October 25, 2007
Get Woody's new e-book bonus
Our contributing editor, Woody Leonhard, thinks Microsoft has done something right with its new product, Windows Home Server. The software shares all your files, photos, videos, and songs with everyone on your network, and it automatically backs up all your PCs. Read more »
Help us send you a better newsletter
We get some great tips from you, our readers, giving us insight into your thinking and the problems you face. But we've always wondered how many of our readers work in large organizations vs. small businesses, and we're giving you a chance to tell us the answer today. Read more »
PC rebooting? The cause may be MS OneCare
Installing Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft's downloadable security suite, changes the settings of Automatic Updates without notifying users or honoring their update preferences. This behavior may explain reports that Windows has been mysteriously installing patches and rebooting itself, even though users had completely shut down the Automatic Updates function. Read more »
U3 flash drives rendered useless on some PCs
Readers are adding more weight to our less-than-glowing reviews of U3 flash software. Many corporate IT administrators block U3 use completely, so if you use USB flash drives at work, you may want to avoid this platform. Read more »
Global crash reveals modern Internet addiction
Ever wonder what it would take to crash the Internet? In the Onion's mock newscast, we see what it would take to stop the World Wide Web and the repercussions such a catastrophe would have on mankind. Read more »
Part five: big power supplies need good fans 
In today's Housecall, I help a Toronto reader choose and install a new power supply, focusing on the merits of large, slow fans over small, fast ones. On the way there, I indulged my historical imagination as I traversed the vast expanses of the Canadian plains and enjoyed views of the Great Lakes. Read more »
My must-have tools for Windows users
I just finished installing a whole passel of new PCs — both XP and Vista — and faced, once again, the age-old question: What do you really need on a new PC? After thrashing this over with copious co-conspirators, I narrowed the choices down to a small handful. Read more »
Driver Detective finds outdated software
You can avoid potential problems by keeping your Windows drivers up to date, and Driver Detective is my favorite way to do just that. In other news, readers have given me pointers for antirootkit resources, which I'm happy to share with you. Read more »
October 18, 2007
Get Fred Langa's wallpaper for your desktop
Our editor-at-large, Fred Langa, is back from a 5-month motorcycle tour of the U.S. and Canada. Through Oct. 24, all paid subscribers are eligible for a bonus download, Wallpaper of the Journey — 25 high-quality images Fred that you can use as desktop wallpaper. Read more »
Free software on USB enables portable computing
USB flash drives are good for more than just storing and transferring files — with the right software, your flash drive can become a tiny computer. Fortunately, you can find plenty of great software that not only runs on a USB flash drive, but is also completely free. Read more »
Get official and unofficial fixes for Excel
Despite the hotfix that Microsoft recently released for Excel 2007, as I described on Oct. 11, some math errors that you should know about still lurk in both Excel 2007 and Excel 2003. I'll bring you up to date and explain how you can get better results from Excel. Read more »
Go a little ape with human Donkey Kong
Almost everyone has heard of Donkey Kong, the 1981 arcade in which the heroic Mario makes a laborious climb to rescue his sweetheart Pauline while dodging moving obstacles from a barrel-hurling gorilla. (Ah, the good old days!) Read more »
Part four: WU, Symantec suite can slow PCs
This week, a Windows Secrets reader learns what has been hogging his computer's resources and causing sluggish performance. In this article — the fourth in a series of eight on my Housecalls with readers — we identify the Symantec/Norton security suite as the main culprit responsible for a PC's drastic drop in performance. Read more »
Good ways to protect your sensitive data
Protecting your data is paramount, especially with the ever-growing risk of Trojans and phishing attacks. This week, I tell you about three new tools that can help defend your data and ensure than any files you delete are not easily recoverable. Read more »
Internet Explorer 7: missing in action or not?
Internet Explorer 7 is back, having been missing in action after the IE team announced that WGA testing was being removed from the IE 7 download. In other post-Patch Tuesday news, Sun Java starts advertising Open Office, and I revisit my misgivings about the recent Outlook Express patch. Read more »
October 11, 2007
Get Fred Langa's wallpaper for your desktop
Our editor-at-large, Fred Langa, is back from a 5-month motorcycle tour of the U.S. and Canada. Through Oct. 24, all paid subscribers are eligible for a bonus download, Wallpaper of the Journey — 25 high-quality images Fred that you can use as desktop wallpaper. Read more »
Carry a flash drive instead of a laptop
You can avoid lugging a laptop everywhere installing your favorite apps on a USB flash drive and running them on any computer you want. I'll guide you in selecting a flash drive that's best suited for portable software and tell you which apps you should install. Read more »
Microsoft releases Excel fix but skirts issue
Microsoft has released hotfix packages to correct an Excel 2007 error that makes cells that contain values close to 65,535 act as though they contain 100,000. There's still some confusion, however, on whether these hotfixes should also be applied to older versions of Excel and whether they resolve all Excel 2007 calculation errors. Read more »
Is it time for Tomb Raider to die?
Even those who've never touched a gaming console in their digital lives have heard of Tomb Raider, the influential video game featuring the exploits of the heroic — and seemingly indestructible — Lara Croft Read more »
Part three: reduce caches to speed performance
This week, I travel through the Wild West to help our second Housecall winner hunt PC space hogs in Tacoma, Wash. My trip west took me from dramatic, wind-sculpted landscapes, whose colors ranged from deep red to muted adobe, to the lush green of the Pacific Northwest. Read more »
Several unpatched vulnerabilities this week
Microsoft released six security updates this week, so be sure to update your systems as soon as possble. Unfortunately, Microsoft left a few security problems unpatched in its products, and there are unrelated problems with Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and Sun Java that you definitely need to be aware of. Read more »
Hold off on patching MS SharePoint
A pretty bumpy patch has just been released for SharePoint, but the rest of this week's patch lineup is pretty tame. We do have a few tricky issues to deal with, regarding updates for IE 7, Office 2003, and Vista, in addition to the other monthly security patches. Read more »
October 4, 2007
Get Fred Langa's wallpaper for your desktop
Our editor-at-large, Fred Langa, is back from a 5-month motorcycle tour of the U.S. and Canada. Through Oct. 24, all paid subscribers are eligible for a bonus download, Wallpaper of the Journey — 25 high-quality images Fred that you can use as desktop wallpaper. Read more »
Get free patching without Windows Update
My Sept. 20 and Sept. 27 articles about silent and flawed upgrades involving Windows Update have made many people wonder whether they should really trust Microsoft's installer. Fortunately, there are alternatives to Windows Update that will keep your system fully patched without costing you a dime. Read more »
A flustered Microsoft posts Windows Update trick
Our Sept. 27 story on problems caused Windows Update's stealth installs was widely circulated other news sites. In the wake of the media coverage and user complaints, Microsoft quickly cobbled together a response that confirms the problem and provides a manual fix. Read more »
How Halo 3 makes the world a better place
A video's catchy tune offers a humorously cynical — and not politically correct — summary of the world's ills that will be cured after the overhyped release of Halo 3. Read more »
Part two: finishing the first Housecall
In this second of eight installments about my travels, I finish helping a Windows Secrets reader decluttering his Startup folder, sorting out an IP address issue, and testing his laptop's firewall. In Part One last week, I described the beginning of my first Housecall (a free, day-long PC tune-up and tech session given to four contest winners). Read more »
Excel 2007 bug generates wrong numbers
Microsoft would have you believe that a recently discovered Excel 2007 bug amounts to little more than a display problem — a cosmetic glitch. You may be surprised to discover that the erroneous results can spread throughout your spreadsheets, because this bug is more than skin deep. Read more »
Three more rootkit scanners to consider
I'd like to introduce you today to three free rootkit scanning tools you can add to the ones I briefly reviewed on Sept. 20. Based on reader feedback, I'm covering this additional set of antirootkit tools and explaining some different schemes for rootkit detection. Read more »
