If you have Windows XP, take a moment to see which service pack you have.

Find “My Computer” on your desktop. If you can’t find it there, click on start and find it on the start menu. Once you find “My Computer”, right-click on it and choose properties.

The window that comes up will tell you what version of windows you have and will say what the latest service pack that is installed on your computer.

If it says Service Pack 3, you’re good to go. If it says Service Pack 2, then we highly recommend that you upgrade to Service Pack 3 as soon as possible. Why, you ask? Well, for security reasons, of course. Microsoft has ended support for Service Pack 2, so if you have Service Pack 2, you won’t be receiving any more security updates until you install Service Pack 3.

To upgrade, click on “Start” and then click on “All Programs” and then click on “Windows Update”. Once Windows update comes up, click on the express button. If you are a little behind on updates, you might have to do this several times and you will probably have to reboot between updates. But keep updating until there are no more high priority updates. Service Pack 3 will be one of those high priority updates.

Share on Facebook

Microsoft released Windows XP in October of 2001. 6 years later, Vista was released in January of 2007. And due to problems with Vista and a bad reputation, two and a half years later, Windows 7 was released in July of 2009.

As of June 2010, Windows is the operating system for about 91% of computers. Mac OS runs about 6% of computers and Linux about 1%.

56% of computers run Windows XP, 18% run Vista, and 16% run Windows 7. Windows XP is by far the dominant operating system. This is primarily because XP was around for 6 years before Microsoft released the next version of Windows (Vista). Vista had a lot of problems when it was first released which caused a lot of people to go back to XP. Windows 7 has done much better than Vista and should do a good job of replacing XP.

Even though Windows 7 has been out less than a year, it has almost caught up to the number of computers with Vista on them, and Vista has been out three and a half years! That says something right there.

“That’s interesting.”, you say, “But why are you telling me this?” I’m telling you because Windows XP has a limited life. Microsoft will stop releasing security updates for Windows XP on August 4, 2014. And that’s important because your security software can’t protect your computer on its own. You need those security updates to help keep your computer from becoming infected.

This message is primarily aimed at Businesses who have a lot of computers and need to plan ahead for replacing them. Four years may seem like a long way away, but it will be here before you know it. That means that in the next 4 years, 56% of computers will need to be upgraded or replaced.

Can you upgrade your XP systems to Windows 7? You can, but we don’t recommend it. Most systems with XP just don’t have the hardware to run Windows 7 well. It will run, but it will be slow. Why upgrade if it’s going to be slower? A few XP systems may be OK with Windows 7, but most will need to be replaced.

Share on Facebook

Although it’s getting harder and harder to find new systems with XP on them, they are still available. Microsoft has a program that many manufacturers offer on certain systems where you can order a system with Windows 7 on it and have it downgraded to XP. When you receive the computer, it has XP on it, but you also have a license for Windows 7 and it comes with the DVD to install Windows 7.

That program has been around a while, but it won’t be here forever. Microsoft has not set an exact date for the end of that program but has said it will end on or before April 2011. On or before means it could end before April of next year.

The only reason to purchase XP systems at this time is if you have software or devices that just don’t work on Windows 7. Businesses with a lot of XP systems may prefer to keep all of their systems on one operating system and may want XP systems as well.

Can you have XP, Vista, and Windows 7 systems all on the same network? Certainly. Can there be issues with that? Of course. It’s not always possible to have all of your computers on the same operating system, but when possible, it’s a good idea because it keeps it simple and consistent.

If you are considering purchasing a new computer and you want XP, we recommend that you purchase it before September 2010, just to be safe. We aren’t sure how much warning Microsoft will give us before they give it the Axe.

Once that program has been discontinued, that doesn’t mean you can’t get XP anymore. It just means new computers won’t come with XP installed on them. You can still buy Windows XP and install it on a computer. But this is something we would recommend you let us handle for you. Before purchasing a computer that you plan to install XP on, let us make sure that XP drivers are available for that computer. Installing XP might be tricky as well when it comes to loading those drivers, so we would also recommend you let us do that as well.

But for now, you can still purchase a new computer with XP already loaded on it. It costs an extra $100 to get a Dell computer with XP on it as opposed to Windows 7 and XP is not available on all models. If you want to purchase an XP computer, let us know and we will get you some quotes on Dell computers with XP on them.

Share on Facebook

Several customers have contacted us about a news story regarding the F1 key on Windows XP systems. There have been stories on the news and emails circulating around that it is not safe to press the F1 key on a Windows XP system. The stories claim that pressing F1 on an XP system could infect your computer.

The truth is that there is a vulnerability in Windows XP systems with the F1 key (which is the standard help key in Windows). This vulnerability does not exist in Vista or Windows 7.

However, it’s not as scary as it sounds. The bottom line is that it’s safe to use the F1 key when running software on your Windows XP system, but if a Website or an email pops up a Window and tells you to press F1 for some reason, DO NOT DO IT! If you encounter one of these pop-ups and you can’t get rid of it and the only way out seems to be to hit F1, don’t do it. If you know how to use task manager, end all tasks called iexplore. If you don’t, just reboot.

Share on Facebook

If you decide to purchase a new computer, there is something you should be aware of.  When you buy a new computer you assume that it’s all clean, tuned-up, and running as good as it can. Unfortunately, this usually isn’t the case. New computers often come with a lot of junk software installed on them. Free offers, trial versions, advertisements, and so forth. Often times these junk utilities run when your computer starts up. Not all of them are junk. They might just be programs you don’t need or use. All of this extra stuff on your computer that you don’t want or need takes up space and slows your computer down.

The hard drives on new computers are usually very fragmented as well lowering the performance of your new computer down by another notch. New computers are also not really tuned-up and configured for the best performance either.

If you purchase a new computer from Computer Troubleshooters, we take care of all of this for you before we deliver the computer to you. If you bought a computer from someone else, we can clean and tune your computer for you.

Share on Facebook

Screen, or display resolution is a term used to describe a setting in Windows that specifies how things will be displayed on  your computer screen. It specifies the size and quality of what is displayed on the screen. It is specified in two numbers. Height and width. These numbers are each in pixels.

A common screen resolution for a screen that is not a wide screen monitor is 1024 x 768. 1024 is the width while 768 is the height. Widescreen monitors are wider, so the first number is even bigger in comparison to a non-widescreen monitor. 1440 x 900 is a typical screen resolution for a widescreen monitor.

When it comes to display resolution, the higher the numbers, the smaller things will be, but the more stuff will fit on the screen at one time. And the lower the numbers, the bigger things will be and the less stuff will fit on the screen and you will find yourself scrolling left and right and up and down a lot.

If your eyesight isn’t too good, or you find yourself straining to read what’s on your computer screen, try lowering  your screen resolution. For example, if your screen resolution is 1024×768, try lowering it to 800×600. You can always change it back if you don’t like it.

Something else to be aware of is that just because Windows will let you change your screen resolution to a really high number, doesn’t mean your monitor can handle that resolution. If you change the resolution to something and your monitor goes black, that means your monitor can’t handle that resolution. But don’t worry. Just wait 15 seconds and it will revert back and you can try another resolution.

The flat screen monitors we have today usually have what is called a native resolution. This is the recommended resolution. It doesn’t mean you have to use that resolution. It just means that what the monitor was designed for. It will still work at other resolutions.

If you select the wrong resolution it can make things look distorted. Words and pictures might look stretched or squeezed. Or you may not be able to see everything on the screen.

To change the screen resolution on your computer, use the following steps:

XP

o   Click on Start and then Control Panel

o   Double-click on Display.

o   Click on the settings tab

o   Move the slider to the desired screen resolution and click apply.

o   Windows will change the resolution and ask you to confirm you want to keep it. If you want to keep it, click yes. If the screen went black or is too distorted to read, just wait and Windows will set it back to what it was before if you do not confirm.

Vista

o   Click on the button formally known as start and then click on Control Panel

o   Type the word: display

o   Now click on “Change display settings”

o   Move the slider to the desired screen resolution and click apply.

o   Windows will change the resolution and ask you to confirm you want to keep it. If you want to keep it, click yes. If the screen went black or is too distorted to read, just wait and Windows will set it back to what it was before if you do not confirm.

It is possible to change a setting called Font Size. For example, if you have trouble reading what’s on the screen, you can keep the same screen resolution and make your font size bigger. However, we do not recommend using this setting because it totally messes up the formatting of most websites and computer applications. The best way is to just change your screen resolution.

Share on Facebook

The Windows desktop is the main screen in Windows that has all of your icons on it. At times, you may have several programs open on the screen, but you want to get to your desktop. You can minimize each program one at a time. But there is an easier way.

Both Windows XP and Vista have a feature called “Show Desktop”. It’s a quick way to minimize all of your running programs so you can see the icons on your desktop. There are two ways to engage the show desktop function.

Vista and XP, by default, have an icon next to the start button that you can click that will execute the show desktop function. The picture to the left shows the default location of the Show Desktop icon and what it looks like in Windows XP. In Windows Vista, the position of the icon is the same, but the icon itself looks different. The icon pictured to the right is what it looks like in Windows Vista.

Be aware, however, that this icon can be turned off or moved, so it’s possible you may not  have that icon turned on, or it may be hidden. Do you have any icons next to your start button? If you don’t, then you’ll need to turn Quick Launch on. To do that, right click on a blank area of the task bar (that bar at the bottom of the screen) and choose properties from the pop-up menu. Then place a checkmark next to “Show Quick Launch”.

Once Quick Launch is turned on, you should have some icons next to the start menu, but you still might not see the Show Desktop icon. If you see icons, but you don’t see the Show Desktop icon, click on the double greater than sign to the right of the icons near the start menu. You should see it in the pop-up list. If it’s in the pop-up list, click on it and drag it and drop it where you want it.

Having said all of that, there is actually a better way to execute the Show Desktop function. On your keyboard, look for the Windows button (looks like a flag and is usually located one or two keys to the left of the space bar. Press the Windows button and hold it down. Now press the D key on the keyboard. Viola!

Share on Facebook

As you know, Internet Explorer is the program you use to view websites. Most people should have version 7 of Internet Explorer. You can find out what version you have by clicking on Help (might be a circle with a question mark in it) and then clicking on “About Internet Explorer”

If you have Automatic Updates turned on (which we recommend) you will soon get Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) if you haven’t already gotten it. IE8 is faster and has better security. However, with any new version of software, there can be problems when it’s first installed. Just like we had with version 7, some computers have problems after installing IE8.

We recommend allowing the install of IE8 because it’s only a few PC’s that will have a problem with it. And any PC that has a problem installing IE8 has some other underlying problem that needs to be addressed anyway.

If you want more information about Internet Explorer 8, click here.

Share on Facebook

You may know that you can have multipe users set up in Windows. For example, if there are 4 people in your family and you all share one computer, you may each have your own windows user so that each person can customize Windows the way they want, and also to keep their data seperate. When you have more than one user, you typically get the Welcome Screen which shows you a list of users. You can then click on yours to login to Windows. Some versions of Windows require you to press Control-Alt-Delete and then enter the name you want to login to.

Many computers only have only one Windows user with no password. In that case, you never see the Welcome screen. It will just automatically login as that user and go right to the desktop.

For those who have multiple Windows users, I wanted to alert you to something. When a windows user is done, don’t switch users. Instead, log off. The reason is that when you switch users, it leaves the user  you are switching from logged in and taking up resources. This slows the computer down. I’ve seen computers where they had four Windows users and every one of them was logged in.

I recommend turning off fast user switching. This will prevent people from switching users. User will then logoff and it will go back to the welcome screen. Then the next user can login. To turn off fast user switching in XP, click on Start and then click on Contorol Panel. In the Control Panel, double-click on “User Accounts”. Now click on “Change the way users log on or off” Click on the box next to “Use Fast User Switching” to remove the checkmark and turn off fast user switching.

In Vista, for some strange reason, Microsoft made it difficult to disable fast user switching. Because of that, I don’t think it’s something that the average user should attempt, so I’m not going to include instructions for disabling it here. But never fear. Click here. Save this file to your hard drive. Then find the file, right-click on it, choose rename. Now change the word “download” in the filename to “reg”. The file should now be named “Remove_All_Switch_user.reg” Now right-click on the file and choose merge.

Share on Facebook

You may have heard that you can do a defrag on your computer’s hard drive. Or maybe you have actually defragged your hard drive.

When something is fragmented, it means it’s broken into pieces and disorganized. For example, let’s say you are cooking in the kitchen and you need to use the hand mixer to beat some egg whites. Let’s say that the main unit is stored in the garage, one of the beaters is stored in the laundry room and the second beater is stored in the attic. It would take you a long time to gather the pieces so that you could use that hand mixer. In this example, the hand mixer is fragmented. If the mixer and the 2 beaters were stored together, it would be a much more efficient use of your time to get the mixer, put the beaters on, and use it.

The same can be said about a file stored on a computer’s hard drive. If the pieces of the file are stored on different areas of the hard drive, that file is fragmented and it will take longer for the hard drive to get all of the pieces than if they were all stored in one spot in the right order.

Performing a defrag on your computer will take that file, pull all of its pieces together, put them in the right order, and store them on one spot on the hard drive so that when you go to access it, it’s much faster. It’s important to note that a file on a hard drive can be anything. Sure, it can be a picture, a document, or a song, but there are lots of other things stored in files on your hard drive like programs. Windows is stored on your hard drive. Windows will run slower if the files and programs it needs are all fragmented on the hard drive.

So we see how a file can be fragmented, but in the world of computers there are other kinds of fragmentation. Even if every file on your hard drive is not fragmented, your hard drive can be considered fragmented. Why? If some files are stored in one part of the hard drive while other files are stored in another area of the hard drive, your hard drive is considered fragmented. Why is this important? If your computer accesses a file on the hard drive, the hard drive moves to that area of the hard drive. Then after that, it accesses another file on the hard drive, it has to move to a different area of the hard drive to access the second file. It’s all about minimizing the amount of movement and work the hard drive has to do.

Yet another kind of fragmentation is inside a data file. A lot of data on computers is stored in databases. These are kind of like mini hard drives themselves. The data inside them can be fragmented. There can also be wasted space within a file. Defragmenting the internal workings of a data file must be done by a utility program that understands the structure of that particular data file. So the defag built-in to Windows doesn’t do this kind of fragmentation. The reason I mention it is because there is a file, or set of files, in Windows known as the registry. The Windows Registry is a set of files where Windows stores a lot of settings. Windows doesn’t do anything without first accessing the registry. If the Windows Registry becomes damaged or corrupted, your computer will not function. Because the Windows Registry is often large and is accessed so frequently by Windows, it is important to not only back it up, but to defrag the contents of the registry to keep your computer running as well as it can.

Windows does not include a utility for defragging the Windows Registry. There are a few programs that will do it, but they aren’t cheap. For your average computer user, it’s probably not worth it to purchase one of these programs. When Computer Troubleshooters performs a Deep Cleaning & Optimization service on your computer, we back up your registry and defrag it.

To run a defrag in Windows XP or in Windows Vista, click on Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Deframentor. In Windows XP you can click the analyze button to see how fragmented your hard drive is, or you can just go ahead and defrag it. You might as well just go ahead and defrag it. It will still show you a graphical representation of the fragmentation on your hard drive. The picture to the left shows to colorful bars. The top bar is before and the bottom bar is after. The red are the fragmented files. This fragmentation is still in process, so the bottom picture doesn’t represent the final result. The final result will show no red and all of the blue will be together in one area.

Vista allows you to set a schedule for automatic defrags and to select which drives will be defragmented, if you have more than one hard drive. You can also tell it to defrag now. But unlike XP, it doesn’t show you a graphical representation of the fragmentation of your hard drive and there is no option to just analyze.

It’s important to note that depending on the size of  your hard drive, the amount of data stored on it, the amount of free space on the drive, and the number of fragmented files, a defrag can take anywhere from half an hour to several hours.

Share on Facebook