This problem has been faced by a one of our reader who just upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, and from day one he started noticing a program called WinSAT.exe which keeps running in the background from time to time automatically. There is no easy way to disable this Experience/Assessment Index Tool in windows 7 as it is not associated with any service, rather it is integrated as scheduled task which runs automatically from task scheduler.

What is WinSAT.exe ?

WinSAT.exe (System Assessment Tool) integrated in windows  runs a series of tests and then rates your computer on a scale ranging from 1 through 5. WinSAT.exe actually rates several subsets of your computer system, including processor, memory, primary hard disk, graphics, and gaming graphics.

Lets find out how to stop WinSAT.exe and prevent it from running automatically in future.

Fix:

Follow the procedure below to disable this process from running.

1. Open Control Panel >> Administrative Tools

2. Double click Task Scheduler

3. Browse to Microsoft\Windows\Maintenance, and Disable the task named "WinSAT"

[ as shown in the image below ]

4. Right click and select disable for WinSAT task in task scheduler.

If the above procedure does not solve the purpose, let us know through comments.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

How to log on to your Windows computer if you forget your password or if your password expires?

 

If you forget your Windows password or if your password expires, you must reset your password before you can log on to your computer. This article contains two methods that you can try to reset your password so that you can log on to your computer again.

This article is intended for a beginning to intermediate computer user.
You may find it easier to follow the steps if you print this article first.

You can see our related article at : Reset Windows Administrator Password

Fix:

Reset forgotten or expired password

If you forget your password or if your password expires, there are three methods that you can use to log on to create a new password. One method is to use a password reset disk, if you have created one. By using the password reset disk, you can recover your user account and your personalized computer settings. Another method is to log on using the administrator account to delete the forgotten password and then to create a new password, The third method is to use windows password recovery tool. You only need to reset the password to “Blank” without reformatting or reinstalling your system
The instructions guide you through each step and help you verify that the problem is resolved.

Method 1: Use a password reset disk

To log on to the computer by using a password reset disk, follow these steps. If your computer is or was a member of a domain, go to the "Windows XP Professional in a domain" section and follow those steps.

Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional

1. Restart the computer. On the Windows XP logon screen, click the user name that you want to use, and then press ENTER.
   Note You receive the following error message:

Did you forget your password? You can click the "?" button to see your password hint. Or you can use your password reset disk. Please type your password again. Be sure to use the correct uppercase and lowercase letters.

1. Click Use your password reset disk. The Password Reset Wizard starts. The Password Reset Wizard enables you to create a new password for your user account.
2. In the Password Reset Wizard dialog box, click Next.
3. Insert the password reset disc into the CD drive, and then click Next.
4. Type a new password in the Type a new password box, and then type the password again in the Type the password again to confirm box.
5. In the Type a new password hint box, type a hint for the password, and then click Next.
6. Click Finish, and then try to log on to Windows XP again.

If you were able to reset your password and are now able to log on successfully, you have resolved the issue, and you are finished. If you are still unable to log on, try method 2.

Windows XP Professional in a domain

To log on to a computer by using a password reset disk, when that computer is a member of a domain, or was disconnected from a domain, follow these steps:

1. Restart the computer.
2. In the Welcome to Windows dialog box, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE.
3. In the Log On to Windows dialog box, type an incorrect password in the Password box, and then click OK.
4. In the Logon Failed dialog box, click Reset. The Password Reset Wizard starts. You can use the Password Reset Wizard to create a new password for your local account.
5. On the Welcome to the Password Reset Wizard page, click Next.
6. Insert the password reset disc into the CD drive, and then click Next.
7. Type a new password in the Type a new password box, and then type the password again in the Type the password again to confirm box.
8. In the Type a new password hint box, type a hint for the password, and then click Next.
9. Click Finish, and then try to log on to Windows XP again.

If you were able to reset your password and are now able to log on successfully, you have resolved the issue, and you are finished. If you are still unable to log on, try method 2.

Method 2: Log on as an administrator to reset the password

If you did not create a password reset disk, you may be able to log on as an administrator to reset a forgotten or expired password. The steps to do this differ if the computer is a stand-alone computer or a member of a workgroup of two or more, or a member of a domain. Select the appropriate set of steps from the following to try to log on as the administrator to reset the password.

Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional

To log on to a computer as the administrator to reset a password, try the following steps.

1. Log on as an administrator.
   1. Restart the computer.
   2. Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE two times, and then type the name of the administrator user account.
   3. In the Password box, type the administrator password, and then click OK.
      Note If the administrator password is set to a blank password, do not type a password before you click OK.

1. Reset the password.
   1. Click Start, and then click Run.
   2. Type control userpasswords2, and then click OK.
   3. On the Users tab, click the name of the user account that you want to reset the password for, and then click Reset Password.
   4. Type a new password in the New password box, and then type the password again in the Confirm new password box, and then click OK.
   5. Restart the computer, and then try to log on to Windows XP again.

If you can log on as an administrator to reset your password and you can now log on successfully, you have resolved the issue, and you are finished. If you are still unable to log on, go to the "Next Steps" section.

Windows XP Home Edition or Windows XP Professional in a workgroup

To log on to a computer as the administrator to reset a password, when that computer is in a workgroup of more than one member, follow these steps:

1. Log on as an administrator.
   1. Restart the computer, and then press the F8 key during startup until the Windows Advanced Options menu appears.
   2. On the Windows Advanced Options menu, use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode, and then press ENTER.
   3. Select Microsoft Windows XP edition, and then press ENTER.
      Note In this step, edition represents the correct Windows edition.
   4. On the To begin, click your user name screen, click Administrator, and then type the administrator password.
   5. Press ENTER, and then click Yes.

1. Reset the password.
   1. Click Start and then click Run.
   2. Type control userpasswords2, and then click OK.
   3. Click the name of the user account that you want to reset the password for.
   4. Click Change the Password, and then type a new password.
      Note If you do not want to use a password, click Remove password, and then continue to step "e."
   5. Click Change Password.
   6. Restart the computer, and then try to log on to Windows XP again.

If you can log on as an administrator to reset your password and can now log on successfully, you have resolved the issue, and you are finished. If you are still unable to log on, go to the "Next Steps" section.

Windows XP Professional in a domain

To log on to a computer as the administrator to reset a password, when that computer is a member of a domain, follow these steps:

1. Log on as an administrator.
   1. In the Welcome to Windows dialog box, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE, and then type the name of the administrator user account.
   2. In the Password box, type the administrator password, and then click OK.
      Note If the administrator password is set to a blank password, do not type a password before you click OK.

1. Reset the password.
   1. Click Start and then click Run.
   2. Type compmgmt.msc , and then click OK.
   3. In the Computer Management (Local) dialog box, expand Local Users and Groups.
   4. Click the Users folder, and then right-click the user account that you want to reset the password for.
   5. Click Set Password, and then click Proceed.
   6. Type a new password in the New password box, type the password again in the Confirm password box, and then click OK two times.

Restart the computer, and then try to log on to Windows XP again.

Method 3: Use windows password recovery tool

If you are not a computer technician, or not familiar with computer system operations, you may feel the above methods are scary and still can’t figure out what I am saying. Then you may try to use the software programs which may suit you. I’ve found that Windows Password Recovery Tool is the most effective. The program can easily reset the password to “Blank” without reformatting or reinstalling your system. Follow these steps:

1. Download Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0
2. Burn your Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 CD.
3. Insert newly created CD in your CD drive and reboot your computer.
4. Select Windows installation to be processed:

5. Select the account to reset the password for:

6. Reset your lost password.

7. The user’s password has been successfully reset

The third method can 100% reset any windows login password . It works perfectly to reset any local user account to a blank password.

This is a guest post by Mark from WindowsPasswordsRecovery.com. Thanks Mark for the guest article.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We have received some mails from reader who are unable to remove or uninstall office 2007 from their computers due to numerous reasons like they cannot uninstall it from programs and features in vista, some of them cannot install due to corrupted office 2007.

Some of them receive the following messages when they try to remove it

Setup cannot continue because a required file is either
corrupted or not available. Run setup again from the original source disc or
download location.’

 

Error 1402.Setup cannot open the registry key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{3050F6AA-98B5-11CF-BB82-00AA00BDCE0B}\InproServer32

 

In such a case when you cannot uninstall office 2007 from your computer you can follow some methods and tools mentioned below which can help you remove and clean office 2007 installation from your computer.

Read Also: Change the default files save format from .docx to .doc in word 2007

Here are some ways to remove office 2007 from your computer, you can try them at least one of them will work for you.

Manual Way To Remove Office 2007

In the manual methods you would need to remove the files corresponding to office 2007 manually.

Method 1:
1. Log in with administrative privileges, now open windows explorer.
2. click alt to show file menu go to File Menu >> Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab, Under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.
4. Uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types check box, and then click OK.
5. Open the following folder: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Data\
6. Right-click Opa12.dat, and then click Properties.
7. Click the Security tab.
8. Click Advanced, now click the Permissions tab.
12. Click to select Everyone in the Permission entries list, and then click Edit.
13. Click to select the Full Control.
14. Click OK 3 times.

Method 2:

This method involves removing all the files of office 2007 and registry entries – that means removing office 2007 manually  

Automatic Removal Of Office 2007

In case of automatic methods you can remove the free tools like Remove Office 2007 and Revo Uninstaller to clean office 2007

Method 1: Using the Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.

You can read here how to uninstall corrupted office 2007 with revo uninstaller

Method 2: Using The Free Tool To Remove Office 2007

This method involves this free tool called Remove Office 2007 which can strip out Microsoft Office 2007 when the standard uninstall process wont work.

Note: if none of the above methods work then this tool will definitely work as we have tested this tool many times it is best and easy way to remove office 2007 as quickly as possible.

Download Remove Office 2007 Tool 

See Also: Read Office Documents On Mobile Phone

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

One of our reader is very mush annoyed by some of those preinstalled games which are there is Windows Vista as they use some space and are of no use to him. As these games are very simple and sometimes the trail version of big games with less features anyone can be annoying.

For some users it could be the other reason like they don’t want their kids to keep playing these games and waste their crucial time playing these preinstalled vista games.

Here is how you can remove the preinstalled games on your vista computer or laptop.

Fix:

This fix which we are going to tell you is quite easy and quick to follow, you just need to follow the procedure given to delete your vista games forever.

1. Open Start Menu >> Control Panel

2. Double click Programs and Features to open it

3. On the left pane you will see a link at the bottom saying, Turn Windows Features On or Off – click it.

4. Now Under windows features make sure to uncheck the feature which says Games

5. That’s it done – all these features are removed.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

Recently I restored my laptop to factory settings as the data card I purchased was not working, and after restoring my vista laptop to factory state reliance data card started working.

But after some time I noticed that almost every single application including yahoo messenger start getting crashed and producing a pop up like this below.

I can understand that there could be a problem with yahoo messenger like this, but almost all the programs started giving me trouble like this, I knew this is due to some windows update missing on my vista laptop.

Here is how I stopped this problem pop ups, by disabling windows error reporting.

Fix:

Follow the procedure below to disable windows error reporting.

1. Open Start Menu >> Control Panel

2. Double click Problem Reports and Solutions

3. Now, click change settings under the options on the left Pane

4. Turn off the problem reporting by selecting the turn off radio button, but this will be applied to current user only 

You can turn off the button change settings for all users also, to disable error reporting for all users on your laptop.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We just got a mail from one of our reader asking the following question,

Hey troublefixers, you guys has been doing a great job – I want to lock my computer automatically in my office after some time of inactivity – I want to do this on my office PC so that no one other than me can access or read my mails in my absence

This is quite a common requirement when you may want lock your workstation when you are working or left from your seat, as keeping your system unlocked can drag you in trouble of stealing some precious data or writing some party mails from your account.

Fix:

There could be different ways with which you can lock your computer after some minutes of inactivity, however the simplest way to lock your computer is by running any screensaver and click the option which ask for password when you resume from screensaver. Either is it Windows XP or Windows Vista you can use your absence.

For Windows XP

1. Right click on desktop >> click properties and click the screen saver tab

2. now select the screensaver and specify the time and check the option which says On Resume, password protect

3. click Ok and you are ready to go.

For Windows Vista or Windows 7

1. Right click on the desktop and select personalize

2. Click Screensaver

3. click the check box which says on resume, display login screen and click OK

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We received a problem from one of our reader who wants to restrict logon hours in windows xp, on his son user account as his son keeps playing games on the computer all the time.

Playing games is always fun for children but this could be a great problem if it impacts their studies too much. In order to restrict logon hours in windows there is hardly any freeware but it can be easily through simple commands prompt.

We have covered the same topic for Widows Vista- Restrict Computer Usage In Windows Vista

You can use the following commands to restrict logon or access to windows for specific users in windows xp.

Fix:

1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type “cmd” and press Enter key on the keyboard.

2. Now suppose the username for which you want to restrict windows logon in between specific time interval is Harry 

To set, the time limit the user “Harry” to login Monday – Friday between 8am and 5pm, then you would need to type the following commands at the command prompt

net user Harry /time:M-F,08:00-17:00

same as above, but if you are using a 12-hour clock then type

net user Harry /time:M-F,8am-5pm

here’s a more elaborative command to specify different times for different days:

net user Harry /time:M,4pm-7pm;T-TH,16:00-18:00;F-SU,11am-9pm

These commands restrict a user from logging on, however they do not force a logoff when a user is already logged in.

Note: These logon hours do not have an effect Administrator level accounts, so first make sure that the user account does not have administrative privileges. 

Whenever you want to remove the time restrictions, type the following command at the command prompt

net user Harry /time:all

3. Exit from command prompt

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

One of our reader asked us this simple question in his mail to troublefixers

what is the fastest way to take file or folder ownership in vista ?

What is file/folder ownership?

The answer is simple, when you have the ownership of a file or folder in Windows, you can open, modify, add or delete contents from files and folders. If you don’t have ownership of a file or folder, you may get access denied errors in Windows.

See this articles for detail : Remove Access Denied Error From Folder

The most conventional way to take the file ownership is either through command prompt or through windows explorer and both of them are quite confusing to most of  the layman users. But there is a third easy way to take the ownership of any file or folder by adding the option Take Ownership on the right click context menu.

Lets discuss how implement this small hack to adding take ownership option in right click.

Fix:

In order to take ownership command to right click context menu, you just need to download the following registry key and merge into your windows registry by double clicking it.

Just in case if you want to remove the ownership option from right click context menu you can download and merge the registry key inside the zip archive.

Note: The registry key is inside the zip archive you will download

Download Take / Remove Ownership Archive [ Thanks HowToGeek ]

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We received a mail from one of our readers asking:

How can I disable change of Date and Time on Windows Xp computer? I own an Internet Cafe and I don’t want my users to change the date and time on my Computers.

There can be more than one ways of disabling the editing of Date and Time, but we tell you one easy and convenient way of doing it on a computer which is stand alone and is not a part of any active directory.

Fix:

To disable editing, you can set up a user with limited access, not Administrator access. Now with the method we describe below, you can allow only users with Administrator rights to edit the date and time, so the limited user will not be able to change the System date and time.

Follow the steps below:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Templates

2. Open Local Security Policy

3. Go to Local Policy > User Rights Assignments > Change the System time , double click to open it.

4. In the below window, you will see the options to add and remove user groups. Remove the limited users from this list and those limited users will not be able to edit date and time of this computer.

You can revert the above settings to allow the users to change the date and time.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.

We got a mail from one of our reader named Rafiq saying that he cannot rename any folder in Windows Vista, although he has not mentioned which version of Windows Vista he is using. But it does not matter much as this is a common problem which occurs in all the versions of vista.

This trouble occurs when a specific registry key is affected and become corrupted, changed, deleted or modified. The registry path which may get affected is given below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderDescriptions

 

In order to fix this problem you will need to repair registry in some versions of vista, however disabling offline files will also work to solve this issue in windows vista business, ultimate and enterprise edition.

Let’s discuss all the methods to fix this issue to file not moving and  cannot rename folder in vista

Fix:

For Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions

1. Open Start Menu >> control panel

2. Click on offline files, now click on Disable Offline Files button

Note: If you see Enable Offline Files , then click on it and click Apply and then click Disable Offline Files.

3. Click continue on the UAC prompt, you can disable UAC prompt anytime if it annoys you.

4. You will need to restart your computer for the changes to come into effect.

Another way to solve this problem is by fixing the registry keys which may get corrupted, you can download the fix for vista 32 bit here and vista 64 bit here, download the registry keys and double click them to merge in registry in vista.

This content is just a summary, read the full article at ©2009 TroubleFixers - All about fixing computer troubles. All Rights Reserved.