When you read that doesn’t your heart start beating ? Will the PC work fine when it starts the next time ?

Two days ago, I did what MS advices, Do Windows Update and this applies to VISTA which I happen to have and regret not knowing much about which old software that made holes in my wallet, will no work or not. Since this OS is here to stay, I guess, there is no escaping.

I came home after work. Turned on the PC. Now Internet won’t work. There under the Windows UPDATE, one item had failed. When I tried to remove it, there was no “Uninstall” on top. And without Internet, that particular update would be impossible. The troubleshooting panic started, I thought it was the modem, bad weather, the phone lines and what not and everything. Having spent almost an hour. I thought I remove some of the recent updates VISTA made by itself. I turn the PC back on. Hurray, I can now connect to the Internet.

As soon as I saw this, I went to control panel and disabled the UPDATE Windows Automatically to Manually. Until, I learn more about VISTA Service Pack, and when I get it that it is truly a Service Pack that makes all my installed softwares work, I won’t be using it. Am I the only one facing this problem ?

Have you had to remove windows update to get something done? I have. My Adobe PE 4.0 stopped working one day, removing one of those recent windows update made that program work.

So from my story here it goes,

• Don’t blame on anything. Relax first.
• Don’t unplug, plugback the modem that was just working fine unless you happen to have some kitties that jump around like mine.
• Try removing windows update, one at a time and see if your problem is resolved.
• Never use Internet Explorer, Rather use Safari or Mozilla Firefox and also arm the computer with latest anti-virus; Around $40 a year (with subscription only) and cost of programs can vary from $30 to $100 depending on what you want.  Also use the Windows Defender that Windows give it away for free.

One thing is for sure? Even on VISTA, when you fail to go online, it won’t tell you why ? Something opposite to what it does when a program crashes and often blaming on the software vendor. LOL !!

Well, based on my experience, make that VISTA update manual otherwise you could be headed for a disaster. Then again, if your PC don’t have antivirus, spyware blocker, peshing etc, some security updates are important.

Conclusion?

• VISTA still needs to go a long way before it can give us PEACE of mind. Constant updates on “Security” say a lot about what VISTA really is.  An Operating System in Progress. If anything starts happening wrong with the software VISTA gives a nice message and even reports what is causing the problem. My advice for troubleshooting for a PC that has VISTA is, start troubleshooting the VISTA itself then carry on.
• Apple is slow in taking advantange. Also Apple thinks that its products are for Rich people and for those who have Internet Access. What we think impossible today might change tomorrow. How long will users wait to see Pcs and Macs side by side near their computer store ?

• You have enabled file indexing feature
• You might have a virus, spy ware or you have a scheduled maintenance that’s running such as anti-virus or windows defender.
• Or it you could your old hard disk is old.
• Your have less memory and windows is creating what it calls “Paging File” or Virtual Memory; some kind of a file that acts like a temporary memory for your operating system to store memory and give you some performance. The file is deleted when the computer shuts down and it is created back again when the computer is booted.
• You should be running two or more programs, often called Multi-tasking.
• You forgot you are online, your VISTA is updating secretly [Dig in for an article related to this]
• You have setup your PC; folders and files shareable without any passwords, and you are online, and and someone is taking your files away without your knowledge.
• You have setup an unprotected wi-fi (someone could be using it) so setup your wifi with password and make it secure or unless you wish to give it away for free for all to use.
• You are running too many media players such as quick time, real player and Windows media player with Internet on.

If your PC is new, you sure have a new Hard disk. And if you PC is a  budget one like most of ours, and you want to get things done fast as well as prolong the life of your hard disk (i.e. not making it run like crazy all the time) you can actually disable the Indexing feature, run a defragmentation on a weekly basis, and of course have a good anti-virus program, disable file sharing and so on.

But remember, even if you have disabled the indexing feature and you type search on the explorer bar, Windows VISTA resumes indexing everything again.

Indexing makes it easier to find files just incase we forget where we kept our files. But you are smart, you know the most used folder “My Documents” So ? Save all your works there, Disable the indexing feature and you could solve some of the excessive hard disk spins. If you like, just index that folder and nothing else.

One of the easiest way to prolong the life of your Original Hard Disk is to buy “External Hard Disk” and store your documents, pictures, videos etc there. You can also use it as a “Scratch Disk” (a term commenly used in video-editing software, external hard disk is used extremely to create catch files, temporary files and when the video editing program finishes, it cleans all the files it created. The scratch is a good term; create - clean, create - clean; no it’s the something else, create - delete, create - delete, and everytime this happens, your hard disk is missed up, files are kept not in one line like you audio-CD track, they are scattered every where. Defrag you external hard disk once in a while) Doing video editing a-lot? Installing External hard disk is your top priority. i.e. if you want to increase the life of your main hard disk with operating system installed on it.

It is normal for a hard disk to spin.
Faster hard disk spin even faster. Well, you knew that didn’t you?

But if you suspect that you hard disk is spinning without a reason, take some time and find out.
You can use taskbar for this. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL (holding all together) and see which program are running, look under the service tab as well. Remove the opens you think you don’t need.

Hope this much helps. Also try minimizing the programs that open up on start-up. Well, not all of it. There is no point using a messenger service when all you cat is once month!

VISTA, as you know, is a RESOURCE hungry since it’s BIG, latest and the most advanced operating system ever built by our Microsoft. VISTA will spin our hard disk even more than Disk Operating System. LOL!!

Believe me, even when you are doing nothing ? VISTA spins our hard disk like crazy.  Have you noticed this.

Try this : Turn off your printer. Now Turn your printer on. Hard disk will start spinning and probably will stop in a few minutes. Shouldn’t such a smart VISTA already load what is required to print. Well blaming is easy. Perhaps you have HP printer or somesort and many of them come with utilities and these days printing is not just A4 or B4 size — you can print various layouts, designs and so on just by using the printer’s utility itself and printers have become so complex they are now 3 in one or two in one… you get the point right ? They act like a scanner, photo copy or faxer. Vista sure does need to popup the manufacturers controller [the utility] so goes the hard disk spin!

Comment if you have any problems, I will try to pass my knowledge. Excessive spinning of your hard disk not only will make it’s life shorter, you will love performance, stability.

One thing is for sure. Install only the program you will use, do a regular maintenance such as Defrag, Check for antivirus once a week, etc, and don’t worry about hard spins. It always does happen even if you leave you PC ON all night long while you are having a good-night sleep. A hard disk that doesn’t spin is Dead. When it spins more than it should, it will wear-out.

Ruben
“Good buy night lamps, I leave my PC on and there is a light in my room”

Now what else would you need? Perhaps a bunches of other software to just get many things done such as writing a document, making a greeting card for Christmas or for Valentines for that loved one or may be you would simply like to resize or play with a photo you took on your vacation to email to your Mum.

Should you just go out and buy everything you desire or demand.

It’s upto you. But if you are limited by budget, there are bunches free software created by wonderful community of people who share the same idea as you do, “Software should be FREE”

First thing to keep in mind. NEVER SAY FREE. SAY IT AGAIN Please! Never say free.

Fee in the sense as Free to use as long as you want to keep it, and when you get it it doesn’t have these things:

• No Adware - Some free stuff are free but you will be given Ads on top or buttom or even redirect your browser to Ads.
• No Malware - a secret program that is made to corrupt your system files or even damage other program files
• No Viruses - you know about it, don’t you ?
• No Spyware - now these are little or tiny programs that come to your system and spy on your activity and some are smart to send to the owner. They can even know the last credit card you used to buy a product from a shopping site such as AMAZON.com

So, be sure to understand that you are using. If FREE, look for a logo that says all of the above. Since your goal is to get good free programs without paying anything, you will be spending time doing un-nstalling for them trial software, demo or free to use for limited time often called as shareware.

Now, on this part 1, I am going to list a few programs with links for download. I encourage you to keep your anti-virus updated before you download use. And hey, Perhaps you already have some of them with you on your computer, then share what the problems or recommend other good free programs if you like.

Some Great FREE PROGRAMS YOU CAN USE WITH CONFIDENCE,
and they work with Windows VISTA too!

• HTML Kit - This is a free nice program. Use you can use this to create html page or even write a complete documents such as .txt or .php files. There are support, plug ins and much more. View your writings by line number so you can find-out where the error occurred, also has Spell Check Plug in. What else more would you want, download : here…

• Gspot - Even VISTA can’t tell you much about a video if it usage APPLE’s technology. Gspot is a tiny utility, works with VISTA also, you can drag a file or just open it and find a wealth of information about a video. It pretty much tells you everything about a video from video size, date taken, to number of frames, codecs for audio and video and more importantly - the size of the video. Download and have fun finding info about your video files. Supports all video files, visit site to get latest info and to download. here
• Paint.net - When will MICROSOFT give you a nice painting program for free? Well, let them not give it for free so other’s can do better. Here is one that tops all charts for me. Has wealth of tools you can use to enhance your photos, images and also do drawings. Download and just enjoy it. Supports .jpg, .bmp, .gif and all regular files for import and export. Download here… here from download.com
• Open Office -  a bit slower than MS Office suite, but it’s worth having it. Why? It’s free and has everything you can do from writing documents, spreadsheet, presentation and more. Thanks to Sun Microsoft for this wonderful program for those who can’t afford Microsoft. I have loved it since the version 1.0 See which version you can download now. Visit site, find download link and off you go. Save the file onto your computer then run it. Follow this link to download this what could be described as one of the best FREE Software on the Internet.. http://www.openoffice.org/
• FileZilla - Every webmaster knows this fast yet superb FTP client that makes it easy to upload files to your web server. Among the features include setting up local and remote folders on connection, resume failed connection and much more. A free FTP program doesn’t get better than this. If you aren’t into FTP, one day or the other, you will have a domain, then a website and you will want to make changes to your files, such as uploading templates to your content management software, or it might just be uploading recently charged HTML files. This is it! Download, use and enjoy. Download here
• VLC Player - Small in Size and Big in Doing. This simple player beats many players and works with Windows VISTA. Many users have even reported that problems that they had with other players unable to play certain videos are just solved by using this program. Try it. It loads faster than QuickTime Pro and Windows Media Player and plays all sorts of Media Files. All Thanks to wonderful community of VLC. Download here… [at videolane.org]
• Blender.org If you like to do learn or you are a die-hard fan on 3d Modeling, you don’t really need that $1K or $2K software similar to Auto Cad or Maya. Try this wonderful open source program; that’s a bit hard to learn but once you get the hang of it, you will love it. Blender does what you want to bland. Download here…
• Camstudio a simple nimble program to record your screen activity. Lauch and it will record. If you have any problems you can visit the site’s forum and get some help. Many use it to even make videos of stick figures, or games that they play. You can record in .avi or flash format and there are bunches of tools such as mouse pointer that can be used to create a tutorial video. Download here…
• Spy Search and Destroy - Who would have that a year ago that this small program would become so huge to help so many users to remove Spyware, Adware and Malware ? Now with bunches of options including a tiny program that stays in the TSR which watches what happens in your browser, for example if it tries to change your homepage, or tries to add a program in startup or even a spayware is detected when running or downloading, it will alert you. Download and enjoy it. Be sure to update the latest detection and scan your system. The program is now offered in many languages making regional usability at the top. Download here…

More in part 2, have you tried any of these? Know more, share!

Ruben

Windows media player opens the file but no sound. Went to microsoft.com for some help and no vail. Please help me how to get the pcmwaveformat codec, I am losing so any of my sounds that I had recorded using my microphone and I need to use those audio (.wav) files for my school project . Please help. Same is happening with a camcorder that records video in xvid and .wav PCM format. I can somehow view the video but no sound. Have I delayed any file or is there a file that I can download.

Your help would be much appreciated. Please help me!

Linda175

Narrator is the unknown lady that says, “Welcome”, “Windows Ease of Access Button”… bla bla just a quick and simple definition from me. But it is a great tool for those who can use it to use windows VISTA. Many blind people are out there and they sure will find this very useful as it speaks the options or location where you mouse pointer is, more so, it even tells you where you are on any section windows, for example, Control Panel, Programs etc.

For Those who aren’t visually impaired, you will find the VISTA’s Narrator constantly coming up at login screen even after you have unchecked this or that. The Narrator becomes annoying at times.

Don’t want it ?

Please Follow These Steps:

• Click Start Button
• Click Control Panel
• Click on the Link “Ease of Access”
• Then, Ease of Access Center.
• There on the left pane you will find a link; “Change Administrative Settings”, click on it.
• Untick those that don’t need to appear at the logon screen such as
• Click Apply.

Narrator might be set to automatically start on the logon page. If you don’t
need Narrator at the logon page, here is something you can try: go to

Start -> Control Panel -> Ease of Access -> Ease of Access Center, and then,
in the left pane, click Change Aadministrative settings. Under System,
Administrator settings, Clear the Apply all settings to the logon desktop
checkbox, and then click Save. See the image below. Here are some illustrations from the Control Panel:

Step 3

Is your problem solved ? Please comment or ask questions.A new category has been introduced, it’s called Ask For Help . This section is designed for you to post your question, if found suitable, admin will enable your question which will appear on the site, then other can comment and help you out. So go ahead, register if you have any questions to ask or even share. On Members can post articles. Thank you.

You may have noticed recently that new PCs claim to have Windows VISTA Service Pack 1 proudly displaying as part of the VISTA logo or a sticker on the CPU. If you bought a PC say about six months ago, you might want to do this update, since your VISTA was Vanella. The service PACK was released on Feb 6 2008.

What is this Vista Service Pack 1 ?

• It’s just a compilation of all the errors that VISTA faced, upon installing it makes your VISTA secure, reliable.
• It doesn’t give you any extra features.
• It makes VISTA recognize new hardwares.
• It makes VISTA more secure
• No, this is not a free software given by Microsoft with additional gadgets or free games.

Should I update it ?

• Don’t rush. Many have already complained that upon doing so, some of their programs don’t work again and they had to remove it completely. Some programs started running slowly, take this article that say’s Firefox (one of the most popular Internet Browsers) runs slow on a machine with 2G Ram and Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Many Tech gurus have agreed that VISTA’s Service Pack is a hidden treasure from Microsoft, much of what it does is only Microsoft knows.
• You will need to reboot your computer 3 times. That makes you wonder why ?
• I strongly advice you to read this wonderful article to learn more as you read on. View this article from PC Magazine’s online site - which has indepth analysis of this service package which you will find a good reading and useful as well.
• To learn A to Z about the package, please go here, Microsoft Website Just remember to read everything before you download and run this Service Pack. There a few bold letters there on the page, so read them and be cautious. Also the file size is huge. If you are on a dial-up, do this before you goto bed time! To download the service pack for all languages, go here KB936330 from their Knowledge Base
• Microsoft states on the above page if you have already clicked “Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is an update to Windows Vista that addresses key feedback from our customers. SP1 addresses specific reliability and performance issues, supports new types of hardware, and adds support for several emerging standards.” Those bold letters makes me wonder what they really mean? What are the emerging standards. Considering that you have updated recent updates as advised by your Windows Live Update, that is for updates related to “Security” you should be fine without running this update. I haven’t bothered about it. If you have installed it and have had any problems, discuss.

Vista encourages its users to download and use Service Pack 1, you can see for yourself whether it will benefit you or not. Here is their wonderful site where you can not only learn but discover VISTA that’s already on your PC. Anyone doing service pack upgrade, my best advise is, have those recovering CDs ready in-case something goes wrong, such as the nice program you use to make your video don’t work suddenly or some kind of weird error pops up or your Firefox becomes slow and so on. For update hungry ones, this is the site you need to go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/sp1.mspx

If you asked me the question, have I already done it. No. I am still waiting. There might be Service Pack 2 coming out soon. LOL !

Ruben

Recover factory settings Windows VISTA

“Your computer hard disk drive contains a software program called the Recovery Manager. The Recovery Manager program is a collection of software programs used to restore your computer to its original factory-shipped condition.” -

Run the manufactures software to create Recovery CD. Here we go; Run HP Total Care (or whatever program you have from your PC vendor)

If you have time, look at the D: and see if it says “Recovery (D:)” as the label name. Most HPs would call C: as “HP (C:). See below for further explanation.

It is important not to touch the Recovery Part of your Hard Disk. A program will use those to create Recovery CD for you. If you happen to open it by double-clicking on it, you will be alerted with a message similar to this or may be something else:

Recovery Partition
Warning!

Any change to this partition could
prevent any recovery later.

Most computers are now have special software from the computer manufacturers themselves such as HP Total Care Advisor by HP for HP computers and so on. Using these programs you can pretty much do extra such as create recovery CDs, backup and even fine-tune your Operating system.

When you buy your PC, you can buy Windows VISTA OS CDs, also recovery CDs; often both are not bundled in the price tag. So what should I do ? You can buy them or you can make them.  Follow these steps to create a recovery CDs.

Run the program, in this case we are running HP Recovering :

Suppose your pc is HP, run HP Total Care adviser program. Click on PC Help. The following screen pops up.

Click on the Link “Recover Factory Setting”, then you will be given this screen, click on the Create Recovery Discs, then click to create a set of recovery CDs. See Image below for help…

Upon doing all that you will be given this screen (please note, I have disabled many features on VISTA to make it run faster so your dialog boxes may look a bit different, fancy etc. But the method remains the same) Doing all that will bring you to do this screen.

Alternative Method.

If you have Windows VISTA Service Pack 1, you can do it by the OS itself:
Follow me… Start > All programs > Maintenance > Create a Recovery Disc. Burn those CDs and keep’um safe.

It’s safe to  be then sorry. If your PC encounters any problem later on, for say you can’t boot, you can insert those CDs and bring your PC back to life!

Enjoy VISTA!

Ruben

Final Tip: Assuming you have HP, you could do it with just one line of typing. Follow this:
Start > Run > type “C:\Windows\SMINST\CD Creator.exe“   (remove the quotations)

The program you are about to run would be displayed in the middle so you can know which program you are about to RUN. In this case, it shows Internet Explorer Program. Click Continue to run the program. Those who don’t want this dialog box, you can easily remove it. Just Watch a video tutorial or read the steps.

Watch this video :

Click here, if it fails to load and/or play.

Or

Follow These Steps

1. Login as Admin (i.e. your Administrative Account / User Name)
2. Click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety
3. Click User Accounts &gt Click on User Name of Icon
4. Click “User Account Control on or Off”
5. Untick User Account Control (UAC)
6. Restart The Computer.
7. Done!

Buying a PC is half the investment, the rest can be broken down into many factors; the software you purchase such as antivirus, spyware blocker, etc, replacing hard-disk after it went smooth running humming bird to wild rock heads in a disco, replacing your keyboard after kitties jumped and danced more than often, and not to forget -  your kids accidentally deleted your important files and now you are waiting  in line somewhere at the computer center for some help — All for your wallet!

Using some tips you can prolong the life of your computer, ultimately saving money for good. Windows VISTA calls this as “System and Maintenance” which is one of the most important part that often all us ignore much, or don’t have time for it look.

Your anti-virus will need to catch new viruses, so it must be updated regularly. Your VISTA wasnt’ fully secured when it was sold, so it will keep on asking you to update, your hard disk will be filled with bunches of temporary files as you install, uninstall programs, hard disk starts losing performance. What was once the fastest becomes slow day by day. It’s all because we never looked at the “Maintenance Issue”

We need to setup a schedule for our PCs.
A schedule to do the maintenance it requires.

• Backup of your Documents, Files, Photos, Videos, etc. - Do this as often as you like. An internal or external hard disk can be used for this purpose. Just copy paste the things you want to backup or use a backup utilities to make this task easier.
• Deleting Temporary Files - See image below [Click on the link Free Up Disk Space]
• Deleting System-Dump Error Files [ This is down by the above step ]
• De-fragging Hard Disk - [Click on the Link as shown in the image below]
• Updating Anti-virus and other Programs.
• Run Virus Scan
• Run Windows Defender Scan for Spyware, Malware etc.
• ************* All of the followings will follow as  continuation of this post and will be described in detailed ]
• Cleaning inside part of your CPU
• Cleaning your Mouse
• Cleaning your Keyboard
• Cleaning Other External Devices
• Those are some of the housekeeping works we all need to consider.

When we are on the computer, we just want to work, browse internet, but never want to do something boring do we ? Backup is Boaring. Defraging takes hours, it’s boring. Do something else while the computer does the maintenance work.  I like to goto bed leaving my computer ON once a week. Run the Maintenance  and Schedule works, goto bed.  Wake-up in the morning, smell the coffee and a PEACE of mind.

Here is a snap shot of VISTA’s Control Panel > System Maintenance. Note the two circles. I advice you to do those at least once a week. When doing Defrag, it’s best to turn off all programs that might be active. I stop my Apache Server, I stop my anti-virus, I stop my Windows Defender and all. I turn off the Modem So I am not connected to the Internet. I close everything. But Before I do all this, I do the first step, “Clean-up” Delete The Unwanted files which by the way is called as “Free up Disk Space”. There is no point running a defrag with all those files. Unwanted? What files could those be ? [

When you have bunches of software each requiring regular updates, it might worth using the “Schedule Tasks” see above. You can pretty much schedule any program to run, update etc at a given time provided that the computer is on but not on a sleep mode.

Having said all those,
Stick this banner on top part of your monitor case!

Another Image 4 U…….

How Does Disk Cleanup Work ?
Our Answer : It Simply Deletes Everything that VISTA assumes are unwanted.
And much of those files created by VISTA than by Programs.

Have a happy computing!

Ruben
p.s. See you again with Part 2 Soon.

• Processor
• Memory
• Graphic Card
• Hard Disk
• Monitor

Let’s go over each one of those in brief.

People keep telling us  we should know our goal for buying a new computer before we grab one. It is true, if we are just going to browse Internet, not burn any CDs, play some simple games, then we go for low-end PC - the cheapest one.

As time goes by, we will want more from our computer, play better games, may be make a video, edit a video, or do some photo editing and one day we will say G O D.. why did we not get that much powerful computer in the first place?

Most of us will be happy with Vista Home Premium. Rumors go, Vista is the most resource hungry operating system ever developed as of today. VISTA can use 1GB itself at times making all programs halt or run like a turtle.

Recommendation: Mid range PCs with 2 to 3GB RAM, 256 to 500MB Graphic Card, and Intel Duel core Processor, 500 GB hard disk should be enough. Monitor? Pick any but bigger the better if you are using programs that use lots of tools such as those you can find in video editing or photo editing with tools like windows for colors, tool bars, etc. You can place them away from your working area.

If possible, ask your vendor to put extra hard disk to be used Internally. Install all programs etc on that disk also use it as a scratch disk for video editing software or others. By having Internal hard disk, the data transfer will be much faster than through USB connected external hard disk.

Conclusion: Budget PC will ask you for more as your requirements grow. Because VISTA is a great operating system and to enjoy it fully you need  a nice PC, perhaps the term would be fully loaded one!

Save now, buy a good one. Otherwise, you will be upgrading RAM, upgrading graphic card and so on. Yeah, you won’t be happy when you have to wait for 30 minutes just to upload photos from your digital camcorder which happen to accidentally record a video in between your snaps…… lol !!

Most PC manufactures classify their computers into these categories and bring bunches of models out in the market adding and replacing this or that (basically adding or reducing these; RAM, and/or Graphic Card and/or Processor And/or Size of the Monitor) In my view, Most of your money will goto Graphic Card than any other. Processors, Motherboards have become cheap, and so have the monitors.

Typical Classifications Made by PC Makers

• 1. Home & Home Office (or Everyday Computing )
• 2. Small & Medium Business (or Versatile Computing)
• 3. Large Business or (or Gaming PC )
• 4. Government, Education, Health-Care & Life Sciences (or For Rich People Only)

Forget about all those classifications. If I goto a store with those classifications, I will be even confused. Home and Home Office. What exactly are they trying to sell us ? A computer for Home Office ? Home ? Makes me laugh just by those classifications. VISTA is hungry in resources, so try to buy everything more. Forget the classification as shown above (listed here if you have learned that before)

And one more advice….. Say no to SLIM if you are buying a desktop. If you decide to upgrade, it will be much easier to add ram or other components if there are more spaces inside. Slim, Compact desktops are difficult to open and operate inside. Imagine this– You want to add just 1 GB ram, what if, you had to remove the hard-disk ? Desktop should be big, fully loaded with resources not Slim. Slim desktops seems to heat faster than bigger ones. That’s my experience but I don’t know if there is a fact to back that.

Enjoy buying your VISTA.

Ruben
C U Soon.