Tutorials

How to Add Games to Games Explorer Folder in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 "So you add a game into Games Explorer Folder and realize that the game has no cover, no rating, no info... Well, this tutorial will show you how to add all that missing information." First things First. Adding a shortcut into Game Explorer Folder (GEF): Copy the main executable, then right click and select paste shortcut. Or Just Drag n Drop a shortcut of the game. Use a shortcut, never use the main executable. Using the Registry Editor (REd): Hit the Start Orb and type regedit in the search box, an UAC prompt will ask you to authorize access by clicking Continue. The Files you will need...

How to Create and Run Multiple Profiles Firefox Description: Firefox lets you create and use multiple profiles. You can use your existing profile(s) as a template for new ones (e.g. copy it). Advantages: Each profile will remember its own bookmarks, downloads, history & session. Each profile should remember its position on the Taskbar. You can run multiple profiles simultaneously (see below) and transfer items between them. Default location of important files:profiles.ini C:\Users\<Your User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini profile(s) C:\Users\<Your User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile Name> To create a new profile:1 - Close all opened instances of Firefox. 2 - Open the "Run" or "Start...

How to Properly Delete a OS in a Dual Boot Deleting a double booted OS may seem simple - you just delete the partition with the OS you want to get rid of and you are done. Well, it is not that easy. With said approach you may get yourself into a lot of trouble. This tutorial describes a safe way how to properly delete a double booted OS. Step 1 - Check where the bootmgr resides Open Disk Management and find the partition that is marked "active". That is the partition that contains the bootmgr. If there are several active partitions, you have to look for the system flag - best seen in Computer. The active partition is usually from the OS that was on the system first - e.g. if you installed Windows 7 on an XP system, the XP system...

Secure Erase / Wipe - and the Basic Methods A secure erase or more commonly referred to as a wipe is a way to over-write all existing data on a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) / Solid State Drive (SSD) with at least one set of binary zeroes ( 0 ) or ones ( 1 ) so the data cannot be retrieved. Contrary to popular belief, doing a full format with Windows 7 only over-writes the old disk format configuration data (the MBR) with the new and checks for sector errors, then marks the remaining space to be over-written as needed, it does not over-write (remove) any other data at all, it's all still there including code from previous Operating Systems and all of the old personal data. It is also very useful before starting the Windows installation...

How to Optimize Windows 7 This is a list of suggestions that will help show you how to optimize Windows 7 by speeding up and improving it's performance. You can pick and choose which ones you would like to do, or feel comfortable doing. If you do not notice an increase in performance or have a problem with the suggestion, then you can always go back and undo the suggestion at it's provided tutorial link. If you have a question about one of the options, then please feel free to post a question here. We'll be happy to help. This list of suggestions will continue to be ongoing. I will be adding and updating suggestions to this list every so often, so you may would like to check back from time to time for anything new. If you...

How to Convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk A disk is a separate physical hard drive. This will show you how to convert a basic disk to a dynamic, also known as "software RAID", disk in Windows Disk Manager or in a command prompt without losing anything on the disk. By default Windows uses Basic disks. Basic and dynamic disks both support using MBR and GPT partition (volume) styles. When you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, any existing partitions or logical drives on the basic disk become simple volumes on the dynamic disk. For more detailed information on basic and dynamic disks, see: Basic and Dynamic Disks (Windows) Differences Between Basic and Dynamic Disks: Basic disks are supported (readable) by all Windows...

How to Activate a Window by Hovering Over it with the Mouse Pointer This will allow you to Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse pointer for a second to make it easier to switch between open windows. hello all. I've been reading this great forum passively for a short while now, its quite the wonderful resource. what i could not find, though, was information on how to focus on windows by simply hovering over them with the mouse. Back in XP, you could enable this with Tweak UI, which called it X-mouse. It was great, i didn't have to click on a window to work in it. but how to enable this in 7? OPTION #1 As this article points out, you can switch windows by hovering if you enable it through: Control Panel> Ease...

How to Hide or Show Empty Drives in Windows 7 and Windows 8 This tutorial will show you how to have empty removable drives to show or hide in the Computer or This PC folder in Windows 7 and Windows 8. If you want an empty CD/DVD drive to show in the navigation pane, you'll need to set show empty drives below, and set to show all folders in the navigation pane. To Hide or Show Empty Drives using Folder Options 1. Open Folder Options in Windows 7 or Windows 8, and click/tap on the View tab. (See screenshot below) 2. To Show Empty Removable Drives A) Uncheck the Hide empty drives in the Computer folder box, and click/tap on OK. (See screenshot above) 3. To Hide Empty Removable Drives NOTE: This is the default setting. A) Select...

How to Change the Window Color and Appearance in Windows 7 This will show you how to change the Window Color and Appearance settings for how windows, the Start Menu, and the taskbar are displayed in Windows 7. Aero Requirements to be Enabled in Windows 7 NOTE: If Aero is not enabled, then you will not see the Window Color and Appearance screen in step 3A of OPTION TWO below. Aero is not included in Windows 7 Home Basic or Windows 7 Starter editions. 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor 1 GB of system memory A graphics card with support for DirectX 9 graphics with at least 128 MB of memory. The graphics card must support Pixel Shader 2.0 and the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM). Activate Windows 7. You must be have True Color...

How to Import Windows Calendar from Vista into Windows 7 This will show you how to import Windows Calendar from Vista into Windows 7, and to enable using Windows Calendar from the toolbar button in Windows Mail in Windows 7 if you also imported it. There is no Windows Calendar feature included in Windows 7 by default. Credit to Greg S for researching and creating the WinCalEdit.zip file which allows the button in the desktop WinMail.exe interface to open Windows Calendar.If running 64bit Windows 7 it is essential to import Windows Calendar from a 64bit Vista installation into the normal 64bit program files. And the same for 32 to 32bit. Step 1 In Vista open: Program Files --> Windows Calendar. Copy the entire Windows Calendar...

How to Add "Copy Content to Clipboard" to Context Menu in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 This tutorial will show you how to add or remove Copy to Clipboard from the right context menu of BAT, CMD, CSS, HTML, JS, LOG (txt), REG, RTF, TXT, and VBS files in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. If added, this makes it a lot easier to copy the entire contents of a file with one of these file extensions to the clipboard, then paste the contents where you like. This will not work for the RTF (WordPad) file extension context menus if you have Microsoft Office Word installed and set as the default program to open RTF files instead of WordPad. EXAMPLE: Context Menu with "Copy Content to Clipboard" Added or Removed Add or Remove "Copy...

How to Turn On or Off PCIe Link State Power Management in Windows The Link State Power Management is a part of PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM). The link State of a PCIe Device is converted from L0 (on) to L1 (off) when the link is not transferring data. The hardware is automatically converted to L0 again when data is available to transfer across the link. There are basically 2 levels of power management in the PCI Express options. The difference between these 2 options are the power savings versus the Latency (Time to recover from the Sleep state). If you select Off, there is no power savings, and the current will run regardless of what state the laptop is in. (depending on if your laptop is plugged in or...

How to Enable or Disable "GUI Boot" in Windows This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the graphical animation GUI Boot while booting or resuming from hibernation into Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8. You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial. If "No GUI Boot" in Vista, you will have the Aurora boot screen instead of the green animated loading bar. If "No GUI Boot" in Windows 7, you will have a blank black boot screen instead of the animated dots turning into a Windows flag. If "No GUI Boot" in Windows 8, you will only have the blue window in the boot screen instead of also with the animated spining circle of dots. EXAMPLE: Default "GUI Boot" Screens in Vista, Windows 7...

Fix "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded." Error in Windows 7 A user profile is a collection of settings that make the computer look and work the way you want it to for a user account. It contains the account's settings for desktop backgrounds, screen savers, pointer preferences, sound settings, and other features. User profiles ensure that your personal preferences are used whenever you sign in to Windows. A user profile is different from a user account, which you use to sign in to Windows. Each user account has at least one user profile associated with it. This tutorial will show you how to fix when you log on to Windows 7 using a temporary profile, and get the following error message: The...

How to Add or Remove NVIDIA Control Panel Desktop Context Menu in Windows If you have NVIDIA video drivers installed, then this tutorial will show you how to add or remove the "NVIDIA Control Panel" desktop context menu for only your account in Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. EXAMPLE: Desktop Context Menu To Add or Remove from within NVIDIA Control Panel 1. Open the NVIDIA Control Panel (nvcplui.exe), and click on Desktop (Menu bar). (see screenshot below) NOTE: C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Control Panel Client\nvcplui.exe 2. To Add "NVIDIA Control Panel" to Desktop Context Menu NOTE: This is the default setting. A) Click/tap on Add Desktop Context Menu to check it. 3. To Remove "NVIDIA Control Panel" from...

How to Add or Remove "Run with CPU Affinity" to the Context Menu By default, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 runs an application on all available cores of the processor. If you have a multi-core processor, then this will show you how to add or remove Run with CPU Affinity from all application files and shortcuts context menu to set processor affinity to an application to control which core(s) of the processor an application will run on. If the application and CPU supports Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) or HyperThreading (HT), then Windows will automatically adjust the application's usage of each processor core for the best performance. You will not gain much, if anything, from manually changing the processor affinity for these...

How to "Clean" or "Clean All" a Disk with the Diskpart Command This will show you how to use the clean or clean all command on a selected disk to delete all of it's MBR or GPT partitions, volumes, and any hidden sector information on MBR disks is overwritten. The data on the HDD is not written over using the clean command like it does with the clean all command below. With the clean command, the data on the HDD is only marked as being deleted instead and is only written over when new data is written/saved to the same location on the HDD next. OR You could use the clean all command (secure erase) to do the above and also have each and every disk sector on the HDD written over and zeroed out completely to securely delete all...

Why it's Sometimes Necessary to Run a Startup Repair 3 Times to Create Windows Boot Files to Another, New Location When a Windows Operating System (OS) is installed it becomes the system volume or commonly referred to as "System, Active" partition and by default it will contain all the files needed to boot Windows. When a second OS is installed to the same PC (a dual or multi boot) the files needed to boot that OS will be added to the existing "system volume" containing boot files from the previous install and the 2 OSs will 'share' the boot files and if either of the 2 is removed or damaged so as to not boot, that may directly affect the other OS's ability to boot. There is another situation that is common now, when Windows 7 is...

Use the Bootable Partition Wizard CD to Make Changes to the Windows Partition Structure This outlines several uses for the Partition Wizard Bootable Disk (PWBD) some of which Windows is not able to do natively, to include converting an Extended partition / Logical drive to a Primary partition, to wipe secure erase a single partition and how to Shrink/Resize the left side of a Windows partition. Partition Wizard is a very reliable tool for your tool kit and it's a free download for home / personal use, first download the PWBD ISO file to the desktop, be sure to get the PWBD and not the installed version; scroll down to see the download link for the Bootable CD ISO file at this link below. Partition Wizard Free Bootable CD Then you...

How to Delete a Folder in Windows from the Command Prompt This will show you how to permanently delete a Folder in Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 using the RD or RMDIR command from within a command prompt. This can be handy if you cannot delete the folder using the normal methods. While you can run this command in a non-elevated or elevated command prompt, you would get the best results using a elevated command prompt. The folder will be deleted immediately and not placed in the Recycle Bin first. Deleting a folder using this command will also delete all of it's contents as well as the folder. Be sure to backup anything you want to keep in the folder first. EXAMPLE: RD and RMDIR Command NOTE: You can use either the RD or...