Windows Themes are easy to work with but a pain to find the actual files for. The .theme file itself is actually nothing more than plain text settings, similar to an .ini file. What does a .theme file contain? Theme settings for fonts, window control sizes, colors, what screen saver is selected, sounds selected, mouse pointers selected, and so on. What...

There’s a fair amount of geeks out there who prefer their UIs to look “computery”, and that’s what the videos below are about. Windows had more or less the exact same look for five years (1995 to 2000) before XP came along with the Luna theme, and then Vista and 7 with Aero. However it’s generally true that you can customize much...

I asked for this app review because I have a really hard time staying organized. This isn’t a great trait for someone who wants to write professionally – or for anyone else with deadlines, multi-step tasks, projects, ingredient lists, or any other number of things integral to GTD – Getting Things Done. My friends have often said it’s...

Any of you reading this have been here before: You’re in the middle of an important project whether it be personal or business, and you encounter an error or an unexpected problem getting something done on your computer. Murphy’s Law seems to dictate that the more important the project is to you, the more complex or trying the problem seems to be. If...

With Windows, the maximum virtual memory in 32-bit is capped at 4GB and the page file size at 16TB. In 64-bit Windows, virtual memory can be 16TB in size with a maximum page file size on 256TB. Does this mean you need to stock up on gobs and gobs of HDD space for maximum performance? No, because RAM is faster than a hard drive is. It is far more desirable to...

Back when I was using Windows XP, one of my always-had-installed-no-matter-what utilities was Sizer. The reason? Because I like being able to resize any window I want to specific sizes. Then Windows 7 came along and Sizer didn’t work in it, so I was bummed out about that. FireSizer was good for Firefox and gets the job done in fine style, but only for...

So, my wife was using her laptop one day to look up a word. She Googled the word and was taken to a dictionary site of some kind. Up pops a warning message saying her computer was infected and that she needed to run some scan or something. Not knowing that she was about to be taken by a classic “bait-and-switch” scam, she clicked it. Laptop = infested with...

Creating nested directories using Windows Explorer can be quite tedious. First you have to create the master folder, open it and then create the sub-folder, open it then create another sub-folder… you get the idea. As a quicker alternative, you can use the “MkDir” command line tool to easily create the entire folder structure with a single...

Per a YouTube request I installed Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I said in the video that I would not go into detail of how I was able to get it to work in Virtualbox. The reason I said that is because it would have resulted in an hour-long video. I can, however, explain how I did it in written form here – and I know someone out there will find...

By default, the only way to move a window around the screen in Windows is to click on the title bar and drag it. While this typically works fine, it becomes a big problem if you have a window where the title bar is off the screen. Rather than doing some keyboard combination or minimize/maximize/restore hocus pocus, try applying this AutoHotkey script to enable...

Over the past couple a weeks, a new vulnerability in the Windows Shell was discovered which exploits shortcut (LNK and PIF) files in Windows XP and higher. The vulnerability exists because Windows incorrectly parses shortcuts in such a way that malicious code may be executed when the icon of a specially crafted shortcut is displayed. This vulnerability can be...

Recently I was called upon to load the Windows 7 OS on a PC for a neighbor. I told him what the price of the OS was, he gave me some cash and I purchased a System Builder’s single-license copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit edition. The price was $100, is a full edition (meaning not upgrade) and non-transferable (meaning it can only be used on one PC)....

Something interesting to think about is that if there were no Windows, what would you use? You obviously have to use something for an OS. In a no-Windows world, there is basically only one choice: UNIX. On the desktop and laptop, Mac OS X is derived from UNIX, and Linux is "UNIX-like". On the smartphone, Apple’s iOS is derived from OS X, which...

As time goes on, operating systems that were once widely known are now quickly being forgotten. One of those OSes is Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. The two most-known versions of NT4.0 were Workstation and Server. Windows NT 4.0 was basically Windows NT 3.51 with a Windows 95 shell. While NT 4.0 looks very similar to ’95, the “guts” of it are...

The only reason anybody would actually want to use Windows 95 these days is for one thing: Games. There are tons of old MS-DOS games out there (many of which are found at www.dosgames.com), and the way to run those games best are in their native environment. While it’s true you could run DOSbox, it’s just not the same. Furthermore in DOSbox you...

Many of you shop NewEgg or other like online retail web site to buy things. One of the items they sell is Microsoft Windows 7. For single-license versions of the OS, there are three types you can buy:Upgrade OEM System Builder Full RetailUpgrade is easy enough to understand. In order to install the OS you need a qualifying product such as Windows XP or...

Java is one of those things that most if not all of you have installed in Windows. It is something that’s a necessary "evil" of sorts to run certain things. Certain web sites need it to launch Java applications or you may require it for a locally installed program (such as OpenOffice). Everything Java does can be controlled via the Java Control...

Every laptop and netbook should have an on-screen volume display, but unfortunately some don’t. The end result is that whenever you change the volume via the keyboard (usually a Fn+F8 for up and Fn+F9 for down) you have absolutely no idea what the volume level is other than by ear. Why is an OSD volume meter so important on a laptop? Because it’s...

The next iteration of the Windows Live suite is called “Wave 4″ by Microsoft. This will include changes both for local and web applications. On the web app side of things, Hotmail is one of the biggies, and Wave 4 is going to bring about several significant changes. The ones you’ll most likely make most note of are:A single file attachment...

The last time I did a video on this subject, I thought it would work for everybody who used the Windows Live Mail client, however a few said that even with the instructions they still encountered the infamous “red X” box where the signature image should go. Well, I was having none o’ that. I was bound and determined to find a way to get a...