It looks like at least one small snippet of code from Windows Vista is ready to be included in Windows XP. Microsoft has released an updated version of the System Configuration Utility (Msconfig.exe).

The update adds a new Tools tab to this utility, which provides a convenient jumping-off spot for 13 utilities that were previously scattered across the Windows interface.

(Click to see a larger image.)

It’s a useful, if hardly earth-shattering, addition.

For advice on how to use the System Configuration Utility properly, see this article.

The Web is littered with Windows tips and tweaks, may of dubious quality and accuracy. Eric Vaughan’s TweakHound is one of the few sites that actually tests and rejects the bogus tweaks. If you’re thinking about making some changes to your registry because some random site told you it would speed things up, I suggest visiting the Bad Tweaks page first:

Many of these once worked in some version of Windows and virtually every tweak guide and program use these tweaks. My guide also used to contain some of them. It has taken a considerable amount of research and testing to come to these conclusions. While others have incorporated these into other guides and tried to pass it on as their own work I’ve done the investigation and benchmarking (and AFAIK I was the first to publish these en masse on the web). I’ve Googled up one side of the net and down the other. Sometimes I think I’ve seen every page at Microsoft. I’ve hosed installs, applied and removed settings, and spent more time tracking the registry than I care to admit (far more than I would like my wife to know about!).

Nicely done, Eric.

What do you do when your broadband connection stops working? Your first troubleshooting step should be the automatic Repair option available with all network connections.

Open the Network Connections folder from Control Panel, right-click the connection icon, and choose Repair from the shortcut menu. (Alternatively, you can double-click the connection icon, click the Support tab, and click the Repair button.)

Selecting this option has the same effect as typing the following commands from a command prompt:

• ipconfig /renew Automatically renews your IP address from a DHCP server
• arp -d Flushes the Address Resolution Protocol cache
• nbtstat –R Reloads the NetBIOS name cache
• ipconfig /flushdns Clears the DNS cache
• ipconfig /registerdns Registers the computer’s name on the appropriate DNS server

Collectively, this set of repairs takes care of most common network problems. If it doesn’t work, move on to more elaborate troubleshooting steps. A word of caution: The Repair button disables the current network connection first and then reenables and resets it. If you’re in the middle of a download or other important network activity, don’t try this!

These days, Windows is littered with search utilities. You can use the Find Search tool in Windows Explorer to hunt for individual files. You can do the same in Outlook and Outlook Express. If you really want top-notch search capabilities, you can add a third-party utility like those from Copernic, MSN, Google, and X1.

Every single one of these tools produces a list of individual items. And every single one has an incredibly useful command hidden away. Right-click any file name in your list of search results and choose Open Containing Folder from the shortcut menu. That option opens Windows Explorer and displays the contents of the folder that contains the item you selected.

This option comes in very handy when you’re searching for all the files associated with a project, or when your search turns up a file that’s related to the one you’re looking for but isn’t quite right. If you’ve organized your files by folder, you’ll have better results by switching to Windows Explorer than by trying to refine your search.

If you’re searching using the built-in Find tools in Outlook Express, you’ll have to dig a little deeper. In Outlook Express, the Open Containing Folder option is buried on the File menu and not available via right-click shortcut menus. The Open Containing Folder option isn’t available at all in Microsoft Outlook’s Advanced Find window, but this feature shows up on right-click menus if you use X1 or Copernic Desktop Search.

It’s another example of the axiom every Windows user knows: When in doubt, right-click.

Update: It works with Firefox downloads, too.

It used to be so simple: A power button was an on/off switch, period. But on modern personal computers, things are more complicated.

Most PCs built in the 21st Century use a combination of motherboards and power switches designed to cooperate with the operating system. Typically, pressing the power button puts the PC into one of several standby modes (or wakes it up from this “sleep” state). If Windows is running, pressing the power button might activate the Windows Shut Down function.

What happens if your computer is misbehaving and you want to shut off the power and restart? This one stumps many people, who press the power button repeatedly and conclude that it’s broken when it doesn’t seem to work. The secret? Press the power button and hold it down for three to five seconds. This shortcut overrides the normal action of the power button and turns the power off. (If this doesn’t work, you may have a loose wire in the connection from the power switch to the motherboard and power supply.)

In tomorrow’s tip, I’ll explain how to configure the operation of the power button (and a few other, related settings) in Windows.