A new version of SmartScreen Filter has been integrated into the Windows 8 Developer Preview. It is not clear yet if the feature will make it into the final version of Windows 8 in this form, or at all, but it is likely that it does. Whenever you execute a file that you have downloaded from the Internet, it is first checked by SmartScreen Filter against a database. Files that cannot be identified are blocked automatically, and a warning is displayed instead.

Windows protected your PC

Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized program from starting. Running this program might put your PC at risk.

The only two options on the screen are the highlighted OK button, and a more info link that is nearly as distinguishable from the background. A click on OK closes the message and blocks the executable from being started. If you want to start the program, you need to click on More Info. This changes the Windows protected your PC screen slightly.

Microsoft displays publisher and program information, and a run anyway button. The program will be executed on your system if you click on that button.

This feature has the potential to cost you some time and a lot of nerves. If you are running an up to date antivirus software, you probably have no need for SmartScreen Filter’s additional protection.

Disabling SmartScreen Filter In Windows 8

You can disable SmartScreen Filter in the Windows Control Panel. Use Windows-Pause to bring it up, and click on Control Panel in the address bar afterwards. Select System and Security and then Action Center afterwards.

Select Change SmartScreen Settings on the left. This opens the following menu where you can turn Windows SmartScreen off.

The following options are available:

• Require approval from an administrator before running unrecognized programs from the Internet (recommended)
• Give a warning before running unrecognized programs from the Internet, but don’t require administrator approval
• Turn off Windows SmartScreen

Windows SmartScreen could be Windows 8′s User Account Control. A feature that aims to make the system more secure and annoys the hell out of users at the same time. (thanks Caschy for the tip)

The solution is to use virtualisation tools and on any modern PC this becomes relatively simple (depending on the tools you use).  In my monthly free webcast for February I’m taking a beginner’s look at virtualisation, examining what it is and the different tools available, and looking at how you can use it on your PC to help you keep running older software and how you can have multiple operating systems running side by side.

With a PC bought in the last couple of years you can run multiple operating systems side by side with little or no performance loss overall, as modern processors are very efficient at handling the extra OS calls virtualisation produces, and the amount of memory in modern PCs is more than enough for even demanding tasks.

The webcast takes place online at 10AM PT San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Feb  3rd at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Feb  3rd at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Feb  3rd at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai on Thursday 2nd February.  It’s completely free and if you can’t make it live you can watch it recorded afterwards provided you have registered before it begins.  You can register for this webcast here.

The best article I ever found explaining the BSoD in depth is here on the Microsoft website, however it’s quite technical and doesn’t discuss how to actually troubleshoot a problem.  The crash dump file is just technical details of what was being held in the computer’s memory at the time of the crash, and this will include details on every driver and service that was loaded, and every piece of software that was running.

The most useful pieces of information are to be found on the BSoD itself and are highlighted on the screenshot below.  These are the BSoD error name, the stop error code and the name of the driver or service that has failed (this last one might not always appear).  Performing a search online for these in conjunction, and the long string codes after the main stop error can give much more information, can help considerably in diagnosing where the problem lies.

But is it even easier than this to diagnose a BSoD stop error?  Commonly a BSoD will be caused by something that has recently changed, such as a Windows Update where a new hardware driver has been installed.  Windows has to support completely limitless combinations of hardware and software and so, no matter how much testing Microsoft might put hardware drivers, and software patches through before releasing them on Windows Update, there’s never any guarantee that a particular driver, service update or patch won’t cause problems with your particular mix of hardware and software.

One of the things I highlight in my book Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out is the importance of working through a problem to figure out what’s new or what has changed on a computer system.  If you don’t change anything then it’s extremely unlikely that a system that runs perfectly stably for weeks, months or even years will suddenly produce an error later on (unless a critical file has become corrupt after an event such as a sudden restart).  So it’s very likely then that something new or changed will have cause the error, perhaps a graphics card driver as these are embedded deep within the Windows system.

There are ways around this, such as running a System Restore to roll back the system to before changes were made.  You can then, for example, check Windows Update to see if it tried to install any drivers and if necessary, right-click on them to hide them completely.  If the system is really unstable you can use Safe Mode or Windows Safe Boot mode to start the computer in a reduced functionality mode.

One other scenario however that can commonly trigger a BSoD is a computer’s fans becoming clogged with dust, especially for the processor and power supply.  You should always clean (carefully!) the inside of your computer on a regular basis and clean out accumulated dust to make sure that the computer doesn’t overheat.

Armed with this information it shouldn’t be too difficult to diagnose a BSoD and repair the problem that has caused it.  Whatever happens you can be sure that you will not be the first person ever to have encountered this problem, and usually you will find an article or forum post online where somebody is detailing exactly what the issue is.  Failing that, a little bit of lateral thinking and diagnosis usually saves the day.

The ruling may still get overturned, but at this point in time it is not clear how this will turn out.

Encryption makes sure that only authorized users can enable access to data provided that there is no loophole or backdoor built-into the software itself. People traveling to the US may have their mobile computers analyzed by federal agents even without probable cause.

Users have a number of options at their disposal to protect their data from prying eyes. Encryption for instance requires a pass phrase or key to be entered to decrypt the contents of the storage device. If you forget the password, you cannot open the encrypted contents anymore.

There is however a better option for users who want to make sure that they private files stay personal. True Crypt supports so called hidden volumes. These volumes are encrypted volumes inside an encrypted volume. True Crypt calls the concept plausible deniability. You put your important files into the hidden volume, and other files that you do not mind to share with others in the regular encrypted container. When someone asks you to decrypt your data, you enter the password to decrypt the first volume that you do not mind sharing with anyone.

It may happen that you are forced by somebody to reveal the password to an encrypted volume. There are many situations where you cannot refuse to reveal the password (for example, due to extortion). Using a so-called hidden volume allows you to solve such situations without revealing the password to your volume.

The principle is that a TrueCrypt volume is created within another TrueCrypt volume (within the free space on the volume). Even when the outer volume is mounted, it should be impossible to prove whether there is a hidden volume within it or not*, because free space on any TrueCrypt volume is always filled with random data when the volume is created** and no part of the (dismounted) hidden volume can be distinguished from random data. Note that TrueCrypt does not modify the file system (information about free space, etc.) within the outer volume in any way.

Hidden volumes can be created quite easily in True Crypt. New True Crypt users should read through the tutorial posted on the site first to understand the basics of creating encrypted volumes on the computer.

You have the option to create both volumes in one go though, by following the process outlined below. Click on Tools > Volume Creation Wizard. You have two options now how to proceed:

• Create an encrypted file container: This option can be used to create an encrypted file on one of the computer’s hard drive and add a hidden file container to it, or add a hidden file container to an existing encrypted file.
• Encrypt non-system partition/drive: This is basically the same option as above, only that it works partitions and hard drives, and not with files. Please note that all contents of the selected hard drive/partition will get deleted in the process.

I suggest you start with an encrypted file container to see how the process works.

Select Hidden TrueCrypt volume on the next page

Now you have the option to select normal or direct mode. Normal mode creates both the outer and the hidden volume in the process, while direct mode creates a hidden volume inside an existing True Crypt file container.

Lets pick normal mode to demonstrate how both the standard encrypted container and the hidden container within are created.

You now need to select a file name for the outer container. Pick any directory and file name that you want. You can use the file name to your advantage, for instance by making it a .tmp file or a .avi.

You are then asked to select the encryption algorithm and hash algorithm for the outer volume. Pick one each or keep the default settings.

You are then asked to select a size for the file container. Keep in mind that the hidden volume is added to this container file as well. Select a password on the next screen. This password is used to decrypt the files stored in the outer volume. The volume will be formatted afterwards. Move your mouse around to create random values. Click on Format afterwards to create the file. Depending on the size, you may need to switch the file system from FAT to NTFS.

Now that you have created the outer volume, you move on to the next step, the creation of the hidden volume.

The process is nearly identical. You first select the encryption and hash algorithms, then the file size. True Crypt will display the maximum possible hidden volume file size on that screen. Don’t select the maximum if you plan on adding files to the outer volume as well.

The remaining steps are identical. You now have one outer volume, one hidden volume and two pass phrases to decrypt the volumes on your computer.

Mounting the hidden volume

To mount either the outer or hidden volume do the following:

• Select a free drive letter in the True Crypt interface.
• Click on Select File and browse to the encrypted file that you want to mount.
• click on mount afterwards.
• Enter the pass phrase for the outer volume to mount it, or the password for the hidden volume to mount it instead.

If you mount the outer volume you may want to click on mount options to check the “protect hidden volume against damage caused by writing to outer volume” box to avoid to protect the hidden container from being partially or fully overwritten. You need to supply the hidden volume password though for this option.

The very same principle applies to the creation of a hidden volume inside an encrypted partition or hard drive.

What’s your take on this new ruling?

A couple of examples of this are a printer driver that fails silently, and you won’t notice until the next time you go to print something, or a networking component fails taking down a Homegroup or Internet Access.  Fortunately Windows does include a handy wizard utility to alert you when something happens silently in the background, and you access it in the Event Viewer.

The first step is to find the original error.  This isn’t actually as difficult as it sounds as events are all clearly labelled with plain English explanations.  The details will include the name of the driver, application or service which has stopped working and it’s normally not too difficult to find what you’re looking for as you can further drill down by the appropriate date and time.  There will never be too many errors and warnings on your system which again makes it easier to find the specific error event you are looking for.

Once you have found the appropriate error, double click to open it and all instances of the error will be shown.  Here is where we we attach a task to this event to let us know when it occurs next.  Why might we want to do this?  It could be that the error is caused by a conflict with another piece of software or hardware, or that some other force external to the failed component is causing the problem.  Attaching a task and alerting the user to the error can help you to diagnose the problem because, especially if it’s happening regularly you ought to be able to see a pattern.

In the right hand panel of the Event Viewer for a specific event you will see the option to Attach [a] Task to This Event and this is what you should click.  There are several things you can do, for instance run a program.  You could have a PowerShell or other script to report on the error.  Windows contains the command line WEVTUTIL which can be used to export the details of events from the Event Viewer as a text file, and you can read more about how you can use this command here.

You can also send an email, but note that this will only work if you have an email client such as Microsoft Outlook installed and configured.  What we want to do though is alert the user with a message.

The wizard really coiuldn’t be simpler and will allow you to set the title and content of a dialog message box.  For instance you might set the title as “Component Failure Alert!” and the message as “Please stop what you’re doing and phone IT, a component has failed and we need to know exactly what was happening and what you were doing on your computer the instant this message appeared.”

In short, attaching tasks to the event viewer can be incredibly useful, especially if you use Command or PowerShell scripts to automatically report on the problem, and the email system to then send the file on to someone.  It a great way for an IT department to be able to detect, diagnose and find a solution to the problem without the end user having to be too involved in the process, and given that tasks can be exported and installed on multiple machines quite simply this is a Windows feature that I’m surprised isn’t used much more often.

Fortunately though there is an alternative and it’s in every version of the operating system (XP, Vista and Windows 7).  This is called “Safe Boot” and you can find it in the MSConfig panel.  To open this type msconfig into the Start Menu search box in Vista or Windows 7, or run msconfig from the run option in XP.

Under the Boot tab in the MSConfig window you’ll see the Safe Boot option as a tick box.  Turning this on will make Windows use the Safe Boot option every time thereafter.  When you want to stop using Safe Boot and return to starting Windows normally you’ll need to return to the MSConfig panel and untick this option.  There are also several other options here including Minimal Boot, which will take you into the full Safe Mode, but the standard option will normally be enough for most people.

The Safe Boot screen, as you can see here is a half-way house between the full Windows desktop and Safe Mode.  What you will find though is that most of your hardware drivers will be installed and working though your startup software will still be disabled.

So when might you want to use Safe Boot?  Occasionally you will encounter a problem in Windows that you will need to go into Safe Mode to repair.  As I mentioned earlier however Safe Mode won’t allow you to perform some Windows tasks, and this is where the Safe Boot mode is useful.  You may also suspect that your problems aren’t being caused by a hardware driver, but by software instead.  This diagnostic mode enables you to have a full Windows desktop where nothing loads at startup and where you can run and check programs individually to see what effect they are having on your system.

As I have already mentioned Safe Mode is extremely limiting, not just in the very low screen resolution that it gives you.  If you need to run full diagnostics on your copy of Windows, to see what’s going on under the hood, or if you need to test individual software packages in a safe environment where they will be able to run properly then Windows Safe Boot is the way to do it.

Remember though that you will need to turn off Safe Boot when you are done, or else Windows will start permanently in this mode.  I have found this to be a very useful diagnostic tool in Windows and it’s extremely underused because, frankly, many people simply do not know that it exists.  Hopefully you will find it useful too.

Whenever I would start Outlook on my computer, it would launch minimized in the Windows taskbar. A left-click on the Outlook icon, which normally should display the window on the desktop, had no effect at all. A right-click and the selection of the task had not effect either. Last but not least, a left-click on the Outlook icon in the system tray area, or a right-click and the selection of Open Outlook did nothing either.

No matter what I did, I could not get the window to show up on my desktop.

After some playing around I discovered a solution to bring back the Microsoft Outlook window. Here is what I did:

Click on the start menu and locate Microsoft Outlook there. Right-click on the program and select Properties from the options. Locate the Run menu and select Maximized from the options. Please note that you need elevated rights to save the change. Windows will automatically display an authorization prompt when you click ok or apply in the menu.

Relaunch Outlook once you have completed the process and clicked on the ok button.

You should now see the Outlook window open in fullscreen on the desktop. This has fixed the issue only partially though. Once you minimize the window you will notice that you cannot open it up again. While you could now close Outlook to start it maximized whenever you need to access the program, you’d probably prefer a permanent fix.

With Outlook displayed in full screen on the Windows, right-click the Windows taskbar and select the Cascade Windows options from the right-click context menu.

Once you have done that, you have fixed your Outlook issue. To check that you can now open Outlook normally again do the following:

• Close all running instances of the messaging client on your system.
• Go to Start > Microsoft Outlook, right-click the entry and select Normal Window under run.
• Start Outlook normally. If the window appears, you have fixed your issue.

Here is a video that walks you through all the necessary steps.

Hope this helps Outlook users who are experiencing the same issue.

If you have never heard about magnet links before I suggest you check out What Is A Magnet Link And How Does It Differ From Torrents?. For those in a hurry: A magnet link is a hypertext link that contains information that the torrent client can use to find the data to download.

Downloaders should not experience many issues when they switch from torrents to magnet links. It may take longer before the client begins the download, but that is about it.

Another issue is that without access to the torrent file, you cannot use it in a program like Torrific which turns torrents into direct http downloads.

What most users do not know is that their torrent client will actually save a torrent file once the magnet link has been added to the client and the download has been started.

Users of the popular uTorrent client can for instance open the %appdata%\Roaming\uTorrent\ directory to find all torrent files listed in that directory. Torrents only appear here once the client has started downloading the file, and not before.

Having to start to download the files to get the torrent link is not an optimal solution, but it seems to be the only option at this point in time. Maybe someone will create a program in the future that downloads only the torrent file, for now, that’s not possible.

The link to Ghacks in Google Search for instance should be http://www.ghacks.net/ and not http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ghacks&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ghacks.net%2F&ei=MooNT_vzE5GnsgaegJXbBA&usg=AFQjCNEbVP7B0UnFl1Q9J0q_Vbl9uYoYOw which it is when you copy the link to the clipboard.

Here are two options to display direct website links in Google Search:

Google Search link fix

The Firefox add-on modifies all link targets in the Google search results and all other Google properties where this behavior can be observed, so that they point to the direct web address.

Just install the extension in the Firefox web browser, a restart is not required. If you are on Google Search currently you need to reload the page or run a new search before the extension starts replacing the links.

Firefox users can download the extension from Mozilla’s official Add-ons repository for the browser.

Don’t track me Google

This is a userscript that does the exact same thing the Firefox extension does. It is compatible with Firefox and Google Chrome, and maybe other web browsers as well. The userscript in addition hides the referral link so that sites you visit do not know where you came from.

Chrome users can install the userscript right away, while Firefox users need to install the Greasemonkey or Scriptish add-on first before they can do the same thing.

The userscript can be downloaded and installed over at the official Userscripts website.

Most YouTube users do not know that there is an option to reset the page to the old layout. This can be achieved by writing a cookie to the local system that tells the video hosting site that the old layout needs to be loaded and not the new page design.

Please note that this may cease to work at any time as YouTube may simply remove the old page design from their servers. Setting the cookie would have no effect then. For now though, it works splendid.

You can revert the YouTube homepage to its former self with the help of a userscript or by writing the cookie directly on the system. The userscript appears to be working in Firefox, with Greasemonkey or Scriptish installed, Google Chrome and Opera. The developer notes that Opera users need to import the script manually in the browser though. Instructions on how to do that are offered on the userscript page.

Take a look at the following two screenshots to see the difference. First the new YouTube page (no idea why the big header is showing up blank)

and then the old YouTube page.

All you need to do is to install the userscript to set the cookie. Please note that the homepage layout will stick even if you uninstall the userscript again. You need to clear the cookie that it writes on your system to get the new YouTube homepage layout again.

As I mentioned before, you can also set the cookie manually.

Open the YouTube website.
In Chrome, press Ctrl-Shift-j to open the Developer Tools
In Firefox, press Ctrl-Shift-k to open the web console
Enter document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=tYJElFX0sZI”; in the console tab and press Enter.
Reload the YouTube page.

If you are visiting YouTube regularly, which design do you prefer? (Thanks Odio for the tip)

Most users do not know that Microsoft has integrated an advanced version of the cleanup tool in the Windows operating system. The core reason for that is that it can only be started from the command prompt, and not from menus or by clicking on a program icon on the desktop.

Lets first take a look at the standard version of Disk Cleanup. One of the easiest ways to start the Disk Cleanup is to use the shortcut Windows-r to bring up the run box, enter cleanmgr in there and tap on the enter key afterwards. This opens the program right away. There are other ways to launch it, for instance by entering disk cleanup in the start menu search form.

The standard Disk Cleanup tool can delete the following temporary files on the system. Included in the deletion are temporary files, thumbnails, or downloaded programs.

Check out How To Clean Hard Drives In Windows 7 for general information about the cleanup software.

Compare that to the options the advanced cleanup tool offers.

Included now are debug dump files, system and user queued error reporting files, files discarded by Windows upgrade or setup and windows upgrade log files.

Here is how you can load the advanced Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows. Open the run prompt again with Windows-r. Now run the following command to bring up the advanced version.

Cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & /sagerun:65535

Just click ok afterwards to load the advanced Disk Cleanup Tool interface.

Note that not all items are selected by default, which means that you need to look through the options to enable and disable items until you are satisfied with the selection.

There is however a much easier solution that that all YouTube users can make use of to skip ahead a certain percentage of the video. All that needs to be done is to press a number between 1 and 9 on the YouTube video page after you have clicked on the video. Nothing happens if you try to press the numbers once the video starts playing on the side. You need to click on the video, which pauses it, to use the functionality.

The numbers 1 to 9 correspond to 10 to 90 per cent of the play time of the video. If you press 3 you skip ahead 30% as suggested by the Wadsworth Constant, but you can select to skip more or less of the video by tapping on a different number on your keyboard.

This works well in combination with scripts that auto pause a video automatically, for instance to let it buffer for a while or save bandwidth by avoiding auto play. We have reviewed several scripts that can do that here on Ghacks. Check out the userscript Automatically Buffer Youtube Videos and Youtube Videos: Playback Problems And Fixes for general tips.

The constant works sometimes but not all of the time. It works great for trailers and videos produced by tv or film studios. You will obviously encounter videos where it does not work at all. Have you tried to skip ahead in videos to save time by skipping ahead to the important content?

The following tutorial explains how you can export and import Wlan profiles under Windows natively. A third party program is not required.

Please note that you need to run commands on Windows’ command prompt. Windows 7 users can check out the following alternative that is available in their operating system: How to Backup and Import Wireless Network Settings in Windows 7. Users running other versions of Windows can take a look at the third party tool Wireless Migrator.

Copy Wlan Profiles

Use the keyboard shortcut Windows-R to open the run box. Enter cmd and tap on the enter key to open the command prompt window. The first thing you may want to do is to display all Wlan profiles configured on the system. The command netsh wlan show profiles does that.

Locate the Wlan profile that you want to copy. You can identify them by their profile name, which should be identical to the Wlan’s SSID. Run the following command to export the Wlan profile on your system: netsh wlan export profile name=”SSID” folder=”c:\wlanbackup”. Note that the folder needs to exist prior to running the command; an error message is displayed otherwise.

You can now copy the saved Wlan profile to another computer system. Open a command prompt window on the device afterwards and run the following command to import the copied Wlan profile on the system: netsh wlan add profile filename=”e:\Wi-Fi-SSID.xml”. Replace SSID with the Wlan’s identifier and the drive letter and folder as well. Repeat the steps for all devices that you want to connect to the Wlan.

For example, when you are dual booting any Linux operating system such as Ubuntu, the very first thing that you need to be aware of is that the Linux Grub will overwrite your Master Boot Record (MBR). This will mean that you will be able to boot your new Linux operating system in a hard drive partition, but you will probably not be able to boot back into Windows thereafter.

Rather than spend a day pulling your hair out trying to look for a solution, find a good guide on dual booting Ubuntu with Windows before you get started. This is an Ubuntu guide on the topic that happens to be immensely helpful and there are plenty of other links on the site to assist, should you run into any problems.

To get to the point, the very first thing you must do before dual booting Linux alongside Windows is backup your operating system. Don’t just backup the files and folders; backup the entire system on an external hard drive. If you put it on a partition and you are unable to access the partition after the dual boot, you are out of luck. It seems obvious, but always backup your system to removable devices or an FTP server. The advantage of having the external hard drive is that you have something tangible in your hands that you can restore your system with.

Secondly, create a system repair disk or buy one. If you have your Windows installation disk, that would be best, but the repair disk will be sufficient to get you into the recovery environment so that you can have a DOS prompt to work from in order to restore your MBR. As long as you have the full system backup and the repair disk, you have a parachute if you mess up the operation. Understand that Linux has a completely different language than DOS and the GNU Grub is not something to be messing with unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Make sure that you partition your hard drive properly before dual booting. DO NOT boot Linux onto the same partition on which you have installed Windows. That just about covers it.

Once you have an effective dual boot of Windows and Linux, you will be rather pleased with yourself and you get to enjoy the benefits of both operating systems. Also, a dual boot is much faster and more efficient than a virtual machine. Enjoy a safe dual boot.

The person looking at the computer can help troubleshoot PC issues by taking control over the user PC.

The process of setting up the PC to accept remote access requests is simple. Windows users first need to open Windows Remote Assistance by clicking on the start menu, and following the path All Programs > Maintenance > Remote Assistance. The following window will pop up upon execution of the program.

Two options are available:

• Invite someone you trust to help you – Your helper can view your screen and share control of your computer
• Help someone who has invited you – Respond to a request for assistance from another person

Please note that only invited users can connect to a PC remote using the feature. Your computer is safe if you have never configured invites for remote sessions before.

Select the invite option if you want someone to take a look at your computer. Some scenarios that come to mind are your parents that need help with a computer problem while you are in college, friends that require assistance and even business related aid if there is more than one office available.

A repair option may be presented to you. Windows will automatically check if the computer is properly configured to send invitations. Just click on repair to resolve the issues. This intermediary screen will for instance pop up if the Remote Assistance service is not enabled on the PC.

Please note that you may need administrative rights to run the repair on the PC. You may also need to restart the Windows Remote Assistance wizard after the repairs have been completed.

The next screen is about sending out the invitation. Three options are provided of which only some may be available.

• Save this invitation as a file – You can send this invitation as an attachment if you use web based e-mail
• Use e-mail to send an invitation – If you use a compatible e-mail program this will start the e-mail program and attach the invitation file
• Use Easy Connect – Use this option if Easy Connect is also available to your helper

Note that the Easy Connect option may not be selectable. This can be the case if both computer’s are not running Windows 7, if access to the Internet is limited, or if the router does not support Easy Connect.

You basically create a file in this step that the remote user needs to access on a second PC to establish the remote connection to your PC. The setup program furthermore generates a unique password that needs to be entered to establish the remote session.

All you need to do now is to wait for the remote worker to connect to your PC. A click on Chat opens a chat window, which may be helpful if you do not have other means of communication.

A click on Settings opens a preferences window where you can configure bandwidth usage (configured low by default), whether you want to log sessions and if the ESC key should stop the session.

The screen will change slightly once a remote connection has been established. You will then see a Pause button to pause access to the system temporarily and a stop sharing button. Pause is useful if you need to leave your computer for a moment.

When you are asked to help someone, you perform almost identical steps. You first need access to the invitation file and the password. Start Windows Remote Assistance afterwards and select one of the available options:

• Use an invitation file – Open an invitation file you have received. You will need to enter the password to connect.
• Use Easy Connect – Use this option if Easy Connect is also available to the person you are helping.

You are asked to enter the password in the second setup step.

Once done you can access the remote PC with your mouse and keyboard for as long as the session stays up.

Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop offer configuration options that you may want to take a look at. Enter Allow remote access to your computer in the Windows 7 start menu form and select the option that appears. You should see the following screen.

You can enable or disable the feature directly on the first screen, or click on the Advanced button to change the time the computer will accept connections from invited users. The default wait time is set to six hours which you can change to minutes, hours or days instead.

Here is a video demonstrating the setup and functionality

You find more information about Windows Remote Assistance at the Windows 7 News website.

Have you tried the remote assistance feature of Windows 7? If so, what was your experience?

This demonstration is performed on Windows 7, but the instructions are the same for Vista. There are a few ways to open the Disk Management console. The easiest way is to go to the start menu search box and type “disk management”. At the top of the resulting list, you should see the Control Panel option clearly listed and highlighted.

Partition a hard drive

From here, press enter or click on “Create and format hard disk partitions”. This will open the Disk Management console. You will notice all drives displayed clearly. If you have never partitioned before, notice that there are already three partitions. This is normal for Windows and you never want to change these. The first is a recovery partition that is needed to recover the operating system if it becomes inaccessible. The second is called “System Reserved” and the third will be displayed as drive (C:). Essentially, these comprise the operating system except for the third which contains essential system files and free space.

To create a new partition, right-click the (C:) drive and the context menu will list the option to “Shrink Volume”.

Click “Shrink Volume” and this will open a small pop-up that indicates that the utility is querying the volume for available shrink space. Essentially, you will be “shrinking” a portion of the drive and it will become a separate partition. You can begin doing this when the following window appears:

Specify the size for the new partition. In the highlighted blue field, you will see the full amount of space available to shrink next to “Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB”. Since you will be entering the size of the new partition (shrink) in MB, understand that 1GB is 1,024MB. If you want to create a new partition of 10GB, for example, you would enter 10,240. If you want to create a larger partition, you will need a calculator for odd sizes like 17GB or 183GB. In this case, we are going to create a 10GB partition.

After entering the desired size for the partition, click Shrink and shortly a new unallocated partition will be created. This is unallocated space and is not yet usable. It needs to be formatted to create a healthy partition. Right click on the new partition and select “New Simple Volume” from the top of the context menu. This opens the New Simple Volume Wizard, which allows you to set up the formatting and Drive path with an assigned letter. When the Wizard opens, click Next and the consecutive window will ask you to specify the size of the drive again. As long as you want it to be the size you originally specified, there is no reason to change the size, so click Next.

Here you have the option to assign a drive letter and path. The default path will be the drive letter. Since this is a basic tutorial, the options of mounting to an empty NTFS folder or formatting to formats other than NTFS will not be explained. If this is the first partition you are creating, the default drive letter will be (E:). You may click the dropdown menu and select another letter if desired, but it is not necessary. Click Next and this will take you to the formatting options.

In this window, you can choose different file system types, specify a name for the partition and enable file and folder compression. To keep it simple, let the defaults remain as they are and click Next unless you would like to name the volume first. If you wish to name it, enter the desired name in the Volume label field and then click Next. The final window will open and all you have to do is click Finish and your new partition is formatted and ready to accept files or be used as a virtual drive.

You may do this for as many partitions as you may need. For example, when setting up a dual-boot, you may need to create up to three additional partitions for the second operating system to be installed. That is all up to you and it is a different subject entirely.

Un-Partitioning

Once you have gotten the procedure down for creating new partitions and you have used them, you may find at some point that you want to remove the partitions and merge the disk space back into drive (C:). In order to do this, you will need to open the Disk Management console again and choose the partition that you want to remove. Right click the partition and select Delete Volume from the context menu. This will erase all data on the partition, but that is fine because you want to have free space again.

You will see that the partition is now free space. The next step is to right click the free space volume and select Delete Partition from the menu. This will change it to unallocated space, which is the only way to merge this space back into (C:).

Now you are ready to add the unallocated space back into (C:), so right click on volume (C:) and select Extend Volume from the context menu. The Extend Volume Wizard will open and you basically go through similar steps as you did to create the partition as outlined in the beginning of this tutorial.

If you are only Extending from one partition, then continue to click Next through all of the prompts, clicking Finish at the end. This will remove the partition and you will no longer see it, as the memory has been put back onto Drive (C:).

Now you have successfully un-partitioned the drive and there is more memory available in Drive (C:). If you created multiple partitions and wanted to clear all of them, keep selecting Delete Volume and then Delete Partition for each one until you get a single unallocated space and follow the steps above to Extend Volume for Drive (C:).

The procedure is similar if you have multiple partitions and only want to delete a portion of them. For example, if you have four partitions like (E:), (M:), (L:), and (F:), you may want to delete just two. Let’s say that you want to delete (M:) and (F:). Perform the same steps as you would for single partitions. They will merge together as a single unallocated space. Then open the Extend Volume Wizard as described above. When the Wizard opens, select the unallocated space from the list of available disks and Add it to the remove list if it is not already there.

Regardless of how many partitions you are going to make or how many you want to delete and un-partition, the procedures are the same as detailed above. Just be careful to avoid deleting partitions that contain data you want to save. Backup your system before deleting multiple partitions. This will ensure that no data is lost if you do make the mistake of deleting the wrong partition(s).

You can always regain space on Drive (C:) using this method, thanks to the Disk Management Utility in Windows 7 and Vista. Usually, unless you have a higher capacity hard drive from 500GB – 3TB, you won’t be able to practically create many partitions at all. Removing multiple partitions will only be an issue for users with larger hard drives or users with smaller drives who have allocated too much space to partitions and are running out of space on Drive (C:).

If you are working with multiple virtual machines and dual boot systems, this information can be very useful. By learning all of these basic steps, you can easily progress to creating partitions with different formats such as FAT32 or ext2 and other formats used for different aspects of virtual machines and dual booted operating systems. This should give you the basic tools to master drive partitioning so that you can create any configuration you want. Once again, the customization beauty of Windows 7 and Vista shines through.

You probably know that Dropbox keeps track of all file changes automatically, with options to restore a previous version of the file. While looking at that I noticed that it is possible to restore deleted files as well. I first thought about writing an article about that as it is a pretty interesting feature. Especially so for users who have accidentally deleted files, and users who want to make sure that deleted files cannot be recovered. A recoverable copy on the Dropbox server is the last thing those users would want.

While I was investigating the issue I noticed that Dropbox subtracts the file size of deleted files from the available ratio. This basically means that you get additional upload space even though the files are still stored on Dropbox. Remember, deleted files do not get deleted right away.

The Dropbox FAQ states that deleted files and old file versions get saved for 30 days by the service before they are removed.

I also tested if if is possible to restore deleted files to get beyond the allowed quota of an account. Turned out that this is actually possible as well. Here is how it is done in detail.

Go to the Dropbox website and log into your account there. Switch over to Files to see all your files currently stored on Dropbox. Activate the show deleted files button to display deleted files and folders in the file listing. These are highlighted in grey, and the size says deleted instead of the real file size.

The idea is this. You upload files as usually to Dropbox. Once you come near the quote you start deleting files. Don’t worry, the files are still there. Your quote drops again and you can upload more files to Dropbox. I’m not sure if there is a limit or if you could theoretically go on forever. You can later on restore deleted files which can move you over your Dropbox quote.

You basically have two options to go upload more files to Dropbox than your quote allows.

• Delete files temporarily to reduce the storage quota
• Recover the files again at a later time to store files over the quota

Please note that deleted files won’t be synchronized, and that no new file versions will be saved by Dropbox. Have other Dropbox tips to share? Let me know in the comments.

So with all these problems in mind I’ve written a short 25 page eBook which I’m giving away for free.  “Setting up and Configuring a New PC” helps you to do just that.  It’s a PDF and has been specifically designed to be easy to print so that you can refer to it later (and not so large and full or images that it destroys your printer ink in the process, though you might want to keep a spare blue cartridge handy just in case).

The book deals just with the most important aspects of setting up your computer so that you and your files and documents are safe and protected in the long-term.  It’s split into four parts.

In part 1 I show you how you can split your computer’s hard disk into two or three partitions.  This means you can keep your files and documents safe and away from Windows just in case a disaster means the OS needs to be completely reinstalled, and that if you have space on your hard disk you can also keep a backup image copy of your Windows installation itself.  This section also shows you how to create system backup and rescue discs that use can use to restore your computer in the event of a catastrophe.

Part 2 details the inevitable problems that come with trial-versions of anti0virus software being installed on your computer, and part 3 follows this up with information on how to remove the excess bloatware and crapware that is commonly bundled with new computers and that can not only be set to run at startup, slowing your computer down, but that also just takes up space and is completely unnecessary most of the time.

In the last part I show you how you can move your files and documents away from your Windows 7 partition or disk to keep them safe.  This is moving them to the partition you created in part 1.  The reasons for doing all this are that if Windows 7 does need to be completely reinstalled somewhere down the line, which is fairly likely, keeping your files and documents on the same hard disk partition as the operating system itself will mean they will be inevitably wiped during the restore.

The other reason for creating your own backup too is that because modern computers come with a restore partition, this will restore all the crap software that came with the machine in the first place.  It really will perform a factory reset.

You can download the eBook here though I do recommend that you follow all the instructions very carefully indeed.  While the partitioning tool in Windows 7 is fairly simple and foolproof, this process is never without its risks.  Take care and try and have a tech-savvy friend about when you do this.

You can test if your wireless connection is having regular lags by opening the Windows command line (Windows-r, type cmd, hit enter) and use the ping command to ping a local or remote IP address (e.g. ping -t 192.168.1.1).

If you see time spikes you are affected by the issue.

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1355ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

The WLAN AutoConfig service is responsible for the scans which are executed even if the computer is already connected to a wireless network. Users have reported connection issues for up to five seconds during scans which is especially problematic for Internet gamers and users who use streaming media services.

It is not possible to disable the WLAN AutoConfig service right away, as it is needed to establish the connection.

The free software program WLAN Optimizer resolves the issue by disabling background scans once a wireless connection has been made.

The portable program displays all options in two tabs in its interface. The status tab displays a pulldown wireless network adapter selection menu and the status of the tweaks the program offers.

The settings tab displays options to enable background scan and streaming mode. It is not recommended to disable autoconfig in the menu, but the option is available.

WLAN Optimizer is however not the only software that disables wireless background scans. The free tool VBGScan is also capable of disabling the scans. It has been developed for Vista, and it is not clear if it works under Windows 7 as well.

Just use the basic interface to configure the software. It offers the same features as WLAN Optimizer. (via)

Open Outlook and see what you always see: an interface. Brilliant, now where are the PST files? There are two ways to find them and it is very simple. In Outlook 2010, open the File menu and click Account Settings. In Outlook 2007, click the Tools tab and select Account Settings.

This will open a window with various tabs that help you organize your Outlook content. Click the Data Files tab and you will see your Outlook data files, including PST and OST files. They will be clearly indicated by name. Highlight the PST file listing and then click Open Folder just above the list.

Your PST files are saved in your User Data folder by default and this is the folder location that will open. Simply double click the listing for your PST files and there they are.

Alternatively, you can open your PST files directly from the User Data folder without opening Outlook. Open Windows Explorer and in the address bar, type:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\

Press Enter and the folder will open. Once again, simply double click your PST files and they should open. If this leads you to a read-only file that you cannot open, right-click the file and select Properties. Under the security tab, you can make sure that you have allowed all permissions for the user account. The default account is often the SYSTEM user and permissions are restricted.
Click the edit button to define permissions for certain users, select which account you are using and all permissions. Click Apply and restart your system.
At that point, you can try the above steps again and it should work out. If this all seems like too much to bother with, there a applications that will find the PST files for you, but it is just as easy to try this first.

Other troubleshooting issues may be inactive services with Outlook and Windows Live. This can also cause problems accessing PST files. Check to make sure that all services associated with these programs are enabled and active.
Normally, you should not have any trouble retrieving the PST files from Outlook. If you continue to have problems retrieving PST files from outlook, also check for firewall issues.