The Windows Fix » Windows Utilities

A Simple View of Windows Programs Auto Starting

T.J. Mininday — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:46:48 +0000

There are several different places that Windows looks to find programs starting automatically. There’s a couple of different places in the registry, services and of course the Windows Start-Up folder. You can of course modify these files and registry entries manually, but you can also do it with built-in Windows apps such as MSCONFIG. These still aren’t quite as easy as programs such as AutoStart Explorer though.

AutoStart Explorer is a simplified view of all the items that start in one for or another on your Windows machine. You can not only view all of these items, but also have the ability to modify them as you please, retrieving those always needed system resources.

AutoStart Explorer – via Life Rocks 2.0

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Close Inactive Programs with JustCloseSomeTasks

T.J. Mininday — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:13:44 +0000

As programs build up throughout the day, they tend to go unnoticed and begin eating up lots memory and resources. Cleaning these up on your own becomes quite annoying and it would be nice if some type of automated process would close some of these off on its own. Enter JustCloseSomeTasks…

JustCloseSomeTasks sits hidden in the background tracking how long apps are open and offering to close them after they reach your designated expiration time. You may then press a your specified hotkeys and close these tasks if need be.

Along with that, over an extended period of use the program begins to learn your program behavior and adjust your expiration time automatically.

JustCloseSomeTasks

via Lifehacker

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Analyze Windows DMP Files / Crash Dumps with WhoCrashed

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:18:27 +0000

Windows troubleshooting can be a serious pain. Booting into safe mode, normal mode, msconfig, registry edits, bad hardware, on and on and on. Sometimes it rolls into a huge continuous loop with no sight of an end. This is especially true when it comes to the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). A quick flash of a blue screen with nothing more then unreadable code, typically in relation to a hardware driver.

WhoCrashed from Respendence Software analyzes the DMP file created during a Windows crash dump and displays in a nice easy-to-read format, which makes troubleshooting much easier.

It displays each of the hardware drivers that are crashing your system so that you can remove one-by-one each of these problem child PC parts. This makes life easier for administrators.

WhoCrashed requires the Windows Debugging tool which will be installed with it, if it isn’t already present.

WhoCrashed from Respendence Software

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Problems Ejecting USB Drive ??? Use EjectUSB

T.J. Mininday — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:08:28 +0000

USB flash drives are a must these days. Now that floppy drives have gone out the backdoor, a flash drive is required to transfer any kind of data between PCs. This is of course unless you do it via the web. Although security is always an issue.

Unfortunatley one of the flaws with the USB drives with Windows, is that when you pull them from the machine, the system highly recommends using the eject function in Windows. They say if you don’t your system can become unstable, which I’ve seen first hand. Windows provides a handy eject utlity in the system tray that is supposed to ‘safely’ eject the drive from the machine before pulling it out. A lot of times though, you’ll get a warning that the drive is in use and it can’t be safely ejected. Which brings me to today’s post.

EjectUSB is a replacement solution to the built-in function, that will quickly close all running applications on the drive, and allow for safe removal from your PC. It closes all files, removes created shortcuts and cleans up registry entries. It’s nice handy utility that you should have on all of your Windows machines.

Checkout EjectUSB

via

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Optimize your Windows PC Easy with Glary Utilities

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:47:47 +0000

There are several utilities out there that advertise that they can clean-up your temporary internet files, your Startup applications or quickly clean-up your registry, but usually they come in separate programs and each require their own scan. Having something all inclusive with the whole ball of wax, that works without any lingering problems, is the ultimate solution. That’s why I’m recommending Glary Utilities today, from Glarysoft.

Glary Utilities is an all-in-one Registry Cleaner, Shortcuts Fixer, Startup Manager, Temp files cleaner, Tracks Eraser and Spyware Remover. Although each may not be as in depth as some of the dedicated cleaning tools, it does a great job of cleaning up all of the items in each of these categories.

The entire scan on my computer lasted only about 5 minutes and it found several dozen issues that it recommended be resolved.

Along with the scanning tools, Glary Utilities also includes the following:

Clean Up & Repair

Uninstall Manager

Optimize and Improve

Startup Manager
Memory Optimizer
Context Menu Manager
Registry Defrag

Privacy & Security

File Shredder
File Undelete
File Encrypter and Decrypter

Files & Folders

Disk Analysis
Duplicate Files Finder
Empty Folders Finder
File Splitter and Joiner

System Tools

Process Manager
Internet Explorer Assistant
Windows Standard Tools

As you can see there really isn’t an area that Glary Utilities doesn’t cover. All of administrative tools you need, all rolled into one package and all free.

I personally like the Startup Manager more than anything. It essentially takes the poor included MSCONFIG startup manager and injects with a nice, easy to read GUI interface.

Get Glary Utilities Here

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DriverBackup! 2.0 is a Great Tool for Export/Import of System Drivers

T.J. Mininday — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:53:19 +0000

It happens many a times. Your computer is loaded with Malware, viruses, whatever, and it just needs to be wiped clean. Many times, you find that you simply want to clean off a brand new machine as well. Lots of these new machines come bombarded with lots of ‘crapware’ that do nothing but eat up system resources and disk space. The problem is that after formatting the machine and re-installing Windows, it can take hours to comb through all of the various drivers that the machine requires. That’s where an app like DriverBackup! 2.0 comes in.

DriverBackup 2.0 is a simple Export/Import application for system drivers. It essentially allows you to quickly and easily export all of your driver files to one location, so that they you may import them later, after a new system installation. There are a few other alternative apps, such as DriverMax, but none come as a single portable executable, and so an installation is typically required.

DriverBackup allows you to carry around the simple program for quick transfer of driver files for the fresh system installation.

Download DriverBackup! 2.0 – via

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Delete Files in Use in Windows with Unlocker

T.J. Mininday — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:47:44 +0000

Yet another in a long line of annoyances in Windows, is the inability to delete files that are in use on a particular computer or server. You go to delete a file, and you are prompted with ‘Cannot Delete File: File is in use by another person or program’. You have no idea what ‘program or person’ that this error is referring to, and you then are required to use another program to figure this out. This is most common with malware, that is lingering on your computer, and you can’t rid of it.

Well, I’ve found a simple solution to the problem, and it’s called Unlocker.

Unlockeris quick and simple program, that adds an item to your right-click menu, which then allows you to review where a particular file is attached, so you can kill the appropriate task, and delete the appropriate file thereafter. The below screenshots, give you a better idea.

1. You know this pesky error:

2. You probably havent’ seen this menu item before though. Simply right-click on whatever file you would like to unlock and select ‘Unlock’.

3. And I know you haven’t seen this one. You then can unlock an individual item locked to the file, or simply ‘unlock all’.

4. My job here is done.

You should always keep this handy utility in your aresenal. It will most definitely come in handy on spyware loaded PCs.

Download Unlocker (Compatible with Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista)

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