You can add the Computer menu "My Computer" as a folder on the taskbar for the easiest access to your drives. You could also use this tip for any folder you want.

1. To add a folder to the taskbar, just right-click on the taskbar and choose the Toolbars menu, and then click on New Toolbar.

2. Just find the folder that you want… in this instance we’ll select the Computer icon and then click on Select Folder.

You can find the Command bar just bellow the Address bar and here you can start different activities, depending on the files that are contained in the folder you are currently in. Therefore, if you access a folder with images, you have the option to open the pictures with Windows Photo Gallery, send them through email or Burn a pictures cd.

In the Favorite links section from the Navigation Pane you can create shortcuts to folders or drives. Windows Explorer already comes with a few personal folders like Documents, Pictures, Music etc.

If you click on More you’ll find the Recently Changed and Searches links.

Windows Explorer helps you manage your stuff (documents, settings, programs etc) and this is why it's important to learn the basics and some of the Explorer tricks.

Temporary internet file are files used by your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox etc) to store copies of visited websites on your hard drive. By erasing these files, you remove unwanted data, which can lead to an increase in your computer overall performance.

I’ll show you 3 ways to view and erase temporary internet files (TIF)

1. View and delete temporary internet files in Internet Explorer

To remove a software, just click on the Start orb, go to Control Panel and choose Uninstall a program. Here there’s a list with programs that you can uninstall, each containing information about the Publisher (who made the software), when was the software installed and the size of it. Click on the application you want to remove and select Uninstall.

When moving from Windows XP to Vista, I noticed that file transfers were much slower. Fortunately, I kept my old operating system too, but that's not a solution - to use Windows XP every time you have to transfer large files from a partition to another. So... how do we fix this issue?

Since the cause of slow file operations in vista is Remote Differential Compression, we have to disable this feature. This is how to do it...

Until now, third party tools were needed for taking accurate screenshots but Vista comes with a build-in accessory called Snipping Tool. The tool lets you select a certain area on your screen and copies the image intro you system clipboard. You can either save the picture directly from the Snipping Tool making no modifications to it, or you can export it a photo editing software like Photoshop.

Using Vista's Snipping Tool

To launch the Snipping tool follow the instructions bellow:

All Vista versions, from Basic to Ultimate, come with tools that help you track any error that may occur with your software and hardware, but not many users are aware of this. The System Health Report is one of the many tools available for diagnose and troubleshooting purposes. As the name implies, the Health Report will generate a report that will indicate what is preventing Windows Vista from running smoothly or safely and will also give you suggestions on how to fix any errors.

If your system is not acting as fast as you would like, get some additional memory with ReadyBoost.

ReadyBoost takes advantage of the fact that flash memory offers lower seek times than the hard disk. The flash drive will be used as a storing location for virtual memory pages of 4KB each. Hard drives are faster at reading large amounts of date, whilst a flash drive is faster with smaller amount of data, like the one cached by Windows.