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Probably that one has no browser add on or plugin, so the browser does not use it.

Thanks for responding – Acrobat 8 Pro and PDF Converter both have browser and MS Office plug-ins. It took me awhile to 1) update Acrobat 8 to 8.3 (which works fine with Win 7); 2) set it as a default and 3) get pdf’s to preview properly on almost all websites and within Win 7 explorer.exe and Outlook 2010. The latter took a registry change.

My current problem is not universal across all websites. Most let me view pdfs without issues. It occurs only when I log in to certain sites that have pdf files I need. When I click on each pdf icon to view/print or download, I get the message insisting on installing the latest Acrobat Reader to access them. It is not a plug-in issue – I think it is a programming issue that fails to accept any pdf application other than the free Reader. If there is no Reader then there is no access.

I’ve researched Adobe Acrobat 8 and Reader 8 or 9 co-existence issues at Adobe.com and find conflicting answers, one of which is do not install Reader when you already have a full Acrobat version on your system. That is the only workaround area I think is available to me, and I’m looking for some insight on how to get both to work together on Win 7 64bit if anyone has done so.

PS I just found http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/333/333223.html at Adobe’s support on this question. It says installing Acrobat 8 Professional is “allowed” AFTER installing Adobe Reader 9! It does not discuss adding Adobe Reader 9 after having Adobe 8 Pro installed.

The problem is the website insisting on Adobe Reader and no other. If it were an Adobe issue alone, I would think my Nuance PDF Converter 6, which opens or views all pdf files if set as the default, would work as a reader.

Ted, have you tried TeraByte Unlimited’s Image for Windows (IFW)? It is a low cost program that will image a Windows OS drive from within Windows while the user continues to do other work. It handles this through Phylock, which locks open files. I close out all apps and the run IFW as an administrator. I select my C:Win7OS partition, choose validate and destination, and run it. It checks for open files and locks them before starting the imaging. When that happens, I run Word or whatever and keep working with no apparent slowdown. It also comes with Image for DOS/Linux, a USB or CD-based version for imaging/restoring from bootup. Another important feature is TeraView, that lets me double-click on an image, see an explorer-like directory tree, and extract one or more files without restoring the whole image. There are also options for different levels of compression and aligning partitions on 2048. The following hyperlink offers trial versions of all their products. Some are very techie but very powerful if one is willing to learn.

I appreciate your insights and help – always on target.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm

It’s not an issue with receptacles alone as the controlers are different. The best way to get USB 3 on an existing computer would be to buy an add on card.

This is correct. My motherboard has USB3 and USB2 ports. USB2 devices like external HD’s have power “bricks” and AC needs. USB3 devices have no power packs and depend on power delivered through the USB3 port and matching cable. USB3 ports and cables have a blue inner tab, otherwise they look the same. An external USB3 HD can be plugged into a USB2 port, but it will run at USB2 speeds. So, the add-on card, or a new MB is the only way to obtain USB3 speeds.

I mentioned SyncPST in an earlier post. I went through all the ways of “synching” my PST file on different machines, and concluded that trying to keep the exact same content through file copying would always be mistake prone. Inevitably, I would have a few, DIFFERENT new emails, contacts and appointments downloaded on each machine making file copying useless. I even tried to drag and drop the new items across my network to each open Outlook file, or emailing each set to separate email addresses for downloading on the other machine seconds later, hoping nothing else new came in from other people. I was running between rooms LOL!

I then tried trial versions of two or three commercial programs and settled on SyncPST. I can send any or all the different items found in each PST file bidirectionally to the other. I can choose one way in either direction too, if I know the desktop or laptop has been dormant for a few days. It learns where my pst files are (and leaves them there) and automatically goes to each to preview the folder lists, and all proposed moves for individual selection or un-selecting. I can un-select my Deletions folder, for example. It is not perfect for everyone, and is subscription-based for new versions, but it does not expire annually and I do not upgrade to every new release. Tech support has always been same day from the same person in Germany via email. I suspect he wrote the program. The best part for me is that I no longer have to think about how best to keep each file the same through the previous copying process. I’m also toying with the idea of doing a few dozen one way syncs among all my archive.pst files created over the years, to generate one huge archive in one place.

I use good freeware whenever I can find it, and do not waste money on every speed up your pc or other utility that comes along. Sometimes, though, it does pay to take advantage of someone else’s creativity like those who wrote the small selection of Outlook synching apps that are available.

Even a $85 64gb SSD C drive makes a huge performance difference – I had one until I snagged a power cable and broke the tiny plastic connection “L” on the drive. My sense of SSD’s is that I will probably upgrade my current 96gb Win7OS/App SSD for a faster but even cheaper one long before it “wears out” with TRIM enabled. I relocated my OS User-based downloads, search, indexing and swap file (left 512k on C) to internal mechanical HD’s to preserve space and reduce disk writes – I don’t benefit that much from SSD speeds for those, but Win7 and my applications sure fly.

For non-AV processing, I do not know why anyone using office suites, browsers, etc. would ever need more than 96 or even 64gbs. 20’s -40’s do not make much sense though.

I’ve started using Windows Mesh with my three Win 7 pcs. This does a fairly good job of syncing most folders, although I don’t like it introducing older copies of files from some pcs, and I am not sure that removing a file from one pc will be replicated with removal on others.

In any case, Mesh does not sync Outlook files on the three pcs. Is there a way to sync Outlook .pst files? [With Win 7 and Outllok 2003, I simply made all updates in my main desktop and then copied the .pst file to the other two pcs. Worked fine. However, I’m looking to sync files no matter which pc I’m using for updating.]

Thanks.

p.s. Also, my iPad synced beautifully (including music, contacts, and calendars) when I just connected it to my former Win XP pc running Outlook 2003. It is not doing this with my Win 7 pc running Outlook 2010. I have not researched this yet, but if you have any advice on this, too, please forward it.

I’ve been using a program called SyncPST for years. It does not copy or sync the entire PST file – it does one-direction or both-direction syncs of the internal differences within the files (new contacts, emails, appointments, deletions, tasks, etc.) It is very fast. I’m just a user who got tired of trying to keep my PST files on a laptop and desktop the same without overwriting new data entered or received on both. SyncPST is not free. I also sync my hard drive folders with external hard drives using SyncToy, and create backup images of every partition. That way I preserve my archived Outlook files as well. I run SyncPST first, of course before backing up my laptop or desktop data folders.

While it is true SATA III cannot compete with the speed of SSD drives, until the prices of SSD drives comes down, SATA III drives are an attractive offering, even for system drives, and really have all the performance necessary for fast data storage.

I have Sata III and USB 3.0 ports on my mb. My SSD is “only” Sata II, but it boots into Win 7 in less than 15 seconds, and my programs are so much faster than when the OS and Progs were on a fast WD Black Edition. If I could afford another SSD, it would be Sata III as it would make a difference. If I had to buy a new spinner HD, though, I’ll take a Sata II 7200rpm with 64mb cache over a Sata III 7200rpm with 32mb cache. The cache is more important than the port speed with mechanical drives, as others have noted.

Sorry for the delay – and thanks for your fine explanation, Bethel95. It really does involve a bit of a paradigm shift – Fred had it right and I should have re-read the article before jumping to the “links” conclusion.

After years of careful partitioning across multiple drives as the best way of organizing my files (OS and Apps on SSD 0, Business Data, Personal Data, Photos and Temp/Swap on HD1 partitions D, E, F and G; Images on HD2, and Syncs on HD3, etc.) I usually found what I was looking for fairly quickly. Win 7’s improved Indexing made my searches even better, looking within mailbox.pst and word docs, etc. Mac lovers laugh at me – saying I’m dwelling in the dark ages. My wife’s files are scattered all over her one Mac HD, and she doesn’t care where they are because OS X knows where they are.

So, I took a look at Libraries and thought, maybe I can improve it more. As an experiment, I created a new folder under the Photo library, pointing to my E (Photos) partition on HD 1. In itself, that partition had dozens of folders mirroring my Photoshop Elements tagging, e.g. People, Places, Events and Other. Well, with lots of backups on hand, I tried a few moves working within Win 7’s Photo Library. I moved a photo Library Photos folder (People) to my Library Photo Places folder. It took awhile, which I found worrisome, as if real data was being moved around. I assumed I was moving only the Library’s links, not actual files. Wrong! Using Explorer to open up the source E partition, I found my People folder had become a subfolder under Places. In other words, the concept that organizing data views within Libraries does not move actual files was not true. Had I deleted a Library folder, the data would have been in the Recycle Bin! For now, I’m sticking to my organized by drive/partition/folder approach and not trusting Libraries to preserve my data.

What was I doing wrong?

DaveA

After weeks of the problem I described in my initial post, the multiple-window behavior ceased last night. I never right-click on my listed folders, and I do not use shortcuts or favorites.. I’m beginning to suspect that the problem is triggered by two copies of Outlook Today somehow running and that leads to the appearance of many open windows in one instance, that are really duplicate pairs in two instances. When I boot up in the morning, the first thing I do is run Outlook. I checked to see if Outlook is also listed in my startup folder (hence two copies opening), but no sign of it. I’m stumped, but for now, the problem has gone away.

JimSRBD

DaveA

After weeks of the problem I described in my initial post, the multiple-window behavior ceased last night. I never right-click on my listed folders, and I do not use shortcuts or favorites.. I’m beginning to suspect that the problem is triggered by two copies of Outlook Today somehow running and that leads to the appearance of many open windows in one instance, that are really duplicate pairs in two instances. When I boot up in the morning, the first thing I do is run Outlook. I checked to see if Outlook is also listed in my startup folder (hence two copies opening), but no sign of it. I’m stumped, but for now, the problem has gone away.

JimSRBD

I have the latest nVidia xp driver. Going to try an ATI card to see if problem is card specific.

I have the latest nVidia xp driver. Going to try an ATI card to see if problem is card specific.

Solved it myself. It was, of course, being controlled by TweakUI as part of Powertoys.