Category: Microsoft

Get Rid Of Preinstalled Software With PC Decrapifier

PC DecrapifierYou just formatted your Dell laptop and popped in that nice little Recovery CD, only to find your computer full of all kinds of crap you never asked for?

Maybe you will like PC Decrapifier – a handy little app that picks up the trash and takes it out for you too.

PC Decrapifier scans your computer and presents you with a list of highly lightly candidates for removal. You select what you want to remove and what you want to keep, and just like that – the crap is gone!

Click here to download PC Decrapifier (external link).

How To: Start Media Player In The Now Playing Tab

Right click on the shortcut for Windows Media Player and click on ‘Properties’. In the ‘Target’ field, after the ” ends, type ‘/Task NowPlaying’ (without the single quotes).

Example: If the shortcut looks like [“C:Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe” /Prefetch:1] change it to [“C:Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe” /Task NowPlaying].

How to set the default start page of Windows Media Player to the Now Playing Tab

How To: Mark Partition As Active

How to mark a partition as active using the Windows interface:

1. Open Computer Management (Local)

2. In the console tree, click Disk Management.

Where?
Computer Management (Local) > Storage > Disk Management

3. Right-click the primary partition you want to mark as active, and then click Mark Partition as Active.

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How To: Mark Partition As Inactive

If you managed to go into Disk Management in Windows XP and somehow click “Mark Partition as Active” accidentally, this could render your computer unbootable. If you are so lucky that you haven’t rebooted yet, here is one possible solution to the problem: mark the partition as inactive using the DISKPART tool:

  1.  Open up a command prompt and type DISKPART.
  2. Type LIST DISK
  3. Type SELECT DISK n (where n is the number of the old Win98 drive)
  4. Type LIST PARTITION
  5. Type SELECT PARTITION n (where n is the number of the active partition you wish to make inactive)
  6. Type INACTIVE
  7. Type EXIT to exit DISKPART
  8. Type EXIT again to exit the command prompt
  9. Reboot

Mark Partition as Inactive using the Microsoft DISKPART tool

If you have problems booting your computer or the above approach didn’t work for you, you could also try what Microsoft suggests on their help page entitled The computer does not start after you change the active partition by using the Disk Management tool – external link, opens in new window. For your convenience, the content of that page is reproduced below:

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