When I want to tweak different aspects of the operating system, I generally prefer to use the built-in tools provided by Windows. Both Windows 7 and Windows 8 provide some great tools you can use. One such tool is the underrated Disk Cleanup, that allows you to free up space on your partitions and safely remove even system files that you no longer need. Let’s see how it works and why it is one of the best tools for cleaning up space in Windows.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 include a disk error checking utility named Check Disk. It allows you to scan your partitions and see if they have issues with lost sectors, bad sectors or file corruption. Let’s see how to run Check Disk, identify and fix issues with the data stored on your computer’s hard discs.

Dan Gheban's photographs take you on a whirlwind adventure from dizzying panoramas through storms, fog and clouds to the intricate frailty of microscopic life. It's only natural, the 50 year old anatomical pathologist and amateur photographer from Cluj-Napoca claims, since optical systems and the microscopic world are a part of his everyday life and constitute the tools of his trade, not just of his photographic pursuits. To find out more about him, his passion for photography and what exactly is an anatomical pathologist, read our interview with him.

If you’ve been following along with our Family Safety series you’ll know what it takes to get this fantastic feature enabled and configured for your child’s account. Once you’ve enabled web filters, game filters and time limits, you’ll know that you child can’t get into much trouble. Even still, you may still find yourself wondering what they do with their time on the computer. Thanks to the Family Safety website, you don’t have to wonder any more. You can visit the page any time to view usage reports for your child’s account. You can see what pages they’ve visited, what games they’ve played and plenty of other information to ensure they’re computing responsibly.

The IP address or Internet Protocol address is a numerical label that is used in networks to identify and location network devices, from computers to smartphones to printers and other devices. Learning the IP address can be very useful information, especially when you want to set up your home router or when you want to connect to other devices on the network. But how do you learn a computer’s IP address in Windows 7 and Windows 8? Let’s find out from this tutorial.

Sometimes you may need to disable the sharing wizard in Windows 7 or Windows 8, in order to gain more control over how libraries and folders are shared. It shouldn’t happen often though. Using Advanced Sharing is more complex but it provides additional control over what gets shared, with whom and how. That’s why, in this article, I will cover the following: how to disable the sharing wizard, how to share folders with specific people or with the Homegroup and how to stop sharing a folder.

There are times when some applications require administrator permissions in order to work or to run specific commands. Luckily, both Windows 7 and Windows 8 provide many ways you can use to run programs as administrator. We found 5 methods and if you know others, you are welcome to share them.

Talk about a complex thing to do: installing Windows over the network. Even installing it via a USB drive is simpler. However, this doesn’t mean it cannot be done. Using a free tool named Serva and a bit of time and attention, anyone can set up his/her network environment so that Windows installations are performed with ease, from one network computer. Here’s how the whole process works!

What do you do when you have to insert special characters that can't be found on your keyboard? You use the Character Map tool found both in Windows 7 and Windows 8. It allows you to insert scientific notations, mathematical operators, currency symbols and characters from languages like Japanese Hiragana , Katakana, Korean Hanji and others. In this tutorial, I will show how to find the Character Map, share a few ways of searching for a character and how to copy characters to any Windows application.

The Public folder was first introduced in Windows Vista and it has appeared in every version of Windows since. It is not much of a feature - just a folder with a slightly special setup that can be useful in certain scenarios. To help you understand what the Public folder is, how to use it and when it is useful to use it, we created this guide which explains the important bits you need to know.

Network locations were first introduced in Windows Vista. At that time, they somehow managed to feel half-baked and confusing to users. They were improved in Windows 7 and later on in Windows 8. Now they have a simple implementation and they are a very useful way to manage network connections and network sharing. Let’s learn together what they are, how they work and why they are useful.

We have created the biggest library of Windows 7 and Windows 8 shortcuts. We have almost everything you need and we are willing to expand our collection, which now includes 139 shortcuts for Windows 7 and 137 shortcuts for Windows 8. They are created in such a way that they all work on every Windows computer. Also, if you want a shortcut that is not included our collection, leave a comment and we will try to add it to the package.