Protect Yourself Against Conficker in 3 Simple Steps

April 1st is here, and early indications are that the much-ballyhooed Conficker worm is more bark than bite. Aside from a modest increase in junk mail that may be completely unrelated, users have yet to report any rise in infection or other adverse effects. Regardless, there is a drop-dead simple process you can use to [...]

Sign That You Have Malware: Flashing Windows Keep Popping Up

Determining whether or not malware is to blame for any given troubleshooting issue can be tricky. Some malware-caused issues manifest as simple application instability, slowness or seemingly random freezes. However, there are a few instances in which malware is a more-than-likely culprit. In this series of articles (“Signs That You Have Malware”), we’ll explore some [...]

Slow File Copying in Windows Vista: Fixes

A number of users have reported inordinately slow file copying between folders, across networks, or across local drives. There are a few very simple, very effective fixes for this issue, as follows:
Update your system board drivers The drivers included with some boards may be prone to slow and or corrupt data transfers. Updating your motherboard’s [...]

Blank New Tabs, Crashing in Internet Explorer: Fix

Several users have reported an issue wherein, after opening several tabs and or windows in Internet Explorer, newly spawned tabs or windows come up blank and non-functional, or do not appear at all. In other words, when some number of tabs or windows is reached, the program (for all intents and purposes) stops functioning. Other [...]

Five Real Ways to Speed Up a Slow Windows Vista

Here’s the dirty little secret about most registry cleaners and defragmentation tools: they don’t work that well. Despite their boasting, most programs that claim to automatically “optimize” your system or “clean out the junk” generally leave users virtually unchanged system performance. And unless there’s a direct reason to suspect heavy disk fragmentation (if there is, [...]

Windows 7 Antivirus Software Compatibility

Windows 7 will sport enhanced security measures that should partially eliminate the need for some anti-spyware and antivirus software, but users are still encouraged to run at least one protection mechanism. Users testing pre-release builds of Windows 7 have found that some current antivirus packages are incompatible or cause problems with the new OS, while [...]

Internet Explorer 8: Clicking Folder Always Opens New Window; Fix

Several users have reported an issue in which, after installation of Internet Explorer 8, clicking on any folder in Windows Explorer results in the opening of a new window, rather than navigating within the same window. The issue occurs despite users having the “Open each folder in the same window” option selected in Windows Vista’s [...]

Preparing Your System for Windows Vista SP2

Earlier this month, Microsoft delivered the first release candidate of Windows Vista SP2, meaning that the final, public edition of the update will be posted for download soon. The new release features some sweeping improvements, including Windows Search 4.0, native Blu-Ray recording capabilities, easier Wi-Fi configuration and more.
Unfortunately, many users are likely to encounter [...]

Google Chrome 1.0.154.53 Gets Vista Fixes, Speed Boost

Google has released Chrome 1.0.154.53, the latest edition of its Web browser. The new version, though minor in number, includes some significant fixes for Windows Vista users, including:

Fix for a problem setting Google Chrome as the default browser on Windows Vista
Fix for a problem in which blank entries can appear in the address bar’s list [...]

“USB Device Not Recognized”: Fixes

You may encounter the error message “USB Device Not Recognized” when connecting external devices to your system. There are a number of causes for this issue, and an equal number of fixes. If you receive this error message, try the following procedures one-by-one (the easiest and most common fixes are listed first) until you find [...]