There can be different situations when you need to know your Windows version. For example you want to install updates, or perform repair install or upgrade your product.  And it can takes a lot of time to explore this until you know following solutions.

1. The easiest way is to use built in windows application. Winver.exe. Press Start->Run and type there: winver.exe and press Enter.

You will get following window with all required information:

2. Right click on My Computer:

3. Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\ and open prodspec.ini

4. In Command shell type:

reg query "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\" /v BuildLab

If your Windows security settings were changed by some software, script or a virus there is a way to reset it back to defaults. Different security changes might have negative influence on PC performance. However it is hard to clarify if security changes led to certain PC problem.

Note that this technique does not restore all security settings that are applied when you install Windows. Also this technique do not apply to Windows XP Home Edition, or Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium editions.

Steps to restore security settings:

1. Open Command Prompt:

 In Windows XP:

Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.

In Windows Vista:

Click Start and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the results area, right-click cmd.exe, and then click Run as administrator.

2. In the command prompt do the following:

In Windows XP:

type the following command, and then press ENTER:
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose

In Windows Vista:

type the following command, and then press ENTER:
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

You receive a "Task is completed" message and a warning message that something could not be done. You can safely ignore this message.

Now your system security settings have default values.

Windows 7 has one significant change from Windows XP and Vista, it is new “dock style” taskbar. A lot of user's who had recently installed new operating system may want to use classic taskbar. The below instructions shows how to change default Windows 7 taksbar to Xp style.

1. Right-click on any open area of the taskbar and choose Properties from the menu.

2. Choose “Never combine”, which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says.

3. Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels.

4. In case if you need to delete "pinned" items from taskbar, just right click on it and choose “Unpin this program from taskbar”.

If you want to use classic Windows XP taskbar, simply change “Windows Classic” theme under the Desktop \ Personalize section.

Internet Explorer 8  can be less than stable sometimes. Many websites load terribly slow in IE 8 and sometimes the browser will simply crash for no reason at all. It doesn't have any built-in plugins like Java or Flash Player. Eventually, you may get fed up with this applicationand wish to remove it from your system. There are different ways to perform this decision depending on which operating system you use. Here is how to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP and Windows Vista

Click the "Start" button on the toolbar at the bottom of your desktop if you have Windows XP on your computer.

Choose "Control Panel" from the listed options.

Select "Add or Remove Programs."

Scroll down the list of programs in the "Add or Remove Programs" until you find "Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1."

Click on the program. A "Remove" box will appear at the right of the listed program. Click on this box and the Removal Wizard will appear on your screen. Click "Next" to begin the removal of Internet Explorer 8 from your computer.

Go to the Control Panel in the same manner if you are using Windows Vista Select the Uninstall Programs link.

Choose "View installed updates" on the Tasks pane found on the left.

Scroll to "Windows Internet Explorer 8" in the list of updates and select it.

Click the "Uninstall" button and then choose "Yes" in the box that appears to remove Internet Explorer 8 from your computer.

There are a lot of different ways to backup and restore messages in Microsoft Outlook. One of them is to export and import .PST file. PST stands for Personal STorage. Actually it's a database, that contains your mail, calendar, contacts and other stuff. It is useful to work with .pst files when you want to transfer your messages from one PC to another or if you just want to back up them. Following instructions will tell you hove to use .pst file, that was once created.

1. Open Outlook.
2. On the File menu, click Import And Export. If the command is not available, rest the pointer over the chevrons at the bottom of the menu, and then click Import and Export.

3. Click Import from another program or file, and then click Next.

4. Click Personal Folder File (.pst), and then click Next.

5. Type the path and the name of the .pst file that you want to import, and then click Next.

6. Select the folder that you want to import. To import everything in the .pst file, select the top of the hierarchy.

7. Click Finish.

 Windows Vista has the System Beep enabled by default. Every time you encounter an error or security warning you will hear a beep. If it becomes very annoying to you there is a way to disable it.

Steps to disable system beep:

1. Go to Start menu and right click on Computer. From the context menu choose Manage.

2. In the Computer Management window go to System Tools and choose Device Manager.

 3. Go to the View menu and select Show hidden devices.

4. If you return to the Device Manager you will see a category of devices called Non-Plug and Play Drivers. Expand that list and select the Beep, as shown in the figure below.

 5. Right click on the Beep and select Properties.

6. In the Beep Properties window go to the Driver tab. From the Startup scroll down list, select Disabled and press OK.

 7. Restart your PC.

Once you can meet the problem, that all applications fails during installation. You can receive different errors, but all they have common source, and this source is Windows Installer. Windows Installer is a service, that any program can use to install itself to your system. Actually it consists of a few files, that can be easily repaired.

To reinstall the Windows Installer, follow these steps.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.

3. At the command prompt, type the following lines. Press ENTER after you type each line.

cd %windir%\system32

ren msi.dll msi.old

ren msiexec.exe msiexec.old

ren msihnd.dll msihnd.old

4. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER.

5. Restart your computer.

6. Update the Windows Installer files to the latest version. To do so, visit one of the following Microsoft Web sites, and then download and install Windows Installer 2.0.

Note Windows Installer 2.0 is included with Microsoft Windows XP. You do not have to perform this step if you are using Windows XP.

For Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cebbacd8-c094-4255-b702-de3bb768148f%20&displaylang=en 
For Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4b6140f9-2d36-4977-8fa1-6f8a0f5dca8f&DisplayLang=en

After the installation of the Windows Installer is complete, shut down and restart your computer normally.

In some cases when Windows Update has finished updating your system, you might receive the following window:

When you have a lot of work in progress, lots of open tabs and unsaved documents, you might need to disable this popup and reboot manually after all work is done.

Whereas Windows Vista predicted such an alternative, Windows XP will show this popup, and then finally reboot your computer if no interaction is made.

To temporarily disable this popup, you will need to shut down Windows Automatic Update service.

The simplest way to do this is to type net stop wuauserv in the Run menu. This will stop Automatic Update service and popup will be gone until next restart.

Note: This will not happen if you have Automatic Updates disabled or set up to manual update. Disabling updates, however is a serious security breach and is not recommended.

You could also download a script that will stop Automatic Updates from running. Execute this script every time you need Automatic Updates disabled until restart.

AUDisable.cmd (17,00 bytes)

When computer faced a major virus infestation, it might be necessary to boot computer into safe mode and perform some actions there. What is the difference between normal boot and Safe Mode? Only basic drivers and services are loaded when booting into safe mode, thus not allowing viruses to start themselves. Most of the viruses will not operate in Safe Mode, so you could try curing it. It is not a surprise that some viruses disable safe mode as soon as they take control of computer.

How can be Safe Mode disabled? In most cases viruses simply delete registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot. When you try booting into safe mode on the machine that has this key deleted, you will receive the following BSOD:

Solution:

In this case you will need to find computer with the same version of OS and Service Pack, get these settings from there and then import them into problematic computer. To export settings from working computer, you will need to do the following:

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot and export its contents into a file

This will create a reg file that we will transfer to the machine without SafeBoot.

Alternatively, you could use registry files created on our test machines, but some settings are machine-specific, so these files are provided "as is".

WinXP_SafeBoot.reg (26,81 kb)

Win7_SafeBoot.reg (36,04 kb)

Now when when these reg files are on the computer that needs Safe Mode restored, merge them with the registry. You can do that either by double-clicking or by right-clicking on the reg file and selecting Merge option from the dropdown menu.

SafeBoot should work from now on if the problem was in deleted key.

If you need a way to save some hard drive space one trick is to decrease the size or completely disable the System Restore feature.  We like to share all options on how to take control of your operating system, so for readers living on the edge this tip is for you. 

Note:  Keep in mind Windows 7 is just being released and there could be bugs, crashes, etc…and you won’t be able to restore your system if disaster strikes!

Disable System Restore

Now with all that being said…Open Control Panel, switch to all items view and click on System.  In the next window click on the System Protection link.

The System Properties dialog box opens where you will want to select your system disc and click the Configure button.

Under Restore Settings select “Turn off system protection” and click Apply.

You will get a confirmation warning screen to verify you want to turn it off…so it is not too late to change your mind.  Click Yes to save all the space possible if you still like living on the edge.

Adjust System Restore Space

With the large capacity hard drives in today’s computers there is really no reason to completely disable System Restore, however you might consider limiting the amount of space it takes on the disk if you need it.  When you limit the amount of space it uses then older Restore Points will be deleted.  There will be fewer points to restore from as well. 

After decreasing the amount of space it uses you might want to Create A Restore Point right away.