Every so often, you   might want to disable something on your PC. However, you’ll need to dig deep down in the Control Panel settings to make that happen. Here are five apps that let you disable everything from your Aero Glass effects to your keyboard at the click of a button.

1. Disable the touchpad with TouchFreeze

Changing specific settings to automatically disable the touchpad when typing could be cumbersome, so TouchFreeze comes to the rescue. You needn’t fiddle with the Control Panel settings anymore – just install the utility and you’re done – the touchpad will not be active during typing if TouchFreeze is running.

2. Disable Aero Effects with Aerofoil

Aerofoil is a simple utility that runs from the system tray and lets you disable all snazzy Aero Glass effects in Windows 7 with a single click. You can also use it to switch between multiple power plans you’ve created.

3. Disable the keyboard with Kid Key Lock

Kid Lock disables standard and special keys on your keyboard and mouse buttons. Pretty useful when you’re going to clean your keyboard or if you have kids or pets in your home. The program runs from the system tray.

4. Disable the CapsLock key with Handicapslock

If you find yourself hitting the Caps Lock key often when you shouldn’t, chances are you want to disable it. A Lifehacker reader created an AutoHotkey script that activates the Caps Lock key only when it’s pressed twice, and you can download the same as an .exe from here.

We haven’t tried this ourselves, but give it a go and let us know.

5. Disable UAC Prompts with TweakUAC

If you never want to get annoyed by those User Account Control notifications that often pop up, download TweakUAC and just hit Leave UAC off. The UAC is completely disabled, so you’ll never get to see those again.

=== About the Author ===

Shankar writes at Killer Tech Tips, on everything ranging from keyboard shortcuts that make you productive to advanced Google search operators you may not know about. Check out his blog!

[Windows Only]

Many years ago, I ran into some software from Comodo and I was impressed with its quality. To this day, Comodo continues to offer free system and security software that competes quite well with software you’d have to pay for. Recently, I saw something called Comodo Program Managerand I decided to give it a try.

[Windows]

The other day, I spotted a warning at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center. They presented some great information about a piece of malware called    Winwebsec,  which is more commonly seen as “System Tool“. Apparently it’s popping up more often now, so I decided to put out a warning to our readers.

I’ve actually run into this one before, while fixing some of my friends and family’s computers. It wasn’t much trouble to get rid of at the time, but I’ve read that some of the newer versions are more difficult to remove.

An infected computer will start getting fake warnings like the one shown here. These warnings are very realistic. Their purpose is to try to fool you into buying some more fake software that will make things even worse for you.

I looked around and I found one or two good articles that tell you how to remove the fake System Tool, but I decided to put together my own little guide.  Below you’ll find a slideshow that I’ve put together. It will give you a better idea of what to look for and some suggestions on how to remove this Fake System Tool.

[Windows Only]

Students and working professionals alike know how obtrusive and hindering desktop clutter can be for work. On the flip side, designing and customizing your workspace or display has a way of creating a productive atmosphere conducive to doing great work.

Having said that, the following is a list of seven Windows tools that can help create a personalized work environment by managing your display:

Fences

Fences is an innovative program by the specialized software company Stardock that can help organize and bring consistency to your desktop icons. By allowing the user to draw shaded areas and label them on the desktop, icons are organized into movable and re-sizable containers.

In addition, Fences allows you to hide all the NSFW content icons you so foolishly save to your desktop with a quick-hide feature you can use by fading out your icons with a simple double click. Double click again and voila, they return. [Download]

Seven Transformation Pack

Maybe some of your desktop clutter troubles stem from using new programs on an old system. If that’s the case, Windows has a program called the Seven Transformation Pack, which converts your system to just about perform in every way like Windows 7.

There’s no need to spend hundreds of dollars on Windows 7 or any 3rd party applications to get it. Seven Transformation Pack will simply do it for you. This transformation pack will update your Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 with Windows Seven GUI by adding new themes and replacing system files. Try the Seven Transformation Pack to revamp the look of your old system icons and toolbars. [Download]

Q-Dir

Q-Dir is a program designed to make your files and folders a little easier to manage on your desktop. With the Quadro-View technique, Q-Dir gives you fast and easy access to your hard disks, network folders, USB-Sticks and other storage devices. Q-Dir does not have to be installed and can be carried on a USB stick or any other memory device. [Download]

KO Software

Believe it or not, KO Software has designed a desktop utility application that makes virtually any file one click away. The KO Approach simply offers an easier way to navigate in Windows Explorer with a set of hierarchical menus.

The Folder Menus enables you to arrange shortcuts to frequently used documents and programs in one customizable menu. KO Approach is just one of those programs that lifts the rock you’ve been living under and leaves you asking, where have you been all my life?[Download]

Actual Title Buttons

Actual Title Buttons is a window management tool that adds new buttons to a window caption to give you a few more window manipulation capabilities. These buttons merely reveal hidden Windows features such as semi-transparency and moving windows between monitors in a multi-monitor system. [Download]

BumpTop

Bump Technologies has released a fun 3D program called BumpTop designed to organize your desktop clutter in the same way most of us organize clutter in the real world: with piles. BumpTop allows you to add items to a pile to pop them into a grid or to quickly view contents by fanning them out. Sort your icons with lifelike motion simulated by a gaming-grade physics engine. [Download]

Dextop

If more workspace is the key to your chaos of clutter, try Dextop. With Dextop, you can turn your monitor into up to 20 different virtual desktops to categorize your workspace as you see fit. Different icons, wallpapers, and start-ups can be configured for each.

Now with all this extra help at your fingertips, keeping a neat virtual desk is a snap. Unfortunately, with all these tools in your arsenal, it may be time to think of new excuses for why you missed that deadline. [Download]

==== About the Author ====

Yo Noguchi is an accomplished freelance writer and guest blogger for a blog hosted by Benchmark Email, one of the world’s global email marketing services.

Do you have plenty of free space on your C: drive? If so, one of best things you can do is to create another drive on your hard disk by creating a new partition (also known as a volume). Fortunately, Windows Vista and Windows 7 both allow you to do this easily.

You might be wondering why this is such a good idea. The safest place to store important information would be on a different machine, a backup drive or DVD. These aren’t always immediately available. It’s convenient to have an extra drive always there when needed. Another reason is that your operating system may some day need to be re-installed. If your personal information is on the same drive as the OS, you might lose it if it’s not backed up somewhere else.

Now that I’ve told you why, I’ll show you how. First, we’ll open the disk management console. An easy way to do this is the hit the Start button and type in the word partition, then select the result labeled Create and format hard disk partitions.

Right click on the C: drive and choose Shrink Volume. This is the first step in creating the space you need for your new partition.

Now you’ll see the system checking to see how much space you can borrow from your C: drive.

After the query process, you’ll see the size before and size available. Type in the number of megabytes you want for your new partition. Keep in mind that 1024 megabytes is equal to one gigabyte. Also make the size smaller than the availableby a one or two thousand megabytes, just to allow a safety margin.

After the Shrink process finishes, you’ll see the new partition as Unallocated. The next step is to turn it into a simple volume. Right click on the unallocated space and chose New Simple Volume.

Now you’ll see the New Simple Volume Wizard.

After clicking Next, you’ll be asked to specify a size for the new volume. The default is what you’d normally want, so click Nextonce again.

You’ll be prompted to assign a new drive letter. I usually choose a higher letter so that the DVD or other devices on your system won’t have to be assigned new letters when they are detected. Click Nextwhen you are done.

Now you’ll be asked if you want to format the new volume. The best choice is typically NTFS. After making your choice here, click Next.

You’ll be given one more look at the settings before you launch the formatting process. Review the info and click Finishwhen ready.

Before it starts, you may get a warning about Dynamic disk’s. If you aren’t dual booting another operating system, you can ignore this and click Yes. If you are using more than one OS, you might lose any special boot managers at this point. You should research your best options if that’s the case.

Your new disk will appear in the Disk Management console now.

That’s all there is to it. When you return to Windows, you’ll be able to use the new disk to store your personal information.

See also:

Create Extra Partitions From Unused Space In Windows Vista

When trouble strikes your PC, you might need to re-install or repair Windows. Sometimes, after re-installing,   you find out that hardware such as the sound system or   a network card is no longer working. That means that the correct device drivers are missing.

When you don’t have the proper device drivers for hardware, you often have to spend time looking online for the correct drivers. Sometimes the drivers are very difficult to locate. Is there something you could do to prevent this problem? Yes, you can back up your drivers now, before you have a serious problem.

There are several free applications that allow you to back up system drivers. One of them is Driver Magician Lite.

You can find Driver Magician Lite at Download.com. When you run Driver Magician, it quickly scans and locates all of the drivers that your PC uses. All you need to do is place check marks beside each driver you wish to back up, then hit the Start Backupbutton.

The drivers will be copied to any location you specify. Each driver will be located in a sub-folder having the name of the driver. Also inside each sub-folder, will be an INF file which allows you to re-install the driver in the future. Double clicking an INF file will re-install the driver.

I usually store my backup drivers in a zip file, somewhere online, such as DropBox. Never leave your backup on the same hard drive that your Windows is using. After all, your hard drive could crash and you’d lose the backups along with Windows.

Download Driver Magician Lite

Techie Buzz Verdict:

Driver Magician Lite is a simple way to back up your critical system drivers. Although you may not need those backups, if you ever do, you’ll be glad you have them.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

[Windows Only]

Would you pay good money for a program, if you could get some of the same features for free? How many ridiculous TV commercials have you seen for Double-My-Speed or My-Clean-PC? Both of those programs are from Cyberdefender, which many people claim is a scam.   One of the main components of these questionable programs, is a registry cleaner.

There are many free registry cleaning programs out there. The idea behind them is that they remove registry entries that are not needed, thereby speeding up the PC. I recently tried one named Wise Registry Cleaner Free.

Below, the first image shows the Wise cleaner in action. As you can see, the scanning can be adjusted to include or exclude several types of registry entries. Once the scanning is done, a click on the Fixbutton takes care of the cleanup.

This program is a free but limited version, and you’ll notice an upgrade button in the toolbar. However, it contains everything most other registry cleanup utilities have.

The most important feature any registry cleaner should have, is a way to backup the registry settings before making any permanent changes to the Windows registry. The Wise cleaner has very good backup features, easily found by hitting the second button in the toolbar. You can create a System Restore Point, or a full registry backup. I recommend doing both of these before doing any registry cleanup.

One additional feature is the registry defragmenter, which is initiated from the main toolbar. Once it’s running, it will analyzethe registry and then offer you a chance to defragment it. This supposedly helps Windows run a bit faster, since the registry is better organized after a defrag.

Wise Registry Cleaner Free is offered in a regular and a portable version.

Download Wise Registry Cleaner Free

Download Wise Registry Cleaner Free Portable

Techie Buzz Verdict:

Some people claim that registry cleaners are a waste of time and possibly dangerous . I am still undecided as to how much good they do, but I’ve never had any bad mishaps using them. If your PC is running a bit slow, this cleaner may help speed things back up. I believe it’s very safe to use as long as you take advantage of the backup features.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

[Windows Only] SystemNucleus is a free tool that consolidates multiple Windows system tools within a single window. You can view, edit or manage system resources and settings within the same interface.

Features :

1. The tool generates a detailed report about the system events which helps in tracking the PC status.

2. It lets you edit and fix almost all common system errors. If you are an advanced user you can tweak system properties in the Advanced mode.

3. It gives you better control over your startup items. You can delete entries or disable them if you are not sure about them. You can also re-enable items that were previously disabled.

4. You can perform all kinds of necessary backup operations. The list includes system restore point, registry hives, event logs and even drivers.

5. The app automatically scans the system for applications and sorts them into 5 categories which are Administrative Tools, Network, Security, System and Diagnostic & Repair.

6. The tool can analyze and create detailed reports on storage volumes. You can also use this app to defragment hard disk partitions.

7. Batch processing is a key feature in SystemNucleus. You can install or uninstall multiple applications simultaneously.

[Download SystemNucleus]

Techie-Buzz Verdict:

SystemNucleus is a freeware tool that supports batch processing and offers an easy GUI (Graphical User Interface). The tool provides most of the administrative controls in a easy-to-choose categories.  The tool also offers a portable version which makes it easy to use it on any Windows computer. The tool is something every Windows user must try.

Techie-Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

[via DownloadSquad]

[Windows only] There are dozens of utilities around that will give you details about the guts of your PC. If you’re looking for a free and easy to use system information tool, WinAudit is one of the best. Here’s what the authors of WinAudit say in their description of this program.

PC audit and inventory of software, licenses, security configuration, hardware, network settings…

Easy to use

No setup

Csv/html/pdf/xml

E-mail

Database export

Command line

Fully documented

Free for any use!

WinAudit can be used to collect information on home PCs or work PCs on a network. Since WinAudit can be run from the command line, it’s easy to set up business PCs to automatically run a WinAudit report and file the reports on a central server.

The program is offered for download as a ZIP file. After downloading, you should unpack the single program file to a safe place. To launch the program, simply double click the WinAudit.exe file.

When running in normal mode, this is what you’ll see:

The first things you should do are to set your default language under the Language menu and then click the Options button to set the types of information you want to collect. As you can see next, there are plenty of categories of information to be seen.

The report interface is easy to navigate and search.

Once you are done looking things over, you’ll be asked if you want to save the report. The reports generated can be saved in several formats, such as PDF, CHM, CSV, TXT, HTML or XML.

The information you file away should probably be saved someplace safe, either online or on another PC. That way you’ll have it if you ever need to replace broken hardware or software.

Download WinAudit

See also: Know Your System’s Details With Speccy

Techie Buzz Verdict:

WinAudit is a small, stand-alone executable and it’s free for personal or business use. When it comes to collecting useful system information, it does far more than you’d expect from such a compact program. In addition, this program is fully explained and documented in the help menu. WinAudit deserves to be highly recommended.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

[Windows Only]

If you need a fast, functional and easy way to manage the services that run on your PC, take a look at Services Suite, a portable application from RoyalFool.de. Below are some screenshots and a brief description of how it works.

To use it, you’ll have to download and extract it to a folder somewhere on your PC or on a flash drive. It’s offered as a RAR file download, so if you aren’t familiar with RAR archives, you we’ll show you how to open a RAR file.

Once you have it unpacked, all you have to do is double click the file ServicesSuite.exe to start the program.

When it’s first started, you may have to select your language in order to read the menus. Right now, it’s only available in German and English.

The program interface will list all of the registered services on a PC in a three column format. The three columns are automatic, manual and deactivated, as shown next.

In order to change the status of any service, you can click on it and drag it from one list to another. When you are finished making changes, you’ll have to write these changes to the registry by clicking on the check mark icon in the top right of the application window.

That’s all there is to it. The only problem you might have is if you aren’t a system administrator on the PC you are using. Some services can only be changed if you are the administrator.

Download Services Suite (requires .NET Framework 2.0)

[via WebDomination]

Other ways to work with Windows Services:

How To Delete/Remove Services In Windows XP and Vista

Tweak Windows 7 Services With SMART | Windows 7 Services Optimiser

Advanced Windows Service Manager Plus

ServicesEditor Makes Tweaking and Restoring Windows Services Easy

Techie Buzz Verdict:

For experienced users, this may not be a huge help. After all, you can easily access the system services using the services.msc applet. However, it’s nice for quick changes and it’s so simple to use. The fact that this app is very small, portable and free, makes it a win on my score card.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)