Month: January 2013

Apps.. . It could be that your preferred anti-virus solution is the culprit. Posters in the MS Community forums are reporting that some anti-virus solutions are having adverse effects. It could well be my problem too, but if I never saw another app on this PC, it would be too soon. Apparently, turning off UAC can spoil the party too, although last time I looked, I do have two apps which still work and with UAC disabled. Windows 8 installation.. Upgrades.. Regardless of what you are told elsewhere, minimum specs equates to minimum performance, so forget about the quoted minimum … Continue reading Stuff not working?

I saw reference to an article in Scientific American where there was talk of Gorilla Arm. Did this refer to the muscle control needed to keep one’s arm extended or the reach? I sit a comfortable 36” away from a a 19” widescreen monitor. I have space on the desk to put things down, the glare does not affect me too badly, and I can read the text just fine. So, should I go out and invest $400 – $700 on a touch monitor such that I can make use of Windows 8? Some issues that I have..  The screen … Continue reading Touch..

.. but the shutdown issue hasn’t come back. While the hard drives were being CHKDSK’ed on other machines, I had my tower up on the desk and gave it a thorough cleaning. And no, it wasn’t because the machine was overheating. I often clean out the case, so this task was not unusual. While executing the above, I made a note of the motherboard serial number which is located on the side of the incoming 24 pin power socket. In order to read it, I had to remove the DVD drive and a mass of wiring associated with the DVD … Continue reading So the chipset driver update didn’t pay off..

.. and it all goes wrong. I found a chipset driver on the Gigabyte website for my mobo, a GA880g, and thought that it may be a good plan to install it and maybe get beyond the involuntary shutdown issue. Ha.. first sign that it may all go wrong. The ‘America’ download server could only give me a corrupt file which would not extract. The ‘Europe’ server was ok, so down it came. An extraction later and the chipset drivers were installing.. time approx 9:30 pm. It asked to reboot and it did not boot properly into Windows 8 again … Continue reading Try to fix one thing..

OK, so Windows 8 is essentially a ‘touch’ operating system, at least that is how it is marketed. I have yet to come across ANY laptop computer sporting Windows 8 AND touch in ANY of the computer stores in my locality. The two may feature on desktops as a pair, but who wants to keep leaning forwards to something which can be so easily accessed by the two bits of hardware expressly made for the job? Not a good start for any OS, and Vista suffered a similar fate because hardware device manufacturers weren’t exactly rushing to support it. Looking … Continue reading Windows 8 hardware the problem?

Now, I know that it is possible to drag and drop files across open folders, but it can be awkward and messy, especially on smaller screens like the type found on laptops and Netbooks. So, early versions of Windows had functions within the right click menu which were really useful. Two notable features were ‘Copy To’ and ‘Move To’. It may be a while since you have seen them, and for some, you may never have seen them. They are available, work for Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP, and you can get them here.. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-copy-to-move-to-on-windows-vista-right-click-menu/ Windows 95 used to … Continue reading Windows 8 file options – Copy and Move..

.. and in six days time, I turn.. ….. Let’s forget about that. Last year, I learned that.. my desktop machine doesn’t like to hibernate. It is either flat out to the finish or snooze. the  Windows 8 Modern UI has quite serious reliability issues. Toshiba Netbook colours for the multi-lingual keys are almost impossible to see in anything other than fairly strong direct lighting. a five year old can initialise the Windows 7 onscreen keyboard to appear at start-up and after login in such a way that one has to use a System Image or manufacturer recovery disk in … Continue reading It’s 2013..