All PC Tips

For those who have been working on a desktop computer for a long time and switched to laptops, the major problem is getting adjusted with the smaller keyboard. Another problem is when typing on the laptop keyboard, the thumb sometimes touches the keypad and the cursor moves to another space.

This problem usually goes away with experience. More experienced laptop users do not face this issue, as they get adjusted to the new keyboard layout over time.

However, TouchFreeze is a free utility that can be used to freeze and activate touch pad automatically. If TouchFreeze is installed, it automatically freezes the touchpad and when you stop typing, it will automatically enable the touch pad again. To download TouchFreeze goto  http://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/downloads/list

In Windows 7, the usual size of the Windows Taskbar is a bit larger than usual. This takes some extra space at the bottom of the computer screen. This makes selecting the applications easier as the buttons are bigger. However for those who are using smaller screens this may be a bit annoying as it takes more space on the screen. If you want you can make the size of the taskbar smaller by following the steps below.

1. In a blank space in the taskbar right click and select properties.
2. You will see the ‘Taskbar and Start Menu Properties’ dialog box with many tabs.
3. Here click ‘Use small icons’ and select it.
4. Now click OK and close the dialog box.

Now the task bar will occupy smaller space. If you want you can also hide the task bar when not required. If you want to hide the task bar, in step 2 above, select the ‘Taskbar’tab, and in ‘Taskbar appearance’, select ‘Autohide the taskbar’. If you choose this, if you bring the mouse to the bottom of the screen the taskbar will appear and if you move away from the task bar, it will be hidden.

msconfig is the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is called as ‘System Configuration’. This is a tool that comes with the Windows Operating System. For Windows 2000 users this tool can be downloaded from microsoft website. This is used to configure and maintain your Windows System. In this tutorial we can see how to use this tool.

To start this tool goto Start->Run and type ‘msconfig’. A new window with five tabs will open.

1. General Tab: This tab has three sections. Normal Startup, Diagnostic Startup and Selective Startup. When Windows functions normally we use Normal Startup. When the system doesnt function properly, we can use diagnostic startup to diagnose the issue and to troubleshoot. If we want windows to start with specific programs then we can choose Selective Startup.
2. Boot Tab: This tab shows the operating systems installed in the computer. Additionally we can choose options such as ‘safe Boot’, ‘Boot log’, ‘Time out delay’. If you are a new PC user then it is best to leave this tab without any changes.
3. Services Tab: This tab lists all the services installed in this PC with the details such as whether the service is running or stopped etc. From here you can enable or disable services. You can check the ‘Hide all Microsoft services’, to hide all essential windows services so that you don’t change them by mistake. From here you can identify unknown services that take up your memory and stop them wherever necessary.
4. Startup Tab: Startup tab shows the list of programs that starts automatically when Windows starts. All system tray programs and programs that run in background will also be listed here. You can see which of these services and programs you don’t need at startup and remove them accordingly. This will speed up your windows startup time.
5. Tools Tab: In the tools tab you can see, System Information, Programs, System Restore etc.

You may have heard of the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ but haven’t experienced it yourself. It is better to know the reasons behind this crash so that when it happens you are in a position to fix it. If you see on the screen “Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy”, “enter to return to Windows or press Control+Alt+Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications”. This is the infamous blue screen of death. This could happen due to any of these following reasons:

1. Hardware Problem: Computer consists of different hardware such as Printer, mouse, flash drive etc. Windows assigns an IRQ number for each of these hardware. When due to some reasons more than one hardware use the same IRQ this will result in a crash. In order to find if you have any hardware conflicts you can goto the ‘Device Manager’ in your computer properties. (Start-Settings->Control Panel –> System->Device manager), an yellow exclamation mark will be placed against the hardware that has a conflict. You can resolve this by selecting the device, uninstalling and reinstalling it again.
2. RAM memory: When you upgrade RAM memory, if you have two unmatched RAM cards or a RAM card that is not compatible with your motherboard, then a “Fatal Exception Error” will occur when you start the computer. If you are technically savvy then you may try to fix this by going to BIOS settings and editing the ‘Wait state’ of RAM or you can replace the cards with the same speed and capacity.
3. Hard Disk Drive: After using the computer for a few months or years, the hard disk gets fragmented with temporary files, or fragmented files. This will result in slowness of hard disk and may even result in computer crash eventually. You can maintain your harddisk by defragmenting your hard disk frequently and deleting unwanted files.
4. Video Card: If you see “Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors” then it is due to the video card. To solve this reduce the video display resolution. You can do so by going to the control panel and display settings. Choose the correct screen resolution to match your monitor and change the color settings to 16 bit or match it with your monitor.
5. Virus: Most of the computer crash is due to Virus infection in your computer. You should install or enable windows firewall and install an Anti virus application to prevent unwanted virus applications infecting your computer.
6. Printer: Sometimes you may notice that the computer crashes whenever you try to print something. This is due to low memory buffer in the printer. Therefore when you send a lot of data to the printer or if you have multiple applications open and you print at the same time, this may happen. Unplug the printer from power outlet for 10 minutes and connect back again. Close other programs and try to print again.
7. Software: If a particular software is not installed properly or is not complete then it may result in a crash when you try to start that software. You have to uninstall such software properly. Otherwise some entries may still be in the registry referring to that software and result in instability of the computer. You can use registry cleaning software to clean your registries frequently.
8. Heat: Computers have inbuilt fans to cool down the processors. You can control the CPU speed from your BIOS settings. If the speed is set to higher than the normal CPU speed, this may result in overheating of the CPU which will result in Kernel Error.
9. Power Supply: Use UPS to regulate the power supply to your computer. This will reduce the chances of your computer crashing.

Here are some useful shortcut keys for Windows 7 users.

Windows key + Up Arrow = Active window will be maximized

Windows key + Down Arrow = Active window will be minimized

Windows key + Left Arrow = Active window will be moved to the left

Windows key + Right Arrow = Active window will be moved to the right

Windows key + Home Key = All windows will be minimized. If already minimized they will be opened.

Windows key + T = The first application in task bar will be given focus. If you press T continuously the focus will be switched to other applications in that order.

Windows key + Space bar = If you keep pressed, Windows Startup will be shown.

Windows key +  1-9 any number key = The respective application in the task bar will be given focus.

Windows key +  Plus key = Window will be zoomed in

Windows key + Minus key = Window will be zoomed out.

Windows 7 is just a month old. Many users have shared the experiences in Windows 7.  Usually when a new Windows OS is released, many patches, drivers and other updates will follow in the following months after the release. So by right the review should be done only after a few months of the release. However here is a list of the good and not so good points in Windows 7 found in the first month of its use.

1. Upgrade process

Many of the Windows 7 users are usually upgraded from Windows XP. More than  70% users are from Windows XP while 18% are from Windows Vista. Some 6% upgraded from both and a fraction of users got it from new systems. Most of the users found the upgrade was smooth except for a few users who saw blue screen and the computers hang. This could have been due to the fact that the system was a bit too old and required some special drivers etc. So overall the upgrade seems to be smooth in most cases.

2. New features in Windows 7

• Taskbar, System tray, Windows Dialing, Desktop aerobic show are some of the enhancements in Windows 7. Most users have pointed out these. Out of these, the new Task bar seems to be the most liked feature.
• The most disliked feature in Windows 7 was the Internet explorer 8 version that comes with Windows 7.
• The other disliked features were Home group and media players.
• The Windows user account control that was not so popular in Vista system has been changed in Window 7 and is a welcome surprise.
• windows 7 does not have Windows Messenger, Movie maker and live mail.
• Many drivers for old printers and other equipments are also missing in Windows 7
• Moreover for security reasons windows 7 expects digital signatures in these drivers and hence some old drivers do not work any more.
• Jump list, One click, Home group, device stage are some of the users interfaces that are new in Windows 7 and there is a learning curve for old windows users.
• Some security analysts say that Windows 7 is not entirely free from virus attacks as one would expect.
• Windows 7 does not include anti virus software
• Most of the users complained about the price of Windows 7 as well. The price may come down in the coming months.

Downloading, Uploading, Installing and Un installing are most favorite words in the usage of computer and Internet. Let’s see about this.

Downloading:

We are copying a file from a network or an Internet to our computer is called downloading. We need not to do so much work for this. In Internet it displays, if you want this facility click here to download. If we click the link it will ask the place to store the file then we select the directory. The file will start to download. It shows the message it contain the rate and time.

Uploading:

This is the reverse process of downloading. That is we can copy the files from can computer to a network or the Internet. Generally the process is run by F.T.P. some of the Internet website provide the way to upload the files through their browsers.

Installing:

Mostly the peoples confuse both downloading and installing. Installing means process of our computer is preparing for run a program. Generally its have a setup program to run when we are executing the setup program it ask some questions. We give to answer for this questions then it start copy the files to your computer for run the particular program. If we want to run the program we may click the icons in the desktop. Otherwise select the program from star/program menu.

Un Installing:

This is also the reverse process of installing while installing the program. It will copy the files in your computer. When we don’t want the program it’s hard task find and delete the files. Because of that the developers are create one exe file for uninstalling with that program.

We can see the file in program directory. Otherwise we can uninstall the file by select the Add/Remove Program option in control panel. Here all the installed programs are arranged in alphabetical order. We can select the program from the list, which is wanted to uninstall.

To get † symbol use Alt+0134
To get ‡ symbol use Alt+0135
To create the trade mark (™) symbol use Alt+0153
To get bound sterling (£) symbol use Alt+0163
To get the Japanese currency yen (¥) symbol use Alt+0165
To get copy right symbol (©) use Alt+0169
To get registered trade mark symbol (®) use Alt+0174
To get degree symbol (°) use Alt+0176
To show (±) symbol use Alt+0177
To show super script 2 symbol (²) use Alt+0178
To show super script 3 symbol (³) use Alt+0179
To make a center dot symbol (•) use Alt+0183
To describe ¼ use Alt+0188
To describe ½ use Alt+0189
To describe ¾ use Alt+0190

We can create more symbols as same as above. We mostly use the above symbols.

We can print one document in Windows XP. But how to we print all files in the folders? Ok. If one folder has 10 files we can open all files and then give print command. If 100 files are there and you have to take a printout of all of them what can we do? Here only notepad comes to our help here we can write a batch file and command it to print from a right place. Lets see briefly how is this done.

First of all open note pad, through Start, All Programs, Accessories, Notepad then type the following code without fault.

@echo off

dir%1/-p/o: gin>

“%temp%\listing”

Start/wnotepad/p”%temp%\listing”

Del”%temp%%\listing”

exit

Save the file as printdir.bat, then save it in c:\windows folder. A small tip: – you can save this file in any name but you must give the extension as .bat only. Now you have successfully created a file to print. Now, let’s see how to print all files in a folder,

1) First double click the My Computer icon.
2) Select Folder options from the Tools menu
3) Then Click File types tab, it will be in the upper side of the screen.
4) You will find a file type below” Registered file types”
5) Select it and click Advanced Tab
6) This opens Edit File Type. In this you can see a button “New” click it
7) New action dialog box opens
8)Type print directory in action tab
9) Browse for c:\windows\printdir.bat through browse button at application used to perform action
10) Click ok and close all the dialog boxes

If lot of files is to be printed we can create a folder and put them inside it, now right click on the folder and select print directory option in it, if you select this all files in the folder will be printed.

While assembling a computer, usually drive C attains main role and others become subsidiary, while using pen drives the OS automatically assigns an alphabet and later delete it. Do you know you can assign a name using A to Z alphabets? Disk Management snap in software in windows XP provides this feature. A and B letters are assigned for your floppy drive C is assigned disk containing OS. If you don’t have floppy drive you can use A and B for other drives. But you may install floppy drives some day so we will leave out A and B and see how to assign other alphabets.

To assign all favorite letters to a disk drive (or) part of (or) a volume for the first time do as said below. First start log in as user.

1. Then click start=> control panel option, it will list sum of option then select Performance and Maintenance. (Note: This option will be enable only on control panel. So we should open it.)
2. Now click Administrative tools and then double click on computer management. Now some of option listed on the left side of it then selects Disk management.)
3. Now right click on the drive, as you want to create letters, and then click on change drive letter and paths.
4. From that click Add
5. Now default computer mark the type of letter from “Assign the following drive letter” Now you can make changes only by selecting some other type of letter.

We see how to change the type of letter for a drive on its parts
1. Select start=>control panel a window will be open then select “Performance and Maintenance” from that window.
2. Now click on “Administrative Tools” after that double click on computer management. Now you get sum of option from the left side of window here we select the Disk management.
3. Right click on the drive (or) the part on we want change the letter type after that select “change drive letter and paths” from it.
4. Now click on “change” option carefully
5.Now select the type of letter from “Assign the following drive letter” option and give ok to it
6. Carefully give yes when a dialogue box open with the message of whether change the type of letter. Now you got to selected letter types enabled on the drives.

To change the already existing letter, use following
1. Click start=>control panel. Now you get new window. Select performance and maintenance option from that window.
2. Now click on Administrative tools after that double click on computer management. Now select the disk management option from the left side of the window.
3. Right click on the drive (or) part as you want to change the letter type, then “change drive letter and paths”
4. Now carefully click the “remove” option
5. Now you got a dialogue box, which contains the warning message. Click Yes on it. At this time you got the certain type of letter will be removed.

Like this you would apply this option for your drive.