LOCKHUNTER - Taking Care of Some Stress

Every now and then, you will run into a problem either with a file on your computer or a file you have downloaded. This file is most likely locked by a process or blocked for no apparent reason. LockHunter is a freeware tool that can be used to unlock a file that is blocked so you can have full control over it. This tool supports both 32/64 bit and if you have a file that want to to delete and you get a similar error saying, "This file is currently opened already in (explorer)" and renaming/deleting is futile. With LockHunter you can browse for the "Locked" file and delete it from your desktop. From there, you can empty your recycling bin.

Here is the link:

LockHunter

GPU-Z

Click HERE to Download the Program!!!




GPU-Z is a great tool many should have! It is a program that will tell you all the information you need to know about your GPU or video card.

For example, this tool can tell you the temperature of your GPU, as well as the Core, Memory, and Shader Clocks. This is a great tool to have if you would like to know more about the specs of your Graphics Card!

Explaining in pictures are the best way to show you how the program is all about!!

CPUID- Hardware Monitor

With Hardware Monitor, you can view your temperatures of the components in your computer. You will most likely see the CPU and GPU temperatures. Depending on what CPU you have, one can display the cores you have in your system and display the temps of each one. The same can be said for the GPU card/s you may have.

I find this program very important since it will give you the Min and Max values that it reaches. So if you find out that your temperatures are exceeding your target value then you should seek help or apply thermal compound on your components. Usually depending on what computer you have you would want to keep your components fairly low. You should watch out for temperatures exceeding 70 degrees Celsius because if your computer isn't equipped with good quality fans, you can expect overheating and damages to your computer if your computer doesn't have a fail-safe feature. For example, if your computer is going to overheat, the computer's fail-safe feature would shut off your computer to protect itself from damages!

It's freeware so you should try it out and watch your temperatures!!

CPUID - Hardware Monitor

LOGIN SCREEN - Windows 7 BG Change

Ever wanted to change your login background for your computer or spice things up? Well with this program you can choose any picture you want as your background. Make a system restore point before making any changes!

(1) Open the program, and choose the folder where you store your pictures.

(2) Scroll and choose a picture you want as a background for the login screen and click apply.

(3) Wait for the changes to be made an close out when it is finished

(4) You can see if it works by doing (ctrl+alt+del) and then cancel out of it.

(5) Have Fun!

Windows 7 Background Login Changer

TWEAK: Add Recycle Bin & More

If you're like me, I'd like to keep my desktop as clean as possible. In order to do that I always like to keep the icons on mine to a minimal.

You can add Recycle Bin and many more to "My Computer" instead on having them on your Desktop.



(1) Type In regedit to enter the Registry Editor
(1b) Or you can do the "win + r" to bring up the "Run" command and type in Regedit.

(2) In the Registry Editor Window, open the folders to this location:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace"

(3) Right click on the "NameSpace" folder below, and choose New -> Key. It should look like this:



(4) Now enter the value for the new key with any of the below:

Recycle Bin - {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
Control Panel - {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Run - {2559A1F3-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0}
Search - {2559A1F0-21D7-11D4-BDAF-00C04F60B9F0}
Flip 3D - {3080F90E-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}
Internet Explorer - {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
Administrative Tools - {D20EA4E1-3957-11D2-A40B-0C5020524153}
Network Connections - {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}
Printers - {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}

(5) After you enter the values you should see the item in the "My Computer" space. If not you can hit F5 to refresh it to view your icon.

(6) If you would like compiled registry keys that adds the desired icon from above automatically here is the files: Useful Shortcuts from ASKVG

(6b) Delete the keys by deleting the entry in the Registry Editor

ANTIVIRUS - AVG Anti-Virus

This antivirus software is a great software to start as a beginner. It is very light on the system's resources, and stays up to date with the virus definitions. It does a great job on catching many viruses. So this software will help protect you from harmful sites and viruses. I recommend to also do virus scans in safe mode to ensure no viruses will attack your computer. Not much else to say but try it out since it is freeware and does its job well!

Grab AVG Anti-Virus Here!

SPYBOT - Search & Destroy

Spybot search & destroy is a freeware tool. It detects and removes spyware, and is very effective! It is important to update virus definitions to stay updated and protect yourself from any malicious threats. This tool works well in combination with MalwareBytes, which is another freeware tool. Once updated with Spybot you can search for any threats on your computer, and then run an immunization on your computer to get fully protected. Another tip is to run these programs under safe mode, so these programs can remove any stubborn threats that can't be removed in normal mode!

There is another tool that I will talk about that is freeware and also does a decent job as well!

What are you waiting for? Download and Protect your Computer!


You can grab Spybot |Search & Destroy| right now!

Here is the Link:
Spybot Search & Destroy

MALWAREBYTES - Fighting Malware

Malwarebytes is a neat and light tool that will search for infections and remove malicious software from your computer. One can download this program at there site and it is totally free! Download their free version which lets you scan with options that will let you run a quick sweep or a full sweep. The program will run through its search and report with a log stating what it has found!

If you would like to support Malwarebytes and buy their full version, it comes with realtime protection to further stop the intrusion of any malicious software. This program is best combined with spybot |search and destroy|.

I'll be making another post sometime later with some other great antivirus and firewall protection program that are light on system resources!

Also explaining the usage of Spybot, which I highly recommend you guys to get. I'll post more info soon!


Get MalwareBytes Here:

Ragnarok Online Requests

Please post and comments or requests under this post! I check this daily!

Download the latest complication on the Ragnarok Online Page

GODMODE - Windows 7 Secrets...

Although one may think Godmode would be so uber, it is actually a neat little shortcut for a user to access all of the operating system's control settings. One can think of it as a AIO control panel.

All you have to do to obtain Godmode is:

(1) Create a new folder where you want GodMode to be

(2) Rename the folder by either select the folder and press "F2" or right click and rename it "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

(3) Now you have a neat little shortcut with all of the control settings!

Enjoy!

*NOTE ~ If you are too lazy to do simple tasks, then I attached a link that will get you GodMode by extracting the .rar

Link to GodMode

SYSTEM PROPERTIES - Configuration#1

Now that you are familiar on how to access some configurations in the Windows environment, we can look at some tweaks to help the performance of your system.

PERFORMANCE #1

(1) Accessing the System Properties. Usually how I do it is right click "My Computer" from the start menu. Once you know how to do that, right click it and scroll down to "Properties" and click on it.

(1b) Should look similar to this:



(2) In the new window, you should see some basic info about your system. On the left hand side click on "Advanced System Settings"

(2b) Should look similar to this:



(3) What we want to do is click on the advanced tab which is shown in the picture, and then click on "Settings" in the performance part.

(3b) We will now get a window similar to this:



(4) Now one has a choice to let windows choose its performance, or if you choose best appearance, you will experience some slow-downs from time to time if your system can't keep up. If you set it to best performance, one will pretty much sacrifice looks for performance.

(4b) I would recommend to choose best performance if your computer is relatively old. For other users, I highly recommend to do "Custom" since you can choose which effects or animations you don't really need. Also you can choose to keep your visual style and increase your performance a tad better!

*That's it for Part#1 for System Properties Configuration!

~More to come!

SERVICES - A Look Into The Windows Services

Want to know what services are running on your system. On windows, press "win+r" to bring up the "Run Menu". In the box, type in services.msc now and press enter.



You will then be presented with the Windows Services that are running in the background.




As you can see, there are many services, and one can turn them off to help make your computer "speedier". However you have to know what services to turn off. If you know which one is hogging system resources then go ahead! Remember to create a system restore point!


For more information about disabling or putting services on manual, please refer to this site: Disabling Services

CCLEANER - Useful Tool To Clean Out Junk

CCleaner is a freeware tool that can be used clear out temp files, cookies, history, recycle bin. In essence, it's pretty much a tool for cleaning all the junk that piles up in your system. Over all the years I've been using this tool, there has been no problems. However, do make sure to create a system restore point to be on the safe side. One can also clear out old registry files from programs which should be cleaned out since it is removed from the system.




Go ahead and give it a try and see for yourself!


Click here to download CCleaner!

MSCONFIG - Microsoft System Configuration

To use it, we must be able to get to its menu:

There are many ways to get there and I'll be showing ways that it will
be easy for you to understand!

(1)Click your start button, or windows button



(2)In the search bar, type in msconfig


(3)Press enter, and if you done it correctly, you will be presented with the configuration utility.



A MORE SIMPLIFIED WAY IS:

(1a)While holding down the window logo key on your keyboard, followed by "r"
So it will be Win+r, which will bring up something like this:



(2) Press enter and you will get the configuration utility.

TWEAKING:

(3) You will see that there are a lot of options and tabs above.
For example, if you didn't want to see the windows logo while booting up one can simply go to the boot tab and check off "No GUI Boot".



(3a) One of the best ways to use MSconfig is to speed up your start up time and make your computer use less resources. What is commonly used is to go to the "startup tab" and check off the useless programs that you don't need to start while windows boots up, or hog a lot of resources.




For now, that is the basics of using the Configuration Utility without doing anything harmful to your computer.

*For advanced users, one can go into the services tab and check off the useless services that aren't really needed for their windows environment.

For a list, here's a site that is commonly used: Turn Off Unneeded Services