Generally netbooks are with low configuration in terms of the memory and processing capacity. That is because it is meant for portability, single task processing and long battery life. But sometimes improper usage and lack of maintenance can end up in a sluggish netbook performance.

If you are experiencing any of the below you are in serious trouble and your computer needs to be optimized and fine-tuned.

• Very slow boot-ups and log-offs.
• When applications takes forever to open up.
• Internet explorer takes longer time to load webpages.
• Unwanted error messages while booting up.

So we are going to look at few tools which are capable of fine-tuning netbook’s performance. Well let’s split this tools in two few categories on the basis of optimization and cleanup process.

Panda Cloud Antivirus – Is the best suitable for netbook as it won’t eat much resources in your computer but it is efficient in offering best protection.

100 Large files – Is a free utility to scan and detect the top 100 large files from the local hard disk drive. This can be used to free up some space when you are unsure what is loaded in your hard drive.

CCleaner – Is best free tool for optimization and privacy cleanup process like unwanted registry entry deletion, temp and cache file cleanup, clearing of recent used programs/files information and also it supports almost all the internet browser applications.

Defraggler – Is a quick and portable solution for disc defragmentation. It supports both NTFS and Fat 32 file systems and also I offers a unique feature called individual file defragmentation.

Tweak7 – This tool is designed for windows 7 to have complete control over the operating systems. Actually it does and you can completely tweak your windows 7 for faster performance. Start-up management and Internet optimization are major features.

Glary utilities – It has everything we expected to be in an optimization tool. It give all the features available in CCleaner apart from that it adds a disk analysis, File encryption or decryption and it does memory optimization.

One extra tool to know every bit of your computer

SIW – SIW stands for Software Information for Windows is a complete inventory of your computer which includes the complete in and out information about the software, hardware and network. It supports all version of windows. I recommend you must try it.

Though I mentioned it’s for Netbooks but these tools can be used in any laptops too. I hope it was helpful to cleanup your netbooks. Let us know!

]]> http://www.hackstacks.com/best-tools-for-optimizing-your-netbooks/2308/feed 2 http://www.hackstacks.com/a-quick-and-easy-windows-7-hack-to-speed-up-the-thumbnail-view-on-taskbar/1898 http://www.hackstacks.com/a-quick-and-easy-windows-7-hack-to-speed-up-the-thumbnail-view-on-taskbar/1898#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:44:45 +0000 Renjith http://www.hackstacks.com/?p=1898 more »]]> Like I mentioned a quick hack it’s a very quick hack on windows 7 to speed up the thumbnail preview feature while you mouse hover the over the taskbar items. The feature is useful to get a quick view of the items which are on the taskbar.

Warning: Before we start the hack let me remind you to take a backup of your registry as we are going to edit the registry to get this work.

1. To open the registry click on Start>Run type in Regedit to launch the registry.
2. Then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse
3. Now right click on the MouseHoverTime key and say Modify.
4. Then change the value to 100 or 150 from 400. ( 400 is in milliseconds)

5. Finally restart the computer to see the changes.

Was it helpful? Let us know your feedback!

ManageEngine Is generally a complete ITIL enabled helpdesk application which can be accessed using the internet browser from a single point.  They provide integrated Request management (Trouble Ticketing), Asset management, Purchase order management, Contract Management, Self-Service Portal, and Knowledge Base. Apart from this you can integrate an extra module for Remote Desktop support which is called Desktop Central and also this Software has the add on feature for a centralized software deployment tool something like Windows Software update Service(WSUS). The Asset scan will search everything in an Enterprise network and keep the record for every Workstations, Servers, Routers, Switches, Printers, and Scanners  later you can use it for a Remote Desktop, Asset inventory, Audit the history of an asset, Track the asset ownership. So that’s all about MangeEngine in a nutshell.

Lately we experience a problem in our Enterprise network which is mixed OS environment having Windows XP and Vista for workstations. I believe ManegeEngine was not coded well for Vista because often it was displaying blank pages. As it could be a problem related to ActiveX  and tried enabling all the required activex in IE but it was in vain. After all the great effort we received the workaround from MangeEngine.

• Click Start> Run

• Type in secpol.msc

• That will bring you to Vista’s security policy system. Once you are there Navigate to  Local Policies > Security Options and then find “Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level”

• Double click on it and change the setting from “Send NTLMv2 response only” to “Send LM & NTLM — use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated.

• Finally restart the computer and try to access the ServiceDesk!

• You can deploy this as a group policy in your network if you have many vista desktops

This can be applied to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7

Windows Vista has lots of bells and whistles. With these come even more switches and handles. The good thing about it is that everyone can tweak the desktop to her or his liking. The downside for administrators is that the number of service desk calls by users who have configured their desktops so well that they are hardly usable anymore, is increasing with every newly deployed Vista machine. One way to solve this problem is disallow end-users to change their configuration. The other, friendlier, option is to be prepared when a desperate user who has messed up his desktop calls you.

The tweaks are classified under seven categories and can be accessed through a common interface, just like your Windows Vista Control Panel.
1) Personalization,
2) User Accounts & UAC,
3) System & Performance,
4) Security,
5) Internet Explorer (IE7 / IE8)
6) Network Optimization
7) Additional Options

Get it from here