Find Delete Duplicate Files elitebuyer.com

Find & Delete Duplicate Files Or Move Them To Another Folder

Over time, a lot of files get accumulated in our hard drives due to downloading content from the internet or copying files from our cameras and mobile devices. We often end up with multiple copies of the same files, which is pretty annoying as they take up valuable hard drive space without serving a purpose. It is extremely tedious to look for duplicate files manually by browsing every folder, and even then there is a chance of missing out on many. There are several tools available that allow you to locate and delete duplicate copies of files such as GDuplicateFinder and Fast Duplicate File Finder. Free Duplicate Finder is another application for Windows to help you locate duplicate files, and its lets you do so based on file type including photos, music, videos, documents, executable etc. When found, the duplicate files can be moved to a different folder, allowing you to decide if you want to delete or keep them.

During installation, make sure to uncheck the options for making SweekPacks your default search engine or home page, to avoid unwanted changes to your browser settings.

The application features an interface inspired by the Windows 8 Modern UI, and provides you with an easy, step-by-step wizard to search and remove the duplicate files. Step 1 involves selecting the drive. Next, you choose the file types to search for in the 2nd step. Finally, you specify your search options in the 3rd one. After launching the application, click the forward button in the lower right corner to move to the first step.

You can choose complete drives to search for duplicate content. Do keep in mind that the application only supports NTFS partitions. Just select any drives that you want to scan, and hit the forward button.

In the next step, select the file types that you want to scan the system for. You can select multiple file types as well. For instance, if you are just looking to locate duplicate media files, select the ‘Music’, ‘Videos’, and ‘Images and photos’ options. You can also search for Executable, Console, Documents, Archive, and Phone file formats.

The final step requires you to specify the search options, including the search criteria and some filters. The app can find duplicates based on identical file names, identical contents and identical size. The filters are available for date & time, size and attributes to narrow down the search scope.

Each filter has its own group of settings to specify. For instance, if you choose date and time filter, you can look for files that were created, last modified or last accessed within a certain time frame.

Once the search is complete, a graph is created with a different bar for each of the file types found in the search results.

The list of duplicate items can be accessed with each original + duplicate item grouped together separately. You can choose to view a file in Explorer, delete the selected files, or move them to another folder.

Free Duplicate Finder works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista Windows 7 and Windows 8.
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Capture Audio Video from Desktop Webcam and Stream it

Capture Audio & Video From Desktop Or Webcam & Stream It To Another PC

We cover a lot of screenshot and screencast utilities here to help you capture and share your on-screen activity with others. Most screencast tools are limited in the sense that they only allow you to capture the screen video, and you have to use other software to record any audio over it. Today, we’re bringing you a screen recording application called Shoot Your Screen that allows you to capture video from your screen and webcam, as well as the audio feed from a built-in or external microphone. You can choose a specific screen region for capturing the video feed and stop the capture after required number of seconds. Moreover, the application allows you to stream the feed over the internet without using a third-party streaming tool.

A tool like this can come really handy when you want to add a narration to your screencast. Furthermore, for making videos that involve both on-screen and off-screen activity (such as a tutorial on installing firmware to your mobile device using both PC software and on-device operations, or simply your own video in parts where narration has the focus), the app eliminates the need to use different programs to capture the screencast and the video from your webcam. Its ability to directly stream the video online further eliminates the hassle of uploading the video yourself to another service or using another app for the purpose.
Despite its feature set, the main interface of the application is as distraction-free as it gets, with options to directly start or stop recording, show the saved files from previous recordings, and access the options screen. It’s the options screen that has most of the action, allowing you to select the video and audio devices that are to be used for recording the feeds, select a folder for saving the recorded files, specify a URL for streaming out the video, choose the duration for time-limited recording, and preview the recording with all the specified settings.

The application allows you to change the video device to use as the source, letting you switch between screen recording and recording from any webcam attached to your computer.

In the same way, you can change the source for audio capture allowing you to choose between a built-in or external microphone, or virtual audio capturer to record application sounds.

You can stream the recording in various resolutions, including the native resolution at which it was captured, VGA, SVGA, HD480, HD720 and HD1080, which is very impressive for a free app.

For screencast recordings, you will be able to specify the screen area for the recording when you hit the Start! button, using a transparent window that can be dragged around, resized or made full-screen. Once you have it set the way you want, just click in the center of the window to begin recording.

The following screenshot displays the preview of webcam recording that makes this tool different from other screencast-only apps we’ve seen before.

Shoot Your Screen works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.
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Best ways to improve PC startup times elitebuyer.com

First steps for safety and reliability

As always, before making significant changes to the Windows system, start by creating a system image (or at least a complete file backup). Store the new backup somewhere other than the hard drive you’re working on — such as on optical discs or another hard drive. This guarantees you’ll be able to roll back or undo any changes that might unexpectedly muck up your system.

Now you’re ready to safely reconfigure Windows’ startup. Start by timing how long your PC takes to boot with its current configuration. This is your baseline, which you’ll use to gauge the benefits of any changes you make. (Removing some apps from the startup folder might have negligible effect on overall boot time but will take more time to load from scratch later on.)

If you want real precision, dig out a stopwatch. But frankly, split-second startup time differences are not going to improve your computing productivity. So it’s fine to stick with any standard clock with a sweep second hand or seconds counter (or even with careful, metered counting — i.e., “one-thousand one, one-thousand two, …”).

A quick and easy change: Edit the Startup folder

All versions of Windows have a Startup folder that might contain shortcuts to software that runs at boot time. I say “might contain” because many programs bypass the Startup folder and instead insert themselves into a lower level of the boot process that’s harder to get at. We’ll deal with those later.

Those exceptionally well-behaved programs that do use the Startup folder are very easy to modify. Open your Startup folder by clicking Start/All Programs/Startup.

My PC’s Startup folder is shown in Figure 1. Yours will undoubtedly be different. As you can see, mine contains shortcuts to the Secunia PSI (site) and What’s my computer doing? (site) utilities.

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Figure 1. My PC's Startup folder contains just two shortcuts: one to Secunia PSI and the other to What's my computer doing.

Because these are useful programs that I want to run at startup, I’ll leave their shortcuts in the Startup folder.

If your Startup folder has shortcuts to software that doesn’t need to run at startup, simply cut and paste the shortcut elsewhere (such as to your desktop).

Programs whose shortcuts have been moved will no longer run at startup — but you can still launch them manually, whenever you like, by clicking the relocated shortcut.

If you removed anything from your Startup folder, restart your system and re-time Windows startup. If there’s no significant reduction in boot time, simply paste the shortcut(s) back into the Startup folder and things will be back to the way they were before.

Less quick and easy: Using System Configuration

It would be great if all startup items were that easy to edit, but they’re not. To see and alter the rest of a system’s startup items, you need to use a special-purpose startup editor.

You already own at least one editor; it’s built into your current version of Windows. The System Configuration tool is relatively basic, but it works and is always available.

To open System Configuration in all current versions of Windows, simply type msconfig in the Start menu’s text-entry box and press Enter.

When System Configuration opens, select the Startup tab. Figure 2 shows what’s in my Startup list (yours will, naturally, be different).

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Figure 2. System Configuration's Startup tab lists all apps automatically loaded during system startup. (Win7's version shown; Vista's and XP's are similar.)

You can drag-adjust the utility’s column widths for ease of reading, and you can click on the column headings to sort (or reverse-sort) the listed items.

Spend some time carefully working through your list of startup items to identify software that you don’t want or need to autorun at startup.

How do you know what’s needed at startup?

Some of System Configuration’s listed startup software will be self-evident. For example, if you see something called “Google Update” or “Java Auto Updater,” there’s little mystery as to what the software is.

On the other hand, some software isn’t so easy to identify by name. In those cases, you can use Google, Bing, or the tool of your choice to search for the name of any mystery software. You can also use specialized software-identification tools such as PC Review’s free Startup Files Database (site).

As you identify each piece of startup software, decide whether it really needs to autorun at startup or not. This is a judgment call.

For example, I don’t need Google Update in my Startup list. That’s because most Google tools (Chrome, etc.) already check for updates when you run them. Having Google Update run at startup is largely redundant.

I already run Secunia PSI at startup and it ensures that many other programs on my PC are kept up to date. (With a centralized update tool such as Secunia PSI running, I don’t need additional third-party auto-updaters also running at system startup.)

When you identify software that doesn’t need to autorun at Startup, simply uncheck (deselect) it in the System Configuration Startup list. Unchecked items will not run during subsequent startups — simple as that.

Figure 3 shows that I’ve unchecked Google Update, hpwuSchd (an auto-updater for my HP printer), the Java updater, and three pieces of Kies software (little-used Samsung smartphone-related tools).

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Figure 3. Disabling startup items is simply a matter of clearing their checkboxes.

After you’ve disabled one or more items, reboot and retime your startup again. If it turns out that you disabled something you shouldn’t have, simply rerun msconfig, recheck the box to enable the item, and reboot.

Note! Don’t go nuts and deselect everything. Some items truly belong in your system startup. For example, you want security tools (antivirus, anti-malware, etc.) to be up and running as quickly as possible, so leave them in your startup list. Use common sense and remove only those items that you clearly can do without.

Next stop: Editing the startup Services list

When you’ve cleaned up items in the System Configuration Startup list to your satisfaction, check out the Services tab. There’s more risk in modifying these items — they’re deeper-seated, system-level software services — but there are usually a few items here that are safe to remove from the system-startup process.

Use the same technique you applied to applications: identify each item and make an informed judgment as to whether it needs to be in startup or not. (If you’re not sure about any given service, it’s best to leave it alone.) Deselect unwanted items, reboot Windows, and note the effect on startup time. Also keep an eye out for anything that’s no longer running properly.

Figure 4, for example, shows that I’ve unchecked the auto-updaters for Flash (which I update via Secunia PSI) and the Bing Bar (which I almost never use).

Figure 4. Some system-level services may be safely removed from startup. Here, I've unchecked the Flash updating service and the Bing Bar.

When you’re done with all your edits, your start times should be lower than your baseline number — perhaps significantly so!

More start-time editing tools and other options

As mentioned at the top, System Configuration is a basic tool. Windows has one more tool built in — the Administrative Tools’ Component Services applet — that offers additional startup-editing options. But it’s a tool aimed at expert users. I’ll cover it, separately, in a future column.

Meanwhile, the following three alternatives offer more ease and/or more options than System Configuration. All are available in free versions and all run on Windows XP, Vista, and Win7.

Piriform’s CCleaner (free and paid versions; site) is often recommended in the Windows Secrets newsletter because of its ability to remove junk files and bogus Registry entries. But it also has a built-in startup editor that offers all-in-one access to more startup-related options than does System Configuration — for example, startup options for Internet Explorer (shown in Figure 5), Scheduled Tasks, and Windows Explorer’s Context Menus.

Figure 5. CCleaner's startup editor gives easy access to system startup items and more.

WinPatrol (free and paid; site) is another multifunction utility, but one that’s geared toward monitoring system changes. It includes an excellent and comprehensive startup editor, shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. WinPatrol's nicely designed startup editor makes it easy to dig into and modify almost all system-startup behaviors.

Perhaps the most powerful startup editor of all is Microsoft’s Sysinternals Autoruns (site), which can be used as a live, online tool (no formal installation required) or as a conventionally downloaded utility. (See Figure 7.)

Sysinternals Autoruns benefits from Microsoft’s inside knowledge of how Windows works. It can reveal more details on autorunning and startup software than any other tool I’m aware of.

Figure 7. Microsoft's Sysinternals Autoruns offers extensive control over all aspects of Windows startup.

Take your pick! Start with System Configuration if you’re not a Windows expert. Make a system backup, and then begin editing your startup software by using the aforementioned steps.

A faster boot might be just minutes away!
Best ways to improve PC startup times

Shaw Adli
www.elitebuyer.com 135 east 9th street, long beach, ca 90813
562-366-4177

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Fast Microsoft Windows Desktop Search Utlilities STEP By STEP

Five fast Windows desktop search utilities

I am defining a desktop search utility as any utility that is used locally to help find specific data on either the desktop or on an on-premise server.

1: Copernic Desktop Search

Copernic Desktop Search (Figure A) is a free utility that has a clean and intuitive interface, although it is ad driven — and the ads can sometimes be a bit distracting. But my only real complaint about this software is that it doesn’t initially index your entire hard drive. You may have to go in and add some non-default folders for your data to be indexed properly. After you do so, however, the software works really well.

Figure A

Copernic Desktop Search

2: Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder (Figure B) is a free utility for searching your hard disk for duplicate files. The search engine does a really good job and it lets you opt to ignore things like file dates. The search engine can even peek inside files to locate ones that might be duplicates even though they have different names.

Figure B

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

3: X1 Professional Client

X1 Professional Client (Figure C) is another desktop search engine that can find various types of files and email messages. While the functionality might seem routine, a few features help dental long beach justify the price tag.

Figure C

X1 Professional Client

For starters, the search engine is blazing fast. The search actually occurs as you type. Furthermore, you can use a variety of search commands to help narrow your search results. My personal favorite feature is the preview window that shows the currently selected item. Finally, X1 Professional Client has options to do things like copy, email, and zip selected items.
X1 Professional Client retails for $49.95, but a free 14-day trial is available.

4: Search and Replace 98

Search and Replace 98 (Figure D) is a bit different from other desktop search utilities, in that it can find and replace specified text in your files. It’s extremely useful when you need to make changes to a lot of documents.

Figure D

Search and Replace 98

I first found Search and Replace 98 many years ago when I was developing long beach compuer coupon a Web site. The site I was developing consisted of nearly 4,000 ASP files. As the site was approaching completion, my lawyer informed me that certain blocks of text that appeared on several pages had to be rephrased. I needed an editor that could perform a search and replace across multiple files so that I would not have to dig through all 4,000 files by hand. Search and Replace 98 did exactly what I needed it to do. I’m pretty sure that Search and Replace 98 used to be a commercial product, but today it is available for free.

5: Ava Find

Ava Find (Figure E) is a free utility for finding files, messages, and other resources on your computer. Ava Find is nearly 10 years old. In spite of its age, however, the software still works really well. It has a simple interface that lets you quickly find documents, messages, music, and videos simply by searching for them or by clicking the Music or Videos button.

Figure E

Search Utlilitie from Elitebuyer Long Beach Computer

Ava Find

Other picks?

Do you have a favorite desktop search app that didn’t make this list? Share your recommendations www.elitebuyer.com
135 e. 9th st. Long Beach, CA 90813
562-366-4177

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Microsoft Fix it Solution Center Find automated solutions for your issues

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Welcome to the Fix it Solution Center
Find automated solutions for your issues
Most of you computer desktop problems can be fixed with this tool.
you can call us at 562-366-4177 Your Computer Network Sales Service and Support Center for over 10 years.

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