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Regular PC maintenance is just as important as cleaning out your garage or going to gym. No one wants to put the effort into properly maintaining his or her garage or his or her computer. Even though it is an oxymoron, you have to think of your computer like an electronic organism. It needs food and needs to be properly cleaned in order to run as you would like it to. just The nice thing about most regular PC maintenance is that you can auto-run most tasks so you don’t have to remember to handle them.Keeping a Copy
The most important thing for you to do in the course of regular PC maintenance is to back up your files. This should be done on a daily basis. Imagine if your computer crashed, and you lost all your files. Without a back up, you have little to no chance of retrieving them.With Windows XP, it is easy to back up most of your vital files during regular PC maintenance. Pretty much everything is located inside of ‘C:/Documents and Settings’ folder. That means that all you have to do is zip that folder and burn it onto a disc for safekeeping. Of course, you can buy a program that will do this for you, thus eliminating your need for this particular task in regular PC maintenance.Scanning Procedures
Next, you should do habitual scans and updates as part of your regular PC maintenance. Doing this once a week is the best. If you don’t already have an anti-virus program, go out and get one before you start regular PC maintenance. Without one, you are vulnerable to system crashing viruses. So go get one before you experience that hassle!Naturally, your anti-virus program is useless if you don’t update it. Usually you can set it to scan and update automatically without any effort from you whatsoever. Of course, you should also update your Windows software fairly often as part of your regular PC maintenance. This will help to keep your Windows operating system running smoothly. It also fixes any previous bugs and glitches that are inherent in most programs. Regular Windows updates also helps to fill any holes that your firewall and anti-virus software may have.Internal Cleaning
Once a month, as part of your regular PC maintenance, you should do a run disk clean up and disk defragmenter. Doing so will help keep your PC running smoothly and quickly. Best of all, it’s not very difficult. All you have to do is click on a couple of things and leave your machine to work while you sleep or do some errands. Who knew regular PC maintenance could be so easy?To do either of these, you must first stop any programs running in the background. Things like instant messengers or download managers will prohibit the scanners from doing what they need to do. Once those are closed, the next step to this piece of regular PC maintenance is to go into ‘My Computer’ and right click on your C:/ drive. Then go to ‘Properties’ and in the new window, click on the ‘Tools’ tab. There are the two programs you need to use: Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragment. It is advisable to run Disk Cleanup first. This will determine if there are any bad sectors on your hard disk. Don’t be surprised if there are. Over time, your hardware can age and things like this happen. When the scan disk is finished, do a disk defragment. A disk defragment will consolidate all your fragmented files and keep your PC running fast, which may speed up the regular PC maintenance process.Registry Cleaning
Another thing you should as part of your regular PC maintenance is to scan and back up, fairly recurrently, your Windows registry. The registry is a database of files that log certain preferences within programs and from multiple users. You want to keep your registry happy and healthy through regular PC maintenance. You can buy software that scans and automatically makes a back up copy for you so that you will be covered should you ever encounter a crash. Do some research so you can find one that suits you. If you are better with computers, then you can probably do it by yourself. Be careful, though, because you can really screw it up during your regular PC maintenance.Hopefully now you can see just how regular PC maintenance can solve many problems. It isn’t that difficult for the most part. It is time consuming, but it is also incredibly important. Try and get yourself in a regular PC maintenance routine to help make it easier for you.

If you run a pc operating system, you will need to know how to fix a computer crash. And trust me, not that I have anything against pc’s, because it what I use, but over 95% of the world uses it. And inevitably, you will crash your computer. So, we need to know how to fix it.You should be fully aware that your computer will crash. This means when you are working on it, you should always ensure you are saving your work as you go. If you don’t really plan on saving the work, just temporarily, then it really does not matter what you call the file. Just don’t forget the name. This ensures you will still have your work if your computer crashes.

Note: Please read the entire document before you begin, if you change the wrong setting it could cause Windows XP not to boot up.

Warning: You must replace the forward slash in the command line with a back slash, otherwise you will receive a “bad command or file name” error message in the Recovery Console. When I tried to publish this article, It removed all the back slashes, so I put forward slashes in their place so you would where to put the back slash.

You’ve installed a seemingly innocent application, restarted your computer, and suddenly you see the horror, your background has changed, it’s dark and has a message that says you’ve won the grand prize. You try restarting your computer again, same thing. You’ve been hijacked; meaning your background has been hijacked. What will you do? Well, don’t let it ruin your day. If you’re using Windows XP there is help.

I’m going to show you how to bring your background back to life, and restore it to the point it was before it was hijacked. You may want to print this article; it may be easier to follow along. By the way, this routine only works with Windows XP, either Professional or XP Home Edition.

Here’s what to do: First, get the Windows XP CD you used to install your operating system. If you don’t Have a bootable XP CD, get one and have it with you at all times. But before you do anything with that CD, right click on your background and chose properties. If there is a background tab click on it. You have different background options, choose one. Then click “apply”. Occasionally, for some odd reason, this works. Usually not, though. If you’ve tried that and everything else you can think of, then keep reading and we will have your computer running smooth before you know it.

If you don’t have a background tab, then read the instructions below and things will soon be fixed. Put the XP CD in the drive, and restart your computer. When it says, “press any key to boot from CD,” go ahead, press any key and you’re on your way to the magical Windows XP Recovery Console. If it doesn’t give you a choice to boot from your CD drive, go into your computer’s BIOS and change the boot order to boot from CD. PC brands and motherboards are too diverse to give you specifics on this, so follow the prompts and you will be able change the boot order without too much trouble. Look at your screen when it boots up, it should say hit del, or press f1 to enter setup. If you can’t get your computer to boot from CD then you will have to take your computer to the repair shop, because to get to the Recovery Console you need to be able to boot from the Windows XP CD.

OK, it’ll look like you’re re-installing Windows XP but don’t worry you’re not. This is just a screen showing you that your computer is loading enough files from the CD to actually do something. Now when you see the screen that asks you if you want to install Windows, don’t! Just hit R for recover, and you’ll see the ominous Recovery Console. Don’t let that intimidate you; the Recovery Console will become your closest friend. It will have a dark, bleak screen, with the following things:

Microsoft Windows Recovery Console

The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality. Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart your computer.

1: C:/WINDOWS

Which Windows installation would you like to log onto? (To cancel, press ENTER)?

Go ahead and hit the number 1 on your keyboard, or whichever number corresponds to the operating system you were using when havoc struck. Enter your administrator password, and hit enter. You’re in.

OK let’s get started. If you type the following commands into your computer, it will work magic, like going back in time. There are three parts to this process, but believe me; they take much less time than reinstalling Windows XP and all your programs. So follow along and keep in mind that each command must be typed exactly as you see it here. Again remember to replace the forward slash with a back slash as stated at the beginning of this article. Please note that this procedure assumes that Windows XP is installed to the C:/Windows folder. If you run a dual boot system, change the drive letter to the drive where Windows is installed. The copy commands will answer you with a little “file copied” message. The delete commands just move on to the next line. Because of the way your web browser displays individual lines, a command might look to you like it’s two lines, so I’ve separated each command by an empty line. So make sure you type the whole command in one line, and when you are finished typing that command, hit the enter key. Be sure to include the spaces I’ve included between each word here. OK let’s start typing.

md tmp

copy C:/windows/system32/config/system C:/windows/tmp/system.bak

copy C:/windows/system32/config/software C:/windows/tmp/software.bak

copy C:/windows/system32/config/sam C:/windows/tmp/sam.bak

copy C:/windows/system32/config/security C:/windows/tmp/security.bak

copy C:/windows/system32/config/default C:/windows/tmp/default.bak

delete C:/windows/system32/config/system

delete C:/windows/system32/config/software

delete C:/windows/system32/config/sam

delete C:/windows/system32/config/security

delete C:/windows/system32/config/default

copy C:/windows/repair/system C:/windows/system32/config/system

copy C:/windows/repair/software C:/windows/system32/config/software

copy C:/windows/repair/sam C:/windows/system32/config/sam

copy C:/windows/repair/security C:/windows/system32/config/security

copy C:/windows/repair/default C:/windows/system32/config/default

Now take a deep breath. You’ve made it though the first part. Now what did you just do? I’ll tell you. You first created a temporary directory called “tmp” (md tmp), and then into it, you copied all the files that boot up Windows. Then you deleted all those startup files, one of which is the corrupted file that got you into this mess in the first place. After that, you copied into the same place fresh startup files from a special repair directory. When you reboot, Windows will look for those files where it always does, and there won’t be a corrupted file in the bunch. The only thing is, there won’t be all you’re setting for all those programs you run everyday, either. But not to worry we will fix that as well with the last two steps. Now type exit and watch your computer restart into Windows XP again. Be sure to reset your BIOS setting to boot from your hard disk drive and not from your CD rom drive. But wait. That’s not the way my Windows XP looked before this disaster struck! That’s ok. Hang in there. I’m going to show you how to restore your system to the way it was the moment before this nightmare began. So follow along and we’ll move on to part 2.

Here’s where you’ll copy the saved registry files from their backed up location by using system Restore. This folder is not available in Recovery Console and is normally not visible, Microsoft is protecting you from yourself by hiding it. Before you start this procedure, you’ll need to change several settings to make that folder visible:

1. Start Windows Explorer. 2. On the tools menu, click folder options. 3. Click the view tab. 4. Under hidden files and folders, click to select show hidden files and folders, and then click to clear the “hide protected operating system files (Recommended)” check box. 5. Click yes when the dialog box is displayed that confirms that you want to display these files. 6. Double click the drive where you installed Windows XP to get a list of folders. It’s important to click the correct drive. 7. Open the system volume information folder. This folder appears dimmed because it is set as a super hidden folder. If you’re using the Fat32 file system, this will be easy. If you’re using NTFS, it won’t let you open the folder, but here’s how to get around that: Right click on that system volume information folder and select sharing and security. Then click the security tab. (No security tab ? skip two paragraphs.) Click add, and then in the box that’s labeled “Enter the object names to select,” type the name of the user that’s at the top of the start menu, that’s probably you.

Make sure you type the name the way it’s listed there on the start menu. Type the first and last name if that’s how it’s written on the top of the start menu. After you’ve typed that in, click ok a couple of times and you will be in.

But what if you don’t see a security tab ? Try this: Click to select the check-boxes in the “Network sharing and security” area, one is labeled “share this folder on the network” and the other is labeled ” Allow network users to change my files.” Change the share name to something short, like sysinfo. Then it’ll let you in. After you’re done with this entire rescue operation, you might want to go back and change these settings back to the way they were before, for maximum security.

As Microsoft so eloquently puts it: Note: This folder contains one or more restore {GUID} folders as “restore {87BD3667-476B-923F-F86E30B3E7F8}”

8. Open a folder that was not created at the current time. You may have to click details on the view menu to see when these folders were created. There may be one or more folders starting with RP x under this folder. These are restore points.

9. Open one of these folders to locate a snapshot sub-folder; the following path is an example of a folder path to the snapshot folder:

C:/system volume information/_restore{D8648OE3-73EF-47BC-A81BE6EE3ED8}RP1snapshot

From the snapshot folder, copy the following files to the C:/windows/tmp folder (you can use your mouse, you’re in Windows now)

_registry_user_.default _registry_machine_security _registry_machine_software _registry_machine_system _registry_machine_sam

This is how Microsoft explains this: “these file are backed up registry files from System Restore. Because you used the registry file created by setup, this registry does not know these restore points exist and are available. A new folder is created with a new GUID under system volume information and a restore point is created that includes a copy of the registry files that were copied during part one. This is why it is important not to use the most current folder, especially if the time stamp on the folder is the same as the current time.”

Now it’s time to place those files you just made visible to the Recovery Console where they belong. And to do that, we need to get back into the Recovery Console. So, make sure your CD is in the drive, and restart Windows, this time hitting any key when it when it tells you to do that if you want to boot from CD. Yes, you want to boot from CD, so you can launch the Recovery Console. Type R after it goes through that file reading routine that looks like an install but isn’t. Then you will be back in the famous Recovery Console.

OK we are ready to move on to the last part of this journey, part 3

In part three, you delete the existing registry files, and then copy the System Restore Registry files to the C:/windows/system32/config folder.

From within Recovery Console, type the following commands, and remember to replace the forward slash with a back slash.

del C:/windows/system32/config/sam

del C:/windows/system32/config/security

del C:/windows/system32/config/software

del C:/windows/system32/config/default

del C:/windows/system32/config/system

copy C:/windows/tmp/_registry_machine_software C:/windows/system32/config/software

copy C:/windows/tmp/_registry_machine_system C:/windows/system32/config/system

copy C:/windows/tmp/_registry_machine_sam C:/windows/system32/config/sam

copy C:/windows/tmp/_registry_machine_security C:/windows/system32/config/security

copy C:/windows/tmp/_registry_machine_.default C:/windows/system32/config/.default

Now, you’re done! Type exit and your computer will reboot into whichever restore file you choose. But wait, if it’s not the right one, that’s ok, you can now go into your system restore area and pick a different restore point if you want. There will be a whole calendar full of them. I bet you did not know that Windows XP creates a restore point every time you successfully start up your machine.

Here’s how to get into the restore area if you want to select a different restore point:

1. Click start, then click all programs.
2. Click accessories, and then click system tools.
3. Click system restore, and then click restore to a previous restore point.
4. Follow the on screen instruction to complete the process.

I hope this was helpful in restoring your computer back the way it was, and remember to run your antivirus often. Also be careful when installing software that was downloaded from the internet, some of those so called free programs you can download on the internet contain viruses and spyware, so make sure the software is from a trusted site.