Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you use online banking, you may have noticed when you get your password wrong that the error in response is pretty generic i.e. “Wrong user name or password.” These error messages are pretty unhelpful; however, this is by design. If someone tries to compromise your account, do you really want them knowing they got the user name right and now just need to tackle the password? Probably not. The harder we make it to get in to our accounts, the less chance we have of opportunists getting to places we don’t want them to be. With that said, this guide will show you how to disable user name display on the Windows logon screen, for additional security.

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This is a neat little trick for those spy wannabes, or those of you who are paranoid wanting a secret user account on your system. Okay it may not be a totally secret account, as the user folder will be visible after login anyways… Jokes aside, if you have a public available computer, you may want to make sure users log on, using the proper account(s). This can be achieved with a little tweak of the registry. The hidden accounts are of course available for log in, when you know where to look. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever heard of  AHCI ? No?

In short, AHCI is a new hardware communication standard from INTEL that can speed up hard drive operations and enable more efficient multitasking. Since the release of Vista, Windows has natively supported what is known as AHCI (Advanced Host controller Interface). In most cases Windows does not recognize the ability to use ACHI. Usually because it has not been switched on in your BIOS. If you have at least one SATA disk on your system you may benefit from activating the AHCI driver. Before we get to that part, let’s explore what the ACHI is and what it does.

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Windows Forums member, Shane, lists four new features set to come with Windows 8:

1. Windows Explorer Ribbon UI
2. Webcam.exe
3. TaskUI
4. Modern PDF Reader

In his guide, he shows you how to enable these features in build 7850 of Windows 8. For example, to enable the PDF reader:

1. Run regedit and go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint\Capabilities
2. Make string value called “CLSID” – “{D3E34B21-9D75-101A-8C3D-00AA001A1652}.”
3. Start using the built in PDF reader to open your PDFs.

Windows 8 Fluent UI, Webcam + 2 more | Windows Forums

Want more news about Windows 8? Bookmark the Windows 8 News & Rumors [Rolling Updates] page.

In this guest post, James Ricketts discusses how deal with computer uninstall errors. Find out more about James at the end of this post.

Uninstalling applications is never as seamless a process as installing them. Although Windows PCs come with a built-in utility, the Add or Remove Programs utility, that allows users to easily uninstall various applications and software, it usually fails to do the required job when you need to uninstall certain applications, such as McAfee Antivirus suite or DirectX.

Incomplete uninstallation may cause errors and complications on the system. Leftover processes of a previously installed program may interfere with other running processes and cause application errors, as well as performance related issues, such as frequent software crashes and system slow downs. This is why it is absolutely essential that when you remove a program you ensure that all its associated processes, files, and registry entries are also permanently deleted.

With the help of two examples, McAfee antivirus suite and DirectX we discuss how to uninstall programs that may not get completely removed using the Add or Remove Programs utility.

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To make things easier (for the common user) Microsoft decided to Categorize the Control Panel view. I never could get used to the new categories view, thinking that some of the panel applets were in the wrong category. Instead, I always immediately switch back to the “Classic” Control Panel view.

I recently learned that you can re-arrange the category arrangement, making it appear just as YOU think it should. It does involve editing the registry, but I’m sure that won’t scare you … much.

This tweak is generally for PRO and ULTIMATE users, but you may still be able to tweak some of the Control Panel Applets on lower versions.

Open RegEdit

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