Shortcut keys to Microsoft Excel

Here is a list of shortcut keys in Microsoft Excel.

1. F1: Opens a help task pane
2. F1 + Ctrl: Opens or closes the help window
3. F2: To edit the text in the active cell
4. F2 + Shift: To write a comment in the active cell
5. F2 + Alt: Opens the save as dialog box
6. F3 + Shift: opens the insert dialog box
7. F3 + Ctrl: Opens the define name dialog box
8. F3 + Shift + Ctrl: Opens the create name dialog box
9. F4: To redo the last command
10. F4 + Ctrl: To close the workbook window
11. F4 + Alt: To close the excel program
12. F5: Opens the Goto dialog box
13. F5 + Ctrl: brings back to the first level of workbook
14. F6: To shift between help taskbar and the excel window
15. F6 + Shift: To goto the previous square in the open worksheet
16. F6 + Ctrl: If more than one workbook is open to switch between them
17. F7: To open spelling correction window
18. F7 + Ctrl: When workbook window is not maximised it will move the window
19. F8: To activate / deactivate extended mode
20. F9: Will calculate all the worksheets in all open workbooks
21. F9 + Shift: Will calculate the active worksheet
22. F9 + Ctrl: To Minimise the workbook window
23. F10: Will select the menu bar
24. F10 + Ctrl: To open minimised window
25. F11: Will create a chart using the current range
26. F11 + Shift: To select a new worksheet
27. F11 + Alt: To switch between visual basic editor and the worksheet
28. F11 + Alt + Shift: Opens microsoft script editor
29. F12: Opens save as dialog box
30. F12 + Shift: Saves the active workbook
31. F12 + Ctrl: To open the Open dialog box
32. F12 + Ctrl + Shift: Opens the print dialog bo

How to increase disk space in case of Low Disk space

Do you feel that the free space on your hard-disk is too little ? Does it seem that something fishy is going on which is eating your hard-disk space? If your answer is yes, read on till end to uncover the secrets of this type of behavior.
Some of the key reasons are:
* Temp files on C drive
* Temporary Internet files
* Backup files created during installation
* Windows system restore data
* Duplicate copies of large files like movies, songs etc.
* Deleting Uninstall files for windows updates.
There are some more reasons as well, but these are most common reasons which can be observed. Now the important question, how to fix it ? Lets read on for the solution.
1. Deleting Temp files:
Temp files are the files which are created for some temporary purpose by many softwares. Go to Start > Run type “%temp” (without quotes) and press enter. This will open a Temp folder, at this folder,select and delete all files at this location. After this empty your windows recycle bin.
Note: You may not be able to delete certain files as they might be in use, but delete as many as you can.
2. Deleting Temporary Internet files and backup files:
There are several ways to do it, but we will tell you the most convenient way. Open My computer, right click on the disk drive , go to properties and click on Disk Cleanup as shown below:

This will open a Disk cleanup window as seen below:

Select the temporary Internet files,recycle bin,setup log files, temporary files, office setup files, and any other option which is not very important for you and Click OK. This will start the cleanup process and will delete the un-necessary files thus increasing the disk space.

Note: Above two methods deals with removal of junk and temporary internet files which can also be removed automatically using a software called CCleaner which can be downloaded from here.
What is CCleaner?
CCleaner removes unused and temporary files from your system – allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more HDD space.
3. Deleting old restoration data:
As a part of system restore utility, windows creates some check-points and saves corresponding data on each disk having restore feature. These files also consume significant space. You can delete all of them except the most recent restore point data if you feel that your computer is running stable for a long time and you may not need very old restore points. To delete it, open disk cleanup window as mentioned in previous step and click on More Options tab as shown below:

Click on System restore clean up button as highlighted in red circle in image above. This will give a warning message, click yes to it. This will delete all old restoration points except the most recent one.
4 .Delete duplicate copies of large files:
Sometimes we have several copies of same documents, songs and even videos which consume lots of space un-necessarily. Finding them manually and deleting them is a real pain. But this work has been made very easy by double-killer. Its an intelligent utility which scans your drives for duplicate copies of files and gives you and option to delete them. You can download it from here for free.
5. Deleting Uninstall files for windows updates:
You can also delete some folders whose name starts with “$NtUninstall.” in the windows directory (for example C:\Windows ) if C drive is the primary partition.
However, They are referring to prior hot fixes, so they should be safe to delete if your system is stable with the fixes applied after windows update, and you have no intention of uninstalling them.

How to Double Firefox Speed

Firefox is in my opinion the best browser ever made until now. It includes:
-improved tabbed browsing
-pop up blocking
-integrated Goggle search
-enhanced privacy controls
-built-in phishing protection
-online spell checking
-lots of themes, interfaces, and extensions/addons

Mozilla Firefox officially supports:
-Microsoft Windows
-Linux
-Mac OS X

Unofficial Support:
-Free BSD
-OS/2
-Solaris
-SkyOS
-BeOS
-XP Professional x64 Edition

Now here are some Tips&Tricks that can help you double the speed of Firefox.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and then press Enter.

2. In the filter search bar type network.http.pipelining. Be sure the value field is set true,if not double-click to set true.

HTTP is the application-layer protocol that most web pages are transferred with. In HTTP 1.1, multiple requests can be sent before any responses are received. This is known as pipelining. Pipelining reduces page loading times, but not all servers support it.

3. Go back to the filter search bar and type network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. Double-click this option and set its value to 8.

4. In the filter search bar and type network.http.proxy.pipelining. Once opened double-click on it and set it to true.

5. In IPv6-capable DNS servers, an IPv4 address may be returned when an IPv6 address is requested. It is possible for Mozilla to recover from this misinformation, but a significant delay is introduced.
Type network.dns.disableIPv6 in the filter search bar and set this option to true by double clicking on it.

6. CONTENT INTERRUPT PARSING
This preference controls if the application will interrupt parsing a page to respond to UI events. It does not exist by default.
Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Boolean from the pop-up menu. Then:

A. Enter content.interrupt.parsing in the New boolean value pop-up window and click OK

B. When prompted to choose the value for the new boolean, select true and click OK.

7. Rather than wait until a page has completely downloaded to display it to the user, Mozilla applications will regularly render what has been received to that point. This option controls the maximum amount of time the application will be unresponsive while rendering pages.

Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.

A. Enter content.max.tokenizing.time in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK

B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 2250000 and click OK.

8. CONTENT NOTIFY INTERVAL

This option sets the minimum amount of time to wait between reflows. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window, select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.

A. Type content.notify.interval in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.

B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 750000 and click OK.

9. CONTENT NOTIFY ONTIMER

A. This option sets if to reflow pages at an interval any higher than that specified by content.notify.interval. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Boolean from the pop-up menu.

B. Type content.notify.ontimer in the New boolean value pop-up window and click OK.

C. You will be prompted to choose the value for the new boolean. Select true and click OK.

10. Notify Backoffcount
This option controls the maximum number of times the content will do timer-based reflows. After this number has been reached, the page will only reflow once it is finished downloading. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.

A. Enter content.notify.backoffcount in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.

B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 5 and click OK.

11. CONTENT SWITCH THRESHOLD
You can interact with a loading page when content.interrupt.parsing is set to true. When a page is loading, the application has two modes: a high frequency interrupt mode and a low frequency interrupt mode. The first one interrupts the parser more frequently to allow for greater UI responsiveness during page load.

The low frequency interrupt mode interrupts the parser less frequently to allow for quicker page load. The application enters high frequency interrupt mode when you move the mouse or type on the keyboard and switch back to low frequency mode when you had no activity for a certain amount of time. This preference controls that amount of time. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.

A. Enter content.switch.threshold in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.

B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 750000 and click OK.

12. NGLAYOUT INITIALPAINT DELAY
Mozilla applications render web pages incrementally, they display what’s been received of a page before the entire page has been downloaded. Since the start of a web page normally doesn’t have much useful information to display, Mozilla applications will wait a short interval before first rendering a page. This preference controls that interval. Right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) anywhere in the about:config window and select New and then Integer from the pop-up menu.

A. Enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay in the New integer value pop-up window and click OK.

B. You will be prompted to enter a value. Enter 0 and click OK.

Extend the life of your laptop battery!

Defrag your Hard Disk
A big part of computer users regularly combine HDD does. Regular intervals with the computer slows down and the system’s HDD may reduce performance. To prevent this, especially laptop users do not create periodically combined with the hard disk is. And it will be more tired when you try HDDniz So your battery will be reflected in a positive way.
Resources unnecessary applications that use the last
Reduce the performance of the computer system one of the most important factors are background applications running. Some may be required, although some users of the application running in the background that has no benefits. Use of system resources is much lower not only the system performance, but also the serious laptoplarda at a rate which reduces battery life. Therefore, a vital importance for you to close applications that are not favorable to your battery life will reflect. To turn off this application and before determining the Start / Run by entering ‘Msconfig’ command from the window, and then ‘Startup’ tab. Here are the selected ones by removing unnecessary programs unnecessary applications to get rid of the exploitation of system resources. CTRL + ALT + DEL key combination by using the resources of the system can determine which applications consume excessively.
Stop running the tools
Applications on your computer you are currently using the direct impact your battery life. Therefore, the HDD assembly process such as virus scanning or laptop is connected to electricity to perform.
Remove the external device
Connect notebook to external devices (such as external HDD and bluetooth and the external speaker) a negative impact on battery life will be found. Therefore the external devices do not need to connect the notebook.
CD / DVD drive and hold the blank
Laptops CD / DVD drive in a CD or DVD drive for PCs usually are left, despite use. Therefore, drivers do not need, do not leave full.
Do not use the DVDs do not need external
Use your battery when using external DVD drive to stop. Rather, Microsoft’s Virtual CD ROM Control Panel, or a virtual drive so you can use Pismo File Mount.
Reduce the brightness

25 Ways To Shutdown Computer Automatically

Sometimes, you want that you system should get switched off automatically, especially when you are not monitoring that system. It often happens that the tools commonly used by the users do not provide the sufficient options for the system shutdown. Thus, they are supposed to be specific while leaving their system for automatic shutdown.

The freeware which I will be reviewing today will solve this problem by allotting you large number of options for automatic system shut down, the name of this tool is DShutdown.

This tool has large number of features, which I will be explaining later. I have already reviewed a similar tool knows as ‘Shutdown Timer’ but it has less features as compared to DShutdown. This tool can list out the number of systems present on your network and can shutdown them, only if you already have the right to do so.

Despite if Shutting down, it has got 22 different functions which can be performed instead of shutting it down. When you will launch this tool, then your anti-virus may mark it as a threat but this freeware will not do any harm on your system as it never did anything to my system.

The size of this tool is around 300Kb and it is portable. So you can take it anywhere on your USB drive. Once launched, two icon will be present on your tray. Besides shutting down your system, it can also perform reboot, hibernate, sleep, Standby , force shutdown, forced shutdown after for a fixed interval and many more such operation, which are visible in the snapshot of the application window mentioned above.

It can perform the above mentioned operations if your system has been left unused for a predefined period of time or if remote shutdown has been allowed and the any user is shutting down this system from another remote computer or the CPU memory usage has exceeded a certain value.

You can also simply assign a timer to shutdown your system, this time allotment can be in accordance with current date and time. Lastly you have the general options which can make your tool to start with the window or you can use the default settings for the tool or you can save your own settings on exit.

This tool is compatible with all the versions of Windows as it has been checked with Windows 7 32-bit Ultimate edition.

How To Increase Your Internet Speed By 20%

If you use Windows XP Professional then it is possible to squeeze an extra 20% out of your internet connection. By default Windows XP Pro holds back 20% of your Internet speed for various services like windows update and spyware checks.
If you want to tap into this locked speed then make the following changes:
1. Go to Start-> Run-> and type gpedit.msc
2. Expand the Administrative Templates branch
3. Expand the Network tab
4. Highlight QoS Packet Scheduler
5. Click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth and check the enabled box
6. Then Change the Bandwidth limit % to 0 %

Once you have done this click apply and restart your PC. After rebooting you should see a noticeable improvement in your net speed

Increasing Graphics Performance

 

By default, WindowsXP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items.

Most simply slow down their display.
To turn these off selectively:

1. Right click on the My Computer icon
2. Select Properties
3. Click on the Advanced tab
4. Under Performance, click on the Settings button
5. To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance
6. My preference is to leave them all off except for Show shadows under mouse pointer and Show window contents while dragging

WindowsXP Command Line Utilities

While there are a lot of command line utilities in WindowsXP, here are some that I have been using lately.

bootcfg - Configures, queries, or changes Boot.ini file settings.

driverquery - Displays a list of all installed device drivers and their properties.

getmac - Returns the media access control (MAC) address and list of network protocols associated with each address for all network cards in each computer

gpresult - Displays Group Policy settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) for a user or a computer

netsh - You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protocol

schtasks - Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time

systeminfo - Displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system

Turning Off the Guest Account

For security purposes, you might want to turn off the Guest account

1. Open up the Control Panel
2. Click on User Accounts
3. Click on Change an account
4. Click on the Guest account
5. Click Turn off the guest account

Opening a Command Prompt to a Particular Directory from Explorer

If you want to open a command prompt to a directory that is selected in the Explorer:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT  \ Directory \ shell
3. Create a new key called Command
4. Give it the value of the name you want to appear in the Explorer. Something like Open DOS Box
5. Under this create a new key called command
6. Give it a value of cmd.exe /k "cd %L"
7. Now when you are in the Explorer, right click on a folder, select Open DOS Box, and a command prompt will open to  the selected directory.

Install Windows XP Home Edition Backup software

Computers, like any appliance, can break down or fail. To protect your important files from computer failure, you should make backup copies of your files. Each edition of Microsoft Windows XP—except Windows XP Home Edition—includes Windows Backup, a program that helps you save your files to an external disk. If you use Windows XP Home Edition, you can manually install Windows Backup.

To manually install Windows Backup

1.	Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD drive. If Windows XP Setup does not appear after several seconds, open My Computer, right-click your CD drive, and then click AutoPlay.
2.	In the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP window, click Perform additional tasks.
3.	Click Browse this CD.
4.	Double-click VALUEADD, double-click MSFT, and then double-click NTBACKUP to open the \VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP folder.
5.	In the NTBACKUP folder, double-click NTBACKUP.
6.	After setup is complete, click Finish.

You can now start Windows Backup by clicking Start, pointing to All Programs, pointing to Accessories, pointing to System Tools, and then clicking Backup. For more information about protecting your files from computer failure, read Back up your files.

Create a personal screen saver using your photos

If you like using a screen saver and have digital photos on your computer, you can easily make your own screen saver using the pictures that you have stored on your PC. You can set up your screen saver in Microsoft Windows XP to display a slide show of some or all of your pictures when you’re not using your computer.

To set up a My Pictures slide show

1.	Right-click on the desktop, and then click Properties.
2.	In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Screen Saver tab. Then, click the Screen saver list, and click My Pictures Slideshow.
3.	Click OK.

The next time your screen saver starts, you’ll see a slide show of all the pictures in your My Pictures folder. If you want to see your pictures right away, follow these instructions to add a shortcut to your desktop that immediately starts the slide show.

How to download YouTube and Google videos.

There are many ways to do download YouTube videos. You could install some software or use a website to download and convert videos, but the easiest way is to install the firefox plugin.

If you don’t use firefox (here’s why you should), then there are many sites out there that let you download YouTube videos. I recommend these:

1. http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
2. http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/
3. http://www.downloader9.com/

As to software for downloading and converting .flv YouTube and Google videos, YouTube Downloader seems to be the best.

See for yourself which one of the methods you like best and happy downloading!

Set up your computer so that only authorized people can use it

When several people use a single computer, it’s convenient to set up a user account for each person to keep everyone’s setup preferences and documents separate. If someone wants to use your computer briefly he or she can use the Guest user account. By default in Microsoft Window XP, this account is disabled, which means that only specifically authorized users can access your computer.

If you have enabled your Guest account, you should disable the Guest account (once your guest has finished using your computer) to improve your computer’s security.

To disable the Guest account

1.	Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2.	Under Pick a Category, click User Accounts.
3.	Under or pick an account to change, click Guest.
4.	On the What do you want to change about the guest account? page, click Turn off the guest account.

Now the Guest account is disabled. As an added safety precaution, and to prevent users without user accounts from logging on, it’s a good idea to add passwords to every account on your computer.

Minimum system requirements

• PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
• 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
• 1.5 gigabyte (GB) of available hard disk space.
• Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution video adapter and monitor
• CD-ROM or DVD drive
• Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

How to erase my hard disk drive and start over

Issue:

How to erase my hard disk drive and start over.

Additional information:

• If you are looking for information about securely erasing your hard disk drive, or making it difficult or close to impossible to recover or read the old data, we recommend you refer to document CH000520.
• If you are attempting to use a recovery or restore diskette to restore your computer information and are experiencing issues, please refer to document CH000566.

Checklist:

The below recommendations are what a user should check before completely erasing their computer hard disk drive and starting over. Following these steps can prevent hours of hassles and headaches.

Did you backup all information on your hard disk drive?
Although most current operating systems have driver support for most hardware have you made sure you have the diskettes/CD's for your computer hardware devices so you can install the hardware after erasing everything?
If you are reinstalling Windows 98 or lower do you have a boot disk?
Have you tested the boot disk or bootable CD to make sure it loads properly?
Do you need an operating system CD or Restore CD to reinstall the operating system?
Do you have the necessary licensing and OEM numbers needed to register your software again?
If you are planning to use a floppy diskette version to install your software you may want to verify all diskettes are accessible to prevent you from erasing the hard disk drive and not being able to recover the data because of a bad diskette.

Solution:

Please remember that following the below steps will erase all of the information on your hard disk drive. Once the below steps have been completed, you will not be able to reverse the steps if you want to recover possible lost data. Please make sure that you have checked the above checklist verifying that you have not forgotten a possible important step. Finally, the below steps are the most recommended steps and it is possible that the manufacturer of your computer may have another method of restoring your computer using their software.

Erasing the hard disk drive

The below steps are for users with MS-DOS 5.0+, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT 4.0.

• If you are running or plan on installing Microsoft Windows 2000 please see document CH000544.
• If you are running or plan on installing Microsoft Windows XP please see document CH000647.

1. Place the bootable diskette or disc inside the computer and reboot to get to the DOS prompt. In some cases you may need to boot the computer with CD-ROM support or press a key to boot from the disk.
2. At the MS-DOS prompt type format c: /s
3. The computer will ask you "Are you sure you want to erase everything on drive c:" if you are ok with doing this press "Y" for yes and press enter.
4. After doing this, the computer will begin the formatting process. If you receive errors during this process, please see document CH000180.
5. Once the format process is completed successfully, at the MS-DOS prompt type fdisk /mbr and press enter. This should return you back to the MS-DOS prompt with no message. This step is not required but recommended.
6. Once back at the MS-DOS prompt, reboot the computer with the boot disk still in the computer.
7. Once back at the MS-DOS prompt, insert either the diskettes for MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, or the CD for Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT and click the appropriate link

MS-DOS users
Windows 3.x users
Windows 95 floppy diskette users
Windows 95 CD users
Windows 98 users
Windows NT 4.0 users

MS-DOS users

1. Place the first MS-DOS diskette into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to being the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation, it is recommended that you contact Microsoft for a possible replacement.

Windows 3.x users

1. Place the first diskette of Windows 3.x into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to begin the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation, it is recommended that you contact Microsoft for a possible replacement.

Windows 95 floppy diskette users

1. Place the first diskette of Windows 95 into the computer.
2. At the A:\> type setup and press enter to begin the installation.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Note: If you discover a bad diskette during the installation of Windows 95 it is recommended you contact Microsoft for possible replacement.

Windows 95 CD users

1. Place the CD into the computer.
2. Type X: (where x is the CD-ROM drive, generally this is D).
3. Once at the appropriate drive, type CD WIN95 and press enter to get into the Windows 95 directory.
4. Once at X:\WIN95> type setup to begin the installation
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

If you are encountering issues during the setup process, you can add additional switches to the setup command line. These switches can be found on our Windows 95 Setup Switches page.

Windows 98 users

Complete information about the setup and installation of Windows 98 once the hard disk drive has been erased can be found on document CH000569.

Windows NT 4.0 users

Windows NT can be installed several different ways. We recommend that Windows NT be installed using the below steps as we feel that these steps by far are the easiest way to install Windows NT 4.0.

First, we recommend that all users wanting to simply install Windows NT use the /b switch which allows the users to not need to create the diskettes. We do, however, recommend that the user create the Emergency recover diskettes if they have not already been created after the installation of Windows NT.

Finally, before the installation of Windows NT, it is recommended that you run SMARTDRV, which will help the installation of Windows NT run a lot faster.

1. Place the CD into the computer.
2. Type X: (where x is the CD-ROM drive, generally this is D).
3. Once at the appropriate drive, type CD WINNT and press enter to get into the Windows 95 directory.
4. Once at X:\WINNT> type winnt /b.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

How to lock / unlock the hard disk drive

Issue:

How to lock / unlock the hard disk drive.

Cause:

A hard disk drive may be come locked or unlocked allowing or not allowing for software to have direct disk access. You may encounter an error indicating to unlock the hard disk drive in any of the below circumstances.

1. Attempting to install another operating system.
2. Attempting to fdisk the hard drive.
3. Installing software.

Solutions:

To unlock the hard disk drive

unlock x:

The x represents the letter of the hard disk drive that you wish to unlock. For example, if you needed to unlock the C: drive, type c in the place of x.

Additional information about the lock and unlock command can be found on our Lock / Unlock page.

To lock the hard disk drive

lock x:

The x represents the letter of the hard disk drive that you wish to lock. For example, if you needed to lock the C: drive, type c in the place of x.

Additional information about the lock and unlock command can be found on our Lock / Unlock page.

Missing operating system

Issue:

Missing operating system.

Cause:

Below is a listing of the different causes of the Missing operating system error message.

1. Missing or corrupted command.com or other boot files.
2. Computer Virus
3. Boot Record is corrupted.
4. Hard drive has failed or has been erased.

Solution:

If you are receiving the Missing operating system error message it is recommended that you follow the below steps to resolve the issue.

Caution: The below steps suggest using a bootable diskette, make sure this bootable diskette is designed for your operating system. For example, do not use a Window 98 bootable diskette and follow the below steps on a computer with Windows XP.

1. Using a write protected bootable diskette, boot from the diskette and type "sys c:" after pressing enter this should give you the message system transferred. Once this has been completed, reboot the computer. If you get any other messages, see our Boot disk page.
2. If the number one does not resolve your issue, boot from the diskette again and at the prompt type "fdisk /mbr" and press enter. This should just return you back to the prompt. Once back at the prompt, reboot the computer.
3. Finally, if one and two are unable to resolve your issue, it is recommended that you boot from the boot diskette again and reinstall or format and reinstall the operating system.

Additional information about formatting your computer and starting over can be found on document CH000186.

Changing the drive letter of a disk drive

Issue:

Changing the drive letter of a disk drive.

Cause:

Users may wish to change their CD-ROM drive or other disk drive letter to help accommodate other new devices or to meet their personal preferences.

Solution:

Changing the drive letter of a CD-ROM , CD-R, CD-RW, or other disc drive.
Changing the drive letter of a hard disk drive.
Changing the drive letter of a floppy disk drive.

Changing the drive letter of a CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, or other disc drive.

Note: When attempting to change the drive letters on your disc drives you can only change the drive to any drive letter after the hard disk drive. For example, if your hard disk drive is C: you can only change your CD drive to D: through Z:. If you have multiple hard disk drives and/or partitions and your last drive letter is F: you can only change your CD drive to G: through Z:. Finally, computers will never allow a CD-ROM to be setup as A:, B: or C:.

Windows 2000 and XP users
Windows 95, 98 and ME users
MS-DOS and Windows 3.x users

Windows 2000, Windows XP users:

1. Users who wish to change the CD disc drive letter in Windows 2000 and Windows XP must have Administrator rights. If you are logged in as a user that does not have these privileges, log out and log in as a user account that does have these rights.
2. Open Control Panel.
3. Open Administrator Tools.
4. Open Computer Management.
5. Open Disk Management.
6. Locate the drive that you wish to change the drive letter, right-click on that drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME users:

1. Open the Device Manager.
2. Click the "+" next to "CD-ROM" or "DVD / CD-ROM drives."
3. Double-click the drive you wish to change the letter for.
4. Click the "Settings" tab.
5. Where the computer lists the start and end drive letter, enter the drive letter you wish to change the drive to and click ok.

6. Restart the computer.

MS-DOS and Windows 3.X users:

1. If you are in Windows, Exit to a MS-DOS prompt.
2. Type cd\ and press enter.
3. Once at DOS type "edit c:\autoexec.bat" (without the quotes).
4. In the autoexec.bat window locate the MSCDEX line.
5. Once this line has been found, if it does not have /L:x (were x is the letter of the drive) go to the end of the line and type /L:D (this example should assign the CD-ROM to D: this can be anything up to Z).
6. Once you have made the changes go up to file (if you do not have a mouse press Alt+F) then choose exit and say "Yes" to save the changes.
7. Once back at DOS type "edit c:\config.sys" (without the quotes)
8. In the config.sys window look for anything that says LASTDRIVE=x (were x is the last drive letter). If you do not see this line go to the very beginning of your config.sys and add LASTDRIVE=K (or the letter that you want to be the ending letter. Note this must be anything between C and Z.
9. Once you have made the changes go up to file (if you do not have a mouse press Alt+F) then choose exit and say "Yes" to save the changes.
10. Reboot computer.

Changing the drive letter of a hard disk drive.

Unlike CD drives and other removable drives, hard disk drives cannot change drive letters. If you wish to create multiple drive letters for a single hard disk drive you can partition the hard disk drive into multiple segments. However, this will only create multiple drives in alphabetical order, such as C: D: and E:. You cannot take a hard drive that has been assigned as D: and assign it to an alternate letter such as K:.

Changing the drive letter of a floppy disk drive.

In some computer environments you can change the drive letters of a floppy disk drive between A: and B:. However, all IBM compatible computers only support the standard floppy disk drive on either A: or B: and no other drive letter. If you wish to change the drive letter your CMOS setup must support this option.

Additional information:

• If you're looking for additional information about how to change from one drive to another drive in MS-DOS see document CH000515.

My computer is running slow what steps can I do to fix it?

Issue: My computer is running slow what steps can I do to fix it? Cause: This issue can be caused by any of the below possibilities. Hard disk drive is short on available disk space. Several software programs have been installed/uninstalled leaving behind bad files and/or confusing the software. Data Corruption. Computer is overheating. Bad Hardware. Additional information: If your Internet is slow this document does not contain information about this issue. See document CH000986 for additional information about why your Internet connection may be slow. PC Solution: Below are steps for Microsoft Windows that should help speed up the computer or determine why the computer is running slow. Not enough hard disk drive space If you have a hard disk drive that is 2GB or smaller, ensure that there is at least 200MB of hard disk drive space free. If you have a hard drive larger than this size, verify that there is at least 500MB of free hard disk space. This available space allows the computer to have room for the swap file to increase in size as well as room for temporary files. See document CH000528 for additional information about regaining lost hard disk drive space. Hard drive corrupted or fragmented Run Scandisk or something equivalent to help ensure that there is nothing physically wrong with the computer hard disk drive. Run Defrag to help ensure that data is arranged in the best possible order. Background programs Remove or disable any TSRs or programs that automatically start each time the computer boots. See document CHTSR for additional information. Hardware conflicts Verify that the Device Manager has no conflicts, but if conflicts are present, resolve them. Issues with Windows XP prefetch If you have Windows XP try deleting all files in the prefetch directory. These are prefetch files and can lower system resources if loading programs no longer being used. See our prefetch definition for additional information about prefetch. Issues in Windows 95 / 98 autoexec.bat / config.sys If you are using Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 and do not plan on running any MS-DOS programs from MS-DOS follow the below steps. Click Start, Run and type command and press enter. In the MS-DOS window type cd\ to get to C:\> and then type ren autoexec.bat autoexec.ch and ren config.sys config.ch This will rename your autoexec.bat and config.sys and help make sure memory is being optimized through Windows. Computer or processor is overheating Make sure your computer and processor is not overheating, excessive heat can cause a significant decrease in computer performance some processors will even lower the speed of the processor automatically to help compensate for the heat related issues. Additional information about your processor temperature and was of determining how hot it is can be found on document CH000687. Specific operating system basic troubleshooting Try running through the basic troubleshooting steps for your operating system. Erase computer and start over Finally, if none of the above solutions resolve your issues, it is recommended that you either reinstall Windows and/or erase everything and then start over. Additional information about how to do this can be found on document CH000186. Hardware issues If your computer continues to be slow after going over each of the above recommendations it's possible that your computer is experiencing a more serious hardware related issue such as a failing component in the computer. This could be a failing or bad CPU, RAM, Motherboard, or other component.