Computer Tutorials

As you know I’ve been very busy with some home improvements latly, not my choice of fun however it needs to be done. I have completed the Kitchen and I’m just over half way through the bathroom.
Which leaves me with just the guttering outside, and the living room.

I am trying to aim to be back on the site answering comments and writing posts by the end of next week! If you have posted a comment in the mean time, I’m sorry that you will have to wait for a reply.
I just dont have the time to be trouble shooting problems and answering long winded questions while I’m carrying out this work.

Once its all done everything will resume as usual. Sorry I had to do this (Blame the Wife!) I’ll be back before you know it

Adam Nugent

For the next week or so, hopefully not much longer then a week it’s going to be really hard for me to post on the blog. I’m currently fitting a new kitchen and bathroom and a few other little bit’s here and there.

I’ll try to get something up if I have the time, however there is no doubt for the next few days I’m not going to have much time at all.

This is just to let you know that I’ve not gone walk abouts I’m still here but sort of on holiday for the next week. Once everything is back to normal I’ll let you all know.

I’ve got quite a few tutorials that I would like to do to, but with the current situation I’m not going to have the time to sit down and write them out

Adam Nugent

I suppose Remote Assistance is used a lot by more technical people to help solve issues on customer’s computers but there are other times when this could be useful to you, maybe you want to help someone out or even enable Remote Assistance so that someone can help you.

The tutorial below will show you how to enable Remote Assistance in Windows Vista, if you want to disable Remote Assistance then I’ll show you that too. At this moment in time I’m not going to jump into all the settings or show you how to send a request for remote assistance, this tutorial will just simply show you how to enable/disable remote access.

Lets enable Remote Assistance

• Click on start (Vista Logo, bottom left)
• Select Control Panel
• Double Click System
• Click Remote Settings in the left hand pane

Now you should be in the System Properties window

• To Enable Remote Assistance, Check the box that says Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer.
• To Disable Remote Assistance, Un Check the box that says Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer.

• If you are Disabling Remote Assistance you are done now Click Apply then Click OK

• If you are enabling Remote Assistance Click the Advanced button

• Check the box that says Allow this computer to be controlled remotely

• Click Ok
• Click Apply
• Click Ok

That’s really all there is to it, I’m not going to go into Invitations at the moment I’ll leave that for another tutorial, I just wanted to show you how to enable and disable Remote Assistance. When I add a tutorial on Invitations I’ll add a link at the bottom of this post so people can progress after enabling Remote Assistance.

Adam Nugent

There are a few things that you can easily change about System Restore in Windows Vista and the most important ones that I’m sure most of you would like to change are: The amount of memory system restore uses, the default time between creating a restore point and last but not least when system restore should delete old restore points.

Well there is no need to worry about options such as these, below I will show you how to change all these options to better suit your needs.

We will be editing the registry values if you don’t know what you are doing or have worries please don’t follow these tutorials and even if you do make sure you complete a backup of the registry first to ensure you can fix anything that may accidently go wrong.

Ok First I will show you how to bring up the registry, you will need to follow these steps for each of the tutorials below.

• Click on Start (Vista Logo, Bottom left)
• Type into the search box regedit
• Click on Regedit

I’ll be referring to HKLM in the tutorials below if you are wondering why you can’t see this in your registry it is because it’s the shorter version of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

1. Adjust the Default Time Between Automatic Restore Points

(The default is every 24 hours, if you are using a system and making a number of changes all the time you may want to make this shorter or in some cases you may want to make the gap longer)

• Navigate to:
• HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
• Double Click RPGGlobalInterval
• Check/Select Decimal

The default value is 86400 which is 24 hours I’ll give you a few options you could enter below but the choice is yours dependent upon your needs.

• 21600 (6 hours)
• 43200 (12 hours)
• 86400 (24 hours)
• 172800 (2 days)
• 259200 (3 days)

• Change the Value to one that you are happy with and Click Ok
• Restart your computer

2. How to Change the amount of Disk Space System Restore can use.

(The Default is 15%, I would like to point out now that editing the registry can cause adverse affects. Only follow these steps if you know what you are doing or have made a good backup, use your own judgement)

• Navigate to:
• HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore\Cfg
• Double Click DiskPercent
• Check/Select Decimal
• Change the vale in the value data box

(The Default is 15 and is measured in a Percentage %, meaning the default is 15%. If you put in 5 it would be 5%, also make sure the percentage you choose is going to give system restore more than 300MB or else system restore will not work. I hope this is clear)

• Once you have changed the Value to a percentage that is more acceptable to you Click Ok
• Now Close Regedit
• It’s always a good idea to restart after making changes to the registry

3. Change the Default Time of Deletion for Old System Restore Files

(The default deletion time for old system restore files is over 130 years! Which means they are only going to be deleted with system restore is using its max aloud memory so it’s able to create a new restore point. This is really not ideal so I’m going to show you how to change this, in Windows XP this time was set to 90 days.)

• Navigate to:
• HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
• Double Click RPLifeInterval
• Check/Select Decimal

The default value is 4294967295 (136 years) I’ll give you some values to work with below

• 2592000 (30 days)
• 5184000 (60 days)
• 7776000 (90 days) This was the default in Windows XP

• Once you have entered your desired value Click OK
• Restart your computer.

I thought that these registry edits would be the most useful to you and the most commonly asked for edits, I hope they have helped you take some control back over your computer.

Adam Nugent

System Restore has changed somewhat since Windows XP, I’m going to explain some of the changes and some of the things you can do to control system restore so you know what to expect. I’ll also show you below how to create a restore point at any time you wish and how to change the amount of memory taken up by system restore.

One thing that has not changed since previous versions of System Restore is that it will take periodic snapshots of your system and configuration files to allow you to undo changes that have adversely affected your computer.

However System Restore in Windows Vista will now also take snapshot of your data files most notably files to do with Office software such as Word files, making it easy for you to undo edits or unwanted changes accidental deletes, this alone could be a life saver to some people.

System Restore in Windows Vista will automatically put aside up to 15% of your hard drives space for restore points, the minimum required by System Restore is 300MB. Up to 15% of your hard drive can be a lot of space to suddenly disappear and I can understand why most people would want to lower this to a more fitting amount like 5% 10%, I’ll explain below how you can change this manually. It might be useful for you to also know that you cannot use system restore on a drive smaller then 1GB.

The most important thing you should know about System Restore in Windows Vista is to do with Dual booting with an older operating system such as XP. Any restore points that Vista has taken of your system will be lost the moment you boot into XP, with that in mind if you depend upon your restore points or think you are going to be needing them I wouldn’t boot up your XP. This could cause very big problems if your system needs to be reverted and you have no points to go back to, just keep this problem in mind.

Ok I think I’ve explained some of the changes or issues with System Restore in Vista now I’m going to show you how to do Four things below

1. How to Create a manual restore point
2. How to turn on/off system restore
3. How to find out how much memory system restore is currently using
4. How to Modify what percentage system restore uses

( I will add more tutorials on this at a later date, as tutorials such as how to perform a system restore really require their own post).

1. How to Create a Manual System Restore Point, Anytime!

• Click Start (Vista Logo, bottom left)
• Select Control Panel
• Click System
• Click System Protection (left hand side)
• You are no in the System Properties window.
• Under Available Disks, Check the drive you wish to make a restore of.
(You may have more than one, if you are unsure its usually going to be C:)

• Click Create
• Type in a descriptive name such as the Date or Event taken place.
• Click Create
• You will now see a window called System Protection, in that window it will display a progress bar and the words Creating a restore point.

• It may take a while to complete
• Once the window closes you will be told that the restore point was created successfully, Click Ok
That’s all there is to it

2. How To Enable and Disable System Restore

• Click Start (Vista Logo, Bottom left)
• Select Control Panel
• Click System
• Click System Protection (on the left)
• Under where it says Available Disks to:
• To Enable System Restore on a drive, Check the box
• To Disable System Restore on a drive, Un Check the box
• When you go to uncheck a box you will be displayed with:
(Are you sure you want to turn System Restore off?, All existing restore points on the disk will be deleted and no new ones will be created.)

• If you are sure you want to turn it off then Click Turn System Restore Off, otherwise Click Cancel
• Once you are done Click Apply and then Ok

3. How to Find out How much Memory System Restore is Currently Using

• Hold down the Windows Key and press R
• Type in CMD
• Press Enter or Click Ok
• Type the following line into the Command Window
• Vssadmin list shadowstorage
• Press Enter
• You will then be told how much Memory is currently in use, How much is set aside and the maximum that it may use. In that order.
• Close the Window when you are done.

4. How to Change the amount of Memory System Restore can use.

(The Default is 15%, I would like to point out now that editing the registry can cause adverse affects. Only follow these steps if you know what you are doing or have made a good backup, use your own judgement)

• Click on Start (Vista Logo, Bottom left)
• Type into the search box regedit
• Click on Regedit
• Navigate to:
• HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore\Cfg
• Double Click DiskPercent
• Under Base ensure Decimal is checked NOT Hexadecimal
• Change the vale in the value data box
(The Default is 15 and is measured in a Percentage %, meaning the default is 15%. If you put in 5 it would be 5%, also make sure the percentage you choose is going to give system restore more than 300MB or else system restore will not work. I hope this is clear)

• Once you have changed the Value to a percentage that is more acceptable to you Click Ok
• Now Close Regedit
• It’s always a good idea to restart after making changes to the registry

Well that is it for now on System Restore I hope you have learnt a lot from this.

Adam Nugent

Do any of you remember when I posted Whats My Blog Worth back in July 2007? well back then my blog was worth only $564.54 and I’m English so that’s about £282.27 give or take.

Well I’ve just done the same thing again and I was surprised by the results:

This website is worth
What is your website worth?

As you can see its now worth $2,258.16 which is around £1,129.08 give or take, not a bad improvement, I think anyway.

From £282.27 to £1,129.08 so 14 months on and my site is 4x what it was I’m impressed with that.
Its the first time I’ve done it for the site as a whole www.adamsdvds.co.uk and as you can see above its $4.463.00 (or was at the time of writing this as this one dynamically updates) so that’s around £2.230.00.

I have never spend any money on marketing or out sourced anything to do with the site (To date) everything has been done by me and with no money, except hosting and the domain names of course.

Adam Nugent

When you Install Windows Vista on a computer there can be many issues with Software Compatibility more so if you are upgrading from an earlier version of Windows such as XP, because a lot of the software that you use on a day to day basis is designed for that version of Windows.

Now for some programs you may not have any issues at all but for the most part you will have to download a new version of the program that you are using to make it run correctly on Windows Vista.

Some types of programs that are more often than not going to cause issues when moving to Vista are:

• Disk Partitioning Utilities .
• Software Firewalls.
• Antivirus programs and other security related software.
• CD/DVD burning software.

Most people think that hardware is the main issue with Windows Vista, I suppose both are equally volatile when it comes to Vista really. As time goes by more and more things just work with Vista as Microsoft are releasing updates all the time, Software and Hardware companies are making sure that there products are compatible with Vista.

So when you are thinking about moving to Windows Vista, you’ve check that your computer can handle it Hardware wise. You need to next check all the software that you use can be used with Vista, usually this is a very simple process you just go on over to the website of the product and check to see that there are Vista downloads.

You might possibly be using a program that you’ve used for years that’s not being supported anymore there for the creators are not going to be making the changes so it will work with Vista and the worst time that you could find out something like that is when you have installed Windows Vista and need to use it!

I wrote another article on Vista compatibility a few days ago that was more focused on the Hardware of your computer but the program used to inform you of issues is still very useful for this too.

Download Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Here!: A program provided by Microsoft (Free) to help you when moving on to Vista, tells you of any compatibility issues you might face based on the Hardware and Software you are running currently. More important when you are upgrading but very useful in every case when you just want to check everything will work with Vista.

You might also want to be aware that while Windows Vista is installing any Firewall programs that you have will most likely be disabled and the Windows Vista Firewall will be enabled, this is something you should know if you prefer to use your own software firewall rather than the Vista firewall. Make sure you check all your antivirus and security software once you have installed Vista.

Adam Nugent