This is a guest post by Keith McDonald of Computer Repair Vancouver. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

In the olden days, you nearly always got a separate copy of the operating system which was installed on a newly purchased computer. For example, if you purchased a computer with Windows XP installed on it, you would also get a Windows XP CD included in the package. Unfortunately, this is not always the case nowadays. Frequently, when you buy a computer from a company like Dell or HP no operating system CD’s are included. Rather, they sometimes create a restore partition on your computer or give you the ability to burn your own recovery disk.

Now most people will ask the obvious question: why would I ever need a Windows Installation or Recovery Disk? After all, I’m never going to be changing my operating system!

The Role of the Windows Recovery Disk

A Windows Recovery Disk is important because of its ability to help fix a computer which has run into problems. Without it, you will have a much more difficult time, for instance, with a PC which refuses to boot up Windows. Here is a little summary of what a recovery disk can and can not do.

What does a Windows Recovery Disk let you do?

• Repair a computer which won’t start up
• Allow you to restore your computer to a given restore point
• Allow you to restore an image of your machine
• Perform a memory (RAM – random access memory) analysis

What does a Windows Recovery Disk not do?

• Allow you to install a fresh copy of Windows.

Create your own Windows Recovery Disk
Assuming your computer has run into problems and you don’t have an installation CD or a recovery CD, how would you create one?

1) Log onto a working computer. If your computer is not working, use your friends or, perhaps, a library machine.
2) Grab a blank rewritable CD or DVD.
3) Head over here, scroll down a bit, and click on the recovery disk link. Most of you will want to choose the top option: Windows 7 Recovery Disc 32-Bit (x86) Edition. If you are unable to download the file it means that you don’t have a torrent program on your computer. If so, go and download BitTorrent and try again.

4) The file you have downloaded is an ISO file and must be burnt to a CD or DVD. If you are using Windows 7, this can be done within the operating system. If not, check out this list of FREE CD/DVD Software for Windows and select a program of your choice.
5) You now have a working recovery disk. If you need to make use of it simply place it in your CD tray, restart your computer, and boot from your CD (as opposed to your hard drive).

Conclusion

If you are ever having problems with your computer (in particular, if it won’t start up) then I highly recommend that you download and burn the Windows Recovery Disk. It is quite easy to use and can solve many basic Windows problems.

As the in-house desktop support among my family and friends, I get a lot of questions regarding computer and technical stuff. Most of these questions fall under basic computer configuration, setup and/or tweaks. One of the questions I often get is “how to disable or turn off the startup sound on Windows XP”. I’m sure anyone who’ve used or tried Windows XP know how annoying the startup sound is, especially if the speakers are on full volume. It could also be both distracting and embarrassing in a classroom or meeting.

Today, I’m gonna show you how the Windows XP startup sound can be turned off or disabled. This procedure/short tutorial could also be used to disable/enable other Windows XP system sounds like the logon or logoff sounds.

1. Click on START > Control Panel.

2. Click on Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices

3. Click on Sounds and Audio Devices

4. Click on the Sounds tab

5. Look below for Program Events. Scroll down and look for Start Windows.

6. First, highlight Start Windows. Second, go below to Sounds and select (None).

7. Click Apply and then OK.

Now, you can go ahead and restart your computer for the changes to take effect. This time, when the computer boots up you won’t hear the annoying startup sound.

I hope that this short and simple tutorial on how to disable the Windows XP startup sound can be useful or come in handy one of these days. If you have any questions regarding this post, feel free to contact me or leave a comment below. You might also want to check out my other Tips & Tricks posts for other useful and related tutorials.

Regarding the Vista SP 1 update, I said to myself that I would just wait for the auto-update rollout which was scheduled a month after the release. However, the month of April passed and there was no SP1 on Windows Update. Anyone else got the update last month? Anyways, I got mine just a couple days ago. When I saw the Windows Update icon, I clicked on it and found out the update was for Vista Service Pack 1, I decided to go ahead with the update instead of skipping it.

Btw, if you haven’t received a Windows Update for Service Pack 1 and you wanna check what version/edition of Windows Vista you have on your machine here’s how you do it. Click on Start, then look for Computer, right click on it and click on Properties and you’ll see something like this:

The screenshot above was taken after the update so if you haven’t update yet, you won’t see “Service Pack 1″ on it. The update process (download and installation) took close to 4 hours! Inspite of the long and agonizing wait, I’m glad that everything worked fine and the whole update process went smoothly. I also didn’t have any problems with any device drivers.

If you don’t have Vista Service Pack 1 installed on your machine yet, you can do a Windows Update manually by clicking on the link. This will open up Windows Update on Internet Explorer and although I’m not 100% sure, I’m positive the Service Pack 1 update will be there.

For those of you running Windows Vista, have you already updated to Service Pack 1? If not, what’s keeping you from doing it? For those who updated, did you experience any problems with the update/install process? Where there any conflicts or problems with your device drivers after the update? Share your thoughts and comments via the comment form. Thank you and have a good weekend!

This is a built-in feature of Windows XP that only a few people are aware of. With this tool, you won’t have to download a separate password generating program or go online to visit a password generating website. It only takes a few minutes and it’s very easy to do.

Steps on how to use the Windows XP hidden password generator after the jump.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Click on Start
• Then go to Run



• Type cmd



• In the command prompt, type net user administrator /random and hit Enter



• Viola! You now have a secure 8-character password.

If you don’t like the created password and would like to create a new one, just hit F3 (assuming that you didn’t close the window) to bring back the ‘net user administrator /random‘ line so you won’t have to type it again, then hit Enter. Repeat steps until you get desired password.

I hope you liked this simple tip on how to use the Windows XP Password Generator and find it useful. Who knows, it might come in handy in the near future.

Windows Language Bar

One of the most annoying features in Windows XP is the Language bar. You usually see it after you do a fresh install on a computer. It’s annoying because most users don’t use it or need it but it uses up space in the task bar. Also, it was easy to temporarily disable it but most users don’t know how to permanently remove or disable it. Before I show you how to permanently get rid of the Language bar, here’s a little information on what it is and what it’s for.

What is the Language bar?

The Language bar appears on your desktop automatically when you add handwriting recognition, speech recognition, or an Input Method Editor (IME) as a method of entering text. In addition, if you add a second language or keyboard layout, you can display the Language bar from the taskbar.

Now that you know what it’s for, we can proceed with the methods of removing it.

Using the Classic view in Control Panel:

• Click Start, then click on Control Panel, and then double-click Regional and Language Options.
• On the Languages tab, under Text services and input languages, click Details.
• Under Preferences, click on Language Bar.
• Deselect the Show the Language bar on the desktop check box.

Using the Category View:

• Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Date, Time, Language and Regional Options.
• Click on Regional and Language Options.
• On the Languages tab, under Text services and input languages, click Details.
• Under Preferences, click Language Bar.
• Deselect Show the Language bar on the desktop check box.

That’s it. That should permanently disable the annoying Language bar. However, if you might need it in the near future, just follow the same steps and this time make sure the Show the Language bar on the desktop option is checked to enable the language bar.