Month: August 2009

I think that I am beginning to understand one of the reasons why the Windows 7 Start Menu/Taskbar defaults to the way it is. Touch screen usability The oversized, widely spaced icons on the taskbar and in the Start box all point to ease of use on a touch screen. OK, fair enough, but how many computer users have touch screens? Are you considering the purchase of a touch screen anytime soon? Maybe if you are buying a a high end laptop where touch screen is part of the spec, but what of the desktop users? Many still use and … Continue reading Classic menu issue revisited – Part One

In case you don’t already know: Mainstream support for Business and Enterprise versions of Microsoft Windows Vista will end on April 10th, 2012 Extended support for Business and Enterprise versions of Microsoft Windows Vista will end on November 11, 2017 Mainstream support for Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Microsoft Windows Vista will end on April 10th, 2012 There are no plans to extend support for Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Microsoft Windows Vista, and it is pretty much a certainty that it will NEVER be available. This is not particularly good news for home … Continue reading The Vista Lifecycle and effects on the end user..

Please bear in mind that I am a beginner to all of this stuff, and have had to do all of this with limited knowledge and even less resources.. I have recently moved my website from a paid service with HostPapa . There was nothing wrong with the service offered, but I simply could not justify the cost of keeping my website there. A group of guys I know who provide a free hosting to an elite band of people who provide their services free to the online communities came to my rescue, providing me with a sub-domain where my … Continue reading Website experiences..

These drivers are being served up by the nVidia website for Vista/Win 7 64-bit variants. A warning: If you are using an ‘Ajax’ based start page like Pageflakes or the Sympatico/MSN customizable start page, you will experience very bad flicker as you scroll across or down them. Do NOT roll back the driver. Uninstall it in its entirety and replace it with an older version. I am using 186.18 which is OK.

I wrote a brief piece about FrontPage 2003 and Windows 7, about how FrontPage files will not keep the association with the parent program. Well, ICQ doesn’t allow me to sign in either, but ICQ will release a version which will work, but Microsoft have no intention of ever releasing a new version of FrontPage. FrontPage, as some will know, has been replaced by Expression Web which is very much an experts application. I have tried to get my head around it but I simply can’t. Compared to FP, it is way too complex. At the next release of Windows, … Continue reading Compatibility worries..

For the months leading up to the release of Windows 7 RTM, I have been working out ways to try to emulate the old Classic menu. It was an important feature of earlier Windows versions. I like stuff in small compartments, and being able to create folders in the old menu which would flip out revealing the entire contents was good. I am a protagonist of partitions on hard drives too. For me, it is the first stage of organisation. It is now eight days since I installed Windows 7, and only now have I created folders of my own … Continue reading That darn start menu..

.. and maybe to be expected. I use FrontPage 2003 to create and manage my own website because Expression Web 2 is simply too difficult for me. For the most part, FrontPage works very well in Windows 7, but I have found that the files contained in an FP web folder will not keep the association with FP for more than two openings of the folder or a total reboot. It doesn’t affect anything unduly, more an annoyance every now and again.. 

Contained in the Windows 95 Powertoys was a small utility called ‘Send ToX’. All one had to do was right click on one of the two files which had a right click option to ‘install’ and then click on ‘install’. A couple of popup windows would appear, and that was it. Thereafter, right clicking on any file gave you the option to ‘send to any folder’. The best part is that this small utility worked in all desktop versions of Windows up to and including Vista. Guess what? It doesn’t work in Windows 7, and I know because I just … Continue reading The Best Ever Utility?

The start menu change is still pending, and I am finding settings here and there which need adjustment but, apart from that, I have a workable Windows 7 workstation with all applications and utilities installed that I use daily. Only when I am looking for the location of something am I reminded that this is NOT Vista or any of the other Windows NT based operating systems. This is how it should be, of course. As important as the operating system is, the applications installed are what makes a computer anything approaching useful. I have found that the major applications … Continue reading Windows 7 – The morning after..

Still no joy with the NOD32 firewall. It sets up and then fails on a reboot. Oh well, the Windows firewall has always served me well and I have no reason to believe that it will not do the same now. I will contact ESET about it later. The next few items have installed without problems, but I have only checked out basic functions of each so far.. Acronis Disk Director 10 – Easeus is a good alternative, but I have this one Acronis TrueImage Echo Workstation – works better than the home version Cyberlink DVD Suite 6 – I … Continue reading Windows 7 – By late afternoon..