Now, considering all the above, wouldn’t be great to have an AIO file with those “must have” Windows updates? As long as it gets the job done, I don’t mind if it has a Chinese interface… but, fortunately, All in One Runtimes only seems to come in German. Trust me – you don’t have to know a single German word to use this updates package successfully – all you need is about 500 MB of free space on your Windows drive (or the temporary drive, if you messed with the Windows settings and set some folder on another partition to be used for storing temporary files) and 7-Zip to unpack the downloadable package you have chosen.

To make the last phrase of the previous paragraph clear as Bora Bora’s water, let me tell you there are two All in One Runtimes packages available, one for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 x86, and one for Windows x64, including Windows 7.

The thing that makes All in One Runtimes worth downloading is the .NET Framework and all those countless hotfixes I was telling you about earlier, but there’s even more to this AIO package, since you’ll also get the latest DirectX 9.0c, Adobe Flash Player 10, Shockwave Player 11.5.0.596, Java Runtime Environment 6, Visual C++ Runtimes, an even Microsoft Silverlight 3.0! Installing them is as easy as possible; in fact, you can only unpack the executable package, and then do nothing! Go out and have a beer, then get back to your updated Windows OS – how cool’s that?

Finally, I should thank Raymond for discovering this software treasure. I really enjoy discovering things on my own, but this time I must give credits to the man, so… Thank you very much, Raymond!

Once you download the 1.6 MB setup package and install the program, everything works as natural as having a beer (or two-three-four-and-so-on… I hope you’re not one of those against beer, and if you are, just think about anything else that’s natural to you, like breathing)! These being said, let’s go quickly through a duplicate files check session, shall we?

Next, you should choose the program settings for the scan you’ll soon fire up, and my suggestion is to avoid selecting “Match contents(slower),” and the reason should be obvious.

I don’t know what else there can be said about Duplicate File Finder, since this program is extremely straightforward, as you can see in the short walkthrough above. Since even my mother could easily use it, and it comes free from any charge, I think this piece of code will remain installed on my computer for a long time since now… and this is exactly what I suggest to those of you who have same duplicate files problem as I do.

Most power users will laugh at this, but no matter how trivial may seem to be, using the OpenWith.org desktop tool can help you save a lot of your precious time, and since this is the most important asset one has, right after health and freedom… I didn’t pick this subject just to post another article here! When you need to open unknown file types, everything gets much easier if the research part is already done, there’s no need to argue about that.

After downloading the small setup package of this Windows tool, be sure to pay attention during the installation process, because you’ll also install some registry cleaning tool called PC Mighty Max if you’re just clicking Next without thinking about it too much! Sure, if you want to give it a try, there’s nothing bad in installing it, but I don’t like installers with such things checked by default, that’s all.

The window that pops up, pictured a bit earlier, allows you to get more info about the file you want to open, taking you to the OpenWith.org page about it, but it doesn’t stop here, since you can easily choose which program to use to open the file, or install one of those available online and available in the list.

All this can prove to be pretty useful when multiple programs are associated with a certain file type, and it’s really priceless when you are facing a file type that’s a complete alien to your operating system and the programs already installed…

Other than the above, there’s not much to say about OpenWith.org and the desktop tool provided by it, since I am sure you got the idea already – if we push aside the little problem encountered during the setup procedure, this is another freeware treasure most Windows users who have to open unknown file types shouldn’t miss!

Anyway, I am sure we can find a lot of examples about those times when your lockable keys were exactly in the wrong status, and I think this would also be a great subject for you to talk about, so please go ahead and tell us about funny (or not so funny) happenings involving Caps Lock, Scroll Lock or Num Lock, will you?

OK, back to disabling keys now… NumLocker is the name of the program, and the current version is 1.0. I don’t think any update is needed, because this little freebie offers exactly what you need – a quick way to disable/enable those three keys I mentioned earlier and make them remain set the way you want!

After you install the program, you’ll have to load it and right click its systray icon. Once you do that, everything should be pretty straightforward – for each key, you can choose one of the following options: On, Off, Always On, and Always Off. Other than that, you can also choose to load NumLocker with Windows, so you won’t have to bother about setting the program ever again!

Apart from being free to download and use, there’s also worth mentioning the fact that NumLocker works with both XP and Vista, and installing/removing it is as easy as 1-2-3. That’s it, folks, I really hope you’ll enjoy today’s tip and find this proggie to be a worthy addition to your software arsenal…

- The file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder, while viruses that don’t replace the original usually use the Windows root folder or some other system folder, like %SystemRoot%\system, and sometimes right in the %SystemRoot%\ folder.

- If you notice that svchost.exe is taking up too much processor time, you can try to find the service responsible for it and kill the process; anyway, it would also come handy to search for more info on Google, first of all!

- While using (ex-)Sysinternals Process Explorer is a very good way to find your path around svchost.exe in Windows XP, Vista’s improved Task Manager gives you a lot of power, so be sure to check “Show processes from all users,” and then right click one svchost instance, followed by a left click on Go To Service(s).

- There will always be more instances of svchost.exe running, so don’t worry; the number depends on the services running on your computer.

I guess there could be said a lot more about svchost.exe, but this isn’t a detailed svchost guide. What I wanted to do is just scratch the surface and help you open your eyes. If you have any questions about svchost.exe, don’t hesitate to drop your comments below and ask them, because it would be a real pleasure to help you find your answers!

… so today I’ll show you two things that should be on the first page of every Windows Vista book – removing UAC, and the secret registry tweak that should be used after that to boost your boot up speed.

Anyway, before moving on, we should point out why UAC must go away, since understanding that this feature is probably one of the main reasons keeping away so many people from using Vista is the key to finally arriving to that moment when living in peace with Microsoft’s latest operating system is no longer a dream.

If you ever used a computer with a brand new Windows Vista running on it, you probably noticed that some confirmations are required when performing harmless operations, like the creation of a new folder. Basically, that’s what User Account Control, shortly known as UAC, does (the official version of the story is that “it improves security”). I understand such things happening when erasing files and folders, but I can’t understand why about 4 (yes, four!!!) confirmations when creating a new folder!

That should be enough to make you understand why using Vista “out of the box” is like trying to run with a cannonball tied to your ankle, so let’s move on and solve this problem, shall we?

How to disable UAC in Windows Vista

1. Open the System Configuration tool by typing msconfig in the Run dialog box (press the Windows key+R to bring it up) or the Instant Search box

2. Once the System Configuration window is up, open the Tools tab

3. Locate the option called Disable UAC, and press the Launch button

4. When the command prompt window saying “This operation completed successfully” appears, everything’s done – just close it

5. Reboot the computer to apply the changes and leave that annoying UAC six feet underground!

Speed Up Windows Vista’s Boot Time

1. Open the Registry Editor using the Run dialog box or the Instant Search box (just type regedit and press Enter)

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\luafv

3. Notice there’s a “Start” entry with the value 0×00000002 (could be different, it was 2 for me); change the last figure to 4, so the new value should be 0×00000004

4. Close the Registry Editor and reboot

That’s all, folks, but before I leave you, there are two more things that need to be said… both about how to revert changes made to your Windows Vista while disabling UAC and “hacking” your system registry files.

First of all, if you want to enable UAC again (could be a very effective method for giving your mother-in-law a heart attack! ), all you need to do is find the option called Enable UAC, and push the Launch button, in step 3 of the little guide above.

At last, you should also know that the registry trick above could improve your boot time a lot, or not – depends on a lot of things, but it worked perfectly for me; if you need to revert changes, just change that registry entry to its initial value, and everything should be just fine.

Oh, yeah! One more thing – you can also use System Restore to undo last changes, but this could also erase various files that you created/changed in the meantime, so the old ways I described above should be the best. Good luck and may your Windows Vista computer run as fast as Speedy Gonzales!