Here are some basic tips that are useful/useless :) A couple will be useless while others may be useful for that occasion something may happen.
1. How to turn off the UAC
Everybody gets annoyed by the User Account Control windows popping up everywhere. If you wish to turn this off heres how.
Goto Start > Control Panel > User Accounts
Under the list of "Make Changes to user Accounts" Is an option "Turn off User Account Control."
Click it and uncheck the box in the next window and submit. You will need to restart your computer.
2. Parental Controls
Parental Controls allows you to choose what game ratings the user can play, how long they can play, when the internet disables etc. If you wish to Setup parental controls goto Start > Control Panel > Parental Controls and follow the steps, pretty easy.
3. Sound
Everybody knows how to turn up sound. But in Vista my sound seemed to be really low even when the sound was maxed out. I finally found where to adjust all levels. So heres how to do it.Right click the sound and go to Playback Devices like below
Then click on the main speakers and press Properties like below:
Click on the levels tab and raise the volume like you want. I found my 'main volume' was low. Although now I can turn down main volume as much as I want and it doesn't effect my sound. So I guess it just depends? haha anyways it fixed my problem.
4. Power Options
This is more for laptops. For me I hated it when I accidentally tapped my power button my laptop would shutdown instantly. So I will show you how to change that.
Go to Start > Control Panel > Power Options
On the side panel you will see a list of options, The second one down should be "Choose what the power button does." Click that and you will be able to choose if you want it to make your computer sleep instead, or make the power button do nothing.
5. Account recovery
This one is sort of way out there, But I have had to use this twice so I might as well teach all how to use this.
Some people are forgetful and forget their windows password. But the sad thing is that was the only account on the computer...right? wrong!(Though I think Dell takes this out now for extra security)
Restart your computer in Safe Mode using Command Prompt, or if you want to test this out just inside of windows for the fun of it, Open Command prompt by going to Start > Typing cmd in the search field and run as administrator.
Type in
net users
This will show you a list of all accounts on the computer.If you see an account called "administrator" that you didn't know of, this method will work for you. If you don't see it, then your PC Manufacturer disabled it and this method won't work.
Now type
net users administrator /active:yes
This will activate the 'secret' admin account.
Restart your computer, when you get to the login screen you will see the account. Login and change your password etc.
If you wish to disable this account afterwards just go into Command prompt and type
net users administrator /active:no
6. System Restore without logging into windows!
This could be a security problem, as you can easily system restore computers to any time or date that was recorded and it will reset all passwords etc to that date.[This is not intended for you to go to your school computers and hack them]
This is very simple.
Restart the computer into Safe mode using Command prompt.
type in
rstrui.exe
Follow the steps on the screen, Your computer will then be restored to that date.