We have a question from a Mullies member today

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I am going to update my daughters Toshiba Satellite A100 laptop and she has no drivers or disks.What can you recommend? Just go ahead with the upgrade and search for drivers later or what?

How to Clean Up the Right-Click (Context) Menu in Windows

Does your right click menu have so many options as to be confusing?
Yeah mine too
Here is a recommendation for an easy way to tame the list and keep just the optionsyou want on your list

Click the link to go to the full article at Digital Inspiration website

How to Clean Up the Right-Click (Context) Menu in Windows

Don’t Expect Any Rapid Changes To Skype Now Microsoft Owns It

in case you missed it Microsoft has purchased Skype for $US8.5 billion - maybe they found some loose change under the couch :)The article linked above predicts it will be business as usual though - what do you think

The 7 Best Free Open Source Programs To Replace Commercial Windows Software

7 recommendations for excellent free and Open Source programs to replace expensive Windows programs
Many would be familiar with OpenOffice but maybe not with the new offshoot from OO which is LibreOffice which is a new and improved version

Five Microsoft Word Nightmares--and How You Can Fix Them
A good one to bookmark for that day when Word crashes and takes your document with it

How To Get Started With Firefox 4′s App Tabs
Essential reading for those using Firefox and Web Apps

Pick & Zip – The Fastest & Easiest Way To Download Facebook Photos
This looks like a handy web app for any FB user who has photos or has friends or family with photos on FB

Seen anything else cool around the net lately?
If so comment below and share with us all

Cheers :)

Below is a copy of a FANTASTIC article about Windows XP

Copied from the Windows Secret website at http://windowssecrets.com/2010/11/11/01-Windows-XP-Looking-back-looking-forward#
If you are currently using WIndows XP on any PC then you really need to read this
Microsoft has stopped selling new copies of XP separately or new with any PC - it's Windows 7 or nothing (well or Mac OS X or Linux)
But many many people - bothhome users and big corporates - still run Windows XP every day
In the article it shows you links on how to keep Windows XP running well and when the time comes how to upgrade 
Enjoy!
 

Windows XP: Looking back, looking forward

By Fred Langa 
On October 22, Microsoft pulled the plug on sales of Windows XP, ending the operating system's spectacular nine-year run.With no new copies being sold, support for XP will start to decline. Fortunately, XP's long run has produced a ton of collected wisdom: everything you need to keep your copy going strong and — when ready — to help you move on.The end of XP is a watershed moment. It's truly the most successful operating system in the history of personal computers. Windows 3.x was great in its day; it gave mass-market, affordable PCs the graphical prowess Microsoft needed to compete with the more expensive Macintosh computers. But it lasted only five years, from 1990 to 1995. XP's reign was twice as long!The Windows 9x family (95 and 98) were also stellar OSes. Windows 95, released in 1995, introduced Windows Explorer for file management and was the first Windows to exploit the power of 32-bit hardware. And it added TCP/IP networking as an integral (not bolted-on) component of the OS.Windows 98, delivered in 1998, was the first Windows to integrate Internet Explorer. Because it was essentially free, IE quickly ignited industry controversy and ensuing legal battles for Microsoft. But as part of the Windows package, it helped with the explosive growth of the Web and the dot-com boom of the late '90s.In 2000, five years after the launch of Windows 95, Microsoft — late getting its next operating system out the door — released the stopgap kludge Windows ME (short for Millennium Edition; it was soon given less-charitable labels). It landed with a resounding thud. Even Vista was more popular than ME.So Windows XP's near-decade reign is impressive. Rolled out in 2001, it blended the familiar interface conventions of Windows 98 with the heavy-duty, business-oriented underpinnings of Windows NT (New Technology). The result was a hybrid operating system that looked good, was easy to use, and — most important — was far more stable than its predecessors.Microsoft originally planned a five-year life span for XP. But delays and missteps with XP's successor products (Vista, for example) plus huge upgrade resistance from users forced Microsoft to extend XP's life again and again. Now, with Windows 7 proving itself a worthy replacement, Microsoft finally has the opportunity to retire its aging, war-horse operating system. The October 22 end for XP occurred almost exactly one year after Win7 rolled out.XP is going out on top. According to NetMarketShare.com (home page) — which tracks operating systems actually in use online — XP still holds a commanding 60.03% market share, as shown in Figure 1.Figure 1. XP use is declining, but based on a recent NetMarketShare.com. chart, it's still the dominant OS by far.XP is losing about 1% to 2% market share per month; Win7, coming on strong, is currently in second place at 17.10% and is growing at 2% to 3% per month. And because many businesses passed on Vista, there's a huge pent-up market for Win7 upgrades — so its share of Windows users will grow even more rapidly.XP will get security patches until April 2014 Now that software development on XP has stopped, the most important question for XP users is future support. Microsoft plans no further Service Packs or feature enhancements for the OS. But given the astounding number of people still using XP, Microsoft says it will provide XP security updates through April 2014. (See Figure 2.) That should give large businesses sufficient time to complete their Win7 migration.In addition, Microsoft's knowledge base will continue to host XP-related information for at least that long. That's an astounding 13 years after the OS was first released. To my knowledge, that's a record — the longest-supported run of any major personal computer operating system by any company, ever!Figure 2. A condensed view of Microsoft's XP lifecycle chart shows support for the OS ending in 2014 (circled in yellow).Microsoft included many keys to XP's success In addition to the ease-of-use and stability enhancements mentioned earlier, XP had other features and innovations that made it a winner.For example, XP was the first Windows with so-called intelligent taskbar and notification-area behavior. (The taskbar contains the Start button and the icons representing running programs; the notification area, the small block in the lower-right corner of the Windows screen, contains the clock and icons for background tasks and services.) When your taskbar runs out of space, XP intelligently overlays similar icons on top of each other and suppresses inactive notification icons.That might not seem like a big deal now, but it was a major innovation in its time — one that made using many programs vastly simpler. In fact, XP's overall user interface may be the most imitated ever. If you don't believe me, check out almost any desktop Linux and see how familiar the UI seems.XP was the first Windows to ship with built-in CD-R burning software; first to include user-configurable power management; first to ship with a built-in backup tool; and first to ship with ClearType, a screen-legibility enhancement — all features we take for granted now.XP was the first Windows with a complete and genuinely useful Help system that replaced the rudimentary Help in Win9x. It was also the first Windows with Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop built in. And it was the first consumer/desktop Windows to support the advanced NTFS (info page) file system, which avoided the fragility and size limitations of the FAT system used in previous desktop Windows versions.You can probably add your own list of favorite XP features.XP's many blemishes are well documented No one who has used XP for any length of time will call it flawless, however. Many of those flaws — and ways to work around them — have been detailed in Windows Secret's weekly reports.When XP first appeared, many PCs of the day had insufficient power for the new OS, causing it to run painfully slow on those systems. And on all hardware, XP could consume ridiculous amounts of disk space for the recycle bin, Internet Explorer cache, and System Restore.It also buried some truly useful features in places where they were hard to find and access.Just one small example: Window 7's Backup applet is easily found in the Control Panel's top-level menu. XP Professional's Backup app is located deep inside All Programs, in the System Tools menu. In XP's Home edition, Backup isn't even installed by default — users have to dig it out of the \Valueadd\Msft\ folder on the setup CD and perform a manual installation!Fortunately, after almost a decade of use, nearly all of XP's worst problems and limitations have been addressed in XP's Service Packs, with third-party add-ons and tools, and through a wealth of published tips, tricks, and workarounds.In the August 12 Top Story, "Preparing Windows XP for the long haul," I provided tips on how to keep XP going for as long as you need it. The rest of this article builds on that: it's a compendium of some of the most useful XP information from the past decade, all in one convenient reference.You'll also find links to help you upgrade smoothly to Windows 7 when the time comes. And at the end, you'll see how to keep your favorite — and possibly essential — XP software alive and running well inside Windows 7, just as it runs now.Windows Secrets XP setup/maintenance articles Here are some of the best XP-related stories available in the windowssecrets.com library:

• "Recover lost disk space by dumping dump files," Langalist Plus, Feb. 12, 2009
  

• "Access more memory, even on a 32-bit system," Top Story, Dec. 18, 2008
  

• "How to maintain XP after Microsoft ends support," Top Story, Nov. 13, 2008
  

• "Slimmed-down Windows XP delivers big benefits," Woody's Windows, Oct. 9, 2008
  

• "Keep XP fresh until Windows 7 arrives," Top Story, May 15, 2008
  

• "Make a bootable thumb drive that runs XP," PC Tune-Up, March 27, 2008
  

• "More free ways to enhance Windows XP," Known Issues, July 26, 2007
  

• "XP's powerful 'Tskill' and 'Taskkill' commands," LangaList, March 15, 2004
  

• "How to move a Windows XP installation to different hardware," Support Alert, Nov. 4, 2002
  

• "Recovery console life saver," LangaList, April 18, 2002
  

'LangaLetter' XP setup/maintenance articles Before I joined forces with Windows Secrets, I wrote a column called the "LangaLetter" for InformationWeek.com. Please excuse the vanity, but I believe XP users will find some of the following articles of interest.

• "Creating a Windows XP recovery console CD image," Aug. 16, 2006
  

• "XP's no-reformat, nondestructive, total-rebuild option," June 9, 2006
  

• "The OS inside the OS," May 1, 2006
  

• "XP's little-known 'Rebuild' command," April 17, 2006
  

• "A new way to slim down Windows XP," Nov. 8, 2004
  

• "How to save an hour (or more) on XP installs," Sept. 20, 2004
  

• "Ten more ways to make Windows XP run better," Jan. 26, 2004
  

• "Solving automatic maintenance problems," Nov. 17, 2003
  

• "Make Windows XP self-maintaining," Oct. 27, 2003
  

• "System setup secrets for Windows XP," July 28, 2003
  

• "Ten ways to make Windows XP run better," Dec. 10, 2001
  

When you're ready to migrate from XP to Win7 Eventually, the day will come when you'll move on from XP. Here's help:

• "Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7," an MS TechNet article
  

• "Windows 7 upgrade and migration guide," a TechNet Library article
  

• "Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7," an MS tutorial
  

• "Migrate XP to Windows 7 with easy transfer over the network," a How-ToGeek article
  

• "Migrate XP to Windows 7 with easy transfer and a USB Drive," a How-ToGeek article
  

• "Transfer files and settings from XP to Windows 7," a Help Desk Geek article
  

The ultimate XP knowledge base — the Web! Here's an easy way you can use Google, Bing, and most other search engines to find specific XP information from almost any site. Use this formulation:xp [topic] site:[domain]Replace [topic] with the keyword(s) you're looking for and [domain] with the site's name. For example, the search phrasexp dual boot site:windowssecrets.comwill show you all the Windows Secrets articles that discuss XP dual booting;xp pagefile site:microsoft.comwill show you everything about XP's pagefile from Microsoft.com.Keep your XP environment inside Windows 7 Windows 7 offers two ways to keep older software running well inside the new OS. The first, its Program Compatibility settings, is explained in the MS article, "What is program compatibility?"The Program Compatibility settings take care of the majority of compatibility issues. But for programs that need more, you can get the free "Windows XP Mode" software for Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate at its Microsoft download site.Win 7's XP Mode sets up a complete, free, already-licensed, self-contained XP virtual PC that runs inside Windows 7. When you install software on the XP virtual machine, the software thinks it's running on a regular, stand-alone XP box! Everything behaves in the normal XP way, so applications work the way you're used to.XP mode gives you the best of both worlds: you can retain and run your older XP-based software but still get all the benefits of using Win7!Once you try the new Win7 interface, I think you'll like it. But if you don't, Woody's Windows' April 1 article, "Classic Shell puts XP retro back into Win7," shows you how to recreate the familiar XP look and feel in Windows 7.With almost a decade's worth of XP information at your fingertips, you'll be able to keep your copy of XP running smoothly for a long, long time to come!

Article copied from How-To-Geek

Snapping Windows to Preset Coordinates

Dear How-To Geek,

Once upon a time I had a company laptop that came with a little utility that snapped windows to preset areas of the screen. This was long before the snap-to-side features in Windows 7. You could essentially configure your screen into a grid pattern of your choosing and then windows would neatly snap into those grids. I have no idea what it was called or if was anymore than a gimmick from the computer manufacturer, but I’d really like to have it on my new computer!

Bend and Snap in San Francisco,

Dear Bend and Snap,

If we had to guess, we’d guess your company must have had a set of laptops from Acer as the program you’re describing sounds exactly like Acer GridVista. Fortunately for you the application was extremely popular and Acer released it independently of their hardware. If, by chance, you’ve since upgraded to a multiple monitor setup the app even supports multiple monitors—many of the configurations are handy for arranging IM windows and other auxiliary communication tools. Check out our guide to installing and configuring Acer GridVista here for more information.

Phil writes:

I am having a problem when I open AVI files that I create from the video camera. When I select them I get a message that reads ' Dr Watson Postmorten Debugger ' you have a problem’. When I click the box to close it, it locks up the computer and I have to do a soft boot.
Sometimes it brings up the Microsoft error reporting message that you have a problem and closing you down. I click on don't send message and I go back to the desk top.
I opened [Windows file folder for error message debugging]. There is a lot of files in the folder telling me what has been done.

I also am getting the Window Explorer message, when I click on a AVI file and when I click don't send message it closes me back to the desk top.

Do you know what might be happening.

I know Phil does a lot of video editing and makes some great photo and video keepsakes for his family. Like most of us he has tried a few different programs and Windows being the complicated software that it is he has in the past had some trouble with file formats and such. So I was thinking that this might be another recurrence of your old problems.

I found this discussion thread at a forum called MovieCodec.com. The details here are exactly the problem Phil is having.

Windows has a default habit of offering you a preview of multimedia files when you are searching through Windows Explorer. You know how when you open My Videos or whatever and select a video and Windows wants to show you a little preview copy – that’s what I mean. Ok so what happens is Windows (well Windows Explorer actually) takes control of the file and then when you try to access it the file is ‘in use’ and Explorer locks up and requires a restart which a lot of the times will mean restarting your whole system. This lock up triggers the Windows error reporting messages and Dr Watson which is Windows debugging program.

What the linked info suggests doing is to de-register the Windows settings, specifically a DLL file, that do the preview function. By so doing it can avoid this lock up problem altogether

The easiest way is to run a command through the ‘Run’ setting or to save the settings as a Batch file. A batch file is just a plain text file but with the extension changed from txt to bat. Running a batch file is like double-clicking a program file – the simple code written in the file will run. For that reason some antivirus programs will rightly try to block batch files. More Info on Batch files  is available here at Wikipedia

To help out I have made the batch text files for you and you can download them below. There are 2 files – one turns the setting off as described and the other turns it back on.So if changing it didn’t help or you wanted to go back to having the preview you just run the On file.

WinShellMediaOff – turns OFF the Windows Shell Media Handling

WinShellMediaOn– turns ON the Windows Shell Media Handling

Click and save the file somewhere like your Desktop. Once saved right click and choose Rename and change the extension (the bit after the dot) from name.txt to name.bat. Then double click the bat file to run it. If you want to see the contents of these files just open the Text file and read before you change the names to bat or read the website.

So give this a go Phil – I reckon it will work and shouldn’t do any harm if not. Other people on the site say that downloading the newest DivX codec solved their problem.So if this fix doesn’t work that would be my next suggestion. The latest version is always available at DivX.com

Let us know how you go :)

This article at Atomic suggests that there will be more WGA fun coming to your Windows machine – particularly if you are running Windows XP Pro. If someone is running a pirated version of Windows then they deserve these problems I guess but usually these sort of initiatives stop some perfectly legal PCs working too. Time will tell whether this is as annoying as the last WGA patch.

Any bets on how long it takes the internet hackers to circumvent the patch? My bet is a reliable workaround widely available in less than a week. I don’t know why Microsoft don’t work harder on making the system better and cheaper rather than wasting their efforts trying to stop it being stolen.

FOR THOSE OF YOU who come online to escape the nagging wife, bad news is ahead – Microsoft is introducing what can only be described as 'nagware' in an attempt to stamp out piracy of its beloved operating system.
The new Windows Genuine notification software will aim to stop the stolen and pirated versions of software being circulated using new Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) which comes into effect this week.
The WGA notifications will be delivered via Windows Update and will default the users background to black if the copy is deemed counterfeit.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said that, "the update simply reconfigures the notifications experience to mirror notifications in Windows Vista SP1."
This annoying piece of inspiration will make it easier for Microsoft to detect stolen and pirated software as well as fake product keys.
The spokeswoman continued to say that, "Microsoft is making these changes to simplify the installation process (making it easy for customers to stay up-to-date), to increase the effectiveness of these notifications, and to align experiences across Windows XP and Windows Vista." – hmmm.
The nagware will be aimed specifically at XP Professional users for now, as Microsoft believes this is the most pirated edition.
XP users who don't have WGA notifications will be asked to accept an End User License Agreement which gives the users consent for the anti-piracy validation control to auto-update itself with fewer releases.
Microsoft thinks this irritant will take a couple of months to roll out – you have been warned.