Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you’re like most PC users, you probably got Windows 7 with a new PC or laptop. And if you’re like 99% of the population, you get your new machines from one of the major manufacturers. Dell, Acer, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo; who all have one thing in common: they don’t give you a real Windows 7 installation disc with your purchase. Instead, they bundle what they call a “recovery disc” (that’s if you’re lucky – otherwise you’ll have a recovery partition instead) with your machine and leave it at that.

It doesn’t matter that you just paid a thousand dollars for a machine that comes with a valid Windows 7 license – your computer manufacturer just don’t want to spend the money (or perhaps take on the responsibility) of giving you a Windows 7 installation DVD to accompany your expensive purchase.
 

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Windows Guides reader, TheManRetired, offers two guides to help users who are new to Windows. The first guide covers installation of Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free. This second guide covers setting up your first backup to CD or DVD. If you’d like to provide help (simple, advanced etc., let me know.)

Hopefully you have the program installed but if you don’t I have written up an installation document that shows how to install it and where to get the program with a link to site that I know has it, so here we are going to start using the program. The screen shot here are made using the FastStone Capture program. With Burning Studio you can backup just about anything that is on your hard drive but I suggest only backing up what you have created as you can never get all the files and registry setting for programs and it is safer and better to reinstall the programs anyway so they set right and work and you don’t have to try and find out why they are not working like before. Here I am backing some music files that I ripped from my cd’s but the principles apply to all your files, you will just have to change the location of where you get the files to places on your hard drive and sorry this document will not go into all the places on your hard drive that the files are, most of them on a windows system will be in my documents(or just documents depending on your version) and most of them are located under your user account in either Documents and Settings or under Users depending on your version of windows, I am not going into any Linux or Mac systems as I don’t have them but if you want to give me one I would be happy to write up a document like this for those systems.

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This is an excerpt from the Windows Guides PC Security Handbook. To learn more or find out other security-related tips, download the PC Security Handbook now.

Data backup is essential. If you’d like to explore local backup options, download my Windows pocket guides. I strongly recommend using online (off-site) backups. Backing up your data online prevents data loss if your computer is damaged or stolen—or if your data is wiped by malware.

Online Data Backup

By far my favorite solution for online backup is Mozy. Mozy offers free online storage (up to 2GB with paid options too.) I’ve had Mozy installed on my laptop for over two years and it has saved me on more than a handful of occasions.

Setup is simple and after downloading Mozy, you can specify what you want to back up and when. Mozy will automate your backups and let you decide when it backs up (specific times), what causes it to back up (low CPU usage), and how often (one, two, three etc. times a day.)

I just let Mozy run and it alerts me after a successful backup:

You can specify what types of files to backup or specify folders— it’s up to you:

Mozy even integrates into My Computer so you can browse and restore your backed up files (even ones you’ve deleted from your computer):

MozyHome Features

• Open/locked file support: Mozy will back up your documents whether they’re open or closed.
• 128-bit SSL encryption: The same technology used by banks secures your data during the backup process.
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption: Secures your files while in storage, providing peace of mind that your private data is safe from hackers.
• Automatic: Schedule the times to back up and MozyHome does the rest.
• New and changed file detection: MozyHome finds and saves the smallest changes.
• Backs up Outlook files: Disaster-proof email protection.
• Block-level incremental backup: After the initial backup, MozyHome only backs up files that have been added or changed, making subsequent backups lightning fast.

Download Mozy for Free

Download MozyHome Free

System restore can quickly swallow up a large portion of your hard drive.

System restore in Windows 7 is more customisable than before.  You can specify how much space is taken by system restore, and how it backs you up.

To get started, click on the Start Orb and go to Computer Properties.

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The Windows Disk Cleanup Wizard will delete your temporary files, but only if they are over a week old. To create a simple batch script that will clean up your temporary directories, do the following (Vista instructions):

Creating the Batch File to Clean Temporary Files

1. Open Notepad and type the following:
   

   cd C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local
   rmdir /S /Q Temp

2. Save the file as cleantemp.bat
   
3. Now double click on the file to remove your temporary files and free up space on your computer

If this doesn’t work and gives an access error, try replacing %username% with you windows login username.

Automating the Process of Deleting Temporary Files

To automate this process, so you do not need to remember to run it, do the following:

1. Right click on the batch file and select create shortcut
2. Place the shortcut in your startup folder in the start menu

Now when you log in to Windows 7, your temporary files will be deleted.

In this guest post, James Ricketts explores DLL errors and how to resolve them. Learn more about James at the conclusion of this post.

DLL or Dynamic Link Library is a term that is referred to a particular type of file that can be shared by different programs whenever they need to perform certain general tasks. DLL files eliminate the need for having separate files for the same tasks that are required by applications. This not only reduces the space required by the hard drive, but it also makes the applications more efficient.

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Windows update is an excellent way to keep your computer up to date and protected from the latest vulnerabilities. Sometimes, Windows update will apply a patch that requires your computer to be restarted. Many times, this restart comes at an inopportune time as you may have a lot to get done that day. Windows Vista does not bug you as much as Windows XP, because you can change the interval at which Windows to remind you to restart your computer. Regardless of your operating system, you may just want to stop the notifications entirely and restart your computer the end of the day. Why do not recommend this, I often find myself delaying the restart process. In this guide, you’ll learn how to stop Windows update notifying you until the next time you restart your PC.

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Sometimes, when you connect to a wireless network, that works all the time, you’ll find that the Internet doesn’t work even though you are seemingly connected. I get this on campus and in this guide you will learn one of the simple tricks I use to avoid the need to restart your computer to get the Internet working again.

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This comprehensive PC-care utility has a one-click approach to helping protect, repair and optimize your PC. Advanced WindowsCare Personal Edition helps protect, optimize, and repair your PC –– with daily use. I have used Advanced Windows Care for over a year now and I highly recommend using it. Update April 14, 2009: many Windows Guides readers have expressed how much they like this program and for all you new readers, I thought it would be good for you take a look. I’ve updated the download link, and Advance SystemCare Pro is better than ever. I run this program on all of my computers and couldn’t recommend it more.

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If you make a change to the group policy on your Windows XP Professional; Vista Business or Ultimate; or Windows 7 Ultimate machine, you will need to restart your computer to make the changes take effect. In this guide, you’ll learn how to avoid restarting with a simple command.

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