Windows Trojans Sleuth and Windows Trojans Inspector are both relatively easy to remove, all it takes is a little patience, mediocre computer skills and an understanding that all the worrying messages which these legit-looking programs throw your way are part of a scam put together to exploit your money. Below we have embedded a screenshot of Windows Trojans Sleath, it looks identical to what you’d see if you was infected with the Windows Trojans Inspector malware, in fact the only difference is the application’s name.

You can see the entire removal procedure here, we will summarize the process quickly for you in our article for the convenience of our more knowledgeable readers – but if you run into issues be sure to check out the link we added to the beginning of this paragraph.

Step 1: Boot your computer into ‘Safe Mode with Networking’. Step 2: Reset you computer’s connection settings by opening Internet Explorer, going into ‘Internet Options’, selecting the ‘Connections’ tab and then clicking on the ‘LAN Settings’ button. Now that’ you’re in LAN Settings tick the box next to ‘Use a proxy server for your LAN’ and then click OK, you’ll then have to click OK once more and this stage of the process is done.

Step 3: This non-essential stage in the removal process will significantly speed-up the removal procedure as the lengthy scans won’t have so many files to sift through – basically click on this link to download CCleaner and once you’ve downloaded the installer run it. Once installed open up CCleaner via the desktop shortcut and click ‘Yes’ is a message appears, once in hit ‘Run Cleaner’ and CCleaner will delete all the unnecessary files which have built up on your computer over time – this may take some time, but be patient.

Step 4: You must now download rKill from this page and run it on your computer (on Vista or Windows 7 you may have to right-click rKill.exe and select ‘Run as Administrator’) it will take a minute or so to stop malware-related background processes from running, but once complete you’re ready to go onto the next stage.

Step 5: Finally download Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware from here and install it. Once installed open up the newly installed program and click on the ‘Update’ tab, hit check for updates to ensure that you will be scanning for the newest infections – once you’re sure you are up-to-date click on the ‘Scan’ tab and run a full system scan. The scan will take at least an hour (in most cases), but once complete all infected files will show up, hit ‘Remove Selected’ and then MBAM will clear the infection’s – you’ll have to restart your computer, but when it’s back up you will be infection free – see, how easy was that?

That should be the end of your Windows Trojans Sleuth / Inspector worries, but be sure to let us know if you run into difficulties in the comments section below and we’ll do our best to help you.

The start button has evolved massively with each Windows release for over 16 years, however screenshots of a consumer preview of Windows 8 recently showed up on PCBeta.com and clearly show that there’s a Superbar, but no start button. The operating system build shown in these screens (build 8220) is said to be near final, therefore unless the start button has disappeared due to a software bug it looks like Windows 8 won’t feature a start button when used in desktop mode.

One thing we’re not too sure of is whether there being no start button on show means there will be no start menu, will you be able to press the ‘Start’ button on your keyboard to call up the start? We don’t know at present, can you access the start menu via your touchscreen display or mouse? Will keyboards start appearing with no start button? We will have to wait and see.

With no start button the Superbar seems to be slowly becoming more and more like Apple’s dock for for OS X, having had some hands-on experience with Windows 8 we do still have some concerns as to whether it’s a brave or stupid decision to drop such a prominent feature. Microsoft is trying to merge a tablet OS with a desktop OS, but is this really possible? Could Microsoft end up making Windows 8 too tablet-friendly and in-turn have an adverse effect on productivity in regards to desktop usage? We think that there’s a fine line between minimalism and usability, Microsoft’s developers need to find the perfect balance.

Will you miss the start button / start menu?

At the moment, Ice Cream Sandwich is only available officially for the Galaxy Nexus smartphone, as well as a number of new tablets such as the ASUS Transformer Prime. That hasn’t stopped users tinkering on their existing smartphones and tablets to get an unofficial version running, and the same concept applies here to get this working on your Windows desktop PC.

Credit goes to Flickr user David Molina for providing an initial screenshot of the finishing result, as well as listing the programs needed for other users to try out. Unfortunately, getting this to work isn’t just a case of download one zipped file, installing and hey presto – as you’ll need to download a series of programs, each for a different aspect of Ice Cream Sandwich in order to get the full effect.

Most of you will probably agree that the long process is worth it though, as we have to say that the lasting Ice Cream Sandwich result on desktop is a thing of beauty and will certainly add that element of sexiness to your current Windows 7 theme. If you’re interested in giving this a go, you will find the list of programs to download over at Lifehacker – there’s 10 in total so be prepared to spend some time doing this.

Below is a screenshot of the result you should get if you have installed all the programs correctly. For those that have already done this, let us know how everything is running for you – pretty amazing right?

Windows 8 will allow you to control many aspects of Internet bandwidth and connectivity options, for example if you are in range of a wireless network which you have connected to before the device will automatically recognize this and use it instead of mobile broadband – this will help ensure that people do not inadvertently incur overage charges from mobile data carriers.

Below we will show you two screenshots which show you just how seriously Microsoft takes bandwidth in Windows 8, the screenshot on the right shows you how the OS calculates estimated usage for you without having to install specific connection managers (we saw this in our last Windows 8 post), whilst on the right you can see the new task manager keeps track of data usage for individual applications.

According to TomsHardware we can configure a wide-range of bandwidth specific settings in Windows 8 and developers will be able to utilize APIs to build similar functionality into applications, simple examples of things consumers can modify include only allowing non-critical updates to download via certain connection types. App developers will be able to configure apps to run differently depending on the connection type, for example if you are connected to home broadband apps will offer high-definition video streams and full synchronization, however whilst connected to mobile data you could force low-definition video stream and part-syncs of data.

Apparently all Metro style apps in the Windows Store must utilze these APIs if they connect to the Internet, this suggest that Microsoft will be taking data usage very seriously this time around – it will be very interesting to see the intuitive ways in which developers utilize these APIs.

As long as mobile data plans stay relevant all of these Windows 8 features will be greatly welcomed by consumers, as and when we hear more exciting news about Windows 8 we will keep you posted – What else would you like to see built into Windows 8?

Firstly we will talk about support for mobile broadband. Microsoft claim that Windows 8 will offer native support for mobile broadband and offer the kind of integration which we see in today’s smartphones, Windows Update will keep drivers used for mobile broadband up-to-date, whilst the Windows Store will automatically download the correct mobile operator’s app. Prior to this Windows 7 and older Microsoft operating systems required manual installation of connection managers.

Below we have embedded two images, on the left you can see Windows 8 connected to Vodafone UK mobile broadband, as you can see it also keeps track of your mobile data usage which will be a great way of ensuring you don’t go over your monthly allowance. On the right you can see that you can turn mobile broadband on and off much like you can on a smartphone.

Something else which Windows 8 will offer is instant-on wireless connections, when you bring a Windows 7 (or prior) operating system out of standby it often takes a while to reconnect to a wireless network, however things will be much faster when using Windows 8. The image below clearly shows that reconnecting to a wireless network on Windows 8 should take roughly 1 second, which is far faster than a Windows 7 computer which takes roughly 12 seconds. Microsoft claim that once your display has come out of standby you will already be connected to a wirelesss network, how cool is that?

Obviously these features won’t be important enough to determine the success of Windows 8, but its small things like this which come together with other improvements to make the platform a hit. If you head over to PCPro.co.uk you can find out more about the WiFi and mobile broadband features, what else would you like Windows 8 to offer native support for?

The main increase fell in the entertainment and devices division which includes the Xbox 360 and its accessories and other related parts. Its continued success is what is thought to be one of the main reasons for the overall increase for the quarter, in which revenues reached an all-time high for the company, £13.5 billion or $20.9 billion.

Windows 7 sales didn’t do the revenues increase any favors however as they were down 6% from last year, although just over £3 billion or $4.74 billion was still made. This won’t be too much of a concern for Microsoft however as they will be rolling out Windows 8 this year which is when Steve Ballmer, CEO will be to see increases. Exact figures for Windows Phone sales were not revealed meanwhile as we’re thinking they did not make much off them at all.

Other losses in the past have come from Microsoft’s such as Bing. The company invests heavily in the search engine, as Reuters explains, in order to keep up with Google. This year saw a cut in their losses by 18% as their market share increased, now accounting for 15% of Internet searches in the U.S. Overall considering the tough year Microsoft has experienced, they look set to gain even more in the coming year especially with the release of their new PC OS Windows 8 and will be hoping Windows Phone takes off too in order to compete with Apple’s iOS devices.

Are you surprised by the revenue increase Microsoft received?

During Microsoft’s keynote presentation at CES 2012, it was finally confirmed that Kinect would be available for Windows next month. Users will then be able to control their PCs using motion gestures without the need of a mouse. According to a report on Techradar it will also allow your PC to know broader motions such as leaving your position sitting in front of it.

For instance if you get up and leave your PC for any reason the Kinect will recognize this and put the PC to sleep, and when you return automatically turn itself back on. Currently Microsoft hasn’t revealed how this would look in practice, but considering the company’s recent push to unify everything across its devices; it could be similar to what is experienced with the Xbox.

This keynote presentation by Microsoft was to be the last one in the near future at the CES event, and saw CEO Steve Ballmer taking to the stage. He again repeated how the company is focusing on Windows and the Metro design in the coming year and despite rumors didn’t say anything about the next Xbox.

Ballmer did reveal that Microsoft has sold an impressive eighteen million Kinect units so far, and considering there is more than 66 million Xbox 360 users this is set to grow even further. Will you get Kinect for your Windows PC?

The CDs in question allow users who purchase a new computer from the retailer to reinstall the software if needed, and according to The Telegraph this was so users didn’t have to create their own disks. Microsoft revealed in a statement that the disks in question were sold to customers who had first purchased a PC or laptop with Windows preloaded.

According to David Finn from Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft the retailer “sold thousands of the counterfeit Windows CDs”. He added that what Comet had done was “unfair to customers”, and expected more of big retailers such as Comet.

The lawsuit claims the company produced the disks at a factory based in Hampshire, and then sold them onto customers at branches across the country. Users create recovery disks so they can restore PCs if there are any problems with updates of new programmes.

Comet has yet to respond to the lawsuit from Microsoft, and the alleged offence happened at a time when less users stored their data and media online. Microsoft has said that any customers who are worried about their software can visit howtotell.com.

Many PC manufacturers have in recent years stopped providing back up disks with their PCs, and leaving users to make their own recovery disks. Did you get a recovery disk from Comet?

According to Ubergizmo the company is designing hardware that is specially designed to connect with PCs that are running the Windows operating system. The current Kinect could be used with a PC, but the new models will be better designed with new hardware components and firmware so it will work better with PCs.

There will also be new upgrades to the Windows SDK and run time, and the new equipment is set to contain features and functionality that developers have been requesting. Back in the summer Microsoft released a Beta for developers to build applications for the Kinect on Windows.

Some of the changes will include a shorter USB cable and a dongle that will enhance coexistence with other USB equipment. The new firmware will also allow the camera to view objects as near as 50cm without losing any accuracy or precision. This is called the “Near Mode” and is thought will bring a variety of new close up applications to the device, which could be used in a range of different places besides the living room.

Will you get the Kinect for your Windows PC?

Choosing the right laptop is always hard, as you not only have to consider your price limit, but also your needs as well; do you want it for just browsing the Internet and sending emails, or do you want to create graphical work? We thought we would take a look at some of the best PORTABLE Windows laptops just to make things a little easier for you.

First up we have the Sony VAIO SB Series, which not only offers great performance from an ultraportable laptop, but also a thin design to go with it. Speaking of the design, it’s no secret that Windows laptops have never been that radical when it comes to their designs, so funny how they try and change their ways to copy Apple and the MacBook Air.
Okay, so back to this laptop from Sony; the base model starts at just $900, but you can spend up to $2,500 if you wish. Specs can go up to a Core i7-2620M processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

If we are looking at ultra slim Windows laptops, then how can we leave out the Samsung Series 9, which is a true successor to the MacBook Air? Samsung are being very bold with this laptop, as we all know what happened when Dell tried to do the same with the Adamo. However, the South Korean consumer electronics maker seems more on the ball than Dell does these days. So let’s take a look at specs and pricing. The CPU is a 1.4GHz Core i5, there’s 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSD and Intel’s HD Graphics 3000. You have to love the antiglare screen and the metal body, but the below par specs and dodgy clickpad could be a put off. Expect to pay around $1649.

Third on our list is the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, which some people seem to pass over due to the fact that Samsung and Sony have a much larger advertising budget. If you are looking for a laptop that offers a solid construction while staying thin and light, then this is for you. However, there is a trade-off, as the battery will run down rather quickly. Specs include Core i3 processor, 4GB or RAM, 320GB hard drive (SSD options available) and finally HD Graphics 3000, same as the Series 9 above. Prices start from $1199 but increase to $1304.

How can we look at the best portable laptops without considering the Dell Vostro V131. Some people will think that Dell has lost their way a little, and they would be right. However, you cannot take away the fact that this laptop is a pretty impressive machine. If you or the person you wish to buy for needs a laptop that is inexpensive and has two USB 3.0 ports then this is for you. However, we have to point out that this is pushing the limits of the name ultraportable, as it’s much larger than the others. That being said, the Intel Core i5-2410 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 320GB hard drive should keep you happy. The price is just $799, there is a cheaper version, but that means drooping to a Celeron processor and just 2GB of RAM.

Well these are just four of what we believe to be a good choice; we just hope that we have helped you make the right one?