Windows 7 Help & Advice

RECOVER DATA

GET YOUR FILES BACK EVEN IF YOUR PC IS DEAD

PURGE YOUR PC TRACK DOWN AND DESTROY ROGUE FILES

GADGETS BACK BRING BACK DESKTOP GADGETS TO WINDOWS

Plus essential tips for Windows 8, Vista & XP

110NEW TIPS

ESSENTIAL

ii Faster performance ii Fix annoying problems ii Master your desktop ii Discover hidden secrets ƾǏ'( Ǌ;ǨƱǟƻ,9(Ƭ

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How to upgrade your viewing experience

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Windows tutorials

New things to do

Buying advice

Help & support

100% jargon free

Welcome

Though I’m reticent to show favouritism to one issue of Windows 7 Help & Advice over another, this month’s magazine is an important one. Not only have we compiled a huge list of essential tips – over 100, that is – for every version of Windows (yes, the old and the new!), we’ve also put together an exhaustive guide which is essential reading for anybody still using a Windows XP computer. As you may already know, Microsoft has ended support for its 13-year-old operating system – understandably, you might say, considering that three new versions of Windows have been released since XP. So what does this mean? Well, you can carry on as normal and make some fundamental changes to the way you use your PC. Alternatively, you can upgrade to a newer version, and we’ll show you how to do this, quickly and painlessly. Good luck, and as ever, email me if you’d like to suggest anything for a future issue.

Nicholas Odantzis Acting Editor www.facebook.com/windowsmag

THE ONLY COMPUTER MAG TO HELP YOU GET MORE FROM WINDOWS We pride ourselves in being the only magazine on the shelves to show you exactly how to get the best from the Windows operating system, whether it’s 7, 8, Vista or even XP. Windows 7 Help & Advice also comes with a disc, on which you can find some of the great apps covered in the magazine. If you get a chance, take a look at how you can even read the magazine on your laptop, phone or tablet.

April 2014 |

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FEATURES 14 Definitive Windows tips

Over 100 hidden gems and new ways to experience Windows 7 to the full

62 The end of Windows XP

Discover what your options are and how to implement them as XP nears end-of-life

72 The best YouTube extensions Find and watch videos however you like with these brilliant browser add-ons

REGULARS 8 Discover Find out how to breathe new life into old technology 34 Subscriptions Save up to 35 per cent when you subscribe today 44 Reader offers We’ve a selection

of money-saving deals just for you

49 Next month Gaze into the

future… What’s happening in May?

75 Overseas reader? Get your mag for less with a subscription

SUPPORT

76 Four pages of essential expert help for all your tricky technical queries 6

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Help & Advice | April 2014

EXPLORE The best PC tutorials <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ1LɭKɼODɡ2GʋQɢʫLɡVʋ\ɡ

“Each month we include as wide a range of tutorials as possible, to help you use your computer more HIÀFLHQWO\DQGLQVSLUH\RXWRWU\QHZWKLQJVµ 28 Recover data if your PC fails unexpectedly

46 Rid your computer of malware the easy way

32 Edit large groups of photos in batches

50 Create an emergency system recovery disc

36 Create your own personal newsreader

52 Create a RAM drive for faster file access

40 Get amazing video desktop backgrounds

56 Get real help from real people online

42 Get Gadgets back on your desktop

58 Read Amazon Kindle books on your PC

Want more? Visit our website at www.facebook.com/windowsmag

CUT-PRICE SUBS OFFER Save up to 35% – pay just £23.49 every six months )ʖQɍʝXɢPʝȾɏʝɚSDȰɏ

ON THE COVER

'H¾QLWLYH Windows tips 14 Speed up your PC and reveal hidden secrets

UPGRADE 80 Our expert reviews and recommendations 82 Marshall Stanmore 82 Jawbone Mini Jambox 83 Jabra Solemate Mini 83 Nixon The Blaster 83 Damson Jet 84 Asus X102BA 86 Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus 88 Toshiba Satellite W30t

ON THE COVER

PREPARE FOR THE END OF WINDOWS XP

90 Need for Speed Rivals 92 Lego Marvel Superheroes 94 X Rebirth 96 MechWarrior Online

62 What are your options and how can you implement them? ON THE COVER

10 best YouTube browser add-ons 72 Watch videos your way with Firefox and Chrome

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NEW THINGS TO DO

AMAZING WEBSITES

FASCINATING FACTS

OLD DOG, NEW TRICKS Don’t throw away that ancient computer yet – there may be a use for it

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Discover Outdated computers

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GIVE OLD TECHNOLOGY BACK ITS SPARKLE

The Knowledge…

Dig out that ageing laptop and give it a new lease of life with our guide to reviving ancient gadgets An unfortunate consequence of our love for shiny, new tech is a lot of waste. And if you’re anything like us, you’ll have a cupboard bursting with an electronic spaghetti bolognese of gadgets, gizmos and cables. While the disposal of electronic goods is controlled by a European Commission directive, plenty of old gadgets slip into landfill where they can leak toxins into the environment. While local councils will often recycle e-waste, it might be worth putting apparently obsolete tech to good use. An elderly computer may not play the latest games, but it can be repurposed as a media centre PC and will function effectively even without the latest graphics card. You can also set up your old PC as a digital video recorder – simply add a TV tuner card or USB device and use Media Center (supplied with Windows 7) or the free XBMC media centre. Even though the original Xbox is over 10 years old, it can be turned into a media

centre, too. Visit www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk and you’ll find full instructions for turning it into an all-singing, all-dancing media hub that can play music and videos. Laptops are also ideal candidates for repurposing. Both Windows 7 and 8 include Virtual Wi-Fi tech that allows laptops to be turned into wireless routers – fantastic if you have problems accessing the internet wirelessly from certain parts of your home. It’s a bit tricky, but you’ll find instructions at: http://bit. ly/1dzDNMc. Open source software such as Virtual Router (http://virtualrouter. codeplex.com) can be used to set up a laptop as a Wi-Fi hotspot, too. If you’re feeling really techy, you can ‘root’ an old Android phone to access new features and functions. It may sound complicated, but CyanogenMod (www. cyanogenmod.org/) will help you through the process. Doing this might void the phone’s warranty, but if the device is old anyway, you really have nothing to lose.

"An elderly computer can be repurposed as a media centre PC"

MANUAL LABOUR Instruction books online Instruction manuals are inherently useful documents, but they’re also easy to misplace or lose; this can be especially annoying if you’ve got an old piece of technology you can’t work out how to use. Fortunately, the internet can bring you long-lost user guides in downloadable formats – or can point you towards purchasable hard copies. Handily, you can even print out a manual if you’re selling an item without the original instructions.

WWW.MANUALSONLINE.COM A US-based site, but many products are also available in the UK.

WWW.INSTRUCTIONMANUALS.CO.UK This site has lots of downloadable instruction manuals.

WWW.OLDTIMERCAMERAS.COM Features instructions for cameras, but only as hard copies.

Stratasys Objet500 Connex3 Ah, a 3D printer. Haven’t they been around for a while? Yes, and they’re brilliant and we love them. But the one massive drawback to 3D printing is that you have to make models from materials of a single colour. For example, if you want to create a model lighthouse, you have to print out the red and white bits separately before piecing all of them together. You’re going to tell me this 3D printer can print lighthouses, aren’t you? Well, yes. The Objet500 Connex3 includes three nozzles, which can blend coloured materials in a manner similar to inkjet printers. This means that the objects it creates can be multi-coloured, which is a first for 3D printers. What else can it do? As well as working with multi-coloured objects, the Objet500 Connex3 can also blend translucent, solid and rubbery materials, so you can create a pair of sunglasses with bendy arms and see-through lenses, or a set of headphones with comfortable earpieces. Or, a wobbly lighthouse. Why does it matter? Stratasys has designed the 3D printer specifically for prototypes; designers can save a lot of time if they are able to easily print a single object in a variety of colours and materials. When can I get one? The Objet500 Connex3 is only available to order, and is rumoured to cost roughly $330,000 (£200,000). If you don’t have that sort of cash in your back pocket, it’ll be worth waiting a bit – Stratasys also owns consumer 3D printer company MakerBot, and the technology may trickle down to home machines one day.

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Speakeasy Speech recognition has long been a feature of Windows, but in Windows 8 it really comes into its own – especially if you’re using your laptop or tablet hands-free. Before you begin, you’ll need to have a microphone plugged in or enabled – you can check this via the speaker icon in the Taskbar. To enable speech recognition, press the ‘Start’ button, then type ‘Speech’ and click on ‘Windows Speech Recognition’. You will then be taken through a few options to set it up, and will be given the option to print out a cheatsheet for common commands. When speech recognition is running you’ll see an icon at the top of the screen, and you can use keywords such as ‘Desktop’, ‘Start’ and ‘Internet’ to control your PC.

Quite a character Each and every typeface that you use in Windows Vista has a host of hidden characters such as umlauted-Ös, mathematical symbols and smiley face icons. To access them, click the ‘Start’ button then choose ‘Accessories’ followed by ‘System Tools’ and ‘Character Map’. Here you’ll find a table that lists all of the characters available within a typeface, and you can switch between fonts by using the drop-down menu at the top. Double-clicking a symbol adds it to the field at the bottom, which can then be copied to the clipboard. For some fonts you will see a keystroke such as [Alt] + [0214] that can be used to quickly add unusual characters within documents.

Get more from Google You don’t need a state-of-the-art smartphone to access Android’s amazing intelligent search features – in fact, you can do it straight from Internet Explorer running on Windows XP. Simply visit www.google. com and sign in or register using the link to the upper right. You’ll now be able to enter terms into the Google search box such as: ‘what time is it in Tokyo?’ or ‘remind me to turn off the hob in five minutes’. Each of these will take you to a customised Google results page where the required information will be right at the top of the screen.

Struggling to get something to work? Need a tip? Then email us your woes (to [email protected] with the subject line ‘Windows Insider’) and we’ll share your perfect Windows tweaks in a future issue.

Tip of the month

Desktops of the world

International themes

Bored of Windows 7’s default themes? Install some beautiful desktops from around the globe Windows 7’s UK-based themes are rather beautiful, but even we tire from looking at the same views of Tower Bridge and Stonehenge all the time. Interestingly, Windows 7 comes with themes for countries such as Australia, South Africa and the United States, but they are turned off by default. If you want to access them, click ‘My Computer’ and go to C:\Windows\ Globalization\MCT and in here you will

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find themes for other countries. Double-click on a folder in order to access the themes. Double-click on your chosen theme file and it will automatically be applied to your PC and will appear in the ‘My Themes’ section of your personalisation menu. To switch back to a different one, right-click on a blank area of your desktop background, then choose ‘Personalize’ and select a different theme.


SLIDESHOW This stunning image is included in the Canadian theme pack

Discover Tech talk

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Speeding up wireless

Spanish network operator Telefónica is revolutionising LQWHUQHWFRQQHFWLRQV²EXWZLOO%H:LÀHYHUFRPHWRWKH8."

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haring your Wi-Fi internet connection with your neighbours sounds like the stuff of nightmares, or at least a plot from a low-budget sitcom. What if they took you over your usage limit by downloading huge files, or got you into trouble by illegally streaming the latest movies via your connection? It certainly seems like a recipe for disaster. Yet this is almost exactly what Spanish network operator Telefónica wants to do. Its proposed system is dubbed BeWifi and spreads download tasks among multiple Wi-Fi routers in the vicinity, resulting in faster and more reliable downloads. BeWifi would allow users to give their own internet speed a boost by borrowing bandwidth when other people are offline. “With more speed you will enjoy a movie online without interruptions; you will be able to make video calls or download large files,” the company says. Telefónica first dreamt up the idea in 2008, when the company realised that most people keep their routers on 24/7 but only dip into the internet for occasional periods. By tapping into the excess

bandwidth, users could increase their connection speed; this would then drop back to the standard speed when more people came online. As the connection is only accessed when not in use, users cannot see others’ data. In fact, BeWifi is just as secure as other Wi-Fi connections. When properly rolled out, a series of routers in a block of flats would provide a fast and smooth connection for everyone there. More routers result in better service. Telefónica tested the system in Barcelona, where some users found that their Wi-Fi speeds increased by 100 per cent thanks to the new technology, and the process of jumping onto other connections worked seamlessly. The only problem? This technology might never make its way to UK shores. While Telefónica owns UK network operator O2, O2 itself recently sold its own home broadband offering to BSkyB. However, if Telefónica decides to license the system to internet service providers or router manufacturers then we may be in luck. Fingers crossed!

Download this… Build with Chrome

www.buildwithchrome.com 2014 is shaping up to be the year of Lego. Not only is its big budget Hollywood film – The Lego Movie – now on the big screen, but the legendary Danish toy company has also inked a deal with hit TV show The Simpsons. And that’s not all – Lego has recently collaborated with Google to launch Build with Chrome online. Build with Chrome is a simulation of a Lego set and comes complete with lots of differently-shaped coloured blocks and a base plate on which to assemble them. There’s even a Build Academy where you can carry out tasks to brush up on your construction skills, while more confident users can share their masterpieces with friends. It’ll bring back a flood of memories if you played with Lego as a kid – with the added advantage that you don’t have to tidy away your latest creation before Dad gets home.

BUILD WITH CHROME Click on a Lego brick to start building your dream house

Follow us on… www.twitter.com/windowsmag

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Which rare Twitter username was allegedly stolen by a hacker?

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Which internet giant is rumoured to be bringing out its own games console?

A) @Bieber B) @Apple C) @N

A) Facebook B) Google & $PD]RQ

2

What is the name of Intel’s wearable technology?

4

A) DVDs B) Blu-rays C) HD DVDs

A) Jarvis % /LDP & 'DPRQ

Which entertainment media is Facebook using to store data?

5

Tough new smartphone screens are inspired by what? A) A shark’s tooth % $PROOXVF·VVKHOO C) A duck’s bill

6


NEXT ISSUE ON SALE April 2014

11

A new artificial tongue can distinguish different types of what? A) Beer B) Chillies C) Chocolate

FRIDAY

Answers 1C, 2B, 3C, 4A, 5B, 6A

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Henry Winchester reveals a selection of fascinating digital facts

HOW MANY GADGETS DOES THE AVERAGE TEEN OWN?

WHICH IS BETTER:

GOOGLE NOW

VS SIRI

If you’ve got an Android or iPhone handset, chances are you’ve also got a virtual assistant that can answer spoken questions. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster put Siri and Google Now to the test, asking them 800 questions in indoor and outdoor environments. He found that both understood his questions 94 per cent of the time, but iPhone’s Siri gave correct results 83 per cent of the time, compared to 81 per cent for Android’s Google Now. Having a conversation with your phone can be fun, but we prefer a good ol’ virtual keyboard.

Six, according to a poll conducted by IT firm Logicalis. Eighty-four per cent of teenagers own a smartphone, 78 per cent have a laptop, but only 51 per cent possess a tablet device. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are among the top apps that teens visit, while two in three youngsters upload content and video. Ten per cent of teenage boys have coded smartphone apps, and 28 per cent of those questioned said that information and communications technology (ICT) is vital to employment.

WHICH ASPECTS 40% OF LIFE DO Shopping UNDER-25S BELIEVE TECHNOLOGY COULD IMPROVE? 12

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45% Work

YLVIS’S ‘THE FOX’... …was the top trending YouTube video of 2013. The comedy song, which asks what noise a fox makes, achieved a whopping 276,314,743 views. The Norwegian Army’s take on the Harlem Shake meme achieved 95,260,562 views, while a pair of chaps impersonating animals eating their food garnered 88,822,009 views. ‘Gangnam Style’ singer PSY’s ‘Gentleman M/V’ was the most watched music video on the site, with 599,041,255 views. These figures continue to soar in 2014 – catch up today at http://goo.gl/3qvkA3

ALMOST HALF OF ALL WOMEN...

…would rather go a month with no sex than give up their smartphone. Five per cent cuddle up to them in bed, and 47 per cent keep it on a nightstand so they can check it first thing in the morning. One of the 3,500 women surveyed by Real Simple and The Huffington Post even admitted she’d bought a waterproof case so she could keep an eye on her phone while she was in the shower.

49% Healthcare

Discover Facts & figures

TOP BLOGGER FACTS The term ‘Web log’ was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, but it was Peter Merholz who later shortened it to ‘blog’. blogger.com was launched by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan on 23 August 1999. Blogger was one of the first blog tools and provided an easy-to-use interface that gave good-looking results. By 2003, the service had attracted 1.1 million registered bloggers. At that point, blogs were starting to become increasingly mainstream and were emerging as an important news source. In the same year, Google acquired the site under undisclosed terms. Google’s investment brought with it a snazzy new redesign in 2004, with support for comments and the opportunity for posting via email. The site is available in more than 50 languages and is hugely popular around the world. Blogger has been blocked in Iran, People’s Republic of China and Cuba. Across all blogging platforms, over two million blog posts are written every single day – that’s enough content to fill Time magazine for more than seven centuries. Despite Twitter and Facebook hosting blog-esque content, blogger.com is still very popular; as of May 2013, it was the world’s 12th most-visited site.

52% Transportation

57% Education April 2014 |

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Definitive Windows Tips Ben Andrews presents over 100 ways you can experience Windows 7 to the full, whether you’re new to the operating system or an old hand

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sing Windows on your PC can sometimes feel a bit like doing the weekly supermarket shop. We tend to follow the same routine, visit the same sections and end up with the same results. It can easily become boring, but both Waitrose and Windows contain plenty of hidden gems we’ve yet to discover or haven’t dared to try. 7KDQNIXOO\ÀQGLQJIUHVKDQGLQWHUHVWLQJIHDWXUHV in Windows 7 won’t require you to rummage through supermarket shelves or part with any extra cash. A lot of features will actually make Windows quicker and easier to use. For example, learning new keyboard shortcuts will save you hunting through menus to carry out simple tasks. Likewise, once you know the range of alignment and layout tricks that Windows 7 has to offer, you’ll wonder how you managed without them. However, we know that embracing the new isn’t always easy, so we’re also going to show you how to restore some of Windows XP’s best-loved

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qualities, such as its Quick Launch toolbar and traditional Taskbar icons. And while Windows 7 is streets ahead of its forerunner when it comes to features such as animated desktop backgrounds, it’s also possible to unearth a secret store of stunning hidden wallpapers. All this customisation is good fun, but discovering a new tool or feature that will make your life easier takes some beating. Fancy making YLUWXDO3RVWLWQRWHVVKDULQJÀOHVDQGUHVRXUFHV between several home computers, or controlling your PC with your voice? Windows 7 has the power to do it, once you know where to look. Of course, you may already be familiar with some of the tips we’ve lined up over the following pages, but the sheer extent and diversity of what Windows 7 is capable of means that many of them should still be pleasantly surprising. 6RZLWKRXWIXUWKHUDGRKHUH·VRXUGHÀQLWLYHOLVW of the ultimate Windows 7 tips, tricks and tweaks.

Cover feature Definitive Windows tips

Aero Snap

Aero Flip 3D

Tile your windows

One of Windows 7’s most useful everyday features is the Aero Snap function. When you drag a window to the far left or right of your monitor, it will automatically resize itself WR¾OOKDOIWKHVFUHHQ Alternatively, you can drag it to the top if you want to fully maximise the window.

Switching between open apps using the keyboard is usually the realm of the [Alt]+[Tab] shortcut, but Windows 7 adds another, sexier switching mode. It’s called Aero Flip 3D, and you can give it a whirl by pressing [Windows]+[Tab].

Aero Snap is brilliant for comparing two windows at a glance, but viewing more requires a new knack. Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc], then hold [Ctrl] and click each item on the list. Now right-click and pick ‘Tile horizontally’ or ‘Tile vertically’.

Anti Snap

Peek at the desktop

Aero Shake

If all that snapping is making you snap, you can disable it by typing regedit into the Start menu, then doubleclicking your way to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > Desktop’. Set Window ArrangementActive to 0 and reboot.

Can you see the small section of the Taskbar to the right of the clock? Hover over it to temporarily peek at the desktop, or click it to minimise all open windows. If you’d rather disable this feature, simply right-click the same section.

Having multiple windows open can get distracting, so to single one out, click and hold its uppermost title bar and give it a shake. All of the other windows will magically minimise. Another shake will restore them to their previous positions.

Sack your mouse

Move the Taskbar

We’re all familiar with minimising, maximising and closing windows using the mouse, but there are a few backup keyboard controls for when your rodent goes on strike. [Windows]+[Down] or [Windows]+[Up] handle maximising and minimising, and [Alt]+[F4] will close a window. Another useful trick is [Windows]+[D]. This minimises every open window and reunites you with the desktop. Want to snap a window to the left or right of the display using your keyboard? Press [Windows]+[Left] or [Right]. Finally, you can see the bigger picture by tapping [Windows]+[+] to instantly magnify anything on screen.

The Windows Taskbar is always tied to the bottom of the screen, isn’t it? Well, it can actually reside on any edge you like. Just rightclick a blank section of the bar, ensure the ‘Lock the Taskbar’ option is un-ticked, then drag it to the top, left or right of the desktop – wherever you like!

Restyle your icons

Quick Launch

If you’re not a fan of the minimalist Windows 7 Taskbar icons and want a more XP-style look, right-click a blank area of the Taskbar, click ‘Properties’ and select ‘Combine when Taskbar is full’ from the Taskbar buttons dropdown menu.

Here’s how to reinstate those icons on the right of the Windows XP Taskbar: right-click the Taskbar, select ‘Toolbars > New toolbar’, then type XVHUSUR¾OH? $SS'DWD?5RDPLQJ? 0LFURVRIW?,QWHUQHW ([SORUHU?4XLFN /DXQFK and hit [Enter].

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Back up your PC

Windows Defender

Bypass the bin

'RQ¶WULVNORVLQJ\RXU¾OHV in the event of a hard drive failure or invasion from an uninvited digital demon – make sure you back them up on an external hard drive or high-capacity USB ¿DVKGULYH7DS>:LQGRZV@ type the word EDFNXS and press [Enter] to set the wheels in motion.

Is your PC displaying strange pop-ups or an unexpected browser homepage? Chances are it’s been invaded by malware. Fight back with Windows Defender. Click ‘Start’, type GHIHQGHU and ensure it’s up to date before scanning for nasties.

'HOHWLQJ¾OHVDQG folders is as easy as pressing the [Delete] key, right? Well sort of, but then there’s the Recycle Bin to negotiate before the data really disappears. Try pressing [Shift]+[Delete] to bypass the bin for a direct deletion.

Windows Update

Fast deleting

Add an antivirus app

Keeping up to date with the latest Windows upgrades and patches is good practice, but there’s no harm in controlling when they are downloaded. Click ‘Start’, then type update and select ‘Change settings’ for more options.

If your Recycle Bin has been gathering digital dust on your desktop since you learned the [Shift]+[Delete] trick, you could try disabling it altogether. Right-click its icon, then select ‘Properties’ and choose WKHµ'RQ¶WPRYH¾OHVWR the Recycle Bin’ option.

Windows Defender is DJRRG¾UVWOLQHRI defence, but it’s far from impenetrable. For full protection you need a proper antivirus package. Download the free version of Avast (www.avast.com) or AVG (http://free.avg. com) to stay secure.

Configure Windows Firewall

Secure mobile storage

You can generally sit back and let Windows Firewall do its own thing. However, if you need to tweak its settings or specify internet access policies for a particular app, type :LQGRZV)LUHZDOO into the Start menu and take control. 6KRXOG\RXUHTXLUHDPRUHVXEVWDQWLDO¾UHZDOOWKDQ Windows 7’s basic offering, head over to www.zonealarm. co.uk and download ZoneAlarm Free Firewall, or try Comodo Firewall Free (www.comodo.com). Either of these will give you far more control over exactly which apps are allowed to roam free over the web, and they do a better job at keeping virtual villains at bay, too.

+DYLQJ\RXU86%¿DVKGULYH fall into the wrong hands could spell a data disaster if LWFRQWDLQVFRQ¾GHQWLDO¾OHV so take a moment to secure it properly using BitLocker. It doesn’t take long – just right-click the drive, select ‘Turn on BitLocker’ and follow the instructions to SDVVZRUGSURWHFW\RXU¾OHV

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Lock it up

Activate auto-logon

There’s no excuse for leaving your PC unlocked if you’re working in a public place, especially when there’s a keyboard shortcut that’ll secure Windows in an instant. Press [Windows]+[L] and hey presto, prying eyes averted.

On the other hand, if you and your PC are mostly home alone, why not skip the logon screen and go straight to the desktop? Click ‘Start’, type UXQ and hit [Enter]. Type FRQWURO userpasswords2 then click ‘OK’ and uncheck the tickbox.


Problem Steps Recorder

Fine-tune the System Restore tool

Fixing a Windows problem can be tricky, but this nifty tool will record the actions you’re taking at the time of the fault to help pinpoint the cause. Find it by typing psr into the Start menu search box and pressing [Enter].

Once you’ve seen what System Restore can do, you may fancy delving in to customise it. Press [Windows], right-click ‘Computer’ and select ‘Properties > System 3URWHFWLRQ!&RQ¾JXUH¶WR change settings and delete old restore points.

Summon Remote Assistance

Discover the Device Manager

Create a system repair disc

Once you’ve recorded a PC problem, wouldn’t it be helpful if a techsavvy friend could access your PC over the internet to get it back on track? Type UHPRWH DVVLVWDQFH into the Start menu and they’ll be able to do just that.

If you need to tweak any hardware settings, adjust drivers or temporarily disable a component, the Device 0DQDJHULV\RXU¾UVW port of call. Press [Windows]+[Pause/ Break], then click ‘Device Manager’.

There are times when Windows has become damaged too severely for even System Restore to ¾[,W¶VDWWLPHVOLNHWKHVH when a system repair disc is invaluable, so burn one before disaster strikes. Type repair disc in the Start menu search box.

Find compatible components

Take your PC anywhere

When you’ve rooted out which component isn’t pulling its weight, you’ll need to know its tech specs in order to upgrade it. Download CPU-Z from www. cpuid.com/softwares/ FSX]KWPOWR¾QGRXW exactly what’s inside.

It’s not only problemsolving where remote access comes in handy. Remote Desktop Connection lets you control a Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise-equipped PC via the internet while you’re on the go.

Burn ISO files

Fix a failed start-up

7KHVH¾OHVHQFDSVXODWH the exact contents of a CD or DVD when its data is duplicated onto a hard drive. You can copy the contents back onto a disc by doubleFOLFNLQJWKH¾OH choosing your optical drive and burning to a blank CD or DVD.

Old hardware slowing you down?

Occasionally the inner workings of Windows get a bit confused and the computer fails to start properly. It QHHGQ¶WEHDSDLQWR¾[WKRXJK3RZHUGRZQWKH3& then switch it back on and repeatedly press [F8] until the Advanced Boot Options menu pops up. Scroll down with the keyboard arrow keys to Safe Mode and press [Enter]. :LQGRZVZLOOQRZORDGWKHEDUHHVVHQWLDO¾OHVLWQHHGV to function, hopefully bypassing any issue preventing a successful start-up. When the desktop loads, click ‘Start’ and type restore. This loads Windows’ System Restore feature, which should undo any start-up anomalies.

When Windows speed tweaks aren’t enough to compensate for sluggish hardware, press [Windows]+ [Pause/Break], then click the ‘Windows Experience Index’ link and run the assessment. Any component that receives a score lower than 3.0 is ripe for upgrading.

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Monitor system resources

Discover Disk Defragmenter

How reliable is your PC?

You may know the Task Manager, but how about the Resource Monitor? Click ‘Start’ and type UHVPRQ. It scrutinises which apps are using your processor and memory, and monitors hard disk and internet usage.

Defragmenting your hard drive is much like organising D¾OLQJFDELQHWDQGZLOO reorder data so that Windows and apps can load faster. The process may take a while though, so type GHIUDJPHQWHU in the Start menu search box and put your feet up.

Press [Windows] and type UHOLDELOLW\ to display the Reliability Monitor. This keeps tabs on events such as when hardware drivers were installed, and logs any software crashes together with possible ¾[HVRQDFOHDUWLPHOLQH

Deactivate visual frills Windows 7’s snazzy visual effects tend to sap the speed of older PCs, so you should get a performance boost by disabling them. Click ‘Start’, type :LQGRZV SHUIRUPDQFH and press [Enter], then select the option ‘Adjust for best performance’.

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Clean up unnecessary files Giving your PC a spring clean is easier than you might think and has the potential to claw back some speed as well as storage space. Click ‘Start’, type FOHDQXS and press [Enter] to reach the simple Disk Cleanup wizard.

Speedy start-ups $UH\RX¾QGLQJ\RXU PC takes an age to start up? Try limiting the number of apps that automatically load. Press [Windows], type PVFRQ¾J and hit [Enter]. Switch to the Start-up tab, un-tick any non-essential programs and restart.

Compatibility mode

Recover frozen apps

Microsoft has gone all-out to ensure that older software runs smoothly on Windows 7, but if you do have an app that proves to be incompatible, right-click it, select ‘Properties’, then the Compatibility tab. Tick the ‘Compatibility mode’ box, press ‘Apply’ and away you go.

Resource Monitor also has the ability to restore life to an XQUHVSRQVLYHSURJUDP,QWKH&38WDE¾QGWKHSURFHVV highlighted red, right-click and select ‘Analyze wait chain’. Should two or more items appear on the list, the lowest will be the villain of the peace. Tick the box next to this item, save any open work in other applications you have running, then click the ‘End process’ button. Alternatively, you can just kill a problem program by pressing [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc] to activate the Task Manager. Right-click the app with a status of Not Responding and choose ‘End Task’ to shut it down.

Love your Libraries

Master your memory

Libraries are a nifty way WRJURXSVLPLODU¾OH types stored in multiple locations, but glitches can happen. Rightclicking a Library and selecting ‘Properties > Restore Defaults’ will iron out any issues, but will also undo your customisations.

At times, even the latest and greatest computers can stumble and crash. Iffy memory can often be the culprit, but you can get it back on track using the Windows Memory Diagnostic. Access it by typing the word PHPRU\ into the search box.

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Enhance text

Essential keyboard shortcuts

You’d be forgiven for thinking that text would be automatically displayed with the maximum possible clarity, but Windows can VXEWO\HQKDQFHLWVGH¾QLWLRQ Press [Windows] and type FOHDUW\SH to embark on a text-tune-up that is strangely reminiscent of an eye test!

The [Ctrl]+[C] and [Ctrl]+[V] shortcuts shave seconds off copying and pasting, but they’re not the only typing tricks you can master. Use [Ctrl]+[X] to cut rather than copy, [Ctrl]+[Z] to undo an action and [Ctrl]+[Y] to redo it. [Ctrl]+[S] saves your work and [Ctrl]+[P] prints it. Next time you do some word processing, remember [Ctrl]+[B], [Ctrl]+[I] or [Ctrl]+[U] make selected text bold, italicised or underlined respectively. [Ctrl]+[E] will centre text on the page, and [Ctrl]+[F] displays the Find pop-up, helping you track down a particular word or phrase. Try that one in your web browser, where it’ll work just as well.

Multiple monitors

Let’s get touchy-feely

Whoever said "less is more" hadn’t tried Windows on dual displays! Make the most of the extra space using [Windows]+[Shift]+[Left] or [Right] to swap windows between monitors, or press [Windows]+[P] to change display modes.

The experience of controlling Windows with a touchscreen takes some beating. One trick is to press and hold, which acts like a mouse right-click. Another one is swiping left or right in your web browser to navigate forward and back.

Magnify your screen

Hide and squeak

Some high-res monitors can make Windows look rather small, but there’s no need to keep squinting, as you can scale everything up. Click ‘Start > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Display’ and try the 125 per cent or 150 per cent options.

It’s funny how the mouse cursor has a habit of hiding. Ensure it stays in plain sight by activating mouse trails via ‘Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Mouse’ and selecting ‘Display pointer trails’ from the Pointer Options tab.

Easy PC, lemon squeezy Are you sick of tiny Windows icons, or do you fancy a larger mouse cursor? Press [Windows]+[U] to bring up the Ease of Access Center where you can tweak various settings to make Windows even easier to use.

Insert obscure text characters First, open the Character Map by typing its name into the Start menu search box. Choose the font you want from the top dropdown menu, then double-click your preferred character to select it. Finally, press the ‘Copy’ button to place it on the Clipboard.

Find your fonts Ever wondered where all your fonts live? Type IRQWV in the Start menu search box and you’ll go straight to their folder, complete with thumbnail previews. You can install new fonts by copying and pasting them directly into this folder.

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Define a custom keyboard shortcut We’ve covered a lot of keyboard shortcuts, but did you know you can also create your own to open an app? Rightclick its Start menu entry, click ‘Properties’ and enter your key combination into the Shortcut Key box.

Help & Advice |

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Open apps the way you want to

Discover new desktop backgrounds

Setting an app of your choice to open a particular ¾OHW\SHLVHDV\&OLFNµ6WDUW¶ type the word GHIDXOW and press [Enter]. Now select your preferred program, followed by the ‘Choose defaults for this program’ RSWLRQWRGH¾QHZKLFK¾OH types it opens.

Gazing at the stunning desktop slideshows featured in Windows 7 is a nice way to avoid work. To really indulge such procrastination, right-click the desktop, select ‘Personalise’ and click the ‘Get more themes online’ link.

Adjust AutoPlay Tired of Windows automatically playing a CD, or importing your camera’s photos without your approval? Take control by opening ‘Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > AutoPlay’ and setting how Windows treats new media and devices.

Automate a shutdown

Change Windows 7’s font styles

See what Task Scheduler can do

Windows can shut itself down at a set time. Press [Windows]+[R] and type VKXWGRZQ±V ±W[[ then press [Enter]. Replace ‘xx’ with the number of seconds your PC should remain running. Use VKXWGRZQ ±D to cancel.

The default Segoe font used in Windows looks good, but is a tad generic for some. If you want something more distinctive, type JODVV in the Start menu, press [Enter] and select the ‘Advanced appearance settings’ link.

Timed shutdowns aren’t the only thing Windows can be programmed to happen automatically. Open the Task Scheduler by typing its name into the Start menu search box, then tap [F1] to set up all sorts of procedures.

Reveal secret desktop backgrounds

Monitor calibration

Windows 7 includes a variety of backgrounds, but you’ll probably be restricted to images from your country. To broaden your desktop’s horizons, press [Windows]+[R], then type V\VWHPURRWJOREDOL]DWLRQPFW and tap [Enter] to reveal hidden international background folders. Find the Theme folder within each and double-click the WKHPH¾OHLQVLGHWRDSSO\WKHWKHPHWR\RXUGHVNWRS These are lovely, but there’s still no substitute for creating a slideshow using your own cherished snapshots. Right-click the desktop, select ‘Personalise’, click ‘Desktop background’ and browse to your preferred album.

If you like to dabble in a spot of photo editing, then it’s essential that your monitor’s colour and contrast settings are absolutely correct before you begin. Bring up the Start menu, type calibrate and follow the simple step-by-step guide to achieve perfect pixels.

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Change Media Player’s background

Give your logon screen a fresh look

Press [Windows]+[R] and type regedit. Navigate through ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > MediaPlayer > Preferences’, doubleclick ‘LibraryBackground Image’ and enter a value between 0 and 6.

Desktop wallpaper is all the rage in Windows 7, so it’s a pity the blue logon screen can’t be changed, too. However, if you install Logon Screen Rotator from http://bit.ly/LfMhkT it will rotate through a gallery of images.


Customise the Start menu Why not try customising the number of recent programs on your Start menu, or which links appear alongside them? Right-click the Taskbar and select ‘Properties’, followed by the ‘Customise’ button in the Start Menu tab to set your preferred style.

See links as menus While you were choosing links for your Start menu, did you notice the option to display them as menus? When this option is enabled, an easy access menu will appear when you click a link, rather than diverting to a separate window.

Time for a change Most people don’t realise that the humble Windows clock is capable of much more than meets the eye. Right-click it, select ‘Adjust date/time’, then ¿LFNWRWKH$GGLWLRQDO Clocks tab to set up second and third clocks for different time zones.

Enjoy hassle-free internet radio 3OD\LQJ\RXUPHGLD¾OHVLVQ¶W the limit of Windows Media Player’s talents. Open it and go into Library mode. If you’re tired if your own music collection, click the ‘Media Guide’ button in the lower left corner to listen to hundreds of internet radio stations.

Stay on top of your drivers Drivers tell Windows how to communicate with each piece of hardware in your computer, but Windows Update doesn’t always give you the latest versions. Upgrading the drivers for your graphics card tends to offer the most noticeable performance gains, potentially giving you smoother HD video playback. The big three graphics hardware manufacturers have automatic driver detection tools to help you upgrade to the most up-todate drivers for your PC. Visit http://support.amd.com, www.geforce.co.uk/drivers or http://downloadcenter.intel. com, depending on what hardware you own.

Windows Mobility Center This Windows 7 gadget is exclusive to laptop users and gives you a one-stop dashboard view of key settings like display brightness, system volume, Wi-Fi and screen orientation. Press [Windows]+[X] to reveal it.

Change the power button’s function Before you leave the Start Menu tab, check out the drop-down menu titled ‘Power button action’. This will let you change the Start menu power button from its usual ‘Shut down’ function to ‘Sleep’ or ‘Log off’.

Play more media

Preserve power

7KHVHFOHYHUOLWWOH¾OHV tell Windows how to play different audio and video formats. You’ll need more than the default Windows codec quota to maximise media compatibility though, so visit www. cccp-project.net to get a pack of extras.

Windows 7 is packed with power options to eke out your laptop’s battery life. Click ‘Start’, type SRZHURSWLRQV and open the ‘Change plan settings’ link on your preferred power plan to control how and when your computer saves energy.

Further maths Did you think that the Windows calculator was just a way to avoid mental arithmetic? Click ‘View’ for a full-blown VFLHQWL¾FPRGHD handy unit conversion function, and even fuel economy and mortgage repayment worksheets.

April 2014 |

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Alter the Windows Explorer launch folder

Master Jump Lists

Clicking the Windows Explorer folder icon on the Taskbar SURYLGHVTXLFNDFFHVVWR¾OHVYLD\RXU/LEUDULHVZKLFK LVQ¶WDOZD\VWKHLGHDO¾UVWSRUWRIFDOO/XFNLO\FKDQJLQJ WKHLFRQ¶VGHIDXOWJRWRIROGHULVQ¶WGLI¾FXOW5LJKWFOLFN the Taskbar icon, then right-click the ‘Windows Explorer’ heading on the list and choose ‘Properties’. Change the contents of the Target box to ZLQGLU?H[SORUHUH[HF? XYZ and replace ‘XYZ’ with your preferred folder’s name. Alternatively, type ZLQGLU?H[SORUHUH[H ^')($($$'%'` in the Target box to make Computer the default directory.

These handy little menus pop up when you right-click a Taskbar icon, but the fancy way to see them is to OHIWFOLFNDQG¿LFNXSZDUGV with your mouse. The lists tend to incorporate IUHTXHQWO\PRGL¾HG¾OHV but you can hover over one and click the pin icon to make it stick around.

Open DOCX files in WordPad Ever since Microsoft 2I¾FH:RUG documents have been saved by default in the DOCX format. That’s great, unless you have an older version of 2I¾FHEXW:LQGRZV¶V WordPad app has no trouble opening them.

Bring files out of hiding You can reveal any hidden ¾OHVRUIROGHUVRQ\RXU computer by clicking the ‘Organise’ button that appears at the top left of a folder window, then selecting ‘Folder and search options’, followed by the View tab. Finally, tick the µ6KRZKLGGHQ¾OHVDQG folders’ box to unveil them.

Reveal the Menu bar In an effort to streamline the look of Windows 7, Microsoft appears to have done away with the good old Menu bar in Windows Explorer along with numerous essential apps. The Menu bar is just hiding though – press [Alt] to reveal it.

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Add checkboxes to Windows Explorer Staying in the View tab in ‘Folder and search options’, scroll down until you spot ‘Use check boxes to select items’. This adds a tick ER[E\HYHU\¾OHVR you don’t have to hold [Ctrl] to select multiple ¾OHVLQDIROGHU

See your file extensions

Customise file indexing

It’s often useful to view ¾OHH[WHQVLRQVVXFK as DOC or JPG at the HQGRI\RXU¾OHQDPHV To do this, just open a folder and click ‘Organise > Folder and search options > View’. Un-tick ‘Hide extensions IRUNQRZQ¾OHW\SHV¶

:LQGRZVLQGH[HV¾OHV to help speed up your searches. Choose which hard drives or partitions you want the system to monitor by typing LQGH[ in the Start menu search box, then press [Enter] and click the ‘Modify’ button.


Perfect pasting Copying text from a web page into a Word document usually takes a while as Word attempts to preserve the formatting style, and then makes a pig’s ear of it. Paste the text YLD1RWHSDG¾UVWDQG it’ll be quick, with no formatting issues.

File contents search The Windows Explorer search box is a great ZD\WR¾QG¾OHVEXW what if you can’t remember the correct ¾OHQDPH"7U\VHDUFKLQJ using a distinctive word that is likely to be ZULWWHQZLWKLQWKH¾OH then click the ‘File Contents’ button.


Zip files for easier emailing

Search the web from your Start menu

Add more ‘Send to’ menu options

(PDLOLQJDEXQFKRI¾OHVDV separate attachments is a slow and messy process. ,QVWHDGJURXSWKH¾OHV into a folder, right-click it, then opt for ‘Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder’. This packages all WKH¾OHVLQVLGHDVLQJOH convenient container.

Use the Start menu WR¾QGJSHGLWPVF and double-click the lower ‘Administrative templates’ folder, then ‘Start Menu and Taskbar’. Double-click ‘Add Search Internet link to Start Menu’ and select ‘Enabled’.

If you need to move a ¾OHKROG>6KLIW@DV\RX right-click it. This adds extra locations to the ‘Send to’ sub-menu, such as Contacts, Desktop and Libraries. Choose any of these DQG\RXU¾OHZLOOEH moved straight there.

Instant web browser You’ve probably gathered that the Start menu search box will help you navigate straight to all sorts of Windows features, but did you know it’ll also take you directly to a web page? Simply type the website’s address and hit [Enter].

Create a Taskbar search box

Rename multiple files If you want to rename DVHOHFWLRQRI¾OHVZLWK a standardised title, begin by selecting the one you’d like WRDSSHDU¾UVWWKHQ highlight the rest and tap [F2]. Rename the ¾UVW¾OHSUHVV>(QWHU@ and the others will follow suit.

If clicking the Start menu to type a web address is too arduous, right-click the Taskbar and select ‘Toolbars’, followed by ‘Address’. This places a search box on the Taskbar to make the internet even more accessible.

Speeding up shutting down

Experience ReadyBoost

Sluggish shutdowns are a pain if you regularly restart your PC. You can accelerate the process via the Windows Registry, which is accessed by clicking ‘Start’ and typing regedit. Double-click through ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control’, then turn your attention to the pane on the right. Double-click the item named ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’ and change its value VRLW¶VURXJKO\SHUFHQWORZHUWKDQWKHFXUUHQW¾JXUH Click ‘OK’ and your next shutdown should be quicker. You can try lowering the value even more, but don’t get too greedy as system stability could be compromised.

This nifty Windows feature VWRUHVIUHTXHQWO\XVHG¾OHV RQD86%¿DVKGULYHUDWKHU than your hard drive, helping to reduce loading times. All you need is a reasonably nippy drive with at least 256MB capacity. Plug it in, then select ‘Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost’.

Close with a click

Open with a click

To shut a minimised app in Windows 7, just hover over its Taskbar icon and click the close button in its preview thumbnail. Want something even faster? Middle-click with your mouse wheel anywhere on the thumbnail and it’s bye-bye app.

Here’s a handy shortcut you’ll wonder how you did without. Next time you’d like to open an additional copy of a running program, don’t bother hunting it down in the Start menu; simply hold [Shift] and click its Taskbar icon. Job done.

April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

Cleanse your computer with CCleaner

App-specific volume control

Regular readers will know how much we love CCleaner (www.piriform.com/ccleaner), so there was no way we could leave it off this list. Much like the Windows Disk Cleanup Wizard, it’s designed to clear the clutter from your hard drive to boost performance. However, rather WKDQVLPSO\HUDGLFDWLQJVXSHU¿XRXVSRZHUKRJJLQJ :LQGRZV¾OHVLW¶OODOVRWLG\XSOHIWRYHUVIURPDQ\ZHE EURZVHUVRIWZDUH0LFURVRIW2I¾FHDSSVDQG\RXUDQWLYLUXV SDFNDJH
Next time you want to adjust the volume icon in Windows, click ‘Mixer’. This enables independent volume control for each audio-enabled open app. It’s useful for muting an annoying webpage video advert while keeping that Kylie album in full swing.

Windows 7, hands-free

Sound recordings

Before you try karaoke with your microphone, why not try using it for speech recognition? It’s useful for dictating your word processing, or for navigating around Windows hands-free. Click ‘Start’ and type VSHHFK to learn more.

Create a HomeGroup Have more than one PC at home? Windows 7’s HomeGroup feature will connect two or more computers via your internet router so you FDQVKDUH¾OHVPXVLF and printers. Sound good? Visit http://bit. ly/1fdCJSw for a detailed guide.

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If you have a microphone hooked up to your computer and you fancy making a quick recording, go to ‘Start > All Programs > Accessories’ and open Sound Recorder. It’s simple to use and lets you cancel and resume recording.

Windows Easy Transfer

Access email from your desktop

Declutter with Sticky Notes

Thinking of buying a new PC? Transferring all \RXU¾OHVDQGVHWWLQJV needn’t be a daunting prospect. Have a large external hard drive at the ready, then type HDV\WUDQVIHU in the Start menu and let it do the work for you.

Do you want to see emails in Windows, or manage mail from multiple Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo accounts in one place? Download Windows Essentials from http://bit. ly/1ftvCUX and install the Mail app.

Sticky Notes is the virtual equivalent of those Post-it notes on the sides of your monitor, and allows you to make notes on your desktop instead. Click ‘Start’, type VWLFN\ and voila! Clicking the ‘+’ sign adds another note.

Make your laptop an internet hotspot

Cut hassle with the Snipping tool

With Windows 7, it’s possible to turn your laptop into a wireless internet hotspot so you can share its internet connection with another PC or Wi-Fienabled mobile device. http://bit.ly/1fA04g3 will get you started.

This is one of those Windows features that you may have seen, but never tried. It’s worth investigating though, because it lets \RXGUDZDURXQGDVSHFL¾F portion of your screen and capture it straight to DQLPDJH¾OHUHDG\IRU saving or sharing.


,ɚʃȱɏ


NEXT ISSUE

Prepare your PC for any disaster Customise notifications

Rearrange your notification area

1RWL¾FDWLRQVSRSSLQJ up by the Windows clock can drive you mad. To politely dismiss them, click ‘Start’, type QRWL¾FDWLRQ and select µ1RWL¾FDWLRQDUHDLFRQV¶ The small arrow on the Taskbar will display anything you hide.

Having banished QRWL¾FDWLRQVWRWKH hidden system tray, it’s comforting to know they can be arranged in any order you like by clicking the small arrow on the Taskbar and dragging and dropping each icon within.

Banish the beep Press an incorrect key and Windows emits a small, shrill beep, which can get beeping annoying. Shut it up by typing V\VWHP VRXQG into the Start menu, ¾QGLQJ'HIDXOW%HHSLQWKH Program Events list and changing the value in the Sounds drop-down menu to (None).

Avoid user account limitations

Relax User Account Control

Deactivate Action Center alerts

Some tools and programs must be run with admin privileges to avoid restrictions. Either right-click the app and select ‘Run as administrator’ or type its name into the Start menu, followed by [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Enter].

User Account Control is a feature that seeks your permission every time an app tries to make changes to your PC. To stop its nagging, type 8$& in the Start menu search box, press [Enter] and set the slider to ‘Never notify’.

Windows 7 loves to take care of your PC, but its Action Center alerts aren’t always welcome. Thankfully, if you type DFWLRQ in the Start menu and select ‘Change Action Centre settings’, peace can be restored.

Disable unwanted Windows features

Lock down your Control Panel It can be annoying when you’ve got your computer set up perfectly, then another user comes along and messes up your settings. You can prevent this happening by disabling the Control Panel. Type JSHGLWPVF in the Start menu search box and press [Enter]. In the left-hand pane of the new window, double-click the bottommost ‘Administrative templates’ folder, followed by the ‘Control Panel’ folder. Next, switch to the right-hand pane and double-click ‘Prohibit access to the Control Panel’. Select the ‘Enabled’ option in the top left and click ‘Apply’. To restore access, follow the same procedure, but click ‘Disabled’ instead. Q

If you’re struggling to pry a family member away from playing Solitaire on your PC, wait for a quiet moment and take your revenge. Type WXUQIHDWXUHVRII into the Start menu, then un-tick the ‘Games’ box. Now you can name your price to re-enable them!

AppLocker

Total control

Now your Control Panel is locked down, why not secure your app settings as well? They can be secured using the AppLocker tool, which is incorporated into Windows 7 Ultimate edition. Learn its ins and outs via http://bit.ly/1ehrqsV.

Switching your Control Panel to icon view is great, but you can do better. Make a folder on the desktop, name it 7RWDO&RQWURO ^('%$( (& (&` and open it for a Control Panel on steroids.

April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

25

WINDOWS TIPS

INTERNET ADVICE

Welcome Whether you’re stuck for inspiration or want to become a master of your Windows computer, our Explore section is the place to come. Each month we pack it with tutorials covering a range of subjects suitable for all levels of expertise. This month, Nick Peers explains how to recover your data if your PC fails and you haven’t made a backup, Christian shows you how to get rid of troublesome malware and Catherine demonstrates how to edit large groups of photos at once. There’s never been a better time to see how your PC can make your life easier than ever! Nick Odantzis, acting editor [email protected]

YOUR DISC SOFTWARE

)ʅɸɗʙLVʤʖQɒ 28 Recover data if your PC fails unexpectedly

46 Rid your computer of malware the easy way

32 Edit large groups of photos in batches

50 Create an emergency system recovery disc

36 Create your own personal news presenter

52 Create a RAM drive for faster file access

40 Get amazing video desktop backgrounds

56 Get real help from real people online

42 Get Windows Gadgets back on your desktop

58 Read Amazon Kindle books on your PC

<ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ 5LɭKʋUɍ&ɼɬȩɏԼVʋ\ɡ

“A PC is the perfect way to try out ebooks to see if you like reading your favourite novels digitally, and the Kindle for desktop app does this brilliantly” 7ʦʢɚWɛSDȰɏIʝɠPʝȾɏ

Our promise to you… Get more from Windows, software and all your favourite sites

Packed with informative tutorials

Get more from your favourite websites

Every issue, we guarantee to pack the magazine with great tutorials teaching you all the best things you can do with your PC. Each article features step-by-step instructions to make learning new skills fast and enjoyable.

We all have our list of favourite sites but often we miss out on great features EHFDXVHWKH\·UHGLIÀFXOWWRXVHRUKLGGHQIURP sight. We’ll show you how to do more online, for a more satisfying web life.

Customise Windows to work your way

Use our full software to try new things

We all know how to do the basics but getting the most from Windows isn’t always easy. Our dedication to the operating system means you get the very best tips and tricks for all versions of Windows.

Our exclusive industry access enables us to pack your free disc with full commercial software. From speed-up and security software to superb photo apps, there’s always something new to try on your PC. April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

27

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Recover data if your PC fails

ƴ,Ǩ.6%Ǌ67ƼǏ3 ,ɑ\ʝɤKʋɃɏɈȿHFʝQɍǟƻ% KʋUɍʏʢʖɃɏʨLʃɓʑQʝXɳɓ ʣSDȪɏ WɪȴɏɈȿHFʝQɍEDɭʘʦɞ ʗXVɢʖɚFDȿɏ

<ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ1Lɭɖ3ȭʑUɡVʋ\ɡ

“Can’t boot into Windows? Before attempting repairs, take steps to back up and protect your data.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL

Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts TIME TAKEN

60

minutes

SUITABLE FOR

Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP

W

hat happens if you can’t boot into Windows? If – as in most cases – the hard drive itself hasn’t physically died, then your data is tantalisingly close, but just out of reach. Attempting repairs could make things worse, but if you follow this tutorial you’ll be able to back up all the data on your drive using a free program called Macrium Reflect Free before you try to fix the problem. The tutorial assumes you’re unable to boot into Windows, in which case you’ll need access to another Windows PC. You’ll also need an external USB hard drive to recover your non-functioning drive’s files to, plus rescue media in the form of a blank CD/DVD or spare USB flash drive (512MB in capacity or greater). Even if your PC is working perfectly for now, why not protect yourself by following the first six steps to create the all-important rescue media now? It could save your files one day.

CHECK DRIVE You can quickly see if the troublesome PC’s drive is in good working order before backing it up – click ‘Actions’ under the drive and choose ‘Analyze file system’.

FORENSIC IMAGES Pick the ‘Forensic’ option to take an exact copy of the entire drive for advanced data recovery purposes. Note, however, that standard images are smaller and quicker to create.

Step-by-step Rescue your data

Macrium on a working PC 1 Install From your working PC, first open a web browser and go to www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp. Click the ‘CNET download’ link followed by ‘Download now’. Save the file reflectdl to your hard drive, then double-click it to launch the installer. Make sure the selected download is the free version with PE 3 components, then click ‘Download’ and follow the prompts to install the program.

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an external drive 2 Connect You’ll need an external USB 2.0 hard drive to store the recovered data. It needs enough free space to hold the contents of the entire PC – Macrium will compress the backup, but it may not be enough. A new 1TB hard drive costs around £50/$80, and is a worthwhile investment. Plug your USB hard drive in to the working PC, which will detect it and install the necessary drivers.

Explore Recover data if your PC fails

NAME YOUR IMAGE The entire contents of your recovered drive are stored in one file, called a drive image. Untick this box to give it a more easily identifiable name, such as xp-recovered.

Jargon buster! Forensic image A complete byte-bybyte backup of an entire hard drive. This includes all free space where deleted files may reside, making it possible to recover them later. Mount The process of accessing a drive image by making its contents accessible through Windows Explorer. The image is assigned a drive letter and works like a virtual hard drive.

REDUCE IMAGE SIZE After clicking ‘Next’ to view the summary screen, click the ‘Advanced Options’ button for more options. Start by reviewing the compression options – if space is tight, set this to ‘High’.

PE Architecture The version of Windows – either 32-bit or 64-bit – used by your rescue media. This should match the version of Windows installed on your non-booting PC.

SELECT YOUR BACKUP DRIVE After clicking ‘Image this disk’, click the ‘...’ button to select your external USB drive or a folder within it as the place to store your backup.

GET BACKED UP Once you’re ready, close Advanced Options and click the ‘Finish’ button. Macrium will now back up your non-booting drive’s contents to your external hard drive.

Rescue Disc Creator 3 Launch With the USB hard drive still plugged in, click ‘Start’ and select ‘Reflect’ to launch the program. Open the ‘Other tasks’ menu and select ‘Create rescue media’. The Windows PE option should be selected, so click ‘Advanced’ and choose the ‘4.0’ option if your non-booting PC came with Windows 8 installed. Otherwise, select ‘3.1’ and click ‘OK’ followed by ‘Next’ to continue.

PE Architecture 4 Select The PE Architecture is one of the most important choices you have to make. Usually the default setting (typically ‘64-bit’ on newer PCs) is the right one to pick, but if your non-booting PC is running Windows XP, select ‘32-bit’ instead. Ignore the Architecture Conflict warning that pops up by clicking ‘Continue’. Leave ‘Default base WIM (recommended)’ selected and click ‘Next’. April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

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rescue files 5 Build Click ‘Next’ and wait for the files to be collated, then click ‘Continue’. You may receive two warning messages – one that says ‘Check your rescue media can access your drives’ and one telling you about an update that requires upgrading. Click ‘Continue’ to ignore them. If you’re returned to the PE Architecture screen from here, just click ‘Next’ to repeat the step.

the non-booting PC 7 Start Next, plug the external hard drive into your non-functioning PC and power it up with the newly made rescue disc or USB flash drive inserted. If prompted, press any key to boot from CD or DVD. If no media is detected, restart your computer and look for an option to select the boot media. Press this key and choose your CD/DVD drive or USB flash drive from the list.

your drive image 9 Create The annotated screenshot on page 29 reveals all the options for backing up your hard drive (known as drive imaging). These include creating a forensic image if you need to recover previously deleted data from your inaccessible drive, and choosing a more easily identifiable name for the drive image itself. Work your way through the wizard, then click ‘Finish’.

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rescue media 6 Choose You should now be prompted to burn your rescue media – either CD/DVD (insert your disc) or USB. If you’re using a USB flash drive, make sure you tick ‘Enable multiboot MBR/UEFI USB support’ if you’re trying to recover data from a newer PC with Windows 8 pre-installed. Click ‘Finish’ to create the rescue media, then eject the disc or safely remove the flash drive.

Macrium Reflect 8 Load After a short pause the Macrium Rescue Environment should start. If you’re prompted to load drivers – typically network ones – you can click ‘No’. You don’t need them to detect your external hard drive. When the main screen appears, switch to the Disk Image tab. You should see both your internal, non-booting hard drive and the external drive you plan to recover data to.

backup integrity 10 Verify When the process is complete, click ‘OK’ followed by ‘Close’. Switch back to the Restore tab, where the drive image should now be displayed. Make sure the image isn’t corrupt by clicking ‘Verify image’. Click ‘Verify’ and wait a moment for Macrium to check the image and confirm that it is intact. When this has been successfully verified, click ‘OK’ followed by ‘Close’.

Explore Recover data if your PC fails

image 11 Mount Now switch back to the Restore tab. Under ‘Restore tasks’,

your files 12 Locate A new Explorer window will open, which should reveal

click ‘Open an image or backup file in Windows Explorer’. If the image isn’t displayed, select ‘Browse for folder’ from the dropdown menu and click your USB hard drive. Once it’s detected, tick the drive, assign it a letter from the drop-down menu and tick ‘Enable access to restricted folders’ before clicking ‘OK’.

all the files and folders on your non-bootable PC’s hard drive. You’re now free to browse through the drive’s contents for your lost folders and files, as if you were using the computer itself. Look under Users or Documents and Settings for your user folder – most of your personal files will be located here.

and copy files 13 View You’ve found the files you want to restore, but you can’t

deleted files 14 Recover If you took a forensic image of the drive, it will contain all

open them directly from the rescue media, so close Macrium and shut down your PC. Boot up the working PC again and plug the USB hard drive back into it. Locate and double-click your drive image to access it in the same way you did in step 11. This time you can also view and copy files from the image.

previously deleted data as well as your existing files and folders. Armed with the right free tool – such as Glary Undelete (from your free disc or www.glarysoft.com) – you can search for and attempt to recover deleted files. Once the tool is installed, just select your mounted drive image and click ‘Scan’ to see what it can find.

repairs 15 Attempt With your data now accessible from your drive image, you

restored 16 Data Congratulations. Even if you’re forced to reinstall or recover

can go back to trying to fix your non-booting PC, secure in the knowledge that whatever happens you won’t lose any data. Try booting from your Windows installation disc or recovery media and look for repair options to see if the problem can be fixed for you. If it can, you won’t need to perform any further data recovery.

Windows from scratch, you can do so without losing files. Once the reinstall and post-reinstall processes are complete (see issue 91 for our most recent guide to doing so), install Macrium Reflect Free on your PC, then plug in your USB hard drive and mount your drive image to copy your files back to the internal hard drive. Q April 2014 |

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,ɚʃȱ ɏ

NEXT ISSUE Record and

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Edit photos in batches

tu your video ne s

<ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ&Dʃȱʑʢʖȸɏ(ʛPɈ(ɸʙLɡVʋ\ɡ

“When you've imported lots of photos from your camera, editing them can take hours. Save time and effort by processing them in bulk with PhotoMarks.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


1

hour

SUITABLE FOR


W

e’ve all been there – you’ve just got back from an amazing trip with dozens of photos on your camera, and now you’re back home, faced with the daunting task of editing them all before uploading them to the web or getting them printed professionally. Doing them one by one can take hours, but there’s a free program that will take care of the hard work for you. Download PhotoMarks, tell it what to do with your pictures, and it will edit them all in a flash. You can try PhotoMarks for free, or buy the full version for $30/£18. This includes extra functions and a lifetime licence, and won’t apply PhotoMarks’ own watermark to your finished snaps. There’s a 60-day money-back guarantee, too. The editing process is broken down into three simple steps and couldn’t be easier, so grab all your pictures and let’s get going!

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Step-by-step Save time with faster picture editing

PhotoMarks 1 Download Visit www.bitscoffee.com/photomarks and click ‘Download’. Scroll down until you see PhotoMarks for Windows and click ‘Download’ again. It’ll ask whether you want to save or run the file, so click ‘Run’. Leave ‘English’ as the default language and click ‘OK’. Click ‘Next’, accept the terms and click ‘Next > Next > Install’. Once the installation is complete, click ‘Finish’ to launch the program.

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your photos 2 Pick A message will warn you that the trial will put an extra watermark on your photos. Click ‘Continue trial’, then click ‘Add photos’ and select the pics that you want to edit. To select multiple photos, hold [Ctrl] as you click them or use your mouse to draw a box around them. Once you’ve selected them, click ‘Open’. You can drag photos into PhotoMarks from your desktop, if you prefer.

Explore Edit photos in batches Jargon buster! Crop To chop the sides off an image to make it a certain size. It's very useful if you have a portrait photo that you want to show in a landscape format instead.

a filter 3 Choose The pictures will appear in PhotoMarks’ main window. Click a photo to see a preview in the bottom right. Click ‘Edit photos’, then click ‘Add filter’ to select a change that will be applied to all of them. You can add text, logos and frames, apply a border, crop your images or rotate them.

some text 4 Type To add text, click the ‘Text’ icon, type your words and use the various options to change the style and format. Use the scrollbar to display more options, including a palette for changing text colour. Click ‘OK’ and you’ll see a preview of how the filter will look when it is applied to your images.

JPEG A common file format for photographic images. Processor The chip that handles all your PC’s decisions. Everything that your PC does is controlled by the processor, and the slower this is, the slower your PC.

to 6 Prepare export You’ll now see a preview of how your photographs will look with both of the filters applied. Once you’re satisfied with how they look, click ‘Setup’ to choose how your edited photos will be saved. You can either save your photos on to your PC, send them via email, upload them via FTP (ignore this unless you have your own website) or send them to Flickr. You can also choose an output format – JPEG is generally a good choice.

it 5 Frame You can add several filters at once. Click ‘Add filter’ to apply another effect; we’ve used ‘Grunge frame’. You can pick from various options, including border shapes and colours. If you don’t want all your pictures to look too uniform, select ‘Apply random frame’ for variety. Click ‘OK’ when you’re happy.

your pictures 7 Process Click ‘Process’ to apply your filters and save the edited pictures in your chosen location. You’ll see a warning that the trial version of PhotoMarks will apply its own watermark to your photos. Click ‘OK’ and your photos will be processed. This might take a while depending on the speed of your PC’s processor, how large your images are, and how many filters you’ve created.

the results 8 Check Once PhotoMarks is finished, a new folder will open containing your photos with the custom filters applied. If you think you’ll want to use the same settings again, you can save them as a preset, helping you save even more time with your photo editing. If you like everything except the PhotoMarks watermark, it might be worth upgrading your account. Q April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

33

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ubscribe to Windows 7 Help & Advice and get the only guide you’ll ever need for getting more from your Windows computer, whether you own a desktop, laptop or tablet. If this world of computers is new to you, we’ll show you how to get to grips with the different operating systems, whether that’s Windows XP, Vista, 7 or Windows 8. We also go in-depth with a wealth of features and tutorials which, for example, will show you how to speed up your PC, reinstall your operating system should you experience problems, and make your computer secure against internet viruses and scams. You’ll even save money as we go to lengths to find the best hardware for you.

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Help & Advice |

35

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Get a personal news presenter <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ&Dʃȱʑʢʖȸɏ(ʛPɈ(ɸʙLɡVʋ\ɡ

“Let SoundGecko convert the latest news stories to speech and deliver them to your inbox.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


30

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


N

ews and entertainment websites are often updated several times a day, and it can be hard to stay on top of the influx of information. Who has time to sit at their desk for hours each day, absorbing the latest stories? SoundGecko makes it easy to stay up to date by reading the latest news to you while you get on with other things. Think of it as your personal news radio station. Just tell it your favourite sites and it will gather the latest stories for you, translate them into speech and send the resulting sound files to your email inbox, or to a cloud storage service like Dropbox. What could be more convenient? Text-to-speech tech has come a long way in the past few years, and SoundGecko’s synthetic voices sound very natural. The free service is great, but if you want more voices and extra options, premium subscriptions cost $2.95/£1.80 a month. Let’s get going!

ACCOUNT SETTINGS You can convert one web page at a time without logging in, but to automatically receive updates from your favourite websites, you’ll need to create a new account or connect to SoundGecko using Facebook.

FIND YOUR VOICE Free account holders get a choice of two voices – one male and one female. More are available with a premium subscription, but the two standard ones sound pleasant enough.

CLOUD STORAGE SoundGecko can send audio files straight to your cloud storage account. This is a great way to avoid cluttering up your email inbox, and means that you can listen to the news anywhere.

Step-by-step Get a personal newsreader

it out 1 Try SoundGecko will convert individual web pages into speech

an account 2 Make If you like what you hear, return to www.soundgecko.com

before you’ve registered an account. To try it, go to the page you want to convert and copy its URL from your browser’s address bar. Visit www.soundgecko.com and paste the address into the box provided. The web page will open again, with an extra sidebar on the left. SoundGecko’s speech conversion will play automatically.

and click ‘Register/Log in’ in the top right. You can either sign in using Facebook or create a new account for SoundGecko. To make an account, enter your email address and type a password – don’t worry, SoundeEcko won’t sell your details to third parties. Uncheck the box if you don’t want to receive email newsletters.

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Explore Get news with SoundGecko Jargon buster!

REFER A FRIEND If you enjoy SoundGecko, why not share the love? For every three friends who register, you’ll get one month’s free subscription to the premium service.

GET NOTIFICATIONS Click here to set up email notifications. You can receive two digests a day, at times that suit you, and you can choose whether you want to receive a notification each time you add a new article.

PERSONAL PODCAST Synchronise your audio player with SoundGecko to create your own personalised MP3 podcast. It works with iTunes and Windows Phone, and SoundGecko provides a link that you can add manually to other players.

and share 3 Verify You’ll be sent a verification email containing a link that will finalise the registration process. Click it and you’ll be logged into your new account. You’ll then be offered the opportunity to share SoundGecko with your friends in exchange for access to the premium features. You probably won’t want to recommend it before you’ve tried it yourself, so for now we’ll ignore this option.

Podcast A series of either audio or video digital files that are downloaded via the internet. Podcasting enables you to get content for your MP3 player that you can listen to, or watch, when it suits you. MP3 A type of music file that can be read on any music-playing device such as your PC, iPod or other portable player. Cloud When files are stored on the internet, the catch-all term is cloud storage. It comes from cloud computing, where services such as SkyDrive are provided online, rather than on your own computer.

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SoundGecko 4 Explore Welcome to the main SoundGecko interface! You’ll see a series of links along the top of the page for configuring your account and news sources. Click ‘Account profile’. Here, you can edit your email address, enter your name, connect your Facebook account and pick a time zone. This last option is vital for making sure your news digests are delivered at the right time of day. April 2014 |

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up speech 5 Set Next, select the tab labelled ‘Service settings & feeds’. Here

a podcast 6 Make Now you’re ready to link SoundGecko to your favourite

you can choose the voice that SoundGecko uses to read websites (there are two available to free account holders), and you can connect your account to a cloud storage service such as Dropbox or SkyDrive. It will then store audio files in the cloud so you can access them from any device with an internet connection.

news sites so new stories are converted into sound files automatically. The basic SoundGecko account only lets you add one feed at a time. If you want to add more, you’ll need to upgrade to a Pro account, which costs $2.95 a month. You can also sync SoundGecko with your music player of choice.

to the cloud 7 Connect If you don’t connect a media player or cloud storage service, SoundGecko will send you emails containing links to your latest audio files. Just click the link to open the page and SoundGecko will begin reading it to you. To download the sound file, right-click the ‘Download MP3’ link and select ‘Save link as’. You can then open it using your usual audio player.

and figures 9 Facts When SoundGecko emails you an article, it also gives you various useful statistics, including how many words it has converted, how long the sound file is, and how much time you’ll save by listening to it rather than reading it. You can convert as many as 30 stories a day with a free account, and each article can be up to 4,000 words long, which is a pretty generous allowance.

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the extension 8 Try If you use Google Chrome, you can install the SoundGecko extension, which lets you convert web pages instantly by clicking an icon in the top right of your browser window. It works the same way as the quick conversion tool we used in step one, but SoundGecko will also send a link to the MP3 file to your email address in case you want to listen to it later.

the headlines 10 Hear Congratulations, you now have a personal newsreader that will send regular updates to your email inbox, cloud storage and media player so you can stay up to date without losing time scrolling through websites. If you want to hear news on the move, there are free apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, which will link with your main SoundGecko account. Happy listening! Q

Plus essential tips for Windows 8, Vista & XP

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/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Get amazing video backgrounds <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ-ʋȷHɡ6WɪɬȵHɡVʋ\ɡ

“The DreamScene feature in Windows Vista was dropped from Windows 7, but all is not lost. You can still get stunning video wallpapers with our help.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


15

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


T

here’s no quicker and easier way to spruce up your computer than with a great new desktop background, but plain photos and slideshows can get a bit boring after a while. What if you could use a video as your desktop wallpaper instead? Back in the days of Windows Vista Ultimate, Microsoft developed Windows DreamScene, which enabled users to add special video backgrounds to their desktop. The feature was canned for Windows 7, but some clever people have found a workaround, which lets you get the same features in the newer operating system. What’s more, unlike in Windows Vista, you can add any MPEG or WMV video, not just ones released by Microsoft, so your choices are limitless. I’ll show you how to get started and turn your lifeless backgrounds into moving picture masterpieces.

Step-by-step Get video backgrounds in Windows 7

the installer 1 Find The DreamScene functionality isn’t built into Windows 7 as standard, so before you can get started you’ll need to download an installer that will add it to your system. There are several websites where you can download the necessary files, but we recommend getting it from our friends at The Windows Club. Go to http://bit.ly/9nFLnB and click the ‘Download’ arrow.

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and save 2 Download Your web browser will then ask you to confirm that you want to download the file. Choose to save it rather than open it straight away, and then select an easy-to-find location like the desktop so you can locate it easily when you’re ready to use it. Once you press the ‘Save’ button, the files will be copied from The Windows Club to your computer.

Explore Get amazing video backgrounds

the folder 3 Unzip You can retrieve the folder from your desktop once it’s finished downloading. You’ll notice that it’s in the form of a compressed zip file, so before you can open it you’ll need to right-click on it and choose ‘Extract’. Once that’s done, choose the desktop again and you’ll see the unzipped folder, which you can open to find the link for the DreamScene program.

a video 5 Add Now that you’ve got the software, you need an MPEG or WMV video to play on your desktop. Windows 7 comes with one such sample video, which you’ll find in the Videos folder. Click ‘Start’ and select your personal folder (the one that’s marked with your name), then click ‘Videos > Sample video’. Right-click on the video and choose ‘Set as background’.

more backgrounds 7 Get While the animals in the sample videos folder are fun, their appeal is bound to wear thin after a while. Luckily, you can find loads more DreamScene videos online. Visit www.dreamscene.org to find a plethora of compatible videos that you can download and run as desktop backgrounds. They look fantastic, and will loop seamlessly as they play.

the installer 4 Run To start using the DreamScene program, right-click the file called Windows 7 DreamScene Activator 1.1 and choose ‘Run as administrator’. A box will then appear offering you two simple options: ‘Enable DreamScene’ and ‘Disable DreamScene’. Click ‘Enable’ and the registry changes will be made, activating video backgrounds on your Windows 7 PC.

back to normal 6 Go The video will now start playing on your desktop, running on a loop. It looks great and really livens up your PC, but you might want to turn it off if it starts to distract you, or uses too many of your computer’s resources and makes it run too slowly. To deactivate it, just revert back to a normal theme by rightclicking on the desktop and choosing ‘Personalise’.

and enjoy 8 Experiment Now you know how to get amazing video wallpapers on your Windows 7 PC, and restore the functionality that was dropped from Windows Vista. Video wallpaper can look extremely impressive, and with the right content it can make using your computer even more enjoyable, so have fun experimenting with it until you find something you love. Q April 2014 |

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41

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Get Gadgets back on your desktop <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ&ʕʢLVʤLʋɚ+ɪɸɗVʋ\ɡ

“Windows 8's desktop is very minimal, but if you loved those Gadgets from Vista and Windows 7 then I’ve got good news – you can bring them back!” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


10

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


W

e now know that Microsoft removed desktop Gadgets in Windows 8 due to security issues, as well as the change to the all-new Modern Interface Start screen, where such things became pinned Live Tiles instead. However, if all that empty desktop space looks a bit too barren for your liking, you can use the free Desktop Gadgets 2.0 program to get your favourite widgets back, plus hundreds more from the Gadgets Revived website – www.gadgetsrevived.com. Microsoft’s Gadgets in Vista and Windows 7 were meant to bring you closer to key ‘at-a-glance’ applications such as a basic calendar, clock and weather forecast. For many users they became the quickest way to access that information, particularly on a widescreen desktop, where they are always visible. If that’s they way you’d like to work again, then Gadgets in Windows 8 are just a few clicks away.

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Step-by-step Bring desktop Gadgets to Windows 8

Gadget Gallery 1 Your After installing Desktop Gadgets 2.0 from your free disc or

a Gadget 2 Add Once you see a Gadget that you like, simply drag it onto

www.gadgetsrevived.com, you’ll see the Gadget Gallery. Here you’ll see the default set of Gadgets from Windows 7 and Vista, such as Clock, Calendar, CPU Meter and Weather. You can get more by clicking ‘Get more gadgets online’ at the bottom of the window. There are hundreds of choices, arranged into categories.

your desktop, where it will snap neatly to the Sidebar like it did with previous versions of Windows. You can also double-click to add a Gadget (which automatically places it on the right-hand side of your desktop). To get a Gadget from the Gadgets Revived website, click 'Download > Install' to add it to the gallery.

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Explore Get Gadgets on your desktop Jargon buster! Gadget These were introduced in Windows Vista as a handy way to get information on basic facts such as the time or date, plus more sophisticated tools such as antivirus alerts.

your settings 3 Customise Both the Windows defaults and most third-party Gadgets can be customised right from the desktop. All you have to do is click the Spanner icon for options. With Weather, for instance, you can change temperature type and location. This Gadget also requires an internet connection to work.

context menu 4 Desktop If you close the Gadget Gallery, the Sidebar should remain on your desktop even when you restart your PC. If not, get it back by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing 'Gadgets'. When you open the Gadget Gallery you can use the ‘Show details’ arrow to see info about each Gadget.

Gadget Gallery A place where all Windows Gadgets are kept before being added to the Windows desktop. Modern Interface Previously known as Metro, the Modern Interface is Microsoft's name for the new Start screen in Windows 8. Gadgets, such as time and date, exist here as Live Tiles.

Gadgets 6 Search In the Gadget Gallery you’ll see the number of pages listed. Each page holds up to 12 Gadgets, and you can use the arrows to cycle through pages of them. If you have lots of Gadgets installed, you’ll find the search bar in the top right helpful. You can use the drop-down arrow to search all your Gadgets, or just ones that have been installed recently.

the Control Panel 5 Use You can access full Control Panel options with working links from within the Appearance and Personalization category. This works exactly the same as it did in Vista and Windows 7, letting you add or remove Gadgets, and providing a link to download more if you fancy something new.

elsewhere 7 Look As well as the standard Gadget search in the Gadget Gallery, the app provides full integration with Windows Search. This means that wherever you type the word gadgets – in Control Panel, or in third-party Start menus such as Classic Shell (www.classicshell.net) or StartIsBack (www.startisback.com) – the common Gadget-related tasks will appear in search results too.

heaven 8 Gadget Now you’ve got Gadgets on your Windows 8 desktop, you can easily check the weather, get a quick calendar overview, and even see what your CPU is up to. There are also third-party Gadgets such as battery monitors for laptops, which will make your desktop even more useful. Remember that many Gadgets can be expanded by clicking the ‘Larger size’ button, too. Q April 2014 |

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/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Rid your PC of malware <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ&ʕʢLVʤLʋɚ+ɪɸɗVʋ\ɡ

“If your PC is behaving strangely, malware could be to blame. It’s time for some detective work.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


40

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


Y

our internet security suite or advanced antivirus program is always the first line of defence in combating internet-based threats, but while a virus or trojan will almost certainly be caught, less obvious malware can fall through the net. We don’t usually recommend using a second security suite, but HitmanPro is a great tool for getting a second opinion on possible malware. HitmanPro has a behavioural scan tool, which it uses to check your computer for potential virus activities or suspicious files that have the characteristics of malware. For the files that are classified as suspicious, HitmanPro sends a request to the Scan Cloud for confirmation that these files are indeed malicious. If the file is unknown, HitmanPro uploads it to the Scan Cloud, where it is scanned using the antivirus programs of five different vendors. I’ll guide you through all of its main options.

PROGRAM SETTINGS This is where you’ll find the most rudimentary settings that affect how HitmanPro works. Crucially, this is where you can get HitmanPro to scan for any toolbars that try to install themselves without your approval.

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Step-by-step Stop malware in its tracks

and set up 1 Install HitmanPro is free for a month, and can be downloaded from www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro. During the installation process you can opt to scan your computer on startup. I recommend checking this option for extra security. Note that HitmanPro doesn’t actually need to be installed – it can be run straight from a USB drive, a CD/DVD, a local hard drive or a NAS drive.

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removal 2 Auto Choose ‘Next’ on the Install screen, then click ‘Next’ again when you reach the main interface. You’ll initiate a Quick Scan by default, which will look at every folder on your PC for pesky malware that might have slipped through your standard security suite’s net. If you see ‘Delete failed’ in the list of identified files, you need to close the web browser that you currently have open.

Explore Rid your PC of malware

SCAN OPTIONS This tab will let you schedule a malware scan in much the same way you’d set up a regular antivirus scan using your main security suite.

Jargon buster!

ADVANCED SETTINGS If you have a quarantined file you can use VirusTotal to check it online. Alternatively, you can enable the EWS (Early Warning System), but this is for experts only and could potentially disable a core boot element of your PC. SCAN HISTORY Any items that HitmanPro has deemed to be harmful will be delivered to the Quarantine area on this tab. There’s also a sub-tab called Logs, where you’ll find detailed information about the program’s scans.

PROXY SETTINGS Here you can change the proxy options that HitmanPro will use. By default, the program uses Internet Explorer’s settings, but if you use different options when browsing the web, you can enter them here manually.

status 3 Report When the scan has run, the program will automatically remove any browser tracking cookies and alert you if it’s found any other threats that need your attention. The total number of objects scanned and the time of the scan are displayed, and you can save the report log by clicking on the option in the bottom left corner of the window. Tap ‘Close’ and your scan is complete.

Malware A catch-all term to describe malicious software that finds its way onto your PC. It can mean any threat, but here we use it to mean malicious programs other than viruses and trojans that are primarily found through the internet. Proxy An intermediary server connecting your PC to an end destination server via the internet. Proxy servers are most commonly used to help a PC get access to servers that it normally wouldn’t be able to access. Behavioural scan Using a clever series of algorithms, it’s possible for some software programs to identify files and apps that pose a threat, even if it’s not initially obvious that they are up to something malicious.

unwanted programs 4 Delete Once your scan is finished, choose ‘Settings’. You’ll be taken to the Settings tab by default, with an option called ‘Scan for Potential Unwanted Programs (PUPs)’ already selected. Below this you’ll see a drop-down menu. Select ‘Delete’ if you want HitmanPro to automatically remove add-ons such as browser toolbars that were added when you installed other programs. April 2014 |

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preferences 5 Scan On the second tab, you can change how HitmanPro scans

commands 6 Quick You can also use Hitman Pro via the command line. Click

your PC. You’ll find all the usual options, such as when to perform scans and what type of scan to carry out (default or quick), but there are also a few unusual options, such as the ability to prevent scans when a fullscreen program is in use, or to add a ‘Scan with HitmanPro’ option for files and folders in Windows Explorer.

‘Start’ and search for command prompt. Now type C:\Program Files\HitmanPro\HitmanPro.exe followed by a command (such as /scan). One of the most useful commands is /fb (Force Breach mode), which terminates non-essential processes. You can find a PDF containing the full list of commands at http://bit.ly/LarvDj.

advanced features 7 Explore Under the Advanced tab you’ll see an option called Disk

Kickstart 8 Grab From the main screen, choose the ‘Kickstart’ icon. You will

Mode. Leave this set to ‘Direct disk access (recommended)’ to allow HitmanPro to scan your PC when you start Windows. In the VirusTotal section you can choose to use HitmanPro’s partner VirusTotal service to analyse files or URLs. You can sign up for it within HitmanPro using the link provided.

be asked to insert a USB stick. Do so, then select it from the list (if there’s more than one attached) and click ‘Install Kickstart’. You’ll be alerted that the USB stick will need to be formatted before the program can be installed. This will delete everything on the stick, so make sure it doesn’t contain anything important

a ransomed PC 9 Rescue If you ever encounter malware that holds your PC hostage by encrypting your data until your pay a fee, you can insert the USB stick that contains Kickstart, enter the boot menu of the BIOS and select it. You now have a choice of two ways to boot. The default option here skips the master boot record, bypassing the ransomware so you can start Windows and run HitmanPro.

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safe 10 Stay If you need to remove a threat from your PC, you’ll have to buy the full product, but you can use the VirusTotal tool in the meantime. You can schedule scans in HitmanPro by day of the week and time, but if you’d rather use the Windows Task Scheduler to plan your regular maintenance, simply follow the instructions provided at http://bit.ly/Lfj8qe. Q

Windows 7 Help & Advice is an internationally licensed title and is exported to another 22 countries. Future Publishing Ltd, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW Tel: 01225 442244 Fax: 01225 732275 Email: [email protected] Web: www.facebook.com/windowsmag

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© Future Publishing Limited 2014. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. The registered office of Future Publishing Limited is at Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this magazine. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant Future a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format worldwide. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from well managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. Future Publishing and its paper suppliers have been independently certified in accordance with the rules of the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).


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,ɚʃȱ ɏ

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Make a Windows 7 system repair disc

NEXT ISSUE How to ba

ck u your files p

<ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ0ɵȴɏ:ɵɸʙLʋPɡVʋ\ɡ

“The worst computing disaster is one that prevents Windows from loading. But don’t worry – here we show you how to prepare for, and deal with, an apparently unbootable PC.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


5

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


T

he worst moments of our computer lives are all based around the same situation: After turning the system on, Windows absolutely refuses to start. Are our machines useless heaps of junk? Have we lost all of our important files, photos and information? It’s a horrible feeling. Fortunately, if this happens, it is possible to boot from a Windows 7 installation DVD. In this situation the Repair function can be used to swiftly get the computer going again. But if you don’t have an installation DVD, or it’s lost or scratched, you’ll be in trouble. And that’s why you need to be prepared for when disaster strikes. Follow this helpful guide and in less than five minutes you’ll have a Windows 7 system repair disc that can be used to start an unbootable computer, and usually get it working again. Just don’t forget to keep it in a safe place so it’s easily accessible.

Step-by-step Creating a Windows 7 repair disc

Control Panel 1 Explore Click on the ‘Start’ button and then select the ‘Control Panel’ option. If the ‘View by’ option is currently listed as ‘Category’, click on the arrow to its right and select the ‘Large icons’ option instead. This will enable you to see all of the available applets on one screen. Find the ‘Backup and Restore’ applet, and then double-click on it to launch it.

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the disc creator 2 Launch On the left of the window you will see the ‘Create a system repair disc’ option. Click on this to run the program that you need. However, if you do not see this option, it is possible to launch the repair disc tool separately. Click on the ‘Start’ button again and type recdisc into the Search box. You can then click on the ‘recdisc’ link to fire up the program.

Explore System repair

a disc 3 Find Grab yourself a blank disc – it can be either a CD or DVD, it doesn’t matter. Carefully place the disc into one of your computer’s optical drives. Once the ‘Create a system repair disc’ program has started up, click on the drop-down menu arrow and select the drive that contains your disc, as shown above. Click on the ‘Create disc’ button.

and burn 4 Click Once you have clicked the ‘Create disc’ button, the program will start to burn all of the system recovery files on to your CD or DVD. This shouldn’t take long – on the computer we tested it took less than one minute. Then, as the program suggests, label the disc as ‘Repair disc Windows 7’ so it will be easy for you to identify it later.

carefully 5 Test It makes sense to test the disc immediately to ensure that

it up 6 Boot When your computer is correctly booting from your repair

it works correctly – this only takes a moment. Leave the disc in the drive, close any open applications and then reboot your computer. If Windows loads as normal, change your BIOS set-up program to boot from your optical drives first. Check your computer’s manual for more advice on how to do this.

disc, you may see a message that informs you to press any key to boot from a CD or DVD. If you do see this message, just tap the [Space] bar immediately and the repair disc will continue to load. When you are shown a menu, select the ‘Windows Setup [EMS Enabled]’ option, as shown above.

Recovery options 7 System Select your keyboard (in the UK, this will probably be United Kingdom Extended) and click the ‘Next’ button. Select your Windows installation, then ‘Next’ again. You will now see the recovery options. If Windows 7 ever won’t start, boot from this disc, click the ‘Startup Repair’ option and Windows should get your computer automatically working again.

for (almost) anything 8 Ready You now know all about the Windows 7 Recovery Disc creation tool. If you’ve completed these steps, well done – you’re protected. If Windows 7 ever refuses to start, you can always launch the Recovery Disc, then use ‘System Restore’, a backup or ‘Startup Repair’ to fix the problem and get everything back on track without losing too much precious time. Q April 2014 |

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/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Create a RAM drive

PROGRAM CACHES If your favourite program makes use of temporary folders or caches, check its settings for an option to move these to your new RAM disk.

<ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ1Lɭɖ3ȭʑUɡVʋ\ɡ

“Use the spare memory in your PC to speed up its performance and extend your hard drive’s lifespan.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


15

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


T

he concept of taking unused memory and turning it into a lightning fast virtual drive that also reduces the wear and tear on your hard disk is nothing new, but using RAM has traditionally had one major drawback: its volatile nature means all data is lost when power is cut, such as when you turn off or restart your PC. However, thanks to modern tools like SoftPerfect RAM Disk, that’s not a problem. SoftPerfect is a free tool that regularly saves the content of your RAM to an image file so you can use it to store all kinds of data, not just temporary files. You’ll have to put up with slower startup and shutdown as the image is either loaded into RAM or updated, but I’ll show you how to strike a balance between performance and boot times. It work best with modern PCs with 4GB of RAM or more, but you can still take advantage with as little as 1GB – read on to find out how.

PORTABLE APPLICATIONS Portable apps (see page 32, issue 92) are self-contained, so they’re perfect candidates for switching to your RAM drive if they’re currently being stored on a slower hard drive.

FIREFOX CACHE Install the Configuration Mania add-on (http://addons.mozilla.org/addon/4420) and select ‘Firefox > Options > Configuration Mania > Browser Cache’ to change its location.

Step-by-step Set up and use your RAM drive

started 1 Get Install SoftPerfect RAM Disk from the free disc (if prompted, install the virtual disk driver). Leave ‘Launch SoftPerfect RAM Disk’ ticked on the exit screen and click ‘Finish’. When the main screen appears, select ‘Image > Create image’. First, you’ll need to pick a location to store your RAM disk image – this will let you keep data whenever you shut down or restart your PC.

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disk size 2 Set Click the folder icon to choose where to store this image. Loading and saving this at startup and shutdown lengthens boot times, so with this in mind, save it to your fastest drive (preferably SSD), give it a suitable name – say RAMdisk – and click ‘Save’. Now set its size, limiting it to either 2,048MB or a maximum of 25 per cent of your PC’s total RAM, whichever is smaller.

Explore Create a RAM drive MULTIPLE RAM DRIVES You can create two or more RAM disks for different purposes, but make sure their combined size doesn’t exceed 25 per cent of your PC’s total memory (so 512MB for 2GB, for example).

GOOGLE CHROME CACHE Moving the Chrome cache isn’t for inexperienced users – you’ll need to follow a relatively complicated procedure outlined under ‘A better way’ at http:// essayweb.net/miscellany/chrome.shtml.

Jargon buster! Cache A special folder in which Windows or specific programs – such as web browsers – can store data. This can later be retrieved at a faster rate than if the data was requested again from its original source. SSD Stands for solid-state drive, and refers to the new generation of hard drives that have no moving parts and therefore deliver much faster transfer speeds than traditional mechanical ones. Virtual disk driver A driver that allows Windows to recognise and access the portion of memory set aside for a RAM drive as if it were an actual physical hard disk.

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image file 3 Create Set the file system to FAT32 and type RAM disk or some other easily identifiable name into the Volume label box. Verify that Image Type is set to ‘Volume’, then click ‘OK’ to create the image file. This can take some time, so be patient and ignore any Not Responding messages. Once the image file has been created, ignore the prompt to mount the image drive and click ‘OK’.

INTERNET EXPLORER CACHE Select ‘Tools > Internet options > Settings’ under Browsing History. Click ‘Move folder’ to select a folder on your RAM disk, then click ‘OK’ twice before logging off when prompted.

up RAM disk 4 Set Click the ‘+’ button to create a new RAM disk. Start by clicking the folder icon to locate the file you created earlier. Next, pick a suitable drive letter that won’t clash with anything else – ‘R’ for ‘RAM disk’ might be a good option. Tick ‘Save contents to image’ to ensure that any data stored in your RAM disk is updated when your PC shuts down or restarts. April 2014 |

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your data 5 Protect If your PC crashes, you’ll lose any changes that have been made to the RAM disk since your last reboot or startup. To back up changes to the disk image regularly, click the ‘Advanced’ button, tick ‘Save contents to associated image every x min’ and set it to a figure that’s balanced between performance and protecting data on the RAM disk – 30 would work well. Click ‘OK’.

more folders 7 Add You can now use the RAM drive like any other – check out the annotation on p52-53 for a guide to the kinds of data you should consider storing there. Just create the relevant folders on the drive, then instruct their parent applications to use them. I’d advise against storing any personal folders such as Documents on the drive, just in case the PC crashes between backups.

and start again 9 Delete You can only make changes to your RAM disk by deleting and recreating it, thus losing all data currently on the disk. First, copy any files off that you wish to keep, then set your Windows TEMP folders back to their default values via ‘Tools > Set Windows TEMP folders’. Close any apps using the RAM disk and then right-click it and click ‘Delete’, forcing a dismount if required.

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Windows temporary folders 6 Move Click ‘OK’ to mount the drive. Once the drive has been created, you can start using it. First, open the drive in Windows/ File Explorer and create two folders: TMP and TEMP. Now switch back to SoftPerfect RAM Disk and choose ‘Tools > Set Windows TEMP folder’. Type R:\TEMP and R:\TMP into their respective boxes, replacing ‘R’ with the letter you assigned your RAM disk.

applications 8 Auto-run If you move folders or caches related to programs that start with Windows, you’ll need to disable their auto-start entries (look within the program for this setting). Now open SoftPerfect RAM Disk Manager and choose ‘Tools > Applications’. Click ‘Add’ to select the program file, then click ‘Open > OK’ so the program auto-starts again, but only after the RAM drive is ready.

disk heaven 10 RAM Depending on which files you transfer to RAM disk, you should soon notice some performance gains. Your hard drives will also thank you for putting less strain on them. If you have enough RAM you can even create more RAM disks, just choose ‘Disk > Add’ to create a temporary RAM disk that wipes itself whenever the computer shuts down or restarts – perfect for sensitive tasks. Q

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/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Get real help from real people, fast! <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ&ʕʢLVʤLʋɚ+ɪɸɗVʋ\ɡ

“Sometimes the standard help forum just doesn't cut it, and in the age of internet video chat you’ll soon wonder how you lived without Google Helpouts.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


30

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


G

oogle rolls out so many new web services that it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of them all, even the ones that have the potential to change the way your use your PC. Google Helpouts addresses the problem of trying to properly explain a problem to an expert over the phone or through a chat forum. Here you use video to have a proper face-to-face discussion. It’s essentially a mix of the Hangouts feature of social network Google+ and Google Wallet, Google’s own payment system. Helpouts is far from an amateur affair though – it’s designed to work with partner video helpers, all of whom are approved by Google, so although the choice might be slim at present, the quality is high. You can find the help you need by searching Helpouts, by browsing the categories, or through direct links on the web.

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Step-by-step Get chatting to an expert in seconds

for help 1 Search Like most of Google's services,

Helpouts is all tied into the company's search engine, so you’ll see popular search terms appear as you type your query at https://helpouts.google.com. You can also get the top results by typing a search term into www.google.com, followed by the word helpouts. Alternatively, you can browse for Helpouts using the Categories list.

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terms 2 Accept Once you’ve found a Helpout session that looks useful, take a minute or two to read the reviews to see whether it's the right one for you. You can then send the channel owner a message for more information by clicking ‘Send a message’. You’ll be asked to agree to the Google Helpouts terms and conditions before you can proceed and make an appointment with the owner.

Explore Get real help from real people

an appointment 3 Make Most Helpouts will have a grey box labelled 'Schedule', which you can select to see a calendar and choose an available time slot. Pick a date and time for your appointment, then hit 'Schedule'. Some pages may also have a green ‘Start Helpout now’ box for immediate connection, or a white ‘Request a time’ box, where you can type a message to the session owner.

a session 5 During When you start a Helpout for the first time, you’ll be prompted to install the associated browser plugin. Just follow the on-screen prompts to do so. You’ll then see the main video call window with a message asking you to confirm that you're ready to begin, and that it's okay for Google to save a recording of the Helpout (if your partner also agrees).

notifications 7 Activity You can change how you are notified through Google Helpouts in the Settings menu (access it by choosing the cog icon in the top-right then selecting 'Settings'). The default time to be notified of a session starting is five minutes, but you can enter any time you like. You can also choose where to get your notifications: through the desktop, via Gmail or by text message to your phone.

4 Pricing All Helpouts payments are processed through Google Wallet (www.google.com/wallet), so you’ll need to create an account before you can schedule a paid session. You'll be asked to add a credit card to your Wallet when you register. Prices are based on either a per-minute or per-Helpout basis, and are set by providers. Free Helpouts sessions don’t require a Wallet account.

track of Helpouts 6 Keep You’ll now begin your Google Helpout session, which uses your computer's webcam to make a video call just like you do when you're using Skype. The controls at the top of your window allow you to tweak volume, mute audio, turn the camera off or end the Helpout. To get a list of your past Helpouts and any recordings, go to 'Your Helpouts > Past Helpouts'.

and take 8 Give That’s it, you’ve had your first Google Helpout! If you would like to have more assistance from the same Helpout partner, you can just go back to Your Helpouts. You can also give Helpouts yourself by signing up to be a Google partner. It’s still early days and you’ll have to wait for an invite code, but you can register your interest through the ‘Give your own Helpouts’ button. Q April 2014 |

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57

/HʋʢɚKʝɦWɛ

Read Amazon Kindle books <ʝʦɠʔʦLȫɏ5LɭKʋUɍ&ɼɬȩɏԼVʋ\ɡ

“Try the electronic versions of your favourite books – you don’t even need a Kindle to enjoy them.” At a glance… SKILL LEVEL


30

minutes

SUITABLE FOR


N

othing beats the Amazon Kindle as a dedicated e-reader device. Its screen looks almost as good as paper, you can read it inside or in bright sunshine, it’s light and slim enough to go anywhere with you, and its battery life gives you about a month’s use – depending on how voraciously you read books – before you need to think about recharging it. Prior to getting mine, I couldn’t imagine not buying paperbacks from the shops. Now… well, I have to admit I’m starting to wonder. But a Kindle isn’t the only way you can read Amazon ebooks. There are Kindle applications for every major phone platform and tablet, a brand new one for the web, and of course, one for your home PC. This is the perfect way to dip your toe into the water, see what ebooks can do, and decide if you want to make the jump to a dedicated device.

COLLECTIONS Hand-made, unfortunately. There’s no automatic sorting of even fiction vs nonfiction, never mind genres or authors. Search for them in the top-right searchbar though.

COVERS Most Kindle books have covers that look good and help you identify titles. If not, Amazon gives them a generic one instead – words on top of a clip-art book.

Step-by-step Get started with ebooks

Amazon 1 Join Every book you buy on Amazon is tied to your main account. If you’ve ever bought anything there before, you already have one. If not, then go to www.amazon.co.uk in your web browser, click the ‘Start Here’ link at the top of the screen and register a new account – it should only take a few moments.

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the software 2 Get Move the cursor over Kindle in the list of departments on the left to bring up a menu, then click ‘Free Kindle Reading Apps’. On the screen that appears, click ‘Windows 7, XP & Vista’, then ‘Download now’. A Windows 8 Modern UI app version is available, though the Windows 7 version works just fine under Windows 8.

Explore Read Amazon Kindle books Jargon buster! Ebook Electronic book. Amazon uses a file format called .mobi, and the Kindle reader can handle books that you didn’t buy from its online store if they’re in that format. Simply double-click to open them.

PURCHASING You can purchase books from Samples through here, but are sent back to Amazon to buy new ones. You can purchase them on any machine and read them here.

Kindle Amazon’s dedicated e-reader. Uses e-ink instead of a standard LCD for an experience that’s much easier on the eyes. Highly recommended if you get into ebooks.

LIBRARY This contains all the books you’ve bought. Sampler editions only stay in it until you delete them or buy their book – they won’t clutter your library forever.

LONG-TAIL As you buy books, Amazon gets a better idea of what you like. Or sometimes, a very strange idea. It’s worth checking this button out though, just in case.

the reader 3 Install Click on ‘KindleForPC-installer.exe’ to start the installation process. Once installed, enter the email address and password that you used to register your Amazon account. This activates all of the reader’s functions, and tells Amazon that it can send books to it when you request them.

e-library 4 Your If you’ve already bought Kindle books on Amazon in the past, they’ll be automatically listed (but they won’t be downloaded until you request them) along with their covers. If not, you have three free classic ones to play with – Aesop’s Fables, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island.

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a book 5 Open Double-click on one of these three books – we’ll use

it wider 6 Open Reading in a small window can feel cramped. Click on the

Treasure Island – to open it in the reader. Most Kindle books have a cover and a contents page, but you’re usually put at the beginning of the main text when you open it. Click on the left and right margins to flip through the pages.

last icon above the main window (a box with arrows pointing out of it) to put the book into full screen mode instead. Press [Esc] when you’ve finished reading, or if you simply want to go back to the window version.

the flow 7 Change One advantage that ebooks have over regular ones is that

the pages 8 Tweak The font size slider does exactly what you’d expect – scales

you can control the reading experience. By default, the book will probably look pretty hideous. Fix that by clicking the Aa icon in either windowed or full screen mode, which gives you several options to make it much more comfortable to read.

the text up and down. The Words Per Line setting shrinks the page width. For most people, a small column works best because it reduces how far the eye has to travel. Color mode lets you switch to a sepia or black background, which some people prefer.

page spread 9 Two You can also click the icon of two pages next to each other to give you columns instead. It’s closer to the experience of reading an actual book, giving you more words without extra eye-strain, but whether you enjoy the experience or not is going to be pure personal preference. It’s easy enough to swap it back.

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the book 10 Inside The final options you need to know about are on the left of the window. The top icon jumps you around the book (including to the table of contents, though it doesn’t list it itself ), the middle one searches through the book for you, and the final one tracks any notes or highlights that you add to the text.

Explore Read Amazon Kindle books Jargon buster! Sync The short form of ‘synchronise’. In this case, the Kindle Reader keeps track of what ebooks you own, and exactly where you are in reading them. You can download your library to any registered device.

samples 11 Free Enough of Treasure Island! Go to Amazon and search for a book that’s available in Kindle format. Everything on Kindle has a free sample. Click ‘Send sample now’ on the right of the screen. If you have multiple Kindle readers, choose the PC one first.

the book 12 Collect Return to the Kindle reader. If the book doesn’t appear, click the ‘Refresh’ button next to Library. Your sample will appear in the top left. Double-click on it to load it. Samples vary in size, though you usually get a decent chunk.

the book 13 Buying Buying a book is no harder. All of the samples finish on a link to do so, and there’s a shortcut under the link in the Library. You won’t be asked for your password and ordering is immediate. If you mis-click and buy a book by accident, you can request a refund… but try not to.

collections 14 Making Collections make it easy to manage your books as your library grows. Click ‘+’ to create a new collection, then drag books in. You have to move books one at a time, but it’s still easier than using the keys on an actual Kindle, on the world’s slowest updating screen. Here you can be finished in a few minutes.

notes 15 Making Right-click anywhere in a book to highlight it, add a note,

in sync 16 Staying As long as you have internet access, every Kindle reader on

copy text (unless locked out by the publisher) or look up a word. The first time you do this, the reader will have to download the dictionary, which may take a short while. After that, it will be a much faster automatic process.

every platform will sync so you never lose your page, and you can pick up your book wherever you left off. This makes it easy to start reading in bed, continue on the bus to work, and even sneak in a few pages over lunch on Amazon’s web-based reader. Q

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PREPARE FOR

OF WINDOWS XP

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Cover feature The end of Windows XP

IT'S THE FINAL CURTAIN FOR WINDOWS XP – OR IS IT? DISCOVER WHAT YOUR OPTIONS ARE AND HOW TO IMPLEMENT THEM AFTER XP REACHES END-OF-LIFE On 8 April this year, all official support for Windows XP from Microsoft will come to an end. This news doesn’t indicate that XP will suddenly stop working overnight, but it does mean that in the future there will be no official support provided for Microsoft’s venerable operating system. It also signifies that no new updates or hotfixes will be released, and this certainly has critical implications for the security of your XP-powered PC. Microsoft stopped providing new features to Windows XP users a long time ago, but the tech giant has continued to contribute critical hotfixes and security patches. This has meant that when vulnerabilities in Windows XP have been discovered – either by security researchers or through the release of new malware – Microsoft has released updates that close these holes to protect your PC against these threats. Now that these updates are no more, your computer is vulnerable to any threats or exploits discovered in the months and years to come.

This ending of official support also means an end to any new or updated XP-related articles on Microsoft’s various technical websites (including http://support.microsoft.com), and will have a knock-on effect elsewhere in the tech world. Hardware and software manufacturers will increasingly abandon support for the operating system; this means your favourite programs may no longer be updated, and new hardware devices won’t work in XP. At the same time, Microsoft is also dropping support for Office 2003, but it has recently backtracked on plans to remove support for Microsoft Security Essentials in XP, promising to continue providing critical anti-malware assistance until 14 July 2015. Despite this change of heart, now is the time to take a critical look at your Windows XP PC and decide what you’re going to do – will you stick, or twist to a new operating system? Armed with this feature, you can be confident that you will make the right decision for you and your computer.

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To upgrade or not to upgrade? o, Windows XP has reached end-of-life. The good news is that it didn’t suddenly stop working as the clock ticked over over to 9 April. Microsoft has confirmed that you will still be able to activate XP and Office 2003 after this date, so you should still be able to reinstall Windows without worrying about being locked out of your system. You’ll also still be able to use Windows Update to download all Service Packs, hotfixes and other updates released before 8 April, but from now on, you’re essentially on your own. This leaves you with two choices. The first is to accept that now is the time to upgrade either Windows or your PC. The second is to continue using XP past its cut-off date. Here we’ll look at the practicality involved in choosing either option.

Choose to upgrade

Despite the criticism levelled at it, Windows 8.1 is far superior to XP. It’s much

more secure out of the box, and contains a number of great new features and usability improvements, many of which get overlooked. The new File Explorer makes navigating files and folders far easier, while the enhanced Taskbar lets you quickly and simply access your favourite files. Most of the criticism surrounding Windows 8.1 relates to the new Modern User Interface – a tile-based system designed to bridge the gap between traditional computers and touchscreen devices like tablets and phones. It has proved a bridge too far for many users, but behind this façade lies the Windows desktop (and all its trimmings) that you’ve come to know and love. The good news is that you can shut out the Modern User Interface and work exclusively in the Windows desktop. Install a free program called Classic Shell (www.classicshell.net) and not only will it allow you to keep the new Start screen

at arm’s length – you’ll boot straight to the desktop for starters – but it will restore the classic Start menu, too. You can even configure this to more closely resemble the old Start menu rather than Windows 7’s newer, more powerful version. One reason people stuck with XP for so long was because Windows Vista – its immediate successor – had heavy demands that meant it struggled to run on older PCs. Windows 7 resolved this issue by streamlining performance, and Windows 8.1 goes further still, making it a snappy performer even on older systems. That said, it’s still not as fast as XP, so bear this in mind.

Upgrade requirements To run Windows 7 or 8.1, you’ll need a PC with a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, at least 20GB free hard drive space and a graphics card that supports DirectX 9. Those aren’t onerous system requirements, so even if you’ve not upgraded your

PC for eight years, you’re likely to find that it’s already capable of handling the latest versions of Windows (at least in theory). It’s worth bearing in mind that some of your older hardware, such as printers and scanners, may not work in Windows 8.1, but we'll reveal tips and tricks for dealing with these over the page. For now, get a heads-up on what’s likely to cause problems by running the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. Download this at http://go.microsoft.com/ fwlink/p/?LinkId=321548. If your PC passes muster, then remember that performance might not be quite as snappy as you’ve come to expect. Upgrading your machine’s memory to 2GB (or even 4GB if your system supports it) will help here, particularly if you plan to run three or four applications at once. A faster hard drive will also help, and if your PC is a younger model with SATA drive support, a solid-state storage drive will

Preserve data and settings Sadly there’s no direct upgrade route from Windows XP to either Windows 7 or 8. That means if you’re planning to install the new version of Windows on your existing PC, you won’t be given the option of migrating your existing files, settings and applications during the installation process. Thankfully, there are third-party solutions. If you’re upgrading to Windows 7 you can migrate your data and compatible program settings for free using Microsoft’s own Windows Easy Transfer program. If you’d like to perform an ‘in-place upgrade’ from XP – preserving programs, settings and data – then you’ll have to pay. Laplink offers Upgrade Assistant tools for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 (see www.laplink. com/pcmover). They cost £20/$30 each, but make the process as painless as possible. If you’re buying a new PC, then you can use Windows Easy Transfer to move files and settings across as before to Windows 7, but you’ll need to purchase a more expensive Laplink product – either PCmover Home (£34/$40) or PCmover Pro (£50/$60) – if you want to migrate programs, too.

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Cover feature The end of Windows XP Upgrade with care If you’re planning to save yourself a few pennies by reusing the core components from your old computer, consider the following points before you get started. First, your PC’s case will probably be fine if it’s ATX standard, but the power supply may need upgrading. It should be at least 300W (400W ideally) and have modern connectors like SATA, 24-pin ATX and maybe PCI Express, as well as older Molex ones for backward compatibility. Quieter, more efficient models come at a premium, but you shouldn’t have to pay more than £40/$65. If you want to reuse the old drives from your computer, then check their connections. If they're the older ribbon-based IDE standard, you may need to source an adapter or converter as most modern motherboards only support the newer SATA standard. You’re also unlikely to be able to keep your old graphics card – when sourcing a new processor, choose one that comes complete with integrated graphics. The onboard graphics chip should be capable of handling both Windows 7 and 8.1, which will save you the cost of yet another upgrade.

make an enormous difference to its everyday performance. If your PC fails to meet these relatively modest requirements, investigate whether certain upgrades – typically memory, hard drive and graphics – would save you the cost of purchasing a new PC from scratch. Before you decide to travel down this route, check to see what desktop deals are out there – you can pick up a desktop PC (minus monitor) with Windows 7 pre-installed for under £230/$375 from the likes of www.ebuyer.com, which

the performance isn’t quite on a par with the more expensive Intel models, it’ll still be a significant step up from your old PC. Before you take the plunge and decide to revamp your computer, check the ‘Upgrade with care’ box on this page to ensure that upgrading isn’t a false economy compared with buying a brand new model.

might be a better deal than upgrading your old machine. If you need to upgrade the processor, you’ll need to replace the computer’s memory and motherboard as well. AMD multi-core options are much cheaper than Intel, so if you’re on a tight budget, shop around for a bundle. It is possible to pick up an AMD FX-4300 bundle with 4GB RAM for less than £170 from dabs.com. While

running beyond the 8 April cut-off date. However, the longer you do so, the less secure it – and by extension your personal privacy and data – will become. Later on in this feature we will reveal how it’s possible to tighten up Windows XP so it’s more secure, which will buy you more time to either save up some cash for an upgrade or come to terms with the fact that it’s time to bite the bullet

Stick with Windows XP

If you’re absolutely wedded to Windows XP – perhaps your PC is too old and you can’t afford to upgrade it – then it will be possible to keep it

and move on from the vintage XP operating system. One of the best ways to lock down XP is to implement your own form of User Account Control. This security feature was introduced in Windows Vista and has gone a long way towards stopping certain types of malware just strolling on to a PC and installing themselves silently in the background. While you can’t make things that user-friendly and simple in XP, it is possible to add an extra layer of security to your machine. In XP you can create a second user account that’s used for administrative tasks such as installing software, and making major changes to your system like adding new hardware or tweaking certain settings. Once done, you can reduce your own user account to that of a Limited User, which will give you all the access you need for day-to-day use of your PC while closing a great big hole in your PC’s security. Other ways in which you can tighten security include switching to a modern web browser that will continue to support XP after the cut-off date. The same is true for anti-malware software, and many vendors have made it clear they plan to support April 2014 |

XP for a while yet. And last but not least, you can minimise your exposure to danger by adding even more layers, whether by vetting websites before you visit or screening all downloads before opening them. We’ll also look at ways of future-proofing Windows XP reinstalls. While Microsoft has made it clear that you’ll still be able to reactivate XP after 8 April, will this always be true? And what about downloading updates? They’ll still be around after 8 April as well, but we’ll explain how to download them to a folder for updating future reinstalls – essential if you decide to protect your XP installation by going offline with it. The end result of following our advice is that your Windows XP computer will be more secure than it has ever been. We’re not saying that it will be a catch-all solution, but it will buy you a few months more thinking time – perhaps even a year. Whichever route you decide to go down, read on to discover how to either make switching to a new PC or a fresh version of Windows as painless as possible, or how to ensure your existing system will remain viable for that little bit longer. Let’s get started! Help & Advice |

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Migrate to a new PC or version of Windows o if you decide it’s time to move to a newer version of Windows, what do you need to look out for? By now you should have either purchased a new PC with Windows 7 or 8 pre-installed, or have purchased an upgrade copy of Windows 8 or 8.1, having first confirmed that your current computer is capable of handling it. What next?

Switching to a new PC

The advantage of buying a new PC is that you’re not overwriting anything on your old PC, giving you the luxury of making sure everything you want to transfer is in place before sending your old computer off to the recycling centre. If you’re using a program like Windows Easy Transfer or PCmover to migrate from your old PC to the new one, make sure they’re on the same network and visible to each other, then you can launch the tool on each computer and follow the prompts to transfer your files and – if applicable – programs and settings. Once done, take one last fail-safe drive image of your old PC’s

entire hard drive using a free program like Comodo Backup (on the cover disc). This ensures that no files are accidentally lost or left behind, and allows you to dispose of your old computer securely.

Upgrading Windows

If you’re keeping your PC but installing a new version of Windows, the process is slightly different. You’ll need to back up your data and – if applicable – settings and programs, then install the new version of Windows before restoring your backup. If you’re planning to upgrade to Windows 7, you can download the Windows Easy Transfer tool from http://bit. ly/xp-easytransfer. Install and run this, then follow the prompts, noting you’ll need to choose the external hard drive or USB flash drive option to back up your files and settings prior to installing Windows 7. You would then run Windows Easy Transfer again (it’s incorporated into Windows 7, so no separate download is required) and follow the prompts provided to restore your backup.

If you plan to upgrade to Windows 8, then Laplink’s Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant offers the simplest solution. For it to work, it’s critically important that you opt to keep your personal files during the setup process. Windows will then copy all the files you’ll need for migrating to a Windows.old folder. This will only be kept for 28 days, so don’t hang about! Once Windows 8 is

and dismiss any warnings about unsigned drivers. Reboot when prompted, then launch Comodo Backup to get started. Click the ‘Back up now’ button and work your way through the Backup Source options to choose which files and folders to back up. If in doubt, select the entire Documents and Settings folder, inside which most of your data should reside. When prompted for

installed and set up, reinstall the Upgrade Assistant and follow the prompts to bring across your files, programs and settings. If you simply want to transfer your files across, then a tool like the free version of Comodo Backup (http://backup.comodo.com) is a good choice. During installation, untick ‘Install cCloud’ if you have no need for 10GB free online storage,

a backup location, choose ‘My Computer’ to save to an external USB drive, or ‘Network’ to save to a network one. Click ‘Next’ to proceed to the Backup Settings screen, where advanced users can perform all kinds of tweaks, then click ‘Back up now’. Once backed up, run the backup tool again to back up email, IM conversations and browser settings in turn if

Step-by-step Resolve compatibility issues

Compatibility Troubleshooter If the program installed, right-click its shortcut. If it didn’t, right-click its setup file. Click ‘Troubleshoot compatibility’. When it launches, click ‘Try recommended settings’. Review findings and click ‘Test the program’.

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Test and repeat If the program successfully installs or runs, return to the troubleshooter, click ‘Next’ and choose ‘Yes, save these settings for this program’. If it fails, try ‘No, try again using different settings’ to follow a wizard that will attempt to pinpoint the problem.

Manual tweaks If all else fails, right-click the program shortcut or setup file and choose ‘Properties > Compatibility’. From here you can experiment with different settings: try different Windows versions and ticking the ‘Run this program as administrator’ box.


Visit website

Find drivers

Try older drivers

Check the program or hardware’s site for compatibility information, including any possible free or paid-for updates that are available to download.

Install the free DriverEasy tool on the cover disc if you’re having problems tracking down drivers for specific hardware components or devices.

A lot of Windows 7 and Windows Vista drivers will happily work in Windows 8, too. If you are struggling to source a drive, try accessing these instead.

Take the plunge

Compatibility

Try an alternative

SOS

Run a program or driver installer and see what happens – it may just work. Alternatively, Windows may be able to apply compatibility settings itself.

Check our step-by-step guide opposite on resolving compatibility issues to see if Windows can find the compatibility settings it needs to run the program.

Visit www.alternativeto.net to find similar, compatible products to your non-working software. There are many freebies listed on this site, too.

SOS = Save Old Scanners! VueScan (www.hamrick. com) is a program that lets older scanners be used in later versions of Windows – try the free version first.

Go hunting

Virtual world

Get in touch

Go online and try a Google search for your program name, version number and either ‘Windows 7’ or ‘Windows 8’ to see if anyone else has had success.

One workaround could be to install VirtualBox (www. virtualbox.org). This product allows you to run your uncooperative software in a virtual Windows XP window.

If all else fails, email us at Support Squad (windowsmagazine@ futurenet.com) with details of the program and we’ll see what we can do to help.

applicable. And when all of that is done, we’d also suggest taking a System Backup too if you have the space for it on your backup drive – this provides a safety net in case you forget to include a key file in your main backup.

problems, but don’t worry – the Upgrade Assistant will offer some suggestions where it can, like updating or upgrading to a newer version. Check out the box above for our top 10 tips to help you with some compatibility issues you may face. You’re now nearly ready to install your new version of Windows. Before you do, make sure you have all the setup files for your compatible programs to hand, and make a note of any drivers you might need. The critical ones at this point are your network drivers, without which you won’t be able to get back online. Once you’re ready, dig out one of our recent reinstall guides (the latest appeared in issue 91) and get installing.

Pre-install requisites

You’re now ready for the next step of the process. This involves checking to see what hardware and software may cause problems after you upgrade Windows by visiting the Windows Compatibility Center at www.microsoft. com/compatibility. Here you can opt to scan your PC using the Upgrade Assistant (not to be confused with Laplink’s product), or search for specific programs or hardware devices you may have concerns about. It’s likely that you’ll discover a few potential

Brave new world

Once your new version of Windows is in place, and

before restoring any data or settings, you should first make sure your hardware has been detected correctly and that you’re able to reinstall your favourite programs. If you’ve been unable to source an update for a particular program, you may be able to get it to work or install by using Compatibility Mode. The guide opposite reveals what you need to do – if you’re lucky, you may be able to keep an old favourite running in this post-XP era. Now you’re ready to restore your data. If you’re using Windows Easy Transfer you’ll find it’s already installed in Windows 7, so simply launch it from the Start menu. If you purchased the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant, now is the time to install it. Ignore any prompts to run additional scans or download extra software, and then follow the wizard through. It should April 2014 |

detect your Windows.old folder and then allow you to select files, folders and programs to bring across. If you used Comodo Backup, reinstall the program and click ‘Restore’. Switch to the ‘My Computer’ or ‘Network’ tab depending on where your backup was stored, then locate the CBU backup file. When prompted to restore the file’s contents, you can expand it to select only specific files and folders. Make sure you untick ‘Restore to default location’ to select a new folder on your hard drive, into which the files will be copied. When this is done, locate this folder and return the files inside to their appropriate locations, such as your new Documents or Pictures folder. Once your files are all fully restored, you’re ready to embrace your new life with a more up-todate version of Windows. Help & Advice |

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Stick with Windows XP re you unable or unwilling to upgrade right now? If the answer is “yes” then it’s essential that you prepare your PC to face XP’s end-oflife. Although in theory the 9 April should have passed like any other day, from now on your PC will be increasingly vulnerable to hackers and other forms of malware. In this section, we’ll look at ways of reducing this risk as much as possible, therefore buying you extra time with Windows XP. Now is a good time to consider one last reinstall of XP, particularly if you plan to put off your upgrade for at least six months. This will allow you to create a vanilla version of XP that you subsequently bring fully up to date with all available Service Packs, security patches, drivers and other fixes and updates. You can then take a full backup of this pristine installation and use it as the basis for any future reinstalls, saving you time and ensuring your copy of XP is as well patched as possible. If you choose this route, follow the walkthrough

below, which reveals the steps you need to take to make this reinstall as painless and safe as possible. Start by creating an offline update folder that contains all the Service Packs and patches for Windows XP – if you do this now, it’ll contain everything you’ll ever need to bring XP as up to date as possible. The benefit of creating this folder is that it will allow you to patch XP after reinstalling without connecting it to the internet, ensuring a large number of potentially dangerous security holes have been closed before you venture back online.

settings for their favourite programs – see the box on the right for some tips on where to look for these. Finally, we suggest that you take a fail-safe backup in the form of a complete drive image of your current XP installation. Doing this will ensure that no files get left behind, and allows you to roll back your system to this state if the reinstall doesn’t work out. If you create this backup,

product keys and other required registration information are to hand. If you’ve mislaid a product key, the final step in our guide below will help you out.

make sure you click ‘Settings’ in Comodo Backup and create a rescue disc using a blank CD or DVD. You’ll need this to restore any drive images you make. Once you’re backed up, the final step before reinstalling is to ensure all your program installation files (in particular your security software – see over the page), relevant

guide, you’ll find a PDF file on the cover disc that you can print out for reference. If you’re using a recovery disc or partition, you’ll need to set the procedure in motion by booting from the disc or looking for a key to press to access repair or recovery options. From here, just follow the prompts, making sure that you choose a full

The reinstall process

We’ve covered the reinstalling process a number of times in the magazine, but if you have a Windows XP installation disc and need a complete step-by-step

Get backed up

You’ll need to take a number of backups. The first will be your drivers, so you can quickly restore them postinstallation now and in the future. The most critical of these are your display and network drivers (if they’re not already covered by the Windows CD); the latter are vital for getting back online. The second backup will be your personal files, folders and selected settings. Advanced users may also be interested in backing up

Step-by-step Prepare to reinstall Windows

Update offline Follow the guide on page 78 to use WSUS Offline Update to grab all the updates you’ll need to patch and protect XP without going on to the internet. Choose the USB medium option to store these in a folder on your backup drive.

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Back up drivers Install Double Driver from the cover disc, then double-click ‘dd.exe’ to launch it. Click ‘Backup’ followed by ’Scan current system’ to select all non-Microsoft drivers. Click ‘Back up now’, select your backup drive and click ‘OK’.

Prepare for file backup Install Comodo Backup from the cover disc, then launch the program and click ‘Settings’. Click the ‘Browse’ button to change the default backup location to a folder on your backup drive, then click ‘OK’ followed by ‘Apply’.

Cover feature The end of Windows XP Back up your program settings Many program preferences are stored in the Registry – explore the SOFTWARE branches of HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_ CURRENT_USER for your chosen programs. If you find any, add their keys to a Registry Entries Comodo Backup. Other program preferences are stored in a number of locations on your hard drive, which you should add to a new Files and Directories backup in Comodo. Look inside the application’s own Program Files folder for a preferences folder or INI file for starters, and look inside your personal user folder for two hidden folders: Application Data and Local Settings\Application Data. Make sure you also check All Users\Application Data.

‘destructive’ recovery; this wipes all existing data from the Windows partition and returns your computer to the exact state it was in when you first switched it on. It’s a pretty straightforward affair – follow the wizard, sit back and wait for the computer to be restored, then follow whatever setup wizard is provided to put your computer back in basic working order.

Post reinstall

The temptation at this point would be to connect to the

internet and start the laborious process of reinstalling drivers and updates, but this is where your preparatory work starts to pay off. First, make sure your PC remains disconnected from the internet – either physically unplug its connection to the router/modem or ignore any prompts to connect up to a wireless network. Next, it’s time to reinstall those critical drivers. Do so by reinstalling Double Driver from the cover disc. Launch the program, clicking the ‘Restore’ button

Back up and image Follow the instructions on the previous spread to create all of the file-based backups you need, then return to the home screen and click ‘System backup’ to create a fail-safe drive image on your backup drive, just in case.

this time. Select ‘Locate backup’, then click the ‘…’ button under ‘Other location’. Select the folder inside which your drivers were backed up and click ‘OK’ twice. You should see a list of all your backed up drivers appear – click ‘Restore now’ followed by ‘OK’ to bring them back. Reboot if necessary, then right-click the desktop and choose ‘Properties > Settings’. If all is well, you should be able to resize your desktop to a comfortable resolution. Now you need to browse to the folder where you stored

Locate forgotten product keys Install Belarc Advisor from cover disc, click ‘Yes’ when prompted to update security definitions. It’ll generate a report, which will appear in the browser. Click ‘Software licenses’ link to view all product keys. April 2014 |

your offline updates (see the first part of the step-by-step guide). Here you’ll find an UpdateInstaller program file; double-click this to select which updates to install. All critical updates – including Internet Explorer 8 – will be pre-selected, but you can choose to install other components, too. Tick ‘Automatic reboot and recall’ before clicking the ‘Start’ button, then sit back. This is a lengthy process, and will reboot your PC a number of times, but once it’s complete, XP will be fully up to date. Now you can reinstall Comodo Backup and take a fresh system backup. Don’t forget to change its default backup directory via the Settings button first – create a dedicated folder on your backup drive such as ‘Reinstall Image’ in which to store it. In future, you can skip all the above steps by simply restoring this image using the rescue disc you created. You can then go on to restore your file. Once your PC is up to date, you need to make it as secure as possible (turn the page to find out how). Remember to reinstall security software first, then reconnect to the internet. Once done, reinstall your favourite programs and restore any program settings you may have backed up. Help & Advice |

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Make XP more secure f you’re going to continue using Windows XP, it’s imperative that you make your PC as secure as possible. That means making sure your current security software will continue to be supported on XP beyond 8 April – check the vendor’s website for details. Microsoft recently confirmed it would continue to support Microsoft Security Essentials on XP until July 2015, for example. What’s likely to happen is that security companies will continue to provide virus definition updates for XP, but the big question is whether they’ll provide versions that are compatible in XP when they next update their security products. Keep an eye on the vendor’s website and see what happens – if you want XP to benefit from major advances in protection, you’ll want to pick a product that does more than just provide virus definition updates.

Lock down XP

One of the most important security improvements introduced in later versions of Windows is User Account

Control. When you’re logged on as an administrator in XP, you’re given carte blanche access to your system, and that’s extended to the programs running on your PC as well. In contrast, User Account Control (UAC) throws up warnings whenever administrator access is requested by programs and some system tools, letting you review the warning and decide if it’s safe to continue. Lack of UAC is a key reason why XP is more vulnerable to malware than later versions of Windows. One of the most effective ways to boost security in XP is to implement a crude form of User Account Control (UAC). This is done by using two accounts side-by-side. Your own user account is reduced to the level of a Limited User for day-to-day work, while a new ‘master’ administrator account allows you to gain elevated access when it’s required, such as when you’re installing new programs or accessing certain system tools. The step-bystep guide below reveals how to set this up. However, you may not want to be prompted to log

into Windows each time your PC starts if you’re its sole user. To bypass this screen, click ‘Start > Run’ while still logged on using the Master account. Type control userpasswords2 and click [Enter]. Tick ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer’ and click ‘Apply’. Now untick the box and click ‘Apply’ again. Enter your limited user account name

the former you’ll be unable to install it, and you’ll see that certain options are not available to you in the latter.

and – if applicable – your password, and then click the ‘OK’ button twice. Now restart your PC. You should log back on to your own user account, at which point you can test that everything is working as it should. Start by trying to install a new program or access the System Properties Control Panel. In the case of

choose ‘Run as’. Select ‘The following user’, pick your new master account from the drop-down menu, enter its password and click ‘OK’. The software should now install correctly, but some programs won’t work even with this workaround. The solution here is to log out of your own account and log on temporarily as the master

Working with UAC

Don’t worry, these options aren’t permanently closed off to you, but they will require a little more work. However, this is a small price to pay for increased security. To install new software on your PC, right-click the setup file and

Step-by-step User Account Control in XP

Create master account Click ‘Start > Control Panel’, select ‘User accounts’ and click ‘Create a new account’. Type its name (Master) and click ‘Next’. Select ‘Computer administrator’ and click ‘Create account’. Double-click on new account and click ‘Create a password’.

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Log on to new account Choose a memorable password, then close the Control Panel and click ‘Start > Log off’, selecting ‘Log off’ again at the next screen. Select your new master account, enter its password and log on to set up the new account proper.

Reduce user privileges Open User Accounts and doubleclick your personal user account. Choose ‘Change the account type’, Select ‘Limited’ and click ‘Change account type’. Repeat for other admin users of your PC before closing both open windows.


Different browser

Vet websites

Internet Explorer 8 is getting a bit long in the tooth now. Why not replace it with the latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox? Google has promised to support Windows XP at least until April 2015, while Mozilla has confirmed that it doesn’t have any plans to end support for the operating system.

Install the free Web of Trust plug-in (www.mywot.com), which rates websites for safety and privacy. Unsafe sites will be rated red, and you’ll receive warning messages alerting you to steer clear, which will help you avoid potential infection. Safe sites are marked as green, whereas yellow ones recommend that caution is exercised.

Scan downloads Only download programs that come from reputable sites – preferably those of their developers – and don’t run them directly from your internet browser. Before you install any program that has been downloaded from the internet, right-click on it and scan with your security program and Malwarebytes.

account to install it, which should work without a hitch. If prompted about who to install the program for, select the ‘All users’ option. In future, you may also encounter problems with certain programs – such as system tools and some older applications – that won’t run properly in a limited user environment. If you trust the program, you can either right-click it and choose ‘Run as’, or modify its shortcut to prompt you automatically each time you want to launch it. This is done by rightclicking its shortcut on the Start menu, desktop or Taskbar and choosing Properties. Click ‘Advanced’ and tick ‘Run with different credentials’. Click ‘OK’ twice. You may see an ‘Access denied’ message at this point if the program’s shortcut is stored in the All Users desktop or Start menu folders. To resolve this, just right-click the shortcut and

choose to create another shortcut instead, placing it on the desktop when prompted. This new shortcut will work correctly, enabling you to perform the tweak. It is likely that you will also run into problems with a number of system tools that are buried inside the Windows folder, including Control Panels and tools like Registry Editor. You’ll need to manually create shortcuts to all of these, and then tweak the shortcut as previously explained. As this could be quite an onerous task, we’ve given you a head start by creating some common shortcuts for you to use – download them from support-pcs.co.uk/resources/ shortcuts.zip. Once the download is complete, double-click the ZIP file and browse its contents for any shortcuts you need. Just drag them on to the desktop, Start menu or Taskbar, then right-click them to perform

the ‘Run with different credentials’ trick that was explained earlier. Regardless of what you do, some older programs may refuse to work properly under a limited user account. If this happens, consider finding more up-to-date alternatives of these programs. Any other administrators on your PC should also have their levels of access reduced, and they’ll need to configure their accounts separately. Finally, if you can’t perform a critical task, log on using your master account to do so.

More security tweaks

If you’ve been relying on XP’s own firewall for protection, then now is the time to install a third-party one. Free firewalls are available from Comodo (www.comodo.com) and ZoneAlarm (www. zonealarm.com) among others. If they won’t work properly with your existing antivirus tool, ZoneAlarm April 2014 |

offers free antivirus, while Comodo has a free Internet Security suite (on the cover disc). This offers additional protection, including ‘sandboxing’, which allows you to run unknown or risky applications (including your web browser) in an isolated environment to help prevent malware from getting a foothold and spreading across your PC. We’d also suggest installing the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware from the cover disc – run scans with this on a weekly basis to ensure that no nasties have sneaked through your defences. Armed with the right protection, you should be reasonably safe for now, but check out the ‘Ways to boost security’ box for some more tips that will help you minimise your risk of infection. And now start looking into other PCs and operating systems for when the time comes to update. Q Help & Advice |

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BEST YOUTUBE BROWSER EXTENSIONS

Find and watch videos however you like with these brilliant add-ons for Firefox and Chrome

1

HIGH DEFINITION

YouTube videos play in standard definition by default, and seeing the HD version usually means clicking a link and waiting for the video to reload. It’s frustrating, but can be avoided with YouTube High Definition. This fantastic Firefox extension gives you the best image quality straight away and lets you choose a default size for videos, including a full-screen option. YouTube High Definition also works with YouTube videos embedded in Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. It’s the work of Baris Derin (www.barisderin.com) and if you like it, you can make a donation to help him create more great browser add-ons in future. It’s quick and easy to use – just download it, restart Firefox and away you go!

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LOOK SHARP Make YouTube videos display in high definition automatically

Feature YouTube browser extensions

2

SPEEDY SEARCHES Once you’ve installed Search in YouTube, you will be able to find useful videos without typing a word into your search engine

3

FIND IT QUICKLY

Search in YouTube is a Firefox extension created by Didier Lafleur. It adds an extra item to your context menu so you can highlight a chunk of text and right-click it to search YouTube for related videos. It’s a great time-saver, and ideal if you’re looking for new music – simply highlight the name of an artist to find their music videos. It’s also brilliant for product reviews. If you see something that you’re interested in buying, just highlight its name and click ‘Search in YouTube’.

BLACK YOUTUBE

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© THINKSTOCK.COM

Not all of the best YouTube extensions are purely functional – some are fun, too! Black YouTube is a nice little Firefox add-on that’s simple, but extremely effective. As its name suggests, it changes YouTube’s fresh, white interface to something much darker and more elegant. It looks very stylish, and is perfect if you find the standard white too hard on your eyes. However, it’s also ideal if you want to dim the lights, sit back and watch one of the many fantastic films or TV shows that are available freely (and legally) on the site. You just need to supply your own popcorn.

DARK SIDE Use Black YouTube to transform the video-sharing site’s standard white interface in to something a little easier on the eye

4

MINI PLAYER

The Mini Player extension for Google Chrome adds a miniature browser window so that you can have a video running while you surf the web. It’s great for playing music videos, or for catching up with the news while you’re working. When the Mini Player appears, simply paste in the URL of the video you want to watch and away you go!

TUBE ENHANCER

Do you love YouTube, but wish it gave you more options? This is the Firefox extension for you. Download Tube Enhancer and click the icon in the top right of your browser to display a panel full of settings, including the option to convert videos to MP3 format, watch a video in a sidebar, loop automatically, play in HD by default and more. We particularly like the ‘dim the lights’ feature, which keeps your video at full brightness and fades the rest of your browser window to the colour of your choice. There’s even a version for Google Chrome, but with fewer features. April 2014 |

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6

ELIMINATE THE TRASH

YouTube Ratings Preview for Chrome and Firefox will be a welcome addition if you’ve ever clicked a video, only to discover that it’s actually a cunningly disguised clip of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. Go to YouTube, search for something that you’re interested in, and the videos with the highest ratings will be highlighted with a red square to help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

8

VIDEO PREVIEW

TURN IT UP Magic Actions lets you control the volume of vids with your mouse wheel

10

TIME FOR KARAOKE

Lyrics Here is available as an add-on in Chrome and Firefox. It scours dozens of sites for song lyrics, which are then displayed in a panel alongside the relevant music vid. You can pick a different source if the words don’t look right. It’s ideal for karaoke lovers, or if you want to find out what Michael Stipe is saying in The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite… Q |

9

JUST LIKE MAGIC

Use YouTube Grid Search to find the video you’re looking for faster and make the most of your precious screen space. As the name suggests, this handy add-on tool for Firefox displays your YouTube search results as a grid of thumbnail images rather than as a list. It’s true that you don’t get as much information as you would with the standard search layout, but sometimes a thumbnail says a thousand words.

YouTube Video Preview is a Google Chrome extension and is great tool for making sure the video you’ve found is actually the one you want, helping you to avoid those Rick Astley clips. Search YouTube for a video, then hover your mouse pointer over one of the thumbnails to see a mini slideshow of still images. It doesn’t seem to work with all videos, but when it does, it’s very handy.

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YOUTUBE GRID SEARCH


There are quite a lot of ads built into Chrome’s Magic Actions for YouTube, but there are also plenty of features to explore. You can choose to enlarge thumbnails as you move your mouse pointer over them, hide video annotations, stop videos playing automatically and more. One of the best features is the ability to control the video’s volume using your mouse wheel, which is much easier than clicking the tiny volume control in YouTube itself.

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Help & Advice |

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WINDOWS HELP HARDWARE FIXES SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS INTERNET TIPS Hardware

Do you have a PC problem? Get in touch… Email full details of your problem to the support team and we’ll do our best to help windowsmagazine@ futurenet.com

PC CAN’T DETECT OLD CAMCORDER Q I’m trying to connect my

old Panasonic NV-DS38 camcorder, which only has a FireWire port, to my new Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG laptop running Windows 8.1. I purchased a FireWire-to-USB cable, but when I plug the camcorder in I get ‘Error Code 43’ in Device Manager. I’ve tried a replacement cable with no

success, and cannot find a driver anywhere to resolve this problem. Dennis Smith Nick’s solution Unfortunately, there are major compatibility issues with older camcorders and newer versions of Windows, even with the supposedly universal FireWire interface. The best solution would be to source a ClimaxDigital USB

video capture device for £15 from www.climaxdigital.co.uk (quickfind code: 111129). This should allow you to connect your camcorder via its S-Video port to the Windows 8.1 laptop so that you can stream the footage from there. Although it’s an analogue solution, the results will be perfectly usable and you won’t have to replace the camcorder. Windows

CHANGE COLOUR OF TASKBAR Q I just upgraded to Windows 7,

and my Taskbar has changed to a pale blue colour. I suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and find it very hard to see the icons now – is there any way to darken the Taskbar back to the colour it was in Windows Vista? HJ Stephens

Simon’s solution You can set a darker shade for your taskbar and windows via the Personalization Control Panel. First, right-click the desktop, choose

UNIVERSAL FIX Video-capture devices like these work with older camcorders, too

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Support Technical help

FIND THE SOLUTION! Office Suite Solution Centre Got a problem with Microsoft Office 2010 or 2007? Check out the dedicated support centre at http://snipurl.com/13ybrk. CHANGE COLOUR Use the Window Colors dialog box to alter your taskbar colour

Quickfire questions Since making Libraries visible in Windows 8.1, the File Explorer Taskbar shortcut defaults to ‘Libraries’ instead of ‘This PC’. Can I change this? Trish Harding You can’t change the default path for the File Explorer Taskbar icon in Windows 8.1. Either make Libraries invisible again, or use the [Win]+[E] keyboard shortcut instead. What is a CMX file and how can I open it? Lily Rivers

‘Personalization’ and click the ‘Window Color’ link at the bottom of the screen. For a quick fix, select the chocolate colour as shown in the screenshot and then push the color intensity slider all the way to the right. As you do so, you’ll notice that the Taskbar and window border darken, allowing you to see your changes as you make them. If the underlying transparency is still too distracting, untick ‘Enable transparency’ to make the Taskbar completely solid. If you’d like to get a closer match to the original black, click ‘Show color mixer’. Set the hue slider to the darkest shade of blue, then push the saturation slider all the way to the right and move the brightness slider all the way to the left. When you’re happy, click ‘Save changes’ to make it permanent. Internet

ANNOYING SECURITY MESSAGE Q Recently, the following User

the problem by visiting http://java. com/en/download/index.jsp. Simply download and install the latest version and the error message should cease. If this doesn’t work, check the Programs and Features Control Panel for any existing installations and remove them. If there are lots, you could try the online Java-based removal tool at http://bit.ly/javacleanup, but this didn’t work on our test machine. Another tool to try is JavaRa from http://singularlabs.com. Click ‘Update JavaRa definitions > Download’ to ensure it has the information it needs. Next, click ‘Remove JRE’ to get rid of all existing versions of Java on your PC, including any Registry entries and files left over by a standard uninstall. If no uninstaller is found, click ‘Next > Perform removal routine’. You’ll be prompted to download and install the latest version. This should resolve any outstanding issues once and for all.

It’s a graphics file used with Corel software. If you don’t have any, you can open it in a free program called Inkscape (http://inkscape.org).

“There are issues with old camcorders and new versions of Windows” Jargon buster! DLNA A standard used for sharing digital media – including video – between devices including PCs, televisions and tablets. XP BACKUPS This trick lets you access Windows XP backups in later versions of the operating system

PCI Express A format that lets you connect special cards that add extra functions to your PC such as Wi-Fi, FireWire and USB slots.

Account Control window keeps appearing whenever I try to browse the web on my laptop: ‘An unidentified program wants to access your computer: ssvagent. exe, unidentified publisher’. It points to the following file location: C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07/ bin\ssvagent.eve-new-highregdeploy. I have a choice of cancelling or accepting. Is this file safe, and how do I remove it? Trevor Lee Adam’s solution The file is linked to an outdated or corrupt Java installation – the files should be digitally signed, but the error message suggests they’re not. The reference to the jre1.6.0_07 folder points to an outdated version of Java, which should be updated immediately. In most cases, you should be able to fix April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

77

Quickfire questions Is there a tool I can use to try and detect what expansion cards are currently plugged into my machine? Henry Thomas PCI-Z (www.pci-z.com) is a tiny utility that polls a public online database to provide information about any PCI-based device – including PCI Express cards – installed in your PC. It’ll even help identify devices that are unrecognised in Device Manager. My Freecom Classic external DVD-RW has stopped playing CDs. Can you help? Walter Curtis Assuming it can still burn and read data discs, this sounds as if one of the drive’s two lasers has failed. Try the drive in another PC to confirm the diagnosis. If the drive is broken, you’ll need to get it either repaired or replaced – hopefully under warranty. My PC has been upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. Is there a compatibility update for Audacity and my ION TTUSB Turntable? Tom Langrish You need to source two software updates – go to www.ionaudio.com/ezvc for the latest version of EZ Vinyl/ Tape Converter, and http:// audacity.sourceforge.net if you’re not running the latest version (2.0.5) of Audacity.

Backing up

RESTORE XP BACKUPS IN WINDOWS 8 Q With Windows XP coming to

its end, I diligently backed up my data using the Windows Backup tool, got rid of my old desktop and bought a shiny new laptop running Windows 8. One problem: I cannot find how to restore the data from my old Windows XP computer to my new computer. Any pointers? Paul Phillips Nick’s solution Sadly, backups made with Windows XP’s built-in backup tool aren’t compatible with later versions of the Windows Backup Tool, but there’s a workaround that works in Windows Vista, 7 and 8. First, visit www.stsanford.com/ pebuilder and click ‘nt5backup.cab’, saving this file to your Downloads folder. Double-click the ‘nt5backup. cab’ file to view its contents, then select all the files, right-click one of them and choose ‘Extract’. Pick any folder on your hard drive to save the files to, then create a new folder within this called NT Backup and save the files inside that. Once that’s done, open this newly created folder and doubleclick ‘ntbackup.exe’ to get started. Ignore the warning message about the Removable Storage service – this isn’t needed, so tick the box and click ‘OK’. You can now follow the wizard, choosing ‘Restore files and settings’ when prompted, to select your backup and gain access to your old PC’s files.

TV CONNECTIONS It’s possible – if a little fiddly – to hook your laptop to your TV via its VGA port

Hardware

CONNECT LAPTOP TO TV Q I recently bought a Samsung

HD TV with the intention of streaming Eurosport from my laptop (I have a subscription to

Eurosport Player). However, I’m struggling to find out how to pair the two together – it won’t let me stream wirelessly as it claims it only works with recorded material. What options do I have? My laptop is a HP G56 XP270EA laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium. Phil Clarke James’s solution Your Samsung TV can receive streamed media wirelessly using the DLNA protocol, which allows you to access media stored on your PC. Sadly, the television is not a Smart model – if it was, it would allow you access to Eurosport Player via an app available from the Samsung App store. Usually, the best workaround would be to connect your laptop directly to the TV via an HDMI cable – this basically uses the television as an external display for the laptop, allowing you to play Eurosport Player full-screen. Most modern laptops have the requisite HDMI port, but your model only has the VGA port. As the television has no convenient VGA port to use,

UPDATE WINDOWS OFFLINE Q I have a bandwidth-limited

internet connection and two laptops running Windows 7, both of which need reinstalling. Is there some way I can update both from the same downloads? Jim Fredericks Adam’s solution The best way to do this is to create a special offline update CD using a program called WSUS Offline Update. You can then run it on each laptop after reinstallation without any additional downloads.

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extract, run 1 Download, Download the latest version of WSUS

update items 2 Select First, choose your version of Windows

Offline Update from http://download. wsusoffline.net. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to a suitable folder, then browse to the wsusoffline folder, double-click ‘UpdateGenerator’ and click ‘Run’ to launch it.

and Office: select x86 for 32-bit and x64 for 64-bit – Windows XP and Office 2003 can be found under ‘Legacy products’. We also suggest selecting the C++ Runtime Libraries and .NET Frameworks option.


Support Technical help you’ll need to get an adapter to convert the VGA’s analogue signal to digital for outputting via the HDMI port on the TV. Converters perform one-way conversions, so it’s important to source the right model – in this case VGA to HDMI rather than the other way around. After some detective work we’ve found Ebuyer’s Xenta VGA to HDMI Converter, which costs just £19.98 from ebuyer.com/409852-xenta. It doesn’t come with cables, but you can obtain these for less than £10 collectively from Ebuyer too: http:// ebuyer.com/130555-xenta for a VGA cable, http://ebuyer.com/193821hdmi for the HDMI cable and finally http://ebuyer.com/476583-wires for the all-important analogue cable to provide sound. Internet

DISTRACTING IE11 ADDRESS BAR

back temporarily when required. Unfortunately, your second query cannot be solved because the KeepAliveTimeout setting no longer works in Internet Explorer. The obvious workaround is to install an alternative browser purely for accessing the required website. Security

NORTON STUDIO PROBLEM Q I’m trying to load Norton

Internet Security on to my tablet, but cannot download the Norton Studio app and it gives me an error code. I can load it on my Windows 8 laptop just fine. Could it be a problem with Windows 8.1 or am I trying to load the wrong app? No Norton Internet Security option appeared when I searched. Michelle Wingrove

Matt’s solution A lot depends on the tablet you have, Michelle. If it’s running Windows RT, then Norton won’t work. You don’t actually need it anyway, because the built-in Defender tool provides adequate protection. However, if your tablet is running the full version of Windows 8.1, then you should be able to install the main desktop app and ignore the Norton Studio app completely if it continues to misbehave. The app provides no protection and is merely a convenient place to monitor your Norton account. Download the latest trial of Norton Internet Security for your tablet from http:// uk.norton.com (look under Free Trials) and then use your purchased product key to activate it.

Do you have a PC problem? Get in touch… Email full details of your problem to the support team and we’ll do our best to help windowsmagazine@ futurenet.com

Q I’ve been persevering with the

Windows 8 interface for about 18 months, but recently came up against a couple of issues I can’t fix. The Metro version of Internet Explorer has suddenly started showing a series of tabs above the address bar, which I’d like to get rid of. Also, I’m trying to set the KeepAliveTimeout Registry setting for Internet Explorer 11, but can’t find out how to do it. Can you help? Bryan Little Simon’s solution The solution to the first problem is relatively simple. With Internet Explorer on-screen, press [Win]+[I] to open the Settings charm and click ‘Options’. You should see a setting marked ‘Always show address bar and tabs’ – flick this switch to ‘Off’ and the distracting address bar will disappear from view. Just start typing to bring it

NO DISTRACTIONS Flick this switch to hide the address bar in Internet Explorer 11

“As the television has no convenient VGA port to use, you’ll need an adapter to convert the VGA’s analogue signal to digital” Jargon buster! Metro The original term for Windows 8 apps installed via the Windows Store. These apps run full-screen using the new Modern User Interface.

ISO image 3 Create Tick ‘Per selected product and language’ under ‘Create ISO image(s)’, then click ‘Start’. Click ‘Yes’ if prompted to update security certificates, then wait while the updates are downloaded and prepared. This can take some time, so be patient.

target PC 4 Update Browse to the wsusoffline/ISO folder, right-click the ISO file and choose ‘Burn disc image’ or use ISO Recorder from http://bit.ly/ MmLhfI. Insert the disc in your target PC, then double-click ‘UpdateInstaller.exe’ and follow the prompts to update it. April 2014 |

User Account Control A Windows security feature that helps defend against potentially unsafe software by promoting the user to administrator-level when programs attempt to access protected parts of the system.

Help & Advice |

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NEW HARDWARE

ESSENTIAL ACCESSORIES

Welcome

The days of your computer being a grey box on your desk are long gone. You can now take your PC with you everywhere you go, ready for whenever you want to type out a report or relax and have fun. This month we’ve put a selection of the best new Bluetooth speakers through their paces so you can make the most of your music library without the hassle of untangling cumbersome cables We’ve also looked at three of the latest Windows 8 PCs, including the tiny Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus, which is small enough to tuck neatly out of sight behind your screen. Enjoy! Nick Odantzis Acting editor [email protected]

LATEST GAMES

7ʕLɡLVʣɂɏɡʕLɳɴʙLɳKWɡ

82 Bluetooth speakers

84 Asus X102BA

86 Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus

92 Lego Marvel Superheroes

Enjoy your favourite tunes anywhere with these fantastic wireless speakers that will satisfy the most discerning music lovers.

It might not look like much, but this tiny box is actually a full PC, and is one of the best small form factor computers around.

Don’t let its price tag fool you – this budget laptop is packed with features, making it perfect for studying or working on the go.

Iron Man, Thor and the Incredible Hulk get the plastic treatment in the latest instalment of the hugely popular Lego series.

Our review guarantee

Our awards… Only the very ÀQHVWSURGXFWV receive our Best On Test Award. These will have excellent marks for quality.

We use only acknowledged experts to review products, so you can use our ratings with full confidence to make your buying decision

How we review

One of the key tenets of our review philosophy is that hardware should be compared against like products wherever possible. It is only when you pit WKHÀQHVWSURGXFWVRIDFHUWDLQ type against one another – at the same time – that you can UHDOO\FRPHXSZLWKDGHÀQLWLYH

RATING EXPLAINED

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verdict as to which is the very best in that category. The pace of development in computer hardware means that it is very GLIÀFXOWWRFRPSDUHVFRUHV from today with those from, say, six months ago. Magazines and websites that review a new product on its own run the risk of confusing or misleading. Superb


Very good

We guarantee to test every piece of hardware rigorously and thoroughly, using only acknowledged experts to establish the worth of a product. We always review from the viewpoint of our readers; the day-to-day practicality and quality of a product is paramount. Good

Our Best Value Award is given to products that quite simply represent the best value for your money.

Disappointing

Poor

Upgrade What’s inside…

)ʅɸɗʙLVʤʖQɒ 82 Marshall Stanmore

82 Jawbone Mini Jambox 83 Jabra Solemate Mini 83 Nixon The Blaster 88 Toshiba Satellite W30t: a multifunction PC with two batteries for extra power on the move

83 Damson Jet 84 Asus X102BA 86 Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus 88 Toshiba Satellite W30t 90 Need for Speed Rivals 92 Lego Marvel Superheroes 94 X Rebirth 96 MechWarrior Online

86 Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus: could this mini marvel replace your bulky desktop PC?

“The merest tap of the brakes as you enter a corner is enough to push your car’s back end out into an extravagant drift” 7ʦ ʢɚWɛSDȰɏ

Our promise to you… The Upgrade section is your key to finding out about the latest products, all designed to help you get more from your PC

You can trust our reviews

Our expert reviewers are 100 per cent independent, with years of experience in the world of computing. Our rigorous testing procedures mean that only genuine, high-quality products are awarded high star ratings. Further, very few are handed our Best Value or Best on Test Awards. If you see an item of hardware bearing one of these marks, \RXFDQEHFRQÀGHQWWKDWLWLVDQH[FHOOHQW product. Always check when the award was given, to ensure it is still up-to-date.

We choose the best products

Thousands of new products for your computer are released every year and choosing between them can sometimes be an impossible task. Our experts select only the best hardware and software to feature in this magazine, making your decision on which one to choose easier. Even better, our awards and star rating system make it VLPSOHWRÀQGWKHEHVWSURGXFWVIRU\RXU needs, with our recommended products section giving you a fast, trustworthy guide to a wide range of hardware and software.

We’ll introduce you to new stuff

Wherever we can, we review new hardware comparatively, pitching it head-to-head against other similar products. (Full details of our policy can be found in the opposite page, under ‘Our review guarantee’.) Of course, this isn’t always possible with new products and part of our duty to you is to introduce you a wide range of fascinating new hardware, software, services and games. The reviews of standalone hardware and software are just as thorough as our comparative reviews. However, we do not allocate scores to them because this can often be misleading. The only exception to this rule is on our games reviews, where the pace of change is a lot slower and single scores can be genuinely useful.

April 2014 |

Help & Advice |

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WIRELESS FOR SOUND

Audiophiles, cover your ears, we’re ditching hi-fi and going cable free. It’s all about Bluetooth speakers now…

Marshall Stanmore

Price £400 | $400 (www.marshallheadphones.com) This speaker is actually the work of Marshall Headphones, rather than the legendary amp maker itself. Intended to be a compact speaker for a small space, rather than a portable, the tank-like build makes it possible to deliver some strong audio. Pairing is swift and sound is rich and powerful with plenty of bass that can be upped further using the dedicated control dials. Unlike the other Bluetooth devices on test, the Stanmore sports RCA inputs as well as a 3.5mm jack, so you can hook up your AV gear, plus an optical input for the likes of Apple TV. Versatile and loud, but rather pricey.

Jawbone Mini Jambox Price £150 | $180 (www.jawbone.com)

Available in a rainbow of colours, this handsome aluminium speaker is the smallest and lightest on test. Sound quality is exceedingly good despite its stunted dimensions, clean and punchy with the ability to fill a room with your tunes. Ten hours of battery life is also good for a speaker of this size and LiveAudio mode, which eliminates crosstalk between channels, is perfect for achieving stereo sound when watching a film on a tablet. It’s simple to pair over Bluetooth and a free app enables you to collate playlists from multiple music services so that everyone’s track choices can be heard.

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Jabra Solemate Mini

Upgrade Bluetooth speakers

Price £80 | $100 (www.jabra.com)

The trainer-shaped speaker now comes in smaller foot sizes, with the same grooved, rubber base and dust- and splash-resistant case. It’s light, but chunky compared to the Mini Jambox. That extra heft accommodates back and front speakers that deliver a decent 360-degree sound. Audio is reasonable but lacks bass and can get messy if you whack up the volume. Sporting Bluetooth and NFC, the speaker is easy to set up and will pump out tunes for up to eight hours between charges. Does it put the boot into the Jambox? No, but it’s a good affordable alternative.

Nixon The Blaster Price £125 | $150 (www.nixon.com)

The Blaster is around twice the weight of the Mini Jambox, but still slips easily into a backpack. Its slinky, minimalist design helps it stand out, while its water resistance and impressive 12-hour battery life score points in its favour. Bluetooth setup is easy, although the heartbeat that sounds through the speaker during pairing is mildly unnerving. As is the cheery “see you later!” sign-off when powering down. Sound quality isn’t bad if you’re sat squarely in front of the speaker, but it is very linear. Step to the side and the sound drops off instantly. A party for one, then.

Damson Jet

Price £150 | $180 (www.damsonaudio.com) These wireless NFC mini speakers aim to deliver genuine split-channel stereo sound. It’s a bold move. Does it actually work? Almost… Pairing is pesky, largely because the two speakers have to pair to each other as well as the source. Sound quality, particularly bass, is surprisingly good, providing you have a suitable surface for the music to resonate through – the Jets vibrate to spread sonics. It does inevitably sound tinny on some tracks, especially if you turn up the volume, but nine hours of battery and the option to use each speaker individually makes the Jets pretty fly.

Not all these speakers are fully waterproof – check the manufacturers’ details before getting them wet

April 2014 |

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Asus X102BA

£300 | $494 www.asus.com Cheap and feature-packed, this is the perfect small laptop for students

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ecently, Windows 8 laptop manufacturers have gone back to their roots. We've seen a small number of them breaking away from the more expensive form factors, such as Ultrabooks and hybrids, instead creating smaller devices that offer great portability, incredible value for money and good battery life. Though the companies are hesitant to label them as such, they're basically netbooks in disguise. The latest device to appear in this new niche is the Asus X102BA – this 10.1-inch laptop is light, easy to carry and costs relatively little. It also comes with a bundled version of Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Student Edition. It goes up against similar low-powered, bargain machines, including the Acer Aspire V5-122P and HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11. The Acer has the advantage of a quad-core A6 processor, whereas the Asus has the newly introduced

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Jaguar-architecture Temash APU. This is a dual-core chip, but uses less power than the TouchSmart's processor – on paper at least. Like the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11, the X102BA would be a great choice for users who are just getting started with Windows 8. Its built-in touchscreen makes it ideal for university students who want a no-frills laptop with added versatility. The machine comes in either black, white, pink or blue.

Modest features The Asus X102BA is built to an incredibly small budget, so unsurprisingly it doesn't have any standout features that the untrained eye is likely to spot. The processor’s performance won't blow you away, as it's designed with low power consumption in mind. There’s also 4GB of memory on-board, though you can choose to opt for just 2GB instead if your needs are particularly modest.

The 500GB hard drive is pretty standard at this price range, so don’t expect a speedy start-up. The X102BA does, however, wake up immediately, provided you use the Sleep function rather than shutting it down completely. The X102BA doesn’t feel especially light, despite tipping the scales at a mere 1.1kg. It weighs less than the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, which is around 1.5kg (with the Type keyboard added), as well as its closest competitors, the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11 and the Acer Aspire V5-122, both of which are around the 1.4kg mark. The X102BA is relatively slim at the front, but thickens to a chunkier 29mm at the rear. It’s thinner than the HP, but not quite as slender as the Acer, and it certainly doesn’t rival the svelte Surface Pro 2. Regarding portability, you’re not going to get much better than the X102BA if you need a machine for creation and not just consumption.

Upgrade Tech reviews KEY FEATURES X102BA Supplier Asus Operating system Windows 8 Processor Dual-core AMD A4-1200 1.0 GHz Temash Storage 500GB RAM 4GB Graphics AMD Radeon HD 8180G Connectivity 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, VGA, HDMI, 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, card reader Weight 1.1kg Screen size 10.1-inch, 10-point touchscreen Display resolution 1,366 x 768

travel on each key, and it definitely doesn’t feel as if quality has been compromised to keep costs down. The trackpad, on the other hand, isn't quite as pleasing, mainly due to the gesture input being a little bit too sensitive.

Budget buy

The 10.1-inch display doesn’t set the world alight, but the 1,366 x 768 pixel display is perfectly respectable and the touch sensitivity is very welcome. It doesn’t feel like an afterthought either, and we were pleasantly impressed with its responsiveness. The three-cell battery is comparable to similar laptops, though Asus has wisely included a small format charger – the kind that you’d find bundled with a smartphone – that’s easy to carry around for an extra boost of

Windows 8 laptops available on the high street right now. The only real issue is that it’s not a great performer. It fell below our expectations in our benchmark tests, which was surprising considering that in real-world use it handled most basic tasks with ease, with only the occasional minor speed lag. Processor performance from the 1GHz unit wasn’t bad, although graphics performance seemed to have taken a significant hit somewhere along the line, with much lower results

“The Asus X102BA would be a great choice for users who are just getting started with Windows 8” welcome power when the machine’s battery runs dry. To round things off, you get decent wireless capability, including 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and up-to-date Bluetooth. There’s also a single USB 3.0 slot, two USB 2 slots, HDMI out, an SD card slot and an Ethernet connection.

Awkward charging Unusually, the charging connector for the X102BA lies in the middle of the others on the left-hand side. That’s not a deal breaker by any means, but is unexpected. The biggest win for the X102BA is the recommended retail price; it can be found even cheaper if you shop around, which makes it one of the lowest-priced touchscreen

than competing devices. The real boon of the X102BA’s newer processor is energy efficiency – it uses around 50 per cent less power than the TouchSmart’s chip. Having said that, though the three hours and 14 minutes we recorded in our battery life tests is commendable, the TouchSmart managed three hours and 42 minutes, which flies in the face of logic. It wasn’t what we were expecting, but overall the X102BA’s performance and battery longevity were still good. The touchscreen might be the main attraction for many home users, but Asus has pitched this as a workplace laptop. Its isolationstyle keyboard feels as if it’s been designed for long bouts of typing. It's comfortable, there’s decent

If you're on a tight budget, the Asus X102BA is definitely a good buy. For a relatively small investment, you get a laptop running a full version of Windows 8, meaning you can install almost anything you like on it – unlike tablets running Windows RT. The touchscreen makes it easy to use day-to-day, and its light weight means it’s not too hefty to sling in a bag and take on your travels. It really is a usable alternative to tablets like Google’s Nexus 10 or Apple’s iPad Air. Anyone looking for a professional laptop might want to consider a machine that’s a little meatier in the processor department – something like the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 or Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro may be a better option, but you’ll need to pay a lot extra for the privilege. Though the X102BA looks and feels a little chunky, it’s actually one of the lightest laptops we've come across to date, which gives it excellent portability credentials, and its battery will last you much of the day on a single charge. This laptop’s price tag really makes for a cheap entry point into Windows 8, and you’re unlikely to find a better deal on a device with such decent all-round abilities. Q Better than its rivals at this price point. There's little to dislike about this budget laptop.

April 2014 |

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Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus £430 | $705 www.zotac.com

This mini PC includes a speedy processor – is it the system to replace your bulky desktop?

Z

otac has spent the past few years churning out impressive small form-factor computers, and the ID92 Plus is its latest effort. At £430/$705, it’s one of the most expensive models the firm produces, but for good reason – this machine includes a new Intel Haswell processor, as well as all the other components you’d expect. The star of the show in this latest model is the new chip, and we’ve rarely seen this much power inside such a small machine. The ID92 Plus measures just 188mm from front to back, and 45mm across. It fits into tiny spaces, and its included stand and mount make it even more versatile; the former allows for vertical operation, and the latter means it can be attached to the back of compatible monitors. The processor is a desktopedition Core i5, and is supported by 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk. There’s even a decent amount of upgrade room, with a spare

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memory socket and space for an mSATA SSD. The only thing that’s not included is an operating system, so you’ll need to factor in the price of a copy of Windows 8.1 – currently £85/$96 on Amazon. Upgrade versions cost less if you have a spare copy of Windows 7 or XP that you can install first. There is an alternative Zbox ID92 if you’re feeling more adventurous. The standard version – without the ‘Plus’ suffix – is a bare-bones system. That means you get the case, motherboard and processor, but you need to supply your own hard disk and memory. It’s a cheaper option, especially if you have existing components to use.

Small crowd The popularity of smaller, more efficient components means there’s strong competition in this sector of the PC market. We’ve seen a host of worthy machines over the past months: the Lenovo IdeaCentre

Q190 is just as small and significantly cheaper, and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p Tiny costs more, but is packed to the gills with business features. If the Zotac looks too big, there’s the Gigabyte Brix – it’s just 115mm across and 30mm tall, and the new GB-BXi5H-4200 model includes a mobile-edition Core i5 Haswell processor for just £338/$400. It’s a bare-bones unit though, so again you’ll have to supply your own storage, memory and OS. The final competitor comes from Zotac itself. The ID65 is almost as small as the Gigabyte, and now it’s been updated with the latest hardware, although its processor is a less powerful mobile component. The Zotac’s Core i5-4570T has the new HD Graphics 4600 integrated chipset. The processor compares well to rival machines, and the ID92 Plus punches above its weight. The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190 remains available with a slower Pentium or

Upgrade Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus KEY FEATURES Zotac Zbox ID92 Plus Supplier www.zotac.com Operating system None Processor Intel Core i5-4570T Storage 500GB hard drive RAM 4GB Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4600 Connectivity 4x USB 3.0 ports, card reader, 2x audio jacks, infrared receiver, 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, an optical S/ PDIF jack, 2x DisplayPort connectors and DVI-D Weight 1.8kg Screen size N/A Display resolution N/A

Core i3 processor based on older architectures, and the ThinkCentre M92p Tiny is still saddled with an Ivy Bridge processor – again, based on aging silicon. Ironically, it’s the Zotac’s two smallest rivals that are closest to it in speed. Gigabyte’s refreshed Haswell model features a mobileedition Core i5 with a HD Graphics 4400 chipset, and Zotac’s own Zbox Nano ID67 Plus now includes a mobile Core i7 Haswell processor. Elsewhere, we’ve no complaints about the specification. There’s

DisplayPort connectors and DVI-D. There’s a connector for the Wi-Fi antenna, and one side has a fourth USB 3.0 socket, but no HDMI. It’s not all good news, though. The Zotac’s plastic chassis looks dated and its build quality is mediocre; the top panel flexes when pressed, and the removable bottom panel feels even flimsier. The new graphics core performed well in our tests. Indeed, both the Zotac’s processor and graphics chip are clearly capable, and the Zbox case kept the interior

“Unlike several other manufacturers of small form factor machines, Zotac encourages upgrades” a 500GB hard disk, 4GB of DDR3 memory and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It’s all contained within a tiny chassis and, unlike several other manufacturers of small form-factor machines, Zotac encourages upgrades. You can slide away one side of the case by unscrewing a couple of thumbscrews, and the hard disk is installed inside a caddy that’s removed the same way. Beneath this are two memory slots, one of which is free, and there’s an empty mini-PCI-Express slot too. The outside is well-equipped, too. The front features a USB 3.0 port, card reader, two audio jacks and an infra-red receiver, and the back edge houses two USB 3.0 connections, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, an optical S/PDIF jack, two

cool. The ID92 is frugal too, thanks to minimum and maximum power draws of 25W and 41W respectively – among the lowest we’ve seen from any desktop PC. There’s very little noise too, even during demanding stress-tests. We only heard the small fan when we pressed our ear to the case. The only real disappointment is the hard disk. While 500GB is reasonably generous for a tiny, affordable machine, its measured sequential read and write results of 66.7MB/sec and 68.8MB/sec are poor. Some drives are twice as fast.

to fit into tiny spaces, with a stand and VESA mount that make it easy to use anywhere. The interior is easy to access, with plenty of upgrade room, and this system has enough power to handle a broad range of everyday computing tasks as well as casual games. The Zotac’s chassis is versatile and easy to use, but its plastic side panels are somewhat flimsy and the glossy finish looks a little out of date. One of the components is also showing its age; the hard disk’s read and write speeds are half as quick as better platter-based parts, and its performance can’t hold a candle to solid-state storage. The new processor is a great addition to this tiny PC: it’s efficient enough to make this machine cool, quiet and frugal despite its size, and there’s enough application and graphics power to put the Core i5-4570T ahead of almost everything else in this part of the market. There are plenty of ports around this machine’s chassis, and it’s has 802.11ac Wi-Fi. This is the latest and fastest wireless standard, and represents a smart bit of futureproofing by Zotac. Some systems are smaller and a few might be faster, but the Zotac is a great balance of size and power. The build quality and lack of OS are minor niggles, but the Zbox ID92 Plus is one of the best small form-factor machines on the market right now – a great buy if you need a reasonable PC that doesn’t take up much space. Q Small, upgradable and quiet. There’s a lot to recommend, but it’s let down by a slow hard drive.

Small package Zotac’s small form-factor machine gets plenty right, starting with its sensible design – it’s small enough April 2014 |

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Toshiba Satellite W30t £700 | $1,027 www.toshiba.com

Two parts with two batteries, but too weighty and too clever for its own good

W

indows 8, with its emphasis on touchscreens, has shaken up the laptop market, and hybrids and convertibles are now as commonplace as Ultrabooks and traditional notebooks. The Toshiba Satellite W30t-A-101 is the latest two-in-one machine to arrive, and it uses an unusual design. Rather than using the kind of 180° hinge that Lenovo has employed on various Yoga devices, or a Sony-style sliding mechanism, Toshiba has opted for a detachable keyboard design. The screen can be attached to the base and used as a standard laptop, or removed entirely for use as a tablet. Toshiba has fitted the W30t with an Intel Haswell Core i3 processor, which sports one of Intel’s new integrated graphics cores. There’s also a 13.3in IPS display, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk. In an unusual move, Toshiba has crammed the components behind

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the screen, along with the W30t’s primary battery. The base only houses the keyboard, some ports and a secondary power pack. The W30t will set you back around £700/$1,139, which puts it towards the more affordable end of the growing hybrid market. For comparison, the Sony VAIO Duo 13 with its hinged mechanism costs upwards of £1,200/$1,400, the business-like Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga costs at least £780/$1,049, and Microsoft’s Surface Pro 2 comes in at £719/$899 (not including a keyboard). The Toshiba also costs around the same as the Lenovo Yoga 11S, which is aimed squarely at home users. At the cheaper end of the field is the Asus Transformer Book T100, which has a similar separation mechanism to the Toshiba but costs just £350/$399. However, although the Transformer Book has enough power to run Windows, it won’t

be able to match W30t’s hardware in either applications or games.

Screen saver It’s vital for any type of laptop to have a good screen, which is why Toshiba has installed an IPS panel inside the W30t. That’s usually a guarantee of quality – almost all premium laptops include this type of display – but the screen gives away the W30t’s mid-range status. Its 1,366 x 768 resolution, for instance, matches the that of the Lenovo Yoga 11S and the Asus Transformer Book T100, but can’t compete with the Full HD panels of the Sony VAIO Duo 13 and Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga. The integrated graphics chip has been cut back, too; rather than the HD Graphics 4600 GPU included on Intel’s higher end hardware, the Toshiba’s processor has HD Graphics 4200. It’s not all bad news, though – the combined processor and graphics chip is an ultra-low-

Upgrade Tech reviews KEY FEATURES Satellite W30t Supplier Toshiba Operating system Windows 8.1 Processor Intel Haswell Core i3 1.5GHz Storage 500GB hard drive RAM 4GB Graphics Intel HD Graphics 4200 Connectivity 1x USB 3.0 , Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, micro-USB, microSD card slot, micro-HDMI connector, headphone jack Weight 2.1kg Screen size 13.3-inch Display resolution 1,366 x 768

power version, which should help ensure lengthy battery life. The rest of the specification is so-so, with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk. The latter provides plenty of space, but other machines have more impressive storage; every other device we’ve mentioned in this review has an SSD to enable faster boot-up times. The Toshiba’s Intel-made wireless chip is dual-band, and there’s Bluetooth 4.0, but there’s no Gigabit Ethernet either on-board or in an adapter. With only one USB

hours and 52 minutes in our test, which involves opening and closing a range of demanding apps with the screen at full brightness. This good result will only improve with a dimmer screen and less strenuous work. By comparison, the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga ran out of juice after three hours and six minutes. The 500GB hard disk has more space than its rivals’ SSDs, but suffers speed-wise: the Toshiba’s sequential read and write results of 104MB/s and 99MB/s are mediocre. While the Toshiba’s screen doesn’t

“Hybrids currently occupy a strange space in the market between tablets and laptops” 3.0 port on the base, the port selection is found wanting, too. Elsewhere, there’s a micro-USB port, microSD card slot, micro-HDMI connector and a headphone jack.

Chunky monkey The Satellite is 25mm thick and weighs 2.1kg. Sony’s machine, meanwhile, is almost a kilo lighter and 22mm thick, while the Lenovo Yoga 11S weighs in at 1.4kg and is just 18mm thick. When in laptop mode, the W30t is top-heavy and has a tendency to tilt away from you when touched. The screen’s weight and size mean we’re not inclined to use it as a tablet for any great length of time. The Toshiba’s two batteries work in tandem, and lasted for three

have the sheer number of pixels of its rivals, the build quality is great, with a sturdy back panel and no flex anywhere. Sadly, we can’t say the same of the base – it’s flimsier, with a wrist-rest that moves noticeably under pressure, and it’s too easy to press the base and bend the keyboard. That keyboard isn’t great, either: the keys are light, feel insubstantial, and have very little travel, presumably because much of the base is taken up by the second battery. The Toshiba has its faults, but let’s concentrate on its good points first: the Haswell processor has enough power to handle plenty of applications, the pair of batteries result in good longevity, and the detachable design adds versatility

when you don’t need a keyboard. Build quality – especially on the tablet – is good, and the screen is bright with great contrast, which really makes images pop. The processor is a reasonable performer that regularly outpaced others in its price category, even if more expensive systems have beefier hardware. The Toshiba’s detachable mechanism works well, and means you don’t have to lug around a keyboard if you just need a tablet. Unfortunately, the sheer weight of the screen section means the Toshiba isn’t comfortable to use as a tablet, and when it’s deployed in laptop mode the entire machine feels off-balance. The keyboard isn’t particularly good, and the lack of an SSD means that the machine’s storage and boot speeds are slow.

Awkward offering Hybrids currently occupy a strange space in the market between tablets and laptops, and the Toshiba suffers by having one foot in both camps – it’s a competent machine, but its heavyset design and mediocrity in key departments make it difficult to recommend, when dedicated laptops and tablets are doing each job with aplomb. If you need a hybrid, though, the Lenovo Yoga 11S is a better choice. Despite its slightly slower processor, it’s slimmer and lighter, looks better and has a slick folding mechanism – not to mention the bright, high-contrast screen and high quality keyboard. Q A decent hybrid with good battery life and power, but unbalanced weight distribution.

April 2014 |

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Play this… Four new games available to play on your Windows computer

A profanity filter forbade certain licence plates. Naturally, we experimented

If it can be imagined, it is a particle effect in Rivals

Need for Speed Rivals A dull cop campaign undoes all that this game does well Price £40 | $40 Developer EA Publisher Ghost Games Multiplayer Up to six players DRM Origin Web www.needforspeed.com Recommended specs 2.4GHz CPU, 8GB RAM, Radeon 7850 or similar

The increased processing power of the PS4 and Xbox One should, surely, mean the end of shoddy console conversions. Yet here we are, at the start of a new console generation, and one of the first big multiplatform games will run at no more than 30 frames per second. That framerate was unlocked within about five seconds of Need for Speed Rivals appearing online, but the game engine is also locked at 30fps, so if you double the framerate, you double the speed of the whole game.

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That’s also been fixed, but if Rivals dips below 60fps, your car slows down proportionally. We struggled to get above 45fps at max settings, making it impossible to outrun the police. We could have dialled down a few settings, but we didn’t want to. Need for Speed Rivals might be a poor port, but it sure is pretty. Much of that beauty comes from particle effects. Rivals’ setting, the open world of Redview County, packs in a totally unrealistic amount of environmental and climatic variety, giving developer Ghost Games licence to fling


a constant cloud of things at you. Leaves flutter in the Pacific Woods. Snowflakes do likewise on the northern Grand Peak Drive. Misjudge a corner in the desert of Dead Tree Canyon and clouds of dust kick up under your tyres. When the environment doesn’t naturally provide a particle shower, Ghost Games creates one for you. The storms are remarkable, the sky darkening and the rain lashing down, the road glimmering wet, the camera lens splattered with droplets. As far as the action goes, Rivals is best thought of as a

combination of Criterion’s Burnout Paradise and its first Need for Speed game, 2010’s Hot Pursuit – and little wonder, given that 80 percent of the UK studio now work at Ghost Games. Like Paradise City, Redview is full of races, time trials and other events, but it’s peppered with distractions too. Ramps are marked on the map and prove hard to ignore, especially when a dotted line shows the arc of another driver’s jump. There are speed cameras and speed zones – stretches of road that measure your average velocity – and there’s a leaderboard for all of them, teasing you with the better time, faster pace or longer jump set by that guy on your friends list – or, for the first time in the series, someone else in the world with you. AllDrive means you share Redview’s 100-mile road network, seamlessly, with other human players.

Racer relations Hot Pursuit’s legacy, meanwhile, comes from two

Upgrade Play this…

Cars take a good few hits to shut down. We miss Burnout’s one-hit takedowns

At death’s door, the corners of the screen crack and darken

Drive through a garage forecourt to instantly repair your car. Obviously

distinct careers, one for racers and another for cops, each with its own levelling path and compendium of unlockable cars. Unlike Criterion’s 2010 game, however, this time the street racers have access to the same Pursuit Tech toy box as the police, from EMP blasts and electrical forcefields to deployable spike strips and huge bursts of turbo. A few are only available to the cops – a helicopter that flies ahead and drops spike strips, and a roadblock that never, ever works – but their availability makes playing as a racer much more interesting, albeit to the detriment of the police career. That’s something of a theme. The balance is further tipped in the racers’ favour by Speed Points (SP), the game’s principal currency, which, as a racer, you spend on new cars and upgrades to existing ones. They’re doled out as a reward for just about everything you get up to in Redview, whether it’s a long drift around a sweeping bend, a near miss while weaving through traffic or the use of a full stock of nitrous turbo. As a cop, you build Speed Points indefinitely but as a racer, you have to

bank them at one of the Hideouts that pepper the map. A multiplier builds up the longer you stay out on the road, but you attract more and more police attention. Wreck your car, or get yourself arrested, and you lose the lot. It’s a delightful balance of risk and reward, and there’s nothing like it as you speed down a stretch of road in a head-to-head battle with a fellow racer, weaving in and out of a helicopter searchlight while four police cars chase after you, smoke pouring out of your battered bonnet while you wrestle with a burst tyre and desperately look out for a repair garage or Hideout.

A policeman’s lot Sadly, that’s only half the game. The police career has no such element of risk or reward; Speed Points are, pardon the pun, all but pointless since you’re given cars for free and they can’t be upgraded. The cop path has its moments: chasing down a trio of racers one by one is a thrill, but that was in Hot Pursuit three years ago at double the framerate, and given the delights on offer

elsewhere, you’re constantly aware of what you’re missing. It’s telling that one of the cop campaign’s finer moments is when you go rogue and are tasked with taking down 10 racers in a flame-red Ferrari. You’re a racer in all but name. Worse still is the way Ghost has structured things – and once again there’s a buzzword for it. You’re given a handful of objectives at a time, dubbed a Speedlist: get Gold in a race, earn a set number of SP and hit half a dozen cars with Pursuit Tech, for instance. When you’ve done all that’s asked of you, a new objective appears telling you to return to a Hideout (or Command Post, if you’re a cop) to bank your winnings, level up, unlock a new car and pick up a new to-do list. That’s fair enough if you’re a cop – you’re there to follow orders, and there’s no detriment to doing so – but for the racer campaign it’s a different matter. You’re actively instructed to avoid the best part of the game: staying out for as long as you can, building up that multiplier, racking up that score. AllDrive, too, has been fudged. While Redview April 2014 |

County’s sprawl is packed with other racers and cops, the vast majority are controlled by the computer. Just five human players share those 100 miles of open road with you, and encounters with them are rare. You can set a waypoint to track them, unless the police are after you, and you can always invite a friend to join you, but that rather defeats the object of a seamless multiplayer world. It’s not Ghost’s fault that there are some troublemakers – one spate of missions with a random partner ended with him switching from racer to cop and shunting us off the side of a cliff – but the studio most certainly is to blame for networking issues. Host migrations are common, and we often found that when the action resumed we’d slipped down a position or two, or been booted out entirely. This is a tremendous shame because at Rivals’ core lies a beautiful racing game. The vehicle handling is the right mixture of weighty and floaty: the merest tap on the brakes as you enter a corner is enough to push your back end out into an extravagant drift. The game is staggeringly pretty at times, too. Its a world built with a photographer’s eye, which ensures there’s a spectacular vista around every sweeping bend. But it’s let down by some baffling design decisions: a multiplayer structure that doesn’t work, a dull cop campaign that dilutes the frantic splendour of the racer’s, and that frustrating locked framerate. Need for Speed Rivals runs at half the speed it should and, thanks to the police stuff, is half the game it could have been. It’s not only next-gen consoles that have held Rivals back: it’s the developer’s inability to focus on the things that really work. Q One good idea – the racer’s scoring system – spoiled by a dull cop campaign.

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“Gross! A spider. Step on it!”

Lego Marvel Super Heroes A brick-for-brick replica of its predecessors Price £18 | $20 Developer Traveller’s Tales Publisher Warner Bros Multiplayer Two-player local co-op DRM Steam Web http://marvelsuperheroes.lego.com Recommended specs 2GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, GeForce 9800GT/ Radeon HD 4850, gamepad

Every Lego game has some yummy digital gravy to help flavour an otherwise dull romp through undemanding challenges and headacheinducing camera work. For Lego Marvel Super Heroes, that gravy is a huge, varied cast of characters. The biggest delight isn’t just how much of the Marvel roster has been squeezed into the game (more than 150 characters), but how different each character feels – so much so that it’s easier to identify them by skillset than character class. Thor and Iron Man, for

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example, both fly and fire energy projectiles, but their approach to combat is unique. Iron Man’s attacks are mostly ranged – launching missiles and energy beams to annihilate minifigs from afar. He only comes in close for finishing moves, such as a jet-powered charge to scoop enemies up, followed by a midair tussle and a final slam to the ground. By contrast, Thor keeps things up close, using his lightning powers to shock those around him while tossing his massive hammer like a boomerang to keep enemies at midrange in check.


The agile Spider-Man is our favourite to play. Leaping and swinging from wall to brawl, and lassoing baddies with webbing before whipping them into the nearest solid object feels exactly as overthe-top as it should. But despite the fun, something kept nagging at us – a yawn.

Attack of the clones There is a disconnect between the coolness of the characters and the dullness of the game mechanics. These are the exact same systems that have been present since the series’ beginning. The same levers,

hatches and platforms to be pushed or pulled in every level, in every game, for 10 years. To be fair, it all works fine, but it’s got so boring. And we’ve got a feeling Traveller’s Tales knows it. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be such a sugary crust of characters and voice actors, superb visuals, a monstrous quantity of collectables and even an open-world hub full of side missions to sweeten the deal. But ultimately it’s the mechanics that make a game memorable, and this is where LMSH and the rest of the series are woefully lacking. The game-within-the-game of finding your character in LMSH’s co-op split-screens is maddening. At first, both characters are in a single, unbroken frame. When they get too far apart to fit on the same screen, a line splits the monitor vertically and play

Upgrade Play this… Want to play ‘spot the difference?’

Grand Theft Lego, anyone? There’s always time for tea

continues uninterrupted. But as players move around the arena, the screens move around the monitor with the characters. We can’t count the number of times we looked up from our nachos to find our screen on the other side of the monitor with our character careening into walls. LMSH simply highlights an obviously stagnating formula. The collectables make it either a completionist’s dream or a nightmare, and working out how to rescue Stan Lee in each level is fun. We’re not calling for the series’ extinction, but it deserves an evolution. Q

“We agreed nothing below the belt!”

Even an X-Woman needs to cut loose sometimes

The fantastic forms of Mr Fantastic It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a…

Water pump! That’s what he calls it, anyway.

Screwdriver! Why not just use a real one?

The huge cast of characters is fantastic fun. Too bad this is just another Lego game.

Rocket! For flying to the Brick Moon.

Wrecking ball! Includes twerkable Lego Miley Cyrus.

April 2014 |

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You can dock at this nightclub to trade and chat with NPCs

X Rebirth

talk to other characters, who are all terrifying, slot-mouthed, dead-eyed shop mannequins.

Battling boredom and bugs in a galactically awful space sim Price £40 | $50 Developer Egosoft Publisher Deep Silver Multiplayer None DRM Steam Web www.xrebirth.com Recommended specs 2GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB graphics card

When we were first set loose in X Rebirth’s vast universe, we were convinced it was going to be amazing. That 32 per cent average score on Metacritic couldn’t possibly be accurate. We’re in space! In a spaceship! But we quickly realised that this is, in fact, a colossal missed opportunity. A supernova of bugs and baffling game design that refuses to let you have any fun, no matter how hard you try – and we really tried. The first problem is that you only get to pilot one ship in the game, the horribly named

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Albion Skunk. You’re able to explore it using a first-person mode, which could have been fun if there were more than two rooms, and if anything was even slightly interactive. You have a separate ship for trading that follows you around and has to be given orders. You can’t cancel an order without editing your save file, and sometimes it just refuses to move. It’s like we’re dragging a badly-behaved toddler around a shopping centre. Then there’s your co-pilot, the extremely irritating Yisha Tarren. For a character you spend the entire


game with, and who’s almost constantly talking, you’d think they would have hired someone with some basic acting ability to speak her lines. But although you’ll eventually grow used to her awkward delivery, you’ll never stop cursing how useless she is. Case in point: if you’re piloting a drone and enemies start attacking the Skunk, she’ll just sit there dumbly. Couldn’t you, like, move, or fight back, or something? The game has a problem with humans generally. On stations – which all look identical, incidentally – you’ll

Lost in space While space itself feels nicely alive, teeming with traffic and huge ships lumbering back and forth, the interiors feel eerily lifeless. In a nightclub you can hear the ambient sound of people drinking and laughing, but it’s actually empty except for two people standing motionless beside the bar. Not exactly Deep Space Nine. Rebirth fares much better when you’re in space. Some messy shadows aside, it’s a good-looking game, with colourful nebulas, asteroids, planets and stars providing a vivid cosmic backdrop. The combat is rather like jousting in space. Enemy ships make passes at each other, firing a volley of shots when they get close and hoping some of them connect. You can also use heat-seeking missiles. Hit the spacebar and you can strafe, shoot-’em-up style.

Upgrade Play this… The mannequin-like characters are unconvincing

There’s a mod to make your co-pilot’s outfit less revealing Zones are clogged with traffic, space stations and asteroids

You don’t get to pilot anything this big

It’s the future, but people still love booze

Hit it again to steer with the mouse. The movement as you do so feels nicely weighty. This game’s biggest problem is that there’s simply nothing fun to do. There are countless stations, jobs, contracts and other ways to

make money, but it’s all deeply tedious, and utterly free of personality. The characters you talk to cycle through the same few dumb lines. The missions are rote. It’s only in the (dreadful) story that you’ll find any excitement; its

colourful, large-scale space battles are at least genuinely impressive to behold. Consider how rich and full of character the Mass Effect universe is. Now imagine the exact opposite and you have X Rebirth’s charmless world.

Waste of space Things more useful than co-pilot Yisha Tarren

Yisha Tarren Waterproof towel

Games for Windows Live

Useless

Less Useless

Inflatable dartboard

We don’t want to be here any longer than we need to be. Some severe patching is needed. There are more bugs and broken missions than we have space to list here, and save-file editing is almost always the go-to solution, which is just absurd when you realise you’ve been charged £40/$50 for the pleasure. It feels like an early access game. But even if they iron out the flaws, X Rebirth is just so innately unlikable, and so deathly boring, that we think it may be beyond help. Q The occasional bit of spectacle can’t save this tedious space simulation.

Chocolate teapot

April 2014 |

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Time to up your game, that stompy dude is getting the better of you

All niggles aside, MWO nails it where it matters: combat

MechWarrior Online No singleplayer? No problem… Price Free Developer Piranha Games Publisher Infinite Game Publishing Multiplayer 24 players DRM Online only Web www.mwomercs.com Recommended specs Dual-core processor, 2GB RAM, GeForce 480/Radeon AMD 5850

MechWarrior Online doesn’t have melee combat, but it does have plenty in common with boxing. Both divide fighters into weight classes and test competitors’ pain tolerance against their damage output. This fistfighty feel is what distinguishes MechWarrior Online’s 12-on-12 team deathmatches from military first-person shooters and fellow vehicular shooters like World of Tanks and Hawken. Most of Piranha Games’ time spent developing MWO has been dedicated to mech

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combat, and the game’s balance is perfect. A wide variety of mech builds are viable, from sluggish ‘missile boats’ that rely on teammates to acquire targeting information, to fragile, agile Locusts and Spiders. But Piranha’s focus on perfecting combat before fleshing out other features has a drawback: some aesthetic and secondary elements remain rough. MWO’s command map is a vestigial feature that’s clumsy to use, and customisation (a core MechWarrior tenet) hasn’t received the attention it


deserves. The MechLab, the garage where mechs are bought and modified, doesn’t display fullscreen. Data on weapons and armour is poorly presented, you can’t compare stats side-by-side, and colours and patterns are organised as text lists rather than as a visual palette.

Revel in the details Inside the cockpit, intricate game mechanics such as modular damage, heat management, ammo detonation and throttle delay work your reflexes and brain equally. Gauss rifle slugs, for

example, are one of the few ammunition types that don’t explode when their housing is destroyed. The gauss rifle itself, however, is volatile, and if you destroy one you’ll deal extra damage unless your enemy has installed a CASE explosion-containment module. But wait – that module is meaningless if they’re running an XL engine, which, unlike standard engines, occupies all three torso segments. Imagine trying to use this knowledge while you’re being cooked with lasers, and you’ve got an idea of high-level MWO play. What’s a shame is how little energy the good people at Piranha have dedicated to explaining these nuances to newcomers. The most complex systems – such as equipment that improves and disrupts missile targeting – aren’t even mentioned in the modest tutorial. Still, the core concepts are intuitive, and building a durable, straightforward mech doesn’t take an engineering degree.

Upgrade Play this… Tactical knowledge comes through protracted, painful trial and error

It’s good to see urban maps included, but it’s a shame they’re abandoned

Customise your mech with a wide array of weapons and equipment

We love how much careful marksmanship MWO demands despite the size and lumbering speed of the titans you’re piloting – it takes genuine skill, patience and intuition to paint a scout mech with lasers as it’s circle-strafing you at 120kph. The relationship you develop with your mechs is MWO’s other great aspect. Damage isn’t persistent, but eventually you’ll get the engine blown out of your mech’s chest, have to retreat to the MechLab to rework your build, then queue up to test your modifications. That loop of death, iteration and success is special. When combined with the control you have over your mech, it validates your builds when they work, and helps you see the benefits of different weight classes and weapons. Our main mech is an Orion ‘Protector’ variant, a 75-tonne heavy with two ultra AC5s thrown in. It’s a medium-long range gunslinger that works best when it’s holding down a corridor, punishing slower enemies who peek out of

cover. When we take a loss, we switch to our 35-tonne Raven, which can move at almost twice the speed. We don’t get many kills with it, but MWO makes it unusually gratifying to play as a decoy. The maps are a mixed bag. Terra Therma is a volcanic maze, a series of bottlenecks formed by high cliffs that stifle movement a little more than we’d like. Alpine Peaks is enormous, but barren in a way that makes it tough to memorise (we’d love to see more landmarks in general). Crimson Strait has a rail tunnel that heavy mechs can sneak through. Some backbreaking flanks and defences happen here; if scouts don’t let you know what’s on the other side, your heavy mechs might walk straight to their doom. Canyon Network, Tourmaline Desert and Caustic Valley, on the other hand, are spacious mixtures of open and dense. MWO also brings urban maps to MechWarrior for the first time, although the tower blocks don’t deform or

MWO rewards cautious play and thoughtful weapon use...

break and the streets are abandoned, making the cities feel more like thematic obstacles than immersive spaces. MWO needs more mode variety to get better mileage out of these maps. There are just two: a fivecapture point domination mode, and a straight-up 12-on-12 brawl. More significantly, the MWO community awaits the addition of Community Warfare – a persistent territory control metagame where individual matches will affect the map-level power struggle between player-led factions and mercenary corps. The game is starved for this sort of context, which would give matches meaning beyond their time limit.

proportion to weight, from 560 MC (about £1.60) for a tiny, 20-tonne Locust all the way through to 7,500 MC (a crazy £20) for the 100-tonne Atlas legendary variant. Piranha’s work to modernise MechWarrior is admirable. MWO’s layered mechanics facilitate combat that’s deep, balanced and – most importantly – satisfying in your hands. That almost singular focus on combat design leaves MWO slim on modes and tutorials, with some rough interfaces, but not at the expense of what is both an entertaining and solid foundation for the future. Q A more than worthy successor to one of PC gaming’s greatest series.

Coin slot Although there’s a lot of variation in pricing, MWO is more expensive than average free-to-play games. Mechs can be bought with in-game currency (known as C-bills) or cash (MC). Prices increase in April 2014 |

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Your disc

FULL PRODUCTS

HANDPICKED TOOLKITS

Hello and welcome to your free disc, exclusive to Windows 7 Help & Advice. This month’s packed CD-ROM features great programs to help you get the best from your computer, plus essential resources for every Windows user. Microsoft is due to end support for Windows XP, so we’ve put together a package of tools to help you make the switch to a new version of your favourite operating system. You’ll have your files backed up and transferred in no time! Jeremy Ford Disc editor [email protected]

ESSENTIAL RESOURCES

28 Rescue data from a broken PC with Macrium Reflect Free

42 Liven up your Windows 7 desktop with Desktop Gadgets

46 Let Hitman Pro scan your computer for malware infections

52 Speed up your computer with SoftPerfect RAM Disk

Step-by-step How to use your free disc

started 1 Get Place your free disc into your computer’s disc drive. The

AutoPlay prompt should appear on your screen and once this has happened, click ‘Run OWV.exe’ to start up the disc interface. A new window appears, telling you some important information. Read it, then click on ‘I agree’ to continue.

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the categories 2 Browse Click on one of the categories in the menu underneath the

magazine logo to discover all the programs that are contained in each. Simply click on an app’s name to find out more about it. Full commercial products usually have information about how to register. To try out an app, just click the ‘Install Now’ button.

Your disc Make the most of it!

FIND THE SOLUTION! How to get your disc to play If the disc doesn’t start automatically, hit the Windows key, then click Computer. Now double click the DVD drive to get going.

DES SKTO OP T TO OOLS 8GadgetPack Chameleon Folder Copernic Desktop Search Cyber-D AntiScreensaver Desk Drive Desktops Ditto LeDimmer OneLoupe XWidget ANC CE FIINA Accounts and Budget AceMoney Lite Cash And The City Express Invoice GnuCash HomeBank JStock LoanCalculator! Plus Money Manager Ex RQ Money

If you have a problem…

the program 3 Install When you begin to install your chosen applications, the

Please visit www. futurenet.com/support. To contact our reader support team, email [email protected] or call 01225 822743, quoting the magazine name and issue. We are only able to provide help with this disc, not the software contained on it.

disc brings up another message window to take you through the installation process. Each one of these is different – just follow the prompts until you get a message telling you that the installation is complete. Now it’s time to try out your free apps – have fun! April 2014 |

MOV VIN NG F FRO OM X XP P Belarc Advisor Comodo Backup Comodo Internet Security Double Driver DriverEasy GameSave Manager Malwarebytes AntiMalware MozBackup PickMeAppLight Reinstall Windows XP EX XTRAS Argentum Backup Desktop Gadgets Glary Undelete HitmanPro KillProcess 0DFULXP5HÁHFW)UHH And more! Help & Advice |

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