Task Manager is a tool that allows you to easily monitor your computer's activity and which helps you control the programs, services and processes that are currently running. You can also view details about the network traffic, the performance of the computer and the number of users that are connected at a given time. In this article I will show you how to use this tool and I'll present you its most important features and options.

One of the nice changes in Windows Vista is the fact that it introduced many tools that help you to keep your system performance and reliability at normal levels. So far we have reviewed tools such as the Reliability and Performance Monitor or the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool. In this article I will present to you another useful tool called Problem Reports and Solutions. As you will see for yourselves, this tool can help users troubleshoot the problems they encounter on their Windows Vista computers.

One of the criticized changes in Windows Vista compared to Windows XP, was that fact that the Disk Defragmenter allowed you only to defragment all your partitions at once and not separately. One of the changes introduced in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is allowing the users to select the partitions which they want to defragment. This is a very welcome change and it proves that Microsoft listened to the feedback received from their users.

In this article I will show you how to defragment only the partitions you want and how to schedule a defragmentation in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Drivers can be called, in a way, translators. They are basically programs that manage the communication between your programs and the hardware devices or components that are inside your PC. Most of the time the communication process runs smoothly while other times it doesn't. One of the possible causes might be the fact that the driver for a specific hardware component is either incompatible with your operating system, or it works with another version of the same component. In this tutorial I will show you how to remove faulty drivers that might be installed for some of your hardware components.

On our site you can find a lot of articles with tips & tricks about how to speed up Windows Vista and how to have an enjoyable computer experience. One way to have a fast system is to keep it as "clean" as possible: with very little space occupied by temporary or unused files and with little or no invalid registry keys.

One way to achieve this is to use Disk Cleanup. However, this tool can clean only files and not registry keys. A better solution is to use CCleaner - a freeware optimization tool that cleans-up all unnecessary files & invalid registry keys.

I always used to blame people who weren't paying attention when handling files. I kept asking them: How can you be so stupid to delete your personal documents or image files? When I taught my mother to use the computer I told her that 'Shift+Delete' is the total extinction of files, with no possible way of going back. I myself actually believed that for a while.

Then I discovered the file and data recovery software. 'What a great technology'', I said! Just until I had to recover my first accidentally deleted video files. The result: a total mess; all my recovered videos were unplayable, and the ones that I could play were fragmented, with altered sound and misplaced frames. However, there were cases when I managed to recover my lost files.

Buying yourself a new computer or a new operating system is very easy. It is more 'difficult' to learn what to do so that you will have a pleasant and safe computing experience. In this article I will share with you a few tips that I have learned during my career. This tips are mostly for people who have just bought a new PC or have reinstalled their operating system. Following them will help you keep your system performance at good levels and have a lesser risk of losing your personal files and folders in case of system crashes. Also, you will be able to easily restore your system if any emergency happens.

There are times when your system fails for various reasons such as: a virus attack, bad drivers installation, power outage, disk corruption, etc. In these cases you might not be able to start your system normally so you will need to boot into the so called 'Safe Mode'.
When you boot Windows Vista into 'Safe Mode', the operating system will have reduced functionality, meaning that it will disable many non-core components and devices. This will keep your system stable while you diagnose and repair the cause of the malfunction.

In case you don't know how to boot in 'Safe Mode', click on the Read more link.

A few months ago I wrote a tutorial showing you how to backup your files in Windows Vista. In this article I will show you how to restore those backups using the Backup and Restore Center.