You Can Fix It

In any workforce after a rollout upgrade to an OS there are legacy programs that will not come along. There are then stubborn cheap people who refuse to upgrade the software and demand IT make it work. We ran into this case this week for a computer that serves a dual purpose on to capture data from a old testing device and then report this data in new Office 2010. The reason the data needs to be in Office 2010 is the senior management has 2010 and do not want to wait for a converter. Here is our work around.
The first thing was needed to fin a way to run DOS on top of Windows 7 and we found a website with software that can help. Go to and download DOSbox.com install the program. If you have not seen it before it also works on Vista.

You need to move the DOS data to one folder
Run the program DOSbox
In the command you need type the path of that folder in the command
mount C C:\FolderwhereweputDOS

You can then do a simple DIR command and the list of your files will appear.
Then you only need to find the (.exe) file the runs your program
Type this at the prompt and hit enter.
When you are done you can exit the program as you normally would but DOSBox will stay open.
To exit this just hit the Escape key and type Exit

You return back to the year 2010.

When you used Windows XP there were many times you needed to open the Hidden System Files and Folders there are times this is going ot be needed when using Windows 7 as well. There are many tweaks and functions that require viewing and manipulating the hidden system files and folders. We have run inot this twice in the last week so in keeping up with not want to hunt down how you view them again we are posting it here. It is a simple seven step operation and just like in XP you get everything you need to make changes and delete things that are left behind an uninstall will not remove.

Open a Windows Explorer window
Select Organize
Scroll down to Click Folder and search options
This will open on the General tab Click on the View tab in the middle
This will look like XP as you change the radio button
from Dont Select Show hidden files, folders, and drives
to Select Show hidden files, folders, and drives
The big trick here is if you want to show expose the hidden files and folders on your entire computer, then click Apply to Folders button and confirm. If you do not do this at this time the it only changes the settings for the current folder.
Click OK to complete

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of AffinityClick. All opinions are 100% mine.

We are all set up an humming using the new AffinityClick and could not be happier with it. We have been looking for a real alternative to Google Adsense for a long time. AffinityClick is a bloggers dream and the new way to Generate revenue from your blog. AffinityClick spent the last year building out a great new service that takes products from merchants, 15,000 of them to be exact and re-distributes them in the form of a unique product placement on a bloggers website. We signed up it was painless and free. We set up a widget you can see it in the panel on the right. They offer Medium Rectangle size 300×250, Leaderboard 728×90, and a Wide Skyscraper 160×600. You give some category keyword to help out with the ads you are sent. Our favorite part so far is the website performance reports because they are telling you how many times your page has been loaded. This is great information which of course includes how much money you are making. Another feature is the event list where you can schedule events like posts, layout changes and ad campaign. You can adjust your reports time frame and the list of things you can do go and on. We are on board and you will see this little widget for years to come. Google Adsense is no longer needed or wanted we are going with Affinityclick.

In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to format (or reformat), and then click Format.

In the Format dialog box, type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step.
Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box. If you want, you can also change the disk allocation unit size, specify whether you want to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes.

Click OK when you are prompted to format the volume. The format process starts
To view the properties of a partition or logical drive:
In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want, and then click Properties

Click the appropriate tab to view the appropriate property
How to delete a partition or a logical drive
To delete a partition or logical drive:
In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to delete, and then click Delete Partition or Delete Logical Drive

Click Yes when you are prompted to delete the partition or logical drive. The partition or logical drive is deleted

Disk Management displays status descriptions in graphical view and under the Status column of list view to inform you of the current status of the disk or volume. Use these status descriptions to help you detect and troubleshoot disk and volume failures. The following is a partial list of disk and volume status descriptions :

Online - This is the normal disk status when the disk is accessible and functioning correctly.

Healthy - This is the normal volume status when the volume is accessible and functioning correctly.

Unreadable - The disk is inaccessible because of possible hardware failure, corruption, or I/O errors.

While possible to store the images within the Microsoft Access database itself as OLE objects, normally it’s not the preferred way. The preferred way to display images is to store the complete path and filename to the actual files themselves within a table, and then use the Image tool to update the display. The following shows you how to display Windows bitmap images on a Microsoft Access form without storing the images in a Microsoft Access table.

Creating the Table to Store File and Path Data:
Create a new table that is named Imagetable and then add a text field that is named ImagePath.
Open the Imagetable table in Datasheet view and then add the path and the name of a bitmap file to each record. The following examples show how the records might look:
c:\windows\photo1.bmp
c:\windows\photo2.bmp
c:\windows\photo3.bmp

You can use the AutoReport Wizard to create a new report that is based on the ImageTable table. Name the report ImageReport. Open ImageReport in Design view and then add an image control to the report by using the Image tool in the toolbox. You are prompted to select an image to insert. Select any image that is available on your computer. Name the control ImageFrame.

Set the Format Event of the “Details” section of the report to the following Event Procedure:

Private Sub Detail_Format(Cancel As Integer, FormatCount As Integer)
Me![Imageframe].Picture = Me![Imagepath]
End Sub

Open the ImageReport in Print Preview mode.

The big advantage to Windows 7 is the homegroup. You can use this to share music, printers, files and folders through all the machined in your house. It is also the way you will be able to seen your screen wireless to the HD television.

Open HomeGroup by clicking the Start button
Clicking Control Panel
Type homegroup in the search box
Click on HomeGroup.
To connect to the network that the homegroup is on follow these steps:
Click the network icon in the notification area of your taskbar.
Click the network you want to connect to, and then click Connect.
After you’ve connected to the network, you can join a homegroup on your network.
Computers must be running Windows 7 to join a homegroup. HomeGroup is available in all editions of Windows 7. In Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic, you can join a homegroup, but you can’t create one.

The network location might not be set to Home. HomeGroup only works on home networks. To change your network location, follow these steps:

Open Network and Sharing Center by clicking the Start button and then click Control Panel. In the search box, type network, and then click Network and Sharing Center.
Click Work network or Public network, and then click Home network.

The other computers in your homegroup might not be in the home, left the homegroup, turned off, sleeping, or hibernating. The computer on which the homegroup was created might have been restarted and no one has logged on to it. Some services that HomeGroup needs don’t start until after logon. Make sure someone logs on to the computer that initially created the homegroup.

There are times when Microsoft Office Word 2003 breaks the template and forced the user to open in safe mode. We recommend trying a System Restore first. If that does not work you could try and Office Detect and Repair. Most of the time if it is a broken template these two steps will not fix the problem. These next series of steps should fix the problem you may want to back up any files we say to delete before you actually get rid of them. We have had success fixing the problem of opening in safe using this method.

First Close everything that is open. So you have a empty desktop.
Open My Computer
On the Menu bar click on
TOOLS
FOLDEROPTIONS

This box should open
Click on the VIEW tab
We want to change to SHOW HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS
This might already be selected if not select, APPLY and OK

Then close everything again back to desktop.
This will not work if OUTLOOK is open either

Right click on the START button and choose EXPLORE
Click on
Application Data
Microsoft
Templates
Find and Delete the file Normal.dot and any other files that might look like (~$Normal.dot)
you should copy these to a jump drive in case you need them if Word still does not open.
Once these file(s) are deleted, close everything and OPEN WORD again.

This will show you how to change the Windows 7 pinned Windows Explorer taskbar icon from the default Open To the Libraries window target to Open To the Network Connection
By design in Windows, these shortcuts will open a new window in a new process (explorer.exe) each time you use the shortcut. When you close the opened window from the shortcut, the extra explorer.exe process will close with it as well a few moments afterwards.
Right now the Windows Explorer icon pinned to the taskbar Opens to Libraries by default or Computer You can change this to open to something you use. We changed it to Network Connection because we need to open that often in our travels.

Right click on the pinned Windows Explorer taskbar icon, then right click on Windows Explorer scroll down and click on Properties.

In the Shortcut tab, make sure that the field box to the right of Start in is empty.
In the Shortcut tab and to the right of Target, type or copy the location in bold below you want the Windows Explorer icon to open to instead, then click on OK.

It is not as intuitive as you would thin so you need to a syntax like this:

%windir%\explorer.exe [/n][/e][,/root],X,[[/Select],Y]

X specifies the object, and optionally with sub-object Y.
The /e switch shows the left Windows Explorer tree view navigation pane together with the right pane in list view while /n hides the left navigation pane. When the /root parameter is present, Explorer.exe will explore the root object X and objects belonging to X.

To use the Network Connections or My Network Place
%windir%\explorer.exe /n,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\::{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}\::{7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}

You can do this for any item that you know it’s {CLSID} registry entry for.

%windir%\explorer.exe /n, /e, /select, C:\somefolder

This will increase the amount of folders to be remembered
for changes to the folder view settings.

Open the Start Menu
In the Search box, type regedit and press Enter
Click on Continue in the User Account Control (UAC) box
Scroll to this key in the Regedit:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell

In the right pane, right click on BagMRU Size.
NOTE: If you do not have the BagMRU Size value,
then right click on a empty space in the right pane and
click on New and DWORD (32-bit) Value

Type in BagMRU Size and press enter
Click on Modify
Dot the Decimal and type 20000 folders
Click on OK
**5000 is the default number of folders**

This will show you how to fix the error when Windows claims “This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action” To fix this error message you can click on the Manage context menu item for the Computer button in the Start Menu. This reason is usually caused by trying to change the shortcut overlay arrow icon using the improper XP method of deleting the IsShortcut string value in the registry instead of using the proper Windows 7 method “This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel.”

Follow these steps to Fix Manually in the Registry

Open the Start Menu, and type regedit in the search box and press enter.
If prompted by the UAC, then click on Yes
In regedit, navigate to the location below.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile

In the right pane of inkfile, right click on a empty space and click on New and String Value.
Type in IsShortcut for the name and press enter.
Close regedit.
It is always a best practice to restart the computer after you make any changes to the registry.

Basic disk storage supports partition-oriented disks. A basic disk is a physical disk that contains primary partitions, extended partitions, or logical drives. Partitions and logical drives on basic disks are also known as basic volumes. You can create up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and one extended partition, which contain logical drives

To start Disk Management
Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view
To create a new partition or logical drive on a basic disk:
In the Disk Management window

To create a new partition, right-click unallocated space on the basic disk where you want to create the partition, and then click New Partition
To create a new logical drive in an extended partition, right-click free space on an extended partition where you want to create the logical drive, and then click New Logical Drive.
In the New Partition Wizard, click Next

Click the type of partition that you want to create (either Primary partition, Extended partition, or Logical drive), and then click Next.

Specify the size of the partition in the Partition size in MB box, and then click Next
Decide whether to manually assign a drive letter, let the system automatically enumerate the drive, or do not assign a drive letter to the new partition or logical drive, and then click Next
Specify the formatting options you want to use by using one of the following procedures
If you do not want to format the partition, click Do not format this partition, and then click Next

If you want to format the partition, click Format this partition with the following settings, and then complete the following procedure in the Format dialog box
Type a name for the volume in the Volume label box. This is an optional step

Click the file system that you want to use in the File system box
You can change the disk allocation unit size, and then specify whether to perform a quick format, or enable file and folder compression on NTFS volumes
Click Next

Confirm that the options that selected are correct, and then click Finish
The new partition or logical drive is created in the Disk Management window

This will show you how to encrypt files using Windows XP with EFS (Encrypting File System). EFS is already built into your existing Windows XP Pro machine. You can use this to protect your files from other users.

There are a couple of rules as EFS only works on the Windows NTFS file system. EFS does not run if there is no recovery agent certificate, but it does designate a recovery agent account by default and generates the necessary certificate if you do not. You can use EFS to encrypt or decrypt data on a remote computer, but you cannot use it to encrypt data sent over the network. You will not be able to encrypt system files, folders or compressed files and folders until you decompress them.The best practice is to encrypt an entire folder this ensures that the temporary copies of encrypted files that it contains are also encrypted. You can also copy a file into an encrypted folder encrypts the file, but moving it into the folder leaves the file encrypted or unencrypted, just as it was before you copied the file. Moving or copying EFS files to another file system removes the encryption, but backing them up preserves the encryption.

You need to Backup and retain your certificate keys to EFS. Your data will be useless if you ever need to recover your system without the correct EFS certificate keys.
Right-click the folder you want, and then click Properties.
On the General tab, click Advanced.
Select the Encrypt contents to secure data check box
click OK
click OK

Click Apply changes to this folder only or Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files as appropriate.

When you need to update a driver or install a driver missed during installation, follow this procedure for manually installing the device. Make sure you have the latest driver; it is Vista compatible and is correct for your 32-bit or 64-bit system. We have seen with Vista that you might need to use the old XP series driver to make certain functions work.

Open the Control Panel switch to Standard View – this makes for ease in finding the device that is not working.

Click on System and Maintenance and then System
Under Tasks, click on Device Manager
Provide administrative credentials for this machine you can turn the UAC off or suspends before you begin to not see this message.

Click on the (+) sign next to the device that you wish to install a driver for to expand it.
Right click on the selected device and click Properties.
Click on the Driver tab.
Click on the Update Driver
Click on Browse my computer for driver software

Click on Browse… and locate the required driver. It is best here to pick on the DLL required. You might have to choose a few to find the right one. You might have to use a driver that does not have Microsoft Windows Vista signature. If this message appears click on continue anyway.

Click on Next and follow the instructions given by the device driver install package.

Defragmentation of hard disk under Windows Vista has changed. The defrag utility does not really give you any detailed information about your hard disk. The changes between Windows Vista defrag and XP defrag tool. The default Vista setting is a weekly schedule is more than adequate: too frequent and the constant defragmentation causes additional wear and tear on the hard disk for very little additional gain. You might want to override this default mechanism. To use the command line defrag tool in Windows Vista, you have to run the Command Prompt as an administrator. There are many thought on the importance of the defrag. defragmentation is a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation in file systems. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the disk to store the pieces of each file close together and contiguously. It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Some defragmenters also try to keep smaller files within a single directory together, as they are often accessed in sequence. The movement of the hard drive’s read/write heads over different areas of the disk when accessing fragmented files is slower, compared to accessing a non fragmented file in sequence, without moving the read/write heads.

To view a file fragmentation analysis of your C: drive, type:
Open a command prompt and type the following command and appropriate switches
defrag c: -a -v

To defragment a particular drive, say C:, type:
Open a command prompt and type the following command and appropriate switches
defrag c: -v -r

From time to time, you either want to turn the Gadgets feature in Windows 7 on or off. The Gadgets are turned on by default in Windows 7. Sometimes for more screen real estate, you can decide to remove the gadgets. Turning this feature off will remove Gadgets from the desktop context menu, and close any open gadgets for all users on the computer.

To turn them on or off follow these steps
Open Windows and Features.
To Turn On the Gadgets Feature

Check the Windows Gadget Platform box, and click on OK. (This is the default setting)

To Turn Off the Gadgets Feature
Uncheck the Windows Gadget Platform box, and click on OK.

Click on the Restart Now to apply

Depending on your choice when you machine restarts, the Gadgets will be displayed or not.

Windows 7 has lived up to the reputation but there are a couple of things that we have missed from older versions. We did like the Quick Launch toolbar and that has been removed in Windows 7. If you have used it before you know, it was a way to keep using this form of navigation. There is three quick steps and registry hack away from having it back. The did not remove it totally in Windows 7 you can enable it.

Right-click on the Taskbar.
Mouseover Toolbars and select New toolbar.

In the Folder textbox, input the following:

%SystemDrive%\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Click on the Select Folder button.
The Quick Launch Bar will appear. Unlock the Taskbar by right-clicking on the taskbar and unchecking Lock Taskbar. Move the Quick Launch Bar to the desired location on the taskbar and then relock the taskbar.

That all there is to it.

By default, Window 7’s Onscreen Keyboard has the numeric key pad disabled. If you use numbers a lot, you will want to enable the key pad to make it easier to input numbers.

Open the Onscreen Keyboard. (Click the Orb, select All Programs, Accessories, Ease of Access).
Go to the bottom, right hand side of the keyboard and click the Options key.
Check the Turn on numeric key pad checkbox.
Click OK.

If you want to change the current setting for the Start Menu power button because they are not what you use. There is a couple of quick click and you can easily change them to sleep, hibernate, or shutdown.

This is the steps to take:

Right-click the Taskbar.
Select Properties.
Click the Start Menu tab.
Use the Power button action dropdown to select the desired setting
Switch User, Log off, Lock, Restart, Sleep, Hibernate, or Shut Down.
Click OK

When there is a Windows Updates they may force your computer to reboot. This can be huge pain if you are in the middle of something or even running other applications. There is a way you can prevent this from happening by making a simple change to the registry.

Click the Start Button.
Go to the Search programs and files textbox and type regedit.
Select regedit.exe from the results.
When the UAC prompt appears, click the Yes button.
Navigate to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Polices\Microsoft\Windows

In the right pane, right-click an empty area.
Click New and select Key.
Name the newly created key WindowsUpdate.
In the left pane, right-click the newly created WindowsUpdate.
Click New and select Key.
Name the newly created key AU.
Making sure that the new key is selected in the left pane, right-click an empty area.
Click New and select DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the newly created DWORD NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers.
Right-click the newly created DWORD and click Modify.
In the Value date textbox, make the value 1 and click OK.
Close regedit and Restart your computer

There have been a few requests to show you how to select or change a user account to have Windows 7 automatically log on to at startup. If you had only have one user account that is not password protected on the computer, then Windows 7 will automatically log on to that account at startup. This only happens when you have more than one user account and the user account that you want to have Windows 7 log on to automatically at startup. This can only be done while logged on to an administrator account. Setting your computer to automatically log on to a user account at startup could pose a security risk if you share the computer or there are other people about that could use your computer.

Open the Start Menu.
In the search line, type netplwiz or control userpasswords2 and press Enter.

To Turn On Automatic Log On for a User Account Check the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box.

Click on the user account name, that you want to have automatically log on at startup, to highlight it.

Uncheck the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box.

Click OK.

Check the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box, and click on the Apply button. Select the other user account name, that you want to have automatically log on at startup instead, to highlight it.

Uncheck the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box. Click OK

Enter the User Account Password -In the Password field, enter the selected user account’s password. If the user account does not have a password, then leave this field empty. In the Confirm Password field, enter the selected user account’s password again to confirm.

Click OK.