PCTips Box

Most programs written for Windows XP also work in this version of Windows, but some older programs might run poorly or not at all. If a program written for an earlier version of Windows doesn’t run correctly, use the Program Compatibility Wizard to change the compatibility settings for the program. To change settings for a program manually, use the individual program’s Compatibility tab.

If changing the settings does not fix the problem, go to the program manufacturer’s website to see if there is an update for the program.

Do not use the Program Compatibility Wizard on older antivirus programs, disk utilities, or other system programs because it might cause data loss or create a security risk. (more…)

How would you like to have two iPhones in one? NerveGas of iPhone Dev Team reveals that the team has been using dual-booting to jailbreak the iPhone for months. The team has decided to release the hack enabling iPhone users to boot multiple versions of the iPhone software/OS “from” the handset.

This should present iPhone users with quite an advantage once the 2.0 firmware is out, meaning they’ll be able to have a bootable jailbroken software version, as well as a non-jailbroken software version available at the same time on their device. Partition-making is involved: (more…)

I don’t know how prevalent the problem is of Vista displaying the error message “BOOTMGR is missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”, but I wish I’d seen this fix from Cybernet a few weeks ago. The way I temporarily solved the problem was to boot my machine with the Vista DVD inserted EVERY TIME. I decided this was a bad idea as my DVD drive is temperamental and prone to chewing up discs, so I ended up doing a full rebuild as I didn’t want to risk my Vista Disk.

To fix the problem the sensible way, do the following: (more…)

The Windows Explorer is one of the cornerstones of every Windows operating system as it allows you to take action (copy, paste, cut etc’) on files and folders. A few month ago, I installed a new PC and found myself transferring a trillion of files to the new PC using the Windows Explorer. The thing that annoyed me the most is that i couldn’t make file moves between folders in one step : first i had to copy or cut the file/s from the source folder and then paste it/them in the destination folder).

Luckily, i found a nice trick that helped me to save plenty of time by allowing me to add a Move to Folder and Copy to Folder items to my Windows Explorer right click menu. After implementing it, i was able to easily copy and move files between different folders in one shot. The trick was tested in both Windows XP and Windows Vista. (more…)

At TechEd, as you might imagine, there is a lot of wireless noise. There is the conference wi-fi, but there are also a bunch of ad-hoc or computer to computer networks with remarkably similar names. In the wireless list infrastructure and ad-hoc networks have different icons.

You have to question the motives of people trying to fists for wi-fi users like that. while I know better than to go connecting to ad-hoc networks willy nilly, I wanted to remove the risk of accidentally connecting to one with the same name. (more…)

I’ve finally started making a few changes to my Windows Vista setup. One of the most annoying recurring problems I’ve had is that User Account Control, which is designed to protect your computer from unauthorized changes isn’t very intelligent and doesn’t learn from past behaviour. So, if you will constantly have to approve certain programs.

I’ve decided to turn User Account Control off. Yes, there’s a risk that I might be leaving my machine vulnerable but I’m pretty careful so I’m confident I’ll be ok. Disabling UAC is pretty easy: (more…)

TotalIdea’s TweakVI (free basic edition) makes up for the lack of a “TweakUI” for Vista.

TweakUI is a Microsoft “PowerToy” for Windows XP (not Vista). It allows you to change all kinds of settings for how the operating system works. See the “Hit Parade” below, to get an idea of the kinds of settings I’m talking about. (Note: Microsoft makes this tool available without any warranty or support. Use it at your own risk.)

Microsoft does not offer a TweakUI equivalent for Vista, but a company called TotalIdea comes to the rescue. Their TweakVI comes in three editions (basic, premium, and ultimate). The basic version is free and it is roughly the equivalent of TweakUI for XP. For XP users, TotalIdea also offers Tweak-XP Pro, which goes beyond what TweakUI can do. Tweak-XP Pro has a free trial that’s good for 30 executions. Perhaps the most interesting feature of Tweak-XP Pro are the cleanup functions (unnecessary registry entries and unnecessary files). (more…)