KEEP YOUR PC RUNNING SMOOTHLY
Back up your drivers
Minimum USB: 32MB
The key to running a happy computer is having the right drivers installed. Your driver collection will grow over time, and it’s impossible to keep track of where they all come from. Some are installed by Windows itself, but you may have had to hunt for more obscure ones yourself.
You don’t want to have to go through that process again. Thankfully, the free Driver Magician ( www.snipca.com/32528 – click the portable link at the bottom) lets you back them up to a USB stick and, should disaster strike, quickly restores them. It even distinguishes between drivers included with Windows (in black) and non-microsoft drivers that ought to be preserved (in red, see screenshot above right).
Check beneath the bonnet
Minimum USB: 32MB
We know a lot of Computeractive readers are frequently called upon by friends and family to help fix their PC problems. Often, the first step is to understand not so much what’s wrong, as what’s hidden inside. Having a full rundown of the processor, memory, media and more helps you spot problems such as a recent and incompatible upgrade or out-of-date drivers.
Speccy (download from www.snipca. com/32521) produces detailed reports that show not only what makes a computer tick, but how well it’s ticking. You’ll see information such as temperatures for key components like the motherboard and processor - high temperatures can be a sign of something wrong (see screenshot left).
Problems sometimes only become obvious over time, which is when Speccy’s snapshots feature comes in handy, because it lets you save each report as a text file. By repeating the scan every few days, you can see whether patterns are emerging by comparing subsequent reports, which could show variations in the amount of accessible memory or the speed of your processor – the latter could then be throttled to maintain a stable system.
Keep your computer alert
Minimum USB: 8MB
Isn’t it annoying when you’ve left your PC to finish a task, only to come back and find it’s taking a nap? Don’t Sleep ( www.snipca.com/32529) temporarily blocks any reboots, sleeps or shutdowns until you disable it (see screenshot above).
As a bonus, running it from a USB stick means you don’t need to tweak Windows’ own settings. Simply plug it in and run the program to prevent Windows snoozing on the job.
Recover lost files
Minimum USB: 16MB
When you delete a file and empty the recycle bin, it’s gone, right? Not necessarily. All that’s actually happened is that its marker in the drive’s master index (the section of the hard drive that organises the files stored on it) has been removed. The file still exists on the drive, but the space it takes up is no longer protected, so can be overwritten by new data.
That’s good news and bad news. The good news is that if you accidentally delete a whole holiday’s-worth of photos, you have a chance of getting them back. The bad news is that unless you work fast there’s a fair chance they’ll be overwritten.
One of the worst things you can do after losing your data is to install new software – even programs designed to help with data recovery – as doing so could install them right on top of the ‘lost’ data, at which point it will be gone for good.
The answer? Plan ahead. Build yourself an emergency USB file-recovery stick with Recuva ( www.snipca.com/32519), which will scan the contents of your hard drive to find files you might have thought long gone. When it turns up your lost photos or half-written documents, tick them, then click Recover (see screenshot right).
Delete unwanted data
Minimum USB: 64MB
Revo Uninstaller ( www.revouninstaller.com – click the Free Downloads button, then the Portable button) does more than merely remove unwanted software (although it does this very well, thanks to a quickly-accessed list of installed programs and a good knowledge of where each one scatters its supplementary files). It can also manage startup items (including those that are invisible using the standard Windows channels); remove junk and leftover files; clean up browsers and Microsoft Office; and give you single-click access to commonly used Windows tools.
More niche options include removing Start menu clutter, deleting crash memory dump files, erasing recent file lists from certain programs, and removing old file searches. These latter options make it a great tool for helping you protect your privacy – take it with you on a USB stick and quickly clean up your tracks after using a public computer, for example (click Windows Cleaner to use these – see screenshot below).
There are several versions of Uninstaller to choose from, including the free edition, which is available in either installed or ‘portable’ formats at www.snipca.com/32550.
Create a Windows emergency disk
Minimum USB: 8GB
What would you do if Windows refused to start? You’ve turned your PC off and on again countless times, but it still won’t toe the line. The answer depends on your level of expertise. You’d either take it to a repair shop, or try reinstalling Windows yourself. As long as you’re aware that the latter course of action could result in lost data, you might like to start planning for it now because once disaster strikes, it’s too late to do anything about it.
Visit www.snipca.com/32532 and click ‘Download tool now’ to download a copy of the Windows 10 Installation Media creator. When asked if you want to save or run the downloaded file, click Run and, when Windows asks ‘Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?’, click Yes.
Read through the licence terms and, if you agree with them, click Accept. When asked what you want to do, select the option to create installation media for another PC (see screenshot above), select your USB stick and follow the remaining onscreen instructions. This will format your USB stick, destroying any data it already contains, before installing a bootable version of the Windows 10 setup tool.
When the process has finished, remove the USB stick and keep it safe in case you should ever need to use it. You’ll have to interrupt your PC’S regular startup process to boot from the USB stick – see our ‘Run a super-secure operating system’ tip on page 52 for more on this.