Month: March 2007

A good question, and the answer is a resounding ‘YES’. Increased security is a must these days. Forget the older operating systems. Windows 3.1 and 95 are no longer relevant. Most home users of these operating systems never connected to the outside world. If anything was installed, it was done from a 5.25 or 3.5 inch floppy supplied by a friend, or maybe from a magazine cover. Users had no expectations other than to be amazed. Windows 98 and ME appeared at around the same time as the really cheap PC  and the ever expanding Information Superhighway. Few of us … Continue reading Do you need Vista?

Every morning, I look through various RSS feeds, news and technical, and then I ‘hit’ the MS public newsgroups. News is often soul destroying, technical sometimes goes way over my head, and newsgroup material is it’s usual baffling self, a combination of plaintiff cries for help and complete BS. RSS feeds aside, this is what greeted me this morning. “My husband and I recently purchased a new computer from Gateway. Unfortunetly we sent it back in less than 24 hours. It seems that while getting on the internet the computer made updates (Mcafee, windows explorer etc). In doing so our … Continue reading Vista and Gateway Support..

Canon have now released an official Vista driver and ToolBox for the venerable Lide 30 (and all of the Lide range). The earlier XP drivers and ToolBox actually worked in Vista, and I notice that the version numbers for Vista and XP drivers are the same. However, it is reassuring to have ‘official’ Vista drivers installed even if there is a suspicion that they are just rebadged XP drrivers. [;)] Before installing them, download the Canon uninstall facility to remove all existing drivers before attempting to install the latest. Clicking on the link will take you to the Canon Scanner … Continue reading Canon Lide and Vista..

You should have no major problems as long as you do some research..   However, some drivers that have been supplied for inclusion in the Vista installation are still in their infancy.. this applies particularly to video drivers.. some are better than others, and you may well find that you do not have all of the features to which you are accustomed..   Since the release of Vista, some manufacturers have endevoured to produce better drivers, so a visit to the various manufacturer websites can prove beneficial..   Re. software.. a not inconsiderable amount of software does still work with … Continue reading Vista OS Upgrades – General

There is an optional update in Windows Update.. these are the details off of my own computer.. take a look at the URLs..     Microsoft – Other Hardware – HID Non-User Input Data Filter   Installation date: ‎06/‎02/‎2007 10:57   Installation status: Successful   Update type: Optional   Microsoft Other Hardware sofware update released in January, 2007   More information: http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=20031770   More information: http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub   If you do not see the update in the list of possibles, try uninstalling DreamScene, and then revisit WU.. as weird as it seems, the update reappeared.. it worked for one person for … Continue reading Microsoft Wireless Mouse and Keyboard revisited..

Vista users seem to be experiencing problems with Windows Live Messenger 8.1. From what I can gather, it is attributable to two things; DEP and Adobe Flash. So, what to do next.. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet has this on her website..   The Microsoft-suggested workaround: 1. Uninstall Flash Player (Click Start->Control Panel->Uninstall a Program, then select Flash Player) 2. Close Windows Live Messenger and any other programs that use Flash 3. Open Adobe public Flash Player beta site (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer9.html) 4. Click “Download Installer for Windows Active X” to install It’s the Adobe Flash player causing the crashes, concurred Robert … Continue reading Windows Live Messenger 8.1 (beta)