» Windows

Disable Windows Problem Reporting

ztr3ngth — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:27:40 +0000

When a program crashes in Windows, by default a message box appears asking if you would like to report the problem to Microsoft. 99.9% of PC users never do and never will which therefore makes this feature unnecessary and time consuming. ‘Problem Reporting’ can be disabled in a few simple steps:

Go to the Start menu > Control Panel
Click System and Maintenance
Click Problem Reports and Solutions
On the left hand panel, click Change Settings then Advanced Settings
Under “For my programs, problem reporting is:” select Off
Click OK on both screens then exit the Control Panel

You may also be interested in our article on Disabling Vista’s User Account Control and Disabling Vista’s Sidebar.

Wipe Your Hard Drive Clean

ztr3ngth — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:12:29 +0000

When looking to wipe your hard drive clean, WinDirStat is the program to use. It is a small, free program that analyzes your hard drive and gives you a clear representation of what files are taking up the most room and where they are. This is especially useful when you just can’t find where all your memory space has gone on your slow computer and can also save you some money as there will be less need for spending money on any upgrade.

Step One:

Download and install WinDirStat

Step Two:

Choose the drive(s) you would like to analyse and click OK

Step Three:

Wait for WinDirStat to finish scanning your drive(s), there is a percentage in the header of the program. This may take several minutes. After it has finished scanning, you will see a screen similar to this:

The multi coloured squares/rectangles on the bottom half of the screen are a visual representation of the files on your hard drive. By clicking on a shape, the top half of the program will display the files in an explorer style view which enables you to delete, copy and edit selected files. The size of the files are represented by the size of the shape, and the file type is represented by the colour of the shape. For example, the large rectangle in the top left of my diagram is a collection of Call of Duty 4 files packed into a .7z format.

Step Four:

Wipe your hard drive clean of any unwanted files and folders. Or alternatively, roam around your hard drive discovering thousands of lost mp3 files (that’s what I did anyway) and enjoy your new clean hard drive. You can go as far as you like with this quick and easy program that will quickly make your PC faster and more spacious!

How To Disable Vista’s SideBar

ztr3ngth — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:53:18 +0000

Most Vista users tend not to notice the sidebar that lurks on their desktop 24/7, but this is a huge mistake. For the sake of a few ‘Gadgets’, the Sidebar uses way too much system memory. Just like User Account Control, the Sidebar is yet another pointless and power hogging application thrown into Vista.

To disable the Sidebar:

1. Right click on the Sidebar and select Properties

2. Uncheck the “Start Sidebar when Windows starts” box

3. Click Ok and Restart

You may also be interested in our article on Disabling Vista’s User Account Control

Disable Vista’s UAC

ztr3ngth — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:37:47 +0000

All you Vista users out there, you’ll know this annoying little pop up all too well:

User Account Control scans through every single file of a program you want to run, imagine how long this takes for an 11GB game like Modern Warfare 2. Disabling User Account Control will save you tonnes of time on your PC.

1. Click on Run in the start menu and type in MSCONFIG, then click OK.

2. On the Tools tab, find “Disable UAP” (same thing as UAC)

3. Click the Launch button

4. A CMD window will run, let it finish what its doing before closing it down.

5. Close MSCONFIG and reboot your PC

You may also be interested in our article on Removing Startup Programs to boost your PC’s performance or Disabling Vista’s Sidebar.

Make Windows Startup Faster

ztr3ngth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:56:34 +0000

Since Windows XP, Microsoft have allowed us to defragment our Windows Startup files. Defragmenting your Startup files basically puts all the files needed to boot your PC up, next to each other. This means your system doesn’t have to search around looking for the files needed to run Windows.

Take not that another fast method of achieving faster windows startup times is to wipe your hard drive clean. You might also want to take time to defragment your hard drive for an extra cut in windows startup times.

1. Click on Start, then Run

2. Type Regedit and click OK

3. Look for “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction”

4. Check Enable

5. Right click on the name in step 3, and click Modify

6.Edit the value to “Y to enable” then OK

7. Reboot your PC and see the difference!

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Disk Defrag

ztr3ngth — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:48:54 +0000

Defragmenting your hard drive is basically ‘unclogging the pipes’ of your PC. It is a simple task which only requires a few clicks and then just let it run! You may also be interested in our guide on how to wipe hard drive clean to help make space on your drive

Technically, Defragmenting your PC will make it quicker and easier for your hard drive to find certain files when it needs them. Its like tidying a messy room.

Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
Click Defragment

Simple as that!

This may take a couple of hours but there is no problem with browsing the web while it is running. It can boost your cluttered hard drives speed by a long way depending on how messy your system files are. But generally it is well worth doing, especially considering how simple and effective it is.

If you are running out of space altogether, I would strongly recommend the Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500gb Hard Drive.

Change Startup Programs

ztr3ngth — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:41:27 +0000

Stopping unnecessary background programs from running as your PC starts up can speed the process up massively. Removing background programs is also a very good way of removing lag from Modern Warfare 2, along with all other games and software. Here are a few quick steps to quickly change startup programs:

Run a search on your PC for “msconfig”. Once loaded it will look like this:

Click on the Startup tab and now you will see that every ticked program on the list loads up every time you log in.

Click OK.

The next time you log back in to your PC, depending on the amount of programs you unchecked, it will be a lot faster. When you remove unnecesary programs from loading at startup, not only will your pc boot faster, but it will also enable other programs to run faster, as your PC will have less programs to manage.