My C drive was seriously fragmented with about 20% free space. So I ran the built-in Windows disk defrag utility. To my surprise it doesn't work at all! I tried to defragment multiple times and every time it comes back without doing much work. Then I realized that perhaps it didn't know how to get the job done and needed some help. Here's the list of things I did to help the defragmentor out: Relocate the paging file to a different drive and reboot. If the paging file ( pagefile.sys ) is seriously fragmented, it can't be defragmented, and in turn it blocks other files from being defragmented. If you only have one drive (C:), try to make it smaller or eliminate it entirely for...

This procedure only works for program shortcuts on the desktop or start menu: Right click on the program shortcut Select "Properties" Focus on the "Shortcut key" field, press any key or combination of any two of SHIFT, CTRL and ALT, plus any key MS link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310417

Windows XP has built-in capability for burning folders/files onto a CD ROM. Use the Recording tab in the CD-ROM drive properties dialog to configure the options: However, it doesn't have the capability to burn ISO images. On the MS site it was suggested that ISO Recorder would do the job. I tried it on two different machines and both failed with " generic error ". I'm running Windows XP professional SP2 on both. Update: Actually the above error for ISO Recorder was caused by a monitoring program the company installed to block CD-ROM write access. Although unsuccessful, ISO Recorder actually went further than other programs. cdburn.exe from the Windows 2003 Resource Kit died at 0% without emitting any error message.

Configuration Bring up the System Properties dialog and click the System Restore tab. Usage Bring up the System Restore tool from the Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore menu. Cleanup Open disk properties (right click on the drive, select properties), in the general tab click Disk Cleanup , click the More Options tab to clean up space used by System Restore . Reference Windows XP System Restore Is Easy to Use

Press the Windows button together with the Pause/Break button (Win+Break). The Pause/Break button is at the top right corner of the keyboard. The Device Manager is under the Hardware tab.

One of the first things you notice about Windows Vista is the annoying User Account Control (UAC) popup. It keeps nagging you to click a confirmation button whenever you try to install or reconfigure something. With UAC, you are working with normal user privileges even though you may be logged in with an administrator account. When the application requires administrator privileges, the UAC prompt pops up to ask for your confirmation. UAC compatible applications are packed with an application manifest to tell Vista that they need elevated privileges . For legacy applications needing elevated privileges , you can check " Run this program as an administrator " on the Compatibility tab of file properties dialog. Application manifest itself is not new to Windows Vista. In...