This is one of those Windows tricks that you probably didn’t even know existed.
Usually, the Explorer icon is visible on the Taskbar.
That’s great for opening Explorer and navigating to whatever folder you need.
But what if you want to maintain a list of commonly-used folders without clogging up your desktop with a bunch of shortcuts?
It turns out there’s a quick and easy solution for this very problem.
Let’s say you need to capture all or part of your puter’s screen. You’d like to grab a quick image of your browser window, or maybe you want to capture a frame from a video playing on your puter. Maybe you want to save an image from a web page, but they’ve disabled the right-click menu.
There are lots of ways to do this with fancy software. There are also much, much easier ways that you may not know about.
The first is the “PrintScrn” trick.
Press the Print Screen key on your keyboard (usually to the right of the F12 key, and usually abbreviated as PrtScrn or some other such thing). PrintScrn will copy your entire desktop – or both desktops if you have multiple monitors – onto the clipboard. On some keyboards, you’ll need to hold down the Shift key, and then press PrtScrn.
All that’s left is to paste the captured image into Paint, Paint.Net, Photoshop Elements
Okay, but that’s kind of involved… And there is a much easier way!
If you’ve been anxiously awaiting Windows 9, you’re in for a long wait. But Windows 10 will be coming next year!
You see, the official explanation is apparently that, “7 8 9” – 7 ate 9 – so Microsoft will be going straight to Windows 10. Isn’t that cute? No, because Windows 8 still sucks.
Furthermore, instead of releasing Windows 10 in April 2015, we now apparently have to wait until the end of next year. Because, ya know, taking Windows 8 and making it not suck takes way, way longer than making that much-hated “Start Screen” in Windows 8.x.
You may recall me ranting about why I left Win 8 and switched back to Windows 7.
So, the question on everybody’s mind is: Will the next version of Windows fix everything wrong with Windows 8?
Sweet mother of pearl!!
Does Windows Backup ever work?! Well, yes. Sort of… Sometimes…
There are many factors to consider, though, such as the phase of the moon, whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow, sunspot activity, and the extent of the “twerking” performed by the latest raunchy pop star at last night’s performance.
Which reminds me: I’m officially changing my legal name to Lord Gaga Googoo Poopoo. It’ll be a real bother though, because LordGagaGoogooPoopoosTech.info is kind of a long address to remember… SIGH.
But, I digress.
Once again, if you are having problems with your Windows Backup failing, check out my two earlier articles on the subject:
So, you did all that, but it’s still failing on you… And this time, the message is something about being unable to read the file “global-messages-db.sqlite”.
This one’s the easiest fix of them all!
One of the most common problems I’ve seen is missing or “disappeared” network icons in Windows 7.
This problem can take a few different forms.
For example, you may be able to connect to the internet just fine, but your ethernet/WiFi icon in the system tray always claims you are disconnected.
Or, you open up the Network and Sharing Center, click the “Change adapter settings” link, and no network adapters show up – it’s just blank.
But in both cases, everything still works!
There is one fix I have found that actually works, time and time again…
Dear, sweet Jesus… You’d think that Microsoft’s built-in “Backup and Restore” feature in Windows would just kind of work.
You’d be wrong.
If you haven’t seen my earlier post on Windows Backup problems, see here:
Fix It: Windows Backup Failed Trying to Read from Shadow Copy
If you’re still having problems with failing backups – especially if you get the error “The system cannot find the file specified. Error 0x80070002” – then read on.
The fix will both make you happy and make you cry at the same time…
Every now and then, you might get some files from a friend or family member.
Maybe they e-mail them to you, or maybe you copy them over via a USB stick. In any case, the files are often compressed, like in a ZIP file.
So, you dutifully double-click the file, extract it, et voila! You’ve got the files.
There’s only one problem: the extracted files’ and folders’ names are displayed in green text.
Normally, they are black.
What do green folders mean, and how do you make them go away? Read on…
Note: To resize a single image to a particular pixel size, see: How to Easily Resize and Crop a Single Image in Windows
There is one little problem I see a lot: How does one resize a bunch of images in order to post them online somewhere, or to send in an e-mail, or whatever?
Of course, most online services and social networking sites will automagically resize and compress your images for you.
That’s nice, but if you’re one of those people who don’t have fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or some other uber-high-bandwidth net connection, it’s really handy to be able to create smaller versions of your 20 megapixel photos before you upload them.
Fortunately, it turns out that there is a really easy and completely free way to do it!
In Windows 8, there was an easy way to switch from using a Microsoft Account to log in back to the “old fashioned” way of using a plain old ordinary Windows local account.
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is trying harder than ever to trick you into signing in with your Microsoft account on your local puter. Most people probably will go this default route, but later they will want to switch back to a normal account as in Windows 7.
There are several guides out there that tell you that you should create a second user account that is a Local Account, move all your data over, and then delete the original.
Well, there is a much, much easier way to go about switching back to a Local Account in Windows 8.1!
So, one day you’re just minding your own business, and all is well.
Then, before you know it, your Desktop link under “Favorites” in Explorer has gone bye-bye.
It just got up and walked out the door.
EEK!
Whatever shall you do?
Not to worry, it’s pretty easy to restore your missing Desktop link in Explorer in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8…
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