Simple Computing

I ran into a problem recently where Windows Vista kept using up all of my available disk space for System Restore and Shadow Copy storage. There is a feature in the Disk Cleanup utility that lets you manually delete all but the most recent snapshot. I did that for months before I finally took the time to figure out how to set the limit. My problem was pretty extreme. My HP Pavilion laptop has a 105 gig disk drive. I have about 47 gigs free and over a period of about a month, Vista would use it all up. Vista is supposed to use only 15% of the hard disk for this storage, but apparently sometimes that limit can become UNBOUNDED. I don't know how that happens. To see the current setpoint for your system, go to a command prompt and type the following: vssadmin list shadowstorage You should see something like the following: To change the current setpoint for your system, type the following but change what's necessary to match your system. For example, you may need to change the drive...

Sometimes I need to open the target folder of a shortcut on my desktop. In Windows Vista (and the upcoming Windows 7), you just right click on the shortcut and select Open File Location . In Windows XP, however, you don't have this option. In the past (and in haste), I would right click on the shortcut, select Properties and then copy and paste the already selected target field into Windows Explorer. This works, but it takes extra steps to accomplish the task. There's an easier way: Right click on the shortcut. Select Properties. Click the Find Target button. The shortcut's target folder (or containing folder) will open. This method seems obvious, but is easy to miss if you're in a hurry.