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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I often use the Windows Remote Desktop function to connect and remotely manage another Windows server. As you might know, there are many other better remote control software such as the free Virtual Network Computing (VNC) or even the popular Teamviewer, but I try to minimize the installations of third party software on the Server machines. If you don’t know what Remote Desktop is, it’s a protocol developed by Microsoft which allows you to view the display and control the mouse and keyboard of another computer at different location, as if you were sitting in front of the computer.

I never have any problems with Remote Desktop and it works as I expect it to, except for only one annoyance which is if I leave it idle for a few minutes, it auto logs off and I have to re-enter the password to login again. This is very annoying whenever I am reading the log files or the console messages that are displayed on screen. Fortunately there is quite a simple solution for how to disable remote desktop auto logoff on idle.
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Not too many years ago, before the USB stick came along, if you wanted to clean install Windows, it had to be done using the CD or DVD and an optical drive. Thankfully, things have moved on and users with a sufficient amount of knowhow have been able to get their copy of Windows onto a USB flash drive and install from it for a little while now. With the introduction of Windows 8 you can now even choose to install it using a USB flash drive from within the Microsoft Upgrade Assistant.

Installing Windows from USB has some advantages such as not having to worry about scratching or damaging the Windows installation disc, and it’s more convenient to carry around a tiny USB flash drive than optical media. They are also a necessity for netbooks, small laptops and the increasing amount smaller form factor PC’s that no longer use ROM drives. And to add to that, a reasonable speed USB stick can complete a Windows install a good bit quicker than an optical drive thanks to the much faster access times.

Here we list 10 ways to enable you to get your Windows install files onto USB flash drive taking advantage of the benefits it has to offer. For ease of use, we have listed which versions of Windows are supported for putting onto USB according to each tool’s author. The tools themselves should run on Windows XP to Windows 8. Make sure you have at least a 4GB USB flash drive to hand before trying to perform a Windows to USB, portable versions of the software were used where possible. If you don’t have one, you can directly download a Windows 7 ISO from Microsoft’s Official Distributer.
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As you’ll know, there has been 2 versions of each Windows starting from XP which are 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Sometimes a Windows 32-bit is referred as x86 and 64-bit as x64. We won’t go into details on what are the differences between x86 and x64 are, but one of the major differences is a 64-bit Windows can support more than 4GB of RAM. If your computer has 4GB of RAM and you’re using a 32-bit Windows, you’ll notice that only about 3GB – 3.5GB is being recognized and the remaining memory is gone. Weirdly, Windows 2003 and 2008 can already address more than 4 GB of memory so why can’t we do that with Vista and newer operating systems?

The answer is: Microsoft doesn’t want that and it’s all just a licensing matter. Contrary to popular belief, there is no physical reason why a 32-bit Windows cannot access memory above 4GB, but it’s more a case of Microsoft opting not to allow it. Read the findings of software analyst Geoff Chappell to find out more.

We can of course go for a 64-bit version of Windows, but even today, there is still quite a lot of software which cannot run properly on x64, which can be inconvenient if you’re someone like us who installs and tests a lot of software. Not only that, Windows 64-bit doesn’t accept unsigned drivers unless you disable driver signature enforcement manually every time you boot. Quite frustrating… Well, here is good news for Windows 8, 7 and Vista users because we have some patches here to make your 32-bit Windows support more than 4GB of memory.
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Many people aren’t aware that a pre-built computer from a manufacturer like Dell or HP actually has two Windows product keys present, and the key on the Windows COA sticker isn’t actually in use. What your computer is shipped and installed with is a generic OEM product key that is the same on every computer that comes from the same manufacturer with that edition of Windows. You can test this yourself by using a product key display tool, the license it displays will not be the same as what’s on the attached sticker.

Unfortunately if you perform a clean install of Windows you cannot ordinarily use this generic key and will instead have to use the one from the COA sticker. To prevent pirates easily using the key, measures are in place to make sure it only works on computers built by the manufacturer. Firstly, each computer has data added to the BIOS identifying the manufacturer. Secondly, a security certificate is installed into Windows which checks that identity in the BIOS and accepts the generic key. If the BIOS, certificate and key all match up, Windows will activate without the need for the internet or a phone.

Many computers that came with Windows Vista and 7 will be getting old and if you still have the original install that came on the computer, you may be thinking about a reinstall as all Windows installs degrade and slow down over time. While you can use the product key from the sticker attached to your computer, after all this time many of those stickers will now be hard to read or the characters have rubbed off completely making the key unreadable.

Thankfully there are ways to backup the OEM license key and certificate from a current Windows install and then transfer them onto a completely clean installation.
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If you’re a computer technician or the neighborhood tech geek, quite frequently you could find yourself having to reinstall Windows for people. One very common and annoying problem that often arises is the user doesn’t have their Windows license to hand and you have to spend time in retrieving the genuine Windows product key from the system if the hard drive is readable. A big pain these days is Windows product key stickers on many machines such as laptops and netbooks are paper and don’t have the plastic protective coating meaning the key can easily become faint and impossible to read accurately.

There are a few ways to retrieve a key from an unbootable computer and most of them involve having access to another working computer. For example, taking out the hard drive and attaching it to a working machine, running a tool that can read product keys, load the registry hive from within the program and retrieve the product key. Or you can boot up PCRegedit, load the registry and then decrypt the key from a working computer. All those steps work but are a bit fiddly and time consuming.

We’ve tried very hard to look for a linux live CD that can retrieve the license key but couldn’t find an obvious one that doesn’t involve a long process. But thankfully there are other ways you can do this by using very popular Live Windows CD’s that can get the key from a Windows system that cannot boot.

Special Note: An important thing which needs mentioning is there are 2 different types of Windows product key you might have installed on your system. If you have an OEM machine made by a manufacturer such as Dell, Sony, Asus etc, and have never re-installed Windows, your product key will be different. This is a special generic key pre-installed at the factory and is NOT the same key as the one on a genuine sticker and cannot be used on a standard Windows re-install. If your key is from a sticker or has been typed in manually, these methods will work fine.
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There’s a multitude of things that can go wrong with the Windows operating system. From serious issues like blue screens of death and operating system not found errors to more general problems of software causing instability or malicious programs and spyware which are making the system misbehave. Users often run several security applications at once which sometimes don’t like each other and the problem can stem from that. Sometimes it could be a Windows issue but often third party software is the cause of the problem.

A good way to troubleshoot problems if you don’t know the exact cause is to disable everything that starts with Windows so just the operating system itself runs, like what Safe Mode does. The problem with Safe Mode is it disables almost the entire operating system and only runs the absolute bare essentials to get a boot, that sometimes isn’t so helpful and you will need to boot Windows as normal but just disable all third party software to try and find the root problem.

A lot of the time when seeking help from the internet you will be asked to perform a “clean boot” of Windows. This simply means preventing all non Windows programs and services from starting so the system is running more cleanly and no third party software is launched on boot. Here is how to perform a clean boot of Windows with a few extra options for making sure normal booting is as clean as possible.
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It’s quite easy to transfer files between computers on the network, all you have to do is select the folder to be shared and other users can find and connect to that folder and the files inside. If you use the Remote Desktop Connection feature in Windows you can even gain control of the remote computer, find your shared folder from it, and then transfer files between the two computers as required.

Windows Remote Desktop actually has a feature built in that allows you to share any of the local drives on the host computer with the remote computer without having to manually share specific folders or drives. This is far easier and can be more secure because folders are not being shared permanently but only for the life of the Remote Desktop session.

Here we show you how to setup your Remote Desktop session to share some or all of your local drives.
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