August 2009 - Mike's Window

Mike's Window

A commonly held 'view.. '

"Well, it worked in Windows 95!"

MVP Award years

2005 - 2006 - 2007

2008 - 2009 - 2010

2011 - 2012 - 2013

The original MVP logo

My Favourite Utilities

Speedfan is a great hardware monitor which can automatically control fan speeds, warn when temperatures are rising in the case, and do a SMART scan of your hard drives. A 'must have'.. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Piriform Speccy tells you what is inside the box and with great accuracy.. http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Networx shows download/upload bandwidth used.. http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Piriform Recuva is probably the best file recovery utility around and is free too.. http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Treesize shows you what you have got, where it is, and how much space it is all using.. http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Windows 8 alternative start menus.. Classic Shell.. http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

Stardock Start8.. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

EaseUS Partition Manager is the best free utility of its type.. http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm

YoWindow, a weather utility which appears to work with the Windows 8 desktop.. http://yowindow.com/

My Favourite Gadgets - Windows 7 and Vista only..

Gas Buddy.. http://www.londongasprices.com/VistaGadget.aspx

NetMeter.. http://addgadget.com/

Network Monitor.. http://samwtucker.com/

Asst'd gadgets.. http://gallery.djinngo.com/gallery/index.html

Weather fun.. http://yowindow.com/

Syndication

Blog Archive List

Sort by: Most Recent | Most Viewed | Most Commented

Classic menu issue revisited – Part One

I think that I am beginning to understand one of the reasons why the Windows 7 Start Menu/Taskbar defaults to the way it is. Touch screen usability The oversized, widely spaced icons on the taskbar and in the Start box all point to ease of use on a touch...

Published Fri, Aug 21 2009 13:20 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Windows 7, My Opinion
The Vista Lifecycle and effects on the end user..

In case you don’t already know: Mainstream support for Business and Enterprise versions of Microsoft Windows Vista will end on April 10th, 2012 Extended support for Business and Enterprise versions of Microsoft Windows Vista will end on November 11, 2017...

Published Wed, Aug 19 2009 10:29 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, Vista 64
Website experiences..

Please bear in mind that I am a beginner to all of this stuff, and have had to do all of this with limited knowledge and even less resources.. I have recently moved my website from a paid service with HostPapa . There was nothing wrong with the service...

Published Tue, Aug 18 2009 12:54 by Mike Hall

Filed under: General, FrontPage, Other stuff
nVidia display drivers 190.38

These drivers are being served up by the nVidia website for Vista/Win 7 64-bit variants. A warning: If you are using an ‘Ajax’ based start page like Pageflakes or the Sympatico/MSN customizable start page, you will experience very bad flicker as you scroll...

Published Sun, Aug 16 2009 20:58 by Mike Hall

Filed under: drivers, Vista 64, Win 7 64
Compatibility worries..

I wrote a brief piece about FrontPage 2003 and Windows 7, about how FrontPage files will not keep the association with the parent program. Well, ICQ doesn’t allow me to sign in either, but ICQ will release a version which will work, but Microsoft have...

Published Sat, Aug 15 2009 16:13 by Mike Hall

Filed under: General, FrontPage, Windows 7
That darn start menu..

For the months leading up to the release of Windows 7 RTM, I have been working out ways to try to emulate the old Classic menu. It was an important feature of earlier Windows versions. I like stuff in small compartments, and being able to create folders...

Published Fri, Aug 14 2009 17:04 by Mike Hall

Filed under: General, Windows 7
Windows 7 – My first compatibility problem..

.. and maybe to be expected. I use FrontPage 2003 to create and manage my own website because Expression Web 2 is simply too difficult for me. For the most part, FrontPage works very well in Windows 7, but I have found that the files contained in an FP...

Published Thu, Aug 13 2009 19:47 by Mike Hall

Filed under: compatibility, Windows 7
The Best Ever Utility?

Contained in the Windows 95 Powertoys was a small utility called ‘Send ToX’. All one had to do was right click on one of the two files which had a right click option to ‘install’ and then click on ‘install’. A couple of popup windows would appear, and...

Published Wed, Aug 12 2009 22:00 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows, Utilities
Windows 7 - The morning after..

The start menu change is still pending, and I am finding settings here and there which need adjustment but, apart from that, I have a workable Windows 7 workstation with all applications and utilities installed that I use daily. Only when I am looking...

Published Mon, Aug 10 2009 18:03 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows 7
Windows 7 – By late afternoon..

Still no joy with the NOD32 firewall. It sets up and then fails on a reboot. Oh well, the Windows firewall has always served me well and I have no reason to believe that it will not do the same now. I will contact ESET about it later. The next few items...

Published Sat, Aug 8 2009 20:49 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows 7
Windows 7 – After the dawn

Initially, everything went along quite well. Windows installed in 30 minutes and, before too long, Office was working too. Updates followed very quickly, and I was pleased with the progress. Under normal circumstances, I would copy my old start menu structure...

Published Sat, Aug 8 2009 1:43 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows 7
Windows 7 is installed

It took just 30 minutes from start to finish. The computer rebooted at 7:45 pm into the desktop, and I have been working since then to set up the computer to much the same state as it was when running Vista. A video card upgrade in Vista just prior to...

Published Fri, Aug 7 2009 0:25 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, Windows 7
In a few hours..

I will be downloading Windows 7. That will be the most tedious part, watching the download speed go up and down. Burning the ISO will take but a few minutes, turn off the computer, disconnect the other hard drives, boot from the DVD drive, and in less...

Published Thu, Aug 6 2009 0:42 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Windows 7
Five days left..

August 6th, Windows 7 RTM will be on TechNet and MSDN servers. Remember that RTM will require a clean install. Upgrade on top of RC is not recommended.. Good Luck..

Published Sat, Aug 1 2009 19:20 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows 7

August 2009 - Mike's Window

A commonly held 'view.. '

MVP Award years

The original MVP logo

My Favourite Utilities

My Favourite Gadgets - Windows 7 and Vista only..

Links

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives

Blog Archive List

Classic menu issue revisited – Part One

The Vista Lifecycle and effects on the end user..

Website experiences..

nVidia display drivers 190.38

Compatibility worries..

That darn start menu..

Windows 7 – My first compatibility problem..

The Best Ever Utility?

Windows 7 - The morning after..

Windows 7 – By late afternoon..

Windows 7 – After the dawn

Windows 7 is installed

In a few hours..

Five days left..