Working With the Registry
The Registry is normally modified through Administrative or Control Panel utilities, but it is possible to edit the Registry directly. It's wise to backup the Registry before making any changes. More ...
Installing An Optical Drive Guide
Adding a fast optical drive will increase your PC's flexibility and even if you're on a budget, drives that read and burn any format won't put you in the poorhouse. For less than 100 bucks you can get an 8X DVD combo drive that writes to all major formats of rewritable DVD. More ...
Hacking Windows Vista
Microsoft has poured millions of person-hours into Windows Vista. Guess what: A few hours of your own time could make it a whole lot better - more convenient, more efficient, faster, more secure, and less frustrating. More ...
How to Maintain Accurate Time on Your PC
PC's have internal real time clocks designed to maintain system time. The internal clocks rely on relatively low-cost crystal oscillators, which are notoriously inaccurate. In many cases PC system time can drift by several minutes each day. This article describes various methods of maintaining a highly accurate time on your PC. More ...
Vista's New Boot Loader Architecture
The boot sequence of Windows Vista and later systems is slightly different from previous versions. For Windows Vista, the MBR instead loads the Windows Boot Manager (BOOTMGR), which accesses the Boot Configuration Data store (BCD). More ...
How to REALLY Backup the Windows Registry
In Windows 3.x configuration information was stored in human readable text files like win.ini, system.ini, config.sys, and autoexec.bat. But that method of storing configuration was inadequate to store configuration for the enormous amount of bloat Microsoft put into Windows 95 and higher. More ...
Vista Product Activation
If Vista Product Activation detects a licensing problem, Vista enters 'reduced functionality mode'. Reduced functionality mode doesn't affect your data, but it will not let you run many of your applications without first entering the product license key. More ...
Laptop Batteries 101 - A Buyer's Guide
If you are among the increasing number of mobile executives who are switching from PCs to laptops, it is inevitable that you will soon face a situation where you will need to educate yourself about laptop batteries. And then, at some point, buy them. Here are some basic guidelines. More ...
How to Backup Your Hard Drive
We all know that we should back up our system as soon as possible. But if you're like most of us, you will get to it tomorrow. Taking the time to backup your data or entire hard drive is not as painstaking as it may seem. More ...
Printers - A Practical Buyers Guide
Buying a printer can be a complicated business, there are more shapes, sizes and types of printers available to the home and small business user than ever before. Printers have also become specialized for their intended purpose. More ...
How to Use Windows Defender
Windows Defender scans your computer for malicious software and provides alerts and default actions such as putting suspicious software into a quarantine area where it can't run. It also uses real-time protection, which detects a malicious or unknown programs attempting to install themselves or run on your computer or attempting to change important Windows settings. More ...
Windows 7 Action Center Lets You Control Alerts
Annoyed by Window's constantly nagging pop-up messages? Windows 7 Action Center lets you decide which Windows 7 alerts you see and which you don't. Action Center monitors many system security and system maintenance features of your computer and if the status of a monitored item changes it notifies you with a message in the notification area on the taskbar. More ...
