Operating System

WinPatrol – for System Control and Protection

October 22, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I’ve written a number of times about one of the programs that I use on every one of my computers, including my family’s computers. Well, really on every computer that runs Windows — and I’ve been using it since well before 2004.

This program is a great protection tool called WinPatrol. WinPatrol allows me to control which programs start automatically on my system. It also monitors my system for any changes to the programs that start automatically. Unlike some anti-spyware applications, WinPatrol allows me to make the reversable decision to disable auto-starting of a program, where most systems will simply not allow the program to set itself to auto-start.

WinPatrol is available in two flavors — the totally free WinPatrol and the added-function, added-information WinPatrol Plus.

Continue reading WinPatrol – for System Control and Protection

Filed Under: Operating System, Performance Tweaks, Security Fixes, Speed Tweaks, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP

Inserting Special Characters into Documents

September 8, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Recently, subscriber Sandra Day wrote to ask me about a problem she was having. She knew one way to solve it — Word’s Insert Symbol dialog box, but that’s a pretty clumsy way. Here’s what she wanted to do:

Hi Terry! I have tried repeatedly to learn how to use a shortcut to insert a tilde over an “n” (as in jalapeño) in a Word document, but the keystrokes I find listed on the internet never seem to work. One shortcut suggests the control key + the tilde key above the tab key + n, but that doesn’t work. Another suggests Alt + 0241, but that doesn’t work either. I can use the symbol chart to insert it, but would prefer a shortcut method. Do you have any ideas? Is there a way to add that symbol every time I type the word “jalapeno”? Thanks for your help.

Sandra Day

If your problem is always jalapeno, you could use Word’s auto-correct function — put the misspelling as jalapeno and then the correct version with the tilde over the “n” — that should create an automatic correction for you.

You can set up the auto-correct function in Word 2003 as follows:…

Continue reading Inserting Special Characters into Documents

Filed Under: Operating System, Software, Terry's Computer Tips

Printing Problems with the Print Spooler Service

July 2, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Subscriber Jerry Munn wrote recently to ask about a problem where he couldn’t print from his Windows XP computer.

Also, can you tell me where to go to restar my printer spooler. We had several power failures this weekend and I no longer have any printer info on one of my computers. When I try to reinstall the printer drivers I get a message that I need to restart my printer spooler. I cannot do this. Help if you can.

Thanks,
Jerry Munn

The Windows Print Spooler is a Windows XP “Service”. You can start it via the following steps:

Continue reading Printing Problems with the Print Spooler Service

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Filed Under: Driver Corruption, Operating System, Services, Terry's Computer Tips

Quieting Windows’ Noises (and selecting other sounds)

June 13, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

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Do Windows’ sounds ever get on your nerves? In my case, I have grown to dislike the click sound when I click on a link in Internet Explorer or in Windows Explorer. I find it distracting as I work or play on my computer.

Fortunately, we can do something about that… Windows lets us assign different sounds to some specific Windows functions (“events”).

In this case, the offending selection is the sound file assigned to the event called “Start Navigation” in Windows Explorer. That’s right, even if you’re using Internet Explorer, that’s the Windows event that gets called when you click on a link.

In order to change the sound assigned to this event, the first step is to open the Control Panel and select “Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices”.

Continue Reading Quieting Windows’ Noises (and selecting other sounds)

Filed Under: Operating System, Performance Tweaks, Speed Tweaks, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows XP

HOWTO: Writing Files to CD’s with Windows XP

May 30, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Windows XP, unlike earlier versions of Windows, has the built-in ability to write files to CD’s.

What does this mean? If you want to copy some files to a CD, you don’t have to buy a special CD burning program like Nero Burning ROM (the one I use), Roxio’s Easy CD Creator, NTI or others. You can do basic CD writing with Windows XP itself.

Of course, you can’t do the complicated things that the other packages do, but Windows XP’s CD-writing capability means you don’t even have to open those more powerful programs when you want to copy a few files to a CD.

So, how do we do it?

The first step is to open Windows Explorer, the built-in Windows file manager. The easiest way to do this is to right-click on the Start button and pick “Explore.”

Filed Under: Operating System, Performance Tweaks, Pre-installed Software, Terry's Computer Tips

Filtering Web Content with Windows Content Manager

May 16, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Subscriber Nena Richard wrote to ask:

In trying to keep grandchildren off “my space,” I loaded “content advisor.”Every site I open asks for a password and I can’t find how to delete it.

Please HELP!

Thanks,
Nena

I assume you mean the Content Advisor that is part of the Windows XP “Internet Options” menu. I’m not familiar with the Content Advisor, but I did poke around in it a little to answer your question.

You can’t delete Content Advisor because it is part of Windows XP. You can turn it off, though.

Microsoft Content Advisor works by creating a list of web sites that you will “Allow” your computer’s users to access without a password. In the same “Allowed Sites” tab, you can also select “Never” for access to a site.

Continue reading Filtering Web Content with Windows Content Manager

Filed Under: Firefox, IE, Operating System, Pre-installed Software, Web browsing, Windows XP

HOWTO: Change Your Default Printer

April 22, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

In all versions of Windows, whether you have one printer or more, only one of those printers is set as the “Default Printer”.

The default printer is the printer on which many programs will print, if you click their Print icon. Most programs also have a Print option under their File menu, which will display a print dialog box — which will let you choose between multiple printers.

Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint are three examples of programs that have a Print icon that immediately prints to the default printer.

Filed Under: Operating System, Printers, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

ActiveX or No ActiveX

April 6, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I received a question from a subscriber who asked:

A number of times I have seen you refer disparagingly of “Active-x controls”.
I have seen downloads that require Active X to run properly. I have read the definition of the program, but, I guess I am just dense. What is this thing, and why do you consider it so insidious?
Admittedly, I’m technical-challenged, but can this program be explained?
What does one do as an alternative, if the program you want to download, requires Active-X to run?

Active-X controls are downloadable programs that have full capabilities to do anything on your computer. I’m not sure why Microsoft chose such the innocuous word “control” for a program that originally had few or no security constraints imposed upon it.

Switching Users in Windows XP

April 1, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I received a question from subscriber Joseph Baker who was having problems with his Windows computer. For some reason, his “Switch User” button wasn’t working.

The Switch User function (Start Logoff) is a powerful feature of Windows XP that allows multiple different IDs to use the computer– which would allow his wife to switch the active user from him to her without logging him off

Unfortunately, while I could think of a couple possible reasons for his problem, I didn’t have anything definitive:

1. Windows may have been hung — it happens
2. Swapping users takes a lot of memory if you had a number of programs open. Sometimes, when Windows is swapping real memory to the hard drive(called “pagiing” to “virtual memory”) and vice versa, Windows will seem hung but isn’t really,
3. The program in your user session may have crashed — and needed a Control-Alt-Delete to pull up task manager to close it Undoubtedly there are other possibiliites. If the problem happens again or routinely, look into it. If it was just this once, blame it on the phase of the moon or Bill Gates’ Revenge.

Read the rest of the story in Switching Users in Windows XP

Filed Under: Operating System, Performance Tweaks, Registry repair, Services, Speed Tweaks, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

Second Hard Drive failure with Windows XP Pro SP2

March 14, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I hope it’s just coincidence, but I have just suffered my second hard drive failure with Window XP SP2 — in two months. Fortunately, I can avoid the cost of a hard drive recovery service, since I back up my data nightly across my network to my Linux box.

Both failures were internal hard drives. Both hard drives were installed in their respective computers.

The drives have been running XP Pro for at least 2.5 years, and Service Pack 2 since it became available. So, they didn’t fail within 2 months of starting use, but within 2 months of each other.

Filed Under: Backups, File system repair, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Operating System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP