The System Stability Index rates your system from one (leaste stable) to 10 (most stable) based on problems you’ve encountered. To check your rating, click Start, Control Panel, System and Maintenance, and select Administrative Tools. Double-click the Reliability and Performance Monitor link and choose Reliability Monitor.
Vista assigns keyboard shortcuts to every item in the Quick Launch toolbar. To open the first item in the bar, press the Windows key and the number 1. For the second item press Windows + 2 and so on.
You can turn off Vista’s graphically intensive interface by right-clicking the Desktop and selecting Personalize, Window Color and Appearance. Select ‘Open Classic Appearance Properties for more Color Options’ and choose Windows Vista Basic or Windows Vista Standard in the Color Scheme box.
Vista can test your system RAM for faults. Click Start, type ‘memory’ (without the quotes) into the box and hit Enter. You can now either restart your system to check for problems immediately, or do so on the next reboot.
If you have set up a network at home with more than one computer, you can see who is connected to your PC by clicking Start, Run and entering ‘cmd’ and then ‘netstat’ (both without quotes). You will now be able to see if someone is accessing shared files and documents.
When you have lots of software installed there can be too many items to fit on the Start menu. When this happens you will either see buttons to scroll the menu up and down, or two or more columns of menu items will be displayed. You can choose which option to use by right-clicking the Start button and choosing Properties. Click the Customize button and then select the Advanced tab. Tick or clear the Scroll Programs tick box, whichever you prefer.
I have never found it easy to organise the Favourites menu in Internet Explorer, but I recently discovered a simple way. Click Start, Run and enter Favourites. Your Favourites open in an Explorer window and it’s then easy to move them, delete them, and rename them as if they were files.
I love Firefox and wanted to try out the latest beta of Firefox 3, but couldn’t bring myself to go through the hassle of trying to install it on my computer before it’s full tested. It’s just asking for trouble, isn’t it? But there’s a website called PortableApps (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test) that has a portable version of the software, which you can run on a USB memory drive without having to install it.
There probably never was a time when the name of your much-loved pet was going to make a particularly clever password but, with so much more of our lives available to anyone who can crack a password, it’s now more important than ever to choose a good one. For a nice balance between easy to remember and secure, take a look at Password Bird (www.passwordbird.com). It uses a number of elements - a favourite name, word and date - to make a password that shouldn’t make sense to anyone but you.
It’s irritating when computer suppliers put programs you don’t want on new PCs. One of the things they can do is to add a link to the Start menu, like an advert for themselves or some third-party they have done a deal with. If you have a link that hasn’t been used before. You cannot get rid of this Start menu item by right-clicking it and selecting delete. Instead you need to right-click the Start menu and Properties from the context menu that is displayed. Choose the Start menu tab, select the ‘Start menu’ option and click the Customize button. Select the Advanced tab and find Manufacturer Link on the list of Start Menu items. Clear the tick box and click OK twice.
