If you're a hardcore computer user like me, your system runs 24/7 with no screen or power saver options (I turn off the monitors when not in use). I like to walk into my office and have it ready to go. So when I noticed that my version of Windows still had the Hiberfil.sys file and I do not use hibernation, it was time to remove this file and regain that drive space back (in my case, 16 GB).

The Hiberfil.sys is a hidden system file located in the drive's root folder where Windows is installed. The Windows Kernel Power Manager creates this file when you install Windows. The computer uses the Hiberfil.sys file to store a copy of the system memory on the drive when hibernation is turned on.

The size of the Hiberfil.sys file is approximately equal to how much Random Access Memory (RAM) is installed on the computer. The computer cannot go into hibernation if this file is not present. And even if you have disabled hibernation, your computer can still go to sleep. Here is the difference between sleep and hibernation:

• Sleep: Windows can turn off the screen(s) and drive(s) while continuing to run in memory. A tap on the keyboard or moving the mouse will turn the screen(s) and drive(s) back on.
• Hibernation: Windows takes the active memory, writes it to the Hiberfil.sys, and then turns the computer off. Pressing the power button will start Windows back up, where it loads the Hiberfil.sys file.

How to turn on or off hibernation in Windows

To disable hibernation, you must open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges. Since this article covers multiple versions of Windows, click on the link below that matches your version of Windows for how to open an Admin Command Prompt. All links open in a new window.

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 11

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 10

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows 8

How to open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges in Windows Vista and Windows 7

To delete the Hiberfil.sys file and make hibernation unavailable, follow these steps:

1. Open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges (see instructions above)
2. At the Command Prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off and press ENTER.
   
3. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

To recreate the Hiberfil.sys file and make hibernation available, follow these steps:

1. Open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges (see instructions above)
   
2. At the Command Prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate on and press ENTER.
3. Type exit and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

One of the most useful items I use daily is keyboard shortcuts. Especially shortcuts that I can perform with just my left hand, allowing me to keep my right hand on the mouse. You can use keyboard shortcuts to open frequently used files, folders, and programs like File Explorer. Windows has a ton of built-in keyboard shortcuts (see links at the bottom of this article), plus you can create your own custom keyboard shortcuts. Here are my favorite left-hand keyboard shortcuts.

Press	To
+ E	Open File Explorer
+ R	Open the Run dialog box
+ D	Display the Desktop
+ F	Search for a file or folder (Windows 7 / 8.1)
+ S	Search for a file or folder (Windows 10 / Windows 11)
CTRL + A	Select all
CTRL + X	Cut
CTRL + C	Copy
CTRL+ V	Paste
CTRL + ALT + (KEY)	Custom keyboard shortcut (see below)

Create your own Windows keyboard shortcuts

You can create keyboard shortcuts that use CTRL + ALT + (your choice of a key) for frequently used files, folders, and programs. You will need to have a shortcut to the file, folder, or program you want to open first. You can use an existing shortcut (on your desktop or the Start menu) or create a new one.

How to create a shortcut in Windows

Once you have a shortcut:

1. Right-click on the shortcut
2. From the context menu, click Properties
3. On the Properties box, select the Shortcut tab
   
4. Click inside the Shortcut key box and press the key which you want to combine with CTRL + ALT

Note:
You can not use the following keys for keyboard shortcuts: ESC, ENTER, TAB, SPACEBAR, PRINT SCREEN, SHIFT, or BACKSPACE.

For more information on Windows keyboard shortcuts, follow the links below:

Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts

Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts

Windows logo key keyboard shortcuts

General keyboard shortcuts

Natural keyboard shortcuts

Dialog box keyboard shortcuts

Accessibility keyboard shortcuts

Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts

A while back. I wrote an article about creating panoramic images with Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) and Photosynth. With ICE and Photosynth, you can create panoramic images and then upload them to the Photosynth website. But what if you wanted to upload them to your website? That's where HD View comes into the picture.

Microsoft HD View is a new viewer to display large images (gigapixels) across the internet. It allows you to create panoramic images for web pages that do not take a lot of bandwidth. When someone views the image, they are only downloading what is required for that view. It is only when they pan or zoom that more of the image is downloaded. HD View / Deep Zoom is now included in ICE, also as a stand-alone command-line utility, and (here's the best), a Photoshop plug-in.

HD View / Deep Zoom export in Microsoft Image Composite Editor

HD View / Deep Zoom export in Photoshop plug-in

So if you're a Photoshop user, you can now export those panoramic images that Photoshop can create directly to HD View / Deep Zoom format. The Photoshop plug-in is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit. Here's a quote from the HD View website:

About HD View
HD View is a new viewer developed by Microsoft Research's Interactive Visual Media group to aid in the display and interaction with very large images. The HDView development team included Johannes Kopf, Matt Uyttendaele, Howard Good, and Michael Cohen along with Jonathan Fay of the Next Media group.

Recent advances in camera and sensor technology and software for stitching images together has led to the creation of images containing billions of pixels (gigapixels). These images are often panoramic, that is, they cover very wide fields of view. Since monitors typically contain only one to two million pixels, it is only possible to actually see 1/1000th of such image data at once. Also, viewing very wide fields of view require unwrapping of an image projected onto a curved surface (think of a map of the world) which can cause distortions.

HD View leverages current graphics hardware to allow smooth panning and zooming as well as the viewing transformation described below.

HD View was developed with a number of goals in mind. It should:

• allow smooth panning and zooming on large images,
• only download enough data to create the current view (and possibly look ahead to the next), and
• always display the current field of view with an appropriate projection. This means that when zoomed way in you should be presented with a standard perspective projection providing a sense of immersion, and when zoomed out you experience a curved projection so that get a full overview of the scene. In between the projection should smoothly transition.
• Finally, it should be easy to create your own HD View content and present it to the world via the web.

The HD View plug-in currently supports all major browsers on the Windows platform. The first time that you visit a page with HD View content you will be prompted to install the HD View plug-in.

For more information on HD View / Deep Zoom, follow the links below:

Microsoft Deep Zoom

HD View Utilities (32 bit)

HD View Utilities (64 bit)

Note: This article was based on OpenOffice 3. Since this article was written, OpenOffice version 4 has been released. Click here to read the newer OpenOffice 4 article.

A client recently asked me if I knew of any alternative to Microsoft Office. As a firm believer in open-source software, I told him about OpenOffice.org 3 from Oracle. It is a complete office software suite with a word processor, spreadsheet, multimedia presentation, graphics, and database programs.

OpenOffice.org is Java-based and requires it to be installed. It is compatible with other commercial office software and can read/write various file formats. XSLT and StarOffice formats are supported, but you will need to choose the custom installation to enable these filters. You can also expand the functionality of OpenOffice.org by using third party extensions. And you can also export to PDF in all of the applications. And best of all, it's free.

OpenOffice.org 3's main screen

Programs included in OpenOffice.org

Writer
Writer lets you design and produce text documents that can include graphics, tables, or charts. You can then save the documents in a variety of formats, including the standardized OpenDocument format (ODF), Microsoft Word .doc format, or HTML. And you can easily export your document to the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Calc
Calc is a spreadsheet application that you can use to calculate, analyze, and manage your data. You can also import and modify Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Impress
Impress lets you create professional slide shows that can include charts, drawing objects, text, multimedia, and a variety of other items. If you want, you can even import and modify Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

Draw
Draw lets you create simple and complex drawings and export them in a number of common image formats. You can also insert tables, charts, formulas, and other items created in OpenOffice.org programs into your drawings.

Base
With Base, you can access data that is stored in a wide variety of database file formats. Base natively supports some flat file database formats, such as the dBASE format. You can also use Base to connect to external relational databases, such as databases from MySQL or Oracle.

Math
Math provides numerous operators, functions, and formatting assistants to help you create formulas.

OpenOffice.org 3 is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. For more information on OpenOffice.org 3, please visit their website OpenOffice.org.

I am always looking for different ways to improve the performance of Windows. One of the methods is to use ReadyBoost that is built into Windows 7 and Windows Vista. ReadyBoost can speed up your computer by caching files that the system frequently accesses on USB flash drives and SD / CF memory cards.

Windows 7 and Windows Vista use an algorithm named Windows SuperFetch to determine which files should be stored in the cache. SuperFetch monitors files that users access (including system files, application files, and documents) and pre-loads those files into the ReadyBoost cache. Because the ReadyBoost cache stores a copy of the files, the flash drive can be removed at any point without affecting the computer; Windows will read the original files from the disk.

When to use ReadyBoost to improve performance

• The computer has a slow hard disk drive. Computers with a primary hard disk Windows Experience Index (WEI) subscore lower than 4.0 will see the most significant improvements.
• The flash storage provides fast, random, non-sequential reads. Sequential read speed is less critical.
• The flash storage is connected by a fast bus. Typically, USB memory card readers are not sufficiently fast. However, connecting flash memory to an internal memory card reader might provide acceptable performance.

Requirements for USB flash drives, SD / CF memory cards

• Capacity of at least 256 MB, with at least 64 kilobytes (KB) of free space.
• At least a 2.5 MB/sec throughput for 4-KB random reads
• At least a 1.75 MB/sec throughput for 1-MB random writes

You must reserve at least 256 MB. Larger caches can improve performance, but the ReadyBoost cache in Windows 7 cannot be greater than 4 GB on a FAT32 file system or greater than 32 GB on an NTFS file system. Windows Vista has a 4 GB limit on both file systems. So, if your USB flash drive or SD / CF memory card is larger than 4 GB, it will need to be formatted in NTFS to create a ReadyBoost cache larger than 4 GB.

How to turn ReadyBoost on or off

1. Plug a USB flash drive or SD / CF memory card into your computer.


2. In the Autoplay dialog box, under General options, click Speed up my system.


3. In the Properties dialog box, click the ReadyBoost tab, and then do one of the following:
• To turn ReadyBoost off, click Do not use this device.
• To use the maximum available space on the flash drive or memory card for ReadyBoost, click Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost. Windows will leave any files already stored on the device, but it'll use the rest to boost your system speed.
4. To use less than the maximum available space on the device for ReadyBoost, click Use this device, and then move the slider to choose the amount of available space on the device you want to use.
5. Click OK.