Ntldr Missing

If you ever get the message Ntldr Missing or corrupted when booting your windows XP Machine, it could be that the NTLDR file was accidentally deleted, or somehow got corrupted along the way which is a very common problem.

In order to fix this problem we are going to need a Windows XP installation disc which you get when you buy a new computer, just because we will be using the Recovery Console to fix this issue, below you will find all the steps to follow in order to correct this problem:

1.-In order to fix the Ntldr Missing error we are going to insert  the windows XP installation disc and try to boot from the CD, you may need to change your boot order on the BIOS in order to boot from the CD, other computers do this automatically depending on the settings  they came out from the factory.

2.-You will get the following message “Press any key to boot from CD” just go ahead and press Enter to continue.

3.-Windows will now start loading all the files necessary; this could take from 2 to 5 minutes depending on  the speed of your computer.

4.-Once all files are loaded you will be presented with the following options to choose from:

          -To set up windows XP now, press Enter

          -To repair a windows XP installation using

           The Recovery Console, press R

          -To quit set up without installing windows XP, press F3

5.-Go ahead and press “R” Once in the Recovery Console select the drive you want to fix, which is usually drive C:\ or it could be a different letter drive depending on how many windows installation you currently have on your computer, but usually its the drive C:\.

6.-You will be prompted to enter the administrator password, if there is no password just go ahead and press enter to continue.

7.-Once on the C:\windows> directory go ahead and enter the ntldr missing file like shown below:

8.-C: \windows>copy D:\I386\Ntldr C:\

The Ntldr Missing error should be resolved and now you should be able to boot into windows without any problems, something else you can try if you are still having trouble with your computer is to run a checkdisk  scan that you can also run from the recovery console or you can schedule within windows next time the computer restart just to make sure there is nothing wrong with your hard drive.

How To Make a Password Protected Folder

In this tutorial I will show you two different ways on how to make a password protected folder; that you don’t want anyone else to be able to open it without your permission.

1) How to Make a Password Protected Folder Using  zipped folder:

This is something that it’s already built into windows and all you have to do is the following:

Right click on the file or folder you want to protect and select ‘send to’             from the drop down menu and choose compressed (zipped) folder. Then      you will get a small window with the following question:

Do you want to designate compress (zipped) folders as the application for handling ZIP files?

Go ahead and click ‘yes’

You will now notice that windows have created a new ZIP file from the original and the icon will be a little different.

Now double click on the new zip file or folder, go to ‘file’ on the menu and select ‘Add a password’ Once you have entered the new password just click ‘Ok’ and you are done. Don’t forget to delete the original file or folder so only the ZIP file exists, because the original file or folder is not password protected. 

2) How Make a Password Protected Folder Using Axcrypt

This is a cool little utility that lets you password protect any file or folder on the fly; the way it does it is by actually encrypting the file or folder and adding a password to it that you choose; You can download it completely free for personal use, just do a Google search for it and install it.

Once you have installed Axcrypt, all you have to do is right click on any file or folder you want to protect and from the drop down menu select ‘Axcrypt’ and choose ‘Encrypt’ then you will be prompted to enter a new password; after you are done entering the new password, just click ‘Ok’ and you are done; the icon will change to a green shield with a key in the middle. From now on every time  want to open it you will need to enter the password you chose for the file or folder and also you will need to provide the password if you wish to remove the encryption. There a many other ways on How to Make a Password Protected Folder, but I like these two option because they are completely  free.

Difference Between PCI 2.0 and 3.0

Graphics Card Between PCI 2.0 and 3.0 Explained

A couple of weeks ago a client of mine wanted to update the graphics card to his computer which will allow him to play the latest games, but first I had to do some research about the difference between PCI 2.0 and 3.0 compatibility. The computer was a Dell Inspiron 580 with windows 7 home premium 64bits and a total of 8G of ram which is a pretty decent system, although the mother board can take up to 16G of ram, you need to have windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate to access it.

When he bought the computer it came with a video card ATI  Radeon  HD 5450 and 1024MB of ram connected to a PCIe x16 v2.0 from the factory which is not one of the best graphics card. One of the problems that I had was that the latest and more advance video cards are PCIe x16 v3.0 and what I found out is that basically all graphics cards are backwards compatible, now it might not run to its full potential, but you can still plug a pci 3.0 graphics card to a pci 2.0 slot on a mother board and it will work just fine.

Keeping in mind the difference between PCI 2.0 and 3.0 I decided to buy one of the best graphics card he could afford, the Geforce GTX 650 Ti SSC which came  with 2G of ram which is a very powerful card at a very good price, another thing to keep in mind when buying a new graphics card is to make sure you have enough space inside the computer to accommodate the new graphics card, since they vary in sizes, the GTX 650 Ti basically takes two spaces, so if you have another slot next to the PCIe you will no longer be able to use that slot and also make sure you that your power supply can handle the load and depending on the card you get you will need  an additional  6 pin power connector coming from the power supply to connect to the graphics card which in my case I had to replace the stock power supply.

Now for power supplies the higher the wattage the more stable the system is; so I put a 700 watts Thermaltake power supply which can easily handle anything you throw at it.

So as long as you have a PCI express slot available on your motherboard v3.0, v2.0 or v1.0 you can plug any graphics card you like, because they are all backwards compatible, just like usb, so the only difference between PCI 2.0 and 3.0 is that the most advance graphics card may run slower on a 2.0 slot.

Computer Overheating Symptoms

Believe or not computer overheating is very common problem that everybody experiences at some point or another and it is mostly due to a clogged fan, poor air circulation or worst, the fan that cools the cpu simply stops working. There are many Computer Overheating Symptoms, besides the excessive heat, the most common one is that the computer just shut down by itself without any warnings and it usually happens minutes after you turn it on.

So if you have a desktop, most people tend to place the computer on the floor because of space, overtime the fan and everything inside the computer case gets clogged with dust and lint, blocking the air flow. You can tell when a computer is clogged with dust because the fan makes this really loud noise.

Computer Overheating Symptoms - Solution:

What I would recommend is that you buy a can of compress air, take your computer outside, because you don’t want all the dust inside your house. Open the side panel of the computer case making sure you don’t touch anything inside and just blow off the dust, make sure you hold the can of compress air in a upright position when blowing, if you have a laptop you will see some vents at the bottom or the sides of the laptop, just blow air through it and that should take care of it.

If you have an air compressor in your garage you could certainly use it, but make sure have a moisture filter connected to it, because you don’t want to be blowing moisture inside your pc that would be a bad idea.

Computer overheating Symptoms - Other causes:

Blowing the dust out of the case should make your computer run cooler, but if you still have some overheating problems, there is something else you could do, but do it only if you are tech savvy and have a great understanding about computers, because you could easily damage your computer if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Between the cpu and the heatsink(aluminum block on top of the cpu) you have thermal paste and its used to make a nice even contact between the two, over time though, this thermal paste gets sort of like a hard plastic, loosing all off its heat transfer properties and making your computer overheat. You can buy the thermal paste at your local electronics store or one of the major  electronic retailers online.

When you remove the Heatsink from the cpu you will see the old thermal paste, just clean it up with some isopropyl alcohol and let it dry before you put new thermal paste on it, you need just enough to cover the metal surface of the cpu. Now, if you have a laptop it’s a lot harder to do this, because this involve taking the whole laptop apart and if you don’t have any patience or the skills to do it, just find somebody competent to do it for you, you’ll be surprise on how much cooler your computer runs just by replacing  the thermal paste and the computer overheating symptoms are a thing of the past.

Earphones With Volume Control

This is something that I started discovering by accident as you all know all the iphones come with the  earphones with volume control. well I was using it like that without giving it a second thought, the same for listening to music. The way I came across this was when I was playing with my Ipod nano, there is a function on the ipod nano where you press a button twice and that makes it skip to the next song on the list, very useful especially when you are exercising. 

One day I was listening to music on my iphone while I was working, the thing about the iphone was that I had to get it out my pocket in order to change the song or so I thought. So out of nowhere I pressed the middle button twice and skipped to the next song, I was like no way! So I started playing and doing some more research and I found out some more great shortcuts:

- iPhone Earphones With Volume Control Shortcuts Complete List:

1. - For incoming calls, press the center button to answer, press it again to end the call.

2. - To ignore an incoming phone call, just press and hold the middle button.

3. - To swap between calls, press the middle button once. If you want to end the new call press and hold the middle button for a few seconds.

4. - If you have the camera on, press the volume up button to take pictures.

5. - For Siri just press and hold the middle button.

6. - If you are listening to a song press the middle button once to pause it, press it again to resume.

7. - To fast forward a song, press the middle button twice and hold it on the second press.

8. - To rewind a song, press the middle button 3 times and hold it on the third press.

9. - To skip a song, just press the middle button twice.

10. - To go back to a previous song, just press the middle button 3 times.

I hope that this iPhone earphones with volume control shortcuts have been of some help, Thanks for reading!

Is The New iPhone 6 Really Too Big?

There seems to be a lot of excitement with the release of the New iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ which took place on september 19th of this year with a record sale of 10 million units in a week. Apple is finally giving people what they really want as far as screen sizes go.

I always loved my iPhone, but one major complaint  I had was the size of the screen, especially if you like to watch movies on it or to just  simply surf the web, it can be a little frustrating with such a small screen. I personally like the 4.7-inch HD display of the new iPhone 6, the screen is big enough and yet still fits good in my hand. 

As far as the iPhone 6+ goes, it kind of compares to the Galaxy Note 4 in size; only a little smaller. I think there is a market for every phone, people have different needs.

One major improvement of new iPhone 6 is that it comes with a brand new desktop class 64-bit A8 chip architecture which is 25% faster than the previous A7 chip of the iPhone 5s and for the memory you can buy one now with up to 128g capacity , something never before seen on a mobile device which is great, but I only wish apple would come up with a phone that has a memory slot like any other smartphone on the market today.

There has been numerous claim of people complaining of bending issues with their new iPhone  whenever they put it in their pockets. If you think about it you can bend or break any phone if you have in your back pocket and then you sit on it, regardless of what the brand is. 

My only disappointment about the New iPhone 6 was the camera, I wish Apple would have done major improvements on it, at least a bigger resolution for taking pictures like 16 megapixels or so, there has been only a few some improvement, but nothing major.

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How to Recover Deleted Files

TWO SIMPLE WAYS ON HOW TO RECOVER DELETED FILES

If it ever happens that you deleted some files and empty the windows trash can afterwards, just to realize that you deleted some very important files and you don't know what to do to get them back. Well don’t worry about it, I will show you two simple ways on how to recover  deleted files from your computer.

You see when you delete a file; the file isn't really gone, windows just takes it out of the registry, think about it this way if you look through a book’s index or table of content and somebody  ripped one page out of it, that doesn't mean that the topic is gone on the book just the table of content, well windows also works on a similar way.

1) How to Recover Deleted files using Shadow copies

This option only works on windows Vista / 7 / 8 from time to time windows is constantly creating new copies of your files, which means that you can recover any file you have deleted. Now the only catch is that this feature is only available on the professional versions, to recover a file just go to the folder where the files used to be, right click on it and choose show previous versions you will see a list of the different copies created.

If you happen to have the home Editions there is another utility called shadow explorer that you can download for free and use to retrieve shadow copies, you see windows vista / 7 / 8 home editions have the shadow copies built in but they don't make it available for home edition users.

2) How to Recover deleted files using Recuva

Recuva is a Free Data Recovery Software that allows you to recover any deleted files including: Pictures, Music, Documents, Videos, Emails etc. It works a little different than shadow copies, because it searches for the actual file that was deleted so the sooner you recover the file the better, because since is out of the registry windows can write new data over the file you are trying to recover just go to www.piriform.com and download a copy, Recuva is free for personal use.

Macbook Pro Fan Speed Control

I decided to write this post today to show you how you can control your Macbook Pro fan speed; because for some time I have noticed that my laptop runs really hot, up to 90c when doing some intensive work and the fans don't really seem to kick in until it gets really hot.

I think I have an idea why the MacBook pro run hotter than a regular laptop; the problem is that Apple tries to make their products thinner and smaller every now and then which is fine with me, but the problem is that when you have Macbook pro with a Quad Core I7 processor or even the I5 processor, they generate a lot of heat and they need a lot of room to dissipate it and like I said before the fans don't really kick in until it gets to about 80c or 90c, This is a Macbook pro late 2013 Retina Display running  OS X Mavericks. 

After looking at Intel's data sheets for their Quad Core I7 processors, I found out that the max temp is about 100c,  a little too close for comfort if you ask me, so I started to do some research on how to  manually control the speed of the fans, so that my Macbook pro  would run cooler and make it last longer, because we all know heat is the enemy of computers.

There is a couple of Apps you can download to increase your Macbook Pro fan speed, but there is one in particular that I really like called Macs Fan Control which you can download for free and it allows you to control the fan in three different ways: automatic, constant and sensor base.

Just go to www.crystalidea.com and download it ; once you install the app and set it up the way you wanted it makes a big difference on how cool your Macbook pro runs.

One thing you will notice is that the fans run a little noisier on cpu intensive work or video and audio editing, therefore the fans have to spin faster, but other than that I think it is a great App for increasing your Macbook Pro Fan Speed.

Free Online Virus Scanner

If you ever wanted to check a particular file for viruses, trojans, worms and all other kinds of malware without having to install an Antivirus program; you can very easily upload the file to www.VirusTotal.com the neat thing about this website is that it uses multiple antivirus programs up to 50+ to scan the file and it’s completely free; this is particularly good, because we all know that there is not a single antivirus product that can catch it all, this lowers the possibility of having a false positive result.

Something important to keep in mind is that the file you are uploading can’t be bigger than 128 MB in size; another cool feature about www.VirusTotal.com  that  I like is that it let’s you check URLS too.

Remember that this only works for scanning individual files, if you suspect your whole computer is infected then I would recommend installing a good Antivirus software, check my previous article ‘best free antivirus programs’ for a list of programs that I personally like.

There are a lot cases when the computer is so infected that the malware doesn’t let you install any programs, that’s when a pre cleaning tool is recommended! I will be talking more in depth about this in future posts!

Changing a Router Password

If you were ever thinking of changing a router password, SSID name, parental control or any other settings to your wireless network, It is really simple; all you have to do if you have a windows machine is go to the windows menu, on the  search box type CMD, that will take you to the command prompt and just type ipconfig, look for the default gateway number and type it into the main search box  of your browser.

You will be taken to the router's main page and it will ask you for your username and password, keep in mind that this is your routers password which is different from your network password or wireless key; you can find this information on the back of your router, now this will vary from vendor to vendor depending on what type you have, some of the most popular routers are Netgear, Linksys, Thomson, Belkin, Airport Express and a few others. If you have a service like Comcast or Verizon Fios this information is usually found on your contract papers, but if for some reason you lost them, you can always call your internet provider and ask for them.

Once inside your routers main menu just choose the wireless settings option; from here you can change your wireless password, SSID name, which is the name of your network and wireless encryption like WEP, WPA, WPA2, which I always recommend using WPA2 encryption for your wireless connection, because this is by far the most secure.

Something else to consider when changing a router password:

Another thing you can do to increase your security is using the wireless mac
authentication feature to limit who has access to your network even if they have  the network key or password, the way this works is really simple; every appliance that has wireless capabilities has a unique mac address, so only the ones added to the list will be able to connect to the network, which is basically an extra layer of protection.

If you bought your own wireless router and set it up yourself and later down the road you forgot the username and password, you will have to do a hard reset to the router by pressing a tiny button on the back of the router  with a paper clip, in this case you will loose all your settings, but you will be able change the password to your router using the default username and password as previously mentioned before.

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Outlook PST Files Location

In this article I will be showing you the Outlook PST File Location on the different versions of windows For some reason Windows doesn’t store PST files under My Documents folder (except for windows 8) where basically all personal data is stored, you have to kind of dig your way around to find them and even many people make the mistake of only backing up their My Documents folder thinking everything they need is inside that folder, below you will find a list of the different places for each version of Windows:

Outlook PST File Location for Windows XP

By far used to be one of my favorites, even though Microsoft no longer supports windows XP, there is still a lot of people that still loves it, but  I  think eventually people will have to abandon it and move on to a better system. you can find these files following the path below: 

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Outlook PST File Location for Windows Vista and Windows 7

The location for both windows vista and windows 7 is practically the same, In my personal opinion I think windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft ever done, unlike windows vista which was only full of problems. You can find the PST files by following the path below:

C:\users\username\Local\ Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

Outlook PST File Location for Windows 8

I think Microsoft is finally learning to make things a little easier, because PST files on windows 8 are located under My Documents folder. Which makes it a lot better for the users, especially when trying to do a back up of all your documents  although the interface of windows 8 is very different and its lacking the classic start menu, it seems to run the faster than previous versions.

C:\Users\Username\My Documents\Outlook files

Don’t forget whenever you back up your computer to include all PST files; since they are not on my documents folder on Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 as previously mention before, it is very easy to forget, I would recommend before doing a manual back up of your files to make a list of everything you will need to back up, if there are multiple users on a computer simply select the “user name” which you want to access and do this for each individual account.

Windows Update Error 8024a000

In This Tutorial I Will Show You How To Fix The Windows Update Error  8024a000

I recently had to replace a faulty hard drive on my neighbor's desktop computer, which is running windows vista 32 bit, after doing the reinstallation of windows, I went ahead and tried to do all the  updates and got the windows update error 8024a000 so started doing some research and noticed that a lot of people are having the same issue after replacing a hard drive; windows update will not work.

In order to fix the error code 8024a000 do the following steps in order:

Stop all services that belong to Windows Update

 
1. -    Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.

2.  -   At the command prompt, type the following, commands and then press enter after each command.

        net stop wuauserv
        net stop bits
        net stop cryptsvc
 

Rename folders that belong to Windows Update

At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press Enter after each command:

4.     ren %systemroot%\System32\Catroot2 Catroot2.old
5.     ren %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old

Register all  DLL’s files that belong to Windows Update

 
6.     Copy and paste the following text into a new Notepad document, and save the file as WindowsUpdate.BAT
     
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\vbscript.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\mshtml.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msjava.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\jscript.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msxml.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\actxprxy.dll /s
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\shdocvw.dll /s
regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
regsvr32 wucltui.dll /s
regsvr32 wups2.dll /s
regsvr32 wups.dll /s
regsvr32 wuweb.dll /s
regsvr32 Softpub.dll /s
regsvr32 Mssip32.dll /s
regsvr32 Initpki.dll /s
regsvr32 softpub.dll /s
regsvr32 wintrust.dll /s
regsvr32 initpki.dll /s
regsvr32 dssenh.dll /s
regsvr32 rsaenh.dll /s
regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 sccbase.dll /s
regsvr32 slbcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll /s
regsvr32 Urlmon.dll /s
regsvr32 Shdocvw.dll /s
regsvr32 Msjava.dll /s
regsvr32 Actxprxy.dll /s
regsvr32 Oleaut32.dll /s
regsvr32 Mshtml.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml2.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml3.dll /s
regsvr32 Browseui.dll /s
regsvr32 shell32.dll /s
regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll /s
regsvr32 wucltui.dll /s
regsvr32 wups.dll /s
regsvr32 wuweb.dll /s
regsvr32 jscript.dll /s
regsvr32 atl.dll /s
regsvr32 Mssip32.dll /s


 
7. Once you save it , double click on the file to open it, you will see the command prompt open  registering all the dll files.

Restart all services that belong to Windows Update

 
8.     Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.

9.     At the command prompt, type the following, commands and then press ENTER after each command.

        net start wuauserv
        net start bits
        net start cryptsvc
        exit
 
I hope that this solves your windows update error 8024a000, because it did worked for me.
Other people have had success by just reinstalling the  Intel rapid Storage Technology drivers.

ComboFix

A must have tool for fighting viruses and spyware, designed as a pre-cleaning tool, Combofix comes in handy whenever you are trying to disinfests a computer in the case where the malware itself won’t allow to install your regular antispyware tools. Once you are infected with a virus or spyware they take control of your computer and do changes to the registry blocking the installation of your regular antispyware tool, the best way to run it is in safe mode with networking(for downloading updates), because only the essential  files to run windows load into memory, giving you a better change to run it . Combofix is a very small file that you can download from many different places, just do a Google search for it.

It is important to know that Combofix is a very powerful tool and should be use carefully, also in the process of cleaning your system it may delete some files where malware usually resides. It is a good idea to make a back up of the registry just in case. Also if you have your antivirus running make sure to turn it off before running Combofix, so that you don’t have any conflicts between the two programs.

Why is my computer running so slow?

I just wanted to make a short simple list of things you could do to improve the performance of your computer, hope you find it useful!

As you all know computers tend to get slower as time passes by, and the problem could one or more issues that may be slowing your PC down. Well there are some things you could do to optimize your computer and have it running a lot better, below you will find some simple techniques you could do to increase your computer performance.

1. - System Configuration Utility

The easiest way to access this feature is to click on “start menu” and then type msconfig on the search bar. You will get a screen that looks like this:

So what happens is that every time a new program gets installed on your computer, that particular program loads in the background every time you start your PC, therefore you got a lot of programs trying to load one after the other making your computer run slower. Just uncheck the programs you don’t want to start, make sure you don’t uncheck any Microsoft program because you may have some problems later on. This one step makes a big noticeable difference in the speed of your computer.

2. - Disk Defragmenter

This is another tool that is very useful, especially if you still got some of the old hard drives with smaller capacity. As data gets written all over the drive over time its makes it harder and harder for the hard drive to find the data is looking for; making your computer run slower. This is not the case with newer hard drives, because they have a bigger storage capacity.

One way you can get to this tool is to go to start menu\all programs\accessories\system tools\disk defragmenter. Now depending on the size of the hard drive and how fragmented it is, it could take up to an hour or more to run.

Now I recommend you run this tool no more then twice a year, because it is very stressful to the hard drive and you don’t want to overtax it too much especially if you have an old hard drive, if you have windows vista or windows 7 this is already scheduled to run on a regular basis. 

3.- Virus and Spyware Removal

Another issue that could make your computer run slow; so it is a good idea to make sure your computer is not infected with viruses or spyware, because they can dramatically slow the performance of your computer. It is recommended you you have active protection, there is a couple of great free antimalware programs.

 

Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems

The causes for this problem could be many and to troubleshoot internet connection problems it is important to have a guide or methodology in diagnosing the issue,  so that you can fix internet connection problems in the shortest amount of time, so I decided to put together a step by step guide on how to approach this problem. It is important to know that internet connectivity issues may be software or hardware related.

Step 1: When you troubleshoot internet connection problems, the first thing you should check is if your modem and router are online and check the lights to make sure they are, this step is often overlooked and sometimes all you have to do is power cycle the modem and router and you are back online.

Step 2: If they are offline, just unplug them from the power and wait a few minutes, then plug the modem first and let it get online, once the modem is online then plug the router, it has to done in this order, because it takes the modem longer to get online and if the router gets online first it will assign itself it’s own IP address and you won’t be able to connect to the internet. 

Step 3: If your modem and router are online, the next thing to check would be the cables themselves and make sure everything is connected properly and that there is no damage to the cables, I like to do this first, because it doesn’t take much time and it could very well be the problem. Also if you have a laptop make sure the switch for the wireless is on. It is important to check for simple things first, because you can do it quickly and do it just before you start playing with all the settings, it might save you a lot of time.

Step 4: Open up your browser and check if you can get online, if you can’t connect; try connecting a different computer and see if it works. If you can get online with the other computer that means that modem and router are working fine and the problem is with your computer. Also try a different browser like firefox or chrome and see if you can get online that way. If you do, that means that you have a browser problem. Now if you have an internet security suite or antivirus installed, sometimes they turn off your internet connection for whatever reason, so it’s a good idea to check the settings and make sure your internet is not being halted by those programs.

Step 5: Troubleshoot internet connection in Internet Explorer by resetting all settings to default, that usually fixes the problem, just open Internet Explorer go to Tools\Internet Options\Advance and click on reset. Once you do this, all your add-ons will be gone so you’ll have to reinstall them, but your internet should be working now.

Step 6: If this fails, check if you are getting an IP address, just go to Start Menu and on the search bar type cmd, that will bring the command line and type ipconfig/all and see if you’re getting an IP address, if you do then do a loopback ping test to see if your network card is working properly on the command line type ping localhost If this checks out ok, next thing you could do is to check your DNS service, in the command line type ping 4.2.2.2 this is a well known DNS server on the web. If you get a reply back, that means your problem may be that your DNS service is down.

Step 7: If you have a problem with DNS, make sure your network card is set up to DHCP so that it can connect to the proper DNS servers, you can access this feature on control panel\network connections and double click on the network adapter icon, then click on properties and highlight where it says Internet protocol (TCP/IP) and hit properties and make sure the Obtain an IP address automatically is selected.

Step 8: Try uninstalling the network card driver and reinstall an updated version if possible, also you can try uninstalling your browser and reinstalling it, that could also fix your problem.

Tip for windows XP:  One last thing you could do to troubleshoot internet connection problems is to use a free software called Winsockxpfix, this tool works only on Windows XP, this is something you could do first if you like, because it doesn’t take long to run and I had great success with it in the past.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Wont’t Install

A couple of days ago I had a computer given to me to do some clean up of malware, I ran all of my basic malware removal tools and the computer was running great after I did all the cleaning. I then decided to do all the windows updates, because this computer was so far behind that it didn’t even have service pack 1, so I went to the start menu and on the search bar I typed windows update and it download several updates and the computer restarted , after that, I checked again for more updates and then it showed that service pack 1 was available, so click on install and it started downloading and installing, less than a minute into the installation it told me that it had installed successfully, I knew it didn’t, because usually installing service packs takes a long time and I was right it didn’t install, so I tried a couple more times and I got the same problem.

Solution:

So after doing some research I found a different way to install service pack 1, if for some reason you have the same problem all you have to do is go to the Microsoft website download page  and manually download the service pack , once you have download it, double click on the file and it will install without any problems and I don’t know why doing it through the windows update  on the search bar won’t work, I guess that’s why a lot of  people didn’t like vista, because it was always giving them problems.

Best Free Antivirus Programs

These are some of the best free antivirus programs you can download:

I had tested them all and without any doubt they are equal or sometimes better than any other paid antivirus on the market today.

1. - Best Free Antivirus Programs / Avast

Truly my number 1 when it comes to best free antivirus software, Avast has come a long way since the beginning, now with a better user friendly interface. One unique feature that I really like about Avast is the boot time scanner which allows you to do a comprehensive scan of your drive before windows loads up, this is very important, because many viruses and spyware can’t be detected while the computer is running windows.

2. -Best Free Antivirus Programs / Avira Antivir

Another great free antivirus; Avira antivir is among the best for several reason, offering protection against Viruses, Worms, Trojan, Rootkits, Spyware and phishing, a very complete antivirus solution with a small footprint on memory.

3. -Best Free Antivirus Programs / AVG antivirus

AVG is one of the first antivirus to be offered for free, for personal use. It includes all the features that can expect from a complete antivirus program. It also includes the new LinkScanner® Active Surf-Shield which is constantly checking for threats while you’re surfing on the web. This is a very easy antivirus to download and install, and with almost 80 million users, it has become one of the most reliable antimalware protection there is.

These best free antivirus programs can be downloaded completely free for personal use!

Window Updates

If you are a computer repair technician, a great tool to have in your toolbox for doing offline window updates is WSUS, There are many times when you are in a situation where the internet speed is not the best that it could be and you need to download and install window updates; depending on your client’s connection that could take a long time to download and install, that’s where WSUS come in handy.

WSUS: is a small utility that allows to download all updates for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003, Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 and stores it locally so you can have it on the go on your flash drive, Just choose the updates you want to download and the different options, click on start and it will start downloading the updates you chose this may take a while depending on the options you selected.

To download it just do a Google search for 'wsus offline update'; get the latest version and unzip the file. This will truly save you a lot of time whenever you do your window updates.