NerdGrind - How-to Computer Help - Tutorials - Tech and Gadget News » How to Windows Vista

Share Files and Folders and Printers Over a Network

Nerd Grind — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:21:37 +0000

If you have more than one computer, and the computers are networked, you probably want to share resources like files, folders, and printers over the network. As a rule of thumb it makes no difference if the network is wired, wireless, or both, or even if the computers connect through a router or access point, the computers only see network devices.

There are now printers that have an ethernet port, or a radio to wirelessly connect to an access point, but you may also have an old fashioned printer that connects directly to your computer through a USB or some other cable connection. Sharing a printer is simple.

Click the Windows Start button -> Printers, then right click the printer you want to share, and choose Properties as seen in the screenshot above.

Click the Sharing tab, and check the boxes next to Share this printer, and Render print jobs on client computers. In the Share name field give the printer a name that will make it easy to identify by other users on the network. Now click OK and you’re done.

Sharing files and folder is just as easy. Right click on any folder you wish to share, and choose Properties. On the Sharing tab click the Share button under Network File and Folder Sharing.

On the File Sharing dialog window click the pull down menu arrow to choose a user account on this local computer to use, so that other computers can login and share the files in this folder. If you own all the computers on the network you can login to each with the same username and password, so that you won’t have to type in a username and password when accessing files on your other computers. Otherwise, use a secure account with the proper limitations to keep your network secure.

Now just click the Share button, and you’re done.

If you are unable to connect, or cannot see the shared folders or printers, you might need to open ports in your firewall. Click here to learn more.

Clone or Copy My Hard Drive with Norton Ghost

Nerd Grind — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:22:25 +0000

When upgrading your hard drive to a bigger faster hard drive the Norton Ghost utility called Copy My Hard Drive can make the upgrade quick, easy, and painless. Copy My Hard Drive used to be referred to as cloning the hard drive.

First we’ll need to prepare the new hard drive. Click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management.

When Disk Management is opened after a new hard drive is installed the Initialize Disk dialog window should open. Unless you know what you’re doing, select the disk that matches yours, and choose MBR (Master Boot Record).

Some people have reported problems initializing a new disk, so Microsoft has written the following support articles to help solve problems when the Initialize Disk window doesn’t pop up automatically.

A basic disk’s status is Not Initialized.

Cause: The disk does not contain a valid signature. After you install a new disk, the operating system must write a disk signature, the end of sector marker (also called signature word), and a master boot record or GUID partition table before you can create partitions on the disk. When you first start Disk Management after installing a new disk, a wizard appears that provides a list of the new disks detected by the operating system. If you cancel the wizard before the disk signature is written, the disk status remains Not Initialized.

Solution: Initialize the disk. The disk status briefly changes to Initializing and then Online status. For instructions describing how to initialize a disk, see Initialize New Disks.

If that doesn’t work maybe this next one will help.

Initialize New Disks

To initialize new disks
In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk.

In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize. You can select whether to use the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.

Your new hard disk should now be initialize, but the hard drive space remains Unallocated.

To format the new hard disk right-click, then choose New Simple Volume, which is a new partition.

Assign the next logical drive letter. Now the hard drive can be seen by other programs on the PC.

Now open Norton Ghost. In older versions you would see Clone Hard Drive, but newer versions use Copy My Hard Drive which is the same utility.

The Copy Drive wizard will walk us through the steps.

First select the source drive you want to copy everything from, so this is the old hard disk.

Now we’ll select the new hard drive we are upgrading to. Notice how on my Dell computer it lists the drive as Disk 2, and Destination as Dell Utility. The only distinguishing identification is the size of 931.5 GB. This is a 1 TB hard disk, so this is clearly the disk we are looking for.

When you get to the Advanced options do not choose Check source for file system errors, or Check destination for file system errors. Checking these two options could cause the copy process to take days.

All you need to check is the Set drive active (for booting OS), and Copy MBR -> Destination partition type: Primary Partition. The drive letter does not need to be assigned.

I have a lot on my hard drive so it averages about 25 minutes.

Looks like it took closer to 24 minutes to complete.

Power off your computer, and unplug the power cord. Now you can remove the power cable and data cable from the old hard drive, and hook up both cables to the new hard drive. Power up your computer, and it should boot into the new hard disk. If not, hook up the old drive, use Norton Ghost to create a backup image, and a Norton Ghost System Boot Disc, shut down the computer, unhook the old drive, hookup the new drive, power up with the System Boot Disc ready, and restore from the disk image to the new hard drive. Remove the System Boot Disc, reboot, and you’ve got everything copied.

Click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management. As you can see here there is one partition 222.78 GB, which was the size of the old hard disk, and a 708.73 GB Unallocated partition.

Since we want to use the entire hard disk for the C: drive we will right click on Disk 0 -> Extend Volume (which is a partition).

A wizard pops up to guide us through the process of expanding the smaller volume to take up the entire hard disk.

Add your Disk from the Available side to the Selected side, and use the Maximum space available to expand the whole disk.

Click Finish.

Now the hard disk has a single large volume (partition) that extends across the entire disk.

Note: You can upgrade to an equal or larger size hard disk only.

Share a Printer Files and Folders Over a Wired or Wireless Network Through a Firewall

Nerd Grind — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:43:07 +0000

On my home network I have a Cisco Linksys Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router that has a built-in firewall, and I run McAfee Security Center that also includes a firewall for each machine it is installed on. I tried sharing files and folders, and printers, between a wired PC and a wireless PC, but was denied. It makes no difference on a network if the PCs are wired or wireless, because they all look the same on the network, and use the same protocols.

Since I could see the other PC on the network, but I could not see any printers, or shared files and folders, I suspected the McAfee firewall was blocking the ports needed to share.

Let’s setup sharing between these computers.

First click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage Network Connections, then right-click on the Local Area Connection or Wireless Area Connection -> Properties, and make sure the File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks box is checked.

The settings under Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center should look like the following for most home networks.

This article does not cover the Windows Firewall settings, but if you need to you go to Windows Firewall Settings -> Exceptions tab, and add both TCP/IP and UDP ports 137 to 139.

Open the McAfee Security Center. To open right-click the McAfee icon in the tray by the clock, then click Open SecurityCenter.

Using the Advanced Menu

Click Configure in the bottom left of the window, then click Internet and Network.

Using the Basic Menu

Under Common Tasks you should be on the Home menu.

Click Internet and Network then click Configure.

Under Firewall protection click the Advanced button.

Under Firewall click System Services.

Make sure Windows File Sharing (NETBIOS) Ports 137-139 is checked, select that option, then click Edit.

Under Edit System Service Rule type 137-139 into the Local UDP Ports field. Your settings should look like the ones in the screenshot below.

Now just click OK until the windows close, then close the remaining McAfee windows, and you should now be able to share printers, files and folders, with other PCs across your wired network and wireless network.

Note: You only need to open ports 137-139 on the PC that is sharing the printers, files, and folders.

Click here to learn how to share folders and printers over a network.

How to Enable Administrative Tools

Nerd Grind — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:48:37 +0000

Some installations of Windows Vista and Windows 7 hide the administrative tools so they don’t appear on the All Programs menu list, forcing you to go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools. There’s an easy way to unhide the administrative tools so they appear in your All Programs menu list.

First right click on the Windows Start button, and click Properties.

On the Start Menu tab, next to Start menu click the Customize button.

Scroll down almost to the bottom of the Customize Start Menu dialog window until you find System administrative tools. Select the radio button next to Display on the All Programs menu.

Click OK, then OK again.

If you click the Windows Start button -> All Programs, and scroll down you will now see Administrative Tools.

Stop Indexing Service in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Windows XP

Nerd Grind — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:11:18 +0000

This article will help computer users who have found their computer getting slower and slower over the years. It’s when a person’s computer starts to slow down that they notice ads, like the example below, asking if their computer has slowed down, and then tries to sell them software to remove worms, viruses, spyware, malware, and to optimize your computer, whatever that means, but most often the problem is just a bloated Windows index database.

As the years go by, and you add more and more files and programs to your computer, it slows down incrementally until one day you start considering purchasing a newer faster computer, or start to become concerned that the computer has become infected.

Before buying a new computer, adding RAM, buying a faster hard drive, or purchasing software to clean infections that can waste time and slow your computer down even further, turn off the indexing service first and see if that fixes the problem, and restores your computer back to its old fast self.

The indexing service is supposed to speed up a search for files on the hard drive, which is rarely done by most people, so it’s not like there’s much to lose by turning indexing off.

This tutorial will walk you through turning off the indexing service in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Window XP.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

Click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> then click Programs and Features.

Now click the link on the left for Turn Windows features on or off.

In the Windows Features window make sure the Indexing Service is unchecked. It probably is, because this is a remnant from Windows XP. If you need to uncheck it, click OK when done.

Now click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Locate the Windows Search service, and double click on it.

On the General tab locate Startup type: and select Disabled from the pull-down menu. Click Apply, then the Stop button, and finally the OK button.

Next click the Windows Start button -> Computer -> then right click the C: drive -> then click Propterties

Un-check the box next to Index this drive for faster searching.

Choose Apply changes to drive C:’ only, and click OK. Repeat this for any external, or additional internal hard drives, you have installed. Windows indexing all drives by default, so you’ll need turn indexing off for each one.

Reboot your computer. After the computer finishes restarting click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Indexing Options.

If the Windows Indexing Service is not longer running you’ll see the message Indexing is not runnig.

Now click the Windows Start button -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services. Locate the Windows Search service, and make sure it says Disabled.

Windows XP

Open “Control Panel”, select “Administrator Tools”, and open Services applet. Alternatively, type services.msc in the Rn text box from Start menu, and then hit Enter.
Scroll down and locate Indexing Service service, and then double click on it.
Click on Stop button to immediately stop the indexing service if the service status shows “Running.
Under the “Startup Type”, select Disabled to permanently disable the indexing service so that it won’t run again.
Click OK.

If the indexing service was slowing down your computer you should now notice a speed improvement.

How to Format an External Hard Disk or Thumb Drive in Windows Vista

Nerd Grind — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:24:40 +0000

Newly purchased external hard disk drives, and thumb drives, usually come already formatted with a FAT32 file format that can be universally read by any operating system. Reformatting the drive to use a more reliable and faster file format that matches what you are already using may be desirable. These directions apply to Windows Vista.

First click the Windows Start button -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management, select Storage -> Disk Management, and finally select a external hard disk drive, or thumb drive to format.

Right click the drive, then left click on Delete Volume.

Make sure you have removed or copy any data you want saved from the drive before starting this process. Yes, you want to delete this volume and erase all data on it.

Right click on the drive again, and choose New Simple Volume.

Click next.

Assuming you want to allocate the entire disk to this volume click next. You can always shrink, and repartition the disk later if needed.

Choose to assign a drive letter to be sure you can see your drive when you plug it in.

For this example I have chosen the NTFS, since that is the native file system for Windows Vista. The Volume label allows you to easily identify this disk. Check the box that says Perform a quick format, or you might be waiting hours for the format process to finish.

Hopefully that was quick. Now click Finish. You could stop now, but there is one important setting you might want to set for this drive.

Right click on the drive, and left click Properties.

Go to the Hardware tab, select your drive, and click on Properties.

Go to the Policies tab.

There are two choices here, Optimize for quick removal, or Optimize for performance. On hard drives reading data is fast, but writing can slow down the hard drive, so Optimizing for performance uses caching to speed up the write process, but the downside is losing data, or corrupted data if the there is a power loss. With the Optimize for performance you can’t just disconnect the drive, first you have to right click the Safely remove hardware icon in the tray, or right click the drive in Computer window, to commit the Windows cache to the drive before disconnecting it.

If you can’t risk losing data, you can take the safe route and choose Optimize for quick removal to eliminate the chance of data loss or corruption, but if you want the hard drive to run faster choose Optimize for performance, but only check the boxes below if you have the drive and computer hooked up to a UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows Vista

Nerd Grind — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:06:10 +0000

Microsoft included a disk partition tool in Windows Vista, which can be handy when you want to create a partition to boot another operating system from.

To partition a hard drive click the Windows button → All Programs → Administrative Tools → Computer Management. If the User Account Control window pops up click Continue. Select the Volume to work with, then right click the Volume, and left click Shrink Volume.

In the example below your new partition would be 2028 MB, or 2 GB.

Right click the new 2 GB partition, then left click New Simple Volume.

We will format the File system as NTFS, and choose a Volume label, which can be anything, but it’s best to keep it short. Click Next.

You will be able to see the status of the formatting job for your 2 GB partition.

Once the formatting is complete you can start using your new hard disk drive partition just as if it was another hard drive. You can install another operating system to boot from, or usage for storage.

How to Wipe Your Hard Drive Clean

Nerd Grind — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Whether you’re trying to destroy or erase data from your hard drives when the FBI knocks on your door, or just want to securely, and permanently do emergency data destruction to protect yourself from identity theft, before you sell or recycle your computer, there’s an easy solution.

The free open-source boot disk utility, called Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN), automatically and completely deletes the content of every hard disk it can find on, or connected to, your computer when you run it.

The bootable DBAN can run from CDs, DVDs, thumb drives, and floppy disks.

The process is easy:

How to automatically wipe all hard drives

WARNING: THIS WILL PERMANENTLY ERASE ALL DATA ON ALL HARD DRIVE HOOKED TO THE PC!!!

Boot from the DBAN floppy or CD image.

Enter ‘autonuke’ at the boot prompt.

Darik’s Boot and Nuke website is here.

Click here to download the exe to write the image to a floppy disk.

Click here if you don’t have a floppy disk, and would like to create a DBAN CD image instead.

Keep the disk in a safe place. If it falls into the wrong hands your system could be toast, or just a big toaster.

Expose Wi-Fi Network Passwords with WirelessKeyView on Windows

Nerd Grind — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:36:47 +0000

By default Windows hides WEP and WPA keys stored on your PC to connect to various Wi-Fi networks, but freeware utility WirelessKeyView lists them for you. When you’ve forgotten that Wi-Fi network key, run WirelessKeyView to see all the networks your Windows PC has ever connected to using its default Wireless Zero Configuration mechanism. This utility doesn’t reveal keys stored by third-party network connection software. Delete keys from old networks that you no longer need, and easily copy keys to the clipboard to send or save. WirelessKeyView is a free download for Windows XP and Vista. Click here to download WirelessKeyView.

Speed Up Windows Vista Network Performance with TCP Windows Tuning

Nerd Grind — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:58:04 +0000

Microsoft KB article 929868 describes a problem which will cause you to experience very slow browsing on certain websites when using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista, and eventually the website might even drop the data completely. The cause is that by default, Windows Vista Enterprise fully supports RFC 1323 and supports a Windows Scaling factor of 8. This issue occurs when a Web site does not fully support RFC 1323 or when a Web site does not support the default scaling factor.

THE QUICK FIX

To work around the slow browsing issue change the Windows Scaling to a factor of 2. First open and Administrator command line prompt. Click Start –> All Programs –> Accessories, right click Command Prompt, then left click Run as administrator. As an alternative you can click Start then type into the Start Search box, or the Run box, cmd, then use the shortcut keys Ctrl-Shift-Enter. (NOTE: After you set a new autotuninglevel you will need to reboot in order for the changes to take effect.)

Type, or copy and paste, into the Administrator command prompt window:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=highlyrestricted

This will set the autotuninglevel to "Allow the receive window to grow beyond its default value, but do so very conservatively". In this mode, Vista will by default use RWIN of 16,384 bytes with a scale factor of 2.

MORE AUTOTUNING OPTIONS

To restore the autotuninglevel back to the default setting type, or copy and paste into the Administrator command prompt window:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal

There have been reports that disabling the autotuning feature will speed up threaded network downloads, mostly used with downloading agents and per-to-peer networking, along with great improvement to file copying on your network. Vista has issues where it will hang to a file copying task, but Service Pack 1, which is coming out in less than a month, is expected to fix this issue. There have been other reports that say disabling the autotuning of TCP can also fix other Vista specific issues related to slow file transfer between Outlook 2007, and Exchange server connections.

You can disable autotuning with the following command:

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable

When autotuning is disabled, the RWIN receive window defaults to a value of 65536 bytes.

There are two more settings. First restricted:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=restricted

Restricted allows for the receive window to grow beyond the default value, but limits such growth in some scenarios.

Second is experimental:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=experimental

Allows for the receive window to grow to accommodate extreme scenarios. Note The experimental value can decrease performance in common scenarios. This value should be used only for research purposes, and is not suitable for most common uses like general web browsing.

NOTE: Vista may have autotuning disabled by default, unless you use Diagnose and repair for a network connection, which will cause Vista to enable autotuning using the "normal" autotuninglevel.

To read a more technical description about tuning the TCP receive window size (RWIN), click here.

NerdGrind - How-to Computer Help - Tutorials - Tech and Gadget News » How to Windows Vista

Share Files and Folders and Printers Over a Network

Related posts:

Clone or Copy My Hard Drive with Norton Ghost

Related posts:

Share a Printer Files and Folders Over a Wired or Wireless Network Through a Firewall

Related posts:

How to Enable Administrative Tools

Related posts:

Stop Indexing Service in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Windows XP

Related posts:

How to Format an External Hard Disk or Thumb Drive in Windows Vista

Related posts:

How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows Vista

Related posts:

How to Wipe Your Hard Drive Clean

Related posts:

Expose Wi-Fi Network Passwords with WirelessKeyView on Windows

Related posts:

Speed Up Windows Vista Network Performance with TCP Windows Tuning

Related posts: