Category: Windows

The Hibernate function on computers can be quite useful. When resuming from hibernate you can start right away where you left off with all programs open as they were when you stopped working and frequently the resuming from hibernate is faster than starting the computer after it was shut off.
You will still have to periodically reboot since Windows does get slower after some cycles, but that can be many days.
Many laptops have this function enabled when you are in the shut down menu, but most desktops do not. Continue reading “Enable Hibernate on Your PC”

Microsoft has released the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack (16.0.0652.0621) to enable viewing of many camera RAW files in Windows Explorer and many Microsoft and some other programs that use Microsoft codecs.
If you work with RAW files, head over there and download it to make it easier on you. View your RAW thumbnails and previews right in Windows.

This was driving me nuts. I just had imaged and installed three computers with Windows 7 64 bit, customized them with some computer-specific software, and then one of them acts up. I can access the local network resources, but I can’t get to the Internet. On ONE of them.

It took me many hours over a few days, but I finally found the solution in a thread at Windows 7 Forums. Here’s the part that helped:

For those of you reporting problems with your network after updating MS Office or installing Adobe CS3 –
If you are having Internet connection problems related to “Unidentified Network” showing and the “!” over your NIC icon, then this should take care of it:
Check to see if you have this little devil in your services list:
“##Id_String2.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B87 9762 ##”
If you do, stop it and disable it. It is actually the Bonjour DNS Responder Service, and I believe it is the cause of the “Unidentified Network.”
The Unidentified Network disappeared after stopping this service and a quick disable/enable of the NIC, restoring Internet access.

I am having a Windows Home Server (WHS) in which my main system hard drive started to fail. Since it was still somewhat readable I figured I’ll copy everything to a new, larger hard drive. I wanted to re-install the system anyway because it started to be a bit flaky (probably the hard drive dying), but I didn’t want to loose all the computer backups which I had saved (multiple revisions and a few computers I had backed up for keeping just in case).

So I transferred the partitions from my old 250GB IDE drive onto the new 2TB SATA drive (making sure the old C:\ stayed at 20GB and only the new D:\ partition was enlarged – very important!), inserted the WHS install disc and started the re-install…until I came to the point where it should allow me to choose between a New Installation and a ReInstall – but it only offered me a New Install. So I started searching and thinking…

Continue reading “Workaround: WHS Server Reinstall – Option Not Available”

A little while ago I made a post recommending http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html to mount ISO images as drives.
But what if the disc image you have is not an ISO image – or if you just need some files from disc images every once in a while and don’t want to have an additional drive show up all the time?
Try http://imagemaster.codeplex.com/. This small suite consists of one program to work with files in disc images which can extract files, create ISO images and burn to disc, and another one that can convert Bin Image Files (.bin), Nero Image Files (.nrg), Alcohol Image Files (.mdf), CloneCd Image Files (.img) and DiscJuggler Image Files (.cdi) to ISO images.

Update: It seems that the project doesn’t exist any more at CodePlex, but you can still download the version 1.0.3.7 at http://www.softsea.com/review/Image-Master.html or http://www.freewarebb.com/files/file/7110-imagemaster/

For Windows XP, Microsoft has an easy to use image resizing Powertoy which you could download at Microsoft’s website .
You just right-clicked a jpg file in Windows Explorer and could easily re-size it.
The problem is that this tool is not available for Vista.
Most people can only complain, but there are others who can do something about it. And someone did. There is an Image Resizer Clone available for Vista (and Windows 7). You can download it at http://www.codeplex.com/PhotoToysClone.
The version at the time of this writing works great. Only things to watch for – make sure you download the right version (32 or 64 bit) and be aware that it strips out any colour profile that may have been saved in the image.
Finally a quick and easy resize option again.

The most commonly offered resolution to a non-available hibernate mode is to run “powercfg /hibernate on” at an administrative command prompt (to start it: Click “Start”, type “command” in the Start Search box, right-click “Command Prompt” in the Programs list, and then click “Run as administrator”).
Complicated – and not the right solution for most people.
I found out that it frequently has to do with the new “Hybrid Sleep” function in Vista. When this is enabled, hibernate is disabled. Since I don’t care for “Hybrid Sleep”, but rather prefer “Hibernate”, I changed it to allow hibernation as follows: Continue reading “Hibernate On A Vista Laptop Not Available”

Some people like the order of the programs in the taskbar to be, shall we say, predictable. I am one of them.

Usually I achive this by opening the programs after a reboot in a certain order, but every once in a while I need a different program (urgently) first – or Explorer crashes – and then I am out of luck.
My hand still guides the mouse to the spot where I usually have the item, but then I need to spend extra time finding out where it is now.
I came across programs a while ago that would re-shuffle the items, but I didn’t want to spend the memory to have that feature. But I gave up now.
I just installed one, and I should have done so a long time ago.

Continue reading “Move Buttons In The Windows Taskbar”

Font Squirrel is collecting free fonts which you can use in your business and for commercial print work.
On other free font sites you always have to read the font license agreements after downloading to make sure they are not just free for personal use, but also for business use, but not on this site.

This is what they have to say:

Free fonts have met their match. We know how hard it is to find quality freeware that is licensed for commercial work. We’ve done the hard work, hand-selecting these typefaces and presenting them in an easy-to-use format. Please help us by submitting your own free fonts or showing us where to find more. Thanks and enjoy!

So, head over there for your free fonts and help them find more.

Recently, I came across Startup Delayer by r2 Studios, which is a great startup manager.
Before starting with Windows Vista, I used to use Mike Lin’s Startup Control Panel to manage which programs I wanted to have started on boot and which ones to ignore.
On his recommendation, once I switched to Vista, I used the Vista built-in function:
“Windows Vista, after all these years, finally has a very good startup manager built-in; go to Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools, and then click on Manage Startup Programs on the left.”
I may fully switch to Startup Delayer now though, which not only allows me to disable some items, but to make others wait a bit before starting up.

Continue reading “Startup Delayer Speeds Up Windows Startup”