Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Are you a regular user of the Event Viewer in Windows 7? Ever wonder why Microsoft haven’t programmed it to clear itself after a certain amount of entries or time?

As it stands right now, I have tens of thousands of entries in the Event Viewer which is unnecessary and bogs down the loading time. Maybe for a corporate administrator this is required but for average Joe, it isn’t.

What is the Event Viewer?

“Windows NT has featured event logs since its original release in 1993. Applications and operating system components can make use of this centralized log service to report events that have taken place, such as a failure to start a component or complete an action. The system defines three log sources:

• “System”
• “Application”
• “Security”

Microsoft intends the System and Application log sources for use by the Windows operating system and Windows applications respectively. Only the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (lsass.exe) can directly write to the Security log.”

With that out of the way, on with the guide to show you how to clear the Event Viewer.
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I love Windows 7, I think it’s a great operating system.  There are a few things however that I do not like.

This guide is going to show you how you can remove the Screen resolution, Gadgets & Personalize from the Desktop context menu.

I really can’t understand why MS have put these two here. Especially Screen resolution, once you’ve set your resolution, under most circumstances you’ll likely never click it again (to be honest, you probably didn’t use it in the first place), why put it pride of place in this context menu?  Surely other commands would be much more useful.  Restarting Explorer for perhaps?

I’m not a lover of gadgets either, I like a nice clean Desktop to work in.  This context menu item for me, has to go.

For anyone who is the same as me and can’t understand why these 2 entries are here and too, have no need for them and want to remove them, you’ve come to the right place!

This guide involves editing the registry, please see here before modifying it at all.

Usually all we would have to do is delete a key or two from the registry.

This guide is a little more involved however and requires permission changes to the registry.  Sounds scary I know but as long as you’ve had a look here, understand the risks and follow the guide to a tee, all will be fine and dandy! Read the rest of this entry »

Windows 7 has the ability to link your Online ID with your Windows User Account.  Currently, only Windows Live accounts work and I can’t see this changing in the near future.

What are the benefits of linking your online ID with your user account?

Windows Forums member Batu has taken some beautiful pictures of the Baltic Sea to use as wallpapers.

Here’s a peek at some of the pictures.

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Sometimes you may find that you  go to open a file you work with regularly and it opens unexpectedly with a different program than what it usually does.

This typically happens after installing new software and that software assuming you want it to do the job from now on.

Ever since back in the day at school, .bmp files for me, have always opened with MS Paint.  After installing Adobe CS4, the association changed, .bmp files now open with Photoshop.  This is something i always forget until it’s too late.  I double click the .bmp file and a nano second after I do it, I know I’ve forgotten to change the file association and have to wait for what seems like an eternity for PS to open, when all I ever wanted was to open it in trusty Paint.

This guide is going to show you how to change these associations or protocols to your liking.

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The most annoying part of using a PC, is surely booting it up in the morning for the days use.

After seeing this software reviewed by Lifehacker a while back, I realised I could start my PC in the morning in around 30 seconds as opposed to, in some cases, 10 minutes.

Now, I know the PC is not technically off whilst Boot Snooze is in use.  It’s in hibernation mode or Standby which puts the PC in a very low power state.  It barely even draws whilst it’s in Hibernation.

So the idea here, is to use Boot Snooze last thing in the day to reboot your PC. Once it’s been rebooted, Boot Snooze will automatically start a countdown timer (previously specified) to put your PC into a low power state.  During the countdown, we’ll set Windows to automatically start programs that we always find ourselves using.  I find the first 3 programs I always start are; Outlook, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so we’ll use those in this example.  Once they have opened, Boot Snooze will put your PC into the low power state.

When you start your PC out of standby or hibernation in the morning, it will take around 30 seconds to get to the desktop where your programs are already opened ready and waiting.  Much better than waiting a matter of minutes and then having to open the programs up one by one.

So, here’s a walk through guide on how to start your PC the smart way.

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