The built-in Administrator account is one of the most targeted account names by malicious programs and hackers that are attempting to access your computer without your permission. It is therefore a wise security precaution to rename the Administrator account to another less common name so that it can no longer be targeted. By default, the Administrator account in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 are disabled, while in Windows XP it is enabled. Regardless, of your Windows version, if you choose to use the Administrator account, you can use the following tutorial to rename the account to make it less susceptible to hacking attempts.
When Windows is no longer able to start it is typically because of a problem in the Windows Registry, a driver conflict, or malware crashing the computer. Windows startup issues can be one of the most frustrating issues to deal with because you do not have easy access to the file and data we need to fix these problems. Thankfully, we can use the Windows 8 Recovery Environment Command Prompt to assist us in resolving these types of problems. This tool allows you to access your Windows Registry and file system when Windows is offline. This will allow you to fix numerous issues such as corrupt Registry data and malware infections.
Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise come with a more advanced backup and restore utility called Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore. This program allows you to create an entire backup of your computer that can be used to restore your computer in the case of system-wide failure. Unlike the standard backup and restore feature that comes with all the versions of Windows Vista, Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore allows you to not only restore your data but also the complete operating system and other critical system files.
The Snipping Tool is a program that is part of Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Window 8. Snipping Tool allows you to take selections of your windows or desktop and save them as snips, or screen shots, on your computer. In the past if you wanted a full featured screen shot program you needed to spend some money to purchase a commercial one. If you needed basic screen shot capability, past versions of Windows enabled you to take screen shots by pressing the the PrintScreen button to take a picture of your entire screen or Alt-Printscreen to take a screen shot of just the active window. This screen shot would be placed in your clipboard that you can then paste in another image program of your choice.
An excellent free program to include in your collection of anti-spyware programs is Ad-Aware 2007 Free. This tutorial will provide instructions on how to install, configure, and remove malware from your computer using Ad-Aware 2007. It is important to note, though, that Ad-Aware 2007 is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME. If you are using those operating systems then you must follow the instructions on using the older Ad-Aware 6 SE Personal edition.
One of the top questions I see on forums is "How do I know if I have been hacked?". When something strange occurs on a computer such as programs shutting down on their own, your mouse moving by itself, or your CD constantly opening and closing on its own, the first thing that people think is that they have been hacked. In the vast majority of cases there is a non-malicious explanation for these problems such as faulty hardware or problematic software, but it is better to be safe than sorry for not investigating deeper. Unfortunately, the vast majority of computer users have no idea how to go about determining if their computer is hacked. It is for these people, that I am writing this tutorial.
If your C: drive starts to run out of space, one of the most frustrating experiences can be figuring out what can be deleted or moved to another drive in order to free up storage. This is especially true with modern computers that are commonly configured with small SSD drives as their C: drive, which can easily run out of space due to their smaller storage capacity. If you are using Windows Live Mail it will store your email by default on your C: drive. If you are like me and save almost all of your email, then your Live Mail mail store can grow to a very large size. Thankfully, the program provides the ability to easily change the location where your mail is stored so that you can you move it to another drive that may have more free space available. This tutorial will walk you through changing where your Windows Live Mail e-mail is stored.
Safe Mode is a Windows mode that uses only the most basic drivers and programs that are required to start Windows. This mode will also not launch any programs that are set to start automatically when Windows starts. This makes Safe Mode is very useful for diagnosing hardware driver problems and computer infections in Windows 8. It can also be useful when you want to uninstall a program or delete a file that you are unable to remove when Windows is started normally.
A Windows Vista feature is simply a set of programs or a particular capability of the operating system that can be enabled or disabled by an administrator. It is important to note that in Windows Vista, when you remove or disable a feature, you are not actually removing files from your hard drive, but rather just deactivating them. Therefore disabling a feature should not be used as a method of freeing up hard drive space. On the other hand, by disabling a feature you may gain an increase in performance due to memory and processor utilization no longer being allocated towards the particular feature.
When using Windows 10, you may find that the Windows desktop has frozen and you can no longer use the Start Menu, click on programs, drag files, or switch between windows. When this happens, it may be caused by the Windows Explorer, or Explorer.exe, process having issues and can typically be fixed by restarting it.