Windows Tools, Help & Guides

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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Safe mode is a mode within Windows used for troubleshooting problems. In Safe Mode, Windows operates with limited functionality—only basic files and drivers are loaded to start Windows. Once in Safe Mode, you can more easily remove viruses, remove stubborn files, replace or modify Windows files etc.

There are a number of Windows Guides that ask you to start the computer in safe mode:

• Remove Viruses And Malware in Safe Mode [How To]
• 5 Easy Ways to Uninstall Toolbars In Internet Explorer 8
• Perform a System Restore in Windows Vista and 7 [How To]

In this guide, we’ll show you a couple of ways to get into Safe Mode in Windows XP, Vista, 7, and Windows 8.

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In this guest post, MSP shows us how to remap Windows keys without manually modifying the registry. Find out more about MSP at the end of this post. 

You may want to disable some keys on the keyboard; for example, if you are a gamer, you might have wanted to disable the Windows key because accidentally clicking on it might pause your game and invoke the Start menu.

Here is a simple way to disable any key on the keyboard of your computer running Windows.

The registry in Windows can be edited to “map” one key to another key or disable a key. Manual registry editing for this might be a bit tough. Fortunately, here is software which does this – SharpKeys.

How to disable the Windows key:

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TuneUp Shredder is one of the many utilites that comes with TuneUp Utilities 2012 (full review) and is automatically available* after you install TuneUp Utilities 2012 (trial) (aff)

Even after emptying the Recycle Bin, files can be retrieved from your hard disk until they are physically overwritten. If you want your files deleted, permanently, use TuneUp Shredder to completely remove traces of your files. Doing this is both useful and strongly recommended if:

• You sell your PC
• You sell your hard drive
• You are returning a drive for warranty repair, replacement, or refund
• You loan your PC to a friend and you’re not sure what you’ve deleted recently
• Your PC is borrowed (school loaner, corporate laptop etc.)

To shred a file:

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In the previous guide, you learned about the Sysinternals tools. In this guide, you’ll learn how to launch Sysinternals tools from the web. This can save valuable time and give you the tools you need when you need them i.e. you’re at a friends house and they’re asking for help with their PC.

Launching Sysinternals tools from the command line/Run dialog is easy. First, you’ll need the list of names of the Sysinternals tools, which can be found here: live.sysinternals.com

Once you have the name of the tool,  launch the Run dialog (Winkey+R) and type the following:

 \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\toolname.exe

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