What do 99.9% of users do with their computers? E-mail, that’s what they do. Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Hot Mail, Yahoo Mail, they all work and they all have a piece of the pie.
Microsoft in, all it’s wisdom, is pushing to integrate e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing, blog publishing, and a host of other applications into a neat and tidy package called Windows Live Services. Although not included as a part of the new Windows 7 operating system it is available for download from Windows Live Download and integrates seamlessly.
It doesn’t take long to notice the world has made a significant change in the way it communicates. Obama’s Blackberry, social networking, Matt Lauer’s tips on job hunting, and even the family photo album have all changed the shape and scope of communication. Today it’s possible to live 1,000 miles from your family and feel like you were right there because of these new faces shining through the clouds.
A major part of the package is Window Live Mail, Microsoft’s latest attempt to pocket your business and grow it’s shrinking base of e-mail users. Windows Live Mail is brought to you by the same folks that brought you Windows Mail. Windows Mail popularity is growing so let’s get to a question I see over and over again.
Q. Paul H. asks: I have PC Pitstop optimizer 2.0 installed on my laptop running Vista SP1 64 bit. How do I get rid of the annoying “recovered Messages folder” that keeps getting generated by the Windows mail 6.6000 installed on Vista sp1? It is such an annoying pest having to delete it all the time. How can I get rid of this folder so it never comes back?
Thanks for any help,
Paul H
A. Paul is certainly not the only person bugged by this Windows Mail anomaly. It’s a problem I’m seeing over and over again.
There are two options for curing this. You can either Reset Windows Mail or you can switch to Windows Live Mail. It’s probably easier to make the switch to Windows Live Mail. I just combined my Gmail, Outlook Express and Hotmail accounts into a single Windows Live Mail account and couldn’t be happier. This is coming from someone who six months ago was still singing the praises of Outlook Express as his only email account.
Q. Ben asks: I use windows vista 32Bit and have 6GB of memory installed in my PC. as windows can only utilize 3GB in a 32Bit system do i benefit from the extra 3GB. also are 64Bit operating systems more demanding as 64Bit systems can utilize more memory. with these questions in mind should i stay with my 32Bit system or change to a 64Bit operating
A. The short answer is no, 32 bit Windows is not able to take advantage of the memory you have installed. The second part of your question tells me that you already know what needs to be done. Get that 64 bit version installed. The 64 bit versions of Windows aren’t more demanding just because they are 64 bit, but Vista’s bloat will certainly make use of it. Windows 7 is much less of a resource hog than Vista but some of the optional features can use the extra memory. It’s not that 64 bit computing requires more memory it’s that it’s able to use more memory. 64 bit is a good thing.
The popularity of Windows 7 is going to give everyone a reason to upgrade and replace Vista. Because there seems to now be a better availability of drivers for 64 bit Windows, I think the popularity of 64 bit computing is going to jump hand in hand with the use of Windows7. Beat the rush, do it now.
Q. Jo asks: How do I get rid of programs from loading every time I turn my computer on? I am still using Windows XP. So many program icons show up on my task bar and I would like to stop this.
Thank, Jo
A. This is another one I see many times and in many forms. The answer given the most for this is to disable the item in Services and/or use msconfig/startup to turn everything off.
System Configuration Utility
1. Click on the Start Button, enter msconfig and hit Enter
2. Click on the Startup tab.
3. Uncheck items that you do want to auto-start and click OK.
That works, sort of, but that’s not what I do. The items you are seeing in the task bar are there because you have installed or used an application and let it set it’s own options. Because each program wants to be easy to access, it sets itself to start with Windows. So what I do is right click on each program or application in the task bar and then click Open or Options. Sometimes it’s a little hard to find but usually there is a place to change the option of starting the program with Windows. Once you change the options in the program it won’t put itself back in the task bar each time you use it.
If you are a Windows Vista user you can use the Windows Defender application to take care of this problem.
Windows Defender
1. Click on the Start Button, enter Windows Defender and hit Enter.
2. Click on the Tools from the top menu bar.
3. Click on Software Explorer.
4. Select Start Up Programs from the drop down menu.
5. Select an application to Remove or Disable.
Windows Defender is a part of Vista and is also included in Windows 7. It’s an excellent tool for fixing those annoying reminders that some versions of MS Office throw up continuously. It’s a good fix for renegades that just won’t stay in the corral.
I am still amazed at the number of questions we are getting on driver installation and RAID. Please take another look at last weeks Ask The Pros which included the complete Drivers 101.Just scroll down about half way through the page and you’ll find it.
The end of January saw the whole Ask The Pros section devoted an over view of RAID. Take a look, most of your answers are there.
Thanks for checking in and keep them coming.
