There are a lot of third party remote control pieces software around such as the popular freeware tools VNC, and TeamViewer, but there are times when the built-in Remote Desktop Connection feature in Windows 7 is the most useful since it’s already present in Windows and you don’t need to install any third party software. All you need to do is to enable it because the Remote Desktop function is disabled by default. You can enable Remote Desktop and allow connection from other computers by going to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> click on the Remote tab.

From there, you can either select “Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop” which is less secure or “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication”. If you are setting up a connection to a different Windows version such as XP or Vista from your Windows 7 machine , then you need to choose the less secure option.

Tip: Pressing the WIN Key+ Pause/Break keys simultaneously brings up the System window.

If you only see the Remote Assistance box in the Remote tab but not Remote Desktop, that is because there are some restrictions that Microsoft has implemented in your version of Windows. Only Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise can accept connections from Remote Desktop but NOT for Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic and Home Premium. You can however, use Remote Desktop to initiate a connection from any edition of Windows 7.

Many branded laptops and computers come with Windows 7 Home Premium or possibly Home Basic pre-installed, but not to worry because there is a hack patch that can enable the Remote Desktop Connection in Windows 7 Home Premium with a single click.
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Windows XP by default allows anyone in the same local area network to access its shared folders without the need to provide a user name and password. This is because the XP Simple File Sharing mode is enabled by default and can be disabled from Control Panel > Folder Options. As for Windows 7, the default security settings for folder sharing have been strengthened and you cannot access anyone’s shared folder on the same network without providing the correct login information. An attempt to connect to another computer will first prompt a Windows Security dialog box asking you to enter network password.

This is an improved security feature because previously anyone can access an unprotected shared folder by simply using SoftPerfect Network Scanner to scan for shared folders on the whole subnet. However, if you’re the only user on the network or your computers only connect to your personal private network, the authentication to access shared folders is quite unnecessary.

Here is how to share folders and access the shared folders in Windows 7.
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When I was in my teens and started to learn about fixing computers, one of the first thing I remembered learning was the proper order to install drivers. Installing Windows now is much more simplified and easy compared to Windows 95/98 because we don’t need to use a DOS bootup floppy disk, and the vast support of devices on Windows 7. Windows 98 didn’t support a lot of drivers and we need to spend quite a lot of time searching and downloading the drivers for chipset, display, sound, modem and printer on the internet using the slow 56Kbps dial up internet connection.

A very old friend of mine just called me yesterday asking me what and how to install chipset driver. Many people call it a chipset driver but in fact it is not a driver nor does it include drivers. It contains information text files (INFs) that provides the operating system with information about a piece of hardware on the system. This allows the operating system to show the correct name for that piece of hardware in Device Manager.

As far as I can remember, the first driver that I should always install is the chipset drivers once Windows installation has been completed, followed by the rest of the drivers. If you install the Intel Chipset Software much later, you will notice that it will not install all INFs.
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To increase the efficiency of recovering your system, some of you may think of cloning your current system and store it in a portable drive by using the program such as Ghost. If your system crashed, you can easily plug in the portable drive, and recover your system to the state whereby you do not need to spend so much time on installing necessary software or security updates for each of the application. Apparently, this will save you a lot of time.

By preparing a clean operating system image, after you install the necessary software and tools, you will need to perform a system preparation by using a tool called Sysprep. (For Windows Embedded operating system, you will need to use a tool called FBreseal to prepare the system, it is hard to search for on the Internet, and you may download the FBreseal tool from here if you are using Windows Embedded operating system). This step is very important, especially if you would like to clone the same operating system image on multiple machines. If you do not perform system preparation, all the machine that using the same image, will have the same Security Identifier (SID) applied on it. Imagine if everyone in the same town is having the same identity card number, this is ridiculous, and no one will be able to proof themselves. Furthermore, those machines that with the same SID will not be able to join to the domain. From Microsoft system point of view, SID should be unique for every computer device that connected to the Active Directory.
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Windows Task Manager is a very useful utility built into the Windows operating system. It can be launched by a few different methods such as selecting “Start Task Manager” from the taskbar context menu, pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc, running taskmgr.exe from the Start menu, and etc.

For computer beginners, Task Manager is mostly used to forcefully end a process that is not responding or hung. For advanced users, it can be used to look for suspicious running processes. The Task Manager has limited functionality in some areas by default. For instance, you cannot determine the program path for a running process because it only shows the image name and you’ll have to search the hard drive for the filename.

It is sometimes important to know the exact path to a running process because an executable can trick a user into thinking that it is a legitimate process by impersonating the filename, but located at a different path. Thankfully, Task Manager can do this with a few minor adjustments. Also, some third party task management software can also show the process path by default. Here we show you some options.
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The dreaded blue screen of death (BSoD) has been around since Windows 95. It is scary in a way that this blue screen can happen anytime without the user expecting it and there is no way to recover from this blue screen other than restarting the computer. Obviously the biggest problem is actually when you are working on something important and haven’t got a chance to save it. An unexpected blue screen will just cause you to lose all or some parts of your work depending on how often it is being saved. Other than that, the blue screen on an older Windows does look a bit scary with all the text and technical information on screen. Fortunately the blue screen on Windows 8.1 doesn’t look so frightening.

Anything can cause a blue screen in Windows. It can be from an unstable driver for a hardware device, 3rd party software such as an antivirus/firewall, or even a rootkit based malware. It can also be caused by an attacker exploiting or in another word “nuking” an unpatched Windows. Hardware such as memory, CPU and motherboards that are failing can also randomly cause blue screen.

If the blue screen is caused by software, an inexperienced computer technician will have to spend more time to determine the culprit by going through the process of elimination of disabling all 3rd party programs that startup automatically, enable them one at a time and test until they experience the blue screen. However with the right tools in hand, it can quickly reveal which software is possibly causing the blue screen so you can work towards fixing the problem. Here we have 3 free software that can do that.
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Whenever a computer develops an issue or becomes unstable, the first thing an experienced user will want to do is start troubleshooting. There are many tools around that can help fix a number of problems, but the first approach should be to look at the logs Windows creates to check for possible warnings or errors. The Windows Reliability Monitor is one Windows function that gives relatively easy to read details, but that gets its data from somewhere with even more information, and that is the Windows Event viewer.

Event Viewer is the user interface to display the Windows Event Logs, and with it a vast array of information is available to tell you what Windows components and third party software has been doing. If there’s something wrong the logs will often tell you by showing a warning or error for the entry, from there you can troubleshoot deeper and narrow down possible causes to the problem.

Even though the logs in Event Viewer are created automatically by Windows or installed applications, the end user can also add their own entries to create a log of anything they wish, a common use would be for monitoring when an application is opened or closed. Adding a log entry is done using a built in windows command called EventCreate, so you can create an event from Command Prompt or even from your own scripts or programs.

The Eventcreate command works on Windows XP up to and including Windows 10, but note that it requires administrator privileges to work. Open a Command Prompt by typing cmd into Windows Start search and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch in admin mode.
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The User Account Control feature has been around since Windows Vista and can still be found implemented on Windows 10. Basically UAC is a security feature implemented in the Windows operating system to prevent potentially harmful programs from making changes to your computer. Even if your user account belongs to the administrators group that is supposed to have complete and unrestricted access to the computer, you are still subjected to the UAC restriction.

When you run an application that needs privileges to make file or registry changes that can globally affect all users on the computer, it will initiate a User Account Control notice window. The user can either click on the Yes button to allow the program that will make changes to the computer to run or else clicking No will stop it from running.

If you compare between the versions of Windows that come with and without the User Account Control feature (XP vs. Vista and newer), XP has a very high malware infection rate while the newer Windows requires a much more sophisticated and advanced rootkit malware in order to take full control of the computer. In this article we’ll be taking a closer look at how effective the User Account Control feature is and what are its weaknesses.
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Yesterday, after I had finished writing an article, I decided to unplug my laptop and go downstairs to relax on the sofa in the living room. Frustratingly, the one plug close to the sofa was in need of repair and the other outlet was too far away to plug my laptop into. I instead decided to just run the computer off the battery for a while.

Once it started to get a bit low in charge, I went back upstairs to plug it in, with about twenty minutes of charge remaining. And that’s when it hit me: It wasn’t charging. I thought the battery was fine as it was the original and looked OK when its information was checked. Being an original battery meant it was also less likely to cause unforeseen problems than some third party batteries.

The first thing I did was panic, which in hindsight wasn’t the wisest thing to do. Panicking while the battery is still discharging will only lead to more problems and unclear thinking. After a few moments, I stopped to think while shutting down my laptop about what the causes for this issue could be.

A little while later I came up with a few ways to allow the battery to start charging again.
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One thing that Windows has got better at over the years is offering more driver support out of the box. Installing compatible drivers for many components in a system without having to go online is mostly automatic. Windows XP didn’t have great driver support from the CD although it did a fair job for the time. The number of drivers available on the Windows install disk improved greatly with Windows Vista and 7.

Nowadays, Windows 10 can usually install the majority of the most important drivers on a system without having to connect to the internet first. After a visit to Windows Update, there will probably be one or two drivers at the most which need to be downloaded from a third party. There is a driver though which is one of the most important of all, and that is the network adapter driver.

If you have no wired or wireless network driver installed, you have no internet connection. And if you have no internet connection you can’t install other drivers from Windows Update, use any driver scanning software to download drivers automatically, and you can’t download drivers from a manufacturer’s website.

Installing Windows and finding a network driver that hasn’t been detected and installed can be frustrating. If you’re lucky you have the driver files backed up somewhere or an install CD, but many users won’t have those things to hand. If you have access to another computer there are ways around this issue to get your network driver installed even though you don’t have a driver for it. Here we have six solutions that can help.
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Believe it or not, my old desktop computer doesn’t have an internal CD/DVD drive. I found that it is unnecessary because the 5.25″ DVD drive is too big and takes up too much space. Removing it gives more space for air ventilation. Secondly, although a DVD drive doesn’t take up much power, I know I am saving some (around 20 Watts) from not having it. I do have an external USB slim DVD writer though if I really need to use it. Everything can be run from USB nowadays such as Hiren’s BootCD, antivirus rescue discs and even installing Windows 7.

I have also started using the Windows 7 system image backup and restore feature, so there is no need to create a Windows 7 Rescue Disc in case the boot loader gets wiped off. However, seeing that I’ve already removed the internal DVD drive and try to avoid plugging and unplugging the USB slim DVD writer, I need to install the Windows 7 system recovery onto a USB flash drive. There is no easy supported method to do that from Windows itself but here are a few ways we’ve found how to do it.
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One thing that was introduced into Windows Vista and and became more available in Windows 7 is the built-in capability of creating a full backup image of your system so that it can be restored back when Windows becomes corrupt or not bootable. One good thing about using the Windows built-in system image backup is you don’t need to install any third party software such as Acronis TrueImage or Macrium Reflect and all Windows 7 users have it immediately to hand.

If you’re unsure what system imaging actually does and how it could help you, a system image is an exact copy of your system drive that gets backed up and saved into a file. If your system develops problems later on that can’t easily be fixed, you can use this backup to restore the computer back to that earlier point in time. If you’ve ever use the System Restore option, System Imaging is like that but restores the whole drive not just certain files.

Although the Windows Backup and Restore tool is pretty basic in terms of features, and the speed is not as fast as third party drive imaging software, it is good enough for most normal situations and the backing up or restoring can be achieved in several different ways.
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In the last few years, most computers have come preinstalled with at least 4GB of memory and one change that has to be made with that amount of RAM is you need to be running the right version of Windows to take advantage of it. By default, no version of Windows can make use of more than about 3GB of RAM unless it is the 64-bit edition of the operating system. There are third party hacks to force a 32-bit version of Windows to utilize more memory, but they are tricky to use and not completely reliable.

32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows each have plus and minus points, 32-bit is better on memory usage, is less picky about unsigned drivers and also has better compatibility with older and certain types of software such as some security applications. A 64-bit Windows can use all the memory your computer has installed and also specific applications can further increase their speed under 64-bit via optimizations. There are valid reasons for you to want to upgrade your 32bit Windows 7 to 64-bit, and also downgrade from 64-bit down to 32-bit, it’s mostly about how you want to use your computer.

Converting from one version to another is not difficult but it’s also not quite as simple as popping in your Windows DVD and pressing a button because you will need to reinstall all your software etc. Before starting anything, it’s a good idea to backup all important data. An easy way is to create a full Windows 7 image backup so that you can restore it in case anything goes wrong.
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It is common to find two networking adapters in a notebook or in an all-in-one desktop which are a wireless and wired connection. Since both adapters can be simultaneously connected to a router, you might wonder which network connection your computer will use or will it use both at the same time? Obviously having multiple networking adapters connecting to the same gateway is unnecessary because it may cause unwanted routing issues. The best way is to manually disable the network adapter that you don’t want to use from Network Connections in Control Panel.

Some BIOSes on branded computers such as HP have the ability to automatically disable the wireless when a wired connection is being used. This is logical because a wired connection is often more stable than wireless as it is prone to interference. Moreover, there is a higher chance that the wired connection these days has a faster connection speed up to 1Gbps while the fastest wireless speed at 1.3Gbps with the latest 802.11ac standard is hard to achieve.

Even if your computer’s BIOS doesn’t support switching of networking adapter automatically, Windows actually has a built-in algorithm to decide which network adapter to use for best performance. It is not entirely true that there is a rigid rule whether the Ethernet or WiFi adapter will always be used when both are connected to the same router/gateway.
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I’ve recently reformatted my laptop’s hard drive and reinstalled Windows because it was getting a bit slow and also unstable. Well I normally install and test software on my desktop computer but sometimes I am too lazy to boot it up so I ended up installing it on my laptop. This time I am very careful on what I install because I do not want to slow it down and then had to reinstall windows and set it up all over again. It’s not difficult, just time consuming…

Weirdly after using the laptop for a few weeks, a problem started to appear that is the computer sort of hangs for a while about 10 seconds whenever I right click on a file or folder. I checked Windows Task Manager and there isn’t any process that shows any high CPU usage during that 10 seconds. I didn’t think it was virus because I could not find any suspicious autostart entries.

Then I figured perhaps it was some shell extensions that is causing the problem. For example, if you install WinZip on your computer, you’ll see a special WinZip menu when you right-click on a Zip file. This menu is created by adding a shell extension to the system.
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