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

I’ve got plenty of ways to share files online, but so far, I haven’t found an instant screen capture tool to share images online. While visiting WebDomination, I ran across a tool that may solve that problem.

Have you ever heard of Droplr, the Mac application for sharing Links, Images, Notes and Files? Now there’s a system tray app for Windows, called WinDroplr, that gives you some of the same features.

You can download the installation file at WinDroplr.com, it’s about 700k in size, but requires .NET 4.0 Framework, if you are running WinXP.

Once installed, you’ll have a windroplr icon in your system tray. To use the program, click the systray icon once to show the floating drop zone in the bottom right corner of the display. Once it’s up, you can drag URLs, text and images from your web browser into the drop zone. Once the item is uploaded to droplr.com, you’ll get a brief notification above the systray. Click on the notification before it disappears to copy a short URL to the upload.

You can also use WinDroplr to share files and collections of files. Drag them from an explorer window onto the drop zone. If you’ve selected more than one file, it will create a zip archive before it uploads.

Another feature lets you take and upload screenshots by right clicking into the systray icon’s menu.

The short URLs generated by WinDroplr are some of the shortest around. Somehow it offers integration with your Twitter account, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

Below is a video showing WinDroplr being used.

Download

WinDroplr.com

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I love the ability to quickly share links, files, notes and images. The drop zone is a pleasure to use, and the built in screenshot tool is my favorite feature. I’ll be keeping this one around and I recommend it.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

There may be times when you have forgotten your Windows account password or your account has been locked out or disabled. Reinstalling Windows is the only option left to counter situations like these. Luckily, there is another way out of this trouble. Reset Windows Password is a bootable CD that helps you bypass the Windows Logon Password.

Features :

1. The tool offers a simple graphic interface.

2. The tool helps to recover or reset Windows administrator and user passwords.

3. You can unlock or enable user as well as administrative accounts.

4. Reset Windows Password automatically detects the operating system installed on your computer.

5. Supports Windows 7, Windows XP, 2003, 2000, NT, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (64-bit), Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (64-bit), Windows VISTA, Windows VISTA (64-bit), Windows Server 2008.

6. It supports RAID/SCSI/SATA drives and FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 file systems.

Other than the above mentioned features, you’ll get free updates and technical support.

[Download Reset Windows Password]

Techie Buzz Verdict

The app is available at a price but it is worth paying for such a great utility at hand. A trial version of the tool is also available for free download. The tool definitely serves a purpose that can happen to any Windows user. Using this tool will make sure you get out of this problem avoiding a Windows re-installation. Hence I recommend you to keep a copy of this tool at hand in case you get into a trouble with your Windows Account.

Techie Buzz Rating : 3.5/5 (Very Good)

[Windows Only]Voicecorder is a portable application that lets you record voices using your microphone or your soundcard device. The tool uses very little amount of your memory resource. The program offers a nice and simple interface which is enough to do a satisfying recording operation.

Go to the developer website and click on the “Projects” tab on the left column. Now you will find the link for Voicecorder. Download the recorder and then unzip the file to use Voicecorder right away. All you need to do is plug-in your microphone and click the button Record. You can also carry the zipped file in an USB drive and record anywhere on the go.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Voice Recorder has a very simple interface making it very easy to use for the users. There is no limit on the recording length. The output file is in .wav format which is compatible with most media players. The portability makes it easier to use. I recommend this tool for startup users to experience its simplicity.

Techie Buzz Rating : 3.5 / 5 (Very Good)

Windows stores its configuration settings in a database called the registry. These settings are constantly modified by the many different programs running in Windows. Users can also make changes to the registry by using the Windows registry editor, regedit. Making changes to the registry is a common way to correct problems and change the way Windows looks and acts.

However, making the wrong registry changes can cripple your Windows system. So before you start hacking away with regedit, you should learn a little about it. This tutorial will explain some of the features in regedit and tell you how to use it safely.

Backing up the registry

Back up the registry before you make changes. One convenient way to do this is to use Windows System Restore. Here’s how to use System Restore. Another method for backing up the Windows registry is using a free utility named ERUNT, and here is how ERUNT works. Make sure you understand one of these methods before going any further.

Launching regedit

Unlike most other system tools, regedit will not appear in any of your menus when you click the Start button. That means you’ll have to launch it some other way. I’ll tell you how to start it using the Run dialog.

To bring up the Run dialog, hold down the Windows key and tap the R key.

Now type regedit into the command entry box and click OK.

Using Regedit

Once launched, regedit will pop up pretty quickly. Here’s what it looks like:

First, I’ll mention that you can see a Helpmenu in regedit and you’ll find plenty of information in it that I won’t cover in this tutorial.

The navigation pane (on the left) is showing the 5 main hivekeys, which always start with the word HKEY. To navigate deeper into the registry, you need to click on the plus (+) signs next to a hive key. The same applies the further into registry you go. Once you click on a plus, it will display all the sub-keys under that key and the plus will change into a minus (-) sign. Clicking on the minus sign will collapse the structure back to the way it was.

In the view below, you can see that I’ve located the key for a piece of software that I had installed.

At the bottom of the window you can see the registry path to this key. Right clicking on a key will bring up a menu showing several actions.

• New, will create a new key under the key I have selected.
• Delete- If this was a program that was no longer installed on my PC, I could safely delete this key.
• The Copy Key Nameaction places the full path to the key in your Windows Clipboard, and it can be pasted as text into other applications, such as email or a web browser.
• Exportaction allows you to save the information under a registry key, and this information can be restored later if it’s needed. It’s a good idea to export a key before you make changes to it. I’ll talk more about exported keys later.

Here you can see that I’ve navigated down into the Current User hive to take a look at my mapped network drives.

In this view, I have the Zkey open. In the right pane (data pane), you can see the entries for the data values under this key. Each piece of data under a key has a name, type and value. The data name can be almost any string of letters as long as it doesn’t contain a space. There are several types of data, as shown above, and you can learn more about them in the regedit help file.

Right clicking into an empty area in the data pane will bring up the Newmenu, as shown above, which allows you to add new data entries. Right clicking on one of the data entries, as shown below, will allow you to modify its value or delete it entirely.

Importing data into the registry

Above I mentioned that you can export a key to save all the sub-keys and data under it. When you export a key, you will see that it wants to save as a REG file.

A .reg file is actually a plain text file and you can open it up in Notepad to see what’s inside of it. Here’s a look inside of one:

That’s good to know, because you will often find registry tweaks published online in plain text as shown in the image above. All you need to do is to copy the text, paste it into Notepad and then save it as a .REG file.

Once you have a REG file that you want to restore or add to the registry, all you need to do is double click on it, or right click on it and Mergeit into the registry. When you do this, you’ll get a message asking you to confirm this action.

After you confirm, you’ll get a message telling you that the information was entered.

Notes:

• If you’ve made changes to the registry, you won’t always see an immediate change (if it’s one you can see). Many times you will have to log out of Windows and log back in before you see any changes.
• Some free tools make it easy to change your registry without using regedit. These programs are often called tweakor system enhancement tools, such as TweakUI (from Microsoft).
• Here are some sites with lots of registry tweaks you can apply to Windows.
• Here are some tutorials on how to use the registry and REG files.
• Here is a list of free registry tools.

Summary

I’ve told you what the registry is, how to back it up, make changes to it, and finally, how to add to the registry using REG files. Now you have enough information to safely make registry changes, and you can learn even more about these topics in the regedit help file and other places online.

I was very happy when I found a feature in Windows 7 that allowed me to see the current time in cities across the world by hovering the mouse over the system tray clock.

As you can see in the image, you can display up to three time zones, including the one you are using. If you didn’t know how to set that up in Vista or Win7, you can use these instructions at Microsoft.

I have several PCs at home and at work that are running Windows XP, so I decided to find out if there was a way to add a similar feature.

I found several applications that give you fairly quick access to views of multiple time zones, but I wanted one that resided in the system tray. Finally, I found my answer: Microsoft Time Zone.

Normally the time is displayed in the system tray in XP, showing only the time itself. Hovering your mouse over it displays the day and date as shown here.

Microsoft Time Zone allows you to see up to 5 different times zones. However, it requires a left click on the system tray icon to display them.

Right clicking on it gives you access to the settings and options. It also allows you to find the current times of anyplace else in the world.

I found out that installing Microsoft Time Zone wasn’t exactly trouble-free. This little program requires .NET Framework 1.1 to be installed. Even if you have later versions of .NET installed, Time Zone won’t let you install until you add .NET 1.1. This has always been the main reason I don’t like .NET Framework.

Download Microsoft Time Zone

Download Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1

Be sure to take a look at some of the other articles we’ve written about Time Zones and other system tray utilities.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I really enjoy having Microsoft Time Zone in Windows XP. Since many of the people I chat with online are in other time zones, it’s a big help to know what time it is where they live. As I mentioned above, the major drawback to this application is it’s reliance on .NET Framework.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5

Neosearch is a replacement for the default search that comes with Windows. The built-in search is a great tool to instantly search something, but there are some limitations to it also. The shared folders of any network are not indexed by the Windows search. So here is a nice work-around to help you remove this limitation.

Download Neosearch and install the tool. Once you have installed it, you will be prompted to broaden the search index by selecting full system index. Choose Yes if you wish to do so. The tool sits unnoticed in the system notification area, without causing any hindrance to your work. The very moment you need it just hit the keyboard combination Windows key + S. The search box pops up. You can do your search and then close it once you are done.

The indexing of partitions or specific folders also takes place without eating up large amount of your memory i.e it doesn’t hang up other processes. You can carry on with your tasks as the program indexes your files. The indexing process meter is shown to the bottom right corner just above the notification area.

Neosearch options can be configured to index your files automatically every day or manually whichever you prefer. You can also select some folders to exclude them from the search results.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

Neosearch is light tool(2Mb) which comes at no cost. The application is also very small in size(520kb). This tool completely replaces the Windows search tool with many more added advantages. Though this tool is not unique, it definitely is among the best I have tried. I recommend this free tool to people who rely mostly on Windows search.

Techie-Buzz Rating : 4/5(Excellent)

Wise Disk Cleaner is a free utility to clean up your hard disk by removing junk files such as cookies, temporary files and rarely used files. This tool also includes a disk defragment tool which is very helpful.

1. Download Wise Disk Cleaner and install it..

2. Start the application after installing it. Choose your language.

3. You can select the scan location from the Scan Locationdropdown. The scan location is selected for all the partitions by default.

4. Start the scan for locating the junk files that needs to be removed. Use the Play (Scan) button to the top left corner of the application window (refer screenshot below).

5. After the files are located press the Delete junk files button (refer application window image above).

Configure the Scan Junk File Wizard

1. You can also start the Wizard by pressing the Wizard button just to the right of the Play button (refer application window image above).

2. Press next to select the file types you are willing to remove i.e what you you consider as junk.

3. After selecting the junk file types proceed to the next step to select the scanning location. Press Next.

4. Now in the options window you can decide on certain other features to make the scanning and deleting of the junk files better. The screenshot below shows the options I use myself.

5. The very next step showcases an important feature of this free utility. You can assign any folder to the list the contents of which will be considered as junk files and will be erased when the junk file deletion happens.

6. In the next and final step you can make this tool delete the previously assigned junk files automatically and exit after the deletion is over. You can also choose to delete the files permanently or temporarily (move to Recycle Bin). Press Next and then Finish to save the changes.

If you are still not sure about how to use it, you can choose to read the manual first. The manual can be found here.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

This free tool is an obvious choice for users who forget to delete temporary files. With its basic user interface, it’s quite easy to use for users of any skill level. The app is light on its memory usage and small in size. It is compatible with all Windows platforms. If added, portability would definitely make it better. I strongly recommend this freeware tool.

Techie-Buzz Rating : 4/5(Excellent)

IN A WINDOWS PC, the drivers are some of the most important files you need to keep everything working as it should. The drivers control all of the hardware devices in your PC. So when they don’t work, your display, or sound, or CD/DVD drives, or networking cards may not be working.

Usually, this happens when you are setting up a new PC that you don’t have the original install disks for. I’ve had it happen many times and the only solution is to search the internet for the correct drivers, then install them.

If you have all of your required drivers, re-installing Windows will most likely be a trouble free experience. The best place to get the drivers is off of the PC that’s going to need them. Over the years, I’ve gotten a little smarter. After a successful install of Windows, one of the first things I do is back up all of the system drivers someplace safe. I’ve found one of the best ways to do this is to use a driver backup utility.

Double Driver is a good freeware driver backup solution. It’s not a large download and it’s also a portable application, meaning, you can take the program with you on a flash card or USB drive. There’s no need to install it since it will run right from the portable drive.

Installation is easy. Download the zip file, extract it to a folder, then double click the dd.exe file to start Double Driver.

Once it’s running, click the Scan button to make Double Driver scan your PC for all of the driver files.

By default, the drivers you need to back up will already be selected. However, it never hurts to back them all up. You can select all of the drivers from the Select menu.

Once you’ve selected all the drivers you wish to back up, then you only need to hit the Backup button to start the process. You’ll have an option to change the backup settings at this point.

The default options are fine unless you need to compress the files because of limited space in your backup location. The default option to Include Double Driveris a bonus that’s worthy of praise. After all, it’s likely you’ll only need to restore the drivers to a system which doesn’t already have Double Driver on it.

Restoring the drivers on a PC is also very easy. Navigate to the folder where you have the backup drivers stored, then double click the dd.exe file.

Once Double Driver is running, hit the Restore button and you’ll see your drivers listed, selected, and ready for you to hit the Restore button once again.

Download Double Driver

Techie Buzz Verdict:

Double Driver meets almost every good point that I use to judge software. It’s freeware, portable, useful, easy to use, bug free and runs on most versions of Windows. I have no problem recommending it as a must have.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

I have more free storage space online than I know what to do with. I have SkyDrive, Google Docs, Dropbox, Ubuntu One, Drop.io and several others. That doesn’t mean I won’t accept more if it’s offered. In 2008, when Adobe offered 5GB of free space online for files, I snapped it up. Their service is called Adobe Acrobat Document Service. All you need is an email address and a password to use it. There was one major problem with it and I have not been using it. Adobe’s service only allows you to upload one file at a time.

Since you can only upload one file at a time, it takes too long to use their service. Most of the time, I use SkyDrive Explorer to upload files when I need cloud storage. This may change since I found a free program called CloudDrive. This freebie app let’s you upload multiple files into your Adobe Acrobat Documents account. Take a look at the CloudDrive application:

CloudDrive looks almost like a regular file window and you’ll have no trouble figuring it out. It allows you to create folders, but I did notice one problem with that. You can’t move files between folders easily. As far as I can tell, you have to download a file and then re-upload it into a different folder.

Other than that, I can’t see much wrong with this application.

[via DownloadSquad]

Download CloudDrive

http://www.driveoncloud.com/ (XP, Vista, 7)

Techie Buzz Verdict:

If you are going to use Adobe’s Acrobat Document Service, you are definitely going to want CloudDrive to help you upload multiple files and folders. CloudDrive is still very new and I’m hoping they’ll add a way to move files between folders soon. CloudDrive has quite a way to go before it’s as easy to use as SkyDrive Explorer or Dropbox.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)