Might interest Vista/Win 7 users

[Ravenfeeder]

When Windows starts up, a nice animated splash screen is shown until the operating system has loaded and you can log in. This graphical slickness is nice to look at, but it means you can't see what’s going on behind the scenes while Windows is loading. If you are having boot problems, it can be extremely useful to see what Windows is doing, so you can pinpoint the source of the trouble, the driver that is causing Windows to hang, for example. Fortunately, with a few mouse clicks you can configure Windows to show you what is happening while Windows is starting, and this will assist with troubleshooting. Here's how:

Press [Windows Key] + [R], type MSCONFIG and click OK.
Click on the Boot tab.
Tick the option OS boot information and click OK.
Now when your PC starts up, it will display the name of each component as it is loaded.



Quickly create an emergency boot CD in Windows 7

If your PC experiences a serious crash it may well not start up again. If it refuses to come back to life then you need to start your PC from a different boot device in order to be able to get into your Windows system and repair the problem. If you have a Windows installation DVD, this can be used as a boot disk to start your system. If not, you can create a boot CD from Windows 7. Here’s how to do so:

Click Start > Control Panel > Backup and Restore.
Click the link Create a system repair disc in the left-hand panel.
Insert a blank CD/DVD into your CD/DVD burner drive, then select the drive from the drop-down list (if you only have one drive, it will already be selected).
Click Create disc.
Once the process is complete, click OK.