Windows Tips

ElijahLofgren

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Windows Tips

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Windows XP

Install a better browser than Internet Explorer

Rediscover the Web, get Firefox. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups.

Install a better email client than Outlook Express

Reclaim your inbox, by installing Thunderbird. Enjoy safe, fast, and easy email, with intelligent spam filters, quick message search, and customizable views.

Install a free alternative to Microsoft Office

Save your money, use OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.

Nevermind: forget about the instructions below. Just download the OpenClipart and then click the "New Theme" button on the Gallery. Go to the Files tab. Click Find Files... Go to a top level OpenClipart category folder. And then Click OK and Addall (this guide needs cleanup, but I don't have time right now. ;)

To get the OpenClipart Gallery into the Windows version of OpenOffice.org you need to download the openclipart-openoffice.org package and extract the data.tar.gz out of it and copy the files in the usr/lib/openoffice/share/gallery folder in data.tar.gz to the OpenOffice.org share/gallery folder. Also you need to download the openclipart-png package and copy all the folders in the png folder into the OpenOffice.org share/gallery folder.

Install a free Firewall program

The Comodo Personal Firewall is a nice free firewall program that I have installed on my sister's PC which runs Windows XP.

Install a free Antivirus program

AVG Anti-Virus Free is a free anti-virus protection tool developed by GRISOFT for home use. I chose it from hearing it recommended as the best free anti-virus program at WebmasterWorld.

Windows 98

Fix the registry startup error

On startup your Windows computer may have this error:

"Windows encountered an error accessing the system Registry. Windows will restart and repair the Registry for you now."

To fix this:

  1. Boot into DOS by clicking: "Start->Shutdown" and then choosing "Restart in MS-DOS Mode" and clicking the "OK" button.

  2. Type the following and hit Enter once you get to a DOS prompt:

    SCANREG /FIX

Since I kept getting this error so often, I ended up using msconfig to disable the registry checker from being run on startup. This stopped the error from ever coming back. :)

Install Good Free Firewall that works on Windows 98

Install Safety.Net Firewall

Fix Black icons on Desktop and Start menu problem

  1. Right click on the Desktop and choose "Properties" from the menu.
  2. Go to the "Appearance" tab.
  3. Next to "Item" choose "Icon" from the drop-down menu.
  4. Change the size from 32 to 33 and click "Apply"
  5. Change the size back to 32 and click "Apply" again.
  6. Click "Ok"

Good Free Windows Security Software

Firewall

Comodo Firewall

I've used this in the past and it's pretty good. It's probably come out with a newer version since I last tried it so they've hopefully fixed the stability issues that I ran into. I'm really enjoying Comodo's Free Antivirus software so I may try Comodo Firewall again in the future.

ZoneAlarm

ZoneAlarm is quite good. I think this is the one I would recommend to people if they think they need a firewall. I have tended to not use firewalls on PCs in my family's home network because they are already behind a linksys router and would rather free up system resources for the task I am working on.

Anti-Virus


Comodo AntiVirus


  • Comodo Antivirus is the only on-access anti-virus program which is free for business users to use that I could find. Do you know of another one? If so, please let me know.
    • My experience
      • I have Comodo Anti-virus installed on Windows XP Pro on an old 1 Ghz laptop computer with only 256mb of ram. It seems to run quite well and has some nice features such as whitelisting or allowing programs before they are allowed to run. I'm quite satisfied with it and will probably switch my desktop from AVG free to Comodo anti-virus.
    • Downsides
      • I don't really see any downsides to Comodo AntiVirus at this point. It seems like it has a very easy interface and doesn't try to take over the computer.


Good Commercial Windows Software

I rarely pay for software since there is such large number of free software programs.

  • Nero 7 is well worth the $25 that it costs to be able to create customized DVD menus. I tried so many free Linux video editing programs and found that Nero was worth the money and time saved and the better quality product produced. I had a lot of problems with videos made with early versions of QDVDMaker not playing on some players. As such, I believe that my time is better spent paying for software to make nice DVD menus than spending extra time and effort to get a inferior result.
  • MS Office
    • Sometime you want to make absolutely sure that your PowerPoint will show up exactly the same as you created it when you give a presentation. As such, I recommend you buy MS Office for a discount at some place like JourneyEd.com or NewEgg.com until a time when OpenOffice.org and MS Office will hopefully have better compatibility.

Download streaming video

Modified: 2006-09-29 12:53:53

Use LiveHTTPHeaders to get the URL from Firefox and then use Streaming Download Project.

Free Sticky Note Software

Modified: 2007-01-21 16:47:08

Get: StickyPad

Free ISO Burning App

Modified: 2007-05-21 10:27:33

ISO Recorder
A nice one is ImgBurn

Disable MS Word Menu Auto-Hiding

Modified: 2007-02-11 21:39:31

Go to "Tools -> Customize" and check "Always show full menus"

Free Time Tracking Program

Modified: 2007-02-14 21:25:45

Cratchit.org - Timetool for Windows

Turn IE into FF

Modified: 2007-02-14 21:27:23

Foxie

Programmer’s Notepad

Modified: 2007-02-24 23:34:22

Programmer’s Notepad - the free, open source, text editor with special features for coders.

Printing Multiple Excel Graphs

Modified: 2007-03-26 22:54:20

For pasting and resizing, uncheck auto-scale on title and axis.

I found the best way to format them is to paste them into MS Publisher (you can edit them inside of Publisher).

  • GREP for Windows - Added: 2007-04-06 00:06:24
    http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baregrep/index.php

Fixing Windows Problems: Two Resources

Video

Modified: 2007-05-20 00:12:05

DVDAuthorGUI on Vista

Modified: 2007-05-21 15:33:56

In order to run DVDAuthorgui on Windows Vista I had to Turn User Account Control (UAC) off.

  • Visualize your hard drive usage - Added: 2007-06-04 16:26:01
    http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-space/geek-to-live--visualize-your-hard-drive-usage-219058.php
  • Free CD Ripper - Added: 2007-06-15 12:30:47
    http://www.download.com/Free-CD-Ripper/3000-2140_4-10396883.html
  • Free MP3 Splitter - Added: 2007-06-16 16:59:49
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3splitter/

Nero Burning Rom

Splitting a long audio file into multiple CD tracks

Modified: 2007-06-17 16:39:30

How to secure your wireless router

Modified: 2007-06-29 19:05:14

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Last Modified: July 1, 2008 09:57 PM

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