If you want to save your files to your hard drive, so after a format you dont have to download them all again, here’s How:
- Logon to Windows Update
- Choose Windows Update Catalogue (left hand pane)
- Choose Find updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems (right hand pane)
- Choose your version and language then Search
- Choose one the following:
- Critical Updates and Service Packs
- Service Packs and Recommended Downloads – Multi-Language Features (0)
- Once chosen simply click on what you want to download and then back at the top click Review Download Basket- You are taken to the next page where at the top you can specify where the downloads are to be saved.
- Click Download now. Each patch will make a directory under the root of the folder you saved them to.
Once finished you need to go to where you saved the file (s) to and then simply install all your patches.
Archive for the ‘Windows XP’ Category
•Open My Computer
•Double-click the drive where Windows is installed (usually drive (C:), unless you have more than one drive on your computer).
•If the contents of the drive are hidden, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.
•Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
•Double-click your user folder.
•Right-click any folder in your user profile, and then click Properties.
•On the Sharing tab, select the Make this folder private so that only I have access to it check box.
Note
•To open My Computer, click Start, and then click My Computer.
•This option is only available for folders included in your user profile. Folders in your user profile include My Documents and its subfolders, Desktop, Start Menu, Cookies, and Favorites. If you do not make these folders private, they are available to everyone who uses your computer.
•When you make a folder private, all of its subfolders are private as well. For example, when you make My Documents private, you also make My Music and My Pictures private. When you share a folder, you also share all of its subfolders unless you make them private.
•You cannot make your folders private if your drive is not formatted as NTFS For information about converting your drive to NTFS
PC Tips for Browsing Workgroup without windows Freezing
I’m making this how to for those people that want to see the computers from their network but are annoyed by Windows Xp.
Why are they annoyed? When you try to access a workgroup to see it’s computers, windows explorer freezes for a few seconds while searching for computers, that sucks.
Using Command Prompt you can overcome fast and easy this problem.
1.Click Start and then click Run, a box will open.
2. Type in the box: CMD and command prompt will open.
3. Type in the command prompt box: net view
4. A list of computers in the workgroup will be shown.
NOTE: Keep in mind that computers behind a firewall will not appear in the list.
PC Tips for SpeedUp Your PC
Power uses go to great lengths to tweak their systems in order to experience improved performance but I’m here to tell you that all the registry tweaks and killing unnecessary services won’t beat fitting a 10,000 RPM drive and loading your OS onto it.
I’m a huge fan of fitting as much RAM into your PC as you can afford (up to the 4GB limit if you are running 32-bit Windows) but once your maxed out on RAM it can be tricky to find effective ways to boost performance. However, once simple way to give your PC an additional nitro kick is to fit a 10,000 RPM drive as your main system drive. And 10,000 RPM hard drives don’t come much better than the Western Digital Raptor SATA drive. This is the king of speed when it comes to drives, and if you don’t believe me, check out this AnandTech review (one of many that I could point you to, but they all say the same thing). Just as a simple comparison, take a look at the stats for a Raptor and a 7,200 RPM WD drive:
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD (74GB)
Average Latency: 2.99ms
Average Seek Time: 4.6ms
Average Write Time: 5.2ms
Western Digital Caviar WD800BB (80GB)
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 8.9ms
Average Write Time: 10.9ms
PC Tips for Making Programs Load Faster
This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn’t load properly just undo the change. For any program:
- Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program
- Select properties
- In the ‘target’ box, add ‘ /prefetch:1′ at the end of the line.
- Click “Ok”
Voila – your programs will now load faster.
PC Tips for Improving Swapfile Performance
If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.
- Go to Start then Run
- Type “msconfig.exe” then ok
- Click on the System.ini tab
- Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign
- Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1″
- Click OK
- Restart PC
PC Tips for Disabling Unnecessary Services
Because Windows XP has to be all things to all people it has many services running that take up system resources that you will never need. Below is a list of services that can be disabled on most machines:
- Alerter
- Clipbook
- Computer Browser
- Distributed Link Tracking Client
- Fast User Switching
- Help and Support – (If you use Windows Help and Support leave this enabled)
- Human Interface Access Devices
- Indexing Service
- IPSEC Services
- Messenger
- Netmeeting Remote Desktop
Sharing (disabled for extra security)
- Portable Media Serial Number
- Remote Desktop Help Session Manager (disabled for extra security)
- Remote Procedure Call Locator
- Remote Registry (disabled for extra security)
- Remote Registry Service
- Secondary Logon
- Routing & Remote Access (disabled for extra security)
- Server
- SSDP Discovery Service – (Unplug n’ Pray will disable this)
- Telnet
- TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
- Upload Manager
- Universal Plug and Play Device Host
- Windows Time
- Wireless Zero Configuration (Do not disable if you use a wireless network)
- Workstation
To disable these services:
- Go to Start and then Run and type “services.msc”
- Doubleclick on the service you want to change
- Change the startup type to ‘Disable”