Month: January 2009

The news is that Windows 7 will skip from Beta 1 to RC very soon. The beta testers have been sending in reports to the MS Beta team as the rate of one every fifteen seconds. So, is Windows 7 working well? It certainly should be by the time that the RC is released. However, ‘working well’ does not always translate into ‘working for you’. The Windows 7 feature set was already cast in stone before the public beta was released. Calls by testers to bring back tried and tested features of older Windows versions have been met with ‘Sorry, … Continue reading Windows 7 – is it ‘King’ material? In my opinion..

If you hover the mouse over the Internet Explorer icon in the Start Menu, a flip out menu appears.. If you hover the mouse over the Microsoft Word 2007 icon in the Start Menu, a flip out menu appears.. Start Menu flip-outs are possible.. If you attach a folder to the Start Menu and hover the mouse over it, the only event that happens is the passing of time. Apparently, this is by design. Why is it? The year is 2009 and I should be able to pin, install, drag, shove, bludgeon a folder onto the Start Menu and have … Continue reading Windows 7 questions..

.. but the list of programs shown is not definitive yet. Some of the entries exist because I am trying them out on behalf of some of my local clients. So far, there are twenty eight icons showing and the icon size is set to ‘small’. They have to be small otherwise I could only have ten program icons showing. The menu presently extends to maybe seventy five percent of the total screen height Note that the programs are not in alphabetical order because the Start Menu does not allow for it. Apart from that, it looks ok, yes? The … Continue reading This is my Windows 7 Start Menu..

Yeah, yeah.. so the weasel word for problems these days is ‘challenges’ and, in fairness, it is not too far off of the mark in that many of the problems encountered ‘challenge’ one’s sanity. Challenge #1 Why is it that windows do not hold their set position, and why is it that when you set them to stay where they want to be, they move to where you tried to place them in the beginning? Challenge #2 Why do some applications respect the lower border of an extended Windows task bar when placed at the top of the screen while … Continue reading Annoying problems..

.. and don’t look back because it is not allowed. You will move forward. You will adopt new ways to work even though the new ways do not make it easier for you. They are trying to make it easier for you, and you must see and agree to that. The alternative? In time, there will not be an alternative because the manufacturers of hardware/drivers will eventually write off support for XP totally. They told you that they would listen to you, didn’t they, told you that everything would be alright. Well, it is if you like big change, new … Continue reading Say your goodbye’s..

and I had six hundred and four hits on my ‘Windows 7 Quick Launch’ piece. I have had this many and more hits on other pieces which have appeared in this blog, but never is such a short time. This tells me that at least six hundred and four people wanted to find out how to get this feature back, and that they were eager to get it back ASAP. A niche feature? Hardly anybody ever used it? Considering the fact that my blog is not that well known, six hundred and four hits in such a short time is … Continue reading 48 Hours later..

I do like it and it works very well on my aging computer, but I have to say this.. Regarding the removal of some features which I and many more see as ‘ease of use’, I am seeing  the present response as ‘take it or leave it’, a response which has brought nothing but bad press re Vista, IE7 and the Office ribbon.. If MS really have learned by their mistakes, they will not make the same ones again. MS has to understand that there are millions of users not in a position to voice up now, to take part … Continue reading Windows 7 so far..

is hidden!! Right click in the taskbar -> Toolbars -> New Toolbar… Now search in C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ for the folder "Quick Launch" Then un-pin everything from the superbar .. but not anymore..

First question.. Do you use the  XP or Vista Quick Launch bar? If you do and you are intending to migrate to Windows 7 at the earliest convenience, I would suggest that you find some other way to organise your program icons. The Quick Launch bar will not be included in Windows 7, and there is no future plan to include it at the time of writing this.   Second question.. Do you use the  XP or Vista classic start menu? If you do and you are intending to migrate to Windows 7 at the earliest convenience, I would suggest … Continue reading Features and Functions.. Operating Systems

This is a useful feature if you have a monitor like a Dell P990 (Trinitron CRT). The trick is to go into Control Panel > nVidia Control Panel and head down to ‘Manage custom resolutions’ For the Dell P990, 1280 x 960 works well because it is an 18” monitor, not 19”. So you just type the numbers into the appropriate boxes, not forgetting to ensure that the refresh rate is set for 70 or above. Having finished this process, you will notice that there is ‘flicker’ apparent. Don’t worry about it just yet. Now go into Vista Display Properties … Continue reading nVidia custom resolutions..