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The evolution indeed has rolled toward the ‘app’ era, despite Windows 7 probably having had more ‘taken out’ of it than it had ‘put in’, such as windows mail, movie maker & picture viewers etc. It’s plain to see that an app based system is beginning to shape the next ‘design stage’ – proving the point that moving forward is the only way to go.

Yes, i believe it is the drag drop feature that i mean. It is not even available in Vista either & it seemed to be a fairly late addition to W7 too. Naturally you can usually achieve anything by using ‘bolt ons’ or additional third party programs but we are talking purely ‘native’ here without cheating by adding bloatware. Such an incredibly useful facility like being able to view two fully open pegged windows simultaeously without resorting to scrolling or manipulation or ‘bringing to top’ means being able to efficiently & accurately compare spreadsheets, statements or even just read two webpages at once properly like you always do with an open newspaper or book in the real world.

Sometimes it just amazes me that complex ubiquitious terms or features are embedded within archaic or obsolete things (think DOS before windows itself), when all along all a user really needs is something with basic direct useabilty by function just existing in the first place. Its like a modern smartphone having to be unlocked, & then a camera app shortcut having to be hit on, just when you want to quickly take a picture (as an example by analogy). It just seems obvious or almost an afterthought that the the camera should be a more ‘useable’ function by basic design & some kind of unforgiveable overlooking has occured on the drawing board that has left evolution to take its course!

If ever i have to go back to do work on an XP system, one thing i find really annoying is the inability to just simply have two windows open at the same time, with the split screen 50:50. It’s such a useful feature to have your banking site page, say open on the left, & your pdf bill open on the right, without having to actually toggle, slide or cack handedly try to compare two things at once. If this was the only reason to upgrade to Windows7, for me that is enough.ARRGHH!

Came across a Toshiba Vista home premium laptop that would not accept the upgrade from MSE V.1.01 to V.2. I tried everything including the registry fixes from Microsofts’ help and the auto FixIT 50535.

Initially MSE V.1.01 would not uninstall by any method until the Microsoft FixIT file 50535 was run. This then got rid of its “shell” but folders still remained on reboot for the product which had to be deleted manually.

MSE V.2 would still not install, by any method. The ONLY way to fix it was to reinstall V.1.01.1611.0. Fortunately I had kept a back up of the install file for this!

Once a new clean install had been done of V.1.01.1611.0 the MSE was able to be upgraded succesfully to V.2.0.657.0 by clicking its own upgrade link near its help button.

This appears to be a known issue and it would seem at this stage that anyone who cannot uninstall or reinstall MSE due to a corrupt upgrade or otherwise is basically ‘stuffed’ unless they can get hold of their original installer package (V.1.01) for the product.

There is no security product that can protect you from the greatest security risk of all – you, the PC user. You cannot make your PC impregnable with security software. [/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT]

The idea of perfect computer security is a myth. Banks have dealt with fraud for many, many decades; forget the Internet – Fraud existed back in the days of credit card machines with carbon paper forms. The technology of fraud gets better each year. Fraud remains consistent. From a banking perspective, the cost to obey government regulations dwarfs the cost of any individual case of fraud. Don’t be fooled that Banks are meeting these costs – it is the consumer (us) that ultimately pays for them (and through the nose) every time.[/SIZE]

As malware is ultimately just a program it just needs one click to be installed. If the program is able to mimic your existing security product via animation, cloak itself and somehow disengage your real existing security product through some kind of back ‘zero day’ backdoor its job done!

A customer of mine recently paid for the very rouge product mentioned and when advised to notify her credit card company, did so, only to find that her card had indeed been used fraudulently abroad. A case of wiping the slate, removing liability and the new card’s in the post mate! So from a banking perspective, fraud has never qualified as a major threat.

A banker looks at his balance sheets and writes off fraud as simply a cost of doing business. Such fraud may amount to billions of pounds each year, but the cost is spread across all sectors of the banking industry and ultimately indirectly to us all as paying customers all over the world.

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If it’s just MP3’s we are pretty limited (iTunes has been pretty much forced upon a lot of us), but if its Media we are talking about then Windows Media Center is the most underrated technology ever for everything from live and recorded TV to video, movies, music and pictures with an interface suitable for the living room and compatible with a wmc remote control available for £20 in the high street.

It’s already BUILT IN to premium versions of Windows 7 and Vista!

Many users of Media Center actually use it for its main purpose – recording and watching TV. Few have yet realised that you don’t even need to install a tuner card to go through the process of watching TV on your PC. Not only can you set up Amazon video-on-demand inside of Media Center and watch built-in Netflix, but there’s a great selection of internet TV available as well plug with other plug ins like TunerFreeMCE or even You-Tube using Yougle Vista.

Hook your laptop or desktop up to your flat panel and enjoy EVERYTHING on your Computer from your armchair!! All the free HD and Radio channels too by using an inexpensive add on tuner. Please don’t tell me you’re paying through the nose for the likes of a set top box that enables you to only record by subscription?

WMC embedded is apparently soon to be available on the likes of set top boxes though, I believe. I wonder if it will also be FREE!

Whenever I install essentials like a pdf reader or otherwise, I use the ninite installer as it does multiple installs and latest versions of different programs and with most additional bloatware unticked by default. I recently installed foxit using this method and the ask toolbar was there but clearly required unticking. Simples.ninite

Where back ups are needed to protect against three possible problems:

1) A small hard drive fault

2) Complete hard drive failure

3) Loss of computer (theft, fire, flood etc)

PARTITIONING of a hard drive ONLY protects against 1) above.