Apparently Windows 7 Starter Edition, typically installed on new Netbooks, is very crippled. You can’t even change the background wallpaper. Illiad has a solution—and it has the advantage that you no longer see what Windows is doing to your data either.
Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category
Wallpaper
10 Sep 2010 10:05 by Rick
Flash Bang Wallop
16 Jun 2010 15:41 by Rick
Little known fact—Adobe Flash has to be installed on BOTH Internet Explorer and any alternative browser you have even if you don’t use them.
Well known fact—Installing Adobe Flash is a pain in the backside.
The official method is to go to http://www.adobe.com/ click on “Get Adobe Flash Player” and follow the instructions remembering to un-tick the undesirable “free offers” on the way. It goes on to perform up to two restarts of the browser using a download manager.
This process is incredibly complex, unnecessary and very prone to failure. On one of my systems the Download Manager aborts, on another it is blocked by a firewall I don’t control; on a third it wants missing plugins—just the ones I am trying to install! Even if it works you can end up with more stuff than you want.
They haven’t made it easy to avoid, whatever route you take you always get to the same “Agree and Install Now” button, but there is a way. Near the top of the Flash player install page is a link titled “Different operating system or browser”. Clicking that takes you to a menu page—select the OS you are using and Continue. Now you get two choices “Internet Explorer” and “Other Browsers”. You CANNOT select the browser you are using—that will take you straight back to where you started; but if you select the other one then the “Agree and Install Now” button does a straightforward download of an executable (without any free extras). The trick is to use each browser to download the code for the other one and then just run them. If you need them on other systems then put them on a memory stick, it saves a lot of time.
Firefox 3.5 Extensions
2 Jul 2009 06:12 by Rick
Rather quietly, certainly without the fanfare of version 3, Firefox 3.5 was released a couple of days ago.
This is an update to my earlier post about difficult extensions bringing the version numbers and locations up to date. There are still a few that I found that could be simply hacked to enable them to load. I haven’t altered the functionality at all, just changed the maximum version number to 3.* and tested them. They work on my system but you use them at your own risk on yours.
Stop-or-Reload Button 0.2.2 — The page says it works up to Firefox 3.0 (but it doesn’t even do that). The Hacked version 0.2.2.99 still works with Firefox 3.5.
UK Threat Level 0.16 — Hacked version 0.16.99
British English Dictionary 1.19 — The page says it works with Firefox 3.6 but it doesn’t. The Hacked version 1.19.99 still works with Firefox 3.5. This extension is also suitable for Thunderbird 2.*. It is not entirely clear if this dictionary is needed for Firefox 3+ or if there is one built into the English (British) basic download.
Google Pagerank Status 0.9.8 — Although the web site doesn’t say so, the version there is now 0.9.9 and does support Firefox 3 but not 3.5. Hacked version 0.9.9.99
Objection 0.3.3 doesn’t support Firefox 3.5 though they are working on a version 0.4. Update 6 Jul 2009: v0.3.4 is now available.
Minimize to Tray 0.0.1.2006102615+ (Windows) doesn’t work with Firefox 3 — The Hacked version 0.0.1.2006102615.99 also works with Thunderbird 2.*.
MacOS with Safari 4
17 Jun 2009 11:30 by Rick
This is a companion post to the previous one about Windows without Internet Explorer, which now seems to be possible.
It has been discovered that, once you install Safari 4 on MacOS, you cannot remove it. The only backwards route is to reinstall the operating system from scratch. This is a seriously BAD THING. Microsoft got a lot of stick for embedding IE deep into Windows so it could not be removed (possibly not deliberately, but as a consequence). There are many reasons that you may wish to remove an application—shortage of space is only one. It was possible to remove the Beta versions so why not the real thing? It is possible to remove Safari from Windows.
Windows without IE
15 Jun 2009 10:45 by Rick
There is some talk around about Microsoft issuing a special version of Windows 7 for EU countries which doesn’t have Internet Explorer bundled in.
In some senses, this is good news; it exposes the lie that Internet Explorer cannot be removed from Windows because its use is deeply embedded into the operating system. It also means that Windows Update will have to be able to work with alternative browsers (or another mechanism altogether); something it can’t do at the moment.
On the other hand, I don’t see why they need to ship without it at all. Potentially the machines become useless for the average consumer who can’t access the web even to download a browser to access the web! There are suggestions that Microsoft are just posturing.
Apple ships machines with Safari which is a very similar situation so I don’t see why Windows shouldn’t ship with IE—so long as it is possible to remove it if people don’t want it. In practice, I don’t remove Safari, I just don’t use it except for cross browser code checks, and it would be the same with IE; but it would be nice to know that I could. A similar situation should exist for Media Player/iTunes verses competitors.
Oedipus Mac
6 Jun 2009 10:12 by Rick
Windows is like my body. It will take virtually anything I throw at it with little more than a hangover afterwards. Normally it is wide awake and ready for anything but it has a tendency to sulk and sometimes will embarrass me in public. Just occasionally it gives up altogether for no explicable reason. As it gets older it gets a little fatter and slows down. There are visible scars from past accidents and mistakes that never quite fade away. One day it will fail to boot altogether.
Linux is like my mates. There are lots of them and they are always good for a laugh, but a little bit naughty. A few drift away and I never hear from them again but new ones come along. Some remain faithful but begin to look a lot like me; they buy a suit and get a bit over weight.
MacOS is like my mother, always telling me to wash behind my ears and nothing but the best is good enough for her boy. She is always there for me and everything I do is the greatest. She doesn’t mind when a few mates come around so long as she doesn’t have to talk to them. One day I will take a friend out but I expect that when I look closely, she will be a lot like my mother.
Homegroups on Windows 7
14 May 2009 09:13 by Rick
I have been reading about the new features of Windows 7 and one that looks attractive is the concept of Homegroups. This is an extension of the home networking facility which consolidates the files of all participating machines and users into common libraries. So, for instance, if you have multiple PCs on your network, each with multiple users then all their music folders are consolidated into one music library while the files themselves remain on the owner’s account. This is an extension of the “My Music” and “Shared Music” across multiple machines and accounts in a more transparent way. This has been available for a long time in Windows Media Player but the mechanism has been moved back into the O/S and extended to other libraries such as videos and pictures. There are not a lot of details, but I presume that this is for read only and write always goes local. The libraries involved are Music, Pictures, Videos and Documents and the sharing also includes printers. What it fails to mention, of course, is that it only works when the relevant machines are switched on!
An article I was reading on Windows Secrets, which is a lot more informative, suggests that Documents are handled differently from others. It says that “Homegroup setup makes sharing the Documents Library optional” but I can’t see why that should be given special treatment. Surely your Gangsta Rap collection and the pictures from your naughty weekend in Brighton could be just as sensitive?
WAT no Advantage?
11 May 2009 09:39 by Rick
In the forthcoming Windows 7 the hated Windows Genuine Advantage changes it’s name to Windows Activation Technologies and it is supposed to be slightly less annoying.
But seriously, Windows 7 is getting a lot more critical support than Vista ever has. One of the best features is a built in virtual platform for running old XP applications, though this rather depends on your processor supporting it. It is intended for the huge number of business users who can’t or won’t switch and are costing MS a lot of sales. It is reported that many typical retail consumer PC’s won’t have the right processor chip.
A test for the Conficker Worm
3 Apr 2009 09:31 by Rick
All the hype about Conficker/Downadup on April 1st was no more than that. It wasn’t a day when you were going to get infected, it was, if you were already infected then that was the day it would become active in whatever it was going to do e.g. spam.
In practice, because of they way it was propagated, home users were less likely to be affected anyway as it used corporate networks, though there was some risk from USB memory sticks. Also, well over half of the worlds affected machines were in areas where they take little notice of licensing and were using cracked copies of Windows.
Anyway, there is quite a simple way to discover if you are affected. Visit this Conficker Eye Chart and follow the instructions, it is very easy. It is not 100% guaranteed because proxy servers can make things seem ok when they are not, but it is a good start. As a second test, go to your anti-virus supplier’s web site. If you can get there and read a sample of the pages then you are almost certainly NOT infected.
AVG 8.5 Free is here
30 Mar 2009 19:07 by Rick
This caught me a bit by surprise as we use the paid system on most of the machines I manage and, on there, the update is automatic. However, if you use the free version then you will soon be getting update suggestions. There doesn’t seem to be a time limit yet unlike last year’s debacle so there is no panic, but it will need to be done sometime. It looks quite stable and, as I said, has been on the paid version for a little while.
To get and install it, you need to navigate through their site. You don’t want the free trial versions, you need the real free version, the one they call Free Basic Protection. From then on the install is just like version 8 which I documented last year, except there may be a few fewer questions to trip you up. If you have disabled the link scanner in the browser, it doesn’t seem to get reset or maybe it is not used any more, I am not sure.
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