Matt's Tech Blog

1.Right click on the start bar and click start task manager.

2.Click the Performance tab.

3.Click on the bar named memory to sort the applications by how much memory they are using.

4.Now end Process on any software you’re not using right now.

5.(Optional) Refer to this post to stop the software from starting with your computer. Stop startup programs.

Edit: Sorry forgot a step this is to clear up some confusion.

6. You will be prompted with a warning box. If you are closing word or some other app make sure everything is saved first. And closing an applictation that you don’t know could cause the system to be unstable but after a restart everything will go back to normal so you don’t really need to worry.

So you want to be able to get rid of the annoying right click menu programs. Its very easy, here are the steps to do it.

**IMPORTANT** Backup your registry before you edit it.**IMPORTANT**

Step 1. Windows XP. Go to Start, Run and type Regedit. Windows Vista / 7, Go to start then in the search box just type Regedit and hit enter.

Step 2. Go to File, Export and save your registry somewhere you can find it.

Step 3. Click the plus sign near HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

Step 4. Click the plus near *

Step 5. click the plus near shellex

Step 6. Click the plus near ContextMenuHandlers.

Step 7. Locate the program you want removed off of your right click menu.

Step 8. Select the program. On the right hand side of the window right click on (Default).

Step 9. Select Modify and delete the key. It should look something like {B41DB860-8EE4-11D2-9906-E49FADC173CA}.

Step 10. Click okay, restart your computer and the program should be removed off of your right click menu.

The easiest way to have a program load at start up is to find the exe of the file you’re trying to get to start.  For this post we are going to make notepad start every time windows starts. First we need to locate notepad. There are a few ways of doing this, the easiest I have found is to just use the search feature built into windows.

Step 1. Go to start and search for XP users, for Vista and Windows7 just go to start and the search box is at the bottom of the start menu.

Step 2. Type Notepad into the search box.

Step 3.  Right click on the search result for Notepad and go to open file location.

Step 4.  Go to start, Program files or All Programs (Depending on windows version).

Step 5.  Right click on the startup folder and select open.

Step 6. With both windows open side by side, right click and hold while dragging notepad.exe to the startup folder.

Step 7. Release the right click button select Create Shortcut here.

Now every time windows starts notepad will start also.

So you want to know how to test you site in all sorts of browsers?  Well you’re in luck because I have found a free service that will check your page in all sorts of browsers and operating systems. The service is called http://browsershots.org/.

First select what browsers you need tests for.  The you must type in your URL in the “Enter URL here” then click submit.

You will be redirected to the next page that will give you some details about your request. Save the link in your address bar.

Save the link in your address bar.

Wait 15 minutes and go back to the link you saved and presto! You have more screen shots of your site then you can shake a stick at

This video is about using simple tools included in windows to stop startup programs.