How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 4

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

So far in my Windows security series, I have looked at securing your system using a hardware firewall to keep your Internet connection secure. I then talked about creating a Windows standard user account, and disabling certain services. In my last post I talked about more methods you can use to secure your Internet connection from within Windows using software and a DNS service.

In this post I will close by talking about applications that can help keep your computer clean of malware – those nasty programs you hear about in the news that can do harm to your computer or data. Let’s take a look at what you can do to help keep your computer clean.

Read more

How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 3

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

This is the third part in my series on securing your Windows 7 system. In part one I talked about securing your system using a hardware router and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). In my last post I discussed creating a standard user account, disabling certain services, and a few other tasks you could perform within Windows to secure your system.

In this post I will begin talking about some applications you can install, as well as a service that I recommend you use. The focus on this post is mainly on securing the communication channel to and from your Windows 7 system.

Read more

How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 2

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

In my last post titled How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 1, I talked about securing your wireless router and about how to protect your computer with a UPS. While the tips provided in that post can apply to more than just a Windows 7 system, I felt it was important to discuss how to secure you system outside the actual operating system.

This post, however, will now look into securing your Windows 7 system by making changes within the actual operating system. Now we will start to get into a few changes you can make to help keep your system safe. It is also important to note that you may not be able to apply all settings outlined in this post because of such things as your computer being connected to a LAN. I’ll try and point out such situations in the post.

Read more

How to Secure Your Windows 7 System – Part 1

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

I recently purchased a new computer that had Windows 7 installed. With my new computer I figured it would be a new start with both the new operating system and security. Over the past month I have been busy reading, learning, and applying various security measures on my new computer.

I have learned a bit more about security during that time, and feel that I have a fairly secure desktop, and have now decided to write several posts that outline what I have done on my Windows system to make it more secure.

Read more

Internet Connection Slow in Windows 7

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

I like tinkering with my operating systems. I change many settings from their defaults, and sometimes the settings improve things, while other times it may break something. After I recently began exploring Windows 7, I began tinkering with some connection settings to see what they do.

Unfortunately, I had changed several settings and then realized that my broadband Internet had slowed down to a crawl. My highspeed became dialup speed. In order to solve the problem I began to undo some of the changes until I found the culprit. I eventually found the problem, which I explain in this post.

Read more

Rebuild the Icon Cache in Windows Vista and Windows 7

Should You Disable the Windows Pagefile?

I recently purchased a new desktop computer to replace the 8 year old desktop I was previously using. The previous desktop had served me well for those 8 years, and had been running Windows XP without any problems. It had begun to show its age recently, however; so I bought myself a new one.

My new desktop included Windows 7 Professional installed (I didn’t want Vista), which I so far have enjoyed using. I did run into a minor problem recently where some of the icons for specific file types went missing. While this didn’t stop the application from loading, it was a little annoying as it was a bit difficult to tell two shortcuts apart. Luckily, it is easy to delete and rebuild the icon cache.

Read more

System Cannot Open the Device of File Specified – Windows Installer Error

Windows Installer

I had been having a problem when installing software that consisted of a single MSI file and displayed the error “System cannot open the device of file specified.” Whenever I ran a MSI file I continuously received an error on the screen that prevented the application from being installed. I tried it on several installs, and they all produced the same error.

Realizing it wasn’t the actual individual installations, I began to experiment with a few file settings. I had experienced other Windows Installer issues in the past so I began to debug this issue. After a few tests I determined the problem and was able to easily correct it so I could run installations again.

Read more

Why are Some Files Coloured in Windows Explorer?

Someone recently as me a question as to why some files appear in either a blue or green colour when they viewed their files in Window Explorer. They were wondering if there was a problem with those files and what should they do about it.

I assured them that there was no problem with their files, and that it was perfectly normal to see some files in another colour other than black.

Read more