If the early reviews of Windows Vista tell us anything, it's that many people will continue using Windows XP for a very long time. As such, now may be the best time to review some of the very best tips, tweaks, and utilities that keep WinXP running at peak efficiency, along with some of the most popular Windows applications, such as Word, iTunes, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. These tips are squarely aimed at power users, so we'll be working directly with the Registry and infrequently used Preferences screens at times. We'll avoid beginner's tips, so check out our Web site to cover the basics. Also, be sure to check out our "Backup! Backup! Backup!" sidebar before proceeding.
Speed Up Windows
Who wouldn't want a faster Windows? Better yet, you can apply any of these tweaks independently from any of the others.
Reset the Icon Cache. If you're experiencing a stutter or lag as you browse through your Start menu which can become huge over the years), or your Desktop icons disappear and reappear regularly, our Icon Cache might be corrupted and/or filled with old icons. Refresh the Icon Cache by deleting the IconCache.db file from your profile directory (usually C:/Documents and Settings/Username/Local Settings/Application Data). WinXP will automatically re-create it.
Kill the Indexing Service. The Windows Indexing Service lets you perform "advanced searches" on local directories and network stores, which sounds good in theory. In practice, the process of indexing files seems to occur at the worst moments, and the searches it performs aren't nearly as good as similar tools, such as Google Desktop or Copernic Desktop Search (both free). You can disable it from the Services window; click Start and Run, type services.msc, and press ENTER. Right-click Indexing Service, click Properties, and set Startup Type to Manual. Remove it permanently by opening Add/Remove Programs, clicking the Add/Remove Windows Components button, and unchecking Indexing Service.
Speed up all Explorer windows. When you open My Computer or an Explorer window, you may notice all your icons first appear as generic Windows icons before slowly filling in. You could also see the "wagging magnifying glass" icon appear before anything else. This is Windows automatically searching for network printers and stores. If you aren't on a LAN or would prefer to manually search for network resources, stop the automated process by opening My Computer and clicking Folder Options from the Tools menu. Click the View tab and uncheck Automatically Search For Network Folders And Printers.
Speed up Explorer's Detailed View. Explorer's Detailed View (choose Details from the View menu) displays information about your files in columns. If you have column headings such as "Pages" or "Bit Rate," then Windows must "peek into" every file to populate those columns, which can take a lot of time. To speed things up, turn off any columns you don't really need to see by right-clicking a column header and unchecking anything you don't want. Click More at the bottom of the pop-up menu in order to see the complete list of available columns. 56 April 2007 / http://www.computerpoweruser.com/
Make menus appear faster (or slower). You may think Windows works as fast as it can to display menus (including the Start menu). In reality, there's a built-in delay between when you click your mouse and when the menu appears. Reducing or eliminating the delay makes Windows "feel" much faster. After running Regedit, find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\Desktop\ and select MenuShow- Delay. Next, right-click the entry and select Modify and reduce the number to around 100. Experiment to find a number that suits your system and mood. Increase the number to slow menus down.
Speed up folder access by disabling the Last Access Date. Windows updates the time and date a user accessed a file or folder, and, needless to say, because Windows accesses lots of files and folders all the time, updating these stamps can significantly tax your system. If you don't need to know when you (someone else) last accessed a file or folder, you can disable this feature with a Registry edit. Open Regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL _MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENT CONTROLSET\CONTROL\FileSys tem. Right-click anywhere in the right pane, point to New, and click DWORD Value. Create a new DWORD Value called NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate; then right-click it and click Modify from the pop-up menu. Finally, change the Value Data to 1.
Reduce CPU usage when selecting AVI files. Similar to the Explorer's Detailed View, when you select an AVI file in Explorer, Windows attempts to determine the file's width and height to properly display it in its Properties dia- log box. Unfortunately, if the file is bro- ken or if this information isn't stored in the AVI's header frames, Windows scans the entire AVI file (consuming nearly 100% of the CPU time all the while) looking for the information. And if that AVI file is hundreds of megabytes (or more), then you're in for a long wait. If you can live without this information, tell Windows to stop searching with this Registry edit: Go to HKEY_CLASSES _ROOT\SYSTEMFILEASSOCIA- TIONS\.AVI\SHELLEX\PropertyHandler.
Speed up a sluggish Start menu by axing personalized folders as one of your options. This only works with the Classic Start menu. The Startup And Recovery dialog box offers a couple of useful tweaks to assist with crashed programs and dual-boot systems. Here, you can prevent your system from automatically restarting after a BSOD or hurry through the boot menu if you have two Windows OSes on the same machine. Track down the Default value, which should be {87D62D94-71B3-4b9a- 9489-5FE6850DC73E}, and delete it. Microsoft has also addressed this issue with a hotfix if you'd prefer to avoid rooting around in the Registry for this specific problem. Open a Web browser and go to support.microsoft.com/kb /822430 for more information.
Speed up shutting down. When you choose to shut down from the Start menu, Windows attempts to close any open programs and windows. Although this usually works well, a stubborn pro- gram or error condition may leave Win- dows hanging for a full minute before shutting down (or restarting). By chang- ing four Registry keys, you can speed the process up significantly. After you
open Regedit: Change HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\Wait ToKillAppTimeout from 20000 to 1000; Change HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\ HungAppTimeout from 5000 to 1000; Change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\ CONTROL\WaitToKillServiceTimeout from 20000 to 1000; and
Change HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\ CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP\Wait ToKillAppTimeout from 20000 to 1000.
Reloading Registry changes without restarting. If you're experimenting with changes to the Registry, restarting your system every time you want to see changes take effect may become annoying and consume a lot of time. Shutting down Explorer.exe and relaunching it, however, rereads the Registry. There are a lot of ways to do this, but here's our favorite method: First, close any open applications and files. Next, bring up the Windows Task Manager (pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE is the fastest way), and click the Processes tab. Select Explorer.exe and click End Process. Click Yes to accept the Task Manager Warning if you receive one. (Your Desktop icons should disappear at this point.) Next, click the Task Manager's File pull-down menu and click New Task (Run). Finally, run Explorer; the Desktop icons will return and the Registry changes should be in effect.
Load Windows faster with a static IP address. Most wireless and wired Ethernet cards are, by default, config- ured to receive an assigned IP address via CPU / April 2007 57 spotlight If Windows is automatically searching for networked folders and printers, it can make icons display dreadfully slow the first time you open My Computer. Disabling this feature can speed things up. DHCP at boot time. This usually only takes a second or two if your DHCP server is working properly, but if there's ever a problem—the DHCP server is down, a network cable is unplugged, or you have a slow/cheap router—Windows can sit around for a long time, waiting for that IP address. Most of the time, in a home environment, you'll always have the same IP address assigned to you, so why not cut out the DHCP wait altogether and assign a static IP address to your PC? Assuming you're behind a router, load its configuration utility and note what IP addresses the router is assigning via DHCP. Open Network Connections in the Control Panel, right-click your network card or Local Area Connection, and click Properties. In the dialog box that opens, select Internet Prototol (TCP/IP) and click Properties. Click the Use The Follow IP Address, assign yourself a static IP address (such as 192.168.1.10), and set the DNS server address to the IP address of your router. Reboot and try to access the Internet. If you can't, simply reset your connection to DHCP.
Disable automatic media speed sensing on network cards. Although this doesn't frequently happen, Windows occasionally takes a moment to check the Ethernet speed of your NICs during these times, CPU utilization can zoom to nearly 100%, causing a hiccup. You can stop Windows from checking the connection speed by manually specifying it yourself. Open System in the Control Panel and click the Hardware tab. Then, click Device Manager. Expand the Network Adapters entry, right-click your NIC, and select Properties from the pop-up menu. In the dialog box that opens, click the Advanced tab and choose Link Speed & Duplex, select the speed of your LAN (for example, 100Mbps/Full Duplex) from the Value drop-down menu.
Convert FAT32 volumes to NTFS. Most benchmarks show that NTFS is faster than FAT32, but other NTFS benefits include better security, fewer fragmentation issues, and general stability improvements. Although any new system that came with WinXP almost certainly used drives formatted with NTFS, you might still have a FAT32 drive if you upgraded your system from an earlier version of Windows.
To make the jump from FAT32 to NTFS, follow these steps:
1. Back up the drive's data.
2. Click Start and Run, type cmd, and press ENTER to open a command prompt window.
3. Type vol c: and press ENTER to find and note the volume label of partition. (This assumes you're converting the C drive; change the drive letter approprimately here and in step 4.)
4. Type convert c: /fs:ntfs and press ENTER.
5. When prompted, enter the volume name you noted in step 3.
6. Answer "y" to the remaining questions.The system will reboot and convert the volume. The first reboot after conversion may take a few minutes longer than usual, but this will only happen once.
Disable redundant 8.3 file names. As long as you're removing vestigial file systems to increase speed, why not remove vestigial file naming conventions? WinXP saves each file with two different file names. One is nice and long and corresponds to what you see in the File Explorer and command prompt. The other still conforms to DOS' old 8.3 convention and, for the most Fiddling with the Registry can even be a time-consuming process for an expert if you have to restart after every change. Instead, close Explorer with Windows' Task Manager and restart it to make Registry changes without a full system restart. 58 April 2007 / www.computerpoweruser.com spotlight part, stays hidden to everything but old DOS and pre-Win95 programs. You can disable these old filenames and save resources with an easy Registry edit. Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM \CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTROL\FILESYSTEM\NtfsDisable8dot3 NameCreation to 1 and restart.
Speed searching by disabling ZIP files. The default Windows Search func- tion peeks inside compressed ZIP files, which can take forever. If you don't want Windows to search ZIP files, unregistering a DLL takes care of the problem. In an open a command prompt window, type regsvr32c:\windows\system32\zipfldr.dll /u and press ENTER. You can restore this feature by simply rerunning the command without "/u."
Speed up the Classic Start menu. If your Start menu is taking forever to open and you're using WinXP's Classic Start menu, you can dramatically speed it up by disabling Personalization. Right-click the Start button and click Properties from the pop-up menu. Click the Start Menu tab, and, if necessary, the "Classic Start menu" radio button. Then, click the Customize button, scroll down to the bottom of the Advanced Start menu options list, and uncheck Use personalized Menus. Click OK to dismiss the open dialog boxes.
Speed up dual booting. If you have a second Microsoft OS on your PC, you probably have Microsoft's Boot Menu staring at you for 30 full seconds during each boot, which quickly grows tiresome. You can reduce this time to few seconds. Window XP's file extraction tool is great if you don't have a program such as WinZip, but it can be a drag if you do. Fortunately, disabling a DLL is all you need to do to clear up the problem. This will speed along the boot process when you want to boot to your default OS but leave plenty of time to select the other OS when necessary. You can use Notepad to manually change Boot.ini's timeout setting, but there's a less well-known way to use a friendly dialog box to change the timeout with virtually no chance of making a mistake. First, open System in the Control Panel and click the Advanced tab. Then click the Startup And Recovery Settings button. Use the drop-down menu to choose your default operating system and set the Time To Display List Of Operating Systems value to a shorter amount of time that still affords you the opportunity to select the OS you want to boot. Changes take effect with the next boot.
Use hardware profiles to safely experiment with Windows. Wouldn't it be great to have two (or more) totally different Windows configurations on the same computer? As it turns out, Microsoft envisioned this scenario years ago, although it originally intended hardware profiles for notebook users who had different docking stations connected to different networks. A great use for everyone else is to have different collections of settings (both hardware and software) on the same computer. But first, you need to set the profiles up. First, open System in the Control Panel and click the Hardware tab. Then, click the Hardware Profiles button. If this is the first time you've ever tinkered around with hardware profiles, you should already have one profile, called either Profile 1 (Current) on a desktop PC or Undocked Profile (Current) if you have a notebook without a docking station; this Profile contains your current settings. Next, click Copy, which creates a duplicate of your current profile, and name it something else (such as Experiments). You may also want to select your current profile, click the Rename button, and name it something like "Original" or "Working." Finally, individually select each Profile and click Properties. From the resulting If you know your NIC's speed, you can manually set it to prevent Windows from randomly checking during an inopportune moment, causing your CPU usage to dramatically spike. dialog box, check the Always Include This Profile As An Option When Windows Starts checkbox. The next time Windows boots, it will present you with a menu that lists your different profiles. Select one with your keyboard to change hardware settings and enable or disable Windows services; the changes you make in one profile won't affect others.
Create a gaming profile to boost frame rates. After reviewing the hardware profiles tip, consider creating a special profile just for gaming. With it, you can disable unused or troublesome hardware, turn off unneeded Windows services, and reduce the number of autostart programs. With a reduced CPU and memory load, you'll have more resources available for your highend game, which can reduce stutters and pauses. When you're finished fragging folks, reboot and select your "normal" profile, and your bells and whistles will return to their previous state. SaveWindowsResources&DriveSpace Windows dedicates a lot of hard drive space to features that many power users would never use or uses default space calculations that don't make a lot of sense in the era of 500GB hard drives. Changing CPU / April 2007 59 spotlight these settings is relatively simple and saves tons of space.
Reduce Recycle Bin storage space. By default, Windows reserves a whopping 10% of each drive volume for storing files you've deleted. But how often do you really need to recover a 50GB file from the Recycle Bin? To put some of that space back into the general storage pool, right-click the Recycle Bin and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. If you only have one drive (or if you have multiple drives and want them to all have the same setting), just slide the slider to the left until you get the percentage you think is appropriate. (For a 500GB drive, 2%, or 10GB, is not an unreasonable number.) If you have multiple drives and you want a different percentage of space reserved for each drive, click the Configure Drives Independently radio button. Then, click each drive's tab at the top of the dialog box and move the slider for each drive.
Do your own backups and disable System Restore. Windows has its own on-the-fly backup and restore system called System Restore. Although Restore Points can be useful, if you have your own backup system in place, there's no need to tie up all that space with redundant backups you'll never use. Fortunately, you can completely disable System Restore, and, as a bonus, save some CPU and memory resources. To disable System Restore, open System in the Control Panel, click the System Restore tab, and check the Turn Off System Restore checkbox. Reboot for the changes to take effect. To free up the space that System Restore used to use, open Explorer (if necessary, make hidden and system files visible), and delete the System Volume Information folder on each drive.
Turn off Hibernation options. Do you ever use the Windows Hibernation feature? It's actually pretty neat, storing the entire contents of your RAM in a temporary file before sending your PC into an almost-off, low-power mode. When you wake up your system, it copies the temporary file back into RAM, and you're off and running. Still, Setting a static IP address is another network tweak that can add a boosting to a lagging system. System Restore might come in handy if you don't have a dedicated backup utility, but you might as well disable it if you have better options. if you never use Hibernate, Windows still keeps a hidden file on your hard drive—exactly the same size as your amount of system memory—waiting to dump stuff into it. If you're not ready for a hard drive upgrade and space is really tight, you can reclaim that wasted space by turning off the Hibernation feature in Windows. Just open Power Options in the Control Panel, click the Hibernate tab, and then uncheck the Enable Hibernation checkbox. When you restart, Windows deletes that hidden file (named Hiberfil .sys, incidentally), and you reclaim your space.
General Windows Tweaks & Problem Solving
These tweaks don't specifically speed up anything in Windows, but they're likely to solve annoying little issues you've lived with for years.
Determine if you need more RAM. There are people who say, "You can't have too much RAM." These people must also say, "You can't have too much money," and have cartloads of it lying around for every PC in the house. The rest of us must find a balance between money and RAM, and that usually means only buying the amount we need. An easy way to find out how much RAM you really need is to use your system normally without restarting for at least a day. At the end of the day, open the Task Manager (pressing CTRL- ALT-DELETE opens it, for example) and click the Performance tab. Compare the value for "Commit Charge - Peak" to the amount of RAM you have. If the value is higher then your RAM, then you'll see a benefit to installing more memory. If it's less, then you're probably doing just fine, RAM-wise. To be sure, check this value over the course of several days. Note that if you've manually changed the size of the Paging File, you'll need to adjust it again after adding RAM. If you've told Windows to manage the size of the Paging File automatically, it will still do so after adding RAM.
Disable auto-reboot to help solve problems. When you encounter a significant crash and get a BSOD, WinXP normally displays it for a moment and then reboots the machine. This is probably the right action for an unattended server, but it makes diagnosing the error on a normal workstation/gaming PC rather troublesome. There's not enough time to write down the error, and if the crash occurred while you were away, you might not even realize there was a crash (and restart) to begin with. (Honestly, how often do you really check your error logs?) 60 April 2007 / www.computerpoweruser.com spotlight To keep the BSOD open indefinitely, open System from the Control Panel and click the Advanced tab. Then click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery Settings and uncheck Automatically Restart in the System Failure section. This will take effect after a restart.
Boost Internet Explorer 7
Love it or leave it, IE is the world's mostpopular browser, and version 7 introduces new wrinkles that need attention.
Change the default search provider. If you want to change your search provider from, say, MSN to Google, click the down arrow icon next to the magnifying glass in the search field and choose Change Search Defaults. Choose your preferred search engine, click the Set Default button, and then OK.
Add or remove toolbars. IE7's sparse interface, complete with its lack of conventional toolbars, has frustrated a lot of experienced users. Right-clicking any empty area next to the tabs lets you add or remove toolbars, including a conventional menu bar (File, Edit, etc.). Be sure to unlock the toolbars (click View, point to Toolbars, and uncheck Lock The Toolbars) before you try to drag them to your desired locations.
Return to Internet Explorer 6. If you've hung with IE7 for as long as you can and you just don't like it (or if you frequent Web sites that don't play nice with IE7), you can go back to IE6. Just open Add or Remove Programs from the Control Panel and choose Internet Explorer 7. Windows will warn you that this may break certain security patches that you've downloaded after installing IE7, but most of those patches relate to IE7 itself. The process takes longer than you'd think (as does the first reboot afterwards) but in the end, you'll be greeted with the familiar IE6 you've come to know and, um, love.
Boost FireFox 2.0
With all of its extensions and themes, entire books have been written about getting the most from Mozilla Firefox. As such, we'll limit ourselves to just two.
Backup your Firefox "everything." You have probably accumulated a large Internet Explorer 7 might be the future of Web browsing for Microsoft, but it's far from perfect for everyone. Rolling back to IE 6, that trusty old mare, is fortunately not a difficult task. collection of themes, extensions, bookmarks, and passwords for Firefox. All of these things are gathered together into Mozilla Profiles, which are sometimes susceptible to corruption. A freeware tool, MozBackup (mozbackup.jasnapaka.com), can backup and restore your profiles with just a few clicks and makes the task of moving a Firefox installation from one computer to another a breeze. If you use Thunderbird for email, it also backs up and restores your mailstore.
Speed up browsing. This next set of modifications exemplifies what's possible Firefox has a host of configuration options to boost your browsing experience. Just type about:config in its Address Bar to access the goodies. CPU / April 2007 61 spotlight with Firefox, but it can be controversial. You can set Firefox to use multiple connections to a Web server to retrieve multiple files instead of just one. Some consider this approach as inconsiderate to Webmasters, because their servers must spend more effort serving you a page than someone else. That said, this can boost performance considerably and illustrates how to modify technical settings in Firefox. First, open Firefox and type about:config in the Address Bar and press ENTER, which displays the equivalent of Firefox's Registry. Next, type HTTP into the Filter field, which displays only those entries that have "http" within them. Then, do the following:
1. Change network.http.pipelining to true by double-clicking it;
2. Change network.http.pipelining. maxrequests to 8 by double-clicking it and entering 8 in the pop-up window;
3. Change network.http.max-persistant connections-per-server to 8;
4. Change network.http.max connections to 48;
5. Change network.http.proxy. pipelining to true;
6. Change network.http.max-persistant connections-per-proxy to 8; and
7. Right-click anywhere in this screen, and choose New Integer from the popup menu. Enter the Preference Name as nglayout.initialpaint.delay, and its Value as 0. Restart Firefox to enable the changes.
Boost iTunes & iPod
It stands to reason that if the iPod is the world's most popular MP3 player, then iTunes must be pretty darn popular, too. As an Apple product, it doesn't require a ton of internal tweaking, but various third-party utilities add a lot of functionality that Apple either forgot to add or didn't want to. Combined with just a few internal tweaks, iTunes can be almost anything you want it to be.
Import to MP3 for portability. If you have another device capable of playing MP3s, such as a DVD player, car stereo, or another MP3 player, you can have iTunes rip music into MP3 files directly instead of AAC files. Click Preferences from the Edit menu. Then, click the Advanced tab and the Importing subtab. Change the Import Using drop-down menu to MP3 Encoder and set the bit rate to whatever you prefer. Within the Importing subtab, you can also alter the way iTunes names your MP3 files. The raw MP3 files are stored in the iTunes music folder.
Hierarchical playlists. ITunes 7 can organize hundreds of playlists by arrang- ing them into collapsible folders—much the same way the Explorer lists directories—along the left pane. To create one, click File and New Folder. A new folder, named "Untitled Folder" appears, and iTunes selects it by default. Rename it and either drag existing playlists into it or leave the folder selected and click the Create A Playlist button to create a new playlist within that folder. Unfortunately, these folders don't appear within your iPod: All nested playlists appear the same as top-level playlists.
Add album art en masse. Although iTunes does a fair job of adding album art to the songs already in your library, a free utility called TuneSleeve (tunesleeve .googlepages.com) does it much better, allowing you to drag-and-drop graphics directly from Web pages into every song in an album at once. If given enough time, it also searches for art on the Internet by itself, assigning artwork to all songs in a playlist or your entire library. It is also able to find alternative artwork or multiple versions of the same album and lets you replace artwork iTunes has already found.
Use Your iPod without iTunes. YamiPod (www.yamipod.com) is a free- ware iPod manager and media player that's available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux—just copy the executables to your iPod and plug it into whatever com- puter you have. Yamipod will do the rest of the work for you. With it, you can play music, create playlists, add or extract songs directly from the iPod to your computer, remove duplicate tracks, find "lost" music files, import and export playlists in M3U format, and a lot more. In short, YamiPod lets you use your iPod the way you want to, rather than the way Apple does
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Speed-up Windows XP
Increasing your Internet Connection Bandwidth By 25%
For some reasons by default upon installation of your Windows XP Win 2000 Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC, etc.
Well you can have the option to override the default setting "Break the Rules" , If u change it to 0 then the 20 % incrase in your bandwidth.
Click Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor, then go to:
1.Local Computer Policy
2.Computer Configuration
3.Administrative Templates
4.Network
5.QOS Packet Scheduler
6.Limit Reservable Bandwidth.
7.Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth.
It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO "0". This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20% (It works on Win 2000 as well.)
Fasterfox for Firefox 3.0.10 and above
Those who need Fasterfox for Firefox 3.0.0 and above. Download the plug-in by clicking the link below
http://www.mediafire.com/?ummdjuyipez
To install the plug-in just go to TOOLS->ADD-ONS->EXTENSIONS then drag and drop the plug-in there. Then re-start firefox.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Windows Explorer has stopped working
SYMPTOMS
After you start the computer and log on to Windows Vista, you receive the following error message: Windows Explorer has stopped workingYou cannot access your desktop.
CAUSE
This issue occurs if you have version 5.1.5.0 of the StompSoft by Migo Digital Vault program installed. Or, you have an earlier version of this program installed. This issue may also occur if you have a third-party program such as Reno or Spydawn installed.
RESOLUTION
How to determine whether you have Digital Vault installed
To determine whether you have Digital Vault installed, follow these steps:
1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL.
2. Click Start Task Manager.
3. In Task Manager, click the Application tab, and then click New Task.
4. In the Create New Task dialog box, type cmd, and then click OK.
5. At the command prompt, type dir "Program Files", and then press ENTER.If a Digital Vault folder appears in the output of the command in step 5, you may have to update the program to a newer version.
How to update Digital Vault
Digital Vault version 5.1.5.0 and earlier versions are incompatible with Vista. These versions cause Windows Explorer to crash. Version 5.1.5.1 is compatible with Vista. To update Digital Vault to version 5.1.5.1, follow these steps.Note Windows Explorer may continue to crash during this process.
1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and then click Start Task Manager.
2. In Task Manager, click the Application tab, and then click New Task.
3. In the Create New Task dialog box, type iexplore.exe and then click OK.
4. In Internet Explorer, visit the following Migo Software Web site:
http://stompsoft.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=23&nav=0,4 (http://stompsoft.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=23&nav=0,4)
5. Follow the instructions on the Web site to install the update.
6. Restart the computer.
How to uninstall Digital Vault
1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and then click Start Task Manager.
2. In Task Manager, click the Application tab, and then click New Task.
3. Click Browse, and then open the Digital Vault folder.By default, the path of this folder is C:\Program Files\Stompsoft\Digital Vault.
4. Right-click DigitalVault, and then click Open.
5. Click OK to start Digital Vault, and then type your Digital Vault password.
6. Before you uninstall Digital Vault, back up your encrypted files. To do this, follow these steps:
a. In Digital Vault, click Open an Existing Vault.
b. Click the vault to back up.
c. Click the files to back up, and then click Unprotect.
d. Exit Digital Vault. If you are prompted to protect the files before you exit, click No.Note If you do not click No, the files will not be available.
7. Click Options and Settings, click Uninstall Program, and then click Yes.
8. Open the Digital Vault folder.
9. Click the INSTALL file, and then click Open.
10. Click Automatic, click Next, and then click Finish.
What to do if you have spyware or a virus on the computer
If you have spyware or a virus on the computer, scan the system by using an antispyware program such as Windows Defender or Windows OneCare. If you decide to use Windows Defender, follow these steps:
1. Restart the computer.
2. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and then click Start Task Manager.
3. In Task Manager, click the Application tab, and then click New Task.
4. In the Create New Task dialog box, type %programfiles%\windows defender\msascui.exe, and then click OK.Windows Defender starts.
5. On the Scan drop-down menu, click Full Scan.
6. Remove any virus and any spyware that is detected.Then, use System Restore to return the computer to a known good restore point. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, type System Restore in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.
2. Click Choose a different restore point, and then click Next.
3. Click a date on which the issue did not occur.
4. Click Next.
5. Click Finish.
6. Restart the computer.The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Speed Up internet using Firefox
Believe it or not, Firefox is optimized for dial-up connections by default. You need to change some settings to get the browser's best performance over DSL, cable, or other broadband links.
Before you change anything, back up Firefox's configuration file; return to the page "Better Default Google Search" and scroll down to "Back Up FireFox's 'Registry' " for details.
Next, open Firefox and press Ctrl-L .
In the field of 'Preference Name' choices (click on the thumbnail at right to see the screen), double-click network.http.pipelining to set it to 'true'.
In the field of 'Preference Name' choices (click on the thumbnail at right to see the screen), double-click network.http.pipelining to set it to 'true'.
Next, double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to bring up the 'Enter integer value' dialog box. Enter a higher number than the default 4; 15 works for me. Press Enter.
Double-click network.http.proxy.pipelining to set it to 'true'.
Right-click anywhere on the page and select New, Integer. Enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay and press Enter. Set its value to 0 (zero), and press Enter
Tweak your Firefox for a great a surfing experience
Keep Tabs on Your Tabs
One of Firefox's most appreciated features is the browser's ability to display multiple pages that you view by clicking their tabs. But you don't have to click through menus to open a new tab; instead, just press Ctrl
To have a link open in a new tab, either right-click the link and select Open Link in New Tab, or highlight it and click the mouse wheel.
You can have links that would normally launch a new browser window open instead in a new tab: Select Tools, Options, click the Tabs icon, choose a new tab, and click OK.To move between tabs with the keyboard, press Ctrl-Tab to open the tab to the right, or -Ctrl-Shift-Tab to go left. Or reorder your tabs by dragging them with your mouse.
To close all but one of your open tabs, right-click the one you want to keep open and select Close Other Tabs. If you accidentally close the wrong tab, press -Ctrl-Shift-T to bring it back.
To close all but one of your open tabs, right-click the one you want to keep open and select Close Other Tabs. If you accidentally close the wrong tab, press Save Time With Keyboard Shortcuts
A surefire way to improve your browsing speed is by leaving your mouse alone and controlling Firefox from the keyboard. Here are some useful (but not always obvious) keyboard shortcuts:
To enter a URL or search criterion into the address bar, press either Ctrl
To enter search criteria into the Search Bar, press Ctrl-K. Next, press Ctrl
Two Eyesight-Saving Shorcuts: To toggle full. screen view on and off, press F11
Bring Order to Your Bookmarks
If you create a lot of bookmarks but don't keep them organized, your bookmarked sites will be almost as difficult to find as unbookmarked pages.
Bookmarks are a lot easier to manage if you place them in folders that branch off the main Bookmarks menu. For instance, I place encyclopedias and other reference sites in a folder called Reference. And I keep dictionaries and thesauri in a folder of the Reference menu I named Language.
To organize your bookmarks, select Bookmarks, Organize Bookmarks to open the Bookmarks Manager. Here you can create new folders, drag bookmarks to new locations, and make other changes. Find Your New Bookmarks a Good Home
Once your bookmarks are in order, you'll want to keep them organized by placing new bookmarks into appropriate folders.
Whenever you want to bookmark the current page, select Bookmarks, Bookmark This Page, or press Ctrl-D
Whenever you want to bookmark the current page, select Bookmarks, Bookmark This Page, or press Ctrl
But if you don't see the desired folder there, click the down arrow to the far right of the 'Create in' option. This expands the Add Bookmark dialog box, allowing you to select any folder, or to create a new one. When you're done, click OK. Prune Dead Bookmarks
Even if they're well organized, your bookmarks won't save you much time if you have to scroll through ones you're no longer using to find the shortcuts you need.
If a Bookmarks submenu has too many entries, right-click it and select Open All in Tabs. As the name implies, this opens each bookmark listed in the folder in a new tab. If a tab reads '404 Not Found,' the page is history. Click the tab, note the URL in the address bar, and delete the corresponding shortcut from the menu.
If you can't match the URL with a bookmark, you can usually guess the one with the bad link by noticing which others are next to it (the tabs open in the order the bookmarks are listed). Or right-click the bookmark, select Properties, and compare the URL in the bookmark with the one on the tab. Better Default Google Search
One of Firefox's coolest features (though it's hardly undocumented) is its ability to search from the address bar. When you enter a search term in the address bar, the browser redirects to Google and searches that term automatically.
But these results are of Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" persuasion: You're sent to the most popular page that matches your criteria. Only if there's no clear winner will the search engine list everything it finds.
If you'd rather not trust to Google's luck, change this setting by editing Firefox's configuration file. This is one important file, so back up it first--see "Back Up Firefox's 'Registry'" below for details.
With your backup in place, type about:config in Firefox's address bar and press Enter
Double-click the keyword.URL entry, enter the string
http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=, and click OK.) Now when you enter a search term in the address bar, you'll get a full page of Google search results, just as you would if you'd entered the keyword on Google's home page.
If you decide later that you should've trusted Google (a familiar refrain in Silicon Valley), you can reverse your fortunes by repeating the steps, but this time enter this string: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=.
Back Up Firefox's 'Registry'
Firefox's about:config screen is like Windows' Registry--it contains important information, but is obtuse and dangerous to fiddle with. So play it safe by backing up the configuration file before you make any changes. To do so, close Firefox, select Start, Run (just Start in Vista), type %appdata%\mozilla\firefox\profiles, and press Enter. The resulting Windows Explorer window will contain a folder with a very strange name, like '4hw0enat.default'. Open that folder, and then copy the file prefs.js to a safe location.
Better yet, make sure that the Profiles folder is included in your regular, daily backup routine. Should you mess something up in about:config, simply close Firefox and copy the backup of prefs.js back to its original location.
You can add, remove, and organize the services listed on the Search Bar in the Firefox window's upper-right corner. To do so, click the area to the left of the search box and select Manage Search Engines from the drop down menu that appears. In the Manage Search Engine List dialog box, click Get more search engines to view a list of available search services. To add one, simply select it and click Add. If you want Firefox to use that service as its default search engine, check Start using it right away, and then click Add. Since you can search through Google via the address bar, you might want to remove Google from this list. To do so, select its entry and click Remove.
Customize Your Keyword Searches
You don't really need the search bar if you set up some keyword searches. These special bookmarks let you use any search engine directly from the address bar.
First, go to a site with search capabilities, such as www.pcworld.com, right-click the site's search field, and select Add a Keyword for this Search. In the Add Bookmark dialog box, name the shortcut and give it a short, easy-to-remember keyword, such as pcw. Choose an out-of-the-way folder in the 'Create in' dropdown menu, and click OK. To test the shortcut, press Ctrl
Search a Page in a Jiffy
Finding the right page is often only half the battle: You may also need to locate a specific word or phrase on the page. Firefox has a trick that makes searching a page easy. Select Tools, Options. Click the Advanced icon, and then the General tab. Check Search for text when I start typing, and click OK.
Finding the right page is often only half the battle: You may also need to locate a specific word or phrase on the page. Firefox has a trick that makes searching a page easy. Select Tools, Options. Click the Advanced icon, and then the General tab. Check Search for text when I start typing, and click OK. Now you don't have to press Ctrl
Purge Your Private Data
Firefox records where you've been browsing to help you retrace your steps, as well as to reopen the pages you've visited previously more quickly. But this feature may compromise your privacy by letting other people using your PC see what you've been up to.
The browser's default security settings may not strike the balance of convenience and privacy that's best for you. To customize those settings, select Tools, Options, and click the Privacy icon. The dialog box is divided into three sections: History, Cookies, and Private Data.
History: You might want to shorten the number of days Firefox saves your surfing history--the default is 9 days. If you don't want to save your browsing history at all, uncheck Remember visited pages for the last [X] days. You can also choose not to record the text you enter in Web forms or search boxes, and the programs you download. Cookies: I've covered this before. See "Block Spying Cookies, but Keep the Helpful Ones."
Private Data: To clean things out regularly, check Always clear my private data when I close Firefox. Then click the Settings button to fine-tune the options. What should you leave checked and unchecked in the Clear Private Data dialog box? Checking the Browsing History and Cookies sections will override any changes you made in the other sections of this dialog box, so leave them unchecked. Checking Cache may slow Firefox down a bit, but probably not enough to notice if you have a fast Internet connection. Deleting Saved Passwords is entirely pointless. You should check every other option. After you click OK to close the Clear Private Data dialog, uncheck Ask me before clearing private data to avoid this annoying pop-up dialog box.
Revise Your History
Firefox offers a way to delete selected pages from both your browsing history and your address bar history while retaining everything else.
To delete an entry in the address bar's dropdown menu of recently-visited pages, point to the item with your mouse, but instead of clicking it, press Delete
To edit your browsing history, press Ctrl
Safely Store Passwords
It's good security practice to use a different password for each site you visit, though it can be difficult to remember them all. Unfortunately, Firefox's password manager is not really safe unless you use its Master Password option.
To set this up, select Tools, Options and click the Security icon. Check Remember passwords for sites and Use a master password. In the Change Master Password dialog box, enter a password that you can remember but that no one else can guess. Check out this Windows Tips column for advice on selecting a safe, but memorable, password. Once you've set your master password, managing your Web passwords is easy: Whenever you enter a password on a page, a dialog box will ask if you want Firefox to remember it. The next time you return to that page, the browser will automatically fill in the password--with one important exception. If this is the first time you've gone to such a page since you last launched Firefox, you'll have to enter your master password first.
Optimize for Broadband
Believe it or not, Firefox is optimized for dial-up connections by default. You need to change some settings to get the browser's best performance over DSL, cable, or other broadband links.
Before you change anything, back up Firefox's configuration file; return to the page "Better Default Google Search" and scroll down to "Back Up FireFox's 'Registry' " for details.
Next, open Firefox and press Ctrl
In the field of 'Preference Name' choices (click on the thumbnail at right to see the screen), double-click network.http.pipelining to set it to 'true'. 
Next, double-click
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to bring up the 'Enter integer value' dialog box. Enter a higher number than the default 4; 15 works for me. Press Enter.
Double-click network.http.proxy.pipelining to set it to 'true'.
Right-click anywhere on the page and select New, Integer. Enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay and press EnterMove Your Bookmarks and Settings to a New PC
Amazingly enough, Firefox doesn't include an obvious, intuitive way to migrate the program's settings to a new PC. (I guess it's my job to tell you how to do it.)
On the old PC, close Firefox, select Start, Run (Start in Vista), type %appdata%\mozilla, and press Enter
On the new PC, install, open, and then close Firefox. If reopening it doesn't bring up the import wizard, close Firefox and open it again. When the wizard (which is useless in this situation) comes up, just press Cancel, and close Firefox.
Next, select Start, Run (Start in Vista), type %appdata%\mozilla, and press Enter
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Increasing your Internet Connection Bandwidth By 25%
For some reasons by default upon installation of your Windows XP Win 2000 Microsoft reserves 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes like Windows Updates and interrogating your PC, etc.
Well you can have the option to override the default setting "Break the Rules" , If u change it to 0 then the 20 % incrase in your bandwidth.
Click Start then Run and type "gpedit.msc" without quotes.This opens the group policy editor, then go to:
1.Local Computer Policy
2.Computer Configuration
3.Administrative Templates
4.Network
5.QOS Packet Scheduler
6.Limit Reservable Bandwidth.
7.Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth.
It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab i.e."By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO "0". This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20% (It works on Win 2000 as well.)
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