Windows Tools, Help & Guides

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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There’s nothing like a brand new computer or a freshly installed one. It boots quick. It performs well. Windows and programs just pop up – almost before you boot them. But not before long your computer becomes sluggish, boot seems to take forever and programs take forever to load. Your CPU works overtime and you hear that constant nagging from your hard-drive.

Is it time to do another fresh installation, already ??

I hate doing fresh installations, it takes me two or three days getting my computer back up and running as I like it.  So, I keep putting it off, until nothing works, and I have no other choice…

Inevitable? Yes, BUT – there is one thing to try first….

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I’m sure you already know how to use both MsConfig, AutoRuns and RegEdit to control which applications to run when booting windows. I use MsConfig on a regular basis to stop unwanted programs from running. It’s a great tool on a daily basis, except that the list of deselected items tend to get rather long and annoying. Unchecking items doesn’t delete any entries. So how do you get rid of them completely ?

Here’s how

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Windows “version 8” is upon us. Bringing changes to the old, the safe, the familiar. Some say the changes are for the best. Others dread them, swear to keep the Seven (or XP)  for a long time to come. Some even say they will never abandon XP as long as there’s hardware to support it. That is how changing things affect us.

However, things that seem new and daunting will undoubtedly after a period seem like the most natural thing in the world – something you just can’t imagine life without. Do you think that the changes in “Version 8” are something you can live without ?

Some 20 years ago when Windows had reached the age of 3, people had not yet gotten used to the expressions “Double-click” or “Right-click”, “Drag and Drop”, “Minimize”, “Maximize”. Common users also were quite skeptical to this new fancy gadget called a “Mouse”. Very few people could imagine using this “contraption” for work and even fewer seeing it as a time-saving device. Can you imagine life without it today? Maybe you have to – the introduction of smart-phones, tablets and the upcoming Windows 8 – might force you to re-imagine life – without it… back to square one as it were.

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We’ve previously told you about Taskbar Thumbnails and how to use the Taskbar more efficiently. Personally I love the stack functionality in the Windows 7 Taskbar. Stacking all the thumbnails is a great way to keep the taskbar tidy and compact. The only thing that irritates me is that it doesn’t (by default) keep track of which of the windows I was working on last. If I’m working on several Excel Documents and I need to switch to another program for a few minutes, going back to the same Excel document will often lead me flipping through the entire stack.

There is a way to change this behavior, letting the Stack-feature save which window you worked in last. It requires a small Registry hack – and as always, create a backup before you do in case something should go horribly wrong. That being said, here’s how to fix it:

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I’ve been wanting create a few Windows Guides Wallpapers for a while now. I’ve finally come around to it, and here’s the results thus far. Hope you like them.
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