How to perform System Restore?

Click the "Start" button on the XP system tray, then > All Programs > Accessories > Systems Tools > System Restore. Choose this item on the list: Restore My Computer To an Earlier Time. Click "Next".

On the dialog window, there is a calendar of the current month. Look for the highlighted days in the current month, those are days with a restoring point. Click a date, the restore points created on that day will appear on a list.

Click the restore point on the list for that day, to which you want to return your system. Click "Next".

A warning message will remind you to close all programs currently in use before proceeding. Click "OK" after you manually stop other programs running on your computer.

For your confirmation, System Restore displays the time, date, and brief description of the restore point you chose for returning your system. If correct, click "Next".

The restoration process will take several minutes, plus restarting Windows. You will see the System Restore reporting window, reporting the restoring status when Windows XP is running again.

Click "OK" on the System Restore reporting window to finish task, if it says the restoration was successful. Your system is now restored to the previous point of your choice, and should be working faster.

Office 2010 launch sharpens titanic battle with Google

The launch of Office 2010 takes Microsoft's titanic battle with Google into the cloud, retooling its office software to squish the challenge from web-enabled Google Docs. But the two companies' titanic struggle is being played out across the technology landscape, and on the same day came news that Google is working with US telecom giant Verizon on a tablet computer that would rival Apple's iPad and similar devices being created by Microsoft.

Verizon let slip that it plans to start offering its customers a tablet PC that runs on Google's Android software, the special operating system for mobile devices that competes with Windows Mobile from Microsoft. Both Google and Microsoft are trying to lure device makers to use their operating software for smart-phones and web-enabled tablet computers.

Apple uses its own, proprietary operating system for its iPhones and iPads, both of which are currently tied exclusively to the AT&T mobile phone network in the US.

Verizon and other carriers have been tempted to become players in the tablet PC market as a potential future wave of growth. Most people in the US have a mobile phone, and many have upgraded already to an internet-enabled smartphone. Tying up with Google and a hardware manufacturer to produce a Verizon-branded tablet could persuade customers to buy a second portable device – and could prevent them leaving for AT&T and Apple.

The iPad was launched amid great hype on 3 April and passed one million sales in the US within a month. It has now also gone on sale overseas.

A Google spokesman said the company had nothing to announce with Verizon imminently. "Anyone can take the Android platform and add code or download it to create a mobile device without restrictions," he told Bloomberg News. "We look forward to seeing what contributions are made and how an open platform spurs innovation."

Microsoft has been pushing Windows Mobile and Windows 7 as potential operating systems for a new generation of netbooks, smartphones and tablet PCs, although no single device has yet caught the public's imagination. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January showed off a new tablet PC from Hewlett-Packard that uses a Microsoft operating system, in an attempt to steal Apple's thunder ahead of the iPad launch.

Source: Independent.co.uk