Windows

Internet Explorer 7’s search tool is no longer limited to Microsoft’s search engine. Now you can use it with Google, Yahoo, eBay, Wikipedia, and many others. To do this: Click the down arrow labeled Search Options, which is located at the right of the search box’s magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the screen. Click Find More Providers, …

Why would Microsoft remove the good ol’ command-line telnet client from the default Windows Vista installation?!? Well, they did…but here’s how to get it back: 1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel 2. Select Programs and Features 3. From the menu of the left, select Turn Windows Features On or Off 4. Scroll down, and then check the “Telnet client” …

Back in the days of the paleocomputing era, no one ever thought about installing firewalls on individual computers. Who needed to? Hardly anyone had heard of the Internet, TCP/IP was nowhere in sight, and LAN protocols didn’t route beyond your building or campus. Important data lived on the mainframe or file servers—the information people kept on their desktop computers was …

Tip 9: Clean up the backup Be sure to check out the Disk Cleanup tool’s advanced options, available on the More Options tab. For example, click More Options, and under System Restore, choose Clean up to delete all but your most recent restore point. Tip 10: Avoid musical duplicates If, after ripping CDs in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, …

Vista may be on the way, but XP hasn’t outlived its usefulness. These tips will help you keep the older operating system vibrant. Tip 1: Get off the upgrade bandwagon If you constantly upgrade to the latest powerhouse versions of your favourite applications without also upgrading your hardware and Windows version, your system will seem older and creakier than ever. …

You can configure Windows Vista to install without having to manually enter the product key during the setup process. This is quite useful if you find yourself in need to perform an installation of the OS but without having the (legal) product key with you at that very moment. Unlike previous Windows versions where you had to have a CD …

Microsoft announced plans Thursday to issue four “critical” security bulletins next week that address vulnerabilities in its Windows Mail, Internet Explorer and Windows XP. Six bulletins in total, including the four critical fixes, will be released, according to Microsoft’s advance advisory notification. “Critical” is the most severe ranking Microsoft assigns to security flaws. That classification typically indicates that a system …

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other …

Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption is certainly one of the most talked-about features in Windows Vista. However, most people haven’t yet had much opportunity to test BitLocker to find out firsthand. what it does and how it works—particularly not on a computer with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). In this article, I introduce you to the basics of BitLockerâ„¢ so that …