How to Optimize Your Windows Vista

Run a Virus Check

The moment you notice your PC is running slowly, the first thing to do is to check it for viruses and spy-wares. Viruses have a way of slowing down a computer and makes it run slower than it used to.

Defragmentation can be defined as a process that helps reduce the amount of fragmentation in a file system. Fragmentation makes your hard disk do more work than necessary and this can slow down your computer. A Disk Defragmenter is what you need.

A Disk Defragmenter reorganizes fragmented data and place them close together, so that your hard disk can have more space and perform better. Disk Defragmenter can be found on your windows vista help by going to the ”Start icon” of your computer, click on ”All Programs”, open ”Accessories” , then ”System Tools” and finally click on ”Disk Defragmenter”.

Boost your Computer Memory

Use Windows Ready Boost to boost your computer memory. The Windows Ready Boost enables you to use the storage space on detachable devices, such as flash drives, to increase the speed of your computer. This is a preferable way of increasing your PC memory, than opening the computer hardware.

Uninstall software and programs you never use

Do you know that most of the limited trial editions versions of programs you find in your computer when you bought it can slow your computer down? These trials software use up valuable disk space and memory, so if you do not intend to upgrade to a full version of the program or software, it is advisable to uninstall it from your computer to save you more disk space, memory and even processing power.

Clean up your hard disk

If you want to help your computer run faster, you can also remove unimportant files on your hard disk and empty the Recycling Bin by using the Disk Cleanup. Here is a step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

1. First begin by clicking the ”Start icon”, click on ”All Programs”, then ”Accessories”, open ”System Tools”, and then click on ”Disk Cleanup”.

2. You have the option to choose if you want to clean up your personal files only or all the files in the computer.

3. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box If the Drive Selection box comes up, choose the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click on ”OK”.

4. Select the Disk Cleanup tab, and click on boxes of the files you want to remove, then click on ”OK”.

5. Finally click on ”Delete files” to confirm total removal of the unwanted files.

Reduce Start-up programs

When you put on your computer, you notice that some programs loads automatically at start-up, these programs take up disk space and waste memory and also slows down the loading power of your PC. Most of these programs are designed by Software manufacturers to load automatically when Windows starts, some of them even run in the background where you can’t see them, and are only designated by their icons on the notification area on the task-bar of your computer screen. So to help your windows vista PC work faster and be more efficient, delete the ones you don’t use often.

Four Reasons to Love Windows Vista

New graphics system
Windows Vista includes a new graphics system for computer support of Aero. Microsoft has done with vector graphics icons and thumbnails in Windows Explorer. Here you see the real images of the photos in a folder in Windows Vista. Image enhancements include the ability to preview your open tasks along the taskbar DVD playback more stable, and the ability to browse a lot of open tasks using the Tab key plus the Windows key.

Built-in search
Included in all editions of Windows Vista operating system support is the integrated search function and labeling. This allows you to create virtual folders content search. Say you're doing a report on mountains; any file that is keyword-enabled to include "mountains" will be grouped into a virtual folder without physically dragging that file to a new location. The downside is that older files (such as upgrading your system from Windows XP or imported data from an earlier version of Windows) will have to be retroactively met tagged be searchable.

New file system
Although the ambitious new WinFS file system was scrapped from the beginning, Microsoft signs on his future within the functionality of Windows Vista. Gone are the backslashes and directory tree structure. Now you can save your favorite searches in virtual format to create ad hoc collections without dragging and dropping files. You can also make public files to share with others.

Gadgets
Perhaps the first feature you'll notice is the new sidebar on the desktop and the three Gadgets default, the Microsoft version of Apple's Widgets. The default gadgets display the current time, photos of the library, and any Internet Explorer 7, RSS subscription, with the option to add more gadgets to meet your needs.

Does Windows 7 give worse battery life on netbooks?

Reports are coming in about netbooks suffering from diminished battery life when running Windows 7. The story broke with an article in the US Laptop magazine than claimed Windows 7 lopped 3 hours of a Toshiba NB2O5 netbook, compared to when it was running Windows XP. With Windows XP, the NB2O5 lasted for nine hours 24 minutes away from the mains, while with Windows 7, it ran for six hours 15 minutes.

Similar results have been reported by other sources, too — more details after the cut.
Netbook user forums have already seen complaints about the battery life of netbooks running the public beta and release candidate of Windows 7, as these sample threads from EeeUser, the Acer Aspire User Forum and MSIWind.net show. Tom’s Hardware also experienced reduced netbook battery life in its Windows 7 tests.

Windows 7 runs surprisingly well on the Intel Atom processor used in most netbooks, so these battery life results are a little disappointing for anyone looking to install Microsoft’s latest operating system once it goes on sale on 22 October.

It’s important to note, however, that these battery life issues could simply be the result of insufficiently optimised drivers, although the EeeUser thread does make specific mention of the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine power source-optimiser utility being installed and running with Windows 7.

We suspect netbook battery life will be improved by the time OEMs start shipping models with Windows 7 pre-installed. If you rely upon your netbook’s battery, it’s probably worth postponing an upgrade to Windows 7 until Windows 7-specific drivers and utilities are available for your model. Let us know in the comments if you’ve already installed Windows 7 on your netbook and aren’t getting quite the same battery life as Windows XP.

What is Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a cool and easy to use video editing application that allows you to make home movies, photo albums and business presentations. It is a immense starter tool to learn the basics of video editing. It is also widely used in schools as a tool for class projects and allows students and teachers to create wonderful graduation presentations of all the goings-on that took place in the school year.


Still pictures, other video clips, can all be supplementary to a Windows Movie Maker project. Add titles and rolling credits to give a professional look to your movie. The final version of your project can be exported to a variety of formats that can be read on other computers and on DVD players. They can also be saved in formats so that they are ready to upload to your webpage.

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Windows Vista Service Pack 2 A guided tour

This 264MB monster (or 200MB if you install it via Windows Update) not only fixes bugs in the OS, but also adds brand new functionality both to core services and applications such as Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

We've been using the beta Release Candidate 2 (RC2) for some time, and generally we're impressed. It seems pretty stable and has not yet created any major errors with the PCs we've installed it on. All the screenshots here were taken using build 2257 of RC2, so it's possible that some details may be changed by the time of the final public release version.

Microsoft's focus with SP2 is security, security and security - many of the changes are deep in the inner workings of XP and won't immediately be obvious to users. They could cause some problems for existing applications, so as ever it's wise to do a full system backup before installation.

In this overview we've concentrated on giving you a visual tour of the major new features - the technical changes are covered in great depth on the Microsoft website if you're interested. We plan to do a more in-depth look at the underlying technology in a future issue.

There are a couple of features not illustrated here, such as the addition of plain text email formatting to Outlook Express, but we've tried to cover as many of them as possible within the available space. The behaviour of Internet Explorer has also been changed, for example, to prevent malicious websites hiding the navigation bar or spawning multiple pop-ups. Overall we believe SP2 is a genuinely worthwhile update - many of the features are well overdue, but 'better late than never' is a phrase that's becoming familiar to most Windows users.

Click on thumbnails for a larger image.

Service Pack 2 is at least a 100MB download. Before you download it you'll be prompted to install the new Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), which speeds up future patch downloads by only downloading files that have changed.

After installation, the first thing you'll see is the new Security Centre that gives you easy access to your firewall, automatic updates and Internet settings. The antivirus settings can't be changed from here, though. Security Center can be opened from Control Panel.

If the publisher of an executable program can't be determined, Windows will now warn you before it lets you run it. This feature checks whether the program has a digital signature, something that many valid programs don't have at the moment. It's another welcome security feature in SP2.

Bluetooth users will be very happy to see this screen. Service Pack 2 adds native support for Bluetooth - this screen shows the Options tab found when you double-click the new Bluetooth applet in Control Panel. We found it worked well using an unbranded USB Bluetooth dongle, with drivers being found automatically. The control panel lets you configure discovery settings and connections to other Bluetooth devices. You can also set up Bluetooth COM ports.

Windows Vista features and applications

The latest version of Microsoft Windows, Windows Vista, has a lot of new applicationes. Whather you’re interested in security, performence, Windows Aero, 0r entertaining and useful applicationes, this group of resources will let you see what Windows Vista has to offer you.Information on the editions available, prices, and ways to upgrading should help you if you’re consider upgrading. Once you’ve made the switch, links to tutorials will help you to get the Microsoft Windows Vista Support.

Images 1-12 of 12

Windows Aero	Instant Search	Windows Explorer	Windows Vista Security Enhancements
Windows Sidebar and Gadgets	Windows Vista Performance Improvements	Speech Recognition	Internet Explorer 7
Media and Entertainment Applications	Productivity & Mobility Applications	Windows Vista Requirements	How to Buy Windows Vista

How to Make older programs run in Windows XP in Compatibility Mode

Installing any software or application program in Windows XP or Windows Vista can be a major issue. There can be several reasons for this, for example drivers might not be compatible with the operating system or anything as such. But the most common reason for such issue is the compatibility issue. For example you have attached a web cam to your computer having Windows XP, and you try to install the drivers for that Web Cam, but you are not able to install that drivers for the same reason of compatibility issue.

The Compatibility mode of Windows XP does that for us, Windows XP support compatibility mode “Runs the program using settings from a previous version of Windows”. Try this setting if you know the program is designed for (or worked in) a specific previous version of Windows.

Run the Program Compatibility Wizard

We should run the Program Compatibility Wizard before you try other ways of updating your programs or drivers because it identifies compatibility fixes written specifically for Windows XP. If the wizard does not solve your problem, you can try other steps listed at the end of this article.
To run the Program Compatibility Wizard:
1. Click Start, and then click Help and Support (online computer support).
2. Click Fixing a problem, and then click Application and software problems.
3. Under Fix a problem click Getting older programs to run on Windows XP.
4. Read the instructions and then click the Program Compatibility Wizard.

Set Compatibility Properties Manually

As an alternative to running the program compatibility wizard, you can set the compatibility properties for a program manually
To set the compatibility properties for a program manually:
1. Right-click the program icon on your desktop or the shortcut on the Start menu for the program you want to run, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Compatibility tab, and change the compatibility settings for your program.

After selecting the proper OS is the compatibility mode we need to reset the three fields under “Display Settings” if an older program requires 640×480 resolution or 256 colors.
Click Apply.

Source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/how-to-make-older-programs-run-in-windows-xp-in-compatibility-mode-937915.html

How to Block or Remove GoogleUpdate.exe

The googleupdate may repeatedly try to access the Internet without requesting authorization and without providing an alternative to disable it. This behavior may persist even after the parent application has been removed. While there's no single way to rid the system of googleupdate, the following tips provide the common install locations.

Follow the below steps

1. Instead of removal, a permission-based firewall such as ZoneAlarm can be used to temporarily block Googleupdate. If desired, the steps below can be used to completely remove Googleupdate from the system. Before attempting any manual removal, it's a good idea to backup your system and make a separate backup of the system registry. Also note that removing Googleupdate will impact the parent applications ability to download updates.
2. To locate instances of googleupdate, search all local fixed drives for googleupd or googleupd* (depending on the search utility, the * wildcard may be required. Note that it is not required for the Windows search feature in Windows Explorer).
3. Make copies of any files found, noting their original location. Depending on the OS, some or all of the following may be found:
Google Update (Task Scheduler Object)
Googleupdate.exe (Application) (two or more locations)
GoogleUpdateHelper.msi (Windows Installer Package)
4. You should be able to delete the Google Update Task Scheduler Object and the GoogleUpdateHelper.msi with no problem. However, to delete googleupdate.exe, you'll first need to launch Task Manager, locate the running Google Update process, and stop it. After doing that, you should be able to delete Googleupdate.exe. In other cases, GoogleUpdate may be installed as a service, in which case you will need to first stop the service before attempting to delete the file.
5. Next, open the Registry Editor and browse to the following subkey:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\
6. In the right pane, locate the value named "Google Update", right-click the name and select Delete. Click Yes to confirm the deletion. When finished, close the Registry Editor.
7. After following the above steps, reboot the system.

See Also
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How to clear windows history files

Today article will help you to manage the all types of user history in windows operating system. This is a built-in feature of all windows keeps track the user's history, for example the websites you have visited, the documents you have opened and the keywords or files for which you've searched. However this tip is very useful for you, if you are sharing your computer with others or you do not want that the other persons know about your last visited documents history. You can clear these kinds of user's history with a single click on desktop icon named Cleanmru.reg. There is no need to clear each history file one by one. This trick will work in nearly all of the windows versions like windows 2000, XP and 2003.

Follow the given steps for configuration to clear recently opened documents automatically:
To edit the computer registry, first you should log onto your computer with administrative rights.

Here copy the following 6 lines and paste in notepad then save with the name Cleanmru.reg on your desktop.

REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RecentDocs]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\
LastVisitedMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Search Assistant\ACMru]

When you double-click Cleanmru.reg icon to remove the windows history, a small dialog box will appear with the information "Are you sure you want to add the information in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\desktop\Clearmru.reg to the registry?"

At the end, you will get the message "Information in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\desktop\Clearmru.reg has been successfully entered into the registry." Click on Ok button and verify that your all history will have been clear.

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