Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Windows Guides’ Rating	Compatible with	System
4 out of 5

PROS: Simple, clean access to your files, providing comparable features to Dropbox and SkyDrive web interfaces. Seamless access to your local and online files provides the advantage of local file storage without filling your Solid State or Hard Disk Drive. CONS: Very limited file manipulation functionality leaves you wanting to jump out to Windows Explorer to manage local files. VERDICT: I anticipate the inclusion of more features as this application matures; however, if you’re using a Windows 8 laptop or tablet with limited storage space, you’ll be sure to find this application a great tool for tying together your cloud and local files. PRICE: Free DOWNLOAD: All My Storage

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Windows Guides’ Rating	Compatible with	System
4.5 out of 5

PROS: Simple interface and easy to use. Portable. Consumes low memory. CONS: No minimize option—you can close it to the system tray (or minimize all windows with Winkey+D) but you’ll have to show it in your system tray if you’re using Windows 7 or 8. VERDICT: This is part of my default toolkit and I highly recommend it if you’re tired of copying, saving, and trying to find snippets of text all the time. PRICE: Free VERSION REVIEWED: 0.3 Beta 1 DOWNLOAD: ClipCube Image by maxumipsum70

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We’ve all been there. You need to reinstall your software – but you forgot to write down the serial number or you simply lost the paper where you wrote it down.

What do you do?

As long as you haven’t removed the program or deleted your hard drive – there are several options, one being hacking your registry as in Rich’s recent post: Crack Windows Password [How To]. Here’s another solution.

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Sometimes, when you start copying files to your hard disk, Windows throws up an error that hard disk space is low. This makes you wonder where all that hard space went and how it is being used. You cannot go through from one folder to another trying to find out which folder uses more hard disk space because there are thousands of folders in Windows.  You can use SpaceSniffer freeware application to analyze your hard disk space in a few seconds.

SpaceSniffer is a portable Windows application that allows you to analyze how folders and files are structured on your disks and how much hard disk space is being claimed by each one of them. When you first run it in your PC,  it asks you for picking a disk drive or specify folder path. Then it would analyze the selected item for the file and folder structure – dynamically updating the graphical display of how these folders are taking up space on your hard disk. The bigger the rectangle – the larger the file or folder size.

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An ISO image is an archive file of an optical disc, which contains all of the contents of the optical disc it represents. ISO files are useful because you can archive a bootable disc (see examples below) and distribute it to users to burn and use locally.

Examples of useful ISOs:

• Password reset disc
• Password cracking disc
• Windows 7 Install Discs
• Windows 8 Release Preview Discs

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Everybody knows how to start applications in Microsoft Windows through the Start Menu. You can click on the Start Menu button, grapple with the sub-menus until you find the program you wanted to launch and then you can run it. Using the Start Menu in Windows to run an application is not only cumbersome but also a tad slow for most of us. If you have ever wished for a quicker and neater looking method to launch programs, then the open-source program Launchy can make those wishes come true.

Launchy is an open-source cross-platform application that can be used to quickly launch desired programs with only a few keystrokes. It stays inactive in the background until you invoke it using the Alt + Space keyboard combination. This would pop up a tiny Launchy window where you can type in the name of a program or shortcut present in your Start Menu, a program or file in specified folders or a website name present in your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox bookmarks. Launchy quickly displays possible targets in the drop-down list. When you see the program or website you want to launch, select it using arrow keys on your keyboard and then just hit Enter and it would start that application.

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