Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you are on a budget, a student, or just a normal family with normal income. Buying the latest software (legally) can be quite expensive. Especially if you own more than one computer.

Luckily there is an alternative … Student Discount.

First off, this deal is better for those living in Europe than for you over there in the US. But no matter where you live, you may get a discount offer. What differs between the US and Europe are the Terms.
Read the rest of this entry »

One of my colleagues asked me recently if it is possible to prevent a certain group of people to use certain PC’s on our company network. If you have a domain set-up, it is quite easy, provided your set-up is done well.

My meaning of “if your set-up is done well” does not refer to how well your server software has been installed or anything of the sort. I refer to how well you have grouped your users in the active directory. We created groups for each level of user in our organisation, so it was quite easy for me to block a particular group of people from using certain workstations.

In this case, I was asked to prevent the Electrical and Instrument guys from using the PC’s allocated to the Mechanical Foremen, as the Electrical & Instrument guys has their own PC’s to work from.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you read the Meet the Windows Guides Team post a while back, you may remember that we were asked about our predictions for Windows 8. Well I’ve changed my mind …

My NEW wish for Windows 8!

One of the things annoying me in Windows is that it is so set on using my C-Drive to store everything. I have a 256 GB C-Drive which is getting fuller and fuller, where as my D-Drive (which also has 256 GB) hardly stores anything. Asking Windows to use the D-Drive for applications is of course possible, but somehow I feel that it should suggest it by itself. Especially when the C-Drive is getting fuller and fuller.

Another thing that bugs me is that if I would like to move some of my installed applications over to the D-Drive I have to un-install it from the C-Drive and re-Install it on my D-Drive. Such a waste of time. Why can’t I just tell Windows to MOVE it for me ?

While We wait for Microsoft to come around -  I have a great piece of software here that allows me to move any installed application from one Drive to another, without all the hassle mentioned earlier. It’s called SteamMover …

Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with
3+ out of 5	(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and then I get questions from people about unknown file types. And even more rarely I find file types, which I don’t recognise. Usually a quick answer is found by googling the file type. But if you get this a lot – then this freeware solution, might just be what you need.

Read the rest of this entry »

A colleague of mine recently asked me to have a look at his personal Notebook. He has a virus infection on the PC and doesn’t know how to get rid of it.

He dropped the Notebook off at my house after work one evening and I had a look. Immediately several screens popped-up at me screaming about all the infections on the machine. I found this strange as I didn’t know the program spewing out these warnings.

After a bit of research on Google I found that this was one of those programs enticing the user to download for free. Once installed, it produces false-positives so the user will be scared into purchasing it. I removed the offending program, and updated the perfectly good antivirus and firewall software on the machine, scanned the entire notebook to find no major threats.

All the user needs to do now is to purchase a new annual license and he is good to go.

My advice is to ensure you have one of the major anti-virus programs installed, preferably with a firewall built-in. It is quite easy to read-up on different antivirus software programs online by simply asking Google.

Read the rest of this entry »

After installing some software, an entry appears in your Send To Desktop context menu.

If you’ve a plethora of software installed on your system, this context menu can become cluttered and not as useful as intended my Microsoft.

This Quick Tip is going to show you how to tidy up your Send to menu.

Read the rest of this entry »