Category: Tips

All your Windows 8 questions answered

My most popular posts at ZDNet in 2012 were, invariably, about Windows 8.

In fact, I continue to get emails every day asking questions about Windows 8 that I’ve covered in posts throughout the year.

So I decided to take the 10 questions I’m asked most often about Windows 8 and assemble the answers, along with links to articles that go into much greater depth on the topic.

Here’s the list:

Your top 10 Windows 8 questions of 2012, answered [Year in Review]

Page 1:

  • Is Windows 8 worth the upgrade?
  • What should I know before I begin installing Windows 8?
  • Where is the Start menu?
  • What’s the difference between Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro?
  • Are there any deals on upgrades?

Page 2:

  • Can I use Windows 8 in a virtual machine?
  • What happened to Media Center?
  • What’s the point of Windows RT?
  • Where can I find PCs with Windows 7?
  • How do I downgrade to Windows 7?

Keep reading…

Silence Windows 8 notifications temporarily

Windows 8 notifications are useful, but they can be annoying if you’re trying to get work done.

The solution? Use the built-in “do not disturb” feature to temporarily turn off all notifications. Here’s how:

  1. Open the Settings Charm (Windows key + I).
  2. Click or tap Notifications  (at the bottom of the pane) to reveal this menu:
    image
  3. Choose how long you want to hide notifications.

Now go and get some things done, without being distracted by Twitter or email or other pop-ups.

This is tip #1 in my new Windows 8 Tips series.

Temp files Inside Out

Serdar Yegulalp and I have exchanged several e-mails this afternoon discussing how Windows Vista handles the logged-on user’s Temporary files folder. He calls it Vista’s Not-So-Secret Garbage Dump and has instructions on how to empty it.

I remember when Carl and Craig and I wrote the first edition of Windows XP Inside Out we concluded in our early testing that the XP Disk Cleanup tool (Cleanmgr.exe) was broken, because we couldn’t see it actually clearing the contents of the Temp folder. Turns out that’s a deliberate design decision. The Cleanup Manager retains files that have been added to the Temp folder in the past week, which is a small safety net that keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot by mistakenly wiping out files that a program is using as part of a current installation. (We fixed the error in later updates to the book, and the latest version of this text on page 727 of Windows Vista Inside Out is correct, as far as I know.)

If you want to see the contents of the Temp folder, the easiest way is to use its built-in system variable, %temp%, which you can type in the Search box. You can also open the system folder that contains application data for your profile (%LocalAppData%) and see what programs are saving for their own use.

Be aware also that Vista includes an additional Temp folder in the AppData\LocalLow folder, which you can reach with the system variable %LocalLow% and where you’ll find program files kicked off in Protected Mode IE. Adobe’s Acrobat 8 and Reader 8 software both use this folder, which can cause some problems.

Finally, knowing the whereabouts of the Temp folder is useful if you’re having trouble with an installer that unpacks its files and then automatically runs a Setup program. Most such installers delete those temporary files when Setup finishes. If you need to run a subset of the installer files or locate a driver, start the installer and wait until it’s unpacked the files. When you see the Setup dialog box, leave it open and navigate to the Temp folder (usually via %temp% but you might also need to look in %LocalLow%). Find the folder full of unpacked files and copy it to a safe location. Then cancel the installation and allow the Setup program to clean up. You can now go to the folder you copied and use whatever setup files you need. You can also save the extracted files in your Downloaded Programs folder so that next time you want to install or reinstall the same program you can skip the unpacking portion.

Bonus tip: Customize Disk Cleanup tasks. Although the instructions are for XP, the process works more or less the same for Vista.

A Vista Hands On update

I’ve posted a couple of new entries in the Vista Hands On series over at ZDNet.

Vista Hands On #9: Use Vista for four months, free

You can install an evaluation copy of any Vista edition and use it for a minimum of 30 days without having to activate it. As several publications have already noted, you can renew this evaluation period a total of three times, extending the evaluation period to roughly 120 days. But this post contains a secret technique that no one has yet published: how to automatically “rearm” the trial period at the end of each 30 day period.

Vista Hands On #8: Delay activation

Microsoft doesn’t get enough credit for one major change in Windows Vista. Using the standard Setup program and installation media, you can install an evaluation copy of any Vista edition and use it for a minimum of 30 days. In essence, this makes Windows Vista the ultimate shareware program. But there’s a gotcha: By default, Windows automatically activates itself after three days. Unless you know how to shut down the timer.

There’s an RSS feed for all my posts at ZDNet, or you can get a custom feed with must the posts in the Hands On series.

Full RSS feed

Vista Hands On RSS feed

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More Vista setup secrets

My Hands On Vista series continues at ZDNet. Here are the two latest installments:

Vista Hands On #3: Check your disk before upgrading

Before you even think of upgrading to Vista, check the disk you plan to install it on. Here’s why.

Vista Hands On #4: Clean install with an upgrade key

You’ve probably read all about the “Vista upgrade loophole.” Well, it’s not a loophole. It’s a useful and perfectly legal workaround to deal with an amazingly stupid technical restriction that Microsoft built into the Vista setup program. I’ve got the details and step-by-step instructions to work around it.

Secrets of a clean Vista install

Microsoft’s official definition of a clean Windows install involves booting from the Windows DVD and pointing Setup at a piece of bare hard disk or a freshly formatted partition.

But that’s not the only way to do a clean install. In fact, thanks to the new Setup architecture in Vista you can now do what you would never have dared to do in earlier Windows versions: install a fresh copy of Windows on the same hard disk as your current copy.

In the second installment of my 30 days of Vista Hands On series at ZDNet, I’ve got details on why this works, how to run Setup (the steps are easy but not necessarily intuitive), and how to clean up the pieces of your old Windows installation afterwards. For details, see:

Vista Hands On #2: A no-fuss, nondestructive clean install

Do you know where your Vista product key is?

I’ve just launched a new series of Windows Vista tips over at ZDNet, where I’ll be posting a tip a day for the next 30 days.

Today’s installment covers product keys. When you buy a retail copy of Windows Vista, the most important part of your purchase is the product key that comes with it. That 25-character key determines which Vista edition you’re allowed to install and activate, and it also tells the Setup program whether you’ve purchased a full or upgrade license. I explain how to check your activation status and how to uncover the product key that’s actually in use.

For details, read:

Vista Hands On #1: What you need to know about product keys

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Tip of the day: Add Google (and more) to the IE7 search box

Using IE7? Go here:

Add Search Providers to Internet Explorer 7

Click the Google link.

Click Add Provider. (Click the optional checkbox to set this as your default search page if that’s your pleasure.)

There, you’re done.

I’ve also added Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, and CNET to my list.

Took about 15 seconds, total.

I could add a custom search link to this site, I suppose.

Tip of the day: Zoom this web page

Several people have commented that this site is harder to read now, because of the change in typeface and the white background. One solution is to zoom the page and make everything a little easier to read.

In Internet Explorer or Firefox, select the window or browser tab containing the page you want to zoom, hold down the Ctrl key, and move the mouse wheel – forward to make the page larger, back to make it smaller, If you don’t have a mouse wheel, you can click the Change Zoom Level button in the lower right corner of the IE7 window and select a percentage. Or, in either IE or Firefox, press Ctrl+[plus sign] or Ctrl+[hyphen] to zoom in or out.

To return the zoom level to normal  size, press Ctrl+0 (that’s a zero). Update: As Alex Danvy points out in the comments, you can’t use the 0 on the numeric keypad for this; you have to use the zero on the row of numbers above the QWERTY row. Or you can use Ctrl+[asterisk], but only if you use the asterisk on the numeric keypad, not the one above the number 8 on the number row of the keyboard. Thanks. Alex!

Zooming affects only the current page, isn’t persistent, and can be undone any time. Some pages look very strange when zoomed, but those built using a decent style sheet should look just fine zoomed a few clicks in either direction.

System freezing up? Check your hardware

Thomas Hawk is trying a tech support experiment, in which he posts problems with his PC and then requests help. Instead of posting in his comments, I’m going to cover one of his problems here:

Problem number 1. My computer seems to be inexplicably freezing up (yes it’s a Windows machine, I know, I know, get a Mac) periodically. These are really bad freeze ups. Control-alt-delete does not return my PC. I can’t alt tab. Total freeze up. The only way to get my computer back is to restart. The last time it happened I had Pandora on in the background (but this is probably just coincidence) the music even stops and stutters as the freeze happens. The most recent thing I’ve installed is Windows new Live One Care. My next step is going to be to uninstall Live One Care and see if that helps me out at all.

By a curious coincidence, the same thing has happened to me within the past two weeks. Based on the symptoms, Thomas’s problem has nothing to do with software and everything to do with hardware. Here’s my story, and how I resolved it.

I have a Dell PowerEdge 600SC server running Windows Server 2003. It’s about 3-1/2 years old, and it has been running nonstop with virtually no problems for all that time. Over the years, I’ve added some big hard drives, and about a year and a half ago I replaced the original 2GB of RAM with 4GB so I could run multiple virtual machines on this box.

For the past month or so, this system has been responding slowly on some activities, especially file copies over the network. Then, about two weeks ago, the server froze up one day. Simply stopped responding. The power was still on, but the screen was black and the system didn’t respond to mouse input. I pressed the power button to restart, and when it came back on, I checked the System log in Event Viewer to see if there were any events captured there that might shed light on the error. Nope. Every recorded system event up until the crash was perfectly normal.

(Note to Thomas: Be sure to check Event Viewer. From Control Panel’s Classic view, double-click Administrative Tools, then double-click Event Viewer.)

The fact that there were no events listed is actually a crucial troubleshooting piece of information. It means that whatever happened was a complete surprise to the Windows code that’s running in kernel mode and supervising the whole system. Essentially, it means Windows was mugged.

A few days later, it happened again. This time, when I restarted, I booted into Dell’s Diagnostic Utilities partition and ran its comprehensive series of diagnostics. They showed no hardware problems. I also ran a quick memory test that showed no problems. Baffled, I restarted the system. Maybe it’s a failing motherboard, I thought, or a system that’s overheating.

When it happened again the next day, I decided to run a more comprehensive memory test. And sure enough, when I ran the full suite of memory tests included with Dell’s diagnostic suite, I found that the error correcting code (ECC) in one of the server’s memory modules was causing unrecoverable errors. Now, an unrecoverable memory error is bad news and would completely explain why (1) the system was locking up and (2) the lockups had no apparent relation to any software running.

Using another diagnostic tool, I ran a different suite of tests, which showed that the fault was in the memory module in DIMM slot A. This particular system has four slots, each with a 1GB stick of RAM in it. The RAM is installed in pairs. I wasn’t sure which slot was DIMM slot A, so I took out the modules on either end and then reseated the other two DIMMs in the remaining slots.

I restarted and ran another memory diagnostic. This time the system passed with flying colors. I now a highly confident that one of the two modules I removed is defective. They’re still under warranty, so I should be able to return them for replacement.

Lessons learned:

Most system and application failures are fairly easy to identify. Random failures often indicate hardware problems.

Bad RAM, overheating, and defective hard disks, in order, are the most common hardware failures in my experience.

Hardware can fail over time. Most people assume that the problem is software because they haven’t changed any hardware lately

Hope that helps, Thomas!