I swiped this post from Jeff Alexander’s blog. Jeff is married to my cousin and is a top bloke. He works for Microsoft and this is a post about the new Windows search software. As I mentioned at our last meeting I have found the upgrade to version 4 has noticeably sped up my Vista machine. If you use Vista then you should definitely download this update.

One of the great features of Windows Vista is it’s integrated search engine which allows you to find all those bits and bytes on your computer.  But in the last week I found this interesting little tidbit.  Windows Search 4.0

was quietly released for free download for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003.  This one kind of came under the radar a bit so I thought I would give it a go and install.  Well to my surprise my machine seems to be faster!  And of course search is a whole lot faster.  But in a nutshell this is what the new version has to offer.

• Improvements in performance and stability of the indexer
• Fuller complement of Group Policy settings, available on all supported operating systems
• Fast sorting and grouping of results in Windows Explorer
• Indexing improvements in online e-mail
• Ability to index delegate mailboxes for online e-mail
• Support for indexing (local file system) encrypted documents
• Expanded ability to perform fast remote queries of file shares, including those on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. This includes automatic indexing of shared folders.
• Item previews in Windows Explorer for Windows XP

So this is one of those things that kind of sits under the covers quietly plugging away but it’s nice to see the search team has made such an improvement.

Check out the download today!

  I’ve put it on all my machines!

I thought this was interesting with some useful suggestions. See my suggestions too - MATT

Most of you reading this have encountered people asking you to solve problems on their computers - more than once. You’re an expert in their eyes, and they want you to solve the problems they’re facing with their PCs. They might be your family members, your colleagues or whatever.

If you frequently encounter situations like this, you can arm yourself with the following tools and make things easy for yourself and others when you’re working on a problematic computer system. Feel free to suggest your favourite softwares in the comments section below.

Anti Spyware

You gotta have one. Install Spybot Search and Destroy and/or Ad Aware. Both do a good job, but the former is a bit slow when compared to Ad Aware.

Don't forget Windows Defender from Microsoft. Free for XP and built in to Vista

Anti Virus

Avast! Free - That does a lot for being free, I should say. The On Access Scanner is the best part and you’ll have to leave it installed on the PC - the next time any of your closest ones click on a ‘Congratulations, you’ve won $$$’ banner, their PCs are protected for sure thanks to Avast’s on access realtime web traffic scanning.

Another good antivirus is AVG, does a lot of stuff, but still Avast! wins. You can read a comparison of AVG and Avast! here.

I have also read some good things about Avira Antivir free

Junk File Removers

You surely must have seen disks filled with nothing but junk. Sometimes they go up to a few GBs or more, and that’s the place where tools like these get handy.

CCleaner -That’s the best junk remover I’ve ever used. Has all that you might need in one place: a junk file cleaner, an uninstaller and also a registry cleaner. It’s more reliable than other such junk removers.

HijackThis - Scans the nook and corner and checks and reports to you. You can remove bad items from start up and take down other suspicious services. But beware - be sure of what you’re doing with this program.

I have a paid subscription to JV16 Powertools which is a good program but for free CCleaner is the go

PC Decrapifier

Rightly named, this tool removes the nuisances that come pre installed with your Windows PC. If anyone from your family has just got a new PC installed with Windows, you gotta run this program to cut the crap. Download it here.

If you buy a new PC like my Dell laptop they load it up with all sorts of custom applications. Some are useful but most are not. This program strips away all the excess rubbish and will usually make your new computer run faster as a result.

Partition Manager - GParted Live CD

Sure you’ve tried many partition managers else before, but I can’t resist myself by putting this up here. GParted is open source and is very very light. It can do copying, resizing, moving operations in around a dozen filesystems.

Ultimate Boot CD - Recovery Tool

It’s the ultimate Swiss Army Knife that comes packed in with tools that do varied jobs like memory tests, hard disk diagnosis, partitioning, system benchmarking and lots more. Definitely a must have. Get it here.

UBCD for Windows

UBCD4Win is similar to the above mentioned software, but runs directly on Windows.

I have used UBCD before and I have found it to be easier to use than some of the Linux 'Live' CDs

DriverMax

DriverMax lets you copy your current hardware drivers and reinstall them later if you don’t have the setup files of each of your hardware drivers.

Quite useful, but the person on whose computer working on must already have a driver backup that’s been done using this software.

There are a number of similar programs and that's because backing up your drivers is a good idea.

gOS

Ahh! You can ask why this is listed here, but what if you can’t get your PC’s OS to work? You want the internet to work and need something desperately done, but XP won’t start.

Not a problem if you have a Linux live CD in hand. Just pop the CD in, access the internet, send the email that you had to send or do whatever you wanted to get done. All without writing on to your hard disk and not damaging anything that’s already there.

I’m mentioning gOS here specifically because it has got quite good integration with Google services and pretty much works out of the box.

There are many other Live CDs available, you can check here for that. Make sure you download one and have it burnt on a disk for emergency uses.

Best Software Tools for the Family Tech Support Guy

For those (few) of us who are using Windows Vista (whatever version - Home Basic or Premium, Business or Ultimate) will find like I did that Service Pack 1 is available to download today via Windows Update.

With all the testing etc that has been done I feel confident in installing it today - it's downloading right now. If you want to be more cautious you could wait a week or two just to see if any final problems come to light.

Windows Update is by far the fastest and easiest way to get it installed. The download will probably be <70mb this way. If you would like to download the stand-alone installer it is 435mb and it is available here. The standalone installer can be handy if you want to slipstream your install DVD with the SP1 updates.

For those still waiting for Windows XP SP3 to be finalised and released I expect this Vista release will clear the way for that to happen. There is no way that XP SP3 was going gold before Vista SP1 :) But it shouldn't be long now.

We have a question today from Mike:

Can you please tell me if there is a free anti virus available that is compatible to Vista home Premium for my laptop..I use AVG 7.5 on my PC that has XP operating system that seems to work quite well but will not work on my Laptop. Many thanks for your help see you next meeting  Regards. Mike

Ok Mike - yes there are many Anti-virus programs that work on Vista including some free. When it was first released some low level changes in the Vista software meant that some AV programs didn't work properly or well. If you use 64-bit Vista you still need to be choosey. But your run of the mill Vista now has lots of choices. Among the free ones are:

AVG Free

Avira AntiVir Personal

Avast! 4 Home Edition

A couple of reviews I have read say Avira is slightly better than AVG and Avast is ok too. Both Avira and AVG use little system resources so they shouldn't hog or slow down your system too much.

All the reviews say that the paid products are generally better than the freebies which is no great surprise. But to be honest if you practice ultra-safe surfing and email habits you wouldn't even need AV. So be practical and cautious and you should be fine with any of the 3 above.

My new laptop has a 3 year subscription to McAfee so I am just using that. It has Anti-Spyware built in too but if you want to use the above free AV programs then I suggest you use Windows Defender for Anti-Spyware too. It's installed in Vista by default and is downloadable for XP. See past discussions

If you are happy with AVG Free on your home PC then just use it on the laptop too. Not sure why you would have had problems installing? Do you have the most recent version?

Try downloading again from the link above. If you have trouble installing jot down the specific error messages and let us know.

Hi

Lynette has a problem with a Vista PC

My daughter has a new computer with Vista on it. She has problems getting things like digital cameras that will work on Vista do you have any suggestions, she is already having trouble getting a refund for one camera, and the second one needs some additional stuff to go with it, should all this be happening? She asks if it works with Vista at time of purchase and the answer is always yes, but unfortunately it doesn’t work!
Many thanks, Lynette

Hi Lynette & Sorry for the slow reply
Did your daughter buy the PC with Vista installed or did she install it after?
Is it new from a big manufacturer or a 'white box' built in a local shop or by herself or a friend?

If it came with Vista installed from a big manufacturer then it should be set up properly
I installed Vista on my laptop (it had XP before) and it took a while to get all the drivers and things set up correctly
The wrong driver etc would stop some USB items from working properly when plugged in inc cameras

I have 2 quick thoughts that may help:

1. She may have some tech support or warranty that came with the PC
   Has she tried calling them
   Ditto tech support from the Camera company
2. Try plugging the USB cable from the camera into different ports
   The ones on the back of the machine built onto the motherboard (near the keyboard port) are usually the most responsive.
   In theory all ports should be the same but in practice often the front or extra usb ports on the back don't work properly or run at full speed
3. Maybe the software that comes with the camera is not Vista compatible
   Try just plugging the camera into the PC without loading the software CD first (or uninstall the software, reboot and try)
   I find that the software that comes with a lot of cameras and cheap printers has loads of stuff on there you don't want
   Often it is set to auto load at start up and sets itself as default - neither of which you may want
   Win XP and Vista should recognise any camera without other proprietary software and offer to copy the pics to the PC

If the above doesn't help can you get her to give us a few more details:
PC Details including when and where purchased and components (if she knows them) particularly the motherboard type
The Version of Vista and type of camera etc

If anyone has experienced similar problems with a camera please offer Lynette and her daughter some more suggestions
Thanks everyone