I’m not going to pretend for a moment that there’s more than a few of you out there running Windows XP illegally. You’ve seen the very nice $50 price tag of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade and said, "Okay, I can afford that, but can I upgrade a pirated copy of XP to Win 7?"

Answer: No. When you hit the WGA, the upgrade won’t work.

However.. I can tell you how to get Windows 7 for significantly less than the full-version $200 price tag.

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Buy a copy of Windows Vista Home Basic "System Builders" Edition from NewEgg. Cost is $84.99 with free shipping. This is a qualifying product for the Windows 7 Upgrade.
2. Pre-order your Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99. Remember, this price only lasts until July 11, 2009. After that it’s $119 for the upgrade and $200 for the full version.

Your total cost will be $134.98. Shipping will be free on both products. This is significantly cheaper than the full $200 price tag for the full-version Win 7 price. Granted, you’ll never use the license of Windows Vista you purchased, but it does take $65 off what you would have spent for the full-version Win 7 otherwise. This is an easy, and moreover legal, way to save cash on the purchase of the OS.

Why go legal with Windows?

There’s really only one reason. It’s for Windows Update.

Windows Update started with Windows 98 which was over 10 years ago, however the Windows Genuine Advantage validation check didn’t occur until 2006.

If you are running Windows illegally, you basically can’t use WU at all and that’s a problem. Whenever critical updates are sent thru the WU system, you won’t be able to install it. Not easily, anyway.

The common comeback to that is, "Well, I don’t have to use WU. I could install the patches manually." Yes, you could. But you know full well that’s decidedly inconvenient and a pain to get done.

If you don’t feel like paying for Windows, just use Linux. But if you do use Windows, the one-time license cost is worth the price for the updates.

Most people take WU for granted, but it is vital to make sure critical updates are applied without any hassle.

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Running XP Illegally And Want Windows 7 Cheap?

If you unsubscribe from specific folders and/or set them to download headers only, this makes checking mail and overall use of the system much speedier.

For this article I’ll show you how to do this with the Windows Live Mail client. Remember, this app is not just for Hotmail. It can easily do POP and IMAP as well.

The default view in Windows Live Mail is that the menu bar is hidden. Show it by clicking the icon to the far right next to the blue help icon and select Show Menu Bar, like this:

When you do this you will see File, Edit, View, Go, Tools, Actions and Help appear at the top of the mail client.

Select your Gmail email account on the left (clicking Inbox is fine). You should see a button labeled IMAP Folders, like this:

If you do not see this button, make sure your Gmail account is selected.

If it is and you still don’t see it, click View then Customize Toolbar.

Looks like this:

Make sure IMAP Folders is listed under Current buttons as shown above. If not, select it from the left and place it on the right.

When done, click the IMAP Folders button. This will show your currently subscribed list.

Looks like this:

I suggest double-clicking the Starred folder so you can unsubscribe from it. There’s no reason to have it there when using an email client (unless you specifically want it there). On double-click the folder next to the word will disappear, meaning it is unsubscribed. If you want to subscribe again, double click again. Click OK when finished.

Setting a folder to download headers only or not download at all

With IMAP there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to fully download spam, so that’s the example I’ll use here.

Right-click the Spam folder, select Synchronization settings and choose Don’t synchronize or Headers only, like this:

All spams that on mail check from now on will now download just the header and not the body of the message. This will significantly speed up overall use just from doing this alone.

Bear in mind this can be done with any IMAP folder – even the inbox.

In addition, if you encounter Gmail IMAP server timeouts even if only a semi-regular basis, setting folders for headers-only should cure that ill in short order.

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Gmail IMAP Speed-Up Tips In Windows Live Mail

My preferred registry cleaner of choice is CCleaner because a) it works and b) the price is nice (free). In fact my use of it has been since it was formerly named “Crap Cleaner”.

There are a few things I’ve learned in my use of the software that allows it to do a “better job”, so to speak.

1. Run after uninstalling of apps and a reboot

What I previously used to do is run CCleaner right after I would uninstall an app. I don’t do that anymore. Instead I will uninstall whatever app I need to, reboot the computer, then run CCleaner. This seems to work much better.

2. Run the registry cleaner multiple times until zero “problems” are found.

While in the CCleaner app, under the big “Cleaner” icon on the left is “Registry” underneath. I run that after running the Cleaner. However what I will do is run that, clean out the crap, then run it again. If it finds more “problems”, I will keep running it and “fixing” stuff until it finds zero “problems”.

To date, the most I’ve ever had to run it in a single sitting was 5 times. However I did uninstall somewhere in the neighborhood 10 to 15 large applications that left of lot of garbage behind.

3. Do not select everything under “Advanced” in “Registry”.

This might seem like a good idea at first but it isn’t. Granted, it won’t harm your computer if you put a checkbox in all that stuff, but you’re better off either leaving everything unchecked or only check the ones you need cleaned out.

The two I have selected there are “Old Prefetch data” and “Window Size/Location Cache”.

There are some that say messing with Windows prefetch is a bad idea, however when I’m installing and uninstalling as many apps as I do, it’s more or less required I have to clean it up. To note: I do not disable prefetch, but I do clean it out periodically.

Concerning application window locations, I periodically run into apps that take it upon themselves to move stuff around that I don’t want moved around; that’s the reason I have that cache cleared.

The #1 reason I use CCleaner is:

It keeps me from having to reinstall Windows every 90 days.

Before I found CCleaner it was guaranteed I’d have to reinstall Windows every 3 months – and did so routinely. It seemed that was the only way to get Windows running smooth again. After CCleaner I didn’t have to do that anymore.

To note: CCleaner is not the only thing I use to clean up my Windows. I do manually perform registry edits, inspect the hard drive for “leftover” folders from old apps and so on. However CCleaner does take care of the major stuff that causes most slowdowns in the first place.

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CCleaner Power User Tips

1. Use the Zune theme

The Zune theme is available here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

This gives XP a black and orange look. Additionally it’s a complete theme (unlike "Royale" which isn’t and has rough edges here and there).

Here’s an example of what it looks like:

Trust me when I say you will like this.

If you don’t feel like using this theme, the next best thing is "Silver". This is built-in to your XP already and is accessible from the Display icon in the Control Panel from the Appearance tab.

Looks like this:

Silver is arguably the best built-in theme in XP. The standard blue gives XP too much of a toy-like appearance, and the "Olive Green" just doesn’t cut it.

Zune and Silver work well.

Small end note: Using the Zune theme doesn’t mean you have to actually own a Microsoft Zune music player, nor do you have to do any sign-up stuff or any of that crapola. It’s just a theme, plain and simple.

2. Use no wallpaper or tiled wallpaper.

Full-screen wallpaper can actually slow your system down – especially if you’re using dual (or more) screens. The reason for the slowdown is because XP has to keep redrawing the screen with a high-res graphic behind it.

If you use no wallpaper, XP won’t have to redraw as much. And in fact this is true for any OS and not just Windows. Even on Mac OS X and Linux, having no wallpaper speeds up window/screen redraws quite a bit.

Tiled wallpaper (ex: "Coffee Bean" in Windows XP) draws much faster compared to full-screen wallpaper.

TIP: Do a Google Image Search for wallpaper pattern. You’ll see lots of cool-looking stuff there you can try out for wallpaper use.

3. Use the ClearType Tuner Powertoy.

It makes all your fonts look better and easier to read. This is a no-brainer. I use it; it works; it’s free; it’s awesome.

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

To note: Only people with LCD monitors should use this. If you’re using CRT (i.e. "tubed" monitor), stick with what you have.

4. Adjust Active Title Bar to use a larger font.

When you use a larger font in the title bar area it makes all apps look better and easier to locate.

It’s done like this:

First, go to Display Properties ("Display" icon from Control Panel), click the Appearance tab and then the Advanced button.

Looks like this:

Note the "Advanced" button at the bottom right. Click that.

Where it states "Message Box", click that. The Item listed will be Active Title Bar.

Set the font to Arial and its size to 12 and bold it (the little "B" button). Then next to Active Title Bar, set to 25. THIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE 25. If it’s not it will make icons in the taskbar look "scrunched" and pixelated.

Confused? Match what you see below:

To note, you don’t have to use Arial. Other good fonts are Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Lucida Sans Unicode or whatever is loaded on your system.

Just remember to keep the "size" setting next to "Active Title Bar" to 25 to avoid the scrunch/pixelation of taskbar icons.

5. Adjust "Message Text" and "Menu" to Tahoma.

Tahoma is a built-in font with XP and said honestly is the best menu font it has.

Follow the same instructions above – but click on "Message Text", set to Tahoma, size 8 and for "Selected" use the same settings.

It looks like this:

(Note under Item: that "Message Box" is selected – you want to do the same for "Selected Items" as well from that same drop-down menu.)

For those who have not-so perfect vision, try bolding the menu and dialog fonts. It makes the menus in XP a whole lot easier to see and use.

6. Set the Icon item to bold.

This is in the same section as the others mentioned above.

Looks like this:

The Item is "Icon", the font is "Tahoma", size 32, the font size is 8 and lastly, the "B" is impressed (by clicking on it) to indicate it’s set to bold.

This carries over to the Windows Explorer and makes stuff easier to read, like this:

The icons on your desktop will also have bolded fonts, and will also bold a few things in Internet Explorer (which is not a bad thing at all).

7. Use a useful screen saver.

Fancy screen savers eat CPU cycles and slow down your computer. I stopped using those years ago and instead use the JKDefrag screen saver instead.

Whenever my computer goes into a screen saver mode it automatcally starts defragging the hard drive. That’s useful.

How to do it:

Step 1. Get JKDefrag (free).

Step 2. From the ZIP file, extract two of the files, that being JKDefragScreenSaver.exe and JKDefragScreenSaver.scr, into the main Windows folder (usually C:\WINDOWS).

Step 3. Go to Display Properties from the Control Panel, click the Screen Saver tab and select JKDefragScreenSaver.

Looks like this:

Step 4. Click Settings.

Set your screen saver to "Blank", last defrag to 4 hours and status bar to Full status bar.

Looks like this:

Note that you don’t have to use "Blank", however it is better overall that you use a screen saver that doesn’t eat CPU cycles at all – and "Blank" is it.

When using this particular screen saver, JKDefrag will auto-defrag whenever your computer’s screen saver comes on – unless it was done fairly recently (less than 4 hours ago).

Basically put, you’ll never have to remember to defrag your drive because it will be done automatically. A defragged drive is a happy drive.

Additional tip:

From the Screen Saver tab click the button labeled Power. From that screen set your monitor(s) to turn OFF after a set amount of time (I suggest somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes). This will increase the life of your LCD monitor. There’s no excuse to have it on when not at your computer.

8. Use a bigger mouse cursor.

On every XP computer I’ve ever used I always set the mouse cursor to "Magnified" and enable the pointer shadow.

Looks like this:

This is available from the "Mouse" icon in the Control Panel and via the "Pointers" tab.

The default mouse pointer in XP is too small and you can lose it easily. With "Magnified" it’s easily located. While it’s true this is a non-animated cursor set, believe me when I say you won’t miss it – because seeing the pointer is more important than it doing some frilly animation.

Also be sure to check off "Enable pointer shadow" at the bottom. This does help with visibility.

Alternatives:

Other mouse sets with XP that work well are black and inverted.

9. Enable "Show location" for mouse pointer.

Even with single-screen setups it’s easy to lose where the mouse pointer is. You can take care of this in short order by going to Pointer Options from Mouse properties and checking off "Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key".

Looks like this:

Check off the box at the bottom, click Apply, then tap your CTRL key once. You’ll see an animated circle appear around the pointer once.

This is very handy to have enabled – especially if you run a multi-monitor setup where you can lose the mouse a little too easily.

10. Make the taskbar "taller" so day and date is shown.

"One tier" high taskbar:

"Two tier" high taskbar:

As you can see, the date and day of week is shown when it’s "two tiers" high. This is good info to have at a glance.

How do to it:

1. Right click an empty area of the taskbar. A small menu will appear. One of the entries will be "Lock the taskbar". If there is a check next to it, click it to uncheck. If there is no check, leave it be and click outside the menu to close it.

2. Move your mouse to the top of the taskbar so your mouse cursor changes to an up/down double-arrow.

3. Left click, hold, and drag the taskbar up one tier.

That’s it. You should see the day and date at that point.

If you don’t like it you can drag it back down to where it was.

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10 Ways To Make Windows XP Look And Feel Better

Instead we follow these steps:

1. Go to the Control Panel.

2. Double-click the System icon.

3. Click the Advanced tab.

4. Next to Startup and Recovery, click the Settings button. (Note: There are three buttons labeled as this – click the one specifically next to Startup and Recovery).

5. Under Write debugging information, click the drop-down menu and select (none).

It looks similar to this:

Click OK after that. You’re done here.

Next we have to check to see if this is listed in the System Configuration Utility.

6. Click the Start button.

7. Click Run.

8. Type msconfig in the field and then click OK.

9. From the window that appears, click the Startup tab.

10. Look to see if dumprep 0 -k exists. If it does, it would look like this:

You can safely uncheck this as it is not a vital system process (again, that’s according to Microsoft).

Once done you exit the utility.

Why do any of this?

Anything Windows doesn’t have to load on boot (especially that stuff that’s not required like dumprep.exe) will make it start up faster. Every little bit helps!

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Getting Rid Of Dumprep.exe From Startup [Windows XP/2000]

This is not going to be a technical explanation of how the Linux file system works but rather it’s immediate differences between it and Windows.

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Real World Linux – Supported And Community Apps

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Real World Linux Use – Understanding The Linux File System

If you plan on doing spoken-word recordings (such as for a podcast) and don’t have the cash for fancy microphones or the like, Audacity can fix your audio easily.

In the following example I purposely had a fan running in the background to create noise, and spoke the phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

Here’s what it looked like when I originally recorded the spoken phrase in Audacity:

The original recording (MP3 download)

There’s obviously a lot of noise in there. You can hear the hissssss noise in the background from the fan I had running.

What I need to do first is get rid of that hiss, so I press CTRL+A to select all the audio in the track, then click Effect then Noise Removal.

Looks like this:

From the next small window that appears I modify the sound to my liking:

I moved the slider to the "less" because that seemed to work best.

Now I have this:

The modified recording with noise removed (MP3 download)

However the audio is still a bit on the quiet side. I could use the Amplify filter but I’m going to use Compressor instead.

Looks like this:

After experimenting with the compressor I ended up with this:

Modified (final) recording with noise removal and compression added (MP3 download)

This is right around where I want to be. The hiss has been removed and the compression (which also has the option of auto-normalizing) brought out some more definition in the voice and added volume to boot – so I was happy with that.

This can be applied to any voice recording you do in Audacity.

Although my method here appears to be as simple as 1-2-3, it isn’t. My recording was short and very easy to work with. For longer recordings it takes a bit of practice to get the right noise removal and compression settings for your voice.

All of this is trial-and-error style – but don’t be afraid to experiment because that’s what it’s all about. Audacity is decent software, has the goods and delivers once you get familiarized with what it can do for you.

On a final note: Bear in mind that modifying the audio of recorded instruments is much different than voice because the waves are totally different. What works for voice doesn’t necessarily follow suit for guitars, drums, etc.

However this isn’t to say you shouldn’t try.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Cleaning Up Spoken-Word Recorded Audio With Audacity

There is actually a Microsoft TechNet article called Demystifying the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ that does truly help in making sense of that blue screen, should you get one.

Some of the BSOD messages I’ve received have been:

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

This simply means Windows can’t read the hard disk correctly. I’ve encountered this when an older hard drive develops a few bad sectors. It doesn’t mean you have to throw the hard drive out. You can perform a regular (meaning not "quick") format which will mark those bad sectors, making the drive hopefully usable again.

NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

In my experience this usually happens when your hard disk just has too much stuff on it and the data corrupts easily. For example, if you have a 120GB hard drive and 118GB is in use, you might get an NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM error until you free up some space, DEFRAG it (and run a CCleaner too just for safe measure).

Poorly programmed or too-old driver

In extremely rare instances I’ll download a driver and Windows doesn’t "agree" with it too well usually because it’s too old. For example, if I install a brand new nVidia video card but then use the drivers meant for a GeForce 6 (several generations ago), yeah, you most likely will get a BSOD out of this – and will be listed as such.

Solution: Always use current drivers. Head into "Safe Mode", kill the driver, reboot normally, install the newer version and this fixes driver-specific BSODs 99% of the time.

~ ~ ~

The TechNet article has a ton of info on how to read BSODs and understand what one is trying to tell you. So if your Windows installation happens to be "going blue" a lot, that article will certainly help.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Can Anyone Make Sense Out Of The "Blue Screen Of Death"?

Above: In CCleaner, click Tools (large icon on left) then Startup (white button in middle column) to see this list.

However if you’re the type that would rather do this the "old fashioned way", you can get to this information and get the same editing ability by using the tried-and-true registry editor.

You can get to the registry editor in one of two ways.

1. Click Start / Run / type regedit / click OK.
2. Right click on a blank area of the desktop, click New from the context menu that appears, click Shortcut, type regedit in the dialog box that appears (no need to click Browse), click Next, click Finish. This will place a regedit icon on your desktop that you can double-click to launch the Registry Editor.

Inside the registry editor you have to expand some folders – in a specific order – to get to the "run" list.

The order is as follows:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
• SOFTWARE
• Microsoft
• Windows
• CurrentVersion
• Run

It should look something like this when you’re done:

From here you have the same modify/delete ability as you do with CCleaner, except using the built-in registry editor instead.

IMPORANT NOTE: Messing around with the Windows registry can seriously screw up your Windows installation if done wrong.

It is highly suggested to BACKUP your registry first. This is done easily via the registry editor by simply clicking File then Export. Do this before making any registry changes. Make sure when exporting your "Export Range" is ticked as "All".

Like this (see bottom left):

Didn’t find what you were looking for in Run?

Maybe it’s not there. Maybe it’s in the Start menu’s "Startup" folder instead.

Click Start, All Programs, Startup and check that menu. You can remove any menu entry there by simply right-clicking on it and left-clicking Delete.

If you delete something on a goof, don’t worry because it’s in the Recycle Bin where you can put it back in case you make a mistake.

Just remember there is no Recycle Bin ability with the registry editor. Your only means of restoring something you deleted is by importing a .reg file you exported as explained above.

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Controlling Auto-Launched Apps On Startup (Windows XP)