Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Recently, we encouraged you to set (or change) a password for your Windows account. If you lose your password, you face the reality of losing access to your files and settings. In this guide, we show you how to create a password reset disk for your PC so, in a bind, you have an easy backdoor into your PC.

Note: you can also crack the password; however, a little preparation will save you the hassle of doing this.

Before you begin this guide, you’ll need the following:

• A USB drive (does not have to be empty)
• A current password set for your account (how to)

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If the On-screen Keyboard pops up every time you log in to Windows and you want to disable this behavior, this guide is for you. I’ve had this question emailed to me a couple of times before; it wasn’t until it started to happen to me, that I thought it might be useful to put up a guide for the fix.

It’s likely that you brought up the on-screen keyboard on the Windows log-on screen at some point. When you do this, Windows changes its settings to enable the on-screen keyboard each time you log on to your computer (after a restart or log off.) It’s not really much hassle to close the keyboard but, after a number of times, it can be tedious. Luckily, there’s a simple “fix” to get the setting back to default.

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Are you tired of manually changing your default printer on your laptop, depending on which network you’re on? Did you know that Windows 7 can set default printers based on your location (i.e., the network to which you’re connected) ? No? Well you do now, and here’s how:

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While it may be relatively easy to crack a Windows account password, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use one. If your PC is mobile, you have even more reason to use this basic level of protection. This guide will show you how to set a Windows password or change your current password.
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If you use online banking, you may have noticed when you get your password wrong that the error in response is pretty generic i.e. “Wrong user name or password.” These error messages are pretty unhelpful; however, this is by design. If someone tries to compromise your account, do you really want them knowing they got the user name right and now just need to tackle the password? Probably not. The harder we make it to get in to our accounts, the less chance we have of opportunists getting to places we don’t want them to be. With that said, this guide will show you how to disable user name display on the Windows logon screen, for additional security.

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If there’s a piece of equipment that works hard in your PC, it’s your hard disk drive (HDD.) HDDs operate at anywhere between 4200 and 15000 RPM (perhaps higher) while in use. In other words, these things spin anywhere between 70 and 250 times a second—sometimes for days on end! While the information in this guide mostly applies to both HDDs and Solid State Drives (SSD), SSDs have no moving parts so some of the information will not apply.

With high speeds and enormous data transfers on a daily basis hard drive file systems, used to store and access all your data, are prone to corruption and failure. Thankfully, all versions of Windows come with a nifty, free tool called “Check Disk” (chkdsk.) In this guide, we’ll show you how to use Check Disk and explain a little about common errors to which hard drives are prone.

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