Due to the bad performance of Vista, now many programmers are searching for ways to make Vista boot faster. As an operating system Vista is not so much in demand as compared to the windows XP or Windows 7. People who have used computers for a long time do not want to shift from windows XP to Vista. This is due to the latter’s slow performance.

Due to the small number of options for tools Vista has been facing this problem. Users who are working in Vista find it quite slow. More over there are no sufficient tools to recover it.

Some of the softwares which help to make the software runs faster like tune XP and BootVis don’t work that well in the Vista. So this particular reason is a major disadvantage for the Vista.

So in order to make vista boot run quicker there is one way, that is to defrag your computer. Defragment will help your computer to free your hard disk thus making your computer work faster. As whenever in a Vista you are downloading any type of file it covers a lot of space in your hard disk. This making your system work slowly and this can be avoided only via defragment.

There is another way you can make your Vista work as fast as Windows XP. This is manually operating the defragment system in your computer. The manually operation of this function of defragmenting is very easy and simple. Just write the command “defrag c:-b” and press enter. Your system stars defragmenting. Till your computer gives the command that the defragmenting is over, you have to wait. Once your wait is over your Vista will be as fast as windows XP.

Once you defrag your computer you can make Vista boot run quicker and can work much more efficiently in the Vista. You should also use AutoRuns to check if there are any programs running on startup that you could do without. You’ll likely want to remove most of the programs under the “logon” tab but be certain that you don’t remove anything from Microsoft or your AntiVirus company.

Have you received one of these letters?

Click on the image to view larger size.

Don’t fall for it, it’s a scam. You don’t need their services and they aren’t the company who controls your domain. What they are trying to do is get you to switch your domain from your current registrar to them and these guys probably charge a lot more than your current company does. Just throw the letter away as your current registrar will most likely auto-renew your domain when it expires.

And if you have any questions about who your registrar actually is, you can go to http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp, type your domain name into the box and click on “Search”. Look for the section that says “Current Registrar” and you will know who your real registrar is you you can be certain that it isn’t “Domain Registry Of America.”

Tim

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As you may know, SBS 2008 always wants to be the DHCP server in a domain. Not a problem, right? Well, if you have the Linksys WRTU54G-TM router from T-Mobile, it is a problem.

The issue is that even though you can go into the network setup on the router and disable DHCP, it never stops the service. This means that you now have two DHCP servers on one network giving conflicting addresses.

The Linksys WRTU54G-TM router from T-Mobile is absolutely necessary if you have “T-Mobile @Home“ phone service. This service allows you to connect a standard land-line phone to the router and have a pseudo-landline through T-Mobile. You have to put a SIM card in the router and as other routers don’t accept SIM cards, this is the only one that you can use with this service.

So my client needed this router AND he needed his new SBS server. Though it is possible to have the SBS stop serving DHCP, it isn’t recommended. Here is how I solved the problem of keeping the router for my client’s phone service while installing a new router for the network gateway.

1. I got him a new router to set up as the default gateway for the network and set the IP Subnet to 192.168.0.x.
2. I connected the server and all office computers to this router.
3. I then connected the old router, WRTU54G-TM, behind the new one and set it up with a different IP Subnet of 192.168.1.x.

This allowed both routers to be active while the primary network and its computers received their DHCP through the server. The phone service still worked and at the end of the day, everyone was happy. And next time I see a sys WRTU54G-TM, I’ll know exactly how to handle it. If I can’t remove it, I’ll simply make it subservient to another router.

Have you had either your Windows Vista computer or your SBS (Small Business Server) 2008 box lose their internet connection after you reboot? This recently happened to me after I installed SBS 2008 at a client’s location. It is easy to diagnose and the fix is relatively simple if you understand how to edit the registry on your computer.

Step 1: The Diagnosis:

1. Click on the “START” button and in the small box at the bottom, type “CMD” without the quotes.
2. A black box will appear with a blinking cursor. Type “ipconfig /all” and hit “Enter”.
3. You will see a lot of text that may look completely foreign to you.
4. Look the the row that says “Default Gateway”, if it is blank, then continue on to the “The Fix” section. If the “Default Gateway” is not blank, there is another problem and the fix below will not help you.

Step 2: The Fix:

1. Close out of the black box by typing “Exit” and hitting “Enter”.
2. Click on the “START” button and in the small box at the bottom, type “regedt32″ without the quotes.
3. The registry Editor will appear and you need to navigate to HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Tcpip/Parameters/Interfaces/
4. Here you’ll need to select the CLSID of your networkadapter where you change the settings. You’ll probably recognize it by looking at the value IPAddress that will have the IP of this adapter.
5. Open the value “DefaultGateway” by double-clicking it.
6. You will see a list of all the gateways that disappeared! ( in your case it may only be one) Very likely, the first line will be empty. I’m not sure, how this little flaw can make such a big problem.
7. Manually remove this first empty line, click OK and reboot your system everything should be working fine again.

Thanks to Ilja Herlein at http://www.netsetman.com/support/viewtopic.php?pid=832#p832 for the direction on how to fix this issue. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me!

Tim

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If you’re anything like me, you have a cell phone but no land line and occasionally forget where you put your phone.

Well, now you can call your phone (or prank call your friends) with a website. The address is simple to remember… Its exactly what you say every time you lose your cell phone, “Where’s my cell phone?” Yes, that’s right the website address is… Wait for it.  http://www.wheresmycellphone.com/. No this is not a joke.

According to the website, they do not keep records of who is called so your number is safe with them. “No records of dialed numbers are kept or shared! I have a hard enough time keeping track of my own things, let alone yours. Don’t worry, your cell number is safe here.”

Tim

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Biden PC is a Computer Networking Company and we now offer Online Computer Support.

Is there something that you have always wanted to know about computers? Would you like to know how to fix a problem, how this or that works, or even what is the best antivirus program?

I am offering you the opportunity to choose the next few Biden PC blog posts.

To request a certain topic, all you have to do it reply to this post and let me know what you are interested in. I will post the answers here and if there is something that I have to research, I will gladly do that for you.

Thank you very much,
Tim

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Biden PC is a Computer Networking Company and we now offer Online Computer Support.

In recent months, I’ve noticed a growing trend in virus removal. Parents are actually having their children (either teenagers or adult offspring living at home) pay for it. About half the time I have a virus removal job; the parents blame the infection on the kids and let me know that the cost of the job will ultimately be paid for by the kids.

I think this makes perfect sense. Having been a computer tech for a number of years, I can usually look at a computer and tell you approximately how old the children in the house are by the software and viruses on the computer.

Whether the parents are helping the children learn about responsibility and consequences or the parents just want to save their own hard-earned money in these difficult financial times, I don’t know. But this is a growing trend and I completely support it. Hopefully, by learning this lesson financially, the children will learn about computer safety and that visiting certain types of websites is going to mess up their computer and cost them money.

***EDIT*** That being said, I know that there are parents that blame their mistakes on the children. Trust me, I don’t care who caused the problem or where the problem came from. I believe it is my job to fix the PCs, not place blame.  ***END***

Way to go Parents!

Tim

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Sometimes we all need to be reminded to go back to basics.

Many months ago, I was called out to diagnose an Internet connection problem. When I arrived onsite I went through some basic troubleshooting steps like these.

1. Attempted to reach a webpage.                            Failed.
2. Checked for an IP address.                                   Valid.
3. Released and renewed IP address.                          Succeeded.
4. Attempted Ping test to 4.2.2.2.                            Succeeded.
5. Attempted Ping test to yahoo.com.                        Succeeded.

So at this point I know that there is a valid connection to the modem, router and Internet, but not the WWW. I also know that DNS is working as that is what translates yahoo.com to the address 209.131.36.159. (Yes, that is Yahoo’s real IP Address.) Since the Internet connection works and has been proven I start looking for other reasons why the WWW might not work.

1. I look for Norton/Symantec software on the PC.          None there.
2. I look for McAfee software on the PC.                        None there.
3. I flush the DNS cache.                                              No improvement.
4. I start looking for malware and viruses.                      None there.

I start wondering what’s happening so I bring my laptop in and use the existing cable. My laptop has the same problem with the same circumstances. Of course since I know that my laptop works I start thinking about what is the same in this scenario. The items in common are the modem, router, and cable. Since the modem is owned by Verizon, I can’t just switch it out. I can switch out the Ethernet cable so I switch it for my own used cable. IT WORKS!!! So I go and get the client a new cable and it still works.

This was the first (and last) time that I had ever seen a bad Ethernet cable cause such a problem. Usually, if the cable is bad, the whole network connection is down and you can’t even get a valid IP address but in this case, it just blocked one protocol. Strange.

So this day I got my reminder that I need to get back to basics and check the cables. And that clients shouldn’t have to pay for my wasted time. I only charged for 1 hour + an Ethernet cable.

Thank you for reading,
Tim

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If you’re having problems updating Avira Antivir Personal Edition (FREE antivirus software) it is quite probably because your computer, router, or ISP (Internet Service Provider) don’t fully support IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) yet. If you are using Avira as your antivirus software and want a better method of updating your antivirus software automatically, follow these instructions…

1. Go to to “START” button and click on “RUN”.
2. Type “%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc” and hit “OK”
3. Open the hosts file with Notepad.
4. Copy the 2 lines below and paste it to the last line at the hosts file. Save the file.
   
   2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.com
   2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.net

The contents of the Hosts file should now look like this:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host
127.0.0.1       localhost
2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.com
2a01:138:a001:201::21 personal.avira-update.net

Thank you for reading,
Tim

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Did you know that if you get a virus, spyware or malware and remove it, it can still come back? It can. The way that viruses and malware do this is by attaching themselves to other files or your computer registry. This way, once you clean it out, it can download more virus files itself to attack you again.

Whenever Biden PC performs a virus removal we do our best to be certain that the virus can’t come back and we stand by our services. We offer a 30 day warranty on all virus removal services. So if you are reinfected within 30 days, we will remove the viruses again at no charge to you. Does your computer repair company offer that?

We So how do we ensure that the virus doesn’t come back again? We scour the registry for all places that viruses are known to hide. We perform multiple checks including checking for rootkits.

When we’re finished, we are so sure that your computer has no more viruses that we are willing to back it up with our 30-day warranty.

Disclaimer: This30-day warranty is null and void if there has been a music/file-sharing program (LimeWire, BearShare, BitTorrent) on the computer within the 30 day period.

Thank you very much,
Tim

If you found this post to be informative, consider following Biden PC on Twitter.

Biden PC is a Computer Networking Company and we now offer Online Computer Support.