In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to find largest files on Windows. This process should work from a running Microsoft Windows 7,8, or 10 environment. As disk space begins to fill up, it’s often nice to know what files are consuming the most space. Especially if your drive is almost full and you want or need to remove some unnecessary files to reclaim some of your precious disk space for other files.
How to Disable Chrome Cache – Google Chrome Web Browser. There are often several reasons a person might want to prevent their Chrome Web Browser from Caching pages visited on the internet. One might assume “Disabling Cache” to be an easy option to find and set in Chrome. But currently the only setting to disable cache in Chrome is embedded deep within Developer Tools. In addition, simply disabling cache from within Developer Tools only works as long as the Developer Tools window remains open. As a result that probably isn’t going to be a solid solution for the majority of Chrome users.
I doubt many Chrome Browser users want to browse the Web leaving the Developer Tools Window open? I’d guess that many who use Chrome don’t even use Developer Tools. Keep Reading » Disable Chrome Cache
Want to Reveal or Find Windows Email Passwords? Mail PassView is probably one of the easiest and most straight forward Mail Password recovery tools to use. Created by NirSoft and made specifically for Email Password Recovery, this free tool is tiny yet powerful. Users might use Mail PassView to Show Mail Passwords stored in Windows Mail clients. Clients such as Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, and Incredimail. I’ve been using this tool for many years to find all of my Email Passwords. On Operating Systems ranging from Windows XP all the way up to Windows 10. Keep Reading » Reveal or Find Windows Email Passwords
Mailto links not working from Chrome on Windows 10. I recently encountered an issue where all mailto links listed on websites were not working or opening in Chrome or Firefox browsers. The operating system was Windows 10 and email client was Windows Live Mail. As it turns out, the mailto association was incorrect so Chrome, Firefox and several other browsers couldn’t set Windows Mail to automatically open the mailto links. Keep Reading » Mailto Links Not Working
How to Boot directly to the Desktop with Windows 8: One of the most unwelcoming features of Microsoft Windows 8 for me, (aside from missing a Start Menu Button on the Desktop) has been the direct boot to a Metro Start Screen. I’d much rather boot directly into a familiar Desktop instead. Luckily, starting with Windows 8.1, users now have a choice to boot directly to the Desktop, skipping the Metro Start Screen. Oh, and a partial Start Menu Button is back.
With Microsoft’s release of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISOs, you are probably wondering where to find a Product Key so that you can take this new operating system for a spin. When I downloaded the official Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO and copied the ISO to a Flash Drive via UUI -> Install Windows 8 from a Flash Drive, I rebooted proceeding to run the Windows 8 installer, but didn’t get far before being asked for a Product Key to continue.
How to Extract All Attachments from Email Messages; In this simple solution, I cover one way to easily extract all attachments from your Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail messages. For this process, we will be using a Free Email Attachment Extractor called UUDWIN, created by Mark Spankus. This tool might be used to batch extract attachments from email .eml, .pst, and, .msg files.
How to Boot and Run DOS from a USB Flash Drive. In the following simple solution, I show you a simple way to Put DOS on a USB device using a nifty little tool created by Pete Batard, called Rufus. This tool resembles the HP USB Format Tool, includes the same features, and really makes it easy to Create a DOS Bootable USB Key.
Firefox Status Bar Missing? According to Mozilla, starting with Firefox 4, The status bar has been positionally replaced by the Firefox Addon Bar, and many of the status bar features such as page loading status, and download status have been moved. However, if you had addons that used to appear in the status bar, you can still find them in the new addons bar, that displaces the old status bar. So if this bar is missing, maybe the real question should be, Where is my Firefox Addon Bar?
Keep Reading » Firefox Status Addon Bar Missing
How to Add an Item to Windows 7 Send To Menu; In the following simple solution, I cover the process of customizing a Windows Vista or 7 Send To Menu. For example, I find the Right Click – Send To feature particularly useful for sending multiple images to photoshop for editing, however, photoshop isn’t on the send to list, so I had to add it.
How to turn Numlock on or off on a Laptop: Many Laptops including the HP Envy 17, do not feature a Numlock key. I found this out when my HP Envy 17 Numpad quit working after using an external keyboard. In the following simple solution, I’ll show you one very easy way to Turn Num Lock On or Off, on the fly.
In the following simple solution, I cover the process I use to Tweak an SSD “Solid State Drive” for Optimal Performance and Longetivity. There are a few tools out there that can manage a lot of the following settings automatically. However, I feel it’s also important to know how to make these changes yourself. Upon completion, you should end up with a slightly faster and longer living better “Optimized SSD”.
How to find out if TRIM is Enabled and Working: After installing an SSD drive in your computer, you might wonder if trim is working. The Trim command allows the operating system to notify the SSD (solid state drive) of which data blocks are no longer in use so that they can be wiped. Similar to defragmenting a drive (which is not used on an SSD), Trim enables the SSD to handle garbage collection in an attempt to keep drive performance at a maximum.
In this simple solution I cover one way to Put Windows XP Install Disk on a USB Flash Drive. Installing Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive might be useful for example if you wish to Install Windows XP on a Netbook or Laptop that has no CD Drive. One of the simplest approaches would be via the use of the YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer tool.
How to Minimize Windows Live Messenger to the System Tray in Windows 7. By default, Messenger in Windows 7 minimizes to the taskbar, which in my opinion clutters up the taskbar and appears messy. However, you can easily make Windows Messenger run in the System Tray “by the clock” like it does in previous versions of Windows.
Keep Reading » Minimize Windows Live Messenger to System Tray
In the following simple solution, I cover how to Open the Task Manager on a Remote Desktop Connection. As I am sure you already know, the local keyboard combination Ctrl + Alt + Del does not work on a remote machine. However, the alternate solution is simplier than one might think.
Keep Reading » Open Task Manager on Remote Desktop Connection
How I fixed the ? inserted at the beginning of email replies. Recently, Windows Live Mail began inserting question marks at the beginning of every email I would reply to. As it turns out the beta version of Internet Explorer 9, installed a few days earlier was the culprit. Once Internet Explorer 9 beta was uninstalled, my email replies started working normally again.
One way to Partition a USB Flash Drive from Windows XP and mark it active “bootable”. Windows detects many Flash Drives as “Removable Disks” and flash drives are often shipped formatted as a “Super Floppy” (USB-FDD without a partition table) . The Windows built in format utility cannot create a partition table on Removable Disks. Furthermore, the diskpart utility in Windows XP will not allow you to partition Removable Media, although diskpart does work for partitioning a Flash Drive from Windows Vista/7.
How I Restored GRUB2 after a Windows 7 Install. GRUB2 (Grand Unified Bootloader) is a universal bootloader used by Ubuntu and other Linux Distributions. If you have a Linux Distribution installed on a partition, and attempt to install Windows alongside it, your GRUB bootloader will be overwritten by the Windows bootloader, and your computer will only boot into Windows.
In this simple solution, I cover one method to Erase Empty Space on a Hard Drive. By default when you send items to the Recycle Bin, Delete Email, Clear Browsing History, Etc, the information that occupied that space on your Hard Drive can still be recovered until that space is overwritten several times with new data.
Keep Reading » Erase Empty Space on Hard Drive
How to Delete a Windows Service: In the following simple solution, I will show you how to remove a no longer active Windows Service. Typically installed by programs that utilize automatic functions, Windows Services essentially run executables in a non-interactive manner. In many cases, the uninstaller that ships with a program does not remove the Windows Service it installed. However, as long as the Service is stopped, removal is relatively simple.
Windows Live Mail Has Stopped Working: Recently I was experiencing a sporadic problem when opening Windows Live Mail on my Windows 7 Laptop. After a couple of attempts, Windows Live Mail would work again. It appears many have been experiencing this Windows Live Mail Crashing problem. In the following simple solution, I’ll show you what worked for me to resolve the issue.
How to get sound from Latop to your TV using an HDMI cable. Connecting your Laptop to a HDMI enabled HDTV offers many advantages. For example you can use the Television display as a presentation device, stream movies from the DVD or BluRay player on your laptop, play games etc. However one of the issues many encounter in this process is enabling sound from the Laptop or Notebook to be played over the TV speakers through HDMI.
USB Creator for Windows 7 or Vista is a tool that can be used to put your Windows 7 or Vista Installation Disk on a USB Flash Drive. This enables you to Install Windows 7 or Vista from a USB Flash Drive instead of the Installation CD/DVD. A Windows install from USB is not only faster, but can keep your original disk from getting scratched up. Additionally, NetBooks do not offer a CD/DVD Drive, making Windows Installs from USB optimal.
Make Windows 7 God Mode Pinnable to Taskbar: In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how one way to make God Mode pinnable to the Windows 7 taskbar. God Mode is just a common name for a feature found in Windows 7 that essentially provides an Advanced Control Panel. An explorer shortcut can be created for God Mode and then pinned to the taskbar for quick access.
Keep Reading » Make God Mode Windows 7 Control Panel Pin to Taskbar
Enable God Mode for Windows 7 Control Panel: In my opinion, the new Control Panel in Windows 7 lacks in functionality with a focus on condensed page presentation. This can pose an issue by forcing the user to navigate deeper into a menu item to locate a specific setting or option. With Windows Vista, this was partially resolved by switching to classic view. With Windows 7 comes yet another option. A hidden “God Mode” feature or Master Control Panel.
Enabling Quick Launch in Windows 7: In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how I quickly enabled quick launch in Windows 7. By default Microsoft’s Windows 7 doesn’t include the quick launch toolbar option, however, some people may wish to continue to use the quick launch toolbar feature that was previously available in Windows XP, Vista, etc.
The following are the Shell Commands available in Windows 7. These can be used for many things like launching paths from a command window or to create shortcuts to specific Windows 7 applications (enabling you to Pin Items to Windows 7 Taskbar). This complete list was stripped and converted from an exported FolderDescriptions registry folder found here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions
How to Pin Computer to Taskbar in Windows 7. Windows 7 offers a feature called Pin to Taskbar that allows you to drag and drop or right click items and Pin them to the Windows 7 Taskbar. However, some items, particularly those that are already a part of another pinned item, cannot be pinned. For example, since Computer is a part of Windows Explorer, Computer will not Pin. To fix this, we simply need to create a new shortcut that can be pinned.
Windows Mail and Windows 7: Upon starting Windows 7 you may notice that Windows Mail is missing (Where is Mail in Windows 7?)! Microsoft evidently felt there is no longer a need to bundle a Mail Client. In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to quickly add Windows Live Mail to Windows 7 and get you on your way.
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to Convert Doc to PDF files using the Open Source PDFCreator. I stumbled upon this PDF Creator tool while I was doing some research for a client who was looking for an offline tool he could use to convert his document files into PDF (Portable Document Format) files. This tool seemed to do the trick and more. PDFCreator includes a PDF print driver which allows the user to print to a file from virtually any Windows application that supports printing. It can be used like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows program.
In the following Simple Solution, I’ll show you an easy way to Clear Cache in Firefox. We will Add a Clear Cache Button to Firefox Web Browser by using an extension or addon called Clear Cache Button and then adding the button to our toolbar. This eliminates any additional steps (I.E. Ctrl + F5) that may be commonly used to Clear Firefox Cache and enables you to perform the task on demand via a single mouse click.
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to attempt to Repair Windows Update or Automatic Updates automatically by using an innovative little tool called “Rizone’s Internet Recovery Kit” created by Rizone Technologies. This tool can also be used in an attempt to repair SSL/HTTPS/Cryptography if your having troubles connecting to secured websites. I.E. Bank Account logins, PayPal etc.
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to fix the Windows Update Error 0X80070005 that is ever so often encountered after a Malware attack. The automated fix was created by Rizone Technologies and has worked wonderfully on the select few troubled computers I have had the opportunity to test it on.
Reboot or Shutdown from Remote Desktop Connection: The following simple solution covers the process of rebooting a machine from a remote location or shutting down a remote computer. The process assumes your using Microsoft’s (RDC) or “Remote Desktop Connection”. By default, Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Connection only enables a user to disconnect or log off. This solution will allow you to Shutdown or Reboot that remote PC.
Keep Reading » Reboot or Shutdown from Remote Desktop Connection
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you a quick and easy way to Reset Internet Explorer Settings back to the default. Restoring Internet Explorer as if you just performed a fresh installation of the web browser. Resetting Internet Explorer can be used to solve many problems such as errors like: “Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close” slow browsers, crashes and hanging and conflicting settings. The tool we are going to use is called Microsoft Fix it.
Firefox includes a built in spell checker that can check for spelling errors. However, by default the spell checking feature only checks for multiline fields, which does no good if your typing a single line entry into a single line entry box. In the following simple solution, I’ll cover the process of tweaking the firefox spelling checker to allow you to detect spelling errors and mistyped words as you type them in single line entry fields.
If your encountering the Outlook Express error message stating: “The message could not be sent. There is not enough memory“. Just know that your not alone. I recently needed to address this problem for a client who was simply trying to forward an email with attachments and images totaling over 20MB. As it turns out, somehow his Outbox.dbx became corrupted. In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how we resolved the message could not be sent email problem.
Keep Reading » The message could not be sent. There is not enough memory
Disable Recent Items: In the following simple solution, I cover the process of Disabling or Hiding the Recent Items List in Windows Vista. There are cases in which one might want to disable remove the Recent Items List entirely from the Start Menu. This Vista Recent Items List is basically a doorway to your most recent activity and maybe you don’t want your recent activity exposed.
Clearing the Recent Items List in Windows Vista. In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to Clear Recent Items on your Windows Vista PC. Much like the Windows XP tutorial on how to Clear Recent Documents, clearing your Vista Recent Items is a step towards removing traces of personal browsing history on your PC. The Recent Items List is used to display your most recently accessed files or programs in an effort to make it easier to quickly access those programs or files at a later point in time.
How to Clear Recent Documents in Windows XP. One essential step in removing traces of your personal browsing history on your PC is to Clear the Recent Documents Folder. Much like the Clear Recent Items List in Vista, the My Recent Documents Folder in XP displays your most recently accessed files or programs in an effort to make it easier to quickly access those programs or files from the start menu at a later point in time.
Remove Old Drivers: In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to remove old drivers from Windows Vista. Leaving Old Drivers in place after upgrading your hardware can cause performance issues and in some cases hardware driver conflict (this is especially true with video and sound card drivers). Normally, you wont be able to see devices and their drivers for old hardware in device manager as only active devices are displayed.
In the following simple solution, I will show you how to login to Windows Vista as Administrator. By default, the Windows Vista Administrative account is disabled and the Administrator user account does not appear during login. However, enabling the admin account to be accessible at login is not very complicated.
In the following simple solution, I will show you how to restore a Dell Studio laptop to Factory settings or default condition by performing a Dell Factory Image Restore from the Dell Studio Recovery Partition. The Dell Studio Recovery Partition huses a custom Windows Vista Operating System Image, containing all of the essential drivers and tools designed to work with your specific Dell Studio Notebook.
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to open .docx files on a Mac, or on a PC that does not have Microsoft Office installed or has an older version of Office. .docx files are typically created by Microsoft Office Word. If you send a .docx file to someone who does not have Word on their computer, they might not have an application installed that can read the .docx file. It is also fairly common for Apple Mac users to have issues viewing .docx file.
Windows XP on DV9000: In the following simple solution, I cover the process of installing Windows XP Pro on an HP DV9000 series Laptop (with Intel processors). We will be using nLite to create a remastered Windows XP Pro installation disk with integrated SATA drivers. You must also have a backup USB flash drive or hard drive handy to store essential system and network drivers that need to be installed to gain access to the internet for the remainder of the driver downloads. I’ve personally tested this tutorial by successfully installing Windows XP Pro to a HP DV9030US notebook.
In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to remove the Yahoo Toolbar from Firefox. The Yahoo Toolbar is often unknowingly installed with other software packages. There is nothing wrong with the Yahoo Toolbar, but if you don’t use the tools that are offered, you might consider it to be taking up precous space in your browser.
Setup cannot copy the file cmnicfg.xml: Typically, a user will receive this error during a Windows XP installation. The other day, a friend of mine decided to uninstall Windows Vista from his computer and reinstall Windows XP. He recently used nLite to create an unattended Windows XP Pro installation CD and proceeded to perform the install.
Vista 64 bit Flash Player: In the following simple solution, I cover the process of Installing Adobe Flash Player on Windows Vista 64 bit Operating System. As you may have noticed when running Vista 64, when you visit a site that contains flash elements and you proceed to the download link to download Adobe Flash Player, you may be presented with an error that says:
How to make Vista Faster: In the following simple solution, I’ll show you how to make Vista Startup and Shutdown faster. There are many options available to make your Windows Vista quicker, however, many of these options require reducing Vista’s functionality. We will try to focus on options that do not limit functionality.