Windows Tools, Help & Guides

In this guide, you will learn what the Windows Registry is, how to access and configure it, and how to backup and restore it.

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There are a number of ways to capture screenshots without any additional software in Windows. You can:

1. Capture the whole screen (and automatically save it if you have Windows 8)
2. Capture a part of the screen or a window
3. Capture a series of screenshots in a document

This guide covers the tools built in to Windows and how to use them.

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If you store photos on your home PC and don’t back them up, I really recommend you do. Hard drives fail all the time yet I still get many emails and PMs asking for help with data recovery. Even if you use an online backup solution, I still recommend taking an inexpensive local backup on optical media periodically.

I have my photos synced on two hard drives at home, on a remote server (RAID 10), and with a third-party storage provider. I’m still paranoid about losing my life’s memories in photos so I like to take a snapshot of my photo data every two years. By making a biannual backup, you’ll always have 3-5 viable sets of discs (they don’t last forever) with your important files—should you ever lose or overwrite them. Hopefully this guide is helpful and gives you something to do with the remaining 88 of the 100 DVDs you purchased on sale three years ago…

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XP, Vista, 7, and Windows 8 come with a built in voice database, which you can access via the Microsoft SAPI (Speech Application Programming Interface); in this guide, you’ll learn how to get your computer to say what you type using one of three methods.

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Do you disable Autorun on your PC? Many viruses execute malicious code by running automatically on your PC via a thumb drive, network drive etc. If you haven’t yet disabled Autorun, I recommend you do. This guide will show you the easiest way to disable Autorun in just a few minutes and will potentially save you from getting an avoidable PC virus that takes time (or money) to clean.

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Windows “version 8” is upon us. Bringing changes to the old and safe, the familiar. Some say the changes are for the best, others dread them, swear to keep the Seven for a long time yet (some even say they will never abandon XP as long as there’s hardware to support it). That is how changing things works. But, the awful truth is, that, what seems new and daunting will undoubtedly after a while 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 overwhelming ? Then try imagine being back when Windows was first introduced…  

This is Part 2 of this feature post, did you miss part 1?    Read the rest of this entry »