Great URLs for useful Windows stuff

[DorsetBoy]

A list of addresses for tweaks,security,free software,old versions,antispyware advice etc.....


Happy browsing




http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12


http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

http://www.dnsstuff.com/

http://www.snapfiles.com/help/missingfiles.html

http://www.firewallleaktester.com/leaktest11.htm


http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/

http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/index.html


http://www.grc.com/default.htm

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/resource.htm

http://www.netrn.net/spywareblog/

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm#trustworthy

http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://win.softpedia.com/


http://www.fwnetwork.com/


http://www.nonags.com/

http://ziphie.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=miscwall&page=3


http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/Analyzer/

http://www.opensourcelist.org/oss/suggestedapplications.html


http://www.pcnet-online.com/

http://www.search-this.com/search-engine-decoder/

http://www.softlookup.com/author.asp?ID=11825

http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/


http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm



http://eeggs.com/

http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12

[cavillas]

Perhaps this cold be a pinned thread.

[DorsetBoy]

More URLS for Windows,tweaks ,tips,security,how to's etc..........

Hours of reading here 

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_how_tos.htm


http://freepctech.com/pc/xp/xpindex.shtml

http://www.techarp.com/default.aspx?location=9

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

http://www.winsupersite.com/

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm


http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm

http://www.msfn.org/index.php?

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

http://*****.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml

http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/69/01/4.html

http://www.data-recovery-reviews.com/toc.htm

http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm

[Glenn]

Well 12 really,
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/windowsxp_tips.htm is there twice 

It should help a few people though, including me at work

[DorsetBoy]

Oh well 12 then .....trouble was the edit function wasn't there.

Still they can always read that page twice

[Rik]

Perhaps this cold be a pinned thread.

It is now, merged and pinned! My first job accomplished.

[Lance]

Well done Rik, you're doing your job well already!

[Rik]

LOL. It probably won't last...

[RobMc]

Don't forget sourceforge.net for open source programs.

Rob.

[DorsetBoy]

Over 1000 tricks

Hours of fun here,reading for a wet weekend

They have added a news section too with Vista Central.

[Rik]

Great stuff, Dorset. I'll add it to your other sticky.

[mrapoc]

http://www.tweakxp.com/ 

[RobMc]

Windows Sysinternals have some really useful free utilities. I've had them on my usb pendrive for years as they can be very useful for diagnosing problems.

For a bit of fun the Bluescreen Screen Saver has given me hours of fun when put on colleagues desktops when they have been away without locking their pcs

Rob.

[jimc]

and of course

http://portableapps.com/

[RobMc]

Not sure that this is the right place to put this, but hey

I've been using BartPE for a long time now and although you have to do a bit of work to get it working I find it brilliant.

It's basically a way of booting a pc from a cd and getting a functional Windows interface from the cd alone. So if you have a pc that won't boot into windows, stick the cd in boot from it and you can access your hard disk. This really saved me once when a cockup occurred when rebooting after installing some software. Basically I just could not log in. So booted using BartPE cd and copied my important files onto a USB HDD.

Rob.

[Rik]

You might be interested to know that Acronis get customers to use BartPE when they have a problem with their CD not booting properly in a machine.

[DorsetBoy]

You can also use any good LINUX Live CD for this,I have rescued files and restarted windows systems a plenty using Linux.

[Rik]

Perhaps we should have a library here, with all the useful downloads available??

[RobMc]

Another useful site: the How-To Geek.

Rob.

[trelales]

Nice post but far too many sites to do each one justice.

All of you get together and select the top 3

Thanks

[Rik]

I doubt we could narrow it to a choice of three, it depends on what you're looking for as to which site is best. Computers are never as simple as we'd like. 

[RobMc]

I agree. Sometimes the links in themselves aren't useful directly (for oneself) but can lead you to somewhere useful. For example, I tried the portable apps link given by jimc, but for one reason or another the product didn't suite my needs but it did give me a link to XAMPP from Apache Friends which allows me to run an Appache website with php and mySQL on my local pc with very simple configuration which has been great for my web development business. I may not have come across this if I hadn't followed the links in this thread. 

Rob.

[Moley]

Would like to add a personal  for the freeserifsoftware one - exactly what I was looking for this morning 

[Rik]

Not bad for a thread that's been dormant for 8 months.

[david666]

This is very good site for free/trial stuff.

http://www.filehippo.com/

[Rik]

Thanks, David,

[Simon]

Another    Thanks David!

[drummer]

Noreen's Acronis thread reminded me of this link I found the other day:

http://www.acronis.co.uk/mag/pcpro/ati8pe

In a nutshell, it's Acronis TI v8.0 and it's completely free, so it might be useful for someone thinking of trying Acronis but not prepared to fork out thirty quid.  The registration form isn't intrusive but it does require a working email address for the serial number.  Tried it myself and it works (download, installation and boot-disk creation) but I wouldn't bother with it if you use Vista.

[Rik]

Thanks, Drummer. 

[Cookiemonster]

Here's one for everybody who likes Tweaking. I found this site a while back and it's very good at tweaking all things regarding Windows, especially useful at stopping all the cr** that windows loads at boot. Have fun...

TweakHound

[Rik]

Nice one, Jester.  

[Rik]

Thanks to Noreen for this, VueScan operates with a wide range of scanners often allowing them to be used with Vista when the manufacturer isn't providing updates.

http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

Free trial version, then $40 at time of posting.

[Noreen]

One thing to note is that VueScan doesn't work with wireless connections or parallel-port connections.

[Rik]

Does it support SCSI, do you know?

[Noreen]

It only works with SCSI, USB and Firewire connections, Rik.

[Rik]

Good old SCSI, it was a brilliant interface and much under-used, imo.

[madasahatter]

Here's one for everybody who likes Tweaking. I found this site a while back and it's very good at tweaking all things regarding Windows, especially useful at stopping all the cr** that windows loads at boot. Have fun...

TweakHound

Nice link Jester, but worth noting it's only for the XP peeps.  8)

[Sebby]

Good old SCSI, it was a brilliant interface and much under-used, imo.

A friend of mine had a SCSI hard drive back in the late 90s and I thought it was the coolest thing. I remember it was quite a beast, perhaps 10k RPM, and very fast compared with the IDE drives most others were using.

And he had a SCSI Jaz drive, I think. That was another device I thought was fantastic.

[Rik]

I had SCSI drives, tape streamers and scanners, Sebby. They were brilliant, the fastest 'in class' you could buy, but the cost was very high (and the cables very bulky).

[Sebby]

How things have changed, and that's only in my years.

[Rik]

SCSI was up against MFM HDs initially, then IDE, and it scored massively over both. Once S-ATA arrived, it really became a 'luxury' item, used in servers for the main part.

[Glenn]

Deleted Piclens util has already been posted

[gyruss]

Sys Internals

Some excellent utilities on here for the serious geek among us

[Rik]

 

[john]

Apologies if any of the links below have already been posted :

http://www.computerhope.com/index.

http://http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk

http://oreilly.com/ (not just for windows, also search for Windows hacks on the O'Reilly site)





Edit: Hyperlink sorted

[Rik]

Don't apologise, John, better twice than never. 

[john]

Thanks Rik, I've just noticed that the last link isn't correct, it should be http://oreilly.com/

[Rik]

It is now.

[Glenn]

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html have been updated to include XP SP2 & Vista SP1

[Rik]

Thanks, Glenn. 

[john]

http://www.annoyances.org/ (use the menu on the left to navigate to lists of various topics)

You may also find this useful.

[Rik]

Good links, John. 

[Sebby]

Great site; I remember visiting it back in about 2000 to see how to get ICS working on Windows 98. Good times...

[Noreen]

Loads of Vista tips here (I haven't tried any of them yet) http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista/ I see that there are also tips for others in the "How-To's" menu bar.

[Rik]

Nice link, Noreen. 

[Sebby]

Nice. There's absolutely loads of information there.

[madasahatter]

Bookmarked to have a look at later Noreen - 

[Glenn]

Could come in handy at work, as we migrate to Vista.

[Sebby]

So could a stress ball.

[Glenn]

I've got 2 on my desk already 

[Sebby]

You're sorted then.

[Lance]

Thanks Noreen! Something for me to look through while eating dinner! 

[Rik]

I've heard of reading a book while you eat, but a laptop screen...   

[Lance]

But it is only me here tonight!!!

[Rik]

Nicky celebrating?

[Lance]

Nope, hen party!

[Rik]

I hope her head is OK this morning.

[john]

Nope, hen party!

Free range ? 

[Sebby]

I'm sure Lance would accept nothing else in this day and age.

[Lance]

[g7pkf]

Thanks to Noreen for this, VueScan operates with a wide range of scanners often allowing them to be used with Vista when the manufacturer isn't providing updates.

http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

Free trial version, then $40 at time of posting.

It works very well, $40 seems a bit high but with a little searching 

[Glenn]

I just stumbled across this site, http://www.techsupportalert.com/ It has links to what the author says are the best free windows tools

[Rik]

The site looks good, Glenn, bookmarked. 

[T_M_D]

Would like to add a personal  for the freeserifsoftware one - exactly what I was looking for this morning 

I downloaded the free PagePlus SE software a couple of weeks ago and couldn't get it to work - I rang the Serif helpdesk, the guy was great and he told me the problem was with Vista, once I changed the option in Advanced settings for the desktop short cut to 'run as administrator' it worked fine - but I suppose most of you are already aware of this anyway... Tina.

[Lona]

Thanks John and Noreen for two really useful sites.

[D-Dan]

I just stumbled across this site, http://www.techsupportalert.com/ It has links to what the author says are the best free windows tools

And I'm one of the category editors there, so it must be good

Steve

[Simon]

That wouldn't be 'our' Gizmo, would it?

[D-Dan]

Extremely unlikely - unless IDNet's reach spans the oceans

Steve

[Rik]

Can you access an American site? Of course it does.

[Mouseroo]

Thought I'd blow the dust off of this thread and add these:

www.freewaregenius.com

www.ninite.com  <-- Useful if you're setting up a new machine   

[Rik]

 

[Simon]

Thanks.