Now that Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system has hit the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) stage, it's time to see how it stacked up against the incumbent Windows 7.

                                    

Windows 8

    

 

Windows 8 Desktop
Beautiful,isn't it?

Windows 8 Desktop with Superbar

Here are some Benchmarks that i gathered from the internet.

The hardware

The following purpose-built hardware platform was used for benchmarking the two operating systems:

Intel Core i7-3960X processor

16GB of DDR3-1866 memory

GeForce GTX 670 graphics card

Asrock X79 Extreme11 motherboard

Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB (primary drive)

Kingston SSDNow V+ 200 256GB SSD (Windows Explorer Test)


Operating Systems Used:Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit and Windows 8 Pro (64-bit)

So here is how Windows 8 pitted against Windows 7:

Benchmarks: Boot Up, PCMark, Browser, Encoding

Clearly Windows 8 is Faster!!

Windows 8 wins in this category

Windows 8 wins this category

Windows 7 wins here!

Winner here is Windows 8

        

       

       

       

Benchmarks: File Copy, Gaming

       

       

      

       

It's often been the case with new Windows OS releases that it takes some time before performance is up to par or above the level of its predecessor. The best example was the move from Windows XP to Windows Vista.

But in this case,from a performance standpoint Windows 8 appears to offer a solid foundation from the get-go. Although there are only a few select areas where it is faster than Windows 7, it is pleasing to know that it's able to match it everywhere else.

Also, Windows 8 appears more polished than Windows 7.

So what would you prefer to use:Windows 7 or Windows 8?
It seems that Windows 8 is more optimised for the user than Windows 7.

How To Change Your Computer Name in Windows 7/Vista

To change your computer name,you need to open up System Properties, which can be done in following three ways:

• Type sysdm.cpl into the start menu search box (quickest)
• Right-click on the Computer option on the start menu.
• Open Control Panel, and go to System and Maintenance, and then System.

If you chose one of the last two options, then you’ll need to click on Advanced System Settings on the left menu:

 

A new screen that says  System Properties  will be displayed.

                            

Click on the “Change” button to rename the computer, which will pop up this dialog box:

                                      

Here you can change the name of the computer,or also change the name of the workgroup to something more descriptive. Reboot after this for the changes to take effect.

How To Clear Your Web History in Google Chrome,Firefox and Internet Explorer 9

For Google Chrome

Click on the wrench icon, select tools and then choose the Clear browsing data option–alternatively you could hit the Ctrl+Shift+Del keyboard combination.

       

A new dialog box appears;now uncheck all the options besides Clear browsing history and Clear download history, you will also need to change the the option to obliterate the data from the beginning of time as shown below.

           

For Mozilla Firefox

Click on the Firefox button, expand the History section and select the Clear recent history option, alternatively you could go for the Ctrl+Shift+Del keyboard combination.

Change the time range to Everything and then expand Details.

                           

Uncheck everything except the Browsing & Download History and then click the Clear Now button.

                                 

For Internet Explorer 9

Click on the settings button, navigate to safety and choose the Delete browsing history option again you have the option of pressing the Ctrl+Shift+Del keyboard combination.

Uncheck all the options except for History and then click the delete button.

                                         

Hence,in this way every bit of "History" can be erased from your machine!