Windows 7

[RandBlade]

Due to an odd series of events I've ended up with a free, legal copy of Windows 7 being given to me from someone I'd helped out recently (family member, they'd bought it for their new machine only to end up buying a Mac so gave it to me rather than returning it - I'd lent my Vista disc to them to restore their old machine after he'd lost his, only for him to also lose mine so gave me this instead).

Been using it for a few days, not seen much that blows me away but a few things seem smoother, was wondering if there's any neat tips or tricks etc I've missed.

My likes so far:
On the Start Menu, Excel, Word etc on recently-run programs have their own expandable list of recently-used documents, can pin some to always be there too.
The advertised "snap" feature of moving windows side-by-side, simple enough to do manually anyway but saves a few seconds.
Seems to handle switching out of full-screen games (eg if I want to go to a web browser) and back in again smoother.

Dislike:
For years I've always used instead of speakers, a surround-sound stereo system with a headphone jack from the PC to the stereo. It seems to seperate your normal speakers from the headphones (can control volume individually eg), which should be a plus, but sometimes I'm getting no sound as its directing it to the non-existent speakers instead of my surround-sound. My cables plugged in to the headphone jack at the front of the PC because the speaker one at the back got physically damaged years ago.

I don't think so far there's anything I'd go out of my way to buy 7 for over Vista (same for Vista over XP), but given the choice without money being an issue I'd have 7 over Vista and Vista over XP, they both seem marginal evolutions not leaps forward.

PS amusing anecdote, when the "Windows 7 was my idea" adverts started on PC my girlfriend thought it was the truth and said how nice it was that the guy who'd come up with Win 7 was advertising it, before being told it was an actor.

[Ominous Gamer]

You could attempt to find the Windows 7 posts I made about the improvements over Vista if you feel like trying. Made them almost 2 years ago when Microsoft sent me a copy (and later a laptop) for their house party promotion.
Its got so many little things in it that are improvements over Vista and XP I don't even notice them anymore. I haven't touched my Vista machine in over a month. A lot of Windows 7 improvements where in the backend; snappier responses, less resource use, an overall more stable experience, not a whole lot of stuff the layperson would understand.
Only thing I remember missing (and still miss) is that Vista came with a nice calendar application.


As for your speaker problems, try digging around in your audio drivers. I know creative soundchips come with a "disable speakers when headphones detected." Which sounds like the reverse from what is happening to you. Until you fix your speakers, thats going to keep happening to you. You will have to manually switch between your speakers and headphone jacks in control panel -> sound (if your computer's hardware is configured in a way to make this possible).

[Kazuha Vinland]

I fool around quite a bit with Windows 7 whenever I do a reinstall (been a few occasions lately, thanks to swapping my hard drive back and forth). I'm sure I could post some tweaks.

1. Terminate User Account Control: These are the annoying pop-ups that occur when you're requested to grant permission to something. Coincidentally, it has never once in history stopped something harmful, and is better shut off. To do so, go to Start Menu, click your icon in the top right corner, and "Change User Account Control Settings". Set to never notify.

2. Get the old taskbar back: I never managed to adapt myself to the new system with big icons instead of tabs on the task bar. Without text it's usually hard to tell what they contain, and actually having to roll over them is an extra unnecessary move. Right-click on the bottom taskbar, click properties and then pick the options "Use small icons" and "Never combine". While you're at it, click the button "Customize" and always show all notifications in the task bar area.

3. Install essential software through NiNite.com: This website is genius. It basically lets you put together a package of the most common software, and provides a single download and installer. Huge time saver. Here is my recommended basic pack.

4. Get rid of start-up programs: A ton of software adds a little feature that tells the program to start up together with your computer. This hogs a lot of system resources if you don't happen to use them all at once. You can safely disable most of them. To do so, press [Windows] + [R] and type in "msconfig". Navigate to start-up and technically remove everything that does not sport Windows as part of its command line. Or those programs you actually do want to start up, of course!

5. Remove animations / fade ins / fade outs: This is optional, but basically deals with the issue of that every God damn time you open or minimize a window, it glides into action rather than being instant. To change these time dwellers, press [Windows] + [Pause Break] (a key in the upper right part of your keyboard). Proceed with "Advanced System Settings" and under Performance, once again "Settings". Disable everything that starts with either animate, fade or slide and keep the rest. Furthermore you can also move to the tab "Remote" and disable the superfluous Remote Assistance.

6. Disable unused features quickly: There is A LOT of support for stuff in Windows 7. Similarly, a lot of the stuff doesn't apply to your machine and can be chopped off for a faster experience. Go to the Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program (bottom left) and "Turn Windows Features on or off". I would recommend to disable everything except these: Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player (expand the Media Features folder) and Remote Differential Compression. Everything else you're better off without. There are only two things you might want to save based on personal use. First, "games" which contain the small minigames that comes with Windows, and secondly "Windows Search" which indexes all your files so that you can search quickly through that text bar in the start menu. The latter is a huge system resource however, so if you don't use it, be sure to disable it too.

[littlelolligagged]

So, basically Kazuha thinks you should eliminate all the features that make Windows 7 better, and turn it back into XP.

And even Vista was better than XP once I got used to it, so clearly he'd be better off with a Mac.

[Omega]

So, basically Kazuha thinks you should eliminate all the features that make Windows 7 better, and turn it back into XP.

Better is subjective.

I like the chess games. The computer is guuuuud.

[littlelolligagged]

Some people are just afraid of progress.

[RandBlade]

You could attempt to find the Windows 7 posts I made about the improvements over Vista if you feel like trying. Made them almost 2 years ago when Microsoft sent me a copy (and later a laptop) for their house party promotion.

Where we even here two years ago? No I can't be bothered with that.

Its got so many little things in it that are improvements over Vista and XP I don't even notice them anymore. I haven't touched my Vista machine in over a month. A lot of Windows 7 improvements where in the backend; snappier responses, less resource use, an overall more stable experience, not a whole lot of stuff the layperson would understand.
Only thing I remember missing (and still miss) is that Vista came with a nice calendar application.

I'm not a layperson

I agree, I do find 7 snappier, then again any clean-installed version of Windows is always snappier than even that same version of Windows after 3 years of use.

As for your speaker problems, try digging around in your audio drivers. I know creative soundchips come with a "disable speakers when headphones detected." Which sounds like the reverse from what is happening to you. Until you fix your speakers, thats going to keep happening to you. You will have to manually switch between your speakers and headphone jacks in control panel -> sound (if your computer's hardware is configured in a way to make this possible).

Not going to "fix my speakers", I don't own any speakers and haven't for over a decade - this stereo system has been used for my speakers since Christmas 2000 - on Win '98, XP, Vista and now 7.

1. Terminate User Account Control: These are the annoying pop-ups that occur when you're requested to grant permission to something. Coincidentally, it has never once in history stopped something harmful, and is better shut off. To do so, go to Start Menu, click your icon in the top right corner, and "Change User Account Control Settings". Set to never notify.

Never once in history? I call BS. I did disable this from Vista, I haven't this time. You don't exactly install new software every day.

2. Get the old taskbar back: I never managed to adapt myself to the new system with big icons instead of tabs on the task bar. Without text it's usually hard to tell what they contain, and actually having to roll over them is an extra unnecessary move. Right-click on the bottom taskbar, click properties and then pick the options "Use small icons" and "Never combine". While you're at it, click the button "Customize" and always show all notifications in the task bar area.

New taskbar is better once you're used to it.

3. Install essential software through NiNite.com: This website is genius. It basically lets you put together a package of the most common software, and provides a single download and installer. Huge time saver. Here is my recommended basic pack.

Never heard of it, don't need it, don't trust "single installers", am more than capable of finding my own software to install.

4. Get rid of start-up programs: A ton of software adds a little feature that tells the program to start up together with your computer. This hogs a lot of system resources if you don't happen to use them all at once. You can safely disable most of them. To do so, press [Windows] + [R] and type in "msconfig". Navigate to start-up and technically remove everything that does not sport Windows as part of its command line. Or those programs you actually do want to start up, of course!

Or just the start menu then msconfig. I do use this to get rid of some annoyances.

5. Remove animations / fade ins / fade outs: This is optional, but basically deals with the issue of that every God damn time you open or minimize a window, it glides into action rather than being instant. To change these time dwellers, press [Windows] + [Pause Break] (a key in the upper right part of your keyboard). Proceed with "Advanced System Settings" and under Performance, once again "Settings". Disable everything that starts with either animate, fade or slide and keep the rest. Furthermore you can also move to the tab "Remote" and disable the superfluous Remote Assistance.

Again these fades are neat and my PC has the specs to handle it thank you but no thanks.

6. Disable unused features quickly: There is A LOT of support for stuff in Windows 7. Similarly, a lot of the stuff doesn't apply to your machine and can be chopped off for a faster experience. Go to the Control Panel, click Uninstall a Program (bottom left) and "Turn Windows Features on or off". I would recommend to disable everything except these: Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player (expand the Media Features folder) and Remote Differential Compression. Everything else you're better off without. There are only two things you might want to save based on personal use. First, "games" which contain the small minigames that comes with Windows, and secondly "Windows Search" which indexes all your files so that you can search quickly through that text bar in the start menu. The latter is a huge system resource however, so if you don't use it, be sure to disable it too.

IE, WMP are two of the programs I don't use, not that I have any intention to remove them. Windows Search is the single thing that I would massively miss going back to XP, it is a brilliant improvement and I'd never consider removing it.

[Ominous Gamer]

Windows Search works with indexing off, and I definitely suggest turning off indexing. Windows search claims it works slower in this mode but I don't notice a delay when I'm using the start menu search, and this is with a 2TB drive thats half full and includes (according to Steam) 316 games*. I also turn off the auto defrag and do that on my own schedule.


I spent a few hours one day and put all my games into my Steam program because I was tired of searching the start menu for where the game ended up. The Games folder doesn't catch but a fraction of games and with so many its impossible to find them because I don't remember if it was installed under the game name, developer name, or publisher name. So I had to use the search, which was fine, until I decided I really loved Steam.

[Omega]

Some people are just afraid of progress.

Can i make a minority or women joke?

[littlelolligagged]

Can i make a minority or women joke?

Minority yes, women no.

Fucking old people are worse, though.

[Kazuha Vinland]

So, basically Kazuha thinks you should eliminate all the features that make Windows 7 better, and turn it back into XP.

And even Vista was better than XP once I got used to it, so clearly he'd be better off with a Mac.

How exactly am I turning it back to Windows XP? I merely suggest some tweaks concerning new things I don't like. The Aero theme is not disabled, you have the nice drag-and-expand feature, the great font and navigation, and mostly everything really new and practical about Windows 7. That I cut off features which a diminishing minority of end consumers use, is hardly what I'd call a con. Or do you usually use excessive parts with no purpose in your machinery?

Reckon that Ominous Gamer haven't gone out to disagree with me. Maybe it is because he too, finds those to be familiar and useful tips. I don't necessarily expect grown ups to trust youth even when it comes to computers, since heck, it took a while in my family too before everything tech related was dumped onto the son. I guess it is something about gadgets and men's pride. At the very least have the decency to trust Ominous Gamer then, since he surely must have planted some recognition throughout his time here as a computer geek.

Never once in history? I call BS. I did disable this from Vista, I haven't this time. You don't exactly install new software every day.

"Never once in history" is an exaggeration for that I've never had it occur to me, and never heard of anyone else having benefited from it either. That includes friends as well as several tech communities. It's beyond me why you do not simply trust the always up shields of security packages like MSE or even the built-in Windows Defender alone. Personally I do not run any protection besides the firewall, as honestly the risk of becoming infected if you're somewhat aware, is abysmally low. I've ran a scan with a year's interval, and each time no threats were discovered. That the computer does not slow down by any means, further helps the likeliness of Windows 7 being pretty secure without the placebo effect of UAC.

New taskbar is better once you're used to it.

Because? Currently I need only a single glance and a single click to open the window I want. In comparison, the "smart" bar first needs you to hover over a program group, open its contents and then you have to pick the window to open. It's extremely ineffective, if you ask me.

Never heard of it, don't need it, don't trust "single installers", am more than capable of finding my own software to install.

That you've never heard of it isn't much of a surprise. That you abandon it due to that, is. There is nothing not to trust about single installers... it's perfectly fine, and saves you up to an hour finding individual download links and also installing them individually. Sure you can find own software, but I find it to already have the collection of the best freeware available within most categories. More niche software and paidware can be downloaded elsewhere, of course.

Again these fades are neat and my PC has the specs to handle it thank you but no thanks.

It's just a suggestion, so I don't mind if you dislike the visual "disadvantage". It's not so much about your computer handling it. My laptop running a 10W TDP single core CULV prosessor with a 1.3GHz frequency and integrated graphics, can run Windows 7 as a system quite flawlessly. The point is that you lose a tiny amount of time when you minimize or maximize windows, and that it accounts for quite a lot over time.

IE, WMP are two of the programs I don't use, not that I have any intention to remove them.

I do not use Internet Explorer either, but for stability reasons it is unsafe to remove it. The same applies to WMP, although I do actually use that nowadays when I got all the codecs from K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, practically enabling me to open any media format without a 3rd party player. I find that compared to VLC and Media Player Classic, it lags way less if your hardware is just about adequate to handle 720p and 1080p video content.

Windows Search is the single thing that I would massively miss going back to XP, it is a brilliant improvement and I'd never consider removing it.

I use a nifty little software called Launchy, which leaves a much smaller footprint in the RAM usage, and can be pulled forth by the command [Alt] + [SPACE]. You have to add directories and which file formats to search after though, so I didn't both mentioning it. As OG also mentioned, alternatively you can just disable the indexing feature.

[Flixy]

I like the new taskbar. I also like that it seems a lot faster than Vista. In fact, I'm pretty happy with it. Windows media center is pretty neat, too, for my use of the computer. One problem: during the setup i accidentally did not click the 'leave everything the way it was' option and now it messes up my screen resolution every time I open the program, and does not restore it when I close it, which is really fucking annoying. Anyone have a clue on how to fix that? I tried messing with the registry settings directly but to no avail, but I am not really good with it anyway. I just want the resolution and refresh rate and everything to stay the same when I open the program, how hard can that be??

What exactly happens now is that I open the show, and suddenly there is a 'band' of display outside my tv screen (so I can move the mouse there but I can't see it). And when I go back to the desktop it does not change back.

[Aimless]

http://m.lifehacker.com/5254211/wind...hyped-features

http://m.lifehacker.com/5386953/life...e-to-windows-7

http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-7/

[Khendraja'aro]

I fool around quite a bit with Windows 7 whenever I do a reinstall (been a few occasions lately, thanks to swapping my hard drive back and forth). I'm sure I could post some tweaks.

1. Terminate User Account Control: These are the annoying pop-ups that occur when you're requested to grant permission to something. Coincidentally, it has never once in history stopped something harmful, and is better shut off. To do so, go to Start Menu, click your icon in the top right corner, and "Change User Account Control Settings". Set to never notify.

That's the most moronic "suggestion" ever given and should be taken out to be shot.

Seriously, you cannot get more retarded than doing that. The same kind of moron always uses a root account under *nix to do everything because he can't be assed to type in his password for sudo.

I can't stress it enough: This type of "advice" leads to me having to clean up other people's crap. I don't like cleaning up other people's crap, thus I officially nominate Kazuha for the "Tech-Moron of the Year"-Award.

I think I made myself clear how angry I am over those kinds of "advice" by self-proclaimed "techies".

[Ominous Gamer]

Disabling UAC is the first thing I always do. It doesn't protect against anything common sense (and Microsoft's free AV) would have already stopped from happening. Microsoft has gone on record before about how big of a failure UAC is. Talking about how it was designed, on purpose, to annoy and piss people off, in the misguided assumption that programmers would stop trying to modify and access what the UAC controlled.
To bad the UAC was wrapped into almost everything, and the OS itself would trip it so often.

I understand the trend of not trusting the user to make the right desicions (hi Apple!), but Rand claims not to be a layperson in this regard, I bet he could manage.

[RandBlade]

Disabling UAC is the first thing I always do. It doesn't protect against anything common sense (and Microsoft's free AV) would have already stopped from happening. Microsoft has gone on record before about how big of a failure UAC is. Talking about how it was designed, on purpose, to annoy and piss people off, in the misguided assumption that programmers would stop trying to modify and access what the UAC controlled.
To bad the UAC was wrapped into almost everything, and the OS itself would trip it so often.

I understand the trend of not trusting the user to make the right desicions (hi Apple!), but Rand claims not to be a layperson in this regard, I bet he could manage.

Agreed. I've kept UAC just because it hasn't bugged me enough yet, if it does I'll remove it like I did with Vista. I have never had a virus ever and that's not for not being online. Idiocy results in viruses far more than anything like UAC - although admittedly you could consider disabling UAC as idiocy I suppose. Being sensible you can cope without it though.

Minx: That's the sort of thing I was thinking about. I'd noticed the libraries, but not paid much attention to it yet.

[Wraith]

Disabling UAC is the first thing I always do. It doesn't protect against anything common sense (and Microsoft's free AV) would have already stopped from happening. Microsoft has gone on record before about how big of a failure UAC is. Talking about how it was designed, on purpose, to annoy and piss people off, in the misguided assumption that programmers would stop trying to modify and access what the UAC controlled.
To bad the UAC was wrapped into almost everything, and the OS itself would trip it so often.

I understand the trend of not trusting the user to make the right desicions (hi Apple!), but Rand claims not to be a layperson in this regard, I bet he could manage.

I think you're misconstruing which parts of UAC Microsoft was unhappy with. They would've removed it from Windows 7 if they felt the concept was unsound.

It's really a lot less intrusive and annoying in Windows 7. Most of the reasons that may have existed in Vista to disable it are gone. And you can't rely on AV for everything; there's whole classes of software you probably don't want on your computer that aren't classified as viruses/worms/any other malevolent software class.

Quick example: I downloaded a game demo once. I didn't know it was bundled with StarForce (who the hell sticks hard-core DRM on a free demo?). When I was installing it, UAC informed me that StarForce was trying to install itself so it could rape my computer. It probably would have been able to sneak in if I had disabled UAC.

UAC is a security component, and should be considered as such before disabling it. You kill it, you're opening a hole in your computer's defences.

[Khendraja'aro]

Disabling UAC is the first thing I always do. It doesn't protect against anything common sense (and Microsoft's free AV) would have already stopped from happening. Microsoft has gone on record before about how big of a failure UAC is. Talking about how it was designed, on purpose, to annoy and piss people off, in the misguided assumption that programmers would stop trying to modify and access what the UAC controlled.
To bad the UAC was wrapped into almost everything, and the OS itself would trip it so often.

I understand the trend of not trusting the user to make the right desicions (hi Apple!), but Rand claims not to be a layperson in this regard, I bet he could manage.

Actually, your AV and your precious common sense will yield nothing if you disable UAC.

Again, it's the equivalent to 'sudo' under Linux - giving processes Admin rights when everything else runs with mere user rights. Any Linux admin worth his money will tell you that running everything as root is a Bad Idea(tm) - and that's just what you're doing when you disable UAC. Because anyone who knows what they're doing will want to know when a process demands admin rights!

You disable UAC, you don't know when you're elevating a process. Bad Move.

It's a moronic move. Period. Done exclusively by Tech Morons who should not be allowed near any PCs in a hundred kilometer radius.

And strangely enough, the UAC is indeed tripped very rarely now on my PC, so I'm not quite sure where you get your assumption from that it was "misguided"? The programmers indeed got their shit together and now finally manage to program in such a way that they don't always assume the user to have Admin rights. So, obviously, your views still seem to reside deep inside the last decade - maybe you should take a look around and recognize that things indeed have changed?

[Ominous Gamer]

I think you're misconstruing which parts of UAC Microsoft was unhappy with. They would've removed it from Windows 7 if they felt the concept was unsound.

It's really a lot less intrusive and annoying in Windows 7. Most of the reasons that may have existed in Vista to disable it are gone. And you can't rely on AV for everything; there's whole classes of software you probably don't want on your computer that aren't classified as viruses/worms/any other malevolent software class.

Quick example: I downloaded a game demo once. I didn't know it was bundled with StarForce (who the hell sticks hard-core DRM on a free demo?). When I was installing it, UAC informed me that StarForce was trying to install itself so it could rape my computer. It probably would have been able to sneak in if I had disabled UAC.

UAC is a security component, and should be considered as such before disabling it. You kill it, you're opening a hole in your computer's defences.

X3?
Guess it comes back to keeping yourself educated. Another reason I like using Steam for this stuff, since its listed on the product page. I know Starforce has changed since its original bitchfest creating bullshit, but that doesn't really mean much. Even with UAC disabled Windows 7 stops starforce drivers from 5.5 and below from loading at all.

[Wraith]

Nope. X3 didn't have StarForce, did it? I had that on my XP computer!

Some other demo. Never let it actually install because of StarForce, so I can't remember the name.

edit: Shit, now I'm kinda bothered. I can't remember if I did my homework before I installed X3. I'm pretty sure wherever I got it from, I checked on the DRM and wasn't threatened by it, but I'm not sure...

[Khendraja'aro]

X3?
Guess it comes back to keeping yourself educated. Another reason I like using Steam for this stuff, since its listed on the product page. I know Starforce has changed since its original bitchfest creating bullshit, but that doesn't really mean much. Even with UAC disabled Windows 7 stops starforce drivers from 5.5 and below from loading at all.

Different reason. Windows 7 stops a whole lot of drivers due to incompatibility. Completely different ballpark.

[Ominous Gamer]

Nope. X3 didn't have StarForce, did it? I had that on my XP computer!

The demo did at least.

[Kazuha Vinland]

That's the most moronic "suggestion" ever given and should be taken out to be shot.

Seriously, you cannot get more retarded than doing that. The same kind of moron always uses a root account under *nix to do everything because he can't be assed to type in his password for sudo.

I can't stress it enough: This type of "advice" leads to me having to clean up other people's crap. I don't like cleaning up other people's crap, thus I officially nominate Kazuha for the "Tech-Moron of the Year"-Award.

I think I made myself clear how angry I am over those kinds of "advice" by self-proclaimed "techies".

That is indeed a laughable accusation. You are speaking as if malicious software do not have ways to easily bypass the UAC, and validate its use based on non-dangerous software including demos and crapware (which most of the time, you can tick off in the installation of the main program...). The easy workaround for that is to regularly check through your installed programs list for unfamiliar software. An action that you would do naturally when using a computer over time.

Like Ominous Gamer, I feel no threat whatsoever about turning off the UAC. It's a nagging utility that in most instances notifies about stuff that you'll want to provide permission to anyway. I remember that at one point, it even went bananas about letting Windows Firewall and the likes granting access to the Internet. Although that is an extreme, it's still an indicator of how bothersome it can be.

Oh... and who's people crap is it that you're cleaning anyway? I sincerely hope it is not corporate use, as then we're talking about completely different values of security. For most home users, the UAC merely acts as an annoyance where they just click the "OK" button anyway out of habit. Fact. It would astonish me if you could possibly link such mishaps with the lacking implementation of UAC. Furthermore I'm not really overjoyed by the elitist personality of tech "pros" who genuinely so troubleshoot problems that might be more complex than the self-proclaimed techies can. Since naturally, if you are an advanced user who has taken an interest in the system through a daily use of 4-5 hours over many many years, this level of advice is easily within the limit of my and others' knowledge. Reducing Windows Vista to fit on a CD through the extensive use of vLite, handpicking components closer to the core, now that is more a radical approach to things where things require experiments for it to work. This isn't: it's basic tweaking advice. I just want you to cool down the "I'm omnipotent, while you're hopeless" attitude that is so typical in that business. As in fact, we probably adapt faster to new operative systems than you do.

[Aimless]

Atta boy Kazuha, you tell him

Say what you like about UAC, I've never seen a regular user pay any heed to the popups. As for more savvy users, well they feel a compulsion to read the messages and then end up installing the program anyway, so it's even more of an annoyance to those poor neurotic schmucks

[Aimless]

Khen here are some tech support tricks/strategies you (as an expert) should be aware of:

1. Decline to help

2. Charge money and favours for helping

[Khendraja'aro]

As I've said, I've had to clean up the crap those "tips" like yours cause. It's not fun and that's why I'm infuriated by people spreading this crap "tip". Honestly, what exactly DOES that save you? A second per day, if that much? And for that you're opening a huge security hole? I see the UAC maybe once a week!

Honestly, do me a favour: Don't ever begin to use Linux. With your logic, you'll move every daemon to root because you can't be arsed to establish proper user roles - same principle. I mean, what is the justification? "There are security holes which bypass UAC"?

Yeah, and those holes won't be patched ever? But even when they're patched, you'll still allow privilege escalations - which means that your PC will still be vulnerable while others won't.

And seriously, if you're claiming that using "vLite" is a sign that you know what you're doing: No. That's no feat. At all. In the time of 2 TB harddiscs and DVD-Rs costing maybe 20 cents, it's also a effin' timesink which serves no real purpose.

Khen here are some tech support tricks/strategies you (as an expert) should be aware of:

1. Decline to help

2. Charge money and favours for helping

We still have to hunt down the crap infested PCs. Then we have to tell them: "Yes, your PC is infected. No, you have to do that yourself. No, reformatting and reinstalling is the fastest and safest way." Usually we also tell them two days later: "No, we won't reconnect your PC again unless you reinstall. No, obviously your virus scanner didn't catch them all."

We even had one infected PC posing as our DHCP - that was a pretty weird one, the infected PC actually served the right IP adresses! We only noticed because the DNS servers provided were different ones which did not work. That also was before the time we had managed switches, so we had to pull network cables to determine which port the infected PC was using as he also spoofed his MAC adress.

[Aimless]

Honestly, do me a favour: Don't ever begin to use Linux.

This is probably the best advice you can give to almost any computer user who wants an enjoyable and reasonably hassle-free computer experience

We even had one infected PC posing as our DHCP - that was a pretty weird one, the infected PC actually served the right IP adresses! We only noticed because the DNS servers provided were different ones which did not work. That also was before the time we had managed switches, so we had to pull network cables to determine which port the infected PC was using as he also spoofed his MAC adress.

That actually sounds like exciting and challenging detective work

[Flixy]

Khen, if you're into tech support.. could you hepl me fix my display problem with windows media center? It's really annoying.

[Aimless]

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

[Khendraja'aro]

Khen, if you're into tech support.. could you hepl me fix my display problem with windows media center? It's really annoying.

Don't really use that program. All I can tell you is to go into "Tasks" => "settings" => "TV" and then "Configure your TV or Monitor"