This is partly because you have to install numerous device drivers (if you can find all your hardware installation disks, that is).

With Driver Genius you can avoid this hassle by creating a driver auto-installer that will install all your drivers at once.

So, let’s get on with it…

Choose which drivers to backup

Fire up Driver Genius and click on Backup.

Now, the first thing to do is choose which drivers to include on the backup file.

Selecting which drivers to backup.

I suggest selecting all of them.

Click Next…

Choose the backup type

Now choose the type of backup.

Selecting the backup type and location.

Select Auto-Installer Archive from the drop down menu.

Also choose a location.

If you’re intending to re-install Windows you’ll want to save it (or copy it) to another drive or disk, otherwise it’ll get overwritten.

My auto-installer file is approximately 72MB, so it’ll easily fit on a CD-ROM…

… but for now I’ve chosen to save it to my slave drive.

Click Next…

Driver Genius will now backup your drivers.

This process took about 45 minutes on my computer (mind you, it’s no spring chicken, so yours may not take as long).

Click Finish at the bottom of the confirmation screen to return to the Driver Genius main screen.

Check the auto-installer works

Navigate your way to the drive or folder you saved the auto-installer to and double click on the exe file to launch it.

You should see a screen something like this:

The Driver Genius driver installation program.

And that’s it. You’re done.

Next time you re-install Windows you can sit back and relax while Driver Genius does the tedious part.

Selecting the drivers to update

From the scan results screen, select the drivers you want to update. You can update as many drivers as you like.

To keep this simple, I’m only going to update one driver — my Logitech MX Revolution mouse driver.

Updating my Logitech mouse driver with DriverCure.

After selecting your drivers, click the big green Fix Now button at the bottom of the screen.

DriverCure will now download your new driver.

Downloading a new driver.

Once the download is complete, click Yes to confirm that you want to install the driver.

Confirm driver installation.

DriverCure will now launch the driver installer. If you don’t see anything happen, check your taskbar for any new windows.

Extracting the Logitech SetPoint^TM driver.

Now just follow the installer’s onscreen instructions to install your updated driver.

Installing drivers via the History screen

If you would like to know what versions of drivers are available before you install them, you can view this information by clicking on the History button.

Downloading a driver via DriverCure’s History screen.

You can also install drivers via the History screen. The only disadvantage is you can only install one driver at a time.

Compressed & archived files

If any of the drivers you download are in the ZIP file format, DriverCure won’t automatically install them. You’ll have to navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Downloads and unzip them.

Viewing the default DriverCure download folder.

To unzip your driver you’ll need to use a utility like the excellent and free ExtractNow.

Restart Windows

You will most likely be prompted to restart your computer after installing a driver, so it’s a good idea to save any work and close the applications beforehand.

And that’s it. Now just rinse and repeat.

Installing software updates

You can also install software updates via the scan results screen or the History screen.

Installing Adobe^® AIR^® with DriverCure.

The process is the same as installing drivers except files aren’t usually zipped.

Any questions?

Feel free to get in touch or leave a comment if you have any questions about using DriverCure. We’re always happy to help.

Let’s get started

Fire up Driver Detective and click the History button.

Choose which drivers to backup

On the Downloaded History screen, check the boxes next to the drivers you want to include in the backup.

Now click on Backup Selected at the bottom of the screen. This will launch the Driver Backup Wizard.

On the Welcome to the Driver Backup Wizard screen click Next at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the Choose Backup Location screen.

Selecting a backup location

Now you need to choose whether to backup your drivers to a CD/DVD-ROM or external media and select the drive from the dropdown menu.

Now is a good time to insert a CD/DVD-ROM if you haven’t already done so.

Now click on Browse and select the folder where you want to backup your drivers to and click OK.

Then click Next at the bottom of the screen.

Writing the backup files

Driver Detective will now complete the backup process by writing the files to the backup location.

Verifying the backup files

You can now use Windows Explorer to view your backup folder and verify your drivers have been backed up.

Another source of backup drivers

All the drivers you have downloaded are listed inside the Drivers HeadQuarters website.

To access them, go to the Driver Detective website and click on the Sign In link at the top right of the page. You can now sign in using your login details you received after registering Driver Detective.

If you click on the History tab it will take you to a page with a list of your previously downloaded drivers. Just click on the links if you need to download any of your drivers again.

It also lists your previous scan results further down the page so you can download drivers by clicking on those links, too.

Click, delete. Click, delete. Click, delete.

“Shit! I didn’t mean to do that.”

It only takes a second or two for the panic to set in as you realise what you’ve just done.

Good news: your photos can be recovered

There’s a good chance you’ll be able to get your photos back — with one proviso. And that is, that you haven’t taken any more photos using that memory card.

Because when you delete a photo, your camera doesn’t actually destroy the file. It just treats that area of your memory card as free space. So that means it’s possible to recover your deleted photos.

What you’ll need to recover your photos

To get your photos back you will need a data recovery utility. I recommend Data Recovery Pro. You may also need a card reader if your camera doesn’t show up as a scannable drive when you start your recovery software. (You can pick up a USB card reader from any computer store or Amazon for a few quid/dollars.)

Fire up your data recovery software

I’m using Data Recovery Pro, but all the file recovery utilities I’ve tried work the same way, so these steps should be fairly universal.

The first thing to do is select the folder you want your photos recovered to. By default Data Recovery Pro uses the C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\Desktop\Recovered Items folder.

It’s time to find your lost photos

OK, now go to your software’s main screen and uncheck all the drives apart from your memory card (you don’t want to sit there for an hour while it unnecessarily scans all of your computer’s drives). Now hit the Start Scan button and sit back while it searches for recoverable files. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

When the scan is complete you should see a list of the files that can be recovered. Data Recovery Pro includes a really useful file preview feature so you can see what photos you’re recovering (it’s a lot more helpful than _MG_0466.JPG, isn’t it?)

The above screenshot shows the results of scanning my digital camera’s CF card. (I should point out that I didn’t take those photos in 1979 — I just forgot set my camera’s date.)

If you’re in luck and you’ve found your deleted photos, check the boxes next to them and click the Recover button. And that’s it — you’re done. Your photos will now be safely stored in your chosen recovery folder. You can now copy them back onto your memory card using My Computer if you want to view them on your camera’s LCD screen again.

If your photos weren’t listed

If you continued to use your camera, or reformatted your memory card, it probably means the files have been overwritten with new photos or movies.

If you have an Olympus or Fuji camera that uses an xD card and you used your camera to reformat the card, then you’re out of luck because this process make the files unrecoverable.

You can recover more than just photos

Most data recovery utilities will recover dozens of file types from dozens of devices — they’re not just limited to digital cameras and memory cards. So next time you accidentally delete an email, Word document or MP3, stop what you’re doing and fire up Data Recovery Pro and get your files back.

That’s a saving of almost $160.

What you get

DriverCure makes updating your hardware drivers and software a breeze. Keep your computer up-to-date with a few easy clicks.

RegCure fixes registry problems that can cause Windows error messages. It also removes junk files and improves system performance.

Privacy Controls removes unwanted files such as your Web browsing history, cookies, temporary Internet files etc. and ensures they’re completely irretrievable.

Data Recovery recovers deleted files from lots of devices, including hard drives, digital cameras memory cards, iPods and MP3 players.

XoftSpySE protects your computer and your privacy from spyware, adware and other malicious code.

Grab a bargain

This is a genuine bargain, and is available for a limited time only, so get the ParetoLogic PowerPack while you can.

Enter Driver Detective…

Scan for outdated drivers

When you first launch Driver Detective you’ll be presented with the following screen. Click Scan Now to get started.

Scan results

The scan is very fast — it took only 8 seconds to scan my computer.

Once the scan is complete the results page will list your out-of-date drivers.

Choose a driver to update

Now choose which driver you want to update and click on the floppy disk icon to start the download. I chose to update my USB mass storage device (that’s an external hard drive, in plain English).

Install the new driver

Once the driver has downloaded, click on Open to install it. If the driver is self-installing, Driver Detective will immediately launch the installer.

If it’s in a compressed file format (e.g. .zip or .rar) Driver Detective will attempt to open it using your default compression utility (e.g. WinZip or WinRAR). Once uncompressed, just double-click on the installer.

Now follow the on-screen instructions to install it. This may vary from vendor to vendor.

Restart, rinse and repeat

You may be prompted to restart Windows, so it’s a good idea to update your drivers at a time when you’re not using your computer for anything else.

If you have multiple drivers to update/install, just repeat the above process as many times as necessary.

Tip

If for some reason your file compression utility doesn’t launch automatically, or if you don’t have one installed, your new drivers will be saved to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\PC Drivers Headquarters\Driver Detective\Downloads\ by default (in Windows XP, anyway).

Download Driver Detective

Download Driver Detective now and give it a try. It really is as easy to use as it seems. And if you need a file compression utility, I recommend WinZip or WinRAR. All three offer free trials.

File fragmentation is when different bits of a file are stored in more than one place on a drive. This means the drive heads have to search for all the bits of a file whenever a file is accessed, which results in loss of performance over time.

Thankfully it’s easily rectified by defragmenting your drives.

Defragmenting your drives is easy to do…

Go to Start » All Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Scheduled Tasks.

If you have more than one drive listed, click on the drive you want to defragment and then click on Analyze.

After a few second — or minutes, depending on the size of your drive — you’ll get a dialogue box telling you whether you need to defragment your drive or not.

Click on View Report.

Scroll down the Volume Information window to see how fragmented your drive is. If it’s more than 5% fragmented, then defragmenting will definitely improve performance.

Click on Defragment and let Windows do its thing.

Defragmenting can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours, depending on the size of your drive. It’s also best to run Defragmenter when you’re not using your computer.

So, what just happened?

What you’ve most likely done is scroll your mouse wheel while pressing the Ctrl key. It’s easily done — and just as easily fixed.

A simple fix

Just hold down the Ctrl key and scroll your mouse wheel again.

Alternatively, you can reset the text size via the browser’s toolbar.

In Firefox, go to View » Zoom » Reset.

In Internet Explorer 7, go to Page » Text Size » Medium.

And in Internet Explorer 6, go to View » Text Size » Medium.

It’s a simple as that.

Registry Mechanic doesn’t have a built-in scheduler, but using Windows® to set up a scheduled scan is simple enough.

First, go to Start » All Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Scheduled Tasks.

Double click on Add Scheduled Task. This will launch the Scheduled Task Wizard.

Click Next to continue.

Scroll down and click on Registry Mechanic.

Click Next.

Enter a name for the scheduled task and select when you want the task to run.

Click Next.

Set how often you want the task to run and at what time of day.

Click Next.

Your computer’s name and Windows username should already be filled in. If it isn’t, you’ll need to enter it here.

Enter your password if you’ve set one.

Click Next.

Tick Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish.

Click Finish.

In the Advanced properties window append /QS to "C:\Program Files\Registry Mechanic\RegMech.exe" so that it reads "C:\Program Files\Registry Mechanic\RegMech.exe" /QS.

When Registry Mechanic starts it will now perform a Quick Scan.

If you want it to perform a Full Scan append /S instead of /QS.

And that’s it. Done.

RUNDLL Error loading
C:\Program Files\Common Files\ParetoLogic\UUS2\UUS.DLL
The specified module could not be found.

It’s a Windows® Scheduled Task entry that isn’t removed when Data Recovery is uninstalled.

So how do you get rid of it?

Simple.

Go to Start » All Programs » Accessories » System Tools » Scheduled Tasks.

In the Scheduled Tasks window, click on ParetoLogic Registration to select it. Then click "Delete this item" to remove the scheduled task.

And that’s it. Gone.