Windows

If you've ever filled up your c: drive on a big print job, particularly one being sent to a print server, or if you just want to minimise disk activity on c: because it can get itself terminally fragmented, you can wrest back control.

Sun 6th Sep 2009:

Free software!

A treasure trove of simple free utilities, such as cd burning and wave editing.

Sat 29th Aug 2009:

Number lock on windows XP

Setting the number lock on or off by default required a few hacks.

Sun 8th Feb 2009:

Changing the Outlook 2007 colour scheme

After ten minutes digging around in Outlook 2007 to find out how to get rid of the pastel blue colour scheme, Google did the business and found out for me.

Sun 25th Jan 2009:

Microsoft's free file sync toy for Windows

If you want to regularly back up files, or synchronise two computers etc., and are running windows, Synctoy is pretty good.

Thu 10th Jul 2008:

8th July Windows Update KB951748 breaks Zonealarm

Pro-bono visit #1 of 2. No internet access. Problem goes away when Zonealarm is turned off. Turns out that Microsoft's fix for a DNS vulnerability also breaks Zonealarm.

Thu 26th Jun 2008:

Bill Gates gets frustrated by Windows as well

A "leaked" email that Bill Gates sent shows that when Microsoft delivered things that didn't make sense or irritated users, it was likely to result in an email from Bill Gates wanting to know what was going to be done about it.

Wed 4th Jun 2008:

Clipboard stops working (a reason to upgrade to Windows Vista)

I use terminal services a lot to get at windows sessions running inside vmware. Clipboard transfer between Linux, where the terminal services client is running, and Windows frequently breaks. I found a couple of blog posts about troubleshooting clipboard problems, and they deal with terminal services (rdpclip) in particular.

Tue 6th May 2008:

XP Service Pack 3 is out

I only mention this because Slashdot hasn't noticed yet, but my windows desktop just offered me service pack three as a download. Obviously, being a geek, I've already downloaded a copy with the unfeasibly long filename and built a couple of custom install CDs with it integrated - to save all the faffing about with Windows Update. But one has to live up to one's public service obligation.

Mon 7th Apr 2008:

Debugging windows - what a hardware boo boo looks like

Link below steps through debugging of a blue screen of death in windows. I don't follow a lot of it because I'm not a 'C' hacker. But, simplistically, the system is looking to run a program that's in memory. The address in memory that the program starts is given a name, technically comprising a 'pointer'.

Sun 23rd Mar 2008:

Breaking websites with IE7 and Firefox - timeshifting the user agent string in IE7.

I occasionally find that submitting information on websites breaks with Firefox and Internet Explorer - empty drop-downs is quite a good one, and then submitting the information fails as well.

Sat 2nd Feb 2008:

Windows Vista Lite

It maybe irrelevant if the next release of windows does come out early, but paring back Windows Vista to something usable is probably a good place to start.

Sun 13th Jan 2008:

Problems with program management/MSI database in windows

I had problems yesterday with an Acrobat Reader 8 install that wasn't behaving. The PDF file associations were still registered to Acrobat 7, so email attachments etc were failing.

Tue 16th Oct 2007:

Vista can run out of memory copying files!

There's a memory leak in Windows Vista that means the system can run out of memory copying lots of files. A 'not enough memory to complete this operation' error occurs, and the task it probably not completed. Microsoft has released a special piece of Duck Tape to resolve this fault in the Duck Tape, string, and chewing gum solution that is Windows Vista.

Sun 19th Aug 2007:

Vista: "the litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly."

So says the ex-editor of PC Magazine in the US.

Earlier Stories

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