But what if one day, you need to verify if a hotfix has been installed on your computer. One way you can check is to open up Add or Remove Programs from the Control Panel.

As you can see, viewing updates from Add or Remove Programs don't offer much information for each update and is pretty useless. Instead there are better alternatives that provides more useful hotfix and service pack information installed on your system.

View Hotfixes On Windows XP

For XP systems, an excellent portable freeware utility called WinUpdatesList from nirsoft.net, provides an easy to use interface that displays a list of all Windows updates (Service Packs and Hotfixes) installed on your computer.

To run the program, download the zip file from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wul.html (scroll to bottom of page and click on "Download WinUpdatesList in zip file "). Now unzip the file, wul.zip , then double click on wul.exe to launch the utility.

WinUpdatesList list all hotfixes and service packs that have been installed, who installed the update and when it was installed. You can sort the list by clicking on any column. For example, to view by date, click on Installation Date column. Scrolling over to the right, reveals more information such as Web Link for each update and the uninstall Command.

Clicking on an update in the list displays all the files associated with the update in the lower pane including version information and file path. To display detailed information, right click on an update in the upper pane, and select Open Web Link. Your browser will open and display the knowledge base article on Microsoft web site for the update.

WinUpdatesList also allows you to search for an update (select Edit \ Find from menu) and can print a report by selecting View \ HTML Report .

View Hotfixes On Windows Vista

Unfortunately WinUpdatesList has not been updated for Vista yet. But you can get similar information by clicking on the Start menu and searching for update (from Start menu). In the search results, click on Windows Update.

Then in the left navigation pane, click on the View update history link.

You will then see all the updates that have been installed on your Vista computer and you can sort them by clicking on the Date Installed column or view all successful and failed update installations by clicking on the Status column.

Although Windows Update does not provide as much information as WinUpdatesList, it does provide the capability to view the knowledge base article on Microsoft web site, by right clicking on an update and selecting View details.

Then click on the link under More information to open up the knowledge base article.

Now that you know how to view installed updates on your XP or Vista computer, it can be usefull for times when you are having problems and need to verify which updates are installed.

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This process is a nonessential process and can be safely terminated since it sits there eating memory space only to check once a month for updates from the Sun community. Note that terminating the process will prevent automatic updates to Java.

To prevent the Java Update Scheduler from launching on Startup, in Windows XP/Vista open up the Java Control Panel and uncheck "Check for Updates Automatically".

When asked if you would like to update monthly, click on "Never Update." However this will mean that if a Java security update is made available you will miss it. If you want to update Sun Java at a later stage, simply go back to the same Java plug-in icon in the Control Panel, to the "Update" tab, and click the Update Now button.

What you can also do to set it up to run once a month automatically without you having to remind yourself to switch the feature on is, go to Start >> Control Panel and find Scheduled Tasks. Follow the wizard along to pick a month and date, and then when you get to the "Start a Program" screen, use this as the path:

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_01\bin\jucheck.exe"

adjusting the path if you are running a different version of Java. The key thing to note is that you run the jucheck.exe in your Java directory thus if you don't know JAVA Runtime Environment you're running, go to "C:\Program Files\Java\" and check in there.

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Well, as the file extension might suggest, they are temporary files. These files are typically created by applications to store some form of temporary data, in a permanent form than RAM, on your hard disk. TMP files are commonly produced either when a program can't allocate enough memory for its tasks, or as part of inter-process communication.

Modern operating systems usually employ a virtual memory system, where if a program exceeds its allotted memory space usage, it can provide the application with part of the hard disk space as a substitute for memory. Programs which use large amounts of data, like video editing software, may need to create many TMP files.

TMP files are usually deleted automatically by their parent application (the software, game, application) which created them. However there may be instances where these files aren't removed from your computer and end up taking unnecessary space. This happens particularly either because the parent application crashed during runtime, or because the program's developer forgot to add the necessary code to delete TMP files when finished using them. TMP files tend to accumulate over time and take up a lot of disk space.

All this said, I have to add an important note: not all TMP files are safe to remove. So how do I know when a TMP file can be removed or not?

Usually it is safe to assume that if a TMP file is several weeks or months old, you can delete. You can check the meta data to know when the file was created or last modified, by right clicking on the file and choosing Properties. For example when you are using a word processor and have the auto-save option enabled, the application will most probably create some form of temporary file to store the content of the document you're working on in some pre-defined location in your hard disk.

Other temp files as they are usually called, are created by the Windows and its default applications. One well known default application which creates hoards of temporary files is the Internet browser.

Whenever you access a webpage, buy from an online shopping cart, access your email, your browser is transparently saving and caching some data pertaining to the action you've taken for various reasons. One of the reasons is for optimizing your web experience and loading the web-pages you visit the most frequently faster.

Temp files which are created by default Windows applications are usually stored in a few pre-defined locations in your hard drive mainly C:windowstemp folder. For these reasons there may be temp files, unbeknown to you, scattered in various locations all over your computer. The easiest way to remove temporary files created by Windows and its applications is to use the Disk Cleanup service.

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If so, you can easily change it to a more friendly name. Doing so can have many benefits, especially on a home network.

Instead of connecting to a system with an ugly name such as D2347TB998, you can change it to JOEPC or DUDE if you want and easily identify whose PC you are connecting to without guessing.

Changing the computer name is performed the same way no matter what system you are running – Vista, XP or Windows 7.

NOTE: Before starting, make sure any programs or applications that you have open are closed.

Now, just click on Start \ Run and enter sysdm.cpl in the run box and click OK.

When the Systems Properties window opens, click on the Computer Name tab…

…then click on the Change button next to "To rename this computer…."

You will see your current Windows computer name in the Computer name: field as well as the full name if your computer is a member of a Windows Domain (which many home users are not members of a Domain).

To change the name, just type a new name in the Computer name: field and click OK.

You will then see a dialog box informing you that you must restart the computer for the changes to take place.

Click OK again to close the Systems Properties window, then reboot your computer.

After rebooting, your computer name will be change to it's new name. If you want, you can verify it did change by checking the  System Properties (sysdm.cpl) Computer Name tab.

Changing Your Computer Name From The Command Prompt

For those of you who prefer to use the command prompt to change the name, you can do so by using the Netdom command.

If you are running XP, Netdom is available in the Support Tools installation, which can be found on the Windows XP CD in the tools directory, or as a download from Microsoft web site.

If you are running Vista or Windows 7, Netdom is not included on the CD and you cannot install the XP support tools on a Vista or Windows 7 system. Instead, you will need to copy the executable from a XP computer. If that's not possible, you won't be able to use the command prompt for changing the computer name.

Once you have the Netdom executable on your hard drive, open a command prompt by clicking on Start \ Run and enter cmd, then follow these instructions for changing the computer name.

N ow that you have a more friendlier computer name, it will make connecting computers together on your home network much easier to identify.

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One drawback to killing processes on a remote computer, is if the process was started by a service, once it's killed it's no longer running anymore.

NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with Windows Services, see the following article on services.

Being able to restart the service again, remotely, may be necessary with out rebooting the remote computer, especially if the service is needed by the user.

One of the best utilities to accomplish this, is to use Sysinternals PsService tool.

PsService is a service viewer and controller that allows you to connect to a remote system and stop or start services. Two things that make this utility great – it's free and requires no installation at all (yeah!).

But before you can connect to a remote system using PsService, you need to make sure ports 445 and 139 are open on the remote computer. This means, if the computer is running a firewall, or a firewall exists between your computer and the remote computer, those ports need to be open.

Also you need to use an account that has administration rights on the remote computer, that can stop and start services.

To use PsService, first download it from Microsoft's Sysinternals site (PsServices is bundled with the PsTools suite).

Next, unzip PsTools.zip and you should see the psservice.exe executable.

Now, PsService is easy to use. Say you just killed the spooler process on a remote computer because of a printing problem and need to start the spooler service.

First, open a command prompt on your computer (click Start \ Run and enter cmd in the run box) then change to the directory where you copied the psservice executable, and enter the following command at the prompt:

NOTE: The first time you use PsService, you must agree to the license agreement. To do so, just click on the Agree button.

psservice.exe \\rcomputer -u mike -p 123456 start spooler

Where:

\\rcomputer – is the name of the remote computer.

-u mike -p 123456 – is the username and password of the account that has administration rights on the remote computer.

start spooler – is the command to start the service named spooler.

After executing the command and starting the service, PsService will display the results and the state of the service, which in this case is running.

PsService can also stop services using the following command:

psservice.exe \\rcomputer -u mike -p 123456 stop spooler

One nice feature with PsService is the capability to query the list of services on the remote computer. This can be useful if need to find the service before killing a process.

To query the list of service, just use the following command:

psservice.exe \\rcomputer -u mike -p 123456 query

If you have not noticed, the list scrolls by in a hurry. To make it stop before scrolling off the screen, you can use the more command as follows:

psservice.exe \\rcomputer -u mike -p 123456 query |more

This will allow you to page through the list by pressing the space bar. If you want to quit before the end of the list, just press CTRL+C.

PsService is a great utility to add to your toolbox. One drawback to the tool that I have found is that it can be a little quirky at times. I find that it works well in a Windows domain environment or even when computers are in a workgroup. While other times it has trouble connecting.

Either way, it's a time saver that does not require any installation of remote control software.

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You know you are if your desktop looks anything like this:

What a mess. Sure, all the icons are organized in nice neat rows and columns. But honestly, that's the only thing organized about it. What a double-vision-icon nightmare these desktops are when I have to work on people's computers.

So instead of telling them to get rid of everything, I show them a better way to clean up and organize their desktop, with out deleting anything.

Quick Launch

Quick Launch is just a folder on your computer, which the content can be made visible as part of the task bar located next to the Start button.

Quick Launch is the perfect companion to the Start menu, except you only drop items in it that you use frequently (the reason why it's called Quick launch).

These items are usually shortcuts to programs, files and folders. So if you look at your desktop, that's really what you have…shortcuts to programs, files and folders.

Now, I only use my Quick launch for programs and files that I use frequently (later I'll show you a  better solution for folders).

If you don't see Quick Launch next to the Start button, just right click on the taskbar then select Toolbars \ Quick Launch.

From here, you can add items by dragging them on top of Quick Launch, or right click just before the double arrows to open the Quick Launch folder.

NOTE: Right clicking before the arrows can be a little tricky. Instead you can access the Quick Launch folder under your user profile in the folder – \Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch (in XP) and \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch (in Vista).

You can also create new folders to organize your items, add files to your preference. When finished, just close the folder.

The width of the Quick Launch bar can be adjusted by grabbing the bar and moving left or right to display more or less icons. If you don't see the bar, unlock it by right clicking on an empty area of the taskbar and un-select Lock the Taskbar.

Adding Toolbars To The Taskbar

Have a lot of shortcuts to folders? Then adding a toolbar to the taskbar is the perfect solution to de-cluttering your desktop.

Start off by creating an empty folder, called Folder Shortcuts (or what ever you want to call it) somewhere on your hard drive, such as in your My Documents folder.

Next, drag all those folder shortcuts sitting on your desktop into this folder (you can also include files if you want to).

Now, right click on an empty area of the taskbar and select Toolbars \ New Toolbars and browse for the folder that you just created.

You will now have a new toolbar, similar to Quick Launch, next to the System tray. This will allow for easy access to those folder shortcuts that USED to clutter up your desktop.

Just like the Quick Launch bar, you can add items to the toolbar by dragging them on top of the toolbar.

Create A Docking Toolbar

If you don't like adding toolbars to the taskbar, then create a docking toolbar.

To do this, open My Computer or Windows Explorer and create a new folder any where on your hard drive. Then add the shortcuts (from your desktop) to the new folder.

When finished, shrink Windows Explorer or My Computer window so you can see part of your desktop, now left click and drag the folder to the very top of your screen and release your mouse (make sure you touch the top of your screen before releasing).

The new toolbar will dock itself to the top of the screen. You can also dock toolbars to either side of the screen if you prefer.

NOTE: To remove the toolbar, just right click on it and select "Close Toolbar". To move it to another location on your screen, left click and hold on the very left side of the toolbar (before the sliding bar) and drag it.

Cleanup The Start Menu By Sorting and Organizing

One of the reasons why people clutter up their desktops is because their Start menu becomes a cluttered mess. But if you spend a little time and organize the contents, it will become more useful.

First, start off by opening the Start menu folder by right clicking on the Start button and select Open. At this level you can add/delete and organize items that appear when you click on Programs (Classic style) or All Programs (default style). Make sure you organize the Start Menu folder and the Program folder.

Next, right click on the Start button and select Properties then Customize. Depending on which style you are using, several options exist to enable or disable items that appear on the Start menu. Take time to go through everything and only enable items you really need.

Make sure you click on the Sort button. By doing so, will alphabetize the items in the list allowing you to easily find items.

Once you have finshed, your desktop will (hopefully) never look the same again!

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Take shortcuts for example. You know…the ones on your desktop or in the start menu.

You click on a shortcut that you have not used in a while, and chances are, it works as expected or you get the dreaded Problem with Shortcut error warning:

So to fix it, you re-point to the new location of the source or delete it. Now you wonder, how many more shortcuts do I have that are broken?

Well you could go one by one and click on each shortcut on your desktop or start menu and fix them. But that would take a be ridiculously long time (who wants to do that anyway).

Instead there is an easier way…

…and that way is to use a utility called ShortcutsMan from nirsoft.net.

ShortcutsMan is a standalone program,that does not require any installation or additional DLLs. To use it, just download it, copy the executable (shman.exe) to any folder you prefer (after it's unzipped) and run it.

A few seconds after running ShortcutsMan utility, a list of all your desktop and Start menu shortcuts will load in the main window.

Now. what's cool about ShortcutsMan, it wall automatically display broken shortcuts in pink. No need to hunt them down, one by one.

To try fixing a broken shortcut,  just check the box next to a broken shortcut (you can select more than one shortcuts at once), and either delete them, resolve them or save the shortcut's details to HTML/Text/XML file.

The first thing I usually do is have ShortcutsMan fix the shortcut by resolving it. This process searches your computer and points it to a valid file name (typically the orignal file name may have been changed or moved to another folder).

To resolve, select the check box next to the broken shortcut (pink color), then right click on it and select Resolve Selected Shortcuts.

If it can not resolve, then I usually delete the shortcut (otherwise if I really used it often…it wouldn't be broken in the first place). You can also edit and fix shortcuts yourself directly in ShortcutsMan by right clicking on a shortcut and select Edit.

ShortcutsMan is a great utility to have around to help clean up your system of dead shortcuts. If anything, having the capability to display all shortcuts on my desktop or under the Start menu in one interface is a big time saver. Either they get fixed or deleted. Real simple.

You can download ShortcutsMan from nirsift.com.

Looking for more Windows tips, check out our Windows Tips.

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Let face it, trying to remember an IP address is like trying to remember a phone number (unless you are old school and don't program phone numbers in your phone).

https://192.168.1.1 isn't something that an average computer user wants to remember.

So how can you make it easier to remember? By using a host name, similar to how you remember sites on the Internet, like watchingthenet.com.

But your probably thinking that you don't have DNS running on your wireless home network.

No problem. Here's how you can utilize DNS-like-service with your Windows computer.

Using A Host File

When it comes to DNS (Domain Name Service) name resolution, your computer first checks it's local host file to resolve the host name to an IP Address. If no record exist for the host name, it will then query the DNS servers (that are listed in your IP configuration of your NIC card).

To create a record in your local host file:

• Double click on the My Computer icon (or open Windows Explorer) and navigate to the following folder:

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc

• You should see a file named hosts, as shown in the below screen shot.

• Double click on the file and open the file with Notepad.

• Once the hosts file is open, you will want to add the following line (to the bottom of the file) similar to mine. In my example, I want to connect to my Linksys wireless router using the host name myrouter.

192.168.1.1    myrouter

NOTE: You can use any host name you want, but don't use a name that is known on the Internet, such as google, or yahoo.

• After adding the line, save the file and close it.

You will now be able to connect to your wireless router using the new host name.

Using OpenDNS

If you use an external DNS service, such as OpenDNS you can add a shortcut.

Shortcuts allow you to a create single word to specific URLs. So, using my example above, I can the shortcut myrouter with the URL https://192.168.1.1.

To create a shortcut, see the following how-to on OpenDNS web site.

As you can see, these are two easy methods for having DNS like services…with out running an actual DNS server. If you are fortunate, some routers include a built in DNS server that you can use.

But if you just want to make things easy, using a host file is simple enough. Just remember, if you rebuild your computer or buy a new one, don't forget to modify the host file using the steps above.

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But say you want to save a copy of the output from the command that was executed. For example when using ipconfig to view the TCP configuration of your computer network card (NIC) or executing the dir command to view a list of directories.

One way is to copy from the command prompt window and paste it in a text file. Unfortunately, this can be cumbersome at times.

Instead, there is a better way to easily capture the output directly from the command prompt window to a file by using the redirection command.

To use the redirect command, just use the symbol > (press Shift + greater than arrow) and the file name at the end of the command you want to execute.

For example to redirect output of the ipconfig command to the file tcpinfo.txt, enter the following command at the prompt:

ipconfig /all > tcpinfo.txt

This will create the file called tcpinfo.txt in the current directory you are at (shown in below screen shot), with the output results of ipconfig command.

If you want the file created at another location on your hard drive, enter the full path to that location:

ipconfig /all >c:\mystuff\tcpinfo.txt

When using a single redirect command, it will always over-write (delete) the contents of the file (unless you specify a different file name) before writing any new data.

If you want to append (concatenate) data to an existing file, use two redirection symbols as shown in the following example:

dir c:\mymusic >> c:\tcpinfo.txt

This example adds the output of the dir (directory) command to the end of the file – tcpinfo.txt.

Now, you are not limited to redirecting output to a file. You can also redirect to devices such as a printer.

Say you have a printer connected to LPT1. You would use the following command:

dir c:\mymusic >LPT1

You can also use PRN or CON to output data results. Just make sure the device is working correctly.

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That batch file works great if you want the same applications to always open at once.

But, what if you have a number of applications that you use frequently, and only want to choose from a list, a certain combination of applications to open at the same time?

For example, you have a book report due and you need to research the material on the Internet. In this case you want to open Microsoft Word and Firefox.

Or, it's time to pay the bills, and you need to open Notepad, Calculator and Microsoft Excel.

To do this we can create a batch file with a list of applications. When you run the batch file, a menu will appear that will accept user input from the command line and open the applications that you choosen (as shown in above screen shot).

To create the batch file, first, you will want to make a list of applications that you use frequently.

For this example, I will select six applications (remember they can be any amount and type of applications you want to use):

• Notepad
• Calculator
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Internet Explorer
• Firefox

Next, find the executable path for each application. This can be accomplished by finding the shortcut of the application in the Start Menu and right click on the application icon (make sure the Shortcut tab is selected).

For Microsoft Office Applications, you will need to look in the folder where Office is installed. On my computer, the executable path is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 EXCEL.EXE

NOTE: Your path may be different depending on the version of Windows and Office you are using.

For any application executable that you can not find, use Windows search (in XP and Vista) to help find the location.

Create The Batch File

Just right click on your desktop and select New \ TextDocument.

Next name the file what ever you want and for now, leave the extension as .txt (I have named my file chooseapp.txt).

Open the file that you created using notepad, then copy and paste the following code. An explanation of the code is listed below:

@echo off
cls
:start
echo.
echo 1. Notepad
echo 2. Calculator
echo 3. Microsoft Word
echo 4. Microsoft Excel
echo 5. Internet Explorer
echo 6. Firefox
echo 7. I'm Done
echo.
echo.
set /p x=Pick:
IF '%x%' == '%x%' GOTO Item_%x%

:Item_1
start /MIN /DC:\Windows\System32 notepad.exe
GOTO Start

:Item_2
start /MIN /DC:\Windows\System32 calc.exe
GOTO Start

:Item_3
start /MIN /D"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10" WINWORD.EXE
GOTO Start

:Item_4
start /MIN /D"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10" EXCEL.EXE
GOTO Start

:Item_5
start /MIN /D"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.google.com
GOTO Start

:Item_6
start /MIN /D"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" firefox.exe http://www.google.com
GOTO Start

:Item_7
exit

Here's How The Batch File Works

- The @echo off prevents displaying results of the commands at the prompt.

cls – clears the screen

:start – begins the commands to display the list

echo. – creates a blank line

echo 1. Notepad
echo 2. Calculator
echo 3. Microsoft Word
echo 4. Microsoft Excel
echo 5. Internet Explorer
echo 6. Firefox
echo 7. I'm Done

The above lines are the applications that will be displayed in the list. You should edited these lines with the names of the applications you want displayed.

set /p x=Pick: – set the variable name x=Pick that is used in the next line

IF '%x%' == '%x%' GOTO Item_%x% – statement that determines what number in the list you chose and to go to the line (GOTO) that  will open the application.

—>>>The above two lines should not be edited<<<—

:Item_1
start /MIN /DC:\Windows\System32 notepad.exe
GOTO Start

All lines starting with :Item_ and their number (in my example 1 to 6) is where you enter the path and executable name of the application to be opened.

The start command has two parts:

MIN will minimize the application when it is opened (NOTE: some applications will ignore this and NOT open minimized).

/DC:\Windows\System32 notepad.exe is where you enter the path and executable name. You will need to edit this parameter with the application you want opened.

GOTO Start – tells the batch file to return to the Start line in the beginning that will allow you to make another selection.

:Item_7
exit

The above lines ends the batch file when you select option 7. Depending on the number of applications in YOUR list, make sure to re-number the list including the last item that is used to exit the batch file.

When finished, save the file and don't forget to rename the file (right click on the file and select rename) and use .bat as the extension.

Time To Run The Batch File

To run it, double click on the batch file. A command window will appear allowing you to make your selections one at a time (it will loop) by entering the number next to the word Pick, then pressing the Enter key.

After making your selections, don't forget to select the last number in the list so the batch file will exit.

If you need to re-edit the batch file, just right click on it and select edit (don't double click to edit). After editing, save the file before closing.

As you can see, creating this batch file can be a handle little utility to have around. It can also be used to not only open applications, but files that you may use frequently (just create another line in the list and add the path to the file with the file name).

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When minimized, Process Explorer displays the current hard drive disk activity (I/O) by identifying the process and the amount of read and write bytes (displayed in Kilo Bytes) written or read from disk.

Having this minimized in the System tray is useful when you have a lot of hard drive activity occurring and you want to identify the cause of what is slowing down Windows.

To enable this view in the System tray, download Process Explorer from Microsoft's Technet site.

Once you have downloaded Process Explorer, unzip it then double click on the procexp.exe file.

Then from the menu, click on Options \ Tray Icons and select I/O History.

Also, make sure Options \ Hide When Minimized is selected with a check mark (this will minimize Process Explorer to the System Tray instead of the Taskbar).

Now when you minimize Process Explorer, an active I/O graph will display current disk activity history. When you move your mouse over it, a pop up will display the stats (Read, Write, Other) in Kilo Bytes of the current process causing disk activity at that point in the graph.

If you want to view activity from several minutes ago, just right click on the graph, and select System information. This window will display several graphs, including process, memory (Physical and Commit) and I/O bytes.

As with the graph in the System tray, moving your mouse will display each process, the amount of bytes and the time the disk activity occurred.

Depending on the size of the System information window, you can view a longer time line in the graph to about 10 mins worth of history time, by maximizing the Window.

If you want Process Explorer to run when Windows starts up, just create a shortcut to the procexp.exe file and copy it  to your user profile startup folder.

As you can see, Process Explorer is a much more powerfull tool than Windows Task Manager and can make better use of your Windows System tray.

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It can drive you nuts and to the point where your just not going to find it quickly and easily.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to find those missing files, even if your computer does not keep track of recently accessed documents.

Here's five ways to find those missing files, documents or spreadsheets without going insane.

1 – Open Application And Pretend To Save

One easy method is to re-open the application and see where the default location is for saving new files. To do this, open the application and create a dummy document, spreadsheet (or what ever the application creates) and proceed with saving it (but you really won't be saving it).

With most applications, the first time you save something, it will ask you where you want to save the file by opening up the default location first. At this point you should be able to see all files including the one you lost..

2 – Use The Application Recently Used List

Some applications such as Microsoft Office applications keep track of recently open files. An example is with Word. Just click on File from the menu and at the bottom you will see a list of recently opened documents. In Office 2007, click on the Office button to view Recent Documents (shown in below screen shot).

Hopefully yours is one of them

3 – Check Your Recent Document Folder

By default Windows keeps track of all files that you recently open. To view the list:

• In XP – click on the Start Menu \ Documents (for Classic Start Menu) or Start Menu \ My Recent Documents (for regular Start menu)

• In Vista – click on Start Menu \ Documents (for Classic Start menu) or click on Start Menu \ Recent Items (for normal Start menu)

4 – Use RecentFilesView Utility

This great utility from nirsoft.com displays the list of all recently opened files.

What makes this different from using Recent Documents (described in step 3), is this utility also list items stored in the registry in addition to the recent document folder.

Another reason, RecentFilesView utility, is a stand alone application, that requires no installation and will list items by date.

You can sort the view by date, open files from within the utility (double click on the file name). Also, RecentFilesView includes a Missing column that indicates if the file exists or has been deleted (a great feature).

Download RecentFilesView at nirsoft.com, unzip it, double click on RecentFilesView.exe to find that missing file.

5 – The Bullet Proof Method For Finding Files

So far, the above four methods assume you know, or at least have an idea of the file name, and you didn't disable or clear Windows Recent Documents feature.

But say you completely forgot the file name, where you saved it, or you prefer to protect your privacy and always clear your Recent Document list.

Let's go one step further and say you copied a file from another computer via mapped drive, CD or USB drive.

How can you find the forgotten file?

Search for it by modified date.

Using Windows search utility, you can search for the file and specify the date it was modified.

When a file is created on Windows, it's modified date attribute is set with the date and time….it was last changed (even if it's a new file…since that was the last time it was changed).

In XP:

• Click on Start \ Search and make sure you select All files and folders.

• In the "All or part of the file name" field, enter  the wildcard parameter *.* which will search for all files.

• Click on the arrow next to "When was it modified", and select the Specify dates radio button, then enter the date of when you saved the file (hopefully at least you remember the day)

In Vista:

• Click on Start and in the Start Search field enter the date you saved the file. For example to search for all files modified on 3/8/2009, enter: modified:3/8/2009

If the file is not found, press F3 to bring up Vista's advanced search window and click on the Advanced Search arrow.

• Make sure you select the Location (circled) of were to search for the file,  and the Date of the file (arrow) and click the Search button to begin the search.
  

Vista search takes a little bit to get familiar with, so if the search does not find the file, you may need to tweak the search parameters (such as including non index locations) for better results.

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If you are on a network (either at home or work) more than likely you are behind a router and your computer network adapter card (NIC) has been assigned a "local" IP address.

When you access the Internet from your computer, which is behind a router, and check your IP address at a site such as whatismyipaddress.com, what you are actually seeing is the Internet IP address that is assigned to the router (provided  by your ISP), not your computer IP address.

The only time your computer NIC adapter IP address can be the same as the Internet IP address is when your computer is connected directly to the Internet.

So now that you know the difference, how do I find my computer IP address? Here's three ways to find it…

1 – From The Command Line

You can easily see the IP address, at the command prompt, using the following command:

ipconfig

To open a command prompt, click on Start \ Run and enter ipconfig in the run box.

NOTE: All screen shots are from Vista and XP will look similar.

If your computer has more than one NIC adapter, you can view the IP Address for all NIC's using the same command with the following switch:

ipconfig /all

The above command will display all network adapter settings (NIC) similar to the above screen shot. Only the connected NIC's will have IP Address information (the disabled NIC's will show without any settings configured).

2 – From Windows GUI

If you are not comfortable using Windows command prompt, there are a few ways to see the IP address from the GUI.

The easiest method (in XP or Vista) is to click on Start \ Run and enter ncpa.cpl in the run box.

Then right click on the network adapter that has the active connection and select Status.

In the Status page, click on the Details… button to view the IP Address assigned to the NIC adapter.

You will then be able to see the IP address assigned to the NIC.

3 – SIW Utility

Instead of poking around your computer to find it's IP address, you can use the informative utility SIW (System Information for Windows), that requires no installation, and will display the IP address assigned to your network adapter card on your computer.

If you don't have the utility already, just download SIW, and unzip it.

Then double click on siw.exe and navigate to the Hardware section and click on Network Adapters.

Here, you will see all network adapters (NIC) installed in your computer. To find the active NIC, look at the Status field to see if the value is "Connected". Just below that field, you can view it's assigned IP Address.

Remember, computers don't have an IP address. Network Adapter Cards (NIC) do.  So it's possible that you can have more than one IP Address assigned for use with your Computer.

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Cannot delete [filename]: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use

or

Cannot delete [filename]: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again

No problem, you go ahead and close any running applications or programs you have open, and try to delete the file again.  Instead you get the same message and the file still can't be deleted.

More than likely a Windows process has locked the file, which cannot be deleted, until the process ends. This means you need to identify the process and kill it so you don't need to reboot your computer just to delete a file.

The easiest way to identify the process is to use a utility called OpenedFilesView from nirsoft.net.

OpenedFilesView is a standalone portable program that requires no installation and can be run from your hard drive or a USB drive.

Just download OpenedFilesView, unzip and double click on OpenedFilesView.exe.

To find the file that you are trying to delete, you can click on the Filename column and sort the list in alphabetical order or search for the file by selecting Edit \ Find.

Once you find the file, take a look at the Process Name column. This will identify the process that has the file in a locked state.

Right clicking on the file will allow you to either close the file handles or kill the process.

Start with closing the file handle. If the file is still locked, then kill the process.

If you feel that OpenedFilesView is providing too much information, you can select which columns are displayed from the View menu (Choose Columns).

The Options menu, allows you to control which files are shown such as hidden files, network files, Svchost files, etc.

Also notice in the Options menu, you can enable OpenedFilesView in the right click context menu while working in Windows Explorer.

OpenedFilesView is a great utility to have available when removing viruses spyware that like to hide themselves in obscure folders.

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One example is with right click context menus.  By right clicking on an object, f older or file, a menu is displayed allowing actions or commands to be executed.

But a lesser known or forgotten trick with right clicking, is to press the SHIFT key that displays extra options that are normally hidden.

NOTE: Screen shots shown below are from Vista. Some of the commands shown when using the shift key may or may not be available on XP machines.

For example when clicking on a file either on your desktop or in Windows Explorer, the normal context menu appears (depending on what programs you have installed, extra commands may also appear such as Winzip, AVG Antivirus, etc).

If you press the shift key when right clicking on the file (SHIFT + Right Click),  extra commands appear. In this case Pin to Start Menu, Add to Quick Launch, and Copy as Path.

Right clicking on a folder using the SHIFT key also unhides a couple of extra command. With folders, the Open Command Window Here and Copy as Path commands appear.

Now, you are not limited to having these commands appear when selecting a single file or folder.

When selecting multiple files, the same set of command options appear with one exception. The Share command is not available with multiple files selected.

The same behavior occurs when selecting multiple folders. Copy as Path appears while Open Command Window Here disappears.

Having extra command options appear using the SHIFT key while right clicking also functions on some objects.

For example, when clicking on your desktop, the Open Command Window Here command appears.

Right Clicking on an empty space in Windows Explorer also produces the same result.

These are some examples of how hidden shortcuts are built into Windows operating system that can make computing life a lot easier.

Know of any more? Leave a comment and let us know!

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