You often have to work on a computer. Sometimes Windows acts up, making you feel exhausted and frustrated. We would like to introduce some tips to make your Windows experience more manageable.
Clean Up Your Hard Drive After Upgrading Windows
After installing Windows XP SP2, the Windows installation directory contains folders like “$NtUninstallKB810217$“. Each folder can take up nearly 800 MB of space. If your hard drive isn’t large, this can lead to wasted disk space. Should you delete them?
When you update Windows 2000 and XP, these updates retain all the information needed for potential uninstallation later, with each update stored in its own folder. If you’re sure you do not need to uninstall these updates, feel free to delete them.
To view the uninstall folders, open Windows Explorer and select C:Windows (for Windows XP) or C:WINNT (for Windows 2000). You may need to select Show the contents of this folder. If you don’t see any folders, choose View -> Folder Options, select the View tab, then choose Show hidden files and folders, and click OK.
The uninstall folders for Windows updates will be in the $NtServicePackUninstall$ directory, or have names like $NtUninstallKBnnnnnn$ or $NtUninstallQnnnnnn$ (where “n” represents a digit).
If the folder is older than a few weeks, you can safely delete it. However, doing so means you will no longer be able to uninstall these updates. Be sure to read the details of these updates at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=nnnnnn, where “nnnnnn” represents the digits in the folder name.
Now that you can delete them, select the folder in Windows Explorer. Press Delete and confirm your choice. The names of these updates will still be listed in Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs. Select these updates and click the Remove button. You will be asked to confirm your decision; choose Yes. You will notice that Windows feels much “lighter” afterward.
Eliminate Annoying Pop-up Help
How can you stop these annoying pop-ups?
Windows pop-up windows may include: Tooltips, InfoTips, ScreenTips, and balloon help. Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal method to completely eliminate these bothersome error messages.
To disable pop-ups in Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office applications, select Tools -> Customize -> Options, uncheck Show ScreenTips on toolbars, and click Close. You can repeat these steps in each Office application to remove these pop-up windows.
If you don’t want help tips to appear when you hover over a folder in Windows Explorer or on the Desktop, open Explorer, select Tools -> Folder Options -> View, scroll to the end of the Advanced settings list, uncheck Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items, and click OK.
Block “Annoying” Install Settings
The Windows Installer window keeps popping up when you start using Word and Outlook. If you uninstall programs that Windows is trying to install, it will select another program to uninstall when you open Word. It can be quite frustrating; what can you do?
It’s possible that during the installation process, an error occurred, likely due to the computer being turned off unexpectedly (power failure), freezing, or a virus. Use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove previous faulty installations while keeping the program data intact.
Minh Phúc (According to PcWorld)