PC Tutorials Online

Have you forgotten your Windows Vista account password? If you didn't create a Vista password reset disk, you still have another option. Trinity Rescue Kit is a small Linux distribution (~100MB) that has the capability of clearing your forgotten password. I've used it and it works perfectly.  Here's how to clear your password:

Trinity Rescue Kit Method

1. Download Trinity Rescue Kit, and burn it to a CD/DVD. http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?pid=1&wpid=5&p_node=1&edit_pid=5&front_id=12 .
2. Boot from the Disc
3. Boot TRK normally. You will then reach a command line.
4. Type 'winpass -u Administrator' or instead of Administrator, your user account name at the command prompt.
5. You will then see Searching and mounting all file system on local machine
6. Windows NT/2K/XP installation(s) found in: /sda1/Windows Make your choice or ‘q’ to quit [1]:
7. Press '1' to clear password.
8. Restart, or if you want, type 'init 0' then power on again, without the disc, and boot into Windows.

Your user account will now have no password on it and you'll be able to log into windows. Thanks to wikihow.com for providing information about the Trinity Rescue Kit. 

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If you have been given or purchased a second hand PC that has Windows Vista on it pre-installed, you may wish to change the registered owner name and/or Organization. It is quite simple to change:

1. Start Regedit.
2. Make your way in the registry to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> SOFTWARE> MICROSOFT> WINDOWS NT> CURRENTVERSION'.
3. Change the Registered Owner and Registered Organization entries accordingly.   

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Most of you I'm sure have encountered those annoying Windows error messages. To work out the problem, you need to keep the error message/code so that either yourself or a PC technician can debug the error. This usually means having to manually type the error message or using the print screen function. The first method certainly works but can a be little time consuming if it's a long error message. The second method doesn't provide you with raw text, which is inconvenient when you want to send the error message to a friend via MSN or would like to check it out on Google. The method I'm going to show you can be completed in a few seconds. 

1. On the error message window, press Ctrl+C (copy). This will copy the contents to the clipboard.
2. Paste the error message where ever you like (eg. Notepad, Google) using Ctrl+V. Done

Just to give you an example here is a error dialogue:

Output:

 —————————
Error Renaming File or Folder
—————————
Cannot rename Copy of logo: A file with the name you specified already exists. Specify a different file name.
—————————
OK   
—————————

This should help you resolve those annoying messages in no time .

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Auslogic is an Australian based software firm that has just recently released an optimization suite, BoostSpeed. BoostSpeed is an application designed to boost the speed up of your Internet, tweak Windows to its peak performance and help keep your PC running faster, cleaner and error free. That's a big ask for one program as it has to tackle many areas of the PC. Can Auslogics BoostSpeed make the cut? Let's take a look.

Installation is straight forward with no restart required. Starting up BoostSpeed will expose the clean graphical user interface, which makes it easy for anyone to use including those with minimal tech know-how.

To give your PC the works, the first step is to click One-Button Checkup; this will scan the registry, your hard disk, check for disk fragmentation and check your system protection. Once scanned it will display a summary of the problems and will ask you to fix them by simply clicking the Fix Now button. 

The One-Button Checkup is probably what most people will use, however if your a power user, BoostSpeed has a lot more to offer. Making our way to the Computer Clean Up tab, you'll be given a list of tools: Auslogics Disk Cleaner, Auslogics Registery Cleaner, Auslogics Uninstall manager, and Auslogics Startup Manager. If you didn't notice, the first two tools mentioned above are used in the One-Button Checkup.

The Uninstall manager is much better than the Windows version. It has the ability to search through programs installed; making is much easier to find the program(s) you wish to uninstall. The layout is easier to read because Auslogic have implemented a grid layout. The service manager is laid out in a similar fashion and is easy to use. 

The Optimization tab unveils a disk Defrag utility, registry defragger, internet optimizer, and a memory optimizer. Both the latter utilities are designed to improve the speed of your internet and free up memory. However, you must note that while there is some gain, it doesn't beat getting a faster internet plan or adding an extra stick of memory, it only optimizes what you have. 

Privacy and Security is the next tab, which has four tools to protect your privacy and increase security. The Track eraser removes any personal data from the PC ensuring your anonymity is secure. PC Security isn't a replacement for an anti virus program; however it does enable some security measures which do help. Also included is a file shredder that removes files beyond recovery.  The Disk Wiper makes sure that files previously deleted cannot be restored so that prying eyes can't get your files.  

Amongst the other extras, you'll find many tools such as Tweak manager which enables hidden tweaks that you didn't know about, System Information tool to retrieve system info and other diagnostic tools to help tune your PC to its full performance.

Auslogics BoostSpeed can very well improve the performance of your PC, and not just in one area, but your complete PC system. After testing out its features, I can verify that this program has improved the speed of my PC. It feels much more responsive. For what it can do, $29.95 is a small amount to pay and saves you doing a lot of manual work and hours trying to improve the performance of your PC. I suggest you take it for a trial run and see what you think: Download

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I just came across an interesting post on wizardtec.com.au . It's been discovered 3 bugs can be caused from some of the strangest things. Read on:

3 interesting idiosyncrasies re Microsoft that I found while surfing the net recently. 2 out of the 3 worked on my Windows Vista machine with Office 2003. See how they work for you.

1. CON is not allowed as a folder name

An Indian discovered that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer which can be named as ‘CON’.

See if you can create a con folder on your PC.

This is not really a bug and Microsoft do know about this. It goes back to the DOS days and reserved filenames.

Below are other reserved names.

CON PRN AUX CLOCK$ NUL A:-Z: COM1 LPT1 LPT2 LPT3 COM2 COM3 COM4

KEYBOARD AND DISPLAY SYSTEM LIST DEVICE Auxiliary device, usually a serial port System real-time clock Bit-bucket device Drive letters First serial communications port First parallel printer port Second parallel printer port Third parallel printer port Second serial communications port Third serial communications port Fourth serial communications port

2. Notepad Bug

1.) Open an empty notepad file
2.) Type “Bush hid the facts” (without the quotes)
3.) Save it as whatever you want.
4.) Close it, and re-open it.
is it just a really weird bug? ?

3. =rand (200, 99) bug

This is a strange bug. At Microsoft the whole Team, including Bill Gates, couldn’t answer why this happened. It was discovered by a Brazilian. Try it out yourself.

Open Microsoft Word and type
=rand (200, 99)
And then press ENTER and see what happens.

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Many times before I’ve had windows continuously ask me to restart the PC after having installed a new update. I’d don’t mind when it tells me once, but every 10 minutes or so can get very annoying, and when critcal updates are installed, it has a self timer to restart itself if the user doesn’t interfere, thus loosing any unsaved work. This can cause serious problems for the end user and wasted time. Fortunately, there is a fix.

• Select Start>Run and type in ‘gpedit.msc’.

• In the policy editor, browse to Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows Update.

• Then, in the right-hand pane, double-click ‘No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations’ and, in the window that shows, click ‘Enabled’ and select ‘OK’.

That should rid your woes of that restart reminder. Just remember to restart your computer when it suitable for the new updates to take place.

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What on earth is The PC decrapifier? It’s a program that removes “crapware” from your new PC. It gets rid of that bundled software that Dell or Toshiba ect. put on for you such as Wild Tangent Game Console, AOL Toolbar (5.0), Vonage and much more. This crapware takes up valuable storage space, uses up memory and even internet bandwith as some crapware checks for new updates. Runs perfectly on XP and Vista and is always being updated for new crap to be removed.

So how come vendors install this crapware? Because they get money for installing it on thier PC’s from the companies that make this stuff. It’s shameful really, I mean I don’t mind when they throw in a 3-month trial version of anti-virus software that works, but setting hompage’s to advertisment and installing 3rd party search bars is a no go in my books. If you’re after a free copy of this magnificant piece of software, you can get it here. Your PC will thank you and you should gain some extra PC performance.

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Microsoft Vista Business is designed for the work enviroment. Microsoft didn’t think you’d be playing games whilst working. But think again! The games are there, just not enabled. As long as you have Administrator rights, you can enable the default games by doing the following:

• Go to Control Panel and select Programs and Features.
• Select ‘Turn Windows features on or off’.
• Then, in the Windows Features dialog, select and enter a tick in the ‘Games’ entry.

If you become bored at work or having nothing to do at lunch break, you can have a good old game of solitaire to kill some time .

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