Before You Upgrade To Vista

1. Before beginning, back up
The most critical step you should take before upgrading your PC to any new OS is to backup your important data. Use Vista's Windows Easy Transfer utility or simply drag and drop your files to an external disk. It's the cheap and easy way.

2. Choose, but choose wisely
Seeking Media Center functionality when upgrading to Vista- Then remember that only the Vista Home Premium and Ulti­mate versions carry the feature. Home Basic. Business, and Enterprise editions of Vista do not.

3. Check your hardware
Before upgrading to Windows Vista know that your computer must have a DVD drive installed. Windows Vista does rite common CD after all.

4. Add more memory
Although you may have gotten by on 512MB of RAM in your Windows XP machine. 1GB is the realistic minimum for Windows Vista. Ideally, consider run­ning Windows Vista with 2GB of memory installed for more efficient performance.

5. Find the latest drivers
After upgrading your PC to Windows Vista, be sure to run Windows Update, which can provide critical security updates to protect your system. It will also apply updated drivers for your installed hardware. But visit the manufacturer's Web sites, too. which often post new drivers before Microsoft verifies them.

6. Solve problems with new BIOS
Upgrading to a newer CPU? Check and run the latest BIOS for your motherboard first. This may help you avoid any compatibility bottlenecks.

7. Graphics cards: Mad with power
When upgrading your video hardware for higher performance, always check the power requirements. Multiple-GPU configurations like Crossfire and SLI (as well as graphic boards that have multiple CPUs) require a significant amount of power. It's almost a certainty that you'll need to upgrade your power supply too.

8. Antivirus apps trump installers
When upgrading lo Windows Vista, be sure to disable any antivirus software running on the machine. Forgetting to do so can cause the antivirus software to conflict with the installation and can result in sys­tem pauses or a complete system hang.

9. Convert IDE to SATA
You've decided to upgrade your mother­board but find that it doesn't have enough IDE ports to support your old drives—a common problem, actually. Fret not. IDE-to-SATA adapters are readily available.

10. Brace for trouble
Prepare yourself.. much of your software may not operate under Vista without upgrading. Run the Application Compati­bility Toolkit (ACT) found in the download center on Microsoft's Website. It'll point you lo any upgrades you may need.

11. Speed USB transfers
Is that flashy new external USB hard drive taking longer than expected to migrate your data? Ditch that ancient USB LI tech­nology on your XP machine by upgrading to a USB 2.0 card. They're available today for under $20.

12. Check your hardware
Before upgrading your aging Windows XP PC to run Windows Vista, be sure to down­load and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. It can help you determine which version of Vista best suits your needs, or if your Windows Vista PC is ready for a more powerful version of Vista Note that the Upgrade Advisor works only with XP and Vista systems.
Courtesy : PCWorld

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Crack Win XP Admin Password..!!!!

Here is a very simple way to crack the administrator user ID and Password .
Follow these steps:
Log in and go to your DOS command prompt and enter these commands exactly:
cd\cd windows\system32mkdir temphackcopy logon.scr temphacklogon.scrcopy cmd.exe temphackcmd.exedel logon.scrrename cmd.exe logon.screxit

So what you just told windows is to backup the command program and the screen saver file. Then you edited the settings so when windows loads the screen saver, you will get an unprotected dos prompt without logging in. When this appears enter this command ”net user password”. So if the admin user name is Doug and you want the password 1234 then you would enter “net user Doug 1234″ and now you’ve changed the admin password to 1234. Log in, do what you want to do, copy the contents of temphack back into system32 to cover your tracks.

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Top Five Browser Home Pages

Whether you use it to keep up to date on the latest news or as a launching point for the rest of your browsing, you want to find a solid start page to fit your surfing habits.

iGoogle

Once a very limited, bare bones collection of links, iGoogle has grown into a fully customizable dashboard of tabs and web widgets. iGoogle can keep you on top of everything from the weather and your Gmail account to your to-dos and RSS feeds. Like any self-respecting start page, you can organize all of your widgets (which it calls gadgets) via drag-and-drop and add new gadgets from an enormous library.

about:blank

If you're not a fan of the dashboard start page, then the about:blank anti-start-page is perfect for you. No, about:blank does not give you any information, but it does ensure a quick startup every time you open a new browser window. While about:blank is technically more of a home page than a start page, it's the overwhelming favorite for folks who don't like the traditional start page.

Netvibes

Web site Netvibes does one thing and one thing only: start pages. And you can tell. While sites like Yahoo and Google have a built-in slate of users as soon as they release a new product, Netvibes' innovation, speed, and all-around good looks have earned a place in the hearts of a growing and loyal slate of users—so much so that it even earned a spot as a reader-favorite RSS newsreader.

Speed Dial
Speed Dial is a feature built into the Opera web browser that provides live thumbnail previews and keyboard shortcuts to some of your favorite web sites. Speed Dial's functionality was such a hit that it was quickly released as a Firefox extension (original post) and mimicked by web-based applications. Whatever your flavor, Speed Dial makes keeping an eye on your favorite sites a breeze.

My Yahoo / Yahoo

Yahoo has been courting users as both a start page and a search engine forever, and while many people still prefer regular old Yahoo.com as their start page, the newer My Yahoo Beta builds on that idea with a more customizable interface along the lines of start pages like Netvibes and iGoogle. If you never liked the original Yahoo homepage then My Yahoo isn't for you, but if you were, My Yahoo adds more and better features to the already popular news-based start page.
Courtesy: Life hacker

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Things you didn’t know about Windows Vista..!!!

1. Partition unused space
Vista has a built-in hard-drive partitioning tool that’ll let you take unused space from your main partition and form an extra partition, say. a H: drive for storing photos and videos. It can also consolidate extra space into a single partition. The utility resides in the Computer Management console located in Vista’s Administrative Tools Control Panel.

2. Watch TV on your Vista PC
If one is not already built in, you can buy an external TV tuner and use Windows Media Center to watch TV and record through the handy program guides. For buildings or homes that are cable-ready, high-definition channels are unscrambled or ready to watch without a cable box,

3. Send faxes and scan documents
The odds are good that your PC has an integrated fax modem. Take advantage of it by using Vista’s built-in Fax and Scan utility (found in Vista Business and Ulti­mate editions). This same utility can also take advantage of that old scanner to image documents without your purchasing new, Vista-compatible software.

4. Have kids? Use parental controls
Go to the Control Panel and select User Accounts and Family Safety. Next, click the link that says Set up parental controls for any user. From there, you can block inap­propriate Web sites, set up a time schedule for playing games, limit use of instant-messaging software, and create boundar­ies for browsing the Internet. You can even print out an activity report for your child.

5. Conserve battery power
In addition to setting up a Power scheme, Vista can automatically crank down the brightness of the screen (via a slide bar or by percentage points) when a laptop is running on battery. Go to Control Panel \ Power options Advanced Settings j Display and set the brightness to 50 percent. This can add an extra 20 to 30 minutes’ worth of battery time for your commute home.

6. Turn off annoying prompts
Vista added the “A Program Needs Your Permission to Continue” prompt to help prevent you from inadvertently installing malware or making unauthorized changes to your computer. It’s annoying to see that dialog box constantly pop up. If you’re computer savvy, you can turn it off by deactivating User Account Control in the User Accounts Control Panel.

7. Two clocks for two time zones
If you work in different time zones, you can add up to two additional clocks on the sys­tem task tray. Left-click on the clock, select Change date and time settings, and go to the Additional Clocks tab. You can then enter the display name for the clock(s) and choose its time zone.

8. Boost compatibility
Before throwing your computer against a wall because a particular piece of leg­acy software is not working in Vista. try compatibility mode. Right-click on the program’s EXE file and choose Properties. Then click the Compatibility tab, check the box that says Run this program incompat­ibility mode for:, and select the operating system that worked best with the software.

9. Expanded shortcut menu
You can add useful options to the right-click menu on any file or folder. By holding down Shift as you right-click an item, add any file to the Start menu or Quick Launch toolbar, copy the entire path of the file or folder to the clipboard, or open a com­mand prompt window.

10. Get a health report from Vista
People get physical checkups, and so do computers. Vista can run a complete and well-organized diagnostic report high­lighting potential problems. In the Con­trol Panel, click System and Maintenance Performance Information and Tools. In the Tasks list along the left, click Advanced tools. The last item on the resulting list is Generated system health report.

11. Remove metadata from pictures
Pictures and documents have hidden data about the type of equipment used, as well as personal information about you. You can remove these details by right-clicking the file icon and selecting Properties. On the Details tab, click Remove Properties and Personal Information. You can remove sev­eral properties at a time or all of them by the checkboxes next to a property.

12. Create a shortcut to lock a PC
Slice steps off your system log-off rou­tine by putting a log-off shortcut on your desktop. Start by right-clicking an empty space on the desktop and then selecting New shortcut. In the space below Type the location of the item, type in run dl I32.exe user32.dll. LockWorkStation (remember to watch your spacing and case). Finally, create a clever name for the icon in lieu of the default “rundll32″—how about “Lock PC”? Then click the shortcut to lock your computer with ease.

13. Virtualize your keyboard
If you’re running Vista on a Mac via Boot Camp, you won’t be able to find the PrintScrn key a Mac doesn’t have one on its keyboard. Good thing Vista has a vir­tual on-screen keyboard built in. It’s in the Ease of Access folder, under Accessories, in the Start menu. You should see the esc key next to the F12key.

14. Bypass the log-on screen
You don’t have to be confronted by that eyesore of a log-on screen every time you boot up. Make Vista log in automatically by typing netplwiz into the Start menu search box. That will bring up the Advanced User Accounts Control, where you can uncheck the box that reads: Users must enter a user-name and password to use this computer.

15. Take smarter screen shots
Windows could always capture an image of you r desktop (with the Print Scrn key) or an active window (press Alt-PrtSc). With the Snipping Tool in the Accessories folder, you can snip a port ion of the screen or part of a Web site, document, or picture, and save it as an image file. Keep it handy by checking the option to display an icon of it in the Quick Launch toolbar.

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