Windows has the built-in ability to function as VPN server, although this option is hidden. This trick works on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. The server uses the point-to-point tunneling protocol (PPTP.)

This could be useful for connecting to your home network on the road, playing LAN games with someone, or securing your web browsing on a public Wi-Fi connection – a few of the many reasons you might want to use a VPN.

Do you need to send someone sensitive information through email? Regular email is sent “in the clear” and therefore is subject to interception by hackers. However, there are many options for sending private, sensitive information securely through email.

We have collected some links to sites providing solutions for sending secure email, secure one-time messages, and secure instant messaging, and encrypting files to send through email.

We’ve covered virtual private networks and when you might want to use them before. Connecting to a VPN is easy, as Windows and most other operating systems offer built-in VPN support.

Note that some VPN providers offer their own desktop clients, which means you won’t need this setup process. For example, TunnelBear and proXPN both offer their own desktop applications for connecting to their VPNs and selecting VPN server locations.

Need to send sensitive information through email? Normal email messages can be intercepted or hacked before reaching the recipient. However, you can use a free extension for Google Chrome, called SafeGmail, that allows you to send encrypted emails to anyone.

Messages are encrypted and decrypted within the browser, so your message is only seen by you and the person to whom it is sent, and the messages remain encrypted in both the sender’s and receiver’s email inboxes  The messages also automatically expire after a random amount of time.

SafeGmail works with any recipient email provider.

To install the extension, visit the SafeGmail extension page using the link at the end of this article. Click the Add to Chrome button.

The Professional edition of Windows 8 comes with “downgrade rights.” If you’re not happy with Windows 8 on a new computer, you can downgrade it to Windows 7 for free – as long as you have Windows 8 Pro.

This isn’t as easy as it should be: Microsoft designed this procedure for businesses, and individual users will have to jump through a number of hoops to downgrade their Windows 8 Pro systems.

Robocopy, or “Robust File Copy,” is a command line directory replication tool from Microsoft. It is available as part of Windows 7 and Vista as a standard feature, and was available as part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit.

NOTE: For Windows XP, you can obtain Robocopy by downloading the resource kit.

Robocopy allows you to setup simple or advanced backup strategies. It provides such features as multi-threaded copying, mirroring or synchronization mode, automatic retry, and the ability to resume the copying process. If you are comfortable with using command line tools, you can run Robocopy directly on the command line using the command syntax and options. You can also download the command line reference and usage notes for Robocopy as a PDF file.

If you are more comfortable using a graphical user interface, or GUI, rather than the command line, there are a couple of options for adding a GUI to the Robocopy command line tool, making it easier to use. Both tools, RoboMirror and RichCopy, are discussed below and links to download each tool are provided.

If you often open a lot of applications at once, a virtual desktop program can help you keep all those windows on your desktop organized. A virtual desktop program allows you to put open applications into separate virtual desktops, cutting down on your desktop clutter.

We’ve collected links to and information about several free virtual desktop managers you can use to organize your Windows desktop.

We’ve all had programs crash on us in Windows at one time or another. You can take the time to manually start the program again, or you can have a simple program like ReStartMe restart it automatically for you.

ReStartMe is a free program that has one purpose in life, to restart processes. You tell it to watch specific processes and if any of those processes exit, whether they crashed or you accidentally closed them, ReStartMe will automatically restart them.

To install the program, double-click on the restartmeinstaller.exe file you downloaded (see the link at the end of the article). Follow the easy installation process, accepting the default settings.

If you’ve used Linux, you’re probably familiar with the virtual desktop feature. It provides a convenient way to organize programs and folders open on your desktop. You can switch among multiple desktops and have different programs and folders open on each one.

However, virtual desktops is a feature missing in Windows. There are many third-party options for adding virtual desktops to Windows, including one called Dexpot, which we have covered previously. Dexpot is free, but only for private use. Companies, public institutions, non-profit organizations, and even freelancers and self-employed people must buy the program.

We found another virtual desktop tool that is completely free for everyone to use, called mDesktop. It’s a lightweight, open source program that allows you to switch among multiple desktops using hot keys and specify open programs or folders to be active on all desktops. You can use mDesktop to group related programs or to work on different projects on separate desktops.

mDesktop is portable and does not need to be installed. Simply extract the .zip file you downloaded (see the link at the end of this article) and double-click the mDesktop.exe file.

The hosts file in Windows contains mappings of IP addresses to host names, like an address book for your computer. Your PC uses IP addresses to find websites, so it needs to translate the host names into IP addresses to access websites.

When you enter a host name in a browser to visit a website, that host name is looked up in DNS servers to find the IP address. If you enter IP addresses and host names for websites you visit often, these websites will load faster, because the hosts file is loaded into memory when Windows start and overrides DNS server queries, creating a shortcut to the sites.

Because the hosts file is checked first, you can also use it to block websites from tracking your activities on the internet, as well as block ads, banners, third-party cookies, and other intrusive elements on webpages. Your computer has its own host address, known as its “localhost” address. The IP address for localhost is 127.0.0.1. To block sites and website elements, you can enter the host name for the unwanted site in the hosts file and associate it with the localhost address. Blocking ads and other undesirable webpage elements, can also speed up the loading of websites. You don’t have to wait for all those items to load.

The default hosts file that comes with Windows does not contain any host name/IP address mappings. You can add mappings manually, such as the IP address 74.125.224.72 for www.google.com. As an example of blocking an ad server website, you can enter the following line in your hosts file to block doubleclick.net from serving you ads.