Write A Batch File To Start Program In Startup

You can start your computer applications automatically and control the sequence of the programs when your computer comes up.

Here we consider you want to run three different applications (WordPad, calculator, and notepad) and minimized automatically with sequence at windows startup. However, you can write a batch file to do the job for you. Open any text editor like notepad and type the following command.

start /min wordpad.exe start /min calc.exe start /min notepad.exe

Now choose the option, Save As to save this file with .bat extension. For example filename.bat.

Now Right- click on Start button and choose open > Double click Programs > here open Startup folder. Now drag your .bat file in the Startup folder and close the dialog box.

Next time When you restart the computer, WordPad, Calc will start first and then Notepad. You won't see the batch file run because you told it to run minimized.

Logging in as Administrator

If you want to log in as the Administrator of your computer even though it does not show up in the listing when you start up the computer. Here is the tip:

• Hold down the [Ctrl] + [Alt] keys and press [Del] key twice. This will bring up the normal login dialog box and you can log on as "Administrator".

• To unhide the Administrator account so that it shows up every time. Click "Start > Run" and type "regedit"(without quotes) and press Enter. Go to
  

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ SpecialAccount\UserList

Unhide the Administrator Key by giving it a Value of "1". You will now see it appearing as an option the next time you log in to your computer.

Moving to a New Computer ? Plan Ahead and Avoid Problems

So you’ve finally decided to upgrade and purchase a new computer.

You’ll soon get rid of that old computer in favor of a brand new desktop or laptop computer with the fastest processor, lots of RAM and hundreds of gigs of storage.

Everyone in the family is excited about the new computer except for mom – she isn’t sure where to keep that old PC as the store room is already crowded and there’s no storage space available in any of the overhead shelves.

You therefore decide to sell that used computer on eBay and if that doesn’t work out (resale prices of second hand computers can be dismally low), you’ll donate it to a school or charity organization that will pass on the machine to someone in need.

Related: Things You Can Do with the Old Computer

Excellent decision but before you dispose the old computer, there are some very important points to take note of – all your important (and sometimes confidential) data like Office documents, family pictures, videos, emails, MP3 audio collection, internet bookmarks, software programs, address book, etc. are still residing on its hard drive.

You would therefore want to transfer all such data from the old computer to the new one and then also ensure (as a security measure) that you have erased everything off the old computer’s hard drive.

Migrate data from old to new computer – Once your new computer is up and running, you can bring the data from the old system to the new one through a USB data transfer cable – they are cheap and easily available at any computer accessories store.

Another option is burn data from old system onto one or more DVD (or CD ROM) disks. I generally put all the required data inside the My Documents folder and burn it to DVD(s).

You can then create a report of all software programs installed on the old computer using a free utility called Belarc Advisor (review of Belarc) – this helps when you want to maintain a consistent computing environment and don’t want to miss using any of these useful utilities that were on the old system.

Related: Backup Your Software License Keys

To migrate all your internet bookmarks, open the web browser (like IE or Firefox) and export favorites to an HTML file. Firefox users can try the Google Browser Sync extension (Browser Sync review) to save bookmarks and even passwords. If you use a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook, Eudora or Thunderbird, export all the emails, contacts and calendar to a file and put in the backup folder.

Also remember to transfer any fonts (file like .ttf) that you may have purchased and downloaded from the Internet. If you use an offline RSS reader like FeedDemon (FeedDemon review), export your RSS reading list as an OPML file else you’ll lose the subscriptions.

And if you share the habit of saving everything on the Windows Desktop, do remember to copy the desktop folder in My Documents because you’ll surely need them in the new PC.

Post-data transfer - Once you have moved all this data to the new computer via DVDs or an Ethernet cross over cable or the USB data transfer cable, don’t call eBay or charity yet. Keep the old PC in your possession for some more time until you are confident that everything you may need from the old computer is now available in the new system.

Related: Synchronize Files, Folders across Computers

And when it’s time to sell or donate, it is must that you spend some time cleaning the old system – I don’t mean wiping dust off the monitor or the keyboard coffee stains, it’s about cleaning your personal information from the computer’s hard drive – that includes information like your medical records, honeymoon pictures, credit card statements, emails, web browsing history, confidential documents, etc.

Simply erasing stuff by hitting the delete key (or emptying the recycle bin) won’t delete your data permanently from the hard drive – it could still exist on the hard drive and experts (or hackers) will have no problems recovering (also called undelete) those private files.

If you skip this step, you are indirectly exposing yourself to the risk of identity theft. Fortunately, there are some excellent tools that can help wipe everything off your hard-disk (so data cannot be recovered) and one such popular utility is Darik’s Boot and Nuke available at Sourceforge.

This program installs on a Floppy disk or a USB drive or you burn it into a CD. When you are ready to say goodbye to the old computer, put the Darik’s Boot and Nuke floppy (or CD) into the computer and change the boot order of the computer to make CD or Floppy drive first in the boot order. Restart and every bit of data on the old machine will be gone forever.

Before donating the computer, you can install a copy of Ubuntu Linux but if your old computer came bundled with an OEM license (say it came pre-installed with Windows XP and other software like Nero, Norton Antivirus, etc), it’s a good idea to reinstall the OS using the disk that came with the system.

OEM licenses are only valid when used on the original OEM machine on which it was first installed so the license will go waste if you donate the computer without installing the OS.

How To Defrag Computer

Every computer has a hard drive that needs to be reorganized and optimized. This is why you need to know how to defrag computer. First of all, you need to know why you would need to defrag a computer. Once you understand why you need to, I will outline the steps to defragging your computer with the standard defrag program in Windows. This article will aim to educate you on how a hard disk get fragmented and then the steps on how to defrag computer.

So why do you need to defrag your hard drive? First of all, a hard drive is composed of several disks or platters. When data gets written to the hard drive, it is written in a continuous fashion. However, when files get deleted and filled with other data, existing data will prevent a continuous stream of data on a disk. Over time, files would get broken up thus resulting in a large amount of fragmented data that is spread across platters on the hard drive. When you defrag computer, you are basically reorganizing the files so that they are continuous stream. This will increase performance by as much as 200% depending on fragmented your PC is. It also alleviates any system errors caused by file fragmentation.

Although there are tools you can buy that do ongoing defragmentation, you can easily do this task manually every so often to keep your hard drive optimized. Here are the steps on how to defrag computer on a Windows 2000/XP/2003 machine:

Step 1: Open "My Computer"
Step 2: Right-click a drive and click properties
Step 3: Click on the "Tools" tab
Step 4: Look for the "Defragmentation" section and click "Defragment Now"
Step 5: This will open the "Disk Defragmenter". Select a drive and click "Defragment"

Step 6: You can see the visual representation of the files in your hard drive. Once they are in continuous colors, you are finished!

I've just told you about the steps on how to defrag computer. Now that you understand how files get fragment, you can see how performance can affected. The steps to defragging your comptuer should be done at least once a month to keep your hard drive optimized. Defragging your computer should be one of the many tasks to having a healthy computer.

Erase Every Byte of Information on Your HDDs Even Without a Computer

It's quite a commonly-known fact that the information stored onto any HDD is not completely lost, even if said device is software-formatted and it might be retrieved after the users dispose of the respective storage solution. However, in order to avoid this undesired situation, the people over at WiebeTech have created the Drive eRazer, a device that allows the users to completely erase the information on any drive, without requiring the presence of a computer..

One of the most important selling points of the

Drive eRazer is the fact that it's actually faster than comparable software solutions, writing data at a sustained rate of more than 35MB/s, which means that a 250GB drive would be fully erased in under two hours. Furthermore, the device is fairly simple to use, since all the users have to do is simply connect it to a drive and flip a switch.The Drive eRazer writes over every bit of a drive. After it's done, there's nothing left to recover. A standard single-pass mode writes one time across the whole disk, deleting blocks including partitions and Host Protected Areas. Verification is also performed.For those who want even more assurance, several Pro models are also available, these advanced versions being capable of more than one pass with random characters. Thus, they can delete all blocks including partitions and Host Protected Areas, even the ones normally invisible to operating systems. They automatically check for and remove DCOs and write to every sector of the disk using different data each pass. The verification is done after the last pass."As many people discover too late, trashing a file does not erase it from a hard drive," said James Wiebe, president/CEO of WiebeTech. "It is fairly easy for someone else to recover files from used hard drives. As a test, we bought used drives on eBay and recovered everything from corporate data to email conversations to financial data to legal documents. Drive eRazer is the easiest, most economical solution available to prevent others from seeing your files."
Enlarge pictureThe device is available in 4 versions: the standard/pro versions for 3.5-inch IDE/PATA drives, priced at around 100/150 US dollars, as well as a pro version for 2.5-inch IDE/PATA drives (also priced at 150 US dollars) and a pro version that works with both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA or IDE/PATA drives, which retails for around 200 US dollars.