Software: Update your Non-Tech friends pc day…. 11/25/11

Microsoft via their (LINK) Windows Team Blog for Internet Explorer (http://windowsteamblog NULL.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/11/23/get-ready-for-update-your-parents-browser-day NULL.aspx) is calling this coming Friday 11/25 “Update your Parents Browser” day. However, in the opinion of Tech Geek and More that idea is narrow minded. Every Tech, Geek or just knowledgeable computer person has a few people (because no one has just 1) that call regularly whenever something goes wrong on a pc. You know the call, “I wasn’t doing anything and then all of a sudden………” . So Tech Geek and More is actually asking its readers to expand on the idea, and use Friday while your visiting non-tech friends and family, and update all software on the pc. Just remember, the more updated they are, the better chance you have of them NOT calling you to fix it.

Just an idea of what should be updated

- Adobe Acrobat

- Adobe Flash

- Adobe Air

- Adobe Shockwave

- Oracle Java

- Anti-virus (If they don’t have a current one install a free one)

- All Windows Updates

- All Office Updates

- All installed browsers (Not just IE)

- **Plus review for any other installed programs that you know should be updated.

If you don’t want to take to long doing this, you can visit (LINK) Ninite (http://ninite NULL.com/), where you can install the latest version for a majority of the software.

If you need ideas as to when, the (LINK) Windows Team Blog (http://windowsteamblog NULL.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/11/23/get-ready-for-update-your-parents-browser-day NULL.aspx) lists Top-10 Moments to Update…. (Windows Team Blog story by Scott Armstrong (http://windowsteamblog NULL.com/members/sarm34/default NULL.aspx))

Top-10 Moments To Update Your Parents’ Browser

10. When they’re manning the fire extinguisher dealing with the yearly deep-fried turkey accident.

9. When they’re telling your cousins “when I was your age” stories.

8. When they’re face down in the eggnog punch.

7. When they’re fighting over the right way to carve a turkey.

6. When your mom kicks you out of the kitchen for peeling potatoes “the wrong way.”

5. When they’re sent to the grocery store at 2PM on Thanksgiving Day for extra cranberries.

4. When they’re sitting at the Adult’s table (rally the other kids to help).

3. When they’re standing in a Black Friday line.

2. When they’re untangling Christmas lights.

And the number one time to update your parents’ browser is…

1. When they’re distracted by grilling you about when you’re going to get a real job, when you’re going to settle down, and when you’re going to give them grandchildren.

So watch for these moments and many more to help them make the upgrade to a modern web browser today. Web developers everywhere will thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving from the IE team!

Software: Happy 10th Birthday Windows XP

Happy Birthday Windows XP. Windows XP was released to retailers on October 25, 2001. Codenamed whistler, Windows XP development started in 1999 when the operating system was known as Windows Neptune.

(From the Microsoft XP (LINK) Wiki (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Windows_XP))

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base. The name “XP” is short for “eXPerience.”

Windows XP, the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Me, was the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel. Windows XP was released for retail sale on October 25, 2001, and over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006.

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7–New Ad (Really!)

With the release of Windows phone 7 coming up in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure we will be seeing more and more ad’s for the latest system Microsoft has to offer. By the looks of one of the 1st ad’s (at least that I’ve seen), Microsoft has a sense of humor.

This is Really – Just keep in mind when you watch this, how many of these things have you done.

Software: Hidden and Additional Themes for Windows 7

One of the nice cosmetic features in Windows 7 is the great variety of themes that you can select from to change the appearance of your computer system. I had not written this post earlier because somehow I seriously though that most people were aware of all their options. However, after a recent road trip (with the W7 laptop) where I kept getting asked “where did you get those backgrounds for your computer”, I suddenly understood that their are a lot of people who just don’t know about the additional cosmetic changes you can make to your Windows 7 pc. So with that being said, here is a simple way that you can add or change the look of your Windows 7 pc.

For those who still aren’t sure here is a short video from Microsoft explaining “What is a theme” – (LINK)http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/what-is-a-theme (http://windows NULL.microsoft NULL.com/en-us/windows7/what-is-a-theme)

Microsoft has always offered what they refer to as themes for Windows, to all the user to change the appearance of their system. In Windows 7, Microsoft has a 3 different options for themes, 2 of which may not be well known. Everyone that has installed Windows 7 should be familiar with the personalization screen that you can find in Control Panel (Start Menu Button –> Control Panel)

When you click on Personalization, you get the following screen (This is the USA version, if you selected a different country during install of Windows 7 the pictures themselves may be a little different) where you can select the theme to use for your computer (Theme includes pictures –usually 5 or 6 in a group- plus color schemes and sounds). In addition, by selecting at the bottom you can select how often the background changes and if you want a specific color scheme or sound and what screen saver to go along with your theme.

Now this post could end right here but that wouldn’t cover the 2 other ways that you can add to your choices in the personalization screen.

Additional Themes Option #1 – The Hidden ones already on your pc

So lets start with the option that is already on your computer but is hidden because they are considered to be for other regions or locations. (NOTE: you will need to have hidden files and folders showing in Windows. You can change that setting in control panel –> folder options –> View tab –> put a bubble next to “Show hidden files, folders, and drives)

1) Click on Start and then in the search box type the following

- C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press the Enter key

- you will see the following window (below), just click on the folder called MCT

2) The window that opens will show you the additional themes for Windows 7 for other regions or locations (Depending on the version of Windows 7 your choices may be a little different than the ones shown below). In my copy of Windows I get themes additional themes from Australia, Canada, U.K, and South Africa (In addition to the US theme which is already showing).

- Once you are at the MCT folder open the theme for the country you like, and then you can either select the folder with the country name where you will see the pictures used in the theme or the theme folder itself to install the theme.

- If you select the folder with the pictures (below) you can right click on a picture you like and then select “Set as desktop background. (This will not make it into a changing theme, it will give you just that picture as your background. )

- If you choose to install the entire theme, once you have selected the Theme folder, double click on the file name.theme (in this example GB.theme). That will install the entire theme.

3) Once you have done that you can go back to your personalization folder in control panel and select the newly added themes. Once a theme is on your Personalization window, its just a matter of clicking on it to change between themes.

Additional Themes Option #2 –

Other than locating hidden Windows 7 themes in your computer, you can also download several windows 7 themes form the Microsoft Website.

Visit the Windows 7 Personalization page (LINK) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize (http://windows NULL.microsoft NULL.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize)

- Here you will find a large selection of themes you can add to your Windows 7 install. Its also very simple and best of all its FREE!!!!

All you need to do is scroll down the page until you find a theme that interests you, you will see a download button just under that them.

- Click on download, it will be followed by a screen that will ask you if you want to Open or Save. If you wish to save the themes for later just select save (and remember where you saved it to). If you just want to install select open and it will automatically install the theme on the computer for you. (NOTE: The theme will also become your default theme, so you will need to go back to the personalization folder to change it to something else.)

Themes take up a minimal space on a hard drive so don’t be afraid to download and try a few of these out.

And with that you have another simple way of changing the look of your Windows 7 pc. “I’m glad Windows 7 was my idea”. OK it wasn’t but I have always wanted to be in one of those commercials so that I could say that.

Warning: Windows 7 Beta users

For those of you (like me) who downloaded and installed Windows 7 beta in January of 2009, its time you save your files, uninstall Windows 7 beta and either go back to Windows XP or Vista (or whatever you had before 7) or time to download the RC (Release Candidate*) for Windows 7 and install that in the place of the Windows 7 beta. Starting on July 1 (which is a month away) the beta version will shut down automatically every 2 hours. Then on Aug 1, the beta edition will not function at all. So it is now time to either continue the upgrades or go back to your previous stable version.

If your interested in downloading Windows 7 RC you can find it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx?ITPID=google (http://technet NULL.microsoft NULL.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205 NULL.aspx?ITPID=google). The 7 RC will be function until March 1,2010 which gives you 9 months to play with the latest edition from Microsoft for free before having to go out and buy it.

(*The term release candidate (RC) refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Computer_bug) emerge. In this stage of product stabilization (read QA cycle), all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more Beta cycles with no known showstopper (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Showstopper)-class bug. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle))

Windows How-to: Speeding up your pc using MSCONFIG

Everyone who uses a computer understands that the more programs you have running on your computer at the same time, the more chance that your computer will either run slowly or even crash. The thing that the average computer user doesn’t know is that every time you boot your computer a lot of your installed programs will start and run in the background, meaning you wont know they are running unless you know where to look. A few of these programs running in the background are needed, but the majority of them really should not be running. Knowing where to look and what to look for can help you significantly increase your computer’s performance and reliability by turning off those programs.

Microsoft wrote a program into windows called “MSCONFIG” (Microsoft System Configuration Utility)which is designed to help you troubleshoot computer problems but it can also be used to turn startup programs off to get your computer booting faster, running faster and having less issues overall.

To do this you need to do the following(I’m using Windows XP in my example, however the concept is the same in Windows Vista):

1) Go to Start – Run

2. In the run box type MSCONFIG then click on the OK button.
Open: MSCONFIG

3. A window labeled System Configuration Utility will open. Look for the tab that says Startup and click on it. (*DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE OTHER SETTINGS ON THE OTHER TABS UNLESS YOU ARE SURE OF WHAT YOUR DOING.)

4. You should now see the programs scheduled to start every time you turn on your computer (long list isn’t it, this is why it takes some of you 5 minutes or more to start your computer).

This window shows the name of the “Startup Item” and the windows location of the item under “Command” plus the registry change (The registry will be addressed in a different post, but for you that don’t understand what a registry is, image that it as a lot of little pieces that when together make up a brain). Any item with a check next to it will start every time you turn on the computer.

In my list (which is from my own PC) I have

WindowsLiveSync – Which i use to access files on my pc when I’m not at home. (I choose to have it run automatically)

IDrivestartup and IDrive tray – Which are part of my online back up software (I want to run automatically so that I don’t have to worry about)

VPN Client – Which I use to connect to my office (I chose to have this run automatically)

MultiRes – Which controls the 2 monitors that I have connected to my pc (I need to have this to run to monitors at the same time)

There is also gamevance32 (Which runs when my son plays some of his online games), Grovemonitor (which is a feature of the Microsoft Office Groove program), Wcescomm (Which is used to sync your phone and your pc), dumprep (which creates a file if your pc crashes telling you technical details – that most people wont understand anyways), Yahoo Messenger (Instant Messenger), and PG2 (which is a filter for peer to peer sites – I do believe their are legit reasons for P2P but that also is for another post). Of the items I just listed starting with gamevance32, none of them are required for my machine to run, and are only needed IF AND ONLY IF I choose to run the program associated with it. What will happen by unchecking these is that you will tell windows that you do not want these programs running until I chose to start the program at which time these files will start, you are in no way uninstalling the program from here, just conserving the resources in your pc that can then be used for what you really want to do.

If your not sure what a specific item on your list does, you can check out the following site http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php (http://www NULL.sysinfo NULL.org/startuplist NULL.php) .

The site by Paul Collins (which is in my bookmarks and has helped me many a time, Thank you Paul if you see this) lists (as of April 29, 2009) 18659 different programs that can be found in the start menu (not that you will have all 18 thousand) ,what the program is for, and even if its a required program or not.

(*Remember, only uncheck the programs that you recognize and can verify don’t need to be running all the time. If your not sure, leave it running, while you find out what it is. I’m warning you now, as I don’t want to hear that your pc wont work because you did something, just use some common sense.)

5. Once you have unchecked anything that you find that you don’t need running from startup click the OK button.

6. You will see a message telling you that you must restart your computer before these changes will take effect. Click on “Yes” and your computer will automatically reboot. Click Exit without restarting if you have other things open that you need to close first before restarting. (*In either case your changes will take affect on your next restart)
XP restart dialog box

7. After you restart you will see the following message. When you see it click on the box on the left where it says “Don’t show this message or launch the system configuration utility when windows starts” to put a check in it, before clicking ok. (*If you don’t and just click ok you will see this message on start up every time until you do.)

8. That is all there is to it, your machine should now run faster and be more responsive as you have taken some unneeded weight off your pc.

-> If you discover that something you unchecked is needed or chose to run it automatically (Like having your instant messenger start when windows starts, just run MSCONFIG again and put a check back next to that item.

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