Web promotions - a great way to get a good deal??

We are told that the internet has opened up wonderful new ways of shopping. At the touch of a button we can source our product, compare all the deals, and pick a good one. So when I saw a promotion from an online printing company for "Club Promoter Packs" I thought something good was heading our way.

In the running of small clubs, orchestras etc we often want to promote an event by creating a set of flyers, posters etc all bearing the same image but in different sizes. The "Promoter Pack" offered 1000 A6 flyers, 10 A4 posters and 5 A3 posters. Perfect! Except we would like a package that uses A5 flyers, not A6.

No problem, we will google "Club Promoter Pack" and see who else has a similar product. The search produces a list of around 40 different printers ALL OFFERING EXACTLY THE SAME PACKAGES. They haven't even bothered to write their own text. All say "we don't farm out our print to other companies" and "some of the most competitive lithographic prices in the UK!" ...but as all are offering exactly the same wares and options, I rather think the printing is also coming from one source.

So there's your wonderful range of choice offered by the web.

Drivers

If you have ever reinstalled a Windows PC you will know the scenario. Windows is installed, but certain devices aren't working yet because you can't find the right drivers for them.

First, look in the Device Manager and find the device which is not installed. Right-click on this, and select Properties, then Details. The "Hardware Ids" will allow you to establish the Vendor code (VEN_) and the Device code (DEV_).

Look these up in www.pcidatabase.com and you will find out the manufacturer and device names.

Go to the manufacturer's website and search for the driver for the device that you located above - remembering that it is probably operating system version specific!

The websites that offer to find and supply the driver for you are generally useless - the will want to charge you, enroll you or fill your PC up with malware (or all these things!).

Windows 8 trap

I you have a newish Windows PC it probably has Windows 8 installed on it. And when it was new, you probably saw messages about creating recovery media, and about doing backups. Keen to get started, you probably dismissed these as quickly as possible.

But watch out. When Windows is installed a Product Code is needed to activate it. If your machine needs to be reinstalled, this code will be needed. It's not written down anywhere, just stored in an encrypted form on the disk. If the disk fails, the code has gone...and if you didn't generate the recovery disks then there will be no option but to buy a new copy of Windows for around £80!

Older versions of Windows always carried a paper sticker with the code on it

Windows Activation saga!

Reinstalling a Windows machine is normally a reasonably predictable job. The reinstall is quick, then you have to apply service packs, then you spend quite a while allowing the machine to do Windows updates. You hardly notice that the Windows product key has to be applied to the installation.

If you're in luck, the required key is on a Microsoft sticker applied to the machine - but it is always a good idea to use a utility like Produkey to get a record of the product key before starting a reinstall.

Sometimes things aren't quite so smooth though, as my last machine highlights...

(1) Machine won't boot. Nor will it boot into the manufacturer's recovery partition.
(2) Booting from a Windows 7 install DVD and attempting recovery from there fails.
(3) There is no way forward but to reinstall the machine.
(4) First the user's data must be backed up - remove the disk and access it from another machine.
(5) Because permissions have to be reset on each file, and the user has a very large number of data files, this proves impossibly slow.
(6) Back to booting from the Windows install DVD, then going to the command prompt option, connecting an external disk and using xcopy with a few suitable commend-line options to copy the user files to the disk.
(7) Copy the file which contains the product code (C:\Windows\System 32\config\software) to the disk and access it from a Windows XP machine to allow the product key currently in use to be recorded with Produkey. This key does not match the key on the Microsoft sticker.
(8) Then attempt to reinstall Windows. It can see the disk, but fails to install to it, even when the advanced options are used to remove existing partitions etc.
(9) Replace the disk with a used one.

(10) This disk is already installed with the same version of Windows, so attempt to use it - but Windows is not activated, and the activation fails using the product key that it used to have.
(11) Activation also fails using the product key from the old disk.
(12) Phone activation fails - this involves making a long call to Miscrosoft and typing in a 54-digit number and receiving a different one back.
(13) Speaking to a real person from Microsoft leads to the conclusion that the code is counterfeit or blocked for some reason.
(14) Reinstalling Windows to this disk leads to the same activation problem - but this time the phone option is not presented..
(15) Running the command cscript.exe "slmgr.vbs" -dlv > %userprofile%\desktop\act.txt gives a text file that contains the 54 digits required for phone activation. 
(16) c:\windows\system32\sppui\phone.inf lists the required phone number.
(17) But again the code is rejected as blocked.
(18) Note the code on the product key sticker. This is so worn that it is almost unreadable. Using a strong light, a magnifying glass and a bit of guesswork, get the code.
(19) This code succesfully activates Windows!
     

WIndows 7 Starter Edition

Dear User,

You know when you got that new computer, and there was all this stuff about creating backup media, that you ignored? Well when your machine runs Windows 7 Starter, it's best to make sure you don't ignore it.

Windows 7 Starter edition is not available for download or purchase. The manufacturers are required to supply you with the means to reinstall Windows - and they do that by adding a recovery partition to the disk. Sadly, if this fails, or becomes corrupted, you NEED the recovery media that you didn't make....

Malware city

16,812 infected objects on the PC I'm working on - I think that's my record! Nothing serious, just plenty of free offers, strange toolbars and programs that threaten to "clean" and "speed up" the PC!

Reinstall checklist

If you are going to reinstall a machine, most of the problems relate to preserving things that are already there. The actual reinstallation of Windows is quite a minor part of the whole job! Here is a typical checklist for someone doing a reinstall:
 

1. Record the Windows and Office codes using a utility such as ProduKey.

2. Record the Outlook account details (use mailpv).

3. Make a list of installed software that will need reinstalling.

4. Check that user data is all backed up.

5. Locate and back up Outlook .pst files.

6. Record Outlook server settings.

7. Make a note of hardware devices.

8. Get drivers for Ethernet controller if non-standard.

9. Reinstall Windows.

10. Install Ethernet controller.

11. Install other hardware devices.

12. Update Windows.

13. Install Microsoft Security Essentials and other basic software.

14. Install remote access software.

15. Install Microsoft Office and activate.

16. Put back pst files and set up Microsoft Outlook.

17. Reinstall other specialist software.

18. Restore user data.

19. Activate Windows.

Windows backup - why can't I see any files?

If you choose to use Windows backup, you will be prompted to set it up to make backups to another partition, preferably a removable disk.

Once you have made a backup, you will notice that the free space on this device has gone down, but there don't appear to be any files there! The backups are all hidden within a single object on the disk, which will bear the name of your computer. You can spot this object easily, as its icon will be a Windows backup icon - a picture of a disk with a green arrow next to it.

If you double-click on this object to attempt to open it, it will start trying to do a Windows restore...but you can see what is within it by right-clicking, and then selecting "Open in new window".

A simple (free) backup regime

So you've read the NickWorks notes (see http://nickworks.co.uk/faq.aspx) and you want to back up your data to a safe location - not to another disk in the same room, because you know that a fire or a burglary might result in the loss of both. Below is a nice simple set of steps you can take to get free online data. There are other ways, of course, or if you are prepared to pay a few pounds per month there are much neater solutions, but this is a starting point. You get 15GB of data space for free.

1. You need Google Chrome, and if it is not already installed that is the first step. I am assuming you are a Windows user.

2. Set up a Google account. It's best to avoid using any account you already use for anything else, so let's set up a brand new one.

• Go to http://gmail.com. If you're already logged in, sign out
• Click Add account, then Create an account
• Fill in the boxes. In my example, my company is called "spoffin" and the username is "spoffindata". There will be an email account created, spoffindata@gmail.com
• Birthday and gender can be set to anything, and you don't need to include a phone number.
• You need to fill in an existing email address, but don't worry, it will not be bombarded with spam.

Below is what it looks like, all filled in:

3. Once this is set up, you will arrive at an email page. Click the symbol that looks like this:

 and select "Drive". This is the web interface to your online documents. Using this is a bit clumsy, as files are converted to a Google format when they are uploaded. But there is an item "Install Drive for your computer" and if you click in this it will install a local interface to Google drive for you.

4. Now you can access your google drive data directly. A dialogue will open which introduces you to Google drive and asks you to log in. A Google drive item will appear in your Documents folder.

4. If you work from this folder your files will be secure. You can copy files into this folder, save them directly there, create subfolders, and generally treat it like a local folder.

5. If you want to share data from several computers, go to gmail.com on each computer, log in with the account created above, and repeat "Install Drive for your computer".  

SSL Connection error

This is a funny one - Google Chrome fails to connect on startup with an SSL connection error. It can visit other sites, but not https sites. The answer is unexpected - the date and time need to be set correctly!!

XP partially reprieved!

Microsoft have (sort of) extended the life of Windows XP by another 15 months. The original date for ending of support was April 8th 2014 - updates will cease on this date, but support for Microsoft Security Essentials will now continue until July 14th 2015. This means everyone has a little more time to consider what they want to do with their older XP machines - though with no Windows updates available, the best thing to do is to take action right away. Either now or next year - reinstall, replace, or take it offline!

If you're planning well ahead, the equivalent date for Windows Vista is April 11th 2017, for Windows 7 January 14th 2020, and for Windows 8 January 10th 2023.

Linux Mint

With the loss of Windows XP as a viable operating system (see the NickWorks pages) NickWorks has been looking into alternatives. If you want to just do basic computing (web browser, email etc) and aren't strongly in need of running specific Windows applications, a Linux setup would be an option.

Linux Mint looks good.

(1) You can run it off a DVD without changing anything at all.
(2) If you like it, you can install it locally, which makes it run faster.
(3) When it installs, it can leave the machine dual-booting, so that Windows XP is still there and working if you choose it at boot time.
(4) All the old files will be visible under Linux.
(5) Applications are slightly different, but similar! Firefox is the default web browser, Thunderbird does email, and LibreOffice is a freeware Office variant. All these things are there and working by default, as well as things to listen to music, edit pictures etc.
(6) Windows applications can be run too, through a Linux application called WINE.
(7) It's free!!

The downside?  Making Windows programs work can require fiddling about, or might prove impossible - so this setup is best for people who don't really need any particular Windows application.

Contact NickWorks if you want to try Linux out.

I hate the CAPS LOCK!!

CAPS LOCK is a key that once was useful, but most people now find it an annoyance. If you accidentally press it you will end up with things like:

hELLO HOW ARE YOU?

and if you are talking to another person  online you will be accused of "shouting"!!

You can disable the caps lock key as follows (warning - this is messing with the registry and if you do it wrong it might break things!!):

1. Start the registry editor by typing "regedit" in the Run box.
2. Navigate to  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
3. Set the value of "Scancode Map" to
00000000 00000000 02000000 00003A00 00000000
4. Reboot your computer.

The CAPS LOCK key will now do nothing. To reverse this, set the number to 0.

Windows XP

It's time for all Windows XP users to thinks about what they will do in the future - continuing to use Windows XP isn't really an option. More details about this will be appearing soon in the NickWorks FAQ page.