Clear my Recently Run list

If you frequently use the Run command in Windows XP (Start->Run), chances are you probably have a lot of paths displaying in the MRU (Most Recently Used) list, which appears in the Folder dropdown menu. If so, you may at some point in time want to clear that list or even edit it — especially if it contains paths that you no longer use. Here’s how:

1. Launch the Registry Editor (Start->Run->Type "Regedit.exe").
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU.
3. One-by-one, delete each string value you don't like by selecting it and pressing the Delete key.
   
4. To Clear the list completely, Select them all and press the delete key.
5. To Edit Individual strings, double click the one you want and change the Value Data and click Ok.
6. Close Regedit. Takes immediate effect.
   

Submitting a directory listing to a file

Came across something quite by accident today...

Go to your command prompt, Start->Run->type "CMD"
Go to your destination directory (e.g cd\sugar\tech) and type Dir > c:\filelisting.csv
Now go to Excel, click open, go to your C:\ and open filelisting.csv

neat huh?

Maintain hardware prolong its life

It is good practice to update your software on your machine (Antivirus patches, windows updates, fixes) it is also good to maintain some of the hardware on your machine:

Keep your hard drive in top shape, by running chkdsk c: /f from the command line (click start->and then run->type "cmd" without the quotes -> press Enter)
Type "y" to schedule it for the next boot.
Now... Keeping the command prompt on screen, type "defrag c: -f" and hit enter, leave this to run until you get back the prompt. Go make some coffee, drink it and come back.

CD/DVD writers do not last forever and will only write so many and then start to fail.
Warning signs to heed would be reports of errors when using Nero / other CD writing software. To prolong their lives, use disk cleaning media and give the drive a short break after writing 5 to ten discs in qiuck succession.

Graphics cards are used to display colours and media on your screen, it is important that their fans are checked regularly and the capacitors are not leaking.

Memory of a PC plays a pivotal role in your machine's life and you should always be sure that you have enough, a quick judge of this would be the hard drive light. If it is constantly flashing even when you are not running programs, consider more memory (RAM). Seriously consider more RAM when you start to hear the hard drive making a clicking noise (at this point, I'd probably consider a new Hard drive too?)

A good tool to have handy is the ultimate boot cd (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/)