I recently ran into a problem on my machine where my installation of Office 2007 became corrupted. As a result, I was not able to repair or uninstall it from the Add/Remove programs menu. Instead of giving up and going through the major hassle of reinstalling everything, I came across a more elegant (and much faster) solution: The Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.

This utility simply “tricks” your computer into thinking a program is no longer installed on your computer, so you can then go back and reinstall it. In my case, it worked perfectly as after the “reinstall” I didn’t have to activate my copy of Office 2007 again.

Usage is simple enough, just install the program and then run it. You are presented with a list of all programs which were installed using the Windows Installer Service and you just select which ones to delete the installation information for. Once you have done this, you should be able to reinstall the program with no problems.

Keeping with the recent theme of Windows Task Manager, an idea I got from an article I read a while back (sorry, I can’t find the article), suggested setting Windows Task Manager as an item in your start up folder as a way to easily keep tabs on system resources. I started doing this about a month ago and it seems to be working really well for me (note: I’ve since replaced Task Manager with Process Explorer).

I have a shortcut to Process Explorer in my Startup folder (Start > Programs > Startup) so that every time I log into Windows, it automatically starts. Setting the shortcut preferences to start minimized and using the option in Process Explorer to hide when minimized causes the program to launch and automatically minimize itself to the system tray. This way I can view the live usage graph without having to do anything and allows me to see if any “spikes” in system usage occur.

For anyone who like to keep an eye on their system’s resources, this is definitely a handy trick.

Windows Task Manager, as you probably know, allows you to view all the active applications and processes currently running on your computer. This is a very handy tool when troubleshooting or just getting an overall view of your computer.

One tool I have found better than Task Manager is Process Explorer. This free tool allows you a much more detailed view of what is going on with your system. Additionally, it has all the functionality of Task Manager, including the ability to “kill” tasks.

One of really great features of Process Explorer is the ability to replace Task Manager (Options > Replace Task Manager). When you select this option, any way which you normally would invoke Task Manager (except by explicitly running it) will bring up Process Explorer instead. This is really something that once you do, you don’t want to go back.

I remember using ReactOS a really long time ago and essentially forgot about it. Dave discovered it recently, told me about it, and I said “Oh yeah! I remember that OS.. I guess it’s still alive and kickin’.”

Yes it is, however to this day it’s still in alpha stages meaning you absolutely should not use it as your primary OS.

What makes React different is that it appears to be a ground-up OS(?)

Definitely interesting and worth a look. See video below for details.

As you probably know, Task Manager is what you use in Windows to view (and kill) currently active processes. There are several ways you can easily open Task Manager so I thought I would list four easy ones here:

1. Ctrl + Alt + Del > Click Task Manager. This is the most commonly used method.
2. Right click on the Task Bar and select “Task Manager” from the popup menu.
3. Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
4. Start > Run > taskmgr. This is handy for making a shortcut.

There you have it. If you have an easier way, post it below.

Yes I understand that XP SP3 has been available as a release candidate download for some time now, but.. I’ve been wondering when Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be appearing as an auto-download in Windows Update.

After conducting some research, here are the dates everything should happen:

April 21, 2008: OEM, Volume License, Connect, and MSDN and TechNet subscribers. (Yes, that’s today.)

April 29, 2008: Manual Update via windowsupdate.microsoft.com (and Microsoft Download Center).

June 10, 2008: Automatic Update (Windows Update)

The June 10 2008 auto-update is the one I’m most concerned with.

Typically speaking, Microsoft’s download servers get absolutely slammed the day anything major is released like a service pack. However I’ve noticed over the years their deployment systems have “smartened” up enough where the auto-updates are sent out in “waves” rather than all at once.

If you’re like me you’ll probably wait until the auto-update release (because honestly speaking there’s really no rush to get this). It will be a big honkin’ download and it will take time.

Also, this is the last service pack for XP. After the end of June ‘08, that’s it for this OS. Granted, you’ll still be able to use it for a few years but this is the “last hurrah” so to speak.

If you share a computer with others, you probably have several files which you don’t want anyone else to see. While you could make the folder hidden, it will be displayed as long as the Windows Explorer preferences are set to display them. Instead, to completely hide the folder, try Free Hide Folder.

Basically, Free Hide Folder allows you to complete hide a folder from view (regardless of Windows settings) so they do not appear in Windows Explorer at all. The program can be password protected to protect you from others going in and showing the folders.

As the name suggests, this program is free and is ideal for hiding any files you don’t anyone else to find.

Damn. Whoah. And at the same time, yeah.

This is how I reacted when I saw a story which cites a pair of Gartner analysts saying that Windows is “collapsing”. They go on to say that the situation is “untenable” and that Microsoft must make radical changes to the OS or risk becoming old news.

According to the story on ComputerWorld:

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.

Speaking for myself, I have been THOROUGHLY disabused by the Windows Vista fiasco, so much so that I abandoned Windows altogether and am now using all OS X on 3 different Macs. Sure, I still use Windows in a virtual session, but it is XP. What Vista showed me is that Microsoft just doesn’t get it. Vista is a bloated piece of crap, and the Gartner guys correctly point out that it is weighed down by nearly two decades of legacy code.

Microsoft - STOP the legacy support! It will be the death of Windows. Seriously, are they going to release Windows 7 in 2010 and still attempt to support hardware that is 10+ years old?

Microsoft is obviously trying to make Windows all things to everybody, and in the process they are making it too little for almost everybody.

Andy Beal, from Marketing Pilgrim, makes a great point: Is Microsoft Rushing to Acquire Yahoo Before Windows Shatters? Even Arrington over at Techcrunch is echoing this point, saying THIS is why the MicroHoo deal needs to happen. The question is this: If Microsoft loses it’s grip over the desktop environment, do they then need to position themselves quickly to be a leader in the online environment?

And Microsoft hasn’t exactly been a leader online. They are a reactionary company. They see somebody else doing well in a market and they devise a way to take over. Perhaps the Yahoo deal is just Microsoft being Microsoft. Can’t beat ‘em - BUY THEM!

My only hope here is that the Microsoft culture does not kill off what we like about Yahoo. The two companies have very different cultures, and I’m really failing to see exactly how Microsoft fits into the equation - except for the fact that they are just rushing to stay relevant in a computing world shifting increasingly to the Internet.

It looks as if Microsoft is now contradicting comments from their chairman Bill Gates. Gates originally had said that Windows 7 may be shipping as early as 2009. A Microsoft spokesman, though, as come out and said:

“We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista consumer.”

Since Vista came out in 2007, that would put Windows 7 into 2010. This was revealed in an email sent to Information Week.

Windows 7 is currently in the very initial phases of development under the codename Blackcomb. The fact that so many are already looking forward to Windows 7 is testament to the relative failure of Vista to impress, well, anybody.

Personally, I’m not waiting for Windows 7 for anything more than curiosity. For me, the big question will be:

Did Microsoft learn anything from the Vista debacle?

We shall see.

If you are the type of person who sends text messages a lot on your smartphone device using Windows Mobile, this is good news for you.

Windows Mobile 6.1 has been reported to (after a long wait) have native SMS threading. What this essentially means is that text messages can be sent/received in an instant-messenger style way, making it much easier to follow of text conversations. Before this point it was a bit difficult to keep track of what was going on without this threading, but now the native support exists and that’s genuinely a step in the right direction.

[Source: Mobile Computer]

A very useful command line tool which ships with Windows is Netstat. Netstat allows you to view all active network connections on your computer. This is a great way to make sure you don’t have anything unexpected on your computer sending or receiving network traffic.

An alternate, more user friendly, version of Netstat is TCPView. From the web site’s description:

TCPView is a Windows program that will show you detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system, including the local and remote addresses and state of TCP connections. [...] TCPView provides a more informative and conveniently presented subset of the Netstat program that ships with Windows.

After using TCPView, I have noticed several improvements over using Netstat such as realtime refreshes with new entries highlighted, sortable results and the ability to pause displays.

According to AppleInsider, Apple has begun testing for the 10.5.3 update to it’s OS X Leopard operating system. The update is said to include 75 bug fixes. According to the story:

Among those components in need of evaluation, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider, are AddressBook, AppleScript, Audio, Back To My Mac, Dashboard, the Dock, DVD Player, Finder, Graphics, iCal, Mail, Portable Home Directories, Printing, Rosetta, Spaces, Spotlight, Time Machine, and VoiceOver.

The developer community is busy testing the code, and we should see the public release some time in April or early May.

While I’m at it, I’m going to rub something in. Why? Because it is deserved.

Apple releases Leopard 10.5 on October 26, 2007. I, at that point, proceed to buy a Mac Pro. On November 15th, Apple releases the first update 10.5.1. On February 11, 2008, Apple releases 10.5.2. Now we hear 10.5.3 will come out in about a month from now. All the while, Leopard is running much smoother than Vista ever did.

I should also mention that 10.4 Tiger was released on April 25, 2005. So, we had about 2.5 years between major versions of OS X.

OK, onto Microsoft. They release Windows XP on October 25, 2001. Windows Vista was released to volume license holders on November 8, 2006 and released to the general public on January 30, 2007. Vista SP1 update was just released to the general public only 10 days ago (March 18, 2008).

So, let’s see, Apple released 3 updates to Leopard within 6 months. Microsoft took 5 years to develop it’s new OS (it took Apple 2 years) and it took them over a year to get out the first major update to Vista. In the meantime, Vista is annoying enough to cause a lawsuit and a “Save XP” petition”.

Needless to say, I am, at this point in time, glad I am running Apple. One company is staying ahead of the curve. The other company, well, isn’t.

There is a lawsuit against Microsoft afoot for the misrepresentation of the “Vista capable” designation. The judge in that case got a collection of internal emails. In that collection of emails comes an interesting statistic: that almost 30% of logged crashes of Windows Vista were caused by Nvidia video drivers.

According to the story on Ars:

Microsoft’s data strongly indicates that the problems were real. Damon Poeter at CRN dug through the documentation to find that on page 47 of the PDF, NVIDIA drivers were identified as the cause of over 479,000 crashes, or just under 29 percent of all the crashes Microsoft logged. Microsoft’s own drivers follow, at 17.9 percent, and the “Unknown” category takes third place at 17 percent. ATI is in fourth place (9.3 percent) and Intel in fifth place (8.83 percent).

We have been hearing about problems with Nvidia under Vista from PCMech visitors. In fact, I personally had issues using Nvidia in 2007 under Vista. I had to actually go out and spring for an ATI card just to make my video system work under Windows Vista. Needless to say, I was pissed.

So, these emails pretty much confirm what we informally already knew: Nvidia was (and perhaps is still) problematic under Windows Vista.

Even Microsoft VPs got “personally burnt” by the Vista-capable stickers.

It really is hard to imagine how Microsoft could have so royally screwed up with Windows Vista.

Two words: Save XP.

Source: Ars Technica via Engadget

If you run a lot of Windows scheduled tasks, particularly on a server, it is very worthwhile to have a local account dedicated to nothing but this. The reasons being:

• If you run the task as a normal user account and that user happens to be logged when the task starts, the process runs in the current user’s session. If the user logs out while the task is running, the task quits and doesn’t complete.
• Changing an account password doesn’t effect the scheduled task account at all.

When you create a scheduled task account, it is best to assign it a long random password since you will not be using it hardly and to lock down the permissions as much as possible. For example, you would probably want to eliminate remote login for this account or just give it “Backup Operator” permissions.

To show the date in the Windows XP taskbar all the time (without the use of any additional sofware) you can extend it “two tiers” high and it will display the date.

The default taskbar looks like this.

Right-click an empty area and make sure “Lock the Taskbar” is not checked.

A small border will appear above the taskbar. Place your mouse cursor on that border and your cursor will change to an up/down arrow. Left click, hold and drag up.

When finished your taskbar will be “two tiers” high and display the day and date.

You’re done!

Both Dave and myself use Windows Live Writer to post blogs with (it connects to WordPress blogs very easily). Even though Dave uses Mac OS X he uses the Live Writer in a virtual XP session in OS X; it’s that good.

One feature in WLW is the ability to add a map easily.

For example, here’s Tampa Florida:

All I had to do to add this map was click “Insert Map”, punch in an address (or general location) and ta-da, instant map in the blog post.

This is one of many reasons why WLW is establishing itself as a seriously awesome editor for blog posting.

Let me preface this tip by saying I am not at all a gamer. However, I have seen many posts on the PCMech forums here with people wanting to run Linux, but still play their Windows games. A dual boot seems to be the answer, but for those dedicated to getting Windows games to work in Linux, check out this article on Linux.com called ‘Play Windows games on Linux with PlayOnLinux‘.

From reading the article, PlayOnLinux is a script which interfaces with the popular Wine software. You can download scripts from PlayOnLinux’s web site for the particular game you are wanting to play which “configures” Wine accordingly. The list game scripts is pretty extensive.

Gamers looking to make Linux their “full time” OS should give this a try.

Since starting the live chat I get asked how I put together the stream. I use WebCamMax. In the video below I give a quick explanation on how I have mine configured.

Many people like navigating by keyboard.  It can sometimes be faster and more efficient then using a mouse once you get the hang of it.  Here’s two useful shortcuts that may help in that regard.

To open up Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), simply hold the Windows key and press E.  No matter where you are, this will open Windows Explorer.

To navigate up and down, simply use the arrow keys.

To open and close subfolders use the * and - keys on the num pad.  Note that these shortcut keys open and close *all* subfolders on the selected folder, not just one level, so if you have a lot of files and subfolders, opening them may take a few moments.

To open only one level of subfolders, use the + key on the num pad.

Windows XP will be officially retired in June 2008. And maybe you’re the type of person that says "Well.. I like my computer the way it is and I really don’t feel like buying a new computer or changing the operating system. How long can I continue to use XP before it’s unusable?"

The answer is about 2 years (roughly).

"Unusable" defined: The point where little to no off-the-shelf hardware or software is supported by your computer’s operating system.

When any OS is retired, the computer industry doesn’t toss it aside like yesterday’s newspaper. Hundreds of thousands of people (and businesses) will continue to use it well past the retirement mark. If there’s a market for the OS, companies will continue to make both hardware and software products for it.

Taking example from the past

Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 in June 2002. This was well after Windows XP was available to the public (December 2001).

Even so, Windows 98 stuck around for a while. It took a couple of years before XP overtook ‘98 as the standard where the computer industry said "Okay, we’re not making stuff for ‘98 anymore. It’s XP now."

Taking example from the present

Windows Vista is not the #1 OS in use and won’t be for a while. It’s still XP and will continue to be for a while even after June 30, 2008.

In fact it’s probably a safe bet to say Windows Vista will never be the #1 OS due to the fact another Windows will appear in 2009 (supposedly). So if anything, the one to wait for is what comes after Vista.

To extend XP for as long as possible, use open source apps

If you’re the die-hard type that wants to squeeze every possible penny out of XP, the best way to do it is with open source applications.

Open source apps are designed from the ground up to be extendable. What this means to you is that they’re "light" and don’t require as much computing power as retail apps. So even if your computer box is old and XP is old, open source allows you to stay on top of the game even if you have a yesteryear OS and box.

Open source apps are easy to come by. You probably use a few of them already such as Firefox or OpenOffice. There are many others available.

When will the time be to throw in the towel?

Ultimately this is your decision, but you will know it’s time to ditch XP for something else when the computer industry itself won’t support it any longer.

At present this is not the case. There is still wide support for XP for both hardware and software. And even with Vista in existence the industry still champions XP. As of now there is absolutely no need to worry about obsolescence with Windows XP.

But in about 2 years it will be a legitimate concern, especially with new upcoming technologies that will become standard (like USB 3.0). If you run an OS that has no official support from the company who made it, there won’t be any native OS support developed.