Make your programs as good as new
Restore programs and browsers to working order quickly
Have you ever ticked a box in the settings of a program – be it Google Chrome or Word – and instantly regretted it? Suddenly you have a program that no longer works exactly the way you want it to. In the worst-case scenario, your program will now regularly crash or take ages to load.
You can of course simply untick the offending box, but sometimes it isn’t easy to remember which box you ticked or cleared, or which setting is responsible, meaning your only option is to laboriously uninstall the program, reinstall it and set it up from scratch.
Here, we show you how to reset some of the most popular web browsers and programs without having to uninstall and reinstall them.
Restore your programs’ default settings
Ccleaner
Piriform’s PC cleaner has so many settings you could be forgiven for losing track of which were initially switched on (or off) by default. The trouble is that Ccleaner can actually remove some files that can keep your PC running smoothly (such as Windows Temp folders) depending on what settings have been changed. To return the program to its original state, click Options, Advanced, then ‘Restore default settings’ (see screenshot below left) and click Yes to confirm. Ccleaner will then close and re-open as good as new after a few moments.
Paint.net
There are two ways to get the brilliant art program, Paint.net, back on the straight and narrow. The first thing you should do is click the settings menu (the ‘gear’ icon at the top right of the window). Click Tools, then the Reset button. This will undo any changes you’ve made that are affecting the way the brushes, shape tools, ‘Color picker’, text and other tools work. Scroll through the windows before pressing Reset to check exactly what tools will be refreshed.
If there’s a more fundamental fault, such as disappearing menus or problems with the way you’re able to scroll across images, then a more vigorous reset of the program could be needed. First, close Paint.net, then click Start, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER>SOFTWARE, rightclick the paint.net folder and click Delete (see screenshot above). Click Yes to confirm when prompted.
VLC
Media player VLC has all kinds of settings that can affect playback quality and the type of video files it’s able to play, so consider resetting it if you find videos suddenly start to judder, or fail to play at all. To do this, click Tools, then Preferences and click the Reset Preferences button (see screenshot above right). Click OK when prompted, then close and re-open VLC.
Kaspersky Internet Security 2016/17
Kaspersky is great at keeping your PC safe, but click too many options and you can soon be waiting for a scan that takes hours, rather than minutes. Thankfully help is at hand. Click the
General tab (on the main menu), then Manage Settings, followed by ‘Restore settings’.
Reset your browsers Google Chrome
Chrome’s reset button not only puts your settings back to how they were at the start, but also gets rid of any problematic extensions. To find the reset button, open Chrome and click the settings icon (three horizontal lines) in the top right of the window. Click Settings then scroll to the bottom of the menu and click ‘Show advanced settings’. Under the ‘Reset settings’ section click ‘Reset settings’ (see screenshot below) and then click Reset again when prompted. Your browsing history, saved passwords and favourites won’t be affected, but extensions, settings, cookies, and the default search engine you use will all be reset.
Firefox
To reset Firefox, open the browser and type about:support into the address bar, then press Enter. This will open Firefox’s Troubleshooting Information page. You’ll see a heading on the right that says ‘Give Firefox a tune up’ with a Refresh Firefox button beneath it (see screenshot above right). Click it (and again in the pop-up) and Firefox will close, remove any extensions, settings, cookies etc, and then re-import your History and Favourites to preserve at least some of your personal preferences.
Internet Explorer
To find IE’S reset button first close any open Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer windows, then open Internet Explorer. Click the settings ‘gear’ icon (at the top right), then ‘Internet options’, followed by the Advanced tab. Click Reset where it says ‘Reset Internet Explorer settings’. This opens another window (see screenshot right). You can opt to delete personal settings, such as your browsing history and passwords, by ticking the box. It’s a good idea to leave this unticked the first time you reset IE to see if the browser works how you want it to while retaining your personal settings (you will need to reset your PC). If it doesn’t, reset IE again, this time tick the box – just be aware that this will wipe IE completely.
Edge
Despite being Microsoft’s latest web browser, Edge doesn’t include an option to reset every setting and extension. What you can do instead is clear the browsing data, which should be enough to restore the browser to working order. Open Edge and click the three dots in the top right to open the settings menu. Select Settings, then click ‘Choose what to clear’ in the ‘Clear browsing data’ section. First, click ‘Show more’, then click everyy box except Passwords and clickck Clear. We exclude passwords because they shouldn’t cause problems, and this will save you the headache of restoringg them later.