With the recent release of Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) people are finding a nice surprise after installing the service pack.
More free disk space.
Apparently Vista SP2 includes a clean up tool (Compcln.exe) that recovers hard disk space by permanently deleting previous versions of files such as RTM, SP1 uninstall files and restore points that are being serviced by SP2.
read more: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Recovers Disk Space With Cleanup Tool
In a previous tip, I showed you how you can use Firefox to browse your hard drive for files and folders. This tip works great when you want to keep the number of applications open to a minimum or you are using Firefox on a portable USB Drive
read more: FireFox Tip: Use Drag And Drop To View Files And Play MP3 Music
Ever have an application that just hangs and never returns to normal or terminate?
So you open up Windows Task Manager, find the application process, right click on it and select End Process.
Over time, your computer will accumulate numerous items, such as files, folders, applications or programs. While you can easily identify when a folder or file was accessed or modified simply by using Windows Explorers, identifying when applications or programs where last accessed, isn't as easy to find.
read more: Find Out When You Last Accessed Windows Programs Or Aplications
Mapping a drive to a share on a remote computer can be a big time saver when you need to access files and folders remotely. Using Windows Explorer, you can easily map the drive to the share on a remote computer when needed.
read more: How To Create A Windows Batch File To Map Multiple Drives At Once
Here's a quick tip if you have a file that you may not want anyone to change the contents or modify. In other words make the file read only.
Now this is not something that will completely prevent someone from changing the contents of the file, but I find it to be useful, more like a reminder) in situations where I want to prevent myself from changing the file accidentally.
One change in Vista's Windows Explorer that I really like is the addition of filters. Filters allow you to choose how you want contents of a folder displayed, which makes finding files much easier, especially in large folders and sub-folders. One example of using filters is when you need to find files by their file type extension (exe, mp3, doc, etc…).
read more: Use Vista Windows Explorer Filters To Find Different File Types In Large Folders
For many Windows users, the thought of using the Command Prompt is either a scary experience or something that they will never need. But for some, the command prompt is a powerful tool that can be far more useful than many graphical tools available in Windows.
