Rick's Daily Tips

How to speed up your Start Menu

Posted on April 17, 2013

microsoft-windows 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…]

Q&A: How do I make the Windows 8 Maps app display distances in kilometers?

Posted on April 15, 2013

Question from Joyce B.: Hi Rick. I just moved from Des Moines, Iowa to Vancouver, British Columbia and of course I brought my new laptop with me.

I love the Windows 8 Maps app, but now that I’m living in Canada I need for it to display distances in kilometers instead of miles. How do I make it do that? Thanks.

Rick‘s answer: Hi Joyce! I hope you enjoy your new home north of the border. I have a feeling that you will since Canada is such a beautiful country and the people are sooooo nice!

To answer your question, here’s all you need to do to make the Windows 8 Maps app display distances in kilometers: [Read more…]

Microsoft to stop supporting Windows XP in April 2014

Posted on April 14, 2013

It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has announced that they will no longer support or release security updates for Windows XP after April 8, 2014, a move that will effectively kill off what has been arguably the most popular version of Windows ever released.

The company had originally planned to end support for XP years ago, but for various reasons they pushed back the “kill” date several times. It appears that the April 2014 date is set in stone however. [Read more…]

Q&A: My Task Manager is disabled. How can I get it back?

Posted on April 14, 2013

Question from Eric: My computer slowed to a crawl and I found out that it was eaten up with Spyware and viruses. I spent the better part of a day cleaning it all up but now I can’t load the Task Manager. It’s grayed out on the menus and I can’t click it. How can I get it back?

Rick‘s answer: Hi Eric. The miscreants who create spyware and viruses use all kinds of tricks to prevent us from discovering and disabling their insidious creations, and a couple of their favorite tricks are disabling the System Restore and Task Manager utilities. [Read more…]

Q&A: Why is Internet Explorer 10 slow to load the first page?

Posted on April 13, 2013

Question from Randy F:. Rick, I took your suggestion and upgraded to I.E. 10 and it was a great move. It’s a lot faster than I.E. 9!

But there is one problem: When I.E. is loaded the first time it takes forever to load the first web page. But after that, every other page loads in a jiffy. This started when I installed I.E. 10. Do you know how I can fix this? Thanks!

Rick‘s answer: Randy, this is a common problem with Internet Explorer that goes way back to the earliest versions. For some reason some I.E. installations have trouble initially detecting the PC’s Lan settings. Here’s how to fix the problem of I.E. hanging on the first page load: [Read more…]