Lightning fast PC - in a few simple steps

People are always amazed when I start my PC in front of them, since I take my trusty laptop everywhere, either to do repairs for someone or just a little LAN gaming. So here are a few of my secrets that ANYBODY can use. Enjoy :-)

• Click start>run
• Type “msconfig” and press enter.
• In the resultant window go to the “Startup” tab.
• You will see a list of programs which also run when you boot your computer.
• All program boxes will be checked. Just uncheck all unnecessary or unwanted programs EXCEPT your antivirus. For obvious reasons.
• Click on apply and restart your computer. You will feel that your computer is faster than before.

Another trick to boot computer faster

• Right click on “My computer” and select “Manage”
• Click on “Device Manager”. You will see a list of hardware. If you are not using USB/COM ports, then disable them.
• Restart your Computer. It will give you much better performance on boot-up.

Disable autorun option of USB or CD/DVD drives

Many people know that when ever they plug in their USB drive into the USB port, automatically an auto play option gets executed. Similarly when they insert CD or DVD in drive, it also shows same option of auto run. Well as convenient as this feature is, it can become very dangerous for your computer because if your USB drive contains a virus then it gets executed along with auto run files(trust me, this is personal experience here). As a result your computer or operating system becomes slow. There is a trick to solve this problem. Just follow these steps:

• Click start menu and click on RUN.
• Type “GPEDIT.MSC” and press enter.
• Click on Computer Configuration, then click on “administrative templates”
• Now click on “system” and you will see a list on right side of the window.
• Search Line No. 16. (Turn Off Auto play)
• Double click on it and on the resultant window click on “enable”
• Select “All Drive” to disable all drives.
• Click on apply. Done.

Speed up your Menus After applying this trick you will feel faster speed of your menus. This tricks doesn’t really effect windows start-up or browsing speed though. It just effects your menus e.g start program menu, right click menu etc. To apply this trick simply follow these steps.

• Go to start menu and click on run
• Type “Regedit” and click “oK”. You will find registry editor window.
• Click on “HKEY CURRENT USER” then click on “CONTROL PANEL” and finally click on “DESKTOP” 
• You will see a list on right side and search for “Menushowdelay” 
• Double click or right click on “Menu Show Delay” to modify the value data.
  Change the value data of value name to “0” and click ok. 
• And you're done. Enjoy an excellent menu opening speed.

Note: You can adjust the value according to your requirements. Minimum value is “0” but normally you can use 50 to 150.

Feel like  a boss. Cheers, Sam

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Test your Anti-virus

This trick is used to check antivirus activity. If you feel that your antivirus software is not working well then you can confirm it by using this trick:

• Open Notepad and type this code.

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

• Now save it with extension “exe” (like antivirus.exe) 
• If your antivirus software is working properly then it will detect this file and will try to remove it as soon as you save it. 
• If your antivirus tries to remove this file, it means that your antivirus is working properly and if it doesn’t try to remove this file then you should use some other reliable antivirus software.

Note: This is not an ACTUAL  virus but just a test file. It is in no way actually malicious, so you're still safe even if your anti;virus fails to detect it.
Tip: You should change your protection suite even if it does detect the file but takes longer than 3 seconds, as most real viruses strike in far less time. You can find a reliable one here. Cheers, Sam

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Set a background image for USB drive (XP and Vista)

When a background image is set, it enhances the look of your USB Flash Drive. While setting a background image for your USB hardware, it needs to be plugged-in. PCs with Windows XP and Vista as operating systems are good for adding background images onto a USB Flash Drive. Initially, add a picture and save it in the root directory of the USB Drive. Next open a text file and copy a code that enables the image to appear as the background image of your USB Flash Drive, rename the text file as desktop.ini , and lastly, save and refresh.

You can add a background picture to your USB flash drive. This is very easy to do, it takes just a couple of minutes

Solution

• Open your flash drive
• Copy a picture to it and rename it as test.jpg
• Right click and create a new Text file, open it
• Paste this code:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}={BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC} [{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
IconArea_Image=test.jpg

• Save the file as desktop.ini and hide it.

Refresh by pressing F5 key and see the magic. Cheers, Sam

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Make yourself a boot-able USB flash for installing Windows

I hate discs, probably due to my bad experiences with them. So, if you are like me, and want to install windows on your pc and you feel that your CD/DVD drive is not working properly, or you don't have an optical drive to install windows, than you can prepare a USB device for installation of windows XP, vista or 7. This is a simple way to make a boot-able USB.

Normally all notebooks have the option in the BIOS to boot from USB. Many other motherboards like Intel 865, 915, 965 etc. also have the option to boot from a USB device. So it is very simple and easy way to install XP on you computer. To make a boot-able USB, first of all you will install a software "wintoflash". You can easily download this software from the web. The size of this software is approximately 17MB.

Install it on your computer and then start this program. It has two different paths. In first browse option you will select windows disk and in second browse option, select your Pen drive/USB. Click next to proceed. It will copy all files of windows from DVD to USB. Now click finish. And tadaaa. Now you can use this USB for installation of windows, no need for those scratched up disks. Cheers, Sam

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Install Windows XP faster

If you work in an office and find yourself using the now obsolete windows XP(urgh), you know how irritating re-installing it on all your PC's can be. So in this post, I will tell you how toinstall of windows XP in record time. Normally when someone tries to install windows XP on computer, it takes around 30-40 min to complete the entire process. That is waaaay too long people. I will tell you a method to install windows faster. It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete this windows installation. So to install win XP in a short time-frame, please follow these steps:

• Power on your computer and start with bootable windows XP cd
• In first step window will load installation files.
• Select any drive (C :) for installation.
• Select NTFS to format the partition.
• Setup will copy files on this drive and it will try to restart PC.
• After restarting when you see XP logo, press (Shift+F10).
• It will open (CMD) prompt.
• In CMD prompt type (Taskmgr)
• It will open task manager. Now go to the “process” tab and find “Setup.exe” Right click on setup.exe and select “Set priority” You will see a submenu. Here priority will be normal. Select priority to (High) or above  (Normal). 
• Done.

That will complete the installation process much faster than normal. Now go have a cup of coffee and show everyone your crazy skills. Cheers, Sam

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Difference between TFT and LCD displays

Just for reference, this is a common question I have been asked several times by many people. Everybody wants to know that what the differences between an LCD and TFT are. So i figured, I should answer this question for anyone who has doubts.

LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display, and TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor.

TFT is not really that different from LCD. It comes from the family of LCD technology. We can say that it is a modern version of the LCD Technology. A TFT does however provide much more improved image quality.

There are two types of display quality. 1st one is Matted and 2nd is Glossy. Matted display is called LCD and Glossy display is called as TFT. LCD and TFT both consume less power energy as compared to CRT (Cathode ray tube). Nowadays TFT has been used for mobile phone devices, projectors, navigation systems as well as TVs and computer monitors. That should brighten your day. Cheers, Sam

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How to change your logon screen background

We all hate that terrible blue logon screen in Windows, so today im going to show you how to change it.
Changing the setting in group policy will allow it to persist even when you change your theme, but the Group Policy Editor is only available in Professional/Ultimate editions of Windows. If you have access to the Group Policy Editor, launch "gpedit.msc" from the Start menu. If not, then read further down the article. Navigate to the following section in the Group Policy Editor window: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon. You'll find a setting named “Always use custom login background.” Double-click it and set it to Enabled.

Setting An Image
Your image file must be less than 256 KB in size. It's also a good idea to use an image file that matches the resolution of your monitor, so it won’t look stretched. Windows looks for the custom logon screen background image in the following directory: C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds.
By default, the info and backgrounds folders don't exist. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\oobe folder and create them yourself by right-clicking inside the folder, pointing to New, and selecting New Folder. Copy your desired background image to the backgrounds folder and name it backgroundDefault.jpg.
The change will take effect immediately – no system reboot required. The first time you log out or lock your screen (try the WinKey-L keyboard shortcut), you'll see your new background.

If you don't have access to the Group Policy Editor, then use the following method. Keep in mind that when you change themes, it will revert back to the original image.

Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit into the search box in the Start menu and pressing Enter.
In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background. You'll see an DWORD value named OEMBackground. If you don't see it, right click in the right pane, point to the New submenu and create a new DWORD value with this name. Double-click the OEMBackground value and set its value to 1. Note that selecting a new theme in the Appearance and Personalization window will upset this registry value. Selecting a theme will change the value of the key to the value stored in the theme's .ini file, which is probably 0 – if you change your theme, you'll have to perform this registry tweak again. Cheers, Sam

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