Microsoft as expected has just released an out of band security update for the Windows operating system that fixes a critical security vulnerable. The vulnerability affects all Microsoft operating systems that have been released in the past years, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and the Windows Server product line. The severity of the [...]

Categories: Security, Windows

An increase in attacks exploiting a recent vulnerability in LNK files in the Windows operating system, sparked the creation and imminent release of an out of band patch to protect PCs running Windows from those attacks. Until now, only workarounds were available to protect Windows systems from those attacks. This included a Microsoft Fix-IT solution, [...]

Categories: Security, Windows

Special folders in the Windows operating system are presented to the user abstractly, they are not represented by their folder path but solely by their function. Examples of special folders are the My Documents or My Music folders in the user directory, application data folder, the desktop or the temporary Internet files folder. Special folders [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Microsoft have warned of a critical vulnerability in Windows Shell, caused when parsing .lnk shortcuts that can automatically launch a malicious program through use of a specially crafted shortcut. The vulnerability afcects all versions of Windows including XP and Windows 7.   On Windows 7 the exploit can bypass the operating system’s security as it does not [...]

Categories: Microsoft, Windows

I’ve long been a subscriber to Microsoft’s Action Pack which is for small businesses.  You get 10 licences for Windows and Office plus a Windows Server licence or two for £220 a year.  Plus the software never expires. Many people say that subscription software is the way we’re all going but I’ve been making significant [...]

Categories: Microsoft, Software, Windows

It’s always a worry when you get rid of a PC or hard drive that all sorts of personal data could be sitting on it waiting to be stolen.  This is even more important when it comes to business computers. There have always been a huge variety of hard disk wiping packages available from third-parties, [...]

Categories: Tutorials Advanced

I tried burning a DVD yesterday and noticed that the DVD burning software was not recognizing the DVD drive. A quick check in the Devices and Printers section of the Windows control panel showed that the DVD drive and the virtual DVD drive had yellow exclamation marks next to them. when I checked the properties [...]

Categories: troubleshooting, Windows

Windows users do not have a lot of options when it comes to text rendering. Basically the only option available for them is to enable ClearType, a technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text on Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs). the Gdipp project has been designed as a replacement of the standard Windows [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

System Restore has been designed by Microsoft to provide the user with an option to restore the operating system into a previous state. Restore points are for instance created when software and new updates are installed, when a driver that is not digitally signed is installed or by user request. System Restore is only backing [...]

Categories: Tutorials Basic, Windows