Before following this guide please ensure that you check your recycle bin for any files that you do not want to lose permanently (restore any files you want to keep), also be aware that this guide will clear web cookies and history.

All Windows versions have their own built-in tools to clear temporary files etc, these are good, however I much prefer a free tool called CCleaner, there are a lot of different versions to download, however I suggest you download CCleaner Slim here.

The download shouldn’t take too long as it is pretty small, once downloaded follow the simple installation instructions, once successfully installed the CCleaner should start (if not double click the CCleaner icon which is on your desktop), once the program is running you should see something similar to the image embedded below.

Firstly click the cleaner button with the paint brush icon on it (top left hand corner), then click “Run Cleaner” (bottom right hand corner), this may take some time but should clear up lots of unnecessary files, such as temporary internet files, cookies, log files and much more, once complete it should tell you how much free space you have cleared.

If this method still doesn’t clear up enough space for you there are two options, you can either move some large files (music, photos and videos) to another location, such as an external hard drive, CD, DVD, or flash drive. The other option is not what I would recommend, but it could free up a few GBs of space, this is to either shrink the amount of space system restore uses, or disable it completely.

On Windows 7 and Vista click start, right-click my computer, click properties and then in the top right hand corner click “system protection”, a new window should appear, here you can either disable system restore entirely, or configure it to use less drive space.

On Windows XP and 2000 click start, right click on my computer and click properties, a window will appear, here you must click on the tab titled “system restore”, here you can disable system restore, or reconfigure how much space it uses.

I hope this guide helps you clear up some free space on your computer, if you find the guide hard to follow I will amend it help you out, let me know in the comments section below.

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In this post we will show you how to boot into Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking and Safe Mode with Command Prompt, if your computer fails to boot into Safe Mode it usually means that there is a more serious problem, such as a hardware fault or a corruption of important system files.

The first thing you must do is completely shut down your computer, once off you should turn it back on, wait roughly 5 seconds and then repeatedly press F8, if all goes to plan you should see a screen which says advanced boot options or something similar (see image below).

You can then use the up and down keys on your keyboard to choose different boot modes, when you have the correct one highlighted press enter and your PC will then boot into that mode.

In Safe Mode your computer only starts up a minimal amount of processes and services, this is for diagnostic purposes, however this does limit your computer’s functionality, one thing which you may notice is that there is no internet connectivity.

If your computer connects to the internet via a network/router you can instead choose Safe Mode with Networking, this should allow you to browse the internet, which can be very useful for virus removal etc.

Another option allows you to choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt, to be honest with you if you are confident enough to use command prompt you probably already know how to use Safe Mode.

Sometime pressing F8 too early upon boot up brings up the boot selection menu, if your computer shows this instead of the screen which shows the safe mode option the easiest thing to do is turn your PC off and upon boot up press F8 a little later than last time.

I hope this guide helps you to boot into safe mode, if you have any problems with the guide let me know in comments section below and I will do my best to help you.

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Yes, you heard right. Windows 7 is only one year old. It feels like I have been using it forever as I try and put Windows Vista to the back of my mind.

Come to think about it, using Windows 7 now has come second nature. The only other operating system I felt at home with was Windows XP. It had such a long life, and still exists on quite a few computers today.

With 240million sales, Windows 7 now holds a 17% global operating system market share which means that it holds a fair percentage of PC’s under it’s wing. Especially as there are 1.2billion Windows PC’s out there somewhere.

According to Microsoft, 90% of companies have upgraded or “started their move” to Windows 7. Are you one of the companies yet to upgrade?

Source: Engadget

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Service Pack 3 is now the only supported service pack after SP2 fell by the wayside last month, therefore it will no longer receive support from Microsoft, therefore being more vulnerable to security hacks and attacks.

Sean Sullivan, a security adviser with F-Secure found the flaw and said that if you edit the ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows,’ key and edit the DWORD value ‘CSDVersion‘ from 200, and change it to 300 before rebooting, you can then tweak and trick the operating system to thinking that SP3 is then installed.

After changing the registry, we were able to download and update an “out-of-band” security update issued last week by Microsoft after the final blanket was put on SP2.

Just beware to backup your registry first before trying this, as the process is rather risky if you don’t know what you are doing.

It is HIGHLY recommended that you install Service Pack 3 instead of this edit, as doing so can cripple your computer. Windows 7 is also a very viable option.

The ‘shortcut patch‘ can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

Source: Computer World

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If you are one of these users ComputerWorld have an article well-worth checking out, it explains some ways that you can do your utmost to stay secure, which is extremely important as SP2 will soon be open to a wide-range of vulnerabilities.

The first thing you must do is ditch Internet Explorer, personally I would completely remove it from my computer via XP’s control panel, however you must ensure that you have installed an alternative beforehand.

Web browsers worth checking out include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari, click on one of the links to download one now. To remove Internet Explorer uninstall all versions and service packs from add/remove programs, also untick Internet Explorer box on the add remove windows components screen.

There are also other Microsoft applications which you should replace, such as Windows Media Player, iTunes is a good alternative. If you use Microsoft Outlook express you may also want to try a different mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird.

If you check out the source link below you can find out more XP2 Security tips, including updating your third-party applications and plug-ins.

Source: ComputerWorld

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If you are unsure what version of Windows XP you are running there is an easy way to find out, simply right click ‘My Computer’ and click properties, here it should list your XP version along with the service pack version.

So what should you do? Well, the easy answer is to download and install Windows XP SP3, this should be picked up via Windows Update, however if you are for some reason not receiving the update (which was released over two years ago) there is another way.

You can download Windows XP SP3 here, however if you are running an illegitimate version of Windows XP the installation may be blocked.

The download and installation is quite a long process, also a small percentage of computers fail the install, therefore I strongly advise that you back up any important file beforehand.

By installing Service Pack 3 you will be ensuring that your OS is patched until SP3 support ends in 2014 (assuming you have automatic updates turned on), if you choose to stay with SP2 Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and the operating system itself will be completely open to any new vulnerabilities that are developed.

If you are not clued up about Windows Updates etc I recommend checking out this link, which is full of tutorials etc.

Will you be installing Windows XP SP3?

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