Add safe Mode To The Regular Boot Menu

Open the System Properties dialog box. You can do this from Control Panel (click System).
- Click the Advanced tab.
- Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
- Click the Edit button under System Startup. This opens the boot.ini file in Notepad.
- One line should end with "/fastdetect" (NOT "/fastdetect /sos"). Copy that line.
- Paste the line you just copied below the original line. Change "WINDOWS=Microsoft XP Professional" to "WINDOWS="Safe Mode" and add the following text to the end of the line: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
- Save the file and click OK to exit the dialog boxes. Note: If you named the Windows XP installation folder something other than WINDOWS when you installed XP, that name will appear instead of WINDOWS in step 6.

Or

Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties (or press Windows Key & Break together).
On the Advanced tab, click the Settings button, which brings up the Startup and Recovery window.
Click the Edit button, which will open the boot.ini file in Notepad.
Look under the [Operating Systems] for your default OS. Copy the entire line, and paste it on the line below.
Change the description in the quotations to say ?Safe Mode? or whatever description you want. Then add the following to the end of the line you just copied: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
If you want networking support, then change ?minimal? to ?network? without the quotes.

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Another way to Lock folders without any Software

Steps:--
1) open notepad & copy the matter pasted below

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Private
if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Private "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%== Password-here goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Private
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Private
echo Private created successfully
goto End

2)Replace "Password-here" with your password & save as "whatever you want.bat" anywhere you want to creat locked Folder

3) Now run that .bat file ,Now it will make a folder named "private"

4)Now again run that file,in command promt it will ask u

Quote:

Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)

press "y",Then Folder will disappear .

4)If you want that folder back again run bat file ,Now it will ask you to put password whih is stored in that file

5) You can hide that file too...

Enjoy.....

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Dual Boot XP with vista STEP BY STEP GUIDE with pictures

Note that you should not attempt this if you aren't ready to troubleshoot any problems that might occur.

The first issue we encounter is that computers with pre-installed operating systems take up the entire drive. Luckily Microsoft included the Shrink volume feature in Vista, so we can easily shrink the Vista partition down to make room for XP.

Open the Computer Management panel, which you can find under Administrative tools or by right-clicking the Computer item in the start menu and choosing Manage. Find the Disk Management item in the list and select that.




Now we'll shrink our volume down by right-clicking on the main hard drive and choosing Shrink Volume.




Now you can choose the size that you want to shrink, which really means you are choosing the size that you want your XP partition to be. Whatever you do, don't just use the default. I chose roughly 10gb by entering 10000 into the amount.



The next step might be confusing, because we need to change the cd-rom drive that's invariably taking up D: at the moment, because we want to use D: for the Windows XP partition, but it's already taken by the cd-rom drive. If you skip this step than XP will install onto the E: drive, which isn't the end of the world, but it's not quite as tidy.

Right-click on the cd-rom drive in the list and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the menu.



Now we'll change the CD drive to use E: by selecting that in the drop-down.



Now we can create a new partition for XP to live on and make sure that the drive letter is set the way we want. If you do not create a partition now the XP install will do so automatically, but it's easier and cleaner to do it this way.

Right-click on the Unallocated free space area and then select New Simple Volume from the menu.




Follow through the wizard and select whatever options you'd like, making sure to use D: as the drive letter.

Now you will need to close out of disk management and reboot your computer. This is because we can't do the next step until we reboot. (you can try, but it won't work)

So we've come back from rebooting… open up Computer from the start menu and then right-click on the D: drive and select properties. Give your partition a meaningful name like "XP". It would be wise to name the C: drive to "Vista" at this point as well.




Now you'll want to pop your XP cd into the drive and boot off it. You may have to configure your BIOS to enable booting off the CD drive, or if your computer says something like "Hit Esc for boot menu" you might want to use that.

Once you come to the screen where you can choose the partition to install on, then choose either the unpartitioned space or the new partition you created. Whatever you do, don't try and install onto your Vista partition! See how much cleaner it is now that we've labeled each partition distinctly?




We'll assume XP is completely installed at this point, and you will have lost your ability to boot into Windows Vista, so we'll need to use the VistaBootPro utility to restore the Vista boot loader.

Download And Install VistaBootPRO


During the install you'll be forced to install the .NET 2.0 framework. Open up VistaBootPRO and then click on the System Bootloader tab. Check the "Windows Vista Bootloader" and then "All Drives" radio buttons, and then click on the Install Bootloader button.



At this point, the Windows Vista bootloader is installed and you'll only be able to boot into Vista, but we'll fix that. Instead of manually doing the work, we'll just click the Diagnostics menu item and then choose Run Diagnostics from the menu.



This will scan your computer and then automatically fill in the XP version.. click on the "Manage OS Entries" tab and then click in the textbox for Rename OS Entry, and name it something useful like "Windows XP" or "The Windows That Works"



Click the Apply Updates button and then reboot your computer… you should see your shiny new boot manager with both operating systems in the list!



If you get an error saying "unable to find ntldr" when trying to boot XP, you'll need to do the following:

Find the hidden files ntldr and ntdetect.com in the root of your Vista drive and copy them to the root of your XP drive.
If you can't find the files there, you can find them in the \i386\ folder on your XP install cd

This is a critical piece of information: Windows XP will be installed on the D: drive, even in Windows XP… so you'll need to keep that in mind when tweaking your system.



You can share information between the drives, but I wouldn't recommend messing with the other operating system's partition too much… it might get angry and bite you. Or screw up your files. What I do recommend is that you store most of your files on a third drive shared between the operating systems… you could call that partition "Data".

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15 Tips to Improve your Linux Experience

The beauty of Linux is in users ability to do large amount of customization to have a unique user expereince. So today we will look in to some tips for a “better” Linux experience. The term “better” here is relative, because what works for me might seem a distraction for some or plain annoying to others; some of this “tips” might appeal to beginners, while advanced users might find it too easy. Hopefully some of these tips will be helpful to some of you.

1) Turn on your computer remotely by sending “magic network packets” to WakeOnLan supported network cards. This can be very helpful if you run a server at home but only access it occasionally. There is no need for you to have the server running all the time.

2) If you dual boot with windows, accessing Linux file system from your windows installation might be important for you. There are three windows applications that can help you do this: Explore2fs, Ext2 Installable File System, DiskInternals Linux Reader.
3) Similarly to have read/write access for Windows NTFS file system, you can use NTFS-3G. Most recent popular Linux distribution has NTFS-3G installed out of the box.

4) Share a single mouse and keyboard with multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, with support for copy and paste. Thanks to Synergy, the most popular free KVM software switch out there.

Synergy in action.

5) Recovering data from damaged media can be handled by several Linux tools including some LiveCD, specifically built to help recover data. Parted Magic, Ubuntu Rescue Remix, SystemRescueCd, Foremost (data recovery), Ddrescue.

6) If you are a blogger like me and enjoy using desktop client over web editors, you will find these clients useful: Gnome Blog, Drivel Journal Editor, BloGTK, Thingamablog, Bleezer, QTM.

7) If you are a webdeveloper/designer, you will often find yourself testing a website across many platforms and browsers. IEs4Linux is a great painless way to check how IE browser will render your website. You could use services like browsershots, but I had mixed results with them.

Does your iPod miss iTunes? Here are three itunes alternative which will do most of what your iTunes would do, not an exact replacement; but does the job: Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox.

9) Follow multiple files by creating multiple windows in your console with the help of MultiTail, also known as tail on steroids.

10) Use Terminator to split your screen space with many terminal windows, both horizontally and vertically.

11) For even better control over your terminal display and customization and complex functions, GNU Screen is a much better choice over terminator; however terminator serves only one purpose.

12) Use RSIBreak to help prevent Repetitive Strain Injury. RSIBreak will force you to take short break, depending on your configuration, so that you don’t over-work yourself.

RSIBreak

13) If you find yourself working on a dumb terminal (hello sysadmins) or prefer working on terminals, you will find newsbeuter to be an excellent RSS reader for the console.

14) I know some will disagree with me on this, but conky is an excellent compliment to your desktop experience. If properly configured, it can add a lot of value to your desktop environment. Check out this very creative conky setup and read about it here.

15) Do you do podcasts? rootprompt has a great article with huge resources for both Linux podcasters and listeners.

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10 ways to Tweak your Linux Boot Process

Linux rarely needs to be rebooted. But when it does, it’s often slow to boot. Fortunately, there are ways to speed things up. Some of these methods are not terribly difficult. (although some, unfortunately, are). Let’s take a look.

#1: Disable unnecessary services

Depending upon the use of the machine, plenty of services won’t be needed. Using Linux just for a desktop? Then you won’t need sendmail, httpd, and many other services. If your server is only a Web server, you can shut off many services as well. To do this, you can go to the Administration menu and take a look at the Services entry. Just deselect all of the services you don’t want to start.

#2: Disable unnecessary kernel modules

If your desktop is wired to the Ethernet, you don’t need to have a wireless kernel module loaded. This task is a bit more difficult and will require a kernel recompilation, which is not the easiest task to undertake. To do this, you will need the kernel sources. Then, follow the standard steps for compiling a kernel. The difference is that you’re going to go through your system and disable all of the modules you don’t need.

The best way to find out what kernel modules currently install and run on your system is to install Bootchart. Not only will this give you a good list of modules, it will illustrate for you what is happening during your system boot. You can also issue the command chkconfig –list | grep 3:on to find out what services are running. Once you know what loading modules you don’t need, you can remove them during a kernel recompilation. While you’re at it, compile the kernel to exactly match your architecture.

#3: Use a lightweight window manager instead of GNOME or KDE

I plug smaller footprint window managers for a reason — they drastically reduce graphical boot time. Instead of having to wait that extra 30 to 60 seconds for GNOME or KDE to boot up, why not wait two to 10 seconds for Enlightenment or XFCE to boot up? Not only will they save you boot time, they will save your memory and the headache of dealing with bloatware.

#4: Use a text-based login instead of a graphical login

Most of my Linux machines boot to run level 3 instead of run level 5. This will halt at the text-based login, where I only have to log in and issue startx to start my desktop of choice. The graphical logins do two things: increase load times and create headaches trying to recover from an X windows fubar.

#5: Use a lighter-weight distribution

Instead of loading the heavyweight Fedora, why not try a Gentoo, Arch, or Puppy Linux? The boot times for these smaller distributions are far faster than the more bloated Fedora (and even Ubuntu). Of the larger distributions, OpenSuSE claims to boot the fastest, but I have not personally tested this. Between the latest Fedora and Ubuntu, Ubuntu blows Fedora’s boot times away (and that is out of the box).

#6: Use an OpenBIOS

If you’re savvy enough to upgrade your PC’s firmware, you might consider migrating to an open source BIOS. One caveat to using open firmware is that it allows Linux to actually initialize the hardware as it boots (instead of relying on the BIOS). On top of that, many open BIOSes can be configured to meet your machine’s specific needs. If you don’t go the open BIOS route, you can at least configure your BIOS to not search for a floppy drive that’s not there or to boot directly to the first hard drive (instead of the CD drive first).

#7: Avoid dhcp

If you are working on a home network (or a small business network) where address lease isn’t a problem, go with static IP addresses. This will keep your machine from having to call out to a dhcp server to get an IP address. If you take this approach, make sure you configure your /etc/resolve.conf to reflect your DNS server addresses as well.

#8: If you can spare it, get rid of hotplug

Hotplug is the system that allows you to plug in new devices and use them immediately. If you know your server won’t need this system, delete it. This will cut down on boot time. On many systems, hotplugging consumes much of the boot time. Removing hotplug will vary depending upon the distribution you use. NOTE: udev has, for the most part, replaced hotplug. But if you’re running an older distribution, this does apply.

#9: If you are REALLY daring, you could give initng a try

The initng system serves as a replacement for the sysvinit system and promises to drastically decrease boot times in UNIX-like operating systems. If you would like to see the initng system in action, you can give the Pingwinek livecd a try.

#10: Use a hack with Debian

If you’re using Debian, there is a simple hack you can use to switch your startup scripts to run in parallel. If you look at the /etc/init.d/rc script, you will see: CONCURRENCY=none around line 24. Change this line to CONCURRENCY=shell and you should see a reduction in boot times.

That’s about it. Of course there are always more and better hacks out there. But the above should mostly cover everything. The good news is that you’re most likely already running Linux, so the burden of boot times is generally eased by the infrequency of reboots.

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Reboot Linux using simple fork()

We all know that the simplest function in Linux is fork(). The fork is used create a child process which is an exact copy of the calling process (parent process). You might be thinking how can such a simple function reboot a linux machine. Well I must tell you that the program I am going to discuss today uses only this fork function and can force a Linux Server which can serve as many as 100 computers to get rebooted. I have tried this on my College’s Linux Server which Serves more than 200 computers at a time and I was lucky to get out of this situation.

Warning: I am not responsible to whatever happens to your computer after exceuting the following program on your computer.

I have found a simple C Program whose source is as follows:

#include

int main()
{
int i;
for(i=1;i<=300;i++)
{
printf(”%d”,fork());
}
return(1);
}

- Open the Linux Shell.
- Write the above program in your vi Editor and save it as reboot.c
- Now compile the program using following command:
gcc -o reboot reboot.c
- Now to execute the program type the following
./reboot
and press Enter.

Explanation: In the above program, I have used a loop of 300 iterations. In the first iteration it will execute the fork command which will create a child process which is the exact copy of the parent process i.e. the child process will have the same code as the parent process and it will execute simultaneously with the parent process. So in the next iteration both parent process and the child process will execute fork command which will in turn create child processes with the exact copy of their parent processes and this process of creation of child processes will be in the power of 2 i.e. after the first iteration the total number of processes will be 1 parent and 1 child = 2 process. After 2nd iteration the number of process will be 1 parent and 3 child = 4 process. And this will continue to double and at the end the total number of processes will be 2³⁰⁰ which is quite a big number. If you try to calculate this value in your calc it will take atleast 1 hour. So when you will execute the above program your linux machine will get overloaded and will be forced to reboot.

I executed this program in college’s Computer Lab and all the computer got hanged and after 1 or 2 mins a Global message was displayed that “Linux server is going to Reboot”. Since nobody knew what had happened I could get away from that situation. Hope that my lab faculty don’t read this Article.

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Remove RavMon.exe virus without any anti-virus(Do it your self)

Removing Ravmon Virus without Anti-Virus is easy, btw I haven’t met any Anti Virus which can remove this virus. They can stop your pc from being infected but once you are infected they wont be able to remove it.
I don’t know the Actual Name of this virus nor its effects

Anyways its very easy to remove it.

You will have to follow just few simple steps.

• check if your Infected.
• Stop currently running virus.
• Delete virus files.
• Remove virus to run from startup.

So here are the following steps explained:

Remember until you delete the virus files please open drives using address bar by typing C:\ D:\ X:\ as the virus is activated if you double click the drive
1. Right click any drive on your computer and see if right click menu shows some invalild characters
like this

If yes then you are infected.

2. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to bring up the task manager (or right click taskbar to run it) there will be a program in processes named “SVCHOST.EXE” there will be few svchost in small case but check one in capital letters, if you see more than one “SVCHOST.EXE” (all caps one) end the one with your username infront of it instead of LOCAL SERVICE, NETWORK SERVICE or SYSTEM(by pressing end process).
3. To delete the virus files you need to show system protected files.
For this goto
My Computer->(Menu) Tools-> Folder Options -> (Tab) View -> uncheck “Hide System protected files” -> press OK
If you are unable to unhide the system files you can use 3rd party software to browse drive and delete files, try ACDsee or WinRAR
Now open drive (by typing drive letter in address bar)
Delete these 2 files

• Autorun.inf
• Ravmon.exe

Also delete those in all drives (not CD(WR) or DVD(WR) drives) (and remember don’t double click else you will have to start over from top) Open Windows folder and delete SVCHOST.EXE, SVCHOST.dll and MDM.EXE
Now restart the explorer.exe process by killing it in taskmanager and runing it again [(winkey + R), type “explorer” and hit enter]

Now right click the drive letter and ull see a clean menu congrats virus is removed 4. Now remove it from startup (Optional as files are deleted)
Winkey + R type “msconfig” hit enter




Goto startup tab-> (uncheck) MDM -> OK -> Exit without Restart
How to prevent from this virus in feature
just right click any USB drive (that includes iPod) you have plugged into your PC
if they have currpoted menu the drive is Infected.
Access drive by typing Drive letter and Delete files from that drive
Remember you double click the curropted drive you get infected else you are safe.
The End

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Set Default Search Options

This tweak will modify the standard search parameters so they do not have to be reset for each individual search.



[Start] [Run] [Regedit]



Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\ Explorer


[Any or all of the five Value Names below may be modified to customize search options]


Modify/Create the Value Name [CaseSensitive] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: CaseSensitive
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [IncludeSubFolders] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: IncludeSubFolders
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchHidden] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchHidden
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchSlowFiles] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchSlowFiles
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]

Modify/Create the Value Name [SearchSystemDirs] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: SearchSystemDirs
Value Data: [0 - Unselected / 1 - Selected as Default]


Exit Registry and Reboot

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Enable/Disable Logon Screen Saver

Note: This applies only to the default Login [login.scr] screensaver and is not the same as screensaver selections made in the [Display Properties] property sheet accessed by right clicking on the desktop and selecting [Properties] from the context menu.

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]


Registry Key: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: ScreenSaveActive


Modify/Create the Value Name [ScreenSaveActive] according to the Value Data listed below.


Value Data: [0 = ScreenSaveActive Disabled / 1 = ScreenSaveActive Enabled]


Exit Registry and Reboot

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Disable Run Commands

This tweak controls the use of the Run command on the local machine।



[Start] [Run] [Regedit]



Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\ Policies\Explorer
Create a DWORD value for each Run function that will be disabled.

Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableLocalMachineRun] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableLocalMachineRun


Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableLocalMachineRunOnce] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableLocalMachineRunOnce


Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableCurrentUserRun] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableCurrentUserRun


Modify/Create the Value Name [DisableCurrentUserRunOnce] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_DWORD [Dword Value] // Value Name: DisableCurrentUserRunOnce


Setting for Value Data: [0 = Disabled / 1 = Enabled]



Exit Registry and Reboot

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Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

If you've ever asked for help with your Windows computer that won't boot anymore, you've probably been told to "Backup all your data and then reinstall"… but if you can't boot, how can you get to your data? That's the question we'll be answering today.

One of the easiest methods to access your data is to simply boot off an Ubuntu Live CD… and it's completely free (except for the cost of a blank cd).

Burn an Ubuntu Live CD

If you have another computer, you can download and burn the Ubuntu Live CD using a very simple application called ImgBurn. Otherwise, you can bug one of your friends to help you burn a copy.

Just open up ImgBurn, and click the icon to "Write image file to disc"


Then click on the icon next to "Source", pick the downloaded ISO file, stick a recordable CD into the drive, and click burn.


Now that you have the boot cd (which you should keep in a safe place, as it's very useful), just stick it in the drive of the computer and boot from it. You should see an option to "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer".


Once the system has started up, the first thing you want to do is choose Places \ Computer from the menu.


This should show you all the drives available in the system, including your Windows drive. In my case, that is the 52.4 GB volume.


You can try and double-click on the drive to open it… and if it immediately works then lucky you! Most of the time it's going to give you an error saying "Unable to mount the volume", because Windows didn't shut it down cleanly.


Click the Details link so that you can see the full message, and leave this window open. You'll see a "Choice 2″ in the message, which includes the commands to force Ubuntu to use that drive even though there's something wrong.


What you'll want to do is open a new Terminal from Applications \ Accessories \ Terminal on the top menu. Once you've done that, then you'll want to type in a bunch of commands, which I'll walk you through.

First, we'll want to switch to "administrator" mode, which in Linux terms is known as "root". The simplest way to do it is with this command:

sudo /bin/bash

Now we'll need to create a directory that we'll mount the drive on. The full explanation of mounting drives is a little complex, so just run this command:

mkdir /media/disk

Now comes the tricky part. You'll need to type out a command very similar to this one, but you'll need to replace /dev/sda1 with what you see in that message box we showed you above. This command tells Ubuntu to use the ntfs-3g driver, and force mount even if there is a problem.

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force

If your drive is FAT32 instead of NTFS, then you can use the following command instead:

mount -t vfat -o umask=000 /dev/sda1 /media/disk


If you are having problems figuring out whether you have NTFS or FAT32, and you can't figure out which /dev/whatever to use, then type in the following command at your prompt (make sure you already ran the command to run things as root)

fdisk -l

In the output you should see a lot more information about the available drives… you can see in this example that the filesystem type is NTFS and the device name is /dev/sda1.


At this point, you should be able to access your hard drive through the icon in Computer.


Note: If you have more than one drive in the computer, or more than one partition, they should show up separately in Computer. You should perform the same steps as above to open those drives up as well.

Backing Up to External USB

The absolute simplest thing to do at this point is to plug in an external USB drive, which should place an icon on the Ubuntu desktop, and most likely immediately pop up a nautilus window showing the contents of the drive.


Note: I plugged in a USB Flash drive for illustration… it would be better to plug in a full external USB drive so you'll have more space for backups.

What Should I Backup?

If you aren't extremely technical, you might be wondering what on earth you should be backing up… and that's a very good question.

1) Best Method

If you have loads of empty space on your external drive or network share, you should simply backup the entire contents of the drive, and sort through it later. It'll take a little longer, but at least that way you can be sure everything has been backed up.

2) Still Good

You should try and backup your entire user folder… on XP you'll go to "Documents and Settings", and on Vista you'll go to "Users", and you should see your username in the list:


You can simply copy this entire folder to your backup drive, which should contain your music, documents, bookmarks, and most of your important files.

Important Note: This will not backup your application files, and you should look around your drive and see if you've saved anything important somewhere else. This is especially true if you have more than one drive. Again, your best bet is to simply backup everything.

Backing Up to Network Share

If you would rather backup your drive to a network share on another computer, you can use the Places \ Connect to Server item on the menu.


Change the Service type menu to "Windows share"…


And then enter in the details for your network drive, with these being the required fields:
Server: Computer Name
Share: Shared Folder Name
User Name: your username


Once you click the Connect button, you'll be prompted to enter in your password. Typically you can leave Domain set to the default, but if you have a custom workgroup name you should enter that instead. I also chose the "Remember password until you logout" button just so I won't have to enter the password again.


Once you click the Connect button you should have an icon on the desktop for your network share.


Now you can open up the network share, and if everything is setup correctly on the shared folder side of things, you can copy all of your files across the network using the instructions above on which files to choose.


At this point you should have a backup of your data. If you backed up to an external hard drive, you might want to consider also copying those files to another computer just in case, and if you copied across the network you could consider backing that up elsewhere as well.

Now you can proceed with reinstalling or whatever else you'd like to do.

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Solve Problem With Internet Navigation

We have seen a large number of computers coming in with problems navigation on the internet. Also unable to go to Windows update and viurs update sites. Here is a quick fix that also seems to speed navigation up some.

Just for safety create a copy of the file before making changes.

goto

1. C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ (Windows XP)
2. C:\I386 (Windows 2000)
3. Open the host with notepad.
4. remove all entries bellow
5. 127.0.0.1 localhost
6. then save and close

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How to hide your drives?

If u r having any important docs and u r afraid abt it . dont wory windows XP provides (not officialy ) a utility by which u can hide urs one or more drives .

1. Go to Start > run > type "diskpart".
a dos window will appear with following discription: DISKPART>

2. then type "list volume" this will look like it

Volume### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
-------------- ---- ------ --- ----- ---- ------- -----

Volume 0 F DC-ROM
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 7000MB Healthy
Volume 2 D soft NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy
Volume 3 E Porn NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy


3.if u wanna hide drive E then type "select volume 3" then a message will appear in same winwods { Volume 3 is the selected volume}

4.now type " remove letter E" . Now a message will come { Diskpart Removed the Drive letter } , sometime it requires the reboot the computer .

Diskpart will remove the letter .Windows XP is not having capabilty to identify the unkown volume.

Don't afraid ur Data will ramin same .
To Come backe the Drive repeat the process . but in 4th step whish is shown in this post replace " remove" to "assign"
i mean type " assign letter E"

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Covering your tracks at shutdown

Instead of deleting reg files the manual way one can create reg files to do that job without having to get ones hands dirty digging through all those registry entries.

Warning
Deleting reg keys indescriminately can and often leads to an inoperable system. Use with caution

To delete a setting using a .reg file, set its value to a hyphen (-), as in this example:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Test]"BinarySetting"=-
To delete a key, add a hyphen to the start of the key name, as in this example:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Test]

Remember these commands are to be typed in a text file first and then saved as a .reg file.

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Check your driver versions with these tips

How do you know whether a downloaded version is newer than the currently installed driver on your system? A good Readme file should provide this information and is the preferred option. In the absence of documentation, file dates offer some clues, but are not always reliable. A better indicator is to inspect the properties of the driver files themselves. After unzipping the downloaded driver files to a folder on a local or network drive, right-click any file with a .dll or .sys extension and choose Properties. On the Version tab, you should be able to find details about the specific driver version, which you can compare to the driver details shown in Device Manager.

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Save Help Topics as Shortcuts

Because the Internet Explorer engine is at the heart of the Help And Support Center, each topic has its own URL. If you know how to manipulate these URLs, you can save a specific Help topic as an external shortcut. Using that shortcut, you can jump directly to a specific topic without having to go through the Help And Support Center first. Unfortunately, Windows XP does not let you create a shortcut to a Help topic directly. To do so, follow the process outlined below:

Open the topic for which you want to create a shortcut, right-click anywhere on the page (except on a link), and choose Properties.
Select the entire URL from the Address field (be sure to scroll down to select the full address).
Press Ctrl+C to copy it to the Clipboard.
Right-click the desktop (or in a folder where you want to save the shortcut) and choose New, Shortcut.
In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type %systemroot%\pchealth\helpctr\ binaries\helpctr /url followed by a space, and then paste the copied URL.
Click Next, give the shortcut a name, and click Finish.
Shortcuts you create in this fashion work with URLs in two common Help formats:

The Help Center Pluggable protocol (with the prefix hcp://) is less common and is typically used for Help topics that link to external applications and locations, such as Remote Assistance or Windows Newsgroups.
HTML Help protocol (with the prefix ms-its://) is used for access to information in Compiled Help (.chm) files. If you just want quick access and don't mind opening this type of URL in the Windows 2000-style HTML Help viewer, you can use the Hh.exe Help engine. Open the Create Shortcut wizard and type hh followed by a space and the Help topic's URL. The resulting shortcut opens the selected topic in a window that lists only topics from the same Help file.

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Create hidden user accounts

You can prevent an account from appearing on the Welcome screen, thereby creating a "hidden" account. (It's not completely hidden, because the account is visible to administrators in Local Users And Groups and the account's profile in the Documents And Settings folder is visible to all users.) Use Registry Editor to open HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserLis t. Create a new DWORD value, setting its name to the user name of the account you want to hide and leaving its value set to 0.

But be careful with this trick: you won't be able to get to the account with Fast User Switching because the account doesn't appear on the Welcome screen. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete two times at the Welcome screen to display the Log On To Windows dialog box works only when no other users are logged on. Therefore, if you want to use this type of hidden account, you should either disable Fast User Switching or resign yourself to using the account only when no one else is logged on.

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