Windows Tips

Windows XP's Documents list (a.k.a. "My Recent Documents") and Vista's Recent Items are useful Start menu shortcuts that I'm always forgetting about.

Yesterday I described how to change the number of recently opened files that appear in Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007. But it's even quicker to reopen a file you've worked on recently and its application with a single click of the file's shortcut on the Start menu.

If you don't see My Recent Documents on XP's Start menu, right-click the Start button and choose Properties. Click … Read more

It's easy to find out how much RAM is installed on your system: right-click My Computer in XP or Computer in Vista and choose Properties to see your total system memory and other information about your PC under the General tab.

But where do you look to find the amount of RAM currently in use? (Vista's Reliability and Performance Monitor shows the percent of used physical memory, but I haven't been able to find the equivalent in XP.) Or your BIOS version and date? Or the amount of free storage on your hard drive? Or how long … Read more

I'm always looking for a little bit more performance from my PCs, so I regularly use Piriform's free CCleaner utility to clear out the clutter on my systems' hard drives. (Note that CCleaner is donationware, so if you find yourself using it regularly, drop a few ducats in the virtual coffer.)

The last time I ran CCleaner on my XP test machine, it freed up almost 2GB of hard-drive space by removing temporary Internet files, sweeping out the Recycle Bin, and deleting various Windows updates and other system and application files I no longer needed. Then I clicked … Read more

Your computer's dashboard is that small row of icons located along the bottom of the screen--at least that's where it's located on most PCs. Windows' taskbar shows you at a glance which applications are open and which programs are running in the background (represented by the icons in your system tray just to the left of the clock, though it's not an exhaustive list).

If you have your Quick Launch toolbar active, you also see shortcuts to open various apps, show the desktop, or perform other operations with a single click. Your taskbar's skills go … Read more

Well, Microsoft has finally come clean about the real motivation behind Vista's User Account Control feature. As Tom Espiner's reports from the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft UAC Program Manager David Cross admits that UAC was designed to annoy users.

Espiner quotes Cross telling the security-conference audience that negative user reaction was the only way to coax independent software vendors to update their applications for Vista. As fewer programs violated Vista's rules, users would have to click through fewer UAC prompts.

I'd feel worse about being manipulated by the biggest corporation in the world … Read more

My Vista laptop kept losing its Internet connection when it came out of sleep mode. It turns out that the problem was related to the Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) Client service, or dhcpcsvc.dll, which tried to rewrite routing information to the network store interface. This caused a failed write operation that deleted the routing information.

Microsoft released the fix for the problem last September, though the patch didn't find its way onto my notebook until several months later. The machine's network link still hiccups for a few seconds when it comes out of sleep mode, but … Read more

If I could remember any, I would begin this post with an anecdote about how wonderful a good memory can be.

Instead, I'll just tell you how to put all your keyboard shortcuts and Windows commands in a text file that you can open quickly via keystrokes, or keep minimized for even faster access. And you can do it all without grabbing your mouse.

Start by finding a list of keyboard shortcuts. The one Microsoft put together works for me. Select all the text on the page from "General keyboard shortcuts" to just above "Other information.&… Read more

A lot of programs you don't need to start with Windows do anyway, or try to. And many that you try to prevent from auto-starting just re-enable themselves. Yesterday I described how to remove recalcitrant apps from Windows XP's auto-start list via the System Configuration utility, or Msconfig. Vista's new Software Explorer makes it easier to get rid of the unnecessary auto-starters on your PC.

(As I mentioned yesterday, the $30 WinPatrol, the free CCleaner, and many other Windows utilities can be used to prevent applications from starting with Windows. Here I'm focusing on the tools … Read more

A couple of times a year, I check the list of autostart programs in Windows XP's System Configuration Utility (aka Msconfig) to see if any apps that I don't need to start automatically have snuck onto the roster.

The older my PC gets, the more important it is to avoid slowing down XP's start-ups as the OS loads programs I'll probably never use.

(Note that the $30 WinPatrol, the free CCleaner, and many other Windows utilities can be used to prevent applications from starting with Windows.

Here, I'm focusing on the tools built into XP. … Read more