Cordially, John from York

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Dear John,

Congratulations on running your computer for 6 years without any major problems! If you have been running the same installation of Windows for 6 years, a little bit of slowdown is to be expected, but if this is the only problem you are having, it is something you can get fixed.

First, lets look at what is causing the slowdown. When you first got your laptop, it had a fresh installation of Windows, and it ran the way it was supposed to. Over time, you have used the computer, made changes to it, and started it up then shut it down hundreds of times. Occasionally, small mistakes are bound to happen. Over time, these mistakes build up, and cause your computer to either slow down, or sometimes features will stop working completely. Many computer techs refer to this as, software rot.

Software rot can only be fixed by doing a clean install of Windows. You need to reformat (erase) the hard drive and then install Windows and all your programs. Your Toshiba laptop either has a set of recovery disks, or a special recovery program on the hard drive that will erase the hard drive and put the computer back in the same condition it was in when you first bought it. Then all you need to do is install all the windows updates, set your email back up, and restore the files that you backed up. This is a service that I frequently do for my customers.

There is one other thing that could be slowing your computer down that might not be fixed by a clean install of Windows. That is the amount of RAM you have installed on your computer. When your computer was new, the amount of RAM that you had was probably sufficient to run current programs like your antivirus, and updated versions of your web browser. 6 years later, however, your RAM is probably nowhere near what it should be to run these programs. You can upgrade your RAM, but you have to check first to see what your model of laptop uses for RAM and what the maximum amount of RAM it will support is.

Once you have figured out what upgrading the RAM and doing a clean install of Windows will cost you, then you can make a decision about fixing this laptop or purchasing a new one.

Elizabeth

Lynn in Florida

Dear Lynn,

When you save a document in Vista or Windows 7, the dialog box gives you only one obvious choice, your Documents folder, but with one click of a button, you can easily access any folder on your computer.

Next time you go to save a file, when the Save As dialog box comes up, look in the lower left hand corner of the dialog box window and click on the button that says, “Browse Folders”. This will instantly expand the Save As dialog box to allow you to browse through your folders and save the file in the folder of your choice.

The good news is that Vista will remember that you clicked that “Browse Folders” button and the next time you save a file, the folders will be visible from the start.

Elizabeth

It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.

Thank you, and thank you for putting out your newsletter! Cindy

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Dear Cindy,

Yes, it is a Vista thing, there is no filmstrip view in Vista.

However, you can still get the same effect with just a few simple steps.

1. Open the folder containing your pictures.

2. Click on “Organize” in the command bar, point to “Layout” and then click on “Preview Pane”.

3. This will divide your window with your picture icons on the left and a preview of your selected picture on the right.

4. Make the new preview pane whatever size you desire by pointing to the line that divides the two sections and when your cursor turns into a double sided arrow, hold down your left mouse button and drag the divider.

5. Now your pictures window will work basically the same way as the old filmstrip view. The only difference is that it will be sideways.

Elizabeth

Thank you for your kindness in helping others, I love receiving your newsletter. Martha

Dear Martha,

When Microsoft created Windows Vista (and they have continued this in Windows 7) they wanted to introduce a new way of organizing files based on “virtual folders” and not on physical directories. Directory is the original name for what you and I today call folders.

When you look in your “My Documents” folder, you are looking in a physical directory. It is a folder that has an actual location on your hard drive.

The folder, “Recently Changed” is not an actual directory. It is a virtual folder.

When you are using Vista, and open a window for, “Documents”, or even “Computer” you will see on the left side of the window a column with the heading, “Favorite Links” The first three folders under “Favorite Links” will take you to your actual “Documents”, “Pictures” or “Music” folders.

The next two favorite links are called, “Recently Changed”, and “Searches”.

When you click on “Recently Changed”, Vista does a quick search of your hard drive and brings up all files that have been changed or added in the last few weeks. They are not actually in the same folder. If you right click on one of the documents you just saved, then click on “Properties” you will see the actual location of the file listed next to, “Location”.

Since the “Recently Changed” folder is really a search, when you delete a file from there, you are really deleting the file from the folder that it is located in.

Under the “Recently Changed” favorite link is another link called, “Searches” When you click on Searches, you will see a selection of pre-defined searches that people might commonly search for. Some of the selections include, recent documents, recent photos, and recent e-mails.

I hope this helps you understand the different between folders and saved searches a little better.

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Elizabeth

If you are like me, and would rather shut down the computer at the end of the day (You need to shut down and restart the computer once a day to keep it running smoothly anyways) you can change the function of that power icon. Here is how:

1. Click on the “Start Orb”, then click to open the “Control Panel”.

2. In the Control Panel, click on the “Hardware and Sound” icon.

3. On the Hardware and Sound page, click on the “Power Options” icon.

4. On the Power Options page, you will see a section named “Preferred Plans”. In this section, “Recommended Settings” will be selected, click on the words, “Change plan settings” located beneath “Recommended Settings”.

5. In the next window, click on the words, “Change advanced power settings”. This will open a small “Power Options” window.

6. In the Power Options window, scroll down the list of options, and click on the plus sign (+) to the left of the words, “Power buttons and lid”. This will display a sub menu.

7. On the Sub menu, click the plus sign to the left of “Start menu power button”. This will display a menu with only one item.

8. Click on the word “Setting:” and the word “Sleep” will become a drop down list. Click on that list, and click on “Shut Down”.

9. Click “OK” in the Power Options window to save your settings. Close the other windows that you opened in this process.

To check and see if your setting has indeed changed, click on the “Start Orb” and point your cursor to the power button icon. It should now be red in color.

Elizabeth

Joyce

Dear Joyce,

Not only will I show you how to make a Shut Down icon, I will also show you how to put it on your start menu.

First, lets create a shortcut to shut down Vista on your desktop.

1. Right click on your desktop, and click on “New”, then “Shortcut” in the menu that appears.

2. This will start the New Shortcut wizard. It is a short wizard, all you need to do is type the following text in the box that asks for the location of your item. Type ( shutdown -s -t 01 ) and then click “Next”

3. Now, you will have a shutdown shortcut on your desktop. Double click on it to make sure it is working correctly, you should have typed the text in step 2 without the brackets. You also should have typed a zero, not the letter O.

4. When you have the shortcut working, your computer will shut down. Start the computer back up, and right click on the shutdown shortcut you just made. When you right click, a menu will appear, click on “Pin To Start Menu” and a copy of the shortcut will appear in the left hand column of your start menu.

5. Now, when you want to shut down your computer, just click on “Start” and then click on “Shut Down”.

How easy is that?

Elizabeth

The “Win” key is between the Ctrl key and Alt key on the bottom row of your keyboard.

Alt+F4 Close the active window

Alt+Tab Switch to previous active window

Alt+Esc Cycle through all open windows

Win+Tab Flip 3D (not available in all versions of Vista)

Ctrl+Win+Tab Persistent Flip 3D

Win+T Cycle through applications on taskbar (showing its live preview)

Win+M Minimize all open windows

Win+Shift+M Undo all window minimization

Win+D Toggle showing the desktop

Elizabeth

Thanks for your much appreciated help. John in Hertford, NC.

Dear John,

There are two ways you can have your contacts listed by last name. Let’s start with the way that works best with the program.

The contacts program in Vista sorts your contacts by the Full Name field. When you enter a new contact, the full name is automatically set up with the first name and then the last name.

You can easily change this setting when you open an individual contact by clicking the drop down arrow in the “Full Name” box and then clicking on the bottom option which will be the last name, a comma, and then the first name.

This is an easy enough solution, but you have to repeat this process for each contact in your list. If you have a lot of contacts, it will take you quite a while to do.

A second option is to add a column for last name to your contacts list, and then sort by that column. While this is easier to do if you have a lot of contacts, it is a little bit harder for the program since the individual contacts are sorted by the full name field and must re-sort themselves every time you view them.

Here is how to set this up.

1. Open your contacts and right click on a blank spot in the contacts window. A list of options will drop down, point to “Sort By” in that list and then click on the bottom option which says “More…”

2. A small window will open named, “Choose Details” Scroll down the list of details and click on the box in front of “Last Name” to select it.

3. With a check mark in front of “Last Name” click once on the words (Last Name) to highlight it, then click the “Move Up” button on the right until “Last Name” is at the top of the list of details.

4. Click “OK” in the Details window to save your changes.

5. Now that you are back in the Contacts window, you will see that the column on the left is labeled “Last Name”. Click on the heading for this column to sort it by the last name.

Elizabeth

I have been given a brand new computer by my grandkids, but it has Windows Vista. I notice all the e-mails I receive from you never mention Windows Vista. Is there a reason for that because I am trying to understand how to use it and having a hard time

Troy

Dear Troy,

At this time, about half of my readers are using Windows XP, and half are using Vista. Over time, I have gradually received more and more questions about Vista and as time goes on, there will be even more.

If you visit my blog where my articles are available online, http://askthecomputerlady.com/questions you will see a categories column and down near the bottom there are categories for Windows XP and Vista. Just click on the “Vista” category to see all the articles that I have written about Vista.

In addition to the questions on the website, I also publish an email newsletter called, Computer Lady Lessons, which mostly focuses on Vista. You can sign up for that newsletter on my website here: http://www.asktcl.com/page76.html

Elizabeth

Dear Computer Lady,

I just love your newsletter.  Thanks for all your hard work and for sharing with us.

I have Windows Vista, and just got the advanced vista optimizer program. My question is how do I defragment my computer and how often should it be done?

Thank you, Joyce

Dear Joyce,

It is very easy to defrag your hard drive using Advanced Vista Optimizer. For those of you who don’t already have this program, you can download a free trial using the download link below:

Download

Lets get started…

1. Open Advanced Vista Optimizer 2009.  Click the “Continue” button if prompted by Windows UAC.

2. In the main AVO window, click on “Speed Up” listed in the tools section on the left hand edge of the window.

3. In the Speed up section, click on “Disk Defrag”.

4. On the disk defrag page, select the drive you want to defrag (for most of us, it will be the “C:” drive.)

5. In the drive information section, select if you want to only analyze the disk to start, or defrag and analyze at the same time.

6. Click the “Start” button, and wait while the program examines your hard drive.

7. If you find that your drive does have fragmented files (mine had 93 fragmented files) just click on the “Defrag” button to start the process.