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This blog is beign accepted very well! I love this! But I have to ask you for some help: I want to know your opinion about my posts. Please, comment in the footer of the articles everything that you think: for me is the most important thing.

Thank you very much for your help,
 Enrique Diaz

Info

Is your Windows running abnormally slow?

Intended for: all kind of users


Since ancient times (1994, when my first PC appears at home) a question was around my head: why Windows lost performance in time?

Today I know the answer to that question: Windows registry and the trash that user's often install (me included) with nosense services are the root of this problem.

Windows Registry is the basement of the operating system. To clarify the concept, is a big database that contains information of all installed applications inside the system, moreover contains information about processes and services in the system. The advantage of having all stored in the same place is that everyone knows where to find; the problem is that the access to the registry started to be slow when the data stored volume is big... Whe started to have clues, am I wrong?

What is th first solution to that problem? Is simple: reinstall Windows. This is the optimum solution but you have to take care when is reinstalled to not install again useless applications; in other way, you'll have soon the same problem. Moreover, before reinstalling you have to make a complete data backup, which is boring. This solution is recommended when the problem is very serious: machine takes three times than normal or worse in start than when we bought it.

When I was working in PC City (now Worten) I get other pretty good solutions (very profitable for them, its normal that they went wrong) always when the problen is not very big. For the Windows Registry cleanup there are several applications intended for maintenance of the machine too. The following are examples:

• CCleaner: only cleans the Windows registry and is intended for uninstall applications too. The advantage: completely free. Highly recommended.
• TuneUp Utilities: this is a complete suite to maintenance and optimize your PC. The problem? You have to pay for it. There is a trial version in their web and the price for the complete one is surrounding 30€. Highly recommended too for this and for the following explained.

Running services are the other part of the problem. Often applications install without advise Windows services which function is not very clear and used to be started when Windows starts by default. With suites such as TuneUp we can stop this processes without affect to the system stability, but there is a manual way to do this, a little bit more rude but with the same effect on Windows.

To manually stop services, the first thing to do is to click over the keys Windows+R.
Para la parada manual de servicios, lo primero que tenemos que hacer es pulsar la tecla Windows + R.

In the textbox, we have to type services.msc.

Right click over the services that we suspect are useless and select Properties tag.

We change the startup kind to Manual or Disabled. After that whe have to click over OK button and the window will be closed.

We have to repeat the previous process the times that we consider over all services that we think are completely useless. Just remember: don't touch any Microsoft service.

At the end, restart the machine and watch the effects of the changes.

In PC City, people pay about 30€ foreach service like that... I accept donations!

Windows

How to: create at home a Windows server with small machines (any SO is accepted)

Intended for: all kind of users

Have you got at home any useless PC's that you think you'll never use it again?

This is the second post in this blog, and here I'll explain how to reuse this machines with a little bit imagination...

The content of the present document can be reproduced at home by anyone that is interested on it. It's not difficult to make (it only takes a sort time) and it allows you reuse machines that you think you have to waste... it's not good, isn't it? Moreover, in current times it's better to not send to trash anything. Any kind of help you need is allowed, post them on comments.

I have at home two machines: an Asus laptop with an i7 core and 12 GB of RAM and a small laptop with an Atom processor and 1Gb of RAM.

To make this post possible, you'll need at least two machines: one small-resourced machine (as my atom) and one with good resources capable to support clients.

The net topology will be the following (example for three machines, three users and a server):

Topología de la red doméstica

The first step to take is to determine wich machine will be the server. Obviouslly that we have to select for beign the server the machine that have the biggest resources in the set of your machines. In my case, I select the i7 with a Windows 8 Operating System.

Cuentas de usuario en Windows 8

Once we locate the server, we have to determine how much people have to use the server and we have to create at least an account foreach machine that we want to connect. We have to open Control panel, User Accounts, Manage Accounts and at this point we have to add the accounts previously mentioned. Reached this point, we have to make the steps of the previous post Multiuser with Terminal Services. If you don't do that, it will not work for more than one user.

Machine name change in Windows

Another important thing is that we have to put a simple name to server in order to remember it easily, as SERVER could be. This will be good in advance. For example, using Windows 8 you can change this configuration in Configuration, Pc Info, Advanced System Configuration, Machine Name, Change.

Client example in Windows

 Linux client example

In small machines we have to install an OS (if is not installed a good one) that best fits in them. There are Windows and Linux version that have Terminal Services clients and they can connect perfectly with the server. This machines are only intended for beign clients so, as lighther is the OS for them better will work everything. If you want a small Linux, I reccommend Damm Small Linux or Puppy Linux, but you'll need knowledge in that operating systems to keep it working at a hundred percent (I can't support you in this task, sorry). The best one, a Windows XP machine: if you know it, you love it for this.

There are a few basic things to go: in the client machines we have to select the account to be automaticaly opened without introducing a user and a password. This is because any data will be stored in the client machine: they will be stored in the server. The server will be always-autenticated in order to preserve the user's data. I don't reccommend this practise if the client machines will be used to navigate directly or to use and move any kind of data; but using the server directly makes you gain lots of time.

Terminal Services fully configurated

The last step is to configure the Terminal Services client. To do that, we have to put the server name (for example SERVER) and clic over Connect. If everything is well, in a few seconds we have granted the access to the server as we are local users, but we will be remotely connected and our small machines will have all the resources of the big one.

Windows

Multiuser with Terminal Services (for Windows Vista, 7 and 8)

Intended for: all kind of users
We start this blog creating an entry point that more than one of us have headache with it: How make Windows remote desktop conection (aka terminal services) fits to two or more users?

By default, Microsoft provides Terminal Services configurated for only one connection and only one user. This means that we have a machine with a number bigger than one user but at the same time only one of them could be working... A little bit moron, am I wrong? People like me, that worked in the past with Unix/Linux environments, are used to have this functionallity by default, making the machines work to their limits and having well-managed their resources. Redmond OS PC's must have the same functionallity, they must be multitask and multiuser.

Someone has taken the trouble and fixes this failure to make a well managed machines independently the operanting system installed and its version (32 or 64 bits).

In the following link you can download the file that corresponds with your operating system and we have to execute with a console command in an administrator mode (right button click and single click over Execute as an Administrator...) in the containing batch file (.bat). There is no patch available yet for Windows 8.1. If you have one working, please share it!

Patch for Terminal Services (* read foot note before downloading)

An important particularity is that in the Windows Vista version we have to add manually a Windows Firewall exception in the port 3389 (terminal services port); in other versions is opened in an automatic way.

This things will be helpfully and its intended for the following article that will be published as soon as possible: How to create a server at home with small machines.

* WARNING: besides this file has been analized in order to find viruses and other kind of malware, the author of the article is not responsible of any kind of trouble that this files could make in your machines. Please, use them at your own risk.

Windows