System Administration
CategoryChecking the health status of your SSD device
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Solid-state drives, or SSD, are all the rage nowadays – their popularity grows as their cost decreases and capacity expands. SSD are orders of magnitude faster than the traditional hard drive. SSD data is stored onto memory chips and don’t require the physical nature of spinning a disk platter for reads and writes like a traditional hard drive. Simply put, with no moving parts the performance ramps up amazingly quick. Additionally, they are widely considered to be more stable and resilient. So what’s the catch? Outside of cost and capacity issues – dollars per GB … Continue Reading
Easily remove fake and rogue antivirus suites
If you are the local computer expert in your circle of friends and family you’ve no doubt come across the nasty malware/ransom-ware that pretends to be a full blown safety and security software package. Even if you or your friends are extremely diligent on applying system updates and patches, these nefarious suites still find their way onto your PC. Probably the most worrisome problem is how professional and otherwise real the malware packages look and perform. Just like your licensed copy of McAfee or Norton, these fake antivirus packages generate believable warning prompts about would-be … Continue Reading
Ridding your new PC of all the pre-installed junk easily
While not nearly as dire as it were just a few years back, PC manufacturers are notoriously horrendous for loading down their new computers with free or trial software. The industry has gone as far as coining a term, crapware, for the likes of the installed software on a fresh PC. The reality is most of this software is just a bunch of crap you don’t need. The vendor includes the bundled applications for generally one of two reasons: they are helping the user get up and running quickly with some pre-installed software, or they … Continue Reading
Receive automatic notifications on specific Windows Events
Computer enthusiasts are likely familiar with system logs and if they are diligent little administrators – they are on top of the messages recorded within. For others, system logs typically contain the gory details of what is going on within a computer. They can be purely informational and generally unnecessary, or they can detail the first signs of critical problems developing. In the Windows world these messages are called events and the entire history can be viewed through Windows Event Viewer. Take a peak inside yourself? From the Windows Start Menu search for event viewer … Continue Reading
Turnning off the Windows 7 Homegroup functionality
I’ve written before about hiding the shortcuts for Homegroup or Favorites in Windows Explorer under Windows 7 if only because I like a clean and simplified interface. The minimalist approach can further be extended if you actually don’t use the Homegroup feature whatsoever. Briefly, Homegroup is a networking feature new to Windows 7 that greatly aides in reducing the complexity of sharing content and devices amongst multiple computers on your local network. If your PC is the lone system on your network then Homegroup serves little purpose other than stealing system resources. Open Control Panel … Continue Reading
Wiping drives and folders securely AND natively in Windows 7
If you were one of the many to receive a new computer this holiday season you might be wondering how best to dispose of the older one that’s served you so well over the years. While having multiple computers in the house has specific added benefits for each individual, if you instead wish to recycle or otherwise donate that old PC you’d be best served to ensure all your personal files and information have been removed first. You might be quick to assume that a quick format of the entire drive or selective shift+delete on … Continue Reading
Ensure your SSD is TRIM and happy in Windows 7
Is your new, shiny, and lightening quick SSD all TRIM and proper? Enough with the bad word play; TRIM is a firmware feature found on all recently available solid state drives that aids in maintaining tip-top performance throughout the life of the drive. A drive with TRIM support allows for the operating system to notify the device when data blocks no longer contain data – like after you’ve deleted a file in Explorer. The SSD is then free to wipe the block clean for future re-use. It all sounds rather fundamental doesn’t it? Before TRIM … Continue Reading
Backup and restore Windows System Restore snapshots
System Restore has been a feature of the last few iterations of Windows that allows the user to rollback the operating system to a previous state, typically in an attempt to address a newly developed system problem. Restore points are taken every time a new driver is installed or new system updates are applied. Even though System Restore collects snapshots of of key bits in the operating system, like the registry or Windows system files, and not your user data or even program installations, it still automatically prunes it’s data store as new snapshots are … Continue Reading
A good first step for Windows system recovery using SFC
In the earlier days of Windows users would speak towards a phenomenon dubbed bit rot in which, over time, Windows would slowly grind to a slow crawl. Seemingly the only solution once you found yourself in the situation was to reinstall. Whether you believe such a thing as bit rot or software rot exists or it’s all just an illusion – you likely know it’s not the best practice to install gobs of software, especially demo or trial ware, even if you run the software uninstaller once you’re finished. Windows has matured amazingly well and … Continue Reading
Modifying a local or remote Windows registry through the command line
Here on How in the TECH I do a fair bit of registry tips that uncover additional functionality or features of Windows. They all start the same, from your Start Menu search and execute regedit, traverse the registry tree, and create the key/change the value in question. Clearly, it’s a very point and click driven process – so what if you wished to replicate a change across a network of computers? You are probably interested in learning how to manipulate the Windows Registry via the command line, which can then be integrated into batch files … Continue Reading
