Windows Vista got bad press due to its stability issues, but after Microsoft released a few services packs, the operating system became stable, trustworthy and not half bad.
If you have a Windows Vista machine in the house and you want give it a performance boost, there are a number of simple ways to do so.
Here are our tips to help speed up Vista.
1. Turn off automatic defrag
Having a well defragmented disk improves performance, but background defragmenting can slow your machine down temporarily. Vista schedules disk defragmenting by default. However, you may need to use your PC while it's carrying out this task. You can do this, but there'll be a performance hit.

If this is likely to be a problem, turn off scheduling by launching Disk Defragmenter, then clearing the box marked 'Run on a schedule (recommended)'. You'll need to run Defragmenter manually, so remember to do it once a month.
2. Optimise SATA hard drives
Most PCs running Windows Vista will have SATA hard drives installed. If yours does, you can improve its performance by enabling Advanced Performance on the drive.
Do this by launching Device Manager (click 'Start', right-click 'Computer', select 'Properties' and then choose 'Device manager' from the left-hand pane) and expanding 'Disk drives'. Right-click your SATA drive and then choose 'Properties'. Move to the 'Policies' tab.
Write caching should already be enabled on the disk, but you'll need to tick the 'Advanced Performance' box.
Remember, you should only apply this change on laptops with batteries, or desktop PCs with uninterruptible power supplies, because it's possible to lose data during a write operation if there's a power failure.
3. Enable Reliability Monitor

It's always a good idea to monitor your system to see if your activities have added to its stability or, more likely, degraded it. The Reliability Monitor displays a helpful graph that shows system stability over time, so you can see how each action has affected your computer.
To launch it, open Control Panel and choose 'System and maintenance | Performance rating and tools | Advanced tools | Open Reliability and Performance Monitor'.
Now choose 'Reliability Monitor' in the left-hand pane. Below the graph is a system stability report that lists each of the most recent events and failures for you.
4. Check the Event Viewer

Event Viewer helps you identify any processes that may be failing and introducing delays into the system. To access it, click 'Start', then right-click 'Computer' and choose 'Manage', then opt to continue. This launches the Computer Management console.
Now select 'Event Viewer', followed by 'Windows Logs'. Here, you'll find logs for Applications, Security, System, Setup and Forwarded Events. Select one of these logs to see each recorded event. These events are provided in order, with the most recent one appearing first.
Any errors are flagged for your attention with an icon showing a white cross on a red background, while warnings are illustrated with a yellow icon. Right-click an event and choose 'Event Properties'.
The resulting dialog presents details of the event, including a brief description of what happened, plus a link to further information if any is available.
5. Identify problems with a System Health Report
In Control Panel, choose 'System and maintenance | Performance information and tools | Advanced tools'. Click 'Generate a system health report' and select the option to continue if prompted.
The tool collects information from the Reliability and Performance Monitor to make the report. This lists potential problems like low disk space and suggests fixes.
6. Download Autoruns
Autoruns is a zip file, which you'll need to extract before you can run it. Open it in Vista and extract all the files.
Now launch 'Autoruns.exe'. Each tab displays software that runs automatically according to category. The 'Logon' tab shows those that start when you log into Windows. This includes software that's part of Windows itself, so take care when making alterations.
To disable an entry, select it and clear the tick box next to it. The 'Drivers' tab shows all the device drivers installed on your system. To see if a driver is causing problems, disable it by unticking its box. To delete an entry completely, select it and choose 'Entry | Delete'.
7. Defrag the Registry
Improve performance by optimising the Registrywith the free registry defragmenting tool Registry Defrag. When it's installed, launch the program and click 'Analyse Registry'.
Free Registry Defrag takes a few minutes to examine your Registry. It calculates how much space can be saved by defragging and compacting it. You'll see an estimate of the saving once analysis is complete.
Click 'Compact/Defrag Registry'. Once the process is complete (it may take a while), you'll be asked to reboot your computer to put the new leaner, meaner Registry into use. Click 'OK' to do so.
8. Disable printer sharing
Windows Explorer can slow down while it looks for shared printers. If you don't need to share a printer, you can claw back speed by turning off printer sharing. Choose 'Start | Network | Network and Sharing Center'. Click the icon next to 'Printer sharing' to turn it off .
9. Trim Start menu search

There are several ways to improve the speed of start menu searches. First, remove Messenger chats and emails from the search.
Go to Control Panel and choose 'Appearance and personalization | Customize the Start menu | Customize'. Scroll to 'Search communication' and clear its box. You can also opt to exclude favourites, history and your files here if you wish.
10. Indexing options
Indexing your hard drive hits performance, but makes finding files and folders much faster. It makes sense to ensure that only the areas of your hard drive that you're likely to search are indexed.
Click 'Start', and type indexing options into the search bar and press [Enter]. This shows the current locations that have been indexed. To change these, click 'Modify', followed by 'Show all locations'. Clear the boxes next to any of the locations that you don't want to index.
This will make them harder to search, but will improve general performance. You can always reinstate any area that you need to search later on.
11. Use advanced indexing
You can also opt to remove certain file types from the index to improve search speed and reduce the performance hit background indexing can create. Go back to Indexing Options as above and click the 'Advanced' button.
This launches a dialog that enables you to change more indexing configurations. On the 'File types' tab, you can opt to add or remove certain file extensions from indexing. Consider removing executables and files that you're unlikely to search for.
12. Turn off indexing
If you're convinced that you'll never want to search your hard drive, you can gain a little performance by disabling indexing. Indexing uses up system resources which could otherwise boost performance. For most users, the minor hit on performance is more than enough to compensate for being able to find the files they want quickly.
However, you can turn it off if you want to squeeze out a little more performance. Click 'Start | Computer' and right-click your hard drive. Choose 'Properties'. and on the 'General' tab, clear the box marked 'Index this drive' for a faster machine in the future.
13. Deactivate User Account Control
User Account Control puts in a layer of security that stops you from making system changes without confirming them. However, if you're an experienced user, it can simply serve to slow you down.
To turn this feature off , open Control Panel and choose 'User Accounts and Family Safety | User Accounts | Turn User Account Control on or off .' Clear the box marked 'Use User Account Control' to protect your computer. Click 'OK' and reboot.
14. Remote differential compression
This is a useful service if you move files around a network a lot, but if you don't, it uses up resources needlessly.
Open 'Control Panel', followed by 'Programs'. Choose 'Turn Windows features on and off '. Clear the box next to 'Remote differential compression'. Click 'OK'.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/14-tips-and-tricks-to-speed-up-vista-936006?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/936006 Joe Cassels Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
What we know about Windows 8 is incomplete and unofficial - garnered from job postings, rumours and the slides allegedly leaked in June 2010 by a software engineer at HP responsible for OEM relations.
The slides include plenty of marketing ideas rather than technical details, they show that Microsoft has its eye on what Apple is doing to make its operating systems so popular and they declare themselves a work in progress.
Not only is every page marked 'this is not a plan of record' but the opening discussion includes the line "reality: there are currently more ideas than there is time to implement them". That's especially true if the Windows 8 release date is as soon as we think it might be.
Windows 8 release date
Windows 8, say the slides, will be available "for the holiday" - but not which one.
There's a timeline that doesn't have many dates - the one suggesting that the coding would begin in June 2010 is suspect when some sources say the M1 (milestone 1 build) is already done and there's what we assume is a typo that we'd correct to say the third Forum (rather than the second) would be in July. (There are several points where the slides are incomplete or confusing; for instance a pointed reference to "creating great Dell + Windows Experiences" in a deck that otherwise tips the hat - and appears to have been intended for - HP.)
The timeline put the first beta of IE9 in August 2010, along with the shipping date for Windows Live Wave 4 which fits other rumours and positions them just after the third Forum.
UPDATE: The first beta of IE9 arrived in September 2010 and Windows Live Wave 4 was released in June 2010.
That makes the forums three-to five months apart; assuming an average of four months - and assuming the chart is to scale and that the dates don't slip - that puts Windows 8 beta release date a little before March 2011 and Windows 8 RTM shortly after July 2011 (a date suggested on the blog of a now-ex Microsoft employee which you can find preserved, with the boxed version following in autumn 2011 - for the holiday).
We've said before that we expect Windows 8 release date to be in early 2012 and we don't expect Microsoft to talk about a date until the Milestone 3 build, which would be around November 2010 by these calculations.
UPDATE: Milestone 3 came a little later than we expected: WinRumors reported on 1 Mar 2011 that the first Windows 8 Milestone 3 build has been compiled by Microsoft. We're not expecting a Windows 8 beta release date some time in summer 2011.
There are several statistics in the leaked slides (typical RAM, network connected TVs, mobile broadband penetration and 4G deployment) that talk about the specs that will be common - in 2012.
Interestingly, the timeline shows Windows Live Wave 5 with a short development cycle that finishes before Windows 8; that matches suggestions that Live will offer more cloud services for Windows 8.
UPDATE: On 25 October 2010, Microsoft Netherlands said "it will take about two years before 'Windows 8' [is] on the market."
UPDATE: On February 21 2011, ZDNet published a slide showing the internal Windows 8 roadmap. Given leaked information on some sites around current build information, the author of the ZDNet piece surmises that Windows 8 will see a mid-2010 RTM.
Windows 8 system requirements
Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 have system requirements of a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. Vista requires 15GB of free hard drive space, and Windows 7 requires 16GB.
Given that there's been no real jump in requirements from Windows Vista to 7 (unlike the jump from XP to Vista, where XP required a 233MHz processor and 64MB of RAM) we'd expect Windows 8 to happily run on a system that can run Windows 7.
Windows 8 price
Windows 7 Home Premium costs £99 for an upgrade copy and £149 for the full version. Expect the Windows 8 price to be similar.
Windows 8 interface
Although no final Windows 8 screenshots have surfaced (it's too early for those), on 17 March 2011, we reported that Windows 8 could offer a cut-down version of its user interface, taking on some design elements from the Windows Phone 7 UI in the form of Aero Lite.
Windows 8 features
The 'fundamentals' Microsoft is aiming for with Windows 8 include "a fast on/off experience, responsiveness, and a great level of reliability from the start".
The 'big three' are boot time, shutdown time and battery life ("Windows 8 PCs turn on fast, nearly instantly in some cases, and are ready to work without any long or unexpected delays") but Microsoft is also thinking about how long it takes to get things done - how long until you read your first email, see the home page in your browser or start playing media. PCs should feel like an appliance that's ready to use as soon as you turn on the power.

FASTER STARTUP: Windows 8 will show you what slows down startup and if removing an app you don't use improves it
Mobile PCs should resume 'instantly' from sleep (in under a second from S3 sleep), and booting up will be faster because of caching, with a boot layout prefetcher and the ReadyBoost cache persisting even when you reboot.
As only 9% of people currently use hibernate (which will work more quickly in Windows 8 because system information will be saved and compressed in parallel), Windows 8 will have a new Logoff and Hibernate combination that closes your apps like shutting the PC down does and refreshes your desktop like restarting does, but actually caches drivers, system services, devices and much of the core system the way hibernation does.
Turning the PC back on will take about half the time a cold boot needs (and the slides point out that on many PCs the power-on tests take longer than the Windows startup, so BIOS makers need to shape up).
It will be the default option but it won't be called Logoff and Hibernate; Microsoft is debating terms like Shutdown, Turn Off, Power Down and thinking through how the other options for turning the PC off will show up in the interface.
You'll be able to use an encrypting hard drive to boot Windows 8 and they'll integrate with BitLocker and third-party security apps.
Improving battery life will be based on some deep changes to the kernel; removing an interrupt in the kernel scheduler completely and removing more of the timers that interrupt Windows when it's trying to save power.
Windows 8 might get the same option for powering down unused areas of memory to save power that's on the cards for Windows Server, it will block disk reads and writes and some CPU access when you're not doing anything on your PC and PCI devices can turn off completely when they're not in use (assuming the drivers for specific devices support it).
Windows 7 stopped laptops waking up automatically when they're not plugged in; Windows 8 will get a new 'intelligent alarm' that can wake them up for things like virus scans, but only if they're plugged in.
OEMs will get new test tools that check the performance, reliability, security and Windows Logo compatibility of the PC, as well as measuring performance in Outlook and IE. And depending on whether partners have "concerns" about it, Microsoft might give the same tools to journalists, IT pros and users.
Windows 8 multimedia
Windows 8 will have better media playback and recording, but it will balance using hardware acceleration to save battery life and using the CPU when it gives a better result.
Audio will use hardware acceleration more because that does improve battery life. There will be post-processing to take out blur, noise and shakey video filmed on a phone or webcam, and support for more codecs including AVC and as-yet-undetermined 3D video codecs (stereoscopic3D support is coming, for games and for 3D movies in Media Center, but there are format issues).
Microsoft talks about sharing 'with nearby devices'; one way that will work is adding the Play To option currently in Windows Media Player to the browser for HTML 5 audio and video content, so you can play it on any device that supports DLNA, another is APIs to let other software do the same.
That will work with DRM content, if it's protected with DTCP-IP (digital transmission content protection over IP) or Microsoft's own PlayReady and hardware acceleration will speed up DRM decoding.
There's also a new 'remote display' option that will let you send your screen from a laptop to a large monitor (which will use DirectX hardware acceleration and the same multimonitor interface that's already in Windows 7, but for wireless displays as well, which could be an Internet-connected TV - Microsoft refers to 35% of TVs having network connectivity by 2012 and wonders whether to prioritise Internet TV over further improvements to broadcast TV).
Windows 8 Help and Support
In Windows XP the Help and Support centre was a branded hub of tools and links; in Windows 7 it's far more minimal. Windows 8 will go back to the branded experience, with integrated search for support forums run by your PC manufacturer but add the Windows 7 troubleshooters.
It will also link better with the Action Center, with tools that show more clearly what's happening on your PC; what apps are running, what resources are being used (like Task Manager showing which apps are using the most network bandwidth), how and when things have changed and what they can do about it. It will also include an Application Management tool that will let you find what apps are causing performance problems and adjust or remove them.

IMPROVED TASK MANAGER: Task manager will make it easier to see why an app might not be performing; here the Zune software is using all the network bandwidth to download podcasts, so video in the browser keeps pausing. We hope the white on black isn't the final design!
The Windows pre-boot recovery environment will be simpler, combining the safe mode and 'last known good' options into one interface. It will use what Microsoft calls 'superboot' to remove malware and rootkits
If you have to reset your PC, Windows 8 will restore "all the files settings and even the applications" although you'll have to go to the Windows Store to download apps and get a list of apps that didn't come from the store, so it's not clear how automatic this will actually be.
Devices matter (almost) as much as PCs
One of the reasons that Windows took off in the first place was working more easily with devices - in those days, printers. Support for a wide range of devices is one of the reasons it's hard to other OSes to challenge Windows but Microsoft would like to get hardware manufacturers to do more with the sensor platform and DeviceStage interface it introduced in Windows 7.
With Windows 8, Microsoft wants to see "PCs use location and sensors to enhance a rich array of premium experiences. Users are not burdened with cumbersome tasks that Windows can accomplish on its own. Users are neither annoyed or disturbed by the actions the PC takes. Instead, the PC's behaviour becomes integrated into users' routine workflows. Devices connect faster and work better on Windows 8 than on any other operating system."
The 'current thinking' is for Windows 8 to include Microsoft's own Wi-Fi location service Orion (which has 50-100m accuracy in North America and Western Europe but falls back to using the location associated with IP addresses elsewhere, which can be as bad as 25km).
Orion will be used in Windows Phone 7 (as well as Hawaii, a Microsoft Research project to build cloud-enabled mobile apps which refers to Orion as a 'prototype service'). Microsoft partnered with Navizon in March to use their Wi-Fi and mobile network location database but the slides claim that Orion is buying a bigger database than Navizon's 15 million access points, giving it 40 million compared to Google's 48 million (neither matches the 120 million Skyhook gives the iPhone).
Location will be available to the browser as well as to any app that's written to use it (music players as well as mapping tools), and web apps will get access to webcams.
Microsoft is emphasising the privacy aspect of location and webcam use, with mockups of how apps can ask for location and users can choose to deny it or only allow it once. And it's also asking PC manufacturers how many devices they plan to put GPS in and offering a Device Stage interface for using a PND like a Garmin nuvi as a GPS source for your PC.

LOCATION PRIVACY: Web apps can see your location and use your webcam – but you get to control that to protect your privacy
As we've said before, Device Stage will become the standard way you work with devices; Microsoft previewed the options you'll get with a featurephone and a webcam as well as GPS.
Along with GPS, Microsoft is expecting PCs to include infrared sensors as well as the ambient light sensors that are becoming common, and the accelerometers that are in tablets with rotating screens.
Put that together and the PC could know which way up it is, whether there's anyone in front of it - or near it and what the lighting is like in the room. So when you walk into the room your PC notices and wakes itself up so by the time you sit down the webcam is ready to recognise you - and no waiting or having to line your face up with a box on screen.
If this works, the camera will pick your face out of the room, like Photo Gallery finding a face in a picture (hopefully without thinking the face in a picture on the wall is you). When you walk away it goes back to sleep again.
We like the idea of rotation lock buttons on 'Lap PCs' so you can move them around to control a game without flipping he screen repeatedly; again, if you look away from the game, Microsoft envisages it pausing automatically and if you pass a slate to someone it will switch to their account automatically.
What's in: USB 3, Bluetooth hands free and headset profiles (mono and stereo audio).
What's out: Microsoft has no plans to support Bluetooth 3.0 + High Speed, 1394 might be deprecated and Microsoft seems to expect USB 2 ports to be phased out in favour of USB 3 within the lifetime of Windows 8.
What's under consideration: Bluetooth Low Energy (from Bluetooth 4.0). What's not mentioned: Intel LightPeak, although Microsoft does ask if it's missing anything on its list of connectivity.
Windows 8 will know who you are
With better ways to log in to your PC, like your face, Microsoft is considering giving Windows 8 a way to "securely store usernames and passwords, simplifying the online experience".
Your Windows account might connect more directly to the cloud than just having a Windows Live ID, logging into web sites on your behalf; there's very little detail on this but it could revive the CardSpace technology introduced in Vista but not widely adopted.

FACE LOGIN: Forget passwords; Windows 8 will use the webcam to find and recognise your face (probably)
Put it all together and you get some welcome improvements. It's impossible to say if Microsoft can come up with a simple enough programming system to appeal to the developers it wants to create Windows apps to rival Apple's App Store.
Until we see some code in action it's also hard to say if the 'instant on' and better battery life will transform the PC experience to compete with lightweight systems based on Android (or if Microsoft can deliver them) and make the PC scale from the tablet to the heavyweight systems we have today – which Windows has to do if it's going to stay the dominant PC OS.
Everything else here is incremental – as it would have to be if Microsoft really expects to release Windows 8 in 2011, but it's potentially disappointing if it comes in 2012 and there's nothing else exciting in Windows 8.
Windows 8 gaming
Microsoft hopes to use Windows 8 to relaunch itself at the forefront of PC gaming, with Redmond ready to put its weight behind the platform once more.
"Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming," a source told TechRadar. "Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS."
A Windows app store
More than 30 app stores have launched in the last year and Microsoft isn't the only company copying Apple here; Intel has its own app store for Atom PCs. PC makers like the idea - apparently at the first forum they commented that it "can't happen soon enough".
With an app store, Microsoft hopes to attract more of the type of developers who are currently building smartphone apps and it wants them to create apps that make Windows the best place to use web apps (a job advert last October claimed "we will blend the best of the web and the rich client by creating a new model for modern web applications to rock on Windows".)
According to the slides, "Currently the indication is that app development will move to the Web. There is significant opportunity for Microsoft if hardware capabilities, and OS services and Web could be integrated into a hobbyist developer toolset."
The 'tailored experiences' Microsoft talks about for Windows 8 sound like smartphone apps; the checklist includes fast installation and updates for engaging, social, extensible, ad-supported or 'freemium' apps.
If smartphone-style apps sound too simple to be worthwhile on Windows, Microsoft wants apps to be extensible so you can share information between them - perhaps using a mix of simple apps together. It sounds like the 'mashups' that we were all going to be making online until it turned out you'd have to learn to program.
The Windows Store will be branded and optimised for each PC manufacturer. Your settings will follow you from PC to PC, as will your apps (although some slides refer to this as a possibility rather than a definite plan) - but you'd need an HP ID to log into the 'HP Store powered by Windows' and get your HP-specific apps. Microsoft doesn't plan to make money from the store; the slides call it "revenue neutral".
Windows 8 tablets
The leaked slides are aimed at PC manufacturers who are interested in new form factors - and in getting a share of the iPad market - so it's no surprise one of the key PC form factors is a 9" slate (which Microsoft, having obviously got the point of all those iPad ads, is calling a Lap PC), optimised for web and media, casual gaming, reading and sorting email, IM and social networking.

LAP PC: Using the Lap PC to read a magazine and play a driving game
Microsoft promises big improvements to the on-screen keyboard: it will be "easily launched, text prediction is more accurate, the UI is more usable, and throughput is increased for everyone".

• Windows 8 tablets rumours: what you need to know

There's also the workhorse PC (which is also referred to as a laptop, because Microsoft is only talking about consumers and not business users) and the family hub (an all-in-one touchscreen system that can go in the kitchen or the living room as a media centre) which is for casual gaming, web and media as well as more demanding apps like organising and manipulating media.
Key to making a successful Windows tablet is apps with user interfaces that change depending on the form factor (touch and gestures instead of keyboard and mouse), but Microsoft is also looking at stereoscopic 3D and high colour displays and natural input that uses touch, voice, 3D gestures ("on the horizon"), and facial recognition.

3D SUPPORT: Windows 8 will play 3D movies and games, but don't ask Microsoft to pick its favourite format yet
Optimising "for smaller screens" will help netbook users as well; Windows 7 gets key dialog boxes to fit on a small screen but not all apps do.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/windows-8-everything-you-need-to-know-701764?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/701764 Mary Branscombe Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:08:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
Information about Android 3.0 - Android Honeycomb - is coming thick and fast now as a raft of Android 3.0 tablets are lined up for release this year.
Here's what we know about Android 3.0 so far.
On 20 October, we reported that Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets were rumoured to be heading out to engineers in time for Christmas. This resulted in a huge range of tablets arriving at CES 2011, with UK release dates later in the year, but none of the tablets on show were actually running Android 3.0.
Android 3.0 release date
Android 3.0 release date is looking like early 2011.
In a video on All Things Digital posted on 7 December 2010 Google's Andy Rubin showed off a prototype Motorola Android 3.0 tablet and confirmed that the Android 3.0 release date will be "some time next year".
As of mid-February 2011, we've seen Android 3.0 running on a wide range of tablets which are all due out soon, which means Android 3.0 is very nearly ready for launch. We're guessing on a release date some time in March/April.
Android 3.0 features and specifications
UPDATE: As we reported on 9 March 2011, Google is working on integrating Google Voice into Android 3.0. The announcement was made by a Google employee called Zeke who posted on the Google Voice forum: "As you've noticed, Google Voice isn't available for Honeycomb yet. We're working on it, and I'll update this thread as more info is available."
As we reported in July 2010, a Russian podcast detailed how Android 3.0 Honeycomb will be restricted to high-end handsets and tablets. The podcast explained that Android 3.0 phones will require at least a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 3.5-inch or larger displays.
A Korean electronics firm then claimed that Android 3.0 will actually require a dual-core processor to run. Google's Dan Morrill scotched the rumours in a tweet, saying "there's no hard minimum processor requirement for Honeycomb. Trust me, if there were I'd know."
According to the Google Mobile Blog, Android 3.0 has had a huge amount of user interface refinement, and is designed specifically for large-screen devices (so, tablets). Widgets have been made more interactive, and the Home screen has received a snazzy 3D makeover.
The new Chrome browser in particular has received some major polish, with the addition of tabbed browsing, auto-fill, syncing with desktop versions of Chrome and private browsing all bringing it closer to the browsing features of a PC.
Android Market is now also web based and it's designed for the tablet - you can purchase directly from here and finally search more comprehensively for applications.
'Bubbled' widgets are also being introduced - they can present multiple stories, videos, emails or books without you having to enter the application, giving easy access to your important information without entering any apps.
Also, all applications will be able to use the fragmentation mode, meaning that, like Gmail, things like Twitter will be able to have side by side information in the same app. Support for in-app purchases is coming too.
Google has detailed more of the new features in this video:

Android 3.0 is also set to offer music syncing, as we reported on 18 January 2011.The 'sync music' option could enable Android 3.0 devices to sync local music with cloud-based services.
Android 3.0 phones
One of the first Android 3.0 phones could be the Samsung Galaxy S2 if another rumour is to be believed. However, in our hands on Samsung Galaxy S2 review from Mobile World Congress the S2 was confirmed as having the 'latest generation of Android on it', with the current iteration running Android 2.3.1.
On 27 October 2010, reports appeared that Google was planning to release an Android 3.0 powered Nexus Two with Carphone Warehouse, although we now know that the next Nexus - called the Nexus S and available through Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy - is running Android 2.3. Check out our Google Nexus S review for the lowdown.
It's also been claimed that the PSP Phone will be running Android 3.0, but again, the version we got hands on with - now officially called the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, was running Android 2.3.
So where are the Android 3.0 phones? After a chat TechRadar had with Google in January 2011, it seems quite possible that Android 3.0 is a tablet-only OS and will never be coming to mobile phones.
On 16 March 2011, a leaked picture of the HTC Pyramid surfaced on XDA.cn, a Chinese site. XDA also claimed that the phone would launch with Android 3.0, but we'd take that rumour with a large pinch of salt as Android 3.0 is increasingly looking to be tablet-specific.
Android 3.0 tablets
Acer has announced 7- and 10-inch Android tablets which are slated for release in April 2011. They'll be running Android 3.0. The two tablets are the Acer Iconia Tab A100 and the Acer Iconia Tab A500.
Asus announced a range of tablets at CES, including the 7-inch Eee Pad MeMO, which comes with a capacitive stylus for use with a dedicated note-taking app.
Pansonic has announced the Viera Tablet for use with the company's connected TVs, though it's unclear whether it will use Android 3.0 or an earlier version.
The Motorola Android 3.0 prototype that Andy Rubin showed off last year surfaced as the Motorola Xoom, now confirmed to be sporting a dual-core processor 10.1-inch screen, front- and rear-facing cameras and HD video recording. We were able to get some time with it at CES, and at MWC 2011 we brought you our Hands on: Motorola Xoom review.
LG also got in on the Android 3.0 game at CES, launching the T-Mobile G-Slate. The LG Optimus Pad is on its way too. We played with the Optimus Pad at MWC 2011 for our Hands on: LG Optimus Pad review.

We're also going to see a Honeycomb tablet in the form of the HTC Flyer (see our Hands on: HTC Flyer review) and the Dell Streak 10.
We got hands-on time with the Android 3.0 Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at Mobile World Congress. The new Tab features a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU and a luxurious 10.1-inch (1280 x 800 pixel) touchscreen.
In a separate event back in the UK, Toshiba let us get hands on with its as yet unnamed Toshiba tablet which will be running Android 3.0 when it goes on sale.
We'll bring you more Android 3.0 details as they emerge.

Android Honeycomb: 10 things you need to know

Google unveiled its tablet-specific Android 3.0 OS at CES to a flurry of excitement thanks to some pretty exciting new tablet-focused additions to the already impressive OS.
But, with a preview of the SDK only just released to developers, we won't be seeing Honeycomb on our Android tablets for a little while; in the meantime, whet your appetite with our round-up of the key new features.
1. There'll be 3D-effect graphics
You can't swing a cat without hitting something 3D (literally) in the tech world these days, and Google knows it. Honeycomb offers developers the opportunity to use high-performance 3D graphics which should offer no noticeable lag, even with the extra rendering required.
This means we'll see 3D creeping into our apps, wallpapers and carousels as the developers get to grips with the extra dimension.
2. The Android UI has been redesigned especially for tablets
The Android user interface had always been intended for smartphones with screens no bigger than around 4-inches - with the advent of tablet devices, displays have shot up in the size stakes. Lucky for us, they're not short of a brain cell or two over at Google and have re-designed the Android UI taking the larger screen into account.
The updated UI isn't a million miles away from what we're used to on Android handsets - there are still multiple, customisable homescreens, universal search box and widgets galore - but the small tweaks will make it so much better to use on the larger scale.

An ever-present menu bar at the bottom of the screen will hold notifications, system status updates and on-screen navigation as well as a handy clock, with a "lights out" mode to dim the bar when you're watching a film and want the full screen.
Meanwhile, the action bar at the top of the screen is dependent on the app you're in; its look and feel are dictated by each individual app, as are the options available to compensate for the lack of dedicated menu button.
3. Recent apps will make multi-tasking a breeze
Multi-tasking is where we expect the dual-core Android tablets to shine, and Honeycomb gives it the tools to do so.
The 'recent apps' launcher lays out the last apps you used and the state you left them in, so you can quickly nip from one to another and straight into work. The tool lives in the system bar which is always onscreen, so there'll be no tedious navigation through menus.

4. The keyboard will be tablet-friendly
Of course you could buy an external keyboard for your tablet but lugging a million accessories around defeats the object of having a sleek and handy tablet.
To save you the hassle, Google has put a bit of thought into the onscreen keyboard; the keys have been reshaped and repositioned to make typing more comfortable and the targeting more natural for the larger screen, instead of simply scaling up the keyboard.
We love the inclusion of a tab key, which makes the typing experience more akin to that of a desktop or notebook than that of a phone.
5. Better copy and paste than ever before
Ah, copy and paste. Such a small function and yet so universally adored. While regular Android does allow text selection, copying and pasting, the Honeycomb system has had a few tweaks.
Tapping a single word will select it while the bounding arrows either end make expanding the selection super simple - simpler even than the one used in Gingerbread.

A menu in the action bar at the top of the screen then allows you to either cut, copy, copy to clipboard, share, paste, search the web for or find.
6. Connectivity upgrades include improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tethering
Google has improved Android's Wi-Fi connectivity with a new scanning system; it reduces scanning time across bands and filters, so you should be up, running and connected in shorter times.
Bluetooth connectivity has been updated too; more devices can now tether to the tablet and share its connectivity, while simple devices with no user interface (think sensors and the like) are also supported.
7. There'll be anonymous tabbed web browsing
If you fancy a spot of private web browsing on your Android tablet, then you're in luck; the new "incognito" mode lends an air of Poirot-era respectability to your secretive searching.
Google has also done away with the multiple-window browser, instead going for a tabbed browser system with your open web pages displayed in the action bar at the top of the screen.

Google Chrome users can easily sync their bookmarks to the tablet browser too, thanks to Honeycomb's option to automatically sign in to all Google sites with one supplied account.
8. Legacy apps will work seamlessly
Worried that you won't be able to make use of the thousands of Android apps already in the marketplace? Never fear, even though they were designed for a much smaller-screened device, Honeycomb is still compatible with apps developed for earlier Android iterations as long as devs add in a simple spot of code.
The menu key functions from Android phones are migrated to the Action Bar menu in Honeycomb, and there's the option for developers to create dedicated layouts for larger screens and add them to existing apps.
9. Two-pane email should mean easy inbox oraganisation
Two-paned email sounds a little familiar - oh yes, that's right. We've seen it before on the iPad where it works brilliantly. If it ain't broke, and all that.
The ability to select multiple messages in the inbox and move or delete them mean there's no excuse for a messy, disorganised inbox, while attachments can be synced to the tablet for you to view later.
10. Widgets are going to get interactive
Widgets saved to the home screen on Honeycomb tablets are going to have a whole new level of functionality available. Rather than passively relaying information to the user, they'll be interactive.
Gestures can be used to scroll through 3D stacks or lists of content, while touch gestures can also flip and move the widget's innards like never before.

If you're still crazy for more, then check out the video Google has kicked out about the new Android 3.0 OS - it's like looking at pictures but a lot faster.
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/android-3-0-all-the-latest-updates-706243?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/706243 TechRadar team Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:49:00 +0000 Phone and communications/Mobile phones
Google's Linux-based Chrome OS operating system should be with us by now. But at that point last December when we were led to believe our netbooking futures were about to be redefined, Google postponed our date with destiny and asked us to try again in another six months.
It seemed the road ahead wasn't quite as clear as Google wanted it to be, and six months is presumably enough time for the masters at Menlo Park to fine-tune their revolution and get things back on track.
But that's a tough track to find, and while I obviously want it to be a success, there are three specific challenges that Chrome OS needs to face before I believe it can be a success.
The first is that Chrome has to turn a netbook operating system into something desirable, innovative, shiny and practical. It has to do this in the face of increasingly refined competition, and it has to do this using a foundation of open source software.
Netbooks may be brilliant for getting work done while you're travelling in economy class, but they're an increasingly hard sell in a world full of tablets and touch gestures.
Google did release a prototype version of its operating system, running on devices it calls the CR-48, but from all reports there's very little to tell the operating system apart from the browser, and its limited release to a small group of journalists only adds to Google's unsubstantiated hype.
Tough sell
That brings us to the second problem with Chrome OS. It's going to be a tough sell. Eric Schmidt added to the spin via his blog, with a post a week after the delay:
"Welcome to the latest chapter of an epic journey in computing. Welcome to Chrome OS." Welcome to what, exactly?
Google's promotional video for the Chrome OS doesn't do it any favours either. It's a video designed to illustrate just how resilient your cloud-stored data is when faced with adversity. It does this by destroying several netbooks with the elemental forces of fire, ice and a single sharp prong, while the video's protagonist attempts to help a friend by creating a flyer for their lost cat.

The trouble is that almost any sane person would be far more concerned about the cost of replacing the netbook than the 30 seconds they've just spent typing up a lost cat leaflet. And that's the best Google can do.
No identity
It seems one of the biggest problems with Chrome isn't a technical one, it's about the product's lack of a distinctive identity. The third problem has been ably highlighted by Richard Stallman.
Stallman is the person behind the free software philosophy and the venerable GNU licence and tools that power (GNU) Linux and most open source projects. It's fair to say that most things involving software and technology worry Richard Stallman, from embedded use of Linux in digital television recorders and wireless routers, to Australian patent legislation, people's freedom to tinker with their own hardware and a rabid dislike for Linux without the GNU prefix.
Never use the term 'open source' in his company, or you'll be run out of the meeting. His zeal can be overbearing, but there's often a vital and important point at the heart of his politics.
In a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper, he expressed disappointment in the way Chrome seems designed for one job only - getting you to use Google's online services:
"The nature of the job Chrome OS is designed to do. Namely, encourage you to keep your data elsewhere, and do your computing elsewhere, instead of doing it in your own computer." Which is why he also calls the concept of using web-based applications like Gmail "worse than stupidity".
I can understand his sentiment, and it's important to reiterate that, ultimately, Google controls more of your data than most of us will ever realise. But Stallman rarely factors in convenience. He's willing to sacrifice all vestiges of this in his quest for freedom, but most people aren't.
What Google needs to do for Chrome is enable people to do things with their hardware that aren't part of a Google product plan, even if that's a simple online store or package manager. All of this would normally sound desperate if it wasn't for the fact that Google has faced these specific challenges before.
In one major example, it's been able to overcome them. Android is an unqualified success - it's the only competitor to Apple's iOS devices, outselling even these in certain markets. Where iOS restricts and renounces, Android embraces and extends.
The platform is open for developers and isn't locked into a single vendor or network. There's massive variation in hardware, and development comes rapidly. Which leaves me with one major question for Google. Why not merge Chrome into Android?
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/how-google-can-make-chrome-os-succeed-934474?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934474 Graham Morrison Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
Right now, someone, somewhere is developing the killer operating system feature of the future - a feature that will change computing and make us wonder how we lived without it.
However, the person responsible probably isn't grafting away in the labs of Microsoft, Apple or Red Hat - he or she is more likely to be working in a bedroom or loft.
Big companies can grow reticent to change, slow to move and adopt new technologies. Features must be escalated through approval bodies, management and bean-counters. Hobbyist projects don't have those commercial pressures and can experiment freely.
It might seem audacious to claim that the next Windows is cooking in some part-time coder's house, but it's nothing new. Microsoft's OS empire started with the purchase of QDOS, which stood for 'Quick and Dirty Operating System'. Apple didn't create Mac OS X out of thin air, but took an open source kernel and some BSD code (grounded in academia) to get the foundations of its operating system working.
The most successful projects often begin life in ways we'd never expect, and it can take a while for their potential to be fully realised.
Into the future
We'll look at the best alternative operating systems, with the potential to change the computing landscape over the next decade. There's only one rule - no Microsoft, Apple or Linux.
While some of these new operating systems are still relatively early in development, the technology that they're introducing could make its way into the next round of updates for the mainstream OSes we use. Helpfully, you can try these projects without having to repartition your hard drive thanks to the excellent (and free) PC virtualisation and emulation tool available from www.virtualbox.org.
These OSes are all supplied as disk images - usually CD ISOs - so you can install VirtualBox, grab the ISO and tell VirtualBox to boot from it to try it out. You can burn the ISO files to CD-Rs and boot them on your real PC if you want to see how they handle the bare metal, but remember that mid-development releases could contain bugs.
10. GNU/HURD
Fighting for microkernels
www.gnu.org/software/hurd
The GNU project started in 1984 to create a completely free software Unix OS. By the early '90s it had many tools finished, but still no kernel. Linux arrived and was paired with GNU to form what we now call Linux (also known as GNU/Linux).
However, the GNU project has been developing a kernel called HURD. This is based on the Mach microkernel, as used in Mac OS X, and consists of servers running in their own address spaces.

There are services for hardware drivers, filesystems, authentication and more. These are more isolated than in a typical OS, so HURD should - in theory - be more reliable. It will also be easier to update and replace OS components without reboots.
9. JNode
Desktop Java to the extreme
www.jnode.org
Java's heyday on the desktop is long gone, with web-based games and apps mostly delivered by Flash and HTML5. But there's one project that aims to prove that Java can still hack it when it comes to desktop computing - JNode.
Apart from a very small assembly language core, the vast majority of the JNode operating system is written in Java. JNode's goal is to run any Java application, although it's currently only at version 0.2.8.

The interface is simple, there's some decent documentation online, and progress is being made towards 0.3. Planned future features include lower memory consumption, wireless networking and more hardware acceleration for video.
8. FreeVMS
Industrial strength OS
www.freevms.net
Back in the '70s and '80s, the main competitor to Unix on big-iron hardware was VMS. Famed for its stability, running on chunky fridge-like boxes called VAXes, it included advanced clustering and security features for its time, along with an automatic versioning file system.
Dave Cutler, one of the designers of the VMS operating system, went on to lead development of Windows NT, but OpenVMS stuck around and now runs on Itanium systems.

FreeVMS is striving to build on VMS's feature set, although unlike many clone projects where developers can get easy access to the original OS, VMS gurus are hard to find. FreeVMS is currently only at version 0.4, but is still making solid progress.
7. DexOS
Mini OS with console-like GUI
www.dex4u.com
For a desktop operating system, we expect the usual assortment of window furniture, panels and launchers. DexOS is a small project that provides a more console-like approach.
This works in two ways: the graphical front-end is more like a video game launcher than a traditional OS, and programmers can easily access the bare metal for maximum performance. It's an intriguing concept, and the take up of Android and iOS in the last couple of years has shown that traditional desktop computing metaphors are starting to look long in the tooth.

DexOS demonstrates what a bunch of part time hobbyist coders can achieve, without lots of funding or commercial backing.
6. Inferno
Sharing, everywhere
www.vitanuova.com/inferno/
Inferno has been doing the rounds for almost a decade, and in some respects it's still way ahead of other OSes. Inferno is built to be a distributed OS - it's designed to share resources across machines.
Using a protocol called Styx, systems running Inferno can share hardware and networking devices with one another seamlessly. For instance, an application on Inferno box A is able to access the hard drive of Inferno box B without knowing it's actually on a remote machine.

Inferno applications are written in a language called Limbo, which is compiled down to code for a virtual machine called Dis, so they're portable across the various architectures Inferno supports.
5. KolibriOS
The fastest GUI OS in existence?
www.kolibrios.org
Operating systems used to be written in assembly language, but you'd be hard pressed to find much in the source tree of a modern OS. It's true that programming in assembly is hard work, but it can often lead to results that a typical compiler can't compete with.

KolibriOS, a fork of MenuetOS, is written entirely in assembly, and it shows - it's tiny (4.9MB for the ISO) and ridiculously fast (booting in a couple of seconds). Despite this, it includes a web browser, mail client, games, desktop utilities, impressive demos and more, all running at light speed.
They're nowhere near as feature-packed as their Windows counterparts, but they underline how much bloat and wastefulness we're now used to.
4. OpenBSD
Security before style
www.openbsd.org
Security is OpenBSD's mantra. Unlike other operating systems, which consider security a feature like performance or prettiness, the OpenBSD team won't add any code unless it's sure that it's completely free of security holes.
It audits parts of the codebase for vulnerabilities, and have made modifications to the standard C libraries to prevent buffer overruns and other problems.

OpenBSD was the first non-research OS to integrate many features we now take for granted, including address space layout randomisation, which puts libraries and memory sections in random locations in RAM, so crackers can't assume their location.
3. AROS
Something for Amiga lovers
http://aros.sourceforge.net
You may have fond memories of the Amiga. The dazzling graphics and crisp sound (when PCs were faffing around with text mode and beeps), the super-fast multi-tasking, and the, er, lack of protected memory…
Well, forget that last one. It was one of the best-loved computers of all time, and it still has many fans today.

AROS - the Amiga Research Operating System - is intensely fast. Blisteringly so. It apes the Amiga design, both superficially and with its inner workings, and is designed to be source compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 (software written for the old Amiga OS should only need a recompile to work).
AROS has great potential as a light and fast OS for low-end netbooks and tablets.
2. ReactOS
Open source Windows clone that could save businesses a fortune
www.reactos.org
If you've dabbled in Linux, you may have heard of WINE, a compatibility layer that lets certain Windows programs run on Linux. Effectively, it intercepts calls to the Windows API, replacing them with Linux equivalents. It includes its own batch of DLLs, but it can use native Windows DLLs too for improved software compatibility.
WINE's compatibility ranges from superb to terrible, with the focus on triple-A applications such as Microsoft Office and Photoshop. Generally, older applications work better, and anything that doesn't poke around in the undocumented internals of Windows has a chance of running.
However, WINE mixes up the Windows and Unix approaches to operating systems, with the end result being a pretty ugly mess. It also can't use Windows drivers.

ReactOS aims to fix all this. Instead of being a layer on top of another OS, ReactOS is a completely standalone project, bootable from an install or live CD. It does use WINE DLLs, but it has its own bootloader, kernel and other low-level facilities that should - in theory - make it compatible with Windows drivers.
ReactOS aims to be an open source, drop-in replacement for Windows. This gives it potential to radically shake up the market. ReactOS, a Windows clone, could one day be the next Windows - at least, for a good chunk of people. That sounds outrageous, but the vast majority of Windows boxes run a very small range of programs: IE or Firefox, MS Office and a couple of games, with a bit of Photoshop or Dreamweaver.
ReactOS doesn't have to run 50,000 Windows applications adequately; it just needs to run the top 10 well. Imagine you're a netbook manufacturer in a crowded market, and you want to get your prices down as low as possible. Instead of paying licenses to Microsoft for Windows, you could install ReactOS on your machines for free, put a list of ticks on the box saying 'Runs Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Photoshop and World of Warcraft' and save a lot of money.
Or imagine that you're a business with 5,000 Windows PCs that need upgrading because XP is end of life. Instead of buying 5,000 Windows 7 licenses, you could drop ReactOS any PCs that just run Office and Outlook.
These scenarios are still a while off: ReactOS is only at version 0.3.12, having been developed since the late '90s, and there's still a lot of work to be done. But compatibility is improving and you can see the status of your favourite programs at www.reactos.org/compat.
1. Haiku
The lightning-fast BeOS lives on in the speedy, simple Haiku
www.haiku-os.org
And so we come to the number one project - the OS most likely to be the next big desktop hit. Why have we chosen Haiku for this slot?
Firstly, it intends to simply recreate an existing operating system, BeOS, but as open source. There's no room for changes of direction, random new features or endless arguments on mailing lists about trivial design decisions.
Secondly, the developers are passionate about their work - they love BeOS. Thirdly, a great deal of attention has been paid to presentation, documentation and the other bits developers often ignore because they'd rather be hacking code.
If you were active in the PC world in the late 1990s, you may remember BeOS. Designed for the PowerPC, it was ported to the x86 PC architecture, offering a unique experience that was designed from the ground-up for desktop computing.
BeOS demos typically showed several spinning OpenGL teapots running flawlessly on screen as multiple MP3s played in the background. In the days of Windows 9x and Mac OS 8/9, BeOS's stellar performance, simplicity and lack of historical baggage won it an army of hardcore fans.
Its file system supported attributes for storing metadata, with features making it rather like a database.
However, from a commercial perspective, BeOS suffered greatly. Be Inc, the OS's makers, found it very hard to break into the Windows-dominated PC market. Ultimately, Be Inc sued Microsoft for allegedly preventing PC makers from selling BeOS machines; Microsoft never admitted guilt, but settled out of court for $23 million. However, by this point it was too late for BeOS to gain a serious foothold in the market.

Haiku, formerly known as OpenBeOS, began life in 2001 and is now capable of running many older BeOS programs (along with newer ports like Firefox). It retains the clean, modern architecture and desktop design of BeOS, but with added support for more recent hardware devices.
The developers are huge BeOS fans - they stuck by the OS in hard times and still champion its strengths today. They've also put a lot of effort into making the website look smart and ensuring the documentation is thorough.
Haiku offers a chance to bring speed, simplicity and enjoyment back to computing. It's a system designed purely as a modern, graphical desktop operating system without carrying sacks of historical baggage.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/10-best-alternative-operating-systems-934484?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934484 PC Plus Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
The First Law of Computing states that, no matter how much money you spend on a PC, it's never quite fast enough. As a result, we're always looking for new ways to squeeze a bit more performance out of our systems.
While there are plenty of speed-up guides available online, most deliver only minor variations on advice you already know: uninstall unwanted programs, disable any irrelevant services, clean up temporary files, defrag your hard drive and so on.
These are all good, solid tips, but if you're an experienced user, there comes a time when you want to move beyond the basics - to crank up the volume and hear something new.

• 10 Windows speed tips that don't work

Achieving this is easier than you might think, because your PC's OS includes a host of amazing ideas and technologies that rarely get much attention. Why? Sometimes they're too technical for the average home user.
Interrupt Affinity, for instance, allocates a specific processor to handle demands from a particular device, like your network card. Microsoft says this can improve a PC's performance, but it may take some work to find the best settings.
If you'd like to try it, check out Microsoft's guide (there's a discussion on real-life experiences available here).
Calculated risk
Exposing other technologies to public view may be seen as too risky. Windows 7 includes a new feature called the Fault Tolerant Heap, for example, which detects crashes caused by memory-handling issues and tries to fix them when the application is run again.
It has Registry settings that you can tweak to improve stability or reduce resource use, but if you get this wrong you could end up making your PC worse, so it's not something Microsoft boasts about.
If you're keen to take a look anyway, Technet has the details.
Other ideas tend to get forgotten. Install some programs, for instance, and they may add variables such as pointers to files or folders. When you uninstall your apps, some of these may be left behind. While this isn't a big issue, it may waste a little RAM or slow down the odd disc access, so there's no harm in looking. The Rapid Environment Editor will highlight errors for you.
In this article we'll reveal a little-known hard drive optimisation that could increase performance of some PCs by up to 50 per cent. We'll explain how you can persuade Windows 7's power plan settings dialog to reveal a host of CPU-related settings and tweaks.
We'll talk about network performance improvements introduced in Windows Vista and 7 that are turned off by default and will remain that way unless you know how to enable them. We'll discuss ways to remove unwanted drivers, disable an obscure, resource-hogging NTFS feature and squeeze the maximum power from your processor.
Remember, these aren't your average tuning techniques. Some will deliver real results, but several come with risks attached. It's therefore vital that you protect your data by activating System Restore and backing up your important files before changing anything.
Drivers
Just about every PC optimisation guide will recommend you uninstall unwanted programs to save resources. Some will also suggest disabling any unnecessary Windows services. This is sensible advice, but if you stop there you'll be ignoring a huge amount of clutter.
Drivers are installed by devices and many applications, but they're often left behind if you unplug the hardware or uninstall the program. Applications often install their own Windows services too, without you even realising.
Most optimisation guides won't cover these because they're not standard Windows services, but if you're looking to get the most from your PC then it may be worth removing some of them. Culling these will only deliver minimal benefits.
Removing failed (or multiple) driver installations can make your PC more stable though, and there's little more annoying than when you need to remove or replace a driver, but Windows keeps reinstalling it. Knowing how to kill a driver for good can be very useful.
Device Manager
The simplest way to begin culling unwanted drivers is with Device Manager. Of course 'simple' isn't always best, at least in this case: removing the wrong drivers can cause problems that might prevent your PC booting, even in safe mode. Don't try this unless you have a backup, and enough bootable recovery tools to cope if something goes wrong.

For another view on your drivers, open a command window (right-click the 'cmd.exe' window and select 'Run as administrator' in Windows Vista or 7), and enter the command pnputil -e. This will display all your third-party drivers - everything you and your installed apps have added to Windows.
For the most part, these won't be doing any harm beyond occupying a little hard drive space and maybe a few Registry references. If you find a driver that you know isn't system-critical and you want to delete it (so you can reinstall it more easily, perhaps), make a note of its 'Published name' and enter the command pnputil -d oem12.inf, where 'oem12.inf' is replaced by the file name on your system.
If Windows tells you the device is in use, you can force deletion with the -f switch like this: pnputil -f -d oem12.inf. You need to be sure that Windows can cope without it.
Third-party services are easier to review. Just launch 'MSCONFIG.EXE', click 'Services', check 'Hide all Microsoft services' and look for items you don't need. Apple Mobile Device and Bonjour Service, installed with iTunes, are good examples. If you don't have an iPod, iPhone or other Apple device and don't use Bonjour (a network discovery tool), they're unnecessary.
If you spot something like this that's running and you're sure you don't need it, launch the Services applet ('services.msc'), then find and double-click it for more information. If you're positive that the service is unnecessary, set its 'Startup type' to 'Disabled' to turn it off when you next reboot.
Clean up your system with Device Manager
If you suspect that your PC is suffering driver problems, launch the Device Manager tool from Control Panel (or run 'devmgmt.msc' directly). If a device has a problem, its section will be expanded and it'll be highlighted with a yellow exclamation mark.
Double-click the faulty driver, click the 'Driver' tab and use the 'Update driver', 'Disable' or 'Uninstall' button to solve the problem. Device Manager won't show you all the drivers installed on your PC by default, but a quick tweak will change that and you'll soon be removing any unwanted junk.
1. Setup

Right-click 'Computer', select 'Properties' and click 'Advanced (system settings) | Environment variables | New'. Enter DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES for your variable name, 1 for the value and click 'New | OK'.
2. Hunt for junk

Launch Device Manager, click 'View | Show hidden devices' and you'll see a 'Non-plug and play drivers' section. Expand this to see leftovers from past installations (we found 13 McAfee drivers on a PC with no McAfee software).
3. Clean up

If you see a device that relates to something you've uninstalled (and nothing else), its icon is greyed out and your system is backed up in case of problems, then you can remove it. Right-click the entry and select 'Uninstall | OK'.
How to speed up your internet connection
Does your internet connection tend to be rather slow and unreliable? If so, Windows has a great selection of handy tweaks and technologies that might be able to help - if you can find them and put them to use safely.
Network connections normally start transfers by sending small blocks of data, for instance, increasing these in size only gradually. Compound TCP (CTCP) ramps up your window size more aggressively, often improving performance.
It's turned off in Windows Vista and 7 by default, but you can restore it by launching an elevated command prompt and entering netsh int tcp set global congestionprovider=ctcp.
If you encounter problems, re-enter the command with =none to turn it off, or =default for the default value.
Windows 7 also introduced Direct Cache Access (DCA), which reduces system overheads by allowing a network controller to transfer data directly into a CPU cache (if your system supports it). This is turned off by default, but can be activated with a netsh command: netsh int tcp set global dca=enabled. Use =disabled to turn it off if it doesn't help.
You can use the same tool to activate Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) - a technology that helps your system cope with network congestion without dropping packets. Remember, if you're downloading big files and not suffering from congestion, this can slow your system down.
Check your PC to see ECN's status. If it's off and your system supports it, entering netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enabled will turn ECN on (=disabled will turn the technology off, and =default sets the default setting). Test your connection to look for improvement.

All these features can give your CPU more work to do, but in many cases this can be minimised by allowing your network card's processor to handle the connection. This should be activated automatically, but it's not clear that this always happens. Even Microsoft recommends enabling the feature manually (if your network card supports it) so it's worth a try.
Enter netsh int tcp set global chimney=enabled to turn the feature on, or use =disabled to turn it off.
Registry tweaks to speed up your network
There are plenty of brilliant network-related Registry settings available. Launch REGEDIT, browse to 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters', then consider some of these possibilities.
Windows throttles traffic on networks with high latencies (delays), reducing timeouts but slowing you down. To disable this, add a DWORD value called 'Disable Bandwidth Throttling' to '\Lanman Workstation\Parameters' and set it to '1'.
The system is equally cautious with TCP auto-tuning, disabling it if there's any chance your system won't support it. Add a DWORD value called EnableWsd and set it to '0' to disable these diagnostics and keep auto-tuning on regardless.
Your home PCs cache data about files and folders they access. Increasing the cache size uses more RAM, but can reduce network traffic and improve speeds.
Add FileInfoCacheEntriesMax, DirectoryCacheEntriesMax and FileNotFoundCacheEntriesMax DWORD values to '\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters', set them to values greater than their defaults (64, 16 and 128), reboot and see what happens.
Be careful and if you have any issues, return to the Registry key you've added, delete it, reboot and your PC will be back to normal.
How to speed up your CPU
Windows 7 adds support for several new CPU features that reduce energy use, which sounds great - except some say they compromise performance. Worse, all these settings are hidden by default, however that can be changed.
Enter the following two commands at the command prompt: powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR 0cc5b647-c1df-4637-891a-dec35c318583 -ATTRIB_HIDE and powercfg -attributes SUB_PROCESSOR ea062031-0e34-4ff1-9b6d-eb1059334028 -ATTRIB_HIDE.
Now go to 'Control Panel | Power options | Change plan settings (for your current plan) | Change advanced power settings | Processor power management'. You'll see two new options: 'Processor performance core parking min cores' and 'Processor performance core parking max cores'.
These settings related to Core Parking, a feature that allows your CPU to turn off some cores to save power when your system load is minimal. While generally a good thing, some say it causes problems, and recommend turning parking off. Set 'Min cores' and 'Max cores' to 100 and reboot your machine to make this happen.
Need more tweaks? There are plenty, including additional Core Parking options, performance management, idle states and more. Download Microsoft's guide to Processor Power Management and locate a setting of interest.

Copy its GUID from the document - 'Allow throttle states' is '3b04d4fd-1cc7-4f23-ab1c-d1337819c4bb', for instance - and build a command along the lines of powercfg -attributes SUB_ PROCESSOR 3b04d4fd-1cc7-4f23-ab1c-d1337819c4bb-ATTRIB_HIDE.
Enter this at the command line and the new setting will be visible. (Use +ATTRIB_HIDE at the end to hide it again.)
Keep in mind that there's a reason why many of these tweaks are hidden, though. If you disable PC idle states, for instance, you may gain a tiny amount in terms of performance, but your CPU could also run very hot, shortening its life.
Change your settings carefully, ideally monitoring details like temperature for any changes. CPU scheduling PCs are always busy, with far more processes active then there are CPU cores available. Windows manages this by running each thread for a brief period, called a quantum. When that time is up, the scheduler looks for other apps that need the CPU and runs one of those.
By default, this system triples the quantum for the foreground application, and generally does a good job of sharing processor time. But if you want to improve things, there are a couple of ways to do it.
One option is to use the Windows Server scheduling settings. These don't optimise the foreground application, so your user interface won't feel so snappy, but they provide a quantum six times longer than usual, minimising overheads and improving CPU efficiency.
To try this, right-click 'Computer,' click 'Advanced' (then 'Performance settings | Advanced' in Vista or later) and set 'Adjust for best performance of' to 'Background services'.
Or you can customise your quantum manually. Run 'REGEDIT', browse to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ PriorityControl', set 'Win32 PrioritySeparation' to '16 (Hex)', and you'll get a long quantum that also optimises the foreground app - a good compromise.
Registry tweaks to speed up your PC
Windows is full of Registry tweaks that can optimise your PC for a variety of tasks. When the OS boots, for instance, it creates threads to carry out system tasks. Adding more can improve performance on a busy PC, or waste resources if there's not much to do.
To give this a try, go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControl Set\Control\SessionManager\Executive' in the Registry, create a DWORD value called 'Additional Critical WorkerThreads' and set it to something between 1 and 16 (decimal). Then add a DWORD value called 'AdditionalDelayed WorkerThreads' in the same location and use the same value. Reboot and test your system.

If you're running applications that perform many network operations at once, you can benefit from increasing the number of commands that you can cache. Go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lanman Workstation\Parameters', create a DWORD value called 'MaxCmds' and try setting it to 64. Delete the value to restore the default setting.
Some versions of Windows run the driver verifier at random to check your drivers. This is good if it uncovers problems, but otherwise it slows you down.
To turn it off, go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem', add a DWORD value 'DontVerifyRandomDrivers' and set it to 1.
Windows Vista and 7 networks support Large MTU, which sees the maximum size of a data packet increased from 64kB to 1MB. If you have ultra-fast network kit, this may improve performance, but if not, it'll cause problems.
Want to try it? Go to 'HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters', set 'DisableLargeMTU' to 0 and reboot. Apply the same setting to your other network PCs and look for improvements. Set the value to 1 to restore the default setting.
Temporary files
Usually you'll enter the Registry to tweak a setting, but sometimes viewing existing settings can be useful. For the perfect example, go to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup'.
As you might guess from the final key name, this contains a list of system folders that backup tools should ignore, usually because they contain temporary files. This is a list of places that may contain large amounts of cached files, perfect for further exploration.
Of course. you shouldn't delete these straight away; many contain useful data - some of the time. Our test PC did include '%windir%\softwaredistribution\*.* /s' though - that's '\Windows\ SoftwareDistribution' and all its subfolders.
A visit to Google told us the folder is related to Windows Update, and can be emptied if you're careful (see method 10 at http://support.microsoft.com/kB/822798). This contained 5GB of files, so we wiped them and recovered the hard drive space.
Filesystem tweaks
You can improve your hard drive speeds by up to 50 per cent with this effective tweak.
One of the most effective conventional PC optimisation techniques you can try is simply to defrag your hard drive, rearranging its files for optimum performance. Something like Auslogics Disk Defrag will do the job for free, and it's so effective that you might think there's no need to do anything else.
But, as we've seen, Windows has many potential speed issues that are far from obvious, and hard drives have one of the most significant: partition alignment. In certain cases, if your system isn't set up correctly, then its drive performance can be cut by anything up to 50 per cent, so it's an issue you really need to consider.
The partition alignment problem is based around the way data is stored on your hard drive. You've probably seen diagrams of this before, showing how files are stored in units of a minimum size, called a cluster, and it's easy to imagine how this might work.
Let's say that your application needs a file, and this happens to be stored in cluster number 123,456. Windows asks your hard drive for that cluster number, the drive loads the information and sends it back. It sounds easy, but unfortunately it's not quite this simple in practice.
In reality, hard drives have a physical layer of sectors. These are overlaid by a logical layer of clusters, created when your hard drive is formatted. There may be other layers, too, but these are enough to describe the problem.

Unfortunately, the logical layer has historically assumed that drives use a 512-byte sector size, and started your partition after 63 sectors. Modern hard drives often use a 4kB sector size, and logical partitions following the 63 sector rule therefore don't align with the physical sector of the drive.
What does all this mean for your PC? If your application really needs a file in logical cluster number 123,456, then your hard drive might have to read physical sectors 123,455 and 123,456 to return the necessary data. This doesn't mean every read and operation will take twice as long as it should; drive geometry, caching and other factors reduce the overhead considerably. Still, it's potentially a serious problem. So does it apply to you?
Partition alignment
The good news is that most people's PCs are unlikely to be affected by partition alignment issues. If your hard drive was formatted by Windows Vista or 7, for instance, then it should be fine (Microsoft fixed its partitioning after the release of Windows XP). If you only have one hard drive then Microsoft says you're also less likely to be suffering any speed issues.
However, if your system has multiple drives organised in a RAID setup, or even just a single SSD, and they were partitioned by Windows XP (or anything else that doesn't understand alignment) then performance may be compromised. And there are drives, like Western Digital's Caviar Green series, that use an internal 4kB sector, yet for legacy reasons report a 512kB sector to Windows. These could slow down if they're misaligned, even on single drive systems.
There's no need to panic here, then. Your system is probably fine, but it's wise to check anyway. To make this easier, Paragon Software has developed an Alignment Tool that scans your PC for mismatched partitions, and if it finds any, gives you the option to move and realign them.
Keep in mind that realignment is a slow process, though. We deliberately set it a 'worst case' test, realigning a 1TB USB drive, and it took more than 12 hours. This may be an issue, especially because it can't be cancelled, and if there are any problems or interruptions then you could lose everything on the drive.
It's therefore vital to back up your complete system before you start, and you must give the program a great deal of time to work. Letting it run overnight would be a good idea. But with your safeguards in place, you can then give the program a try.
The results you'll get from this process vary depending on your particular drive and hardware: some people report little or no benefit, while others see major improvements. Even if the performance gains are minimal, though, cutting the number of read and write operations will help to extend your drive's life, and that alone makes it worth the effort.
NTFS tunnelling
Hard drives are subject to many other odd issues beyond partition alignment, but few are quite as strange as NTFS tunnelling.
When you delete a file, the tunnelling system caches its creation date, short and long name for a few seconds. It does this so that programs that modify documents by creating a temporary file, deleting the original, and renaming the temporary to the original name, will appear to have the original file when the process is complete (the short name and creation date will be the same).
This process requires RAM and a little CPU time, though, and can slow you down when you need to delete large numbers of files. This is because Windows has no way to know you won't be recreating them, so always caches their details. It may also be entirely unnecessary. Short file names are only important for 16-bit apps, for instance. And your application may handle the file creation date issue itself, or you may not care about it at all.
If you'd like to try disabling tunnelling, then, run REGEDIT and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem. Create a new DWORD value called MaximumTunnelEntryAgeInSeconds, set it to zero, reboot your machine and see what happens.
Keep in mind that, like many of these tweaks, turning off tunneling can have odd and unexpected effects. Test your system carefully to confirm that everything is working as it should. If you experience any problems, simply delete the MaximumTunnel EntryAgeInSeconds value and reboot to restore your PC to normal.
Solve printer problems
Printers don't cause many problems, but you may experience crashes that relate to the printer spooler service ('spoolsv.exe'). If your PC starts experiencing printer-related crashes, this can often be tracked down to a program that's changed a core printer-related component. It sounds like it should be simple to solve, but this level of printer management has no user interface, and most people don't even know that it exists, so it's not exactly easy to fix.
Unless, that is, you know where to look in the Registry, where you can quickly and easily restore the problematic components to their defaults. As ever, make sure you back up your system and Registry first, then try this.
1. Printer driver

Launch 'services.msc', right-click 'Print spooler' and select 'Stop'. Launch 'REGEDIT' and browse to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\Local Port'. Double-click 'Driver' and ensure it's set to 'localspl.dll'.'
2. Port monitor

Go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors'. Defaults here include 'Microsoft shared', 'Standard TCP/IP', 'Local port' and 'USB monitor'. Remove others you've installed - you must have System Restore activated.
3. Print provider

Go to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers' and rename any print provider other than 'Internet print' or 'LanMan print' to have a '.old' extension. Restart your Print Spooler and try again.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/how-to-speed-up-your-windows-pc-934508?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934508 Mike Williams Sun, 13 Mar 2011 10:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
You're sat in the lounge with your family, and you want to show them your holiday videos on the Mac mini you use as a media centre. But the videos are on your iMac. How do you transfer them?
Or maybe you've just finished a Keynote presentation, and need to share it with a colleague who has his own user account on your Mac. It's too big to email, so how do you get it to him?
You could use a USB stick, or email smaller files to yourself. Or for your home network, you could invest in a network attached storage (NAS) drive, accessible to everyone. But there's another way.
Using OS X's file-sharing abilities, you can define a folder as 'shared', enabling other computers on your network - and other user accounts on your Mac - to access them. Privileges can be set to give different access rights to different accounts, allowing people or groups to read, write or both.
Every OS X user account has a Public folder, which is used to share files with other people. It's always accessible to other user accounts on the same machine, and if File Sharing is enabled, it can be used to share files over a network too.
Your Public folder is found in Hard Drive/Users/[username]. Inside is another folder called Drop Box. By default, anyone connected to your Mac can read from (and copy files from) your Public folder, and write to (but not open) the Drop Box, though this can be configured if you wish. File Sharing also lets you define other folders as publicly accessible.
To activate and configure your Mac's File Sharing function, you must be logged on as an administrator, or at least know an administrator's username and password. Under the Apple menu, choose System Preferences. Open the Sharing pane - the one that looks like a folder with a figure in a yellow diamond on it.
If you're logged into an account that doesn't have administrator privileges, click on the lock in the bottom-left corner of the window, and enter the name and password of an administrator. If you're using an admin account, it should already be open.
File-sharing function

Click on the check box labelled File Sharing to enable this feature. Your public folder is now accessible to other users on the network, and can be accessed by clicking on your computer in the Shared column in a Finder window's side bar (if the side bar is missing, toggle it on or off by pressing the pill-shaped button in the top-right corner).
You can now make files accessible to others by moving or copying them to your Public folder, and they can give files to you by putting them in your Drop Box folder, which everyone can see, but only you can open.
Once again, these are default settings, and can be configured to behave differently, as we'll cover in more depth later. But what if you want to share other folders?
For example, to give everyone in your house access to your Movies folder, without moving it into your Public folder? To do this, we must define Movies (or indeed any folder) as 'shared'. With File Sharing highlighted, two panels appear to the right, one titled Shared Folders and one called Users. Both have little boxes underneath labelled '+' and '-'.
To share a folder with everyone on your network, press the '+' button under the Shared Folders panel and navigate to the folder to share. To remove a folder from this list, highlight it and press the '-' button.
The Users panel

The Users panel allows you to set privileges for individuals and groups. In the Shared Folders panel, select the folder you wish to affect. The Users panel shows the access rights currently enjoyed by yourself and others.
By pressing the '+' button under the panel, you can add individual users and groups. Again, highlight and press '-' to remove them.
New user or group accounts can be created in the Accounts system preference, or you can set up a new user without creating a new account on your Mac by pressing the New Person button in the dialog window that appears when you press '+'. A password can also be set for this new person.
To add him or her to the Users panel, highlight his or her new account and press Select. By default, a new user or group added to the Users list has Read Only access. To change this, click on the words Read Only and select another option from the pull-down.
Read Only access means that a person or group can open that folder and take files, but cannot put anything in it or edit files that are already there. Write Only access is the exact opposite - the user can copy files into that folder for the account holder to use, but cannot open it or take anything from it. A person or group with Read & Write privileges has full access to that folder, and can open, edit or take files, copy data to the folder or delete items.
The group titled Everyone is a global setting, and can also be set to the self-explanatory No Access. Note that if a user account is set up for someone who's also a member of a group, personal settings override group restrictions.
For example, if Fred Smith is given Read & Write access, but he's included in a group that has Write Only privileges, Fred can Read & Write.
An alternative way of creating and managing shared folders exists, apart from System Preferences. In Finder, highlight the folder you want to share, and press Command+i or right-click and select Get Info. This brings up that folder's Info window. At the foot of the General section is a check box entitled Shared Folder. Checking this makes it shared (if you check it with File Sharing off, you're invited to activate this feature).
At the foot of the Info window, in a section labelled Sharing & Permissions, you can set read and write privileges. If you want to share with computers running Windows or Linux, you have to activate the necessary network protocols to allow your Mac to communicate with the operating system that needs to access your files.
In the Sharing preference pane, click on Options. Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is active by default, and allows you to share with Macs. To share with Linux and Unix systems, check the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) box. You're given a server address for Linux/Unix users to access, or they can browse for your computer by name. To share with Windows users, check the Server Message Block (SMB) box.
Check the user accounts you wish to enable for SMB, and enter the password for that account. When you're ready, click Done to finish.
MobileMe benefits

Of course, MobileMe subscribers have another option. MobileMe's iDisk feature gives you 20GB of cloud storage, and a couple of easy ways to share your files with others. By uploading a file to your iDisk's Public folder, it can be downloaded by anyone.
To upload a file to iDisk through Finder, select iDisk from a Finder window's side bar or click on Finder's Go pull-down menu, scroll down to iDisk and select My iDisk. If you're not already logged on in System Preferences, you have to enter your details when prompted. You can then transfer files to any of your iDisk folders (including Public) through the Finder.
Alternatively, upload from the MobileMe website. Go to www.me.com and log in to your account. Click on the cloud icon in the top-left corner, and switch to iDisk. Select the folder you wish to upload to, and press the up arrow in the blue bar at the top of the website.
Now, navigate to the file you want to upload. If you want to password-protect your iDisk's Public folder, in the iDisk section of www.me.com, click the cog icon in the top bar and select Preferences; here you can opt to set, change or remove a password. You can also edit permissions to write to or delete files from the Public folder.
To access another user's Public folder from your own Mac, in Finder's Go menu, select iDisk > Another User's Public Folder. Enter the MobileMe account name of the person whose Public folder you wish to access, and the password if necessary. You can now download files from that person's folder, and also upload and delete files, if they've enabled this in their iDisk preferences.
Note that your iDisk's Public folder is stored on a cloud server as part of your MobileMe account's alloted storage space, and is not the same as your OS X account's Public folder.
If you want to give someone access to a specific file on your iDisk without putting it into the Public folder, you can invite them to download it by email. Log onto www.me.com/idisk, and navigate to the file you wish to share. Click on it, and then click on the Share File button in the right-hand column.
You're then given a URL at which the file can be downloaded. Enter the email address of the person you want to share it with and a message in the fields provided, and press Share; the URL is emailed, and the recipient can download the file just by clicking on the link. If you want to send the email from an account other than your me.com address, you can copy and paste the URL and leave the email and message fields blank. You still have to click on Share, though, or the file won't be shared and the link won't work.
Finally, MobileMe service Back to My Mac is an easy and convenient way of remotely accessing another Mac that's logged into the same account, from both your home network and over the internet. It's a great way of using your notebook to retrieve files from your home machine while out and about, but it must be switched on if you're to do it.
How to activate and use OS X File Sharing
1. System Preferences

Open System Preferences from the Apple menu, and go into the Sharing preference pane, found in the Internet & Wireless section. It looks like a folder badged with a stick man on a yellow diamond. It's here that you activate File Sharing, and other sharing services.
2. Switch File Sharing on

Click the File Sharing check box to turn on File Sharing. You'll need to be an administrator, or know an admin's name and password. File Sharing is switched on, and a list of currently shared folders appears in the central panel. Each user account has its own shared Public folder.
3. Add folder to share

To define another folder as shared, click the '+' button under the Shared Folders panel. Navigate to the folder you wish to share (such as Movies, as shown here) and click on Add. It appears in the Shared Folders panel. If you want to unshare a folder, highlight it and click '-'.
4. Add users

You can add new users in the Users panel. Highlight the shared folder you wish to give access to, and click the '+' button under the panel. Choose a user or group that's already set up in the Accounts pane, or click New Person.
5. Access Privileges

Modify a user's access privileges via the pull-downs in the second column of the Users panel. Read & Write gives full access to a folder, Read Only lets them take files but not put any in, and Write Only lets them copy to, not from it.
6. Use the Info Window

Most of these functions can be accessed via a folder's Info window. Highlight the folder in question, press Command-i, or right-click and select Get Info. From this window, you can share and unshare the folder and modify permissions.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/guide-to-mac-os-x-file-sharing-934550?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934550 Ian Osborne Sun, 13 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
We've all got a loyal old PC knocking around in a dark corner at home - one that's a bit of an old dog: arthritic and rather ponderous, but unwaveringly dependable if you can't use your main PC for any reason.
That old machine will almost certainly be running Windows XP. Who not give it a bit of TLC and make it useful again? Here are our Windows XP tips to breathe new life into that machine.
1. Remove the Recycle Bin
If you prefer to work with a completely clear desktop, you can hide the Recycle Bin with a little Registry hack. You can still use the [Shift] + [Delete] shortcut to access the Bin when you need it.
Choose 'Start | Run' and type Regedit in the 'Open' bar. Click 'OK'. Now browse to the following location:
'HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\HideDesktop Icons\NewStartPanel\'
Create a new DWORD value and give it the following name:
'{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}'
Double-click this and change its value to '1'. Quit Registry Editor, then right-click an empty space somewhere on your desktop and choose 'Refresh'. The Recycle Bin icon will magically disappear from the desktop. You can get it back again at any time by changing the value back to '0'.
2. Create your own toolbar

You can turn a folder into a toolbar for quick and easy access to its contents. Right-click the taskbar and choose 'Toolbars | New toolbar' from the menu. This launches the 'New toolbar' dialog.
Select the item that you want to use as a toolbar. If necessary, browse through 'My Documents' or 'My Computer' to find the folder you want. Alternatively, click 'Make new folder' to create a custom one. Click 'OK'. Your new toolbar will appear as a button on the taskbar.
Click this to see an expanding menu of its contents. Subfolders become their own expanding menus. Select a file to open it in its associated application.
3. Use Group Policy Editor
Windows XP Professional Edition includes the Group Policy Editor, which is a very powerful tool that enables you to configure what permissions and access each account has. This isn't available in the Home Edition.
To launch it, Choose 'Start | Run' and enter gpedit. msc in the 'Open' bar. Click 'OK'. Expand 'User Configuration' in the left-hand pane. You'll see subfolders for 'Software settings', 'Windows settings' and 'Administrative templates'.
By expanding these, you can find a range of options to configure. Expand 'Administrative templates', followed by 'Control panel'. Here you can alter what appears in the user's control panel.
One particularly useful setting is the one that prohibits access so you can stop other users changing your settings. Double-click 'Prohibit access to the control panel' in the right-hand pane. This opens a dialog. Select 'Enabled' and click 'OK'. Choose the 'Explain' tab to find out more about this setting.
Each setting listed here has three options for configuration. 'Not configured' means you'll make no change to the current setup. 'Enabled' turns the setting on, and 'Disabled' turns it off again. It's worth exploring the various configurations you can make, but make sure you're fully backed up before you do so.
4. Cut the Start menu delay
There's a slight delay built into the Start menu to give you thinking time. If you know your way around, you can shorten it with a Registry edit.
Open the Registry Editor by choosing 'Start | Run' and entering Regedit in the 'Open' bar, then clicking 'OK'.
Now go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop'. Double-click the 'MenuShowDelay' value and change it from the default 400 to a lower number of your choice.
5. Disable autorun for discs
Put a disc in your CD/DVD drive and you'll notice an appreciable lag as it spins up, even if you're not just about to use it. If you don't always need your CDs and DVDs to launch automatically when you insert them, the needless spinning up of the discs can slow your machine down.
You can disable CD autorun by modifying this registry key:
'HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current ControlSet\Services\Cdrom'. Double-click the 'AutoRun Dword' value and set it to '0'. Change it to '1' to restore it.
6. Disable menu animation
You can turn off animated menus in Windows XP for faster navigation. In Regedit, open the key 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' and create the string value 'MinAnimate'. Give it a '0' value. To restore menu animations, delete this string value.
7. Reduce hanging time

By default, Windows waits for five seconds to allow time for any hung applications to be closed properly as you shut down your computer. You can change this hanging time with a registry edit.
Browse to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop' and select the string entry called 'HungApp Timeout'. If you're using Vista, you'll need to create this entry. Right-click this and choose 'Modify'.
The number is in milliseconds, so the default of 5,000 is a wait of five seconds. Simply choose a lower number to shorten the wait time.
8. Remove text from icons
You can improve the general look of your PC's desktop by removing the names of shortcuts, leaving the icons to speak for themselves. If you try renaming a desktop shortcut to a single space, Windows XP won't let you.
However, you can force it to accept a space as the name by holding down [Alt] and typing 255 on the number pad. If you want multiple shortcuts to have blank names, you'll need to give each one a different number of spaces to avoid them having identical names.
9. Create a mute shortcut
You can make a custom shortcut that mutes and unmutes your PC's sound by downloading a small utility called Nircmd, which you can get from www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html.
Download and extract the file contents to 'My Documents'. Next, right-click the desktop and choose 'New | Shortcut'. Enter the following for the shortcut location:
"C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\nircmd\nircmd.exe" mutesysvolume 2.
Ensure that the path points to the location where you extracted the 'Nircmd.exe' file. Name the shortcut 'mute_ unmute'. Double-click it to mute your speakers and do so again to turn them back on.
10. Remove programs from the 'Open With' list
Stop programs appearing on the 'Open with' list when you're trying to open an unrecognised file.
Open Regedit and browse to HKEY_ CLASSES_ROOT\Applications', and you'll see a list of programs that are installed on your PC as subkeys in the left-hand pane. To remove an unwanted program from this list, select it and right-click in the right hand pane.
Choose 'New | String value'. Name it 'NoOpenWith'. Repeat for each application that you want to remove from this list.
11. Correct file sorting
By default, a file named '2.jpg' will be sorted after one called '20.jpg'. Many people work around this by starting single-digit numbers in file names with a leading zero, but you can change this behaviour by making a Registry edit.
Browse to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explore.
Create a new DWORD value and name it 'NoStrCmpLogical'. Right click and modify its value to '1'.
12. Add new 'Copy to' key

Add a 'Copy to folder' option to the right-click context menu so that you can quickly copy a file by right-clicking it.
In the Registry Editor, browse to 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers' and create a new key called 'Copy to'. Change its default value to '{C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}' and check it works in Windows.
You can also add a 'Move to folder' option in this way. From the same 'ContextMenuHandlers' key, simply create a new key called 'Move to' and then change its default value to '{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}' to do this.
13. Skip welcome screen

You can choose to log into Windows automatically and bypass the welcome screen by making a simple tweak. To do this, choose 'Start | Run' and enter control userpasswords2 into the 'Open' bar. Click 'OK' to see a dialog showing each user installed on the PC.
Clear the box marked 'Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer'. Click 'OK'. Now restart your PC and you should go directly to your desktop.
14. Display shortcut keys
When you open a menu or My Computer window in XP, you can see what shortcut keys are available by pressing [Alt] once - underlined letters will appear, and pressing that letter will trigger the appropriate shortcut, whether it's ticking a box or selecting a button.
You can make these underlined letters appear automatically from the 'Appearance' tab under the 'Desktop' control panel. Click the 'Effects' button and remove the tick next to the box marked 'Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key'. Click 'OK' twice.
15. Say 'No to all' requests
When you're copying or moving a group of files, you'll sometimes be prompted to provide a 'Yes' or a 'Yes to all' response - if you need to give permission for a process to to overwrite existing files, for example.
Choose the latter option and similar files that prompt the same question will be ignored in future. But what if you want 'No to all' instead? There's no visible option, but you can select 'No to all' by simply holding the [Shift] key as you click 'No'.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/15-handy-windows-xp-tips-and-tricks-934443?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934443 Joe Cassels Sat, 12 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000 Software/Operating systems
There's something admirable about genuinely miserable people, the kind of people that greet the dawning of a new day by asking, "how can I really ruin this day for everybody?"
The kind of people who see everyone as money sponges they can squeeze to get a bit more cash.
The kind of people who run mobile phone networks.
iOS 4.3 is here, and that means Personal Hotspots: the ability to turn your iPhone 4 into a Wi-Fi access point for devices such as your computer or your iPad. It's just like sticking a Wi-Fi router on your home broadband, and it's a feature Android already offers.
Now, you'd think that since iPhone data plans are so ridiculously, ruinously expensive, and since almost all of them have a cap on the amount of data you can use each month, the personal hotspot feature would be free.
You'd be wrong.
With the honourable exception of Three, it seems that if you want to use your iPhone as a hotspot and you're not on a million quid per month data plan, you'll pay extra for it.
Why?
Data is data
I've seen suggestions that the networks are worried about data hogs: people will connect their laptops to their iPhones and immediately download Windows Service Packs, AV updates and Blu-Ray rips.
If only there was a way of penalising such customers, for example by setting a limit on how much data they could download in a month. The networks could mess with them while we're at it by calling it "unlimited data" when it's really half-a-gig.
Deterring data hogs is the only reasonable explanation for making you pay extra for tethering on an iPhone, but we already have a deterrent in the form of data caps - and you don't pay for personal hotspots on Android devices. So what's different here?
There are only two possible explanations.
One, iPhone data is a different shape from Android data. It's triangular, or maybe octagonal, and it gets stuck in the internet tubes.
Or two, the networks are bastards.
I know, I know. It's a tough one.
Imagine if ISPs behaved like this. On a typical day my broadband connection is used by a MacBook Pro, an Acer Aspire, a PC I made out of old bits of wood and string, an iPhone 3GS, an iPhone 4, an iPad, an Apple TV, an Xbox 360 and quite possibly my next-door neighbours, the postie and the milkman. By phone firm logic I should be paying a surcharge for that, or several surcharges.
By phone firm logic I should be paying extra if I put a call on speakerphone.
Data is data. Provided you don't exceed your data limit or bring down the network, what you do with that data when it leaves the mobile phone network is none of the operator's damn business. Charging for tethering on a capped data plan is profiteering, plain and simple.
Maybe the networks realise that. O2 told us earlier that their new tariffs, which will be announced in the next few weeks, will include tethering as part of your data allowance - and that existing customers would be able to get those tariffs. The cynic in me says "yeah, provided you sign up for another 24 months". I hope I'm wrong.
If you want a personal hotspot, don't pay for it. Wait and see what new tariffs emerge, whether the operators will let you move to them without signing away your eternal soul, and whether the various networks realise how greedy they're being when they ask you to pay twice for your data.
And if they still expect you to pay extra for tethering?
Jailbreak your iPhone.
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/iphone-personal-hotspot-another-excuse-for-the-networks-to-rip-us-off-934779?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/934779 Gary Marshall Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:40:00 +0000 Phone and communications/Mobile phones
UPDATE: Check out our iOS 4.3 review.
The iOS 4.3 release date has arrived, and once again the update brings some new goodies to your iPad, iPad 2, iPhone and iPod touch.
But not the old ones, because the iOS 4.3 specs only support the iPhone 3GS and third-gen iPod touch onwards.
So what iOS 4.3 features should you be getting excited about?
iOS 4.3 release date
iOS 4.3 was released on 9 March 2011 at 6pm so you can download it now.
The iOS 4.3 specs include a much faster Safari
Mobile Safari now benefits from the same Nitro JavaScript engine that powers the desktop version, which should make browsing the web much faster.
iOS 4.3 brings AirPlay to your iPhone videos
The new release fixes the strange omission in AirPlay where you couldn't send videos from your iPhone camera roll to your Apple TV. AirPlay has been dramatically improved in iOS 4.3: third-party apps will be able to take advantage of it, so you won't be limited to Apple's own apps when you want to chuck songs, movies or photos at an Apple TV. iOS 4.3 features also include AirPrint wireless printing.

AIRPLAY: AirPlay gets much more useful in iOS 4.3, with third-party apps able to stream content to an Apple TV
iOS 4.3 features include iTunes Home Sharing
Good news for homebodies with huge iTunes libraries: instead of trying to cram a subset of your media collection onto your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, simply enable iTunes Home Sharing and stream your music, photos, podcasts or videos from your Mac or PC. Voila: every iOS device has unlimited storage until you leave the house.
iOS 4.3 brings Personal Hotspots to your iPhone 4
As widely predicted, iOS 4.3 brings a nifty new feature to iPhone 4 users: personal hotspots, which turn your iPhone (iPhone 4s only) into a Wi-Fi access point for any Wi-Fi devices.
Unless there's a last-minute surge of generosity from the network operators you'll need tethering enabled to take advantage of it, so for example on O2 that'll set you back £7.66 for 500MB.

Personal Hotspots will only support three devices
While personal hotspots can connect five devices in total, Apple's iOS page says that iOS 4.3's Wi-Fi sharing can only handle "up to three of those connections using Wi-Fi". The others would need to be via Bluetooth or USB.
The iPad orientation lock is back
You know how the iPad switch became a mute button instead of a rotation lock? With iOS 4.3, you can keep it as-is or make it a rotation lock again.
iOS 4.3 has special video effects
This one's for the FaceTime fans: iOS 4.3's features include special effects for your iOS device's camera, allowing you to pretend it's an X-Ray or a thermal camera.
iOS 4.3 supports app subscriptions
The Guardian leaked this one in December: support for recurring app subscriptions.
iOS 4.3 won't work on the iPhone 3G (or second generation iPod touch)
The first iPhone and the iPhone 3G don't meet the iOS 4.3 specs, and second-generation iPod touches are excluded from the 4.3 party too. That's not a huge surprise: sticking 4.0 on the iPhone 3G made it do a brilliant impression of a brick.
iOS 5.0 is coming in the summer
Some sites predicted an iOS 5.0 unveiling would happen at the iPad 2 event, and of course that didn't happen - but we'd expect at least a big hint at the annual iPhone unveiling this summer, when Apple unveils the iPhone 5.
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/ios-4-3-what-you-need-to-know-933908?src=rss&attr=newsoperat http://www.techradar.com/933908 Gary Marshall Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:09:00 +0000 Computing/Apple