Today I have misc. information that really doesn’t add up to one whole article on it’s own. Read on….
Boot Problems
Oh, oh. Maybe your PC won’t boot. Or it could be infected with some kind of persistent malware. Perhaps Windows puts up a Blue Screen of Death every time you type the word aardvark.
No matter what kind of trouble your computer is having, someone will probably tell you to reformat your hard drive, reinstall Windows and your applications, and then restore your documents, photos, and music from a backup.
That isn’t always good advice--according to a 2004 Salon.com article, incompetent tech support people use it to get customers off the phone. But if nothing else fixes a problem that’s impossible to live with, starting over from scratch may be the best solution.
Go to this web page.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/155995/reinstall_and_restore_your_ windows_pc_in_eight_easy_steps.html. Print it out and then follow the instructions!
Add items to the Windows Vista Send To menu.
By default a few items are present in the Send To menu when you right-click a file or folder and select to Send To. Here’s how to add items to the Send To menu in Windows Vista.
1. To Add Items to the Send To Menu:
o Open Computer by clicking the Start button and selecting Computer from the Start menu.
o Click anywhere in the white space of the address bar. The text in the address bar will become highlighted. Erase the text and type the following:
o %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
o Press Enter on your keyboard.
2. You can also type shell:sendto in the search box located in the Start Menu to open the SendTo folder.
You can drag and drop items in this folder and they will be displayed in the Send To menu.
More Send To Details
Here are a few pointers when adding items to the Send To Menu:
Don’t copy, move, or create folders in the Send To folder. Copy the folder from its location and select to paste a shortcut in the Send To folder.
You’re not held to just adding folders and drives to the Send To menu. You can also add shortcuts to files and devices.
The Send To folder is hidden. You should only access it by typing the address in step 2 above.
Mapped drives are automatically added to the Send To Menu.
How to Add Notes to Your Files and Folders
The average PC contains so many files it’s pretty easy to forget what a particular file contains or what it does. Most users try and get around this by using descriptive file names. So rather than call a file something like “list.doc” they might call it “thanksgiving acceptances 2007.doc”
In principle this should work pretty well as Windows will accept file names up to 255 characters in length. However in practice, lists of very long file names are difficult to quickly scan and are often truncated by Windows Explorer.
But there is another way of documenting files using an inbuilt but little-used Windows feature.
This involves the use of the “Comments” field. It’s an attribute of all files and folders in Windows just like name, size and date created. Most users don’t know about this field as the Comments field is by default not displayed in Windows Explorer in XP.
Turning it on is easy. Open any folder in Windows Explorer and right click on a blank space in the field title bar. That’s the grayed out area that says “Name Size Type” etc. When you right click you will see a list of fields displayed with some checked. To display the Comments field, simply check that field. Once checked you now see that field on the right hand side of your Explorer window, though you may have to scroll to the right to see it.
The Comments field will be blank, as we haven’t added any comments. I’ll get to that later but first we have to tell Windows to now add the Comments field to every window. To do that select Tools / Folder options / View from the window where you just added the Comments field. Then press the “Apply to all folders” button. NOTE: If you have customized folder views for different folders you may want to skip this step as it will give all your folders the same view.
Now here’s how you add comments: Just right click a file, select “Properties” then click the “Summary” tab. You can then enter your comments directly in the Comments box at the bottom of the Windows. Whatever you enter will then be displayed in the Comments field in Windows Explorer.
Neat eh?
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