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Tuesday, 8th April, 2008 MEETING Our Website is: http://brightoncomputerclub.org Our e-mail address for Meeting Questions is contact@brightoncomputerclub.org Questions and Answers. Moderated by Frank Myers Frank showed the two Service Packs on the DVD/Cds that some of the members had requested. The usual cautions apply. Make sure that there are no other programs running when installing the Service Pack. You MUST stop all programs. Frank showed the software on the new club CD. There are many new programs. You can see what is on the CD by looking at our website, Software page. NOTE: There is a caution. Open Office is a very large download, about 125MB, so if you have a dialup internet service you will not want to download this. Internet Explorer disappeared from his computer, also Mozilla is gone. How do I get them back? Answer: Internet Explorer Click on My Computer Double click on Local Disk C drive Double click on Program Files Double click on Internet Explorer. Look for iexplore.exe and right click on it. Click on Create Shortcut. At the bottom of the list there should be iexplore.exe Shortcut. Click and hold down the left mouse button on the “iexpore.exe shortcut” and drag it to the desktop and let go of the button. Mozilla Firefox Click on My Computer Double click on Local Disk C drive Double click on Program Files Double click on Mozilla Firefox. Look for firefox.exe and right click on it. Click on Create Shortcut. At the bottom of the list there should be firefox.exe Shortcut. Click and hold down the left mouse button on the “firefox.exe shortcut” and drag it to the desktop and let go of the button. Top of Page I used Registry Cleaner and it said I had 2000 duplicated files so I removed them. Now my computer needs them back to operate. How do I restore from the recycle bin? Answer: Double click on the Recycle Bin Click on Restore all items. You can also highlight the item you want restored (by holding your mouse pointer over it) and then click on Restore this item. WARNING: Do not use this feature unless you are sure you do not need the files. The computer duplicates many files and you have to be sure that you remove the correct duplicate. Some applications will only look for a file in a specific folder even though it may be also stored in another folder. Can I use a program to get deleted files back? Answer: Yes you can, because when a file is deleted only the name is altered and a flag “D” is set in the index. Windows then knows it is a deleted file and can now write over the actual referenced storage area . Recovery programs work well only if the file’s data is not written over. You must run recovery programs ASAP otherwise the computer writes on top of that storage area. Will System Restore replace data? Answer: No! System Restore restores settings, not data. "My Documents" folder will not be changed if you use another Restore Point. Top of Page When I empty “Deleted Items” folder in Outlook Express, are they gone? Answer: No. It may look like they are gone however, they are still there until you compact them. In Outlook Express, click on Files, Folders and Compact all folders. (Don’t do anything else until it is finished because it may not do it correctly.) You have to wait without feedback, because Microsoft lazy programmers did not build in a progress bar. I receive reminders from Outlook Express to compact files to free up space. Do I do it? Answer: Do it, but let it finish before you do anything else. See the answer above. If you have never compacted your emails it may take several minutes. The reason it frees up space is because compacting removes all the "flagged for deletion" emails that you thought were gone when you deleted them. When I compact, the emails are deleted items in the Recycle Bin. Can I get them back? Answer: We looked and it shows the compacted files, but when you restore the deleted items they are not available. When you compact them they are not restorable from the Recycle Bin. Top of Page Does compacting apply to AOL as well? Answer: No. AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail are web-based email services and they do not need compacting. When I send a picture the recipient’s mail box is too full to receive it. Should my friend's Outlook Express be compacted? What can be done? Answer: The recipient's Outlook Express may not need to be compacted. Those emails are staying on their server. The recipient may have used a setting to leave the emails on their ISP’s server causing it to fill up and stop receiving any new emails. The only other reason for that would be that the recipient is not downloading emails often enough and has a high volume. To help your recepient to change the setting: In Outlook Express go to Tools, Accounts, Advanced Under “Delivery", ensure that "Leave a copy of messages on server” is unchecked. One can purchase more space to store emails from one's ISP or download emails more frequently. NOTE: Two of the biggest problems with e-mail are un-compacted, deleted email and lack of virus checking email. Top of Page Why does my email attachments not open an Excel spreadsheet. Answer: You need to install an Excel Viewer to open the spreadsheet if you do not have MS Office installed. You can get Viewers from the Club's CD or the Club's website. You can also install a Word Viewer and PowerPoint Viewer. When sending an Excel spreadsheet to a recepient that you know does not have a viewer, you can attach the viewer as well as the spreadsheet. Because the viewer is an executable program, Google GMail will not allow you to attach it to a GMail. I have a work-around for that: The Microsoft Excel Viewer is named: xlviewer.exe Click your right mouse button on this name Select "Rename" from the drop-down menu. Type "xlviewer.jpg" and press the "Enter" key Now you can attach this "image" file to your GMail CAUTION: Don't forget to tell the recepient inside the body of the email that they have to rename the "xlviewer.jpg" file to: "xlviewer.exe" or it will not work. Top of Page Frank Myers With thanks to Shirley Young who recorded the questions.