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Techie Tips #1

Techie Tips # 1

There are a host of ways you can make your computer easier to manage and faster to run. Today let's have a look at some of these software tools and built in features for Windows.

System Recovery

Have you ever installed a new piece of software or hardware and had the whole PC fall apart? A new addition can cause all sorts of odd or annoying behaviours due to bad coding, faulty equipment or out of date drivers.

System Recovery is a built-in feature of Windows that can let you survive and recover from these issues at the press of a few buttons. It keeps a small backup of your computers setup every time you add a device or install certain software.

Make sure it is enabled on all your computers. To check, right click on My Computer and choose Properties. Click on the System Restore tab.

If you have System Restore turned off, the first box will be ticked, so remove the tick and click Apply then OK. If the box is not ticked, you should be protected. You can select your Harddrive and click the Settings button to control how much space it uses.

To restore your PC to an earlier version, before it developed problems, click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. Select a date & time from before the changes (these are called Restore Points) and follow the options to restore your computer.

If you cannot get in to Windows to restore your computer, you can try using Safe Mode to do the restore. To do so, push F8 before you see the Windows logo when the computer starts and choose Safe Mode from the menu.

System Restore does not backup or recover your files, emails or folders. It only records the devices and software on your computer.

Recover your Files

Have you every accidentally deleted an email, moments before you realised you need it? Or erased a critical assignment or document before you printed your final copy?

A file recovery tool could really help you out. File recovery means retrieving the deleted file or email from your computers hard drive before it gets overwritten by something else.

There are many recovery tools available on the internet, but my personal favourite it Recuva from Piriform (www.recuva.com). Certified to be spyware free, unlike many authentic looking tools available online. Be very wary of other free recover tools that may habour nasty viruses or spyware.

Currently free, Recuva can restore deleted files and emails in minutes and is very easy to use. Simply download and install the software from the website, then open it from your desktop. Once in the wizard will walk you through how to recover your files.

The more specific information you can give, the faster the recovery will proceed. Just remember that the longer you wait to recover a file or email, or the more data there is on the computer, the less likely it will be to recover the file.
Also due to Microsoft's coding, emails delete from MS Outlook cannot be recovered.