Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
If you’ve been using Microsoft Windows for a while you have surely seen the “USB Device Not Recognized” error balloon pop up after plugging in a USB device.
This happens fairly often, and most of the time unplugging the device and plugging it back in will fix the problem. But what if you start getting this error every time you plug in a USB device?
If all of your USB devices start generating this error when you plug them in, there is an easy fix: [Read more…]
Do you open the “Computer” utility and navigate to the same folder on a regular basis? If so, why not create a shortcut to that folder and place it on the Desktop?
One the shortcut to your favorite folder is on your desktop, you can double-click on it Windows will open that folder immediately instead of you having to navigate to it every time.
This might seem like a trivial matter, but if you open the same folder several times a day, having a shortcut to it can be a real time saver.
Here’s how to create a Desktop shortcut to a specific folder: [Read more…]
It happens to all of us on occasion: the dreaded hung program. After spending the better part of an hour typing in a long text document or editing an important photo, the program window freezes and we get the infuriating “Not Responding” error message.
All of that hard work has been for naught, right? Well, maybe not… A nifty little Windows utility called Resource Monitor just might save the day.
But before I explain how to try freeing up your stuck programs, let me explain a little bit about why programs stop responding in the first place. Programs running under Microsoft Windows do not run in a vacuum. They typically interact with a number of Windows processes, and even other software programs.
If one of the processes or programs that the program you’re working with encounters a problem, it will often cause the program you’re working with to just sit and wait while it tries to finish the task at hand. The problem is the task at hand will sometimes never be completed, hence the stuck program.
The next time a program stops responding before you’ve had a chance to save your work, try this: [Read more…]
Does it seem like it takes forever for your Start Menu to display after you click the Start Button? There are several things that affect the speed of your menus that are beyond your control, but there is one that you can control with a simple Registry hack.
Important: Editing the Windows Registry can render your system unstable or even unable to boot up properly if something happens to go wrong. That’s why if you choose to follow the instructions below you do so at your own risk.
You also agree that it won’t be my fault if you begin having three birthdays a year, your car gets damaged by an out-of-control shopping cart in the WalMart parking lot, or your PC becomes unstable or refuses to boot up properly.
If you agree with everything I just said in the preceding paragraphs, follow the steps below to speed up your Windows Start Menu: [Read more…]
The Windows Control Panel contains dozens of tools and settings for tweaking the way Windows performs many of its numerous tasks.
Most of these tools and settings are nested underneath a plethora of menus, making it difficult to find exactly what you’re looking for without doing a bunch of clicking and searching.
Lucky for us, there’s a very simple way to create a handy Super Control Panel app that lists every single Control Panel tool and setting on a single page, neatly filed under one of several easy-to-understand categories. Here’s the simple two-step process for creating your very own Super Control Panel: [Read more…]