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Posted in: Home Page

Find out what your Windows Hotfixes do Every now and then my Windows XP automatically updates. Usually these are to plug holes in the system (as you know, Windows XP is a work in progress). But what exactly do all those hotfixes do? Well, I discovered a way to find out. First, you need to go to your Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. Next, scroll down toward the bottom and you will see "Windows XP Hotfix..." Click the hotfix and it will expand to show "Click here for support information". Clicking there will bring up another screen with...

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Posted in: System Maintenance

Deleting Unwanted Programs It seems like I get questions all the time asking how to remove / uninstall programs. So, here's the step by step procedure: 1. The first thing to do is click the Start menu, Programs. Then hunt for the program you want to delete. Oftentimes, you'll find an Uninstall program under it's program group. 2. Another way would be to click the Start button, Settings, Control Panel. Then open the Add/Remove programs icon. You'll see a list of programs that Windows can remove from your system....

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Posted in: System Maintenance

Win XP Time Travel Have you ever made a change to your computer that messed everything up? A great feature of Windows XP is System Restore. You can go back to a previous setup without losing your documents, jpegs, emails, or other files. It keeps track of changes in your system and automatically creates what are called "restore points". These points allow you to travel back in time to when your system was more stable. To bring up System Restore, go to Start/Programs/Accesories/System Tools then click "System Restore". You must...

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Posted in: System Maintenance

Check for Corrupt System Files Did you ever have the suspicion that one of your Windows system files was corrupt? Normally, this problem causes lots of frustration while you try to hunt down the impaired file or do a complete re-install of Windows. Well, hold your Install Disks! There's another way. Prior to Windows 2000 the operating system might overwrite shared system files (for example .dll and .exe files) when you install software. Overwritten system files cause unpredictable system performance, strange program behavior, and operating...

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Posted in: System Maintenance

Monitor Your CPU Activity I don't know about you, but I'm a hardcore multi-tasker. Sometimes I'll have four programs up, two web browser windows, and some music playing all at the same time. For a while I had a real problem with my computer freezing up since I didn't know how many running programs were too many. Then I learned to monitor my CPU usage. Windows 98/Me has a Resource Meter that puts a little icon down in your System Tray so you can always see what's going on. To open it go to Programs / Accessories / System Tools...

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Posted in: System Maintenance

Defrag Mysteries Is your computer running slow? Is it locking up on you? Are programs suddenly terminating? Perhaps it’s time to Defrag! When you "defrag" your hard drive, you run a disk defragmentor program to optimize the placement of files on your hard drive. Here's what happens. As you use your computer, it writes to the first available spot on the hard drive. Over time, files tend to get rearranged on your hard disk, or fragmented. If your disk is fragmented, when it tried to load a program, it may...

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Posted in: System Maintenance