There is a computer in our cars, TV’s, cell phones, our cable boxes, and other electronic devices. Without the software, these electronics would not work as they do. They may turn on, but the programs that we need to use would not work properly without the help of software.

The operating system that came with your computer is a computer software program. All computers come with an operating system, such as Windows aka XP, Vista, 2000, etc. Other operating systems are Linux and Mac. Without an operating system, your computer will not operate as it should. It may turn on, but it won’t run properly.

There are so many different programs today to do just about anything you want to on your computer. Some computer software program names are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office, Print Shop, QuickBooks, video games, etc.

Some programs come in the form of CD or DVD, or floppy disks. This software can also be downloaded from the Internet, called electronic download. A software program is usually all set up to run on your computer. Each program will tell you what operating system and other criteria needed to use the program on your computer.
There are programs that will diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix problems that may occur with your computer, without the help of a computer tech.

Some programs online are in the form of a zip file, closed to make the file smaller. Most operating systems have a program on them that will automatically open a zip file so that you can install it onto your computer without a hassle. If you do not have a zip file software program, you can find a free program online. A great place to find free software downloads is at http://download.cnet.com/windows/.

Each program will tell you what the computer requirements are to run the program on your computer. It may specify that the program is only for Windows 2000 or XP, but most programs are available to run with Vista, Mac, and Linux now. http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx offers free trials for a lot of their software programs so that you can try it out before purchasing a copy of it.

Nearly everywhere we go or whatever we do, there is computer software running something. It is a wonderful idea to learn more about the computer world, as it will always be a big part of life. The technology continues to change and improve in most areas. A lot of the local Adult Education centers offer classes for free or at a very reasonable price to learn more about computers. Some local computer technicians also offer tutoring at reasonable prices. The World Wide Web has loads of free information on this topic as well.

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The alternatives can be filtered by license or operating system. It would for instance be possible to show only free software alternatives for the Windows operating system. Additional tabs are available that display user comments, ratings and Twitter information. The alternatives listed for Adobe Photoshop include GIMP, Paint.net, Pixlr and Picnik among others. The profile page provides comfortable means to view user opinion on software alternatives for a specific program with the option to visit the website of the developer for further information or downloads.

The main page can be filtered by operating system as well to narrow down the choices. The applications that are listed on those pages can also be viewed by most popular, most views, recent and those without alternative. The service offers an easily accessible way of discovering new applications for a selected operating system.

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Smart Shutdown does not look like much after installation and users judging its tiny interface might be disappointed at first glance. This disappointed will surely change to sheer joy after finding out that it offers functionality that would put many applications to shame.

The basic functionality is to perform an action after a certain time of inactivity on the user’s part. The default setting is to turn off the computer after 30 minutes of inactivity. The interval and the action can be changed in the same menu. Instead of turning off the computer the user could be logged off, the Internet connection be disconnected or a message reminder send.

Then there is the option to perform an action at a specific time or after some time has passed independently from the activity level of the computer. This provides even more options like shutting down network computers.

The list of network computers that will be automatically shutdown can be configured in the options. The administrator can define a message that will be displayed on the network computer and the time that the message will be displayed. Network computers can be shutdown or rebooted this way. Lists of computers can be saved and loaded at a later time which is excellent for remote shutdowns.

And then there are the global options. The user can select to shutdown the system fast, empty the recycle bin, force the system to close all open tasks, configure settings for each user individually and confgiure left and right-click shortcuts that perform certain actions.

Smart Shutdown can be configured to be run from the command line which would make it possible to create a shortcut for an automatic shutdown of Windows.

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Instance Controlling, that’s the official name of the first function prevents that more than x instances of a program are running on a system. If another instance of a program is started that exceeds the defined value that instance will be closed immediately. This can be extremely useful if you are working with applications that spawn other applications from time to time. I was not able to come up with an application yet that has such a behavior, maybe Internet Explorer.

An interesting aspect is that you can only pick an application that you want to add from the list of running processes which means that the application has to be running to be added to the list. The number of instances that can be run simultaneously is not limited.

Another possible use for this function would be if you happen to start programs multiple times from time to time.

The second function might prove to be better suited for a lot of users. It is a list of applications that the user wants to run all the time on his computer. It scans the processes constantly and if it detects that a process has been terminated that is in the list it will restart the application.

Control Running Programs requires the .net framework 2.0 or higher but does not seem to have any other limitations.

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End it all is a program that lets you close all selected processes and programs except for several system processes and those that you have selected not to close. When you start End it all you get a view that resembles the Windows Task Manager. All open processes and applications are displayed. Icons define if a process will be closed or killed if you press the buttons that initiate that.

A right click on a process  makes it possible to change the behavior to allow that it can be closed and / or killed when the button is pressed. Some processes are locked and can’t be changed at all to ensure that Windows continues to work properly.

The yellow icon means that End it all can close or kill the process, a red icon indicates a protected process that cannot be killed or closed. The icon with the X and the green border indicates processes that can be closed but not killed while a skull with a red border allows to kill the process but not to close it.

Talking about the difference between closing and killing. Closing gives the process a chance to close normally with special operations that are probably required during shutdown while killing a process stops it immediately which can lead to data loss.

Once everything is setup you can create a batch file that uses command line options to perform the required operation, i.e closing or killing all defined processes. The command START enditall /K would kill all processes. A full list of command line parameters can be obtained with the /? parameter.

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The information are stored in the registry using a simple ROT-13 encryption. Windows XP saves the full path and name of the program, last access and the number of total executions. UserAssist is a nice little tool that decrypts the information and displays them it its main window. You can clear single entries by right-clicking and selecting clear. If you do have many entries in that list you might want to clear them all by clicking on commands, clear them all.

This does not disable the logging, it simply clears the current state. Windows XP will continue to log all activity unless you disable the whole process by clicking on commands, logging disabled. This will take effect once you restart, logoff and on again or kill the explorer.exe task in the task manager.

The manual way to disable logging would be to open your registry and navigate to the key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\Settings\NoLog

and set the value of that key to 1.

Windows stores the encrypted information in the key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist

Please note that you should not disable or clear the feature if you want to work with the recent items in your start menu.

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