The Windows Fix » Windows XP

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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Create your Own Online File Server with HFS

T.J. Mininday — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:26:26 +0000

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to share files all over the web without the need for another source. As we know, there many many options out there for sharing files on the web, but most require some type of registration and the others have limitations that you just don’t want to deal with. Well, how about hosting your file server, on your own computer?

HFS stands for “HTTP File Server”. It’s a file sharing application service that runs on your PC, and allows for easy sharing of files on any internet capable computer.

The program is just one single executable file that sits in the system tray of your Windows PC. Once running, you’ll need to have port 80 forwarded properly to you PC if you’d like the entire world to have access to the files.

Of course there are additional security measures put in place so that you can limit what public and private users can do with these files. Files can be uploaded manually, or you can add a simple ‘Add to HFS’ to your Windows context menu as well. Here is a look at the web interface, with a few files.

Get HFS – HTTP File Server Here

via

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Keep Your Desktop Organized with Fences

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:32:33 +0000

There are very few people whom use a Windows computer that don’t end up with a cluttered desktop by days or weeks end. You save tons of images, pdf files, documents and whatever other file to your desktop way more often then not. Some have gotten a little smarter and saved to their My Documents folder, but more often then not, it is always the desktop that files get saved to. Windows attempted to implement a utility in XP to clean-up your cluttered desktop, but it becomes more of annoyance more then anything. I think I’ve finally found the best solution, and it’s called Fences.

Fences from Stardock is not only the utlimate desktop organizer, but it also dubs as a desktop ‘hider’ as well. With a quick double-clik sequence, you can hide the icons on desktop very easily from view. Below is a great video demo of Fences in action.

System Requirements

Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
On Vista and Windows 7, both 32bit
and 64bit versions are supported.

via

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Modify Your Windows Desktop With These Tools

T.J. Mininday — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:27:18 +0000

My latest post on MakeUseOf is getting some serious publicity on Digg today. It has already climbed over 500 Diggs and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. It’s an article titled “12 Great Ways of Spicing Up your Windows Desktop“. I put together a list customization tools to give your Windows Desktop random wallpaper or some jazzy effects. Check it out, and give it a Digg if you like it. MakeUseOf Link

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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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Extend Your Taskbar to Multiple Monitors – MultiMonitor TaskBar

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:16:59 +0000

It’s hard to believe that with as cheap and as popular as LCD monitors are becoming, that an application such as Multimonitor Taskbar, hasn’t come along with several other competitors. My old job I used a dual monitor setup, but always found it extremely annoying that the Windows Taskbar did not extend to the second monitor. I did my research and came up with the amazing application, called UltraMon. Ultramon simply extended your taskbar to your second, third, or sixth monitor, and display the application as it should, on the secondary monitor. The fallback, a single license ran $39.95 and although worth it, was still a lot of money for what it did. I spent hours, days and months trying to find a freeware app, that did the same thing, but never did.

Well finally, just a few years later…Martin, the genius over at GHacks has finally come up with a free application that does the same thing.

The program is simply called ‘MultiMonitor Taskbar’ and does everything that Ultramon does, offers a freeware version, but also offers a Pro version. The pro version adds theme support, more flexibility with windows movement, and a few other minor features. The free version gives you essentially everything you need, and much more.

So, if you do have multiple monitors and are using Windows Vista or XP, you need to jump on this incredibly user friendly and stable application.

MultiMonitor Taskbar – via GHacks

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XP Syspad – All your Windows tools in one place

T.J. Mininday — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:59:34 +0000

A big problem with Windows XP, is the spaced out and crazy places that Microsoft has programmed with many of the administrative and management features in it’s operating system. The start menu, the control panel, the run line, the registry, you name it, it’s usually in a different place. Well Xtort, a little known freeware company, has come up with a handy utility that has everything in one simple to install, awesome tool.

The tool is extremely small, non-resource intensive, that doesn’t touch operating files or settings and gives an extreme plethora of information.

Below the screenshot are some of the 200+ features, straight from the Xtort website.

Disk Partition Manager

DDE Share

Removable Storage Operator

Windows Management Infrastructure

Component Services

Event Viewer

Environment Variables

Object Packager

Private Character Editor

SAM Lock Tool

Dr. Watson

System Configuration Editor

Microsoft Address Book Import Tool

Utility Manager

Internet Explorer Repair Tool

Briefcase Information Tool

Recover lost product key of Windows & MS-Office

Internet Explorer

Ip Number

Hotmail

Gmail

Email Default Client

Kill All Open IE Windows ( ie. run away popups)

Network Connections

WAB – Windows Address Book

Empty IE Cache

Organize Explorer Favorites

Run Netstat

Open Telnet

Windows Explorer

System Memory Stats

Find Files + Folders

EmptyRecycle Bin

Windows Sound panel

Regedit

Temp file sweeper

Printers

Multimedia Settings

Microsoft Management Console

Performance Monitor

Windows Services Panel

Windows Event Viewer

Windows Disk Management

Disk Defragmenter

Device Manager

Indexing Service

Add & Remove Programs

Display Properties

Hardware wizard

Internet Properties

Regional/Language Settings

Game Controllers

Java Plug-In Control Panel

Mouse Settings

Control Panel Main

User Accounts

Open ODBC Settings

Power Configuration

System Properties

Telephone Settings

Date/Time Settings

Sound and Audio Device Properties

Task Manager

Wordpad

Notepad

Outlook Express

Media Player

Movie Maker

Calculator

Run Command

Screen Magnifier

Character Map

Capture Screenshot

Windows Sound Recorder

Command Shell

Windows Help

Hide/Show Taskbar

Clipboard Viewer

Log Off /Restart

On Screen Keyboard

Narrator

Network Neighbourhood

Briefcase Wizard

Shared Folder Wizard

Accessibility Options

Open My Documents Folder

Open Program Files Folder

Open Windows Folder

Open Windows System Folder

Open Recycle Bin Folder

Open Desktop Folder

Open NetHood Folder

Windows Scanner and Camera Wizard

Program Manager

Add Network Place Wizard

Sql Client Config Utility

XP Syspad – via DownloadSquad

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How to Convert Windows XP to Windows Vista With Only Add-Ons

T.J. Mininday — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:40:43 +0000

I found this incredibly compiled list of the dozens and dozens of items it would take to upgrade your plain ole’ Windows XP machine into a Vista ‘clone’, but only using modifications, add-ons and tweaks. I couldn’t tell you if all of these work, but that would be a question for the blogger. They have however, definitely taken some time to put it together, so it may be worth a shot on one of your older XP machines.

I can only imagine how bogged down it would get after adding that amount of resources to your background processes. Please, someone get back to me after they’ve tried.

It may be worth getting an actual Windows 7 upgrade instead as it’s more streamlined than Vista with less issues, and better performance.

via Computer World Blog

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Automatically Restart, Shutdown or Log Off your Windows Computer

T.J. Mininday — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:48:08 +0000

Have you ever needed to automate the restart or shutdown process? Some situations that stick out in my mind are deploying Windows Updates to a system(which almost always require a reboot) and you don’t want to reboot the PC or server during critical business hours. Well you can setup your system to automatically reboot or shutdown with built-in Windows commands and the built-in task scheduler.

You can also abort a system shutdown, remotely reboot a system on the network or even just have a computer automatically log off.

Here are few of the more important command line commands built into Windows:

Shutdown -s (Shuts down your computer)

Shutdown -r (Shuts down and restarts your computer)

Shutdown -m \\computername (Shutdown a remote computer)

Shutdown -a (Abort a system shutdown)

Shutdown -l (Log Off)

Just some handy commands if you want to automate the restart or shutdown system via a batch file, which you may then schedule with the built-in Windows task scheduler.

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Creating a new ‘ Show Desktop ‘ Icon

T.J. Mininday — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:32:58 +0000

Ever arrive at a PC, only to find that it has disappeared?? Well, you can either DOWNLOAD THIS FILE or re-create it yourself with these simple steps.

1. Start>Run>Notepad

2. In notepad type or copy and paste the following code:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

3. After choosing to save the file, make sure you choose ‘All Files’ as the file type and save the file as ‘Show Desktop.scf’.

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