Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you use your laptop or tablet on battery power, you’ll know how annoying it is to lose battery power at the “worst time”. While I can’t guarantee your PC will lose power at a more convenient time, I can offer 14 ways to improve your battery life. Learn, in this guide, how to save power when running on batteries.

Note: This guide is written for Windows 7 but most tips apply for Windows Vista

Read the rest of this entry »

Previously, we showed you how to download Windows 7 and Burn it to a disc/put it on a thumb drive.

Having the whole operating system on disc isn’t necessary if you just need to repair your Windows installation. Recovering or repairing your current installation of Windows is favorable because most recovery software that comes with brand name PCs will wipe your PC back to factory settings.You should have a repair disc on hand to deal with the following situations:

• You’ve made a change to your PC and it now won’t boot into Windows
• You get a message such as NTLDR is missing but your hard drive has not failed
• You get a virus on your PC and need command line access to fix the issue
• Windows starts to boot and then your PC power cycles

In this guide:

• How to make a Windows 7 repair disc yourself
• How to make a Windows 7 repair USB drive
• How to boot from a disc/USB drive and use it to repair your PC

Note: A repair disc cannot be used to install Windows and provides no functionality beyond that of a Windows installation disc. If you already have an installation disc, you can use that for system recovery.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re using an SSD, there are a few things you can do to extend its life. One of the things you can do is move the search index cache.

The Search Index I/O activity can take a considerable toll on your system drive by keeping it busy. If you have an SSD, this may reduce its life. By moving the index to a separate drive, you can increase overall performance of your PC (more noticeable under load) and preserve the life of your SSD.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, we encouraged you to set (or change) a password for your Windows account. If you lose your password, you face the reality of losing access to your files and settings. In this guide, we show you how to create a password reset disk for your PC so, in a bind, you have an easy backdoor into your PC.

Note: you can also crack the password; however, a little preparation will save you the hassle of doing this.

Before you begin this guide, you’ll need the following:

• A USB drive (does not have to be empty)
• A current password set for your account (how to)

Read the rest of this entry »

While it may be relatively easy to crack a Windows account password, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use one. If your PC is mobile, you have even more reason to use this basic level of protection. This guide will show you how to set a Windows password or change your current password.
Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s a piece of equipment that works hard in your PC, it’s your hard disk drive (HDD.) HDDs operate at anywhere between 4200 and 15000 RPM (perhaps higher) while in use. In other words, these things spin anywhere between 70 and 250 times a second—sometimes for days on end! While the information in this guide mostly applies to both HDDs and Solid State Drives (SSD), SSDs have no moving parts so some of the information will not apply.

With high speeds and enormous data transfers on a daily basis hard drive file systems, used to store and access all your data, are prone to corruption and failure. Thankfully, all versions of Windows come with a nifty, free tool called “Check Disk” (chkdsk.) In this guide, we’ll show you how to use Check Disk and explain a little about common errors to which hard drives are prone.

Read the rest of this entry »