Tips and Tricks

Technical Support Forum

Post any WINDOWS tips and tricks you have to make it frun better, faster, etc..

Start> Run> type msconfig> click startup> uncheck any programs you don't need, this stops programs loading with startup, making windows load faster.

I would like to know how to back up my computer before re-installing or re formatting. Thanks for the help. My OS is XP. I would like to make startup faster as you suggested, but I don't know what some of them are. Do I need them? I don't use Microsoft Office, can I check that? What is billminder? Thanks

Be careful with the msconfig, you don't want to jack up your CPU.

Check and see what .exe types are listed, those are programs. That's what bogs down your system.

To back something up, just burn the desired files onto a CD. If you don't have a CD burner, either get one, or about 100 floppy's. ZIP disk's are good too.

-HECK!

I don't know how to "just burn" it to a cd. Do I go to my computer and see if it will burn from there? Thanks

devildog: windows xp has built-in burning capabilities. put a cr-r/cd-rw into your cd burner and click on it in my computer and you can drag files/folders into the window. as you move stuff into there, it's not immediately burned, but you can see what will be on the cd when you decide to tell windows to burn the cd. if you have a cd-rw, you should put one in there and practice before the real deal, if you decide to reinstall your computer.

When I load the stuff back in from the back up after reformat, won't I just re infect my computer?

boy, wouldn't that just suck. reinstall and be infected days later. but i agree with M., if you're careful this won't be a problem.

Yea that would suck. Do things like e-mail addresses just load back in? I did what you said and hid all the microsoft stuff and checked the rest of them. We'll see. Its been 5 minutes and no sign

(in response to the topic of this thread, devildog, all this stuff in this post isn't troubleshooting techniques for you! just wanted to be sure you realize that. )

in addition to the msconfig stuff, (and if you're ambitious enough, and CAREFUL enough) the next thing you can do is modify your services.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

and be careful with these, but here's a page with some registry mods if you want to change something but don't want to go into the registry yourself.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm (again, be careful with these. don't just use these to see what they do. if you're unsure what something does chances are that you DON'T need it. i don't condone anyone downloading a file to merge with their registry unless they are confident in what they are doing and have the good sense to look at the file in an EDIT program to verify what keys the merge will alter. again, if you don't know how to do this or what i'm talking about, then DON'T do it. )

and here's a simple page with some keyboard shortcuts you may or may not know about or remember.

http://www.quiltweb.com/using.htm

and there's a little program called wizmo.

http://grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm

wizmo has many functions. i use it as a shortcut to reboot, standby, hibernate, or shutdown my laptop. i keep them as a toolbar on my taskbar so i have to at least take one step toward them and there is no danger of accidentally rebooting or shutting down my computer. i have attached a pic to demonstrate.

but wizmo is a stand alone app. and how you use it is like this. you create a shortcut to wizmo. and in the shortcut you add switches to the command line to change the function of the shortcut. i.e. 'exit' to reboot, 'standby' to standby, 'shutdown' to shutdown. you create a different shortcut with a different switch for each function. you can even use it to initialize your screensaver, a blank screen, or to turn off your monitor. i find it very useful.

Well DD, your computer has to have a CD burner. You should know if you have one or not...

-HECK!

Of coarse I know THAT heck. I actually have a DVD burner. And dvd xcopy. I didn't know about that drag, drop and automatic burn thingy. Slack must be cut. I am a grunt.

I can be trained though