User Account Control: People using Window Vista observe some troubles to handle user accounts. With Vista, users are not able to find out why a given act is considered dangerous? The administrator has to confirm user name and password many times during processing and as a result people get annoyed and start to ignore UAC (User account Control), effectively removing any protection it might provide.

Some quick fixes to ignore this problem, simply turn off your PC and the second one is to alter the UAC settings. Another good method can be the usage of TweakUAC program, which is a free program that can turn off for administrative account according to user’s convenience.

Data Backup: Data backup is one of the crucial jobs that no user can ignore, as the loss of valuable data can cause gigantic problems for a user. The data backup can be taken everyday by spending a little time, while the lack of a system backup could cost you a couple of hours reinstalling Windows and your applications.

Some solutions to backup problem are use of bundled software (i.e. use the backup program that came with your drive), use of Mozy program (a free 2GB back up program) and use of Argentum program (a backup program that take backup of selective data).

Firewall usage: The users of Windows Vista sometimes face problems related with the suspicious contents. Though it blocks suspicious stuff that comes in, it does nothing about what your PC sends out. Vista provide the facility to blocks suspicious stuff entry, Vista’s designers forgot to put the controls that turn the facility on.

Solution to this problem is to install another better firewall on your computer. One such free well known firewall program is Comodo Firewall Pro.

Programs and Features Uninstaller: Another dilemma with Windows Vista is uninstalling a program. Vista took the old Control Panel applet called ‘Add and Remove Programs’ and renamed it ‘Programs and Features’, but the developers didn’t otherwise change it.

A better solution to the above problem is the use of programs like Revo Uninstaller, which is a free program that offers a convenient interface to uninstalling a program.

Windows Explorer’s Address Bar: The problems with the address bar is that it lists only recently visited folders, secondly it also lists all the recently web pages that sometimes create panic to the users.

Better alternative to the above problem is the use of a free add-on FileBox eXtender that adds drop-down Recent and Favorites menus to Windows Explorer. Other options can be the use of favorite folder list wisely. Users can easily place a shortcut to any folder and this problem can be overcome

At end note, it can be concluded that Vista can be made to run your way by making certain tweaks. The opearting system is more secure and less problematic.

Satinder kaur/ITVoir Network

About the Author

I am a content writer and working for www.itvoir.com

And though Gmail’s spam filters are among the best available, there is a chance that, at some point, you’ll receive unwanted email – and it might even be from a Gmail address. In such an instance, your best bet is to use Gmail’s own reverse email search; it’s easier for Gmail, after all, to search its own records than to have an outside source looking in. See what you’re able to discover about the sender. (Gmail is especially attractive to those wishing to remain very much anonymous, because the headers in any given piece of mail are stripped of any and all IP information. Thus, the stalker or hacker believes himself or herself to be secure.)

Even if you don’t have much luck, or any at all, you are far from out of options. In fact, now would be a good time to check out one of the many free independent reverse email search engines available online. When using these sites, the key is to remain tenacious – because it may take a good while before you produce results. Giving up is the last thing that you want to do; after all, even if the reverse email search engine you are using isn’t having any success at all, bear in mind that there are those services which, for whatever reason (and there exist a few possibilities), have more success than others!

If you are still having little to no success, or if the email received was of a particular harmful or malicious nature, you might want to consider contacting a third party for some needed extra help. I am referring to professional investigators who specialize in online matters, since they have tools at their disposal not necessarily available to you. Every step taken online leaves a ‘footprint’ – data that can be tracked and which will inevitably lead to the person who has been taking the steps all along. This is true even if the person in question is using dial-up or a handful of proxies; while these factors could slow down a search, they are never able to stop a search in its tracks altogether!

Private investigators often have access to what is known as the “deep web” – information not available through conventional means such as, say, a simple Google search. So always remember that the only way to ensure your subject gets away is for you to run out of steam and simply give up. Otherwise, you should inevitably be able to find the information that you are looking for! Best of luck!

About the Author

Ed Opperman is president of Opperman Investigations Inc He is considered an expert on the reverse email search and online investigations Visit http://www.emailrevealer.com to end your fears.

2. Zap the Windows Prefetch folder every week. Windows XP can “prefetch” portions of data and applications that are frequently loaded. This allows processes appear to start faster when requested the user. Over time, the prefetch folder overwhelms with references to files and applications no longer in use. Guess what happens? Windows XP wastes time and grinds to a halt by pre-loading obsolete data. It helps you gain some performance on your XP Professional to periodically empty the prefetch folder.

The prefetch folder resides on your local hard disk, under the Windows folder.
%systemroot%\prefetch
-or-
X:\windows\prefetch

Where X is the drive letter where you have Windows installed. Either path will get you to your local system. The second path is for those who have the default installation on the most commonly used drive letter, C:\

3. Optimise Display Settings. Windows XP can look sexy but displaying all the visual items can waste system resources. Kill unnecessary animations, and nix active desktop. Here’s how to do it:
1) Go to Start
2) Click Settings
3) Click Control Panel
4) Click System
5) Click Advanced tab
6) In the Performance tab click Settings
7) Leave only the following ticked:
(1) Show shadows under menus
(2) Show shadows under mouse pointer
(3) Show translucent selection rectangle
(4) Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop
(5) Use visual styles on windows and buttons
Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will alter the stability of the computer – only its responsiveness.

4. Remove the Desktop Picture Your desktop background consumes a fair amount of memory and can slow the loading time of your system. Removing it will improve performance.
1) Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2) Select the Desktop tab
3) In the Background window select None
4) Click Ok

5. Remove Fonts for Speed Zap extra fonts fonts installed on their computer. Fonts, especially TrueType fonts, use quite a bit of system resources. The more fonts they have, the more lethargic the system will become. Anything over 300 fonts tax the system and slow down load times- especially graphic apps. For optimal performance, trim your fonts down to just those that you need to use on a daily basis and fonts that applications may require.
1) Open Control Panel
2) Open Fonts folder
3) Move fonts you don’t need to a temporary directory (e.g. C:\FONTBKUP?) just in case you need or want to bring a few of them back. The more fonts you uninstall, the more system resources you will gain.

6. Speedup Folder Browsing You may have noticed that everytime you open my computer to browse folders that there is a slight delay. This is because Windows XP automatically searches for network files and printers everytime you open Windows Explorer. To fix this and to increase browsing significantly:
1) Open My Computer
2) Click on Tools menu
3) Click on Folder Options
4) Click on the View tab.
5) Uncheck the Automatically search for network folders and printers check box
6) Click Apply
7) Click Ok
8) Reboot your computer
To prevent a single Windows Explorer window tanking up takes the rest of your OS down, you can launch separate folder windows in multi processes. Open My Computer, hit on Tools, then Folder Options. Click on the View tab. Scroll down to “Launch folder windows in a separate process,” and enable this option.

7. Disable Performance Counters Windows XP has a performance monitor utility which monitors several areas of your PC’s performance. These utilities take up system resources so disabling is a good idea. To disable:
1) download and install the Extensible Performance Counter List
2) Then select each counter in turn in the ‘Extensible performance counters’ window and clear the ‘performance counters enabled’ checkbox at the bottom button below

8. Optimise Your Pagefile Windows XP sizes the page file to about 1.5X the amount of actual physical memory by default. While this is good for systems with smaller amounts of memory (under 512MB) it is unlikely that a typical XP desktop system will ever need 1.5 X 512MB or more of virtual memory. If you have less than 512MB of memory, leave the page file at its default size. If you have 512MB or more, change the ratio to 1:1 page file size to physical memory size.
1) Right click on My Computer and select Properties
2) Select the Advanced tab
3) Under Performance choose the Settings button
4) Select the Advanced tab again and under Virtual Memory select Change
5) Highlight the drive containing your page file and make the initial Size of the file the same as the Maximum Size of the file.

9. Improve Memory Usage PC Washer improves the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.

Once Installed:
1) Click the ‘Tools’ from the left menu
2) Select ‘Memory Booster’ in the tools list. A new window named ‘PC Turbo Memory’ will popup.
3) Click Defragment button in the new window.
4) Exit the program. That’s all.

10. Disable unnecessary services Windows XP loads services you will never need. To determine which services you can disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for ideal Windows XP configurations. Here are a few services I booted off to streamline my PC:
* Alerter
* Background Intelligent Transfer Service
* ClipBook
* Computer Browser
* Error Reporting Service
* Help and Support
* Indexing Service
* IPSEC Services
* Messenger
* NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing
* Network DDE
* Network DDE DSDM
* Performance Logs and Alerts
* Portable Media Serial Number
* QOS RSVP
* Help Session Manager
* Remote Registry
* Secondary Logon
* Server
* Smart Card
* Smart Card Helper
* SSDP Discovery Service
* System restore Service
* TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
* Uninterruptible Power Supply
* Universal Plug and Play Device Host
* WebClient
* Windows time
* Wireless Zero Configuration
* WMI Performance Adapter

11. Disconnect USB devices you aren’t using. When Windows starts, it must load all the drivers for the devices connected to your computer. If you have many devices connected to the USB ports, such as printers, scanners, cameras and hard drives that you don’t use on a regular basis, disconnect them. You can reconnect them when you use them. Disconnecting them when they are not in use will allow Windows to load the drivers only when needed.

The above steps should help increase the performance of Windows XP as well as keep it running with more stability.

About the Author

Duncan Kredion is a software engineer focusing on system optimization area since 1999. To read more system optimization tips, please visit Windows XP & Vista Optimization Tips Archive .