Disk Heal

Disk Heal is a free tool that could be quite useful. It can perform many useful functions. In one Click Disk Heal can fix problems like  these - Can't open your drive just by clicking it? Getting error messages like "Could not find something" or an Open With dialog? Task Manager inaccessibility; Folder Options inaccessibility; Registry Editor inaccessibility; a virus hidden in your files/folders. Disk Heal can provide various tweaks, including: Security Tweaks like (Password protect) these - Enable / Disable Task Manager, Folder options, registry editor; Display Properties; 'Search'; 'Run'; Control Panel; Shutdown; CPU Beep; CD Auto-run; My Computer; and Lock the location of 'My Documents'and more.

Appearance Tweaks can be applied to Change drive icon, Enable/Disable Clear-Type (Also known as 'Font smoothing') and smooth scrolling; Hide/Show the left panel from My Computer; Hide/Show - the current user in the Start mennu; the windows version on the Desktop, and windows error messages on startup.

Internet Explorer Tweaks: Enable/Disable Auto-complete, Check if Default Browser; Lock current home page and Increase simultaneous downloads to 10.Control Panel Tweaks like Hide\Show Accessibility Options; Add\Remove programs ; Console Options; Date\Time Options; Display Options and many more. Disk Heal has been test on Windows XP, but based on other sources it can function on these Operating Systems too: Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista. The 411 KB Disk Heal v1.44 can be downloaded at http://www.luqsoft.com/diskheal/DiskHealSetupv1.44.exe . And, an FAQ can be browsed at http://www.luqsoft.com/diskheal/faq.htm

Firewall Plus

With the PC Tools Firewall Plus you can create a heuristic set of rules that control how applications are allowed to connect to the Internet/network. If an application attempts to connect to the Internet/network and there are no corresponding rules, Firewall Plus will let you decide how the application should behave. It can also provide an additional protection via its Stealth Mode feature which can make your system appear invisible to other computers in the network.

In Stealth Mode, your computer is able to make connections to other computers in the network, but Firewall Plus will prevent other computers from connecting with yours. Firewall Plus also offers extra protection by validating all attempts to access your computer when connected to the internet. No transfer of data is permitted unless it is validated by Firewall Plus. This validation is done using SPI – stateful packet inspection – in which it performs a protocol handshake and if successful allows data transfer, otherwise all traffic is blocked - ensuring no unauthorised data is transferred onto your computer.

Firewall Plus also protects by guarding all the applications on your PC from unauthorized access. Enabling this option will shield applications on your system from other applications attempting to take control of them and use them for malicious purposes. PC Tools Firewall Plus can be downloaded from http://www.pctools.com/firewall/download/ or at www.download.com. 

AntiFreeze

Because programs consume too much memory or too many programs have been started the PC can become unresponsive. This can result in - The mouse moves moved but programs do not respond, inability to switch to other programs or even close them, or even start the Windows Task Manager - the computer is in a totally hung state.

In this kind of situation AntiFreeze can help. Instead of pressing the reset button just press the hotkey of AntiFreeze to send all running programs, except the most critical ones, into hibernation. Now, you can start closing down the programs one by one to find out which one is causing the problems and even to save or recover your work. AntiFreeze, alternative for the reset button, for Windows 2003/Vista/XP, can be downloaded at http://www.resplendence.com/download/antiFreezeSetup.exe. Please note that AntiFreeze should be used only in emergency situations. 

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