by David Hakala
Q: Is the recovery partition of Vista really needed? Can I remove it? If I can remove it, what is a procedure to remove this partition? – Don
Vista’s recovery partition is needed like a car’s spare tire is needed. The car will run fine without a spare tire and you will free up some trunk space by removing the spare tire. You can keep the spare tire in your garage at home, and go get it when one of your tires goes flat. But better hope the car is in your driveway when a tire goes flat.
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by David Hakala
New computers with Windows XP installed instead of Vista are still readily available in retail and online stores. That is supposed to end July 31, 2009, when Microsoft promises to pull PC makers’ license to sell XP and make every manufacturer offer only Vista. But don’t carve XP’s tombstone just yet; its death date may change yet again.
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by David Hakala
Q: I think I have trained my Dell Vostro/Vista to recognise my voice, but how do I actually put it into practice? I will shortly be having to type a quite lengthy report and it would be really useful to merely speak to my laptop since my typing speed is bit tortoise-like! – Nigel
Speech-to-text, or speech recognition, is a feature built into the Vista operating system. Like all the many components of a general-purpose operating system, Vista’s speech recognition is not the best of its breed. Third-party speech recognition software such as Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking are more reliable than Vista’s built-in stuff. For a “quite lengthy report” and regular use, I would highly recommend investing in top-quality speech recognition software.
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by David Hakala
Q: I use Windows Outlook 2007 on my Vista Ultimate machine. Can you tell me how to turn off the “synchronizing folders” option in Outlook 2007? Whenever this runs, it really hogs the resources, and I don’t know that this needs to be done as frequently as it is being done. Thanks! – Bill
“Synchronizing folders” simply means that Outlook 2007 is sending and receiving email and RSS messages, updating Internet-based calendars, and other tasks that require communication with other computers on the Internet. Many users complain that Outlook 2007 takes far too long and uses far too many resources for this task. But synchronization is not an “option,” it’s an essential feature. You can’t turn it off permanently or you won’t have any email, RSS feeds, etc. You might as well uninstall Outlook, a solution quite a few people choose in favor of Mozilla Thunderbird or another email client, including an earlier version of Outlook.
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by David Hakala
Microsoft Windows Defender is an anti-spyware program included in Windows XP and Vista. Do you need it, and does it do its job well?
First, note that Windows Defender is only an anti-spyware program. Spyware intercepts or takes partial control over the user’s interaction with the computer, without the user’s informed consent. For example, spyware may log all of your keystrokes – including financial site passwords – and send them to an unknown party. That’s bad, but spyware is hardly the only kind of threat. You will still need anti-virus software, most of which also scans for spyware.
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by David Hakala
There is a bit of a battle going on among Microsoft Office users worldwide. Some have upgraded to Office 2007 while others stick with Office 2003. The problem is that the default file format in which Office documents are saved is not the same for both versions. So users of Office 2003 cannot open documents created and saved by Office 2003.
“Save it in 2003 format!” they cry.
“No, you upgrade!” reply the state-of-the-art crowd.
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by David Hakala
Q: Reader John asks two questions: (1) I’m purchasing a new HP Pavilion Desktop with Vista OS. The supplier does not give the original Microsoft Program CD. Instead they include a Restore program on the hard drive. Am I entitled to the original CD? (2) Can the operating system be restored with the non-destructive installation method from the inbuilt “Restore Program”?
To answer the first question, unfortunately, no, you are not entitled to a full, retail copy of Microsoft Vista with the purchase of a new computer. That could be installed multiple times on different computers, depriving Microsoft of its hard-earned money.
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by David Hakala
Microsoft Windows needs to be kept up to date to close newly discovered security vulnerabilities and patch bugs that can degrade performance or crash your computer completely. There are several ways to get Microsoft’s frequently released Windows update packages, including one that works with Web browsers other than Internet Explorer.
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by Gabe Goldberg
Anyone who’s used a PC more than briefly has wandered through the fundamental directory/folder/file structure underlying Windows’ graphical user interface. And any PC that’s been used for a while likely has convoluted structures of user files — text, photo, spreadsheet, music, video, etc.
So it’s occasionally necessary to print the contents of Windows file folders (directories) for chores such as listing user folders and files contained in data backups, keeping family/hobby/volunteer material separate and organized, tracking files changed by software patches and installs, and noting file details when reporting problems.
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