Windows Utilities Archives - Page 3 of 4

Le Dimmer – Dim everything on the screen except for the active window

Posted on May 19, 2013

If you’re like me, you typically have several windows open on your computer screen at once. If so, you might find it difficult to focus all of your attention just on the window that is currently active.

A nifty free download called Le Dimmer helps keep the active window in focus by dimming all the other open windows while leaving the active window and the taskbar in clear view.

Le Dimmer is a small, portable utility that doesn’t require installation and won’t slow down your PC. It works with all versions of Windows from XP to Windows 8. I’ve been using it for a while now, and I really like it.

Here is a screenshot of Le Dimmer in action. Notice how your attention is immediately drawn to the active window. [Read more…]

BlueScreenView – Find out what caused your PC to crash – And how to fix it!

Posted on May 3, 2013

For many, the most dreaded “feature” of Microsoft Windows is the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” that tells you that Windows has crashed, without giving you the reason why it happened.

Yes, the Blue Screen provides you with a cryptic code that offers a subtle hint as to where to start looking, but that’s about all.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 are much more stable than previous versions of Windows, but the occasional Blue Screen still rears its ugly head from time to time. A wonderful free utility called BlueScreenView sheds light on the cause of a system crash by scanning the minidump file that was created when the crash occurred and helping you track down the particular driver that caused the crash. [Read more…]

DiskLED – Add a virtual hard drive activity light to your system tray

Posted on May 2, 2013

diskled Back in the golden age of personal computers virtually every PC had a Light Emitting Diode (aka LED) that would light up and flash every time a program accessed the hard drive. But many modern PCs don’t have a hard drive activity light. DiskLED is a free Windows utility that places a virtual hard drive activity light in your Windows system tray.

Why do you need to know when the hard drive is being accessed? There are actually several reasons: [Read more…]

Can you free a stuck Windows program? Well, maybe…

Posted on April 18, 2013

It happens to all of us on occasion: the dreaded hung program. After spending the better part of an hour typing in a long text document or editing an important photo, the program window freezes and we get the infuriating “Not Responding” error message.

All of that hard work has been for naught, right? Well, maybe not… A nifty little Windows utility called Resource Monitor just might save the day.

But before I explain how to try freeing up your stuck programs, let me explain a little bit about why programs stop responding in the first place. Programs running under Microsoft Windows do not run in a vacuum. They typically interact with a number of Windows processes, and even other software programs.

If one of the processes or programs that the program you’re working with encounters a problem, it will often cause the program you’re working with to just sit and wait while it tries to finish the task at hand. The problem is the task at hand will sometimes never be completed, hence the stuck program.

The next time a program stops responding before you’ve had a chance to save your work, try this: [Read more…]

Q&A: My Task Manager is disabled. How can I get it back?

Posted on April 14, 2013

Question from Eric: My computer slowed to a crawl and I found out that it was eaten up with Spyware and viruses. I spent the better part of a day cleaning it all up but now I can’t load the Task Manager. It’s grayed out on the menus and I can’t click it. How can I get it back?

Rick‘s answer: Hi Eric. The miscreants who create spyware and viruses use all kinds of tricks to prevent us from discovering and disabling their insidious creations, and a couple of their favorite tricks are disabling the System Restore and Task Manager utilities. [Read more…]