Tips, Tools & Links

[mouse]

The following thread will contain some tips and links, all with the intention of keeping your pc healthy.

AVG (http://www.grisoft.com) - FREE updating anti-virus software

Zonealarm / Zonealarm Pro (http://www.zonelabs.com/) - Firewall

Netmon (silverpaw3d.com/cf/netmon160.exe) - neat tool that monitors connections to your machine. A voyeurwall if you will.

Outpost (http://www.agnitum.com/download) - free firewall.

Bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com) - self extracting bootdisks.

RegEdit.com (http://www.regedit.com) - a guide to the registry.

X-Setup (http://www.xteq.com) - muthahubard of a windows tweaker.

Sun JVM (http://java.sun.com/getjava/index.html) - need Java support?

Spybot Search & Destroy (http://security.kolla.de) - got Spyware? This handy tool searches for nasty spyware.

Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com/) - test your machine's gaming performance.

SiSandra (http://www.sisoftware.net/) - synthetic benchmarks on everything rom ram through cpu to hard disk.

SPEC (http://www.specbench.org/) - wide range of benchmark tools

XP Power Toys (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp) - 'power' being a relative term, official addons for XP.

Tweak XP (http://www.tweakxp.com/) - Windows tweaks, win9x included.

Iconoid (http://www.sillysot.com/) - a desktop icon manager, adds a few things Microsoft should have themselves.

AdAware (http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10214379.html?tag=lst-0-1) - Adware killer.



Adding a program to the startup list

Create a shortcut to the .exe in

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Disabling messenger [blocking netsend etc in XP]

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services > Messenger service, right click, properties. Select Manual or Disable, whichever you please, also remember to select stop.

Enabling/disabling Javascript Internet Explorer

Select Tools => Internet Options => security.

If Javascript is off it will (probably) say 'custom level', to re-enable either select 'medium' on the slider, or select 'custom level' then scroll the checkboxes to scripting and enable 'active scripting'. To disable, do uncheck that box.

I try to view the source on pages and nothing happens

Empty your Temporary Internet Files.

If that doesnt work, there are more solutions you can try here: http://www.mredkj.com/tutorials/tips_ie.html



And MORE coming soon ;)

People are welcome to post good stuff or links in here or alert me to other threads you feel could/should be added to this faq thingy.

[Roy Sinclair]

Speed up the computer boot process by not loading unused or rarely used programs during the boot.

Most commercial PCs and quite a few hobbyist's PCs tend to get slower and slower as they age, this is most notable as increased boot times. The hardware didn't get slower and you can defrag the hard disk repeatedly but this loss in speed will remain with you.

The problem is usually visible, look at the system tray (all those little icons on the taskbar beside the time display). Every one of those icons represents a program or utility running on your computer in the background. They are using up some of the memory on your system at all times and also cause the use of some CPU simply because of their presense. Some of those programs are useful but most people could easily discard nearly all of them and suffer only the return of some speed to their computer.

How many of those icons represent programs you know and use regularly? Obviously the anti-virus, firewall and other protection software should be left in place but how often do you really play something using RealPlayer or Quicktime? If you're like most people it's not very often so having a utility to shave a second off the load time for a video is usually more costly in overall time lost than it'll ever save you.

So examine each and every one of those icons, leave those that are needful and/or used a lot but get rid of the rest (MSCONFIG in ME and XP will help in removing them if they don't offer an option to remove themselves).

Depending on how many you have and get rid of you may feel like you've bought a whole new and much faster computer.

------

If you've got MS Office installed on your PC you may have additional savings available to you. MS Office always installs a "preloader" to cause parts of the software to always be in memory so when you start an Office program it appears to load more quickly. It's much like the task bar icons above but it doesn't make itself appear on the taskbar. If you aren't constantly loading MS Office documents then that software is more of a drain than a help, make sure you remove it. Also if you don't often use the Office toolbar or only use it to launch programs you can discard that too. For frequently launched programs you can add them to the QuickLaunch zone of the taskbar. There's no need to have a separate launch bar when the QuickLaunch is there and will do the same thing for you.

[Antoniohawk]

[http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/]
[http://www.compukiss.com/sandyclassroom/tutorials/article1121.htm]
[http://www.msfn.org/]

Compliments of bradyj:
[http://www.macfixit.com/]
[http://www.macworld.co.uk/]
[http://www.macworld.com/]
[http://filext.com/]

[Big Fat]

I've tired sereral spyware removal - I think spy sweeper is the best.

http://www.webroot.com/

[fci]

free cd writing program.
http://www.burnatonce.com/

[tboss132]

2 great pieces of software for PC maintenance and general repair. Allows 30 day free fully functional evaluation.

System Mechanic (my favourite) http://www.iolo.com

Tune up utilities http://www.tune-up.com/

[JamieR]

Two sites I like:

http://www.sysinternals.com
http://www.mlin.net

Jamie.

[Mr Deck]

This site has everything I ever needed to sort my pc out. Your firewall or virus detector may stop some of the downloads because they may see them as a virus.
All the small applications save you allot of typing in the run box like if you wanted to uninstall windows messenger, click on the file re boot done or type in or C/P
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove and then its gone.

If you have msn messenger in as well it will not uninstall that but when you start it, it will re install a few files but only once.

The thing is about this site I trust it and never in all the times I have used it never failed me once.
Here you go (http://www.dougknox.com/)

[Vapor]

WebMonkey (http://www.webmonkey.com) is a great link for basic web design. Both client & server side languages.

[iota]

Some of the best download softwares sites are :

http://www.download.com
http://www.downloadthat.com
http://www.fileheaven.com/
http://www.finaldownload.com/
http://www.soft32.com
http://www.soft14.com
http://wwww.softaward.com
http://www.softforall.com/
http://www.softizer.com/
http://www.softpicks.net/software.htm
http://www.sofotex.com/
http://www.softforall.com/
http://www.popularshareware.com/
http://www.1000files.com/
http://www.shareup.net/
http://www.dirfile.com/freeware

For internet optimizer softwares, try the following :


http://es.1clicknetbooster.com/download.htm
ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/ppd/10312685-10312686/TweakMASTER-PRO.exe
http://download.centralserver.net/indeavour/blazenetprotrial.exe
ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/ppd/10254077-10290967/DCTrueSpeedInstall.exe
http://www.modemspeedbooster.com/s2/setup_trial.exe
http://software-files.download.com/software/8334070/10048308/3/wo3ktrial.exe?ptype=3001&ontid=2155&siteId=4
ftp://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/winxp/netutil/cyclone.zip
http://download.speedbit.com/spo20.exe

[SteelValor]

http://www.devpapers.com/
http://www.sans.org
http://www.osvdb.org/
http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/index.html

:D

[hasnain721]

Hello,
Make a new folder and name it as "CON".
Suprised eh?
MS ppl r still trying to figure our y it aint working.
I heard that a Indian student discovered that.

[daniel_g]

Better yet, make file extentions visible, and try to rename, let's say, a bmp file to CON.bmp and you will get an error saying a file with that name already exists.
Other names that just wont work are AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, and NUL

:cool:

EDIT: Oh, by the way, I read on some forum that a guy named a folder CON on a MAC, and transfered the file to a Windows PC. Now he can't rename or erase the folder, but he is able to use it to store other files.

[lerura]

aren't we going little off-topic now :confused: :(

As a supplement to mouse's link to bootdisk.com i can recommend http://www.allbootdisks.com/

[freelancer111]

hey the allbootdisks.com site was very good indeed. This was a very useful thread indeed. pari

[mharr]

The hardware didn't get slower and you can defrag the hard disk repeatedly but this loss in speed will remain with you.
But defragging does not defrag system files, and I have found that is most often the case with "aging" system slowdowns. Mark Russinovich (formerly of Sysinternals, now with Microsoft) wrote about this for his free utility to defrag system files. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/PageDefrag.mspx It is most likely with "aging" that the registry files are fragmented, and the harddrive has to work extra hard (extra time) to be able to gather/read all the fragments.

[westmatrix99]

Do you want to learn PHP, then GO HERE:

http://hudzilla.org/phpwiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

I found this a useful place to find answers.:D

[WindowsRegistry]

I know this thread is a bit old, but even in 2008 I have to say that Spy Sweeper is still the best spyware tool I've used, and I'm partial to System Mechanic. All good recommendations here.

[ColinD]

Old thread is old but Yahoo dont think so! Have to agree that Spy Sweeper (http://www.webroot.com/En_US/index.html) is my #1 app and @ SteelValor.. also try WhatIsProcess (http://whatisprocess.com/) if youre not sure what something is :thumbsup:

[dave6166]

I've tired sereral spyware removal - I think spy sweeper is the best.

[Haraguchi]

i'd sayhttp://imageshare.info/24213481828.jpg spybot is the best spyware removal tool

[effpeetee]

I have collected some usef ul links here (http://www.exitfegs.co.uk/Sources.html):thumbsup:

Frank