Posts Tagged ‘Windows’
How to save the music from a youtube video as mp3 file
Have you ever wanted to save the sound from a youtube video on your harddisk as mp3 file? There is a handy Firefox plugin named “Youtube to mp3″ available for that. Open the following link in the Firefox webbrowser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/11047/
and click on the “add to Firefox” link to install the plugin. Then restart firefox to activate the plugin.
How to remove old java versions from Windows
When you install the latest java runtime enviroment, it gets installed beside your existing java installation. With every java update, more space is used on the harddisk. To remove old java versions, there is a tool named JavaRa which can be downloaded here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/javara/files/javara/JavaRa/JavaRa.zip/download
Unpack the JavaRa.zip file and double click on the JavaRa.exe to start JavaRa. Select the language:
and click on “Remove older versions”.
How to get a list of all open ports on Windows 7, Vista and XP?
There is a small freeware Utility called CurrPorts from Nirsoft that displays all open ports on windows.
Download CurrPorts to your computer:
32Bit version: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.zip
64Bit version: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports-x64.zip
Unpack the .zip file and double click on the file cports.exe to start CurrPorts. The application will show you a list of all open ports and offers the ability to apply filters on the list.
How to delete saved passwords for network drives in Windows
If you saved a password for a network drive in windows and want to remove it, press the keys [Windows] + [R] to open the windows command line. Then enter
control keymgr.dll
and click on “OK” to open the windows credential manager which allows you to manage and delete passwords saved in Windows.
This procedure works for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.
How to extend the Windows 7 activation period to up to 120 days
Windows 7 has to be activated within a period of 30 days. You can use the following command up to 3 times to extend the activation period to up to 120 days. The Command has to be executed as Administrator user on the Windows shell:
Click on “Start” > “All Programs” > “Accessories” and then right click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator”
In the command promt window enter the following command and hit return:
slmgr -rearm
This slmgr command works also on the Test versions of Windows 7 that Microsoft offers on their website. It has to be executed before the activation period ended.
How to prevent the automatic restart after a Windows update?
One solution is to stop the windows update service to prevent that Windows XP restarts the computer after an update. The update service will be started again after the next boot.
Click on “Start” > “Run” and enter the command:
net stop wuauserv
Windows starts slower after defragmenting the harddisk
If your windows installation starts slower after you defragmeted the harddisk, it might be nescessary to run the defragmentation utility on the boot files too which were normally skipped when running the defrag utility. To defragment the boot files, click on “Start” > “Run…” and then enter the command “defrag -b :c”:
Clear the Windows XP system file cache in to get more free space on the harddisk
Windows XP makes backup copies of your system files which may use a lot of space on your harddisk. To empty the system file cache, click on Start > run… Now enter the command “sfc /purgecache” and click on “Ok”.
How to reinstall Windows XP without having to activate it again
If you have to reinstall Windows XP on the same computer e.g. because your old installation went instable or you tested some software, you normally have to activate your copy of Windows XP again. This will work 2 or 3 times with the online acticvation but then Microsoft will force you to call them by phone to get a very long activation number. To avoid the activation procedure for the new installation, make a copy of the file:
C:\Windows\system32\wpa.dbl
on your current activated installation to a USB disk or external harddrive and copy it back to the new installation.