The Windows taskbar is not only useful for showing which programs and folders are currently active on your system but can also he customized to store permanent shortcuts to applications and folders as well as links to Internet websites. I would like to show you how to configure your taskbar to add your favorite websites as well as links to your most commonly used applications and folders to it.

Some users might already be using the so called Quick Launch toolbar in their taskbar. This is for example the case when you see some icons in your taskbar that open programs like the Internet Explorer or the Windows Media Player. If you do not see the Quick Launch toolbar you can enable it by right-clicking your taskbar and choosing Quick Launch from the Toolbars menu.

continue reading "Some Windows Taskbar Tweaks"

A colleague was asking me if I knew of a problem that he experienced after he setup his new computer. He was using the Internet Explorer 7 and witnessed that some of his favorites would apparently lose the url field after a while. The favorites were still there, the description was there but the url was gone and just a blank field remained.

I was a bit puzzled because I never heard about something like that before. After searching for several minutes I found a solution. The antivirus application Antivir is apparently causing the problem and there are several fixes for this issue. The first fix is to download a patch from Microsoft
which apparently fixes the issue.

A second solution would be to download a fix provided by the developers of Antivir which switches the filters in Antivir to avoid the problem that urls are removed in Internet Explorer in the future. I hope I was able to help other users who have the same problems and don’t know what is causing it.

continue reading "Blank Urls in Internet Explorer 7 Favorites"

Microsoft was never good at keeping files and releases for themselves. It is normally only a matter of hours until the first scene release of a popular Microsoft alpha, beta or final version hits the net and gets spread around like crazy on p2p networks, the Usenet and ftp.

Several rumors concerning the service pack 3 for Windows XP made their round on the Internet as well with Microsoft being as secretive as possible about a release data and contents of the service pack. A pre beta version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 was released two days ago by the group Win Beta, in their nfo they state:

This is the Windows XP Service Pack 3 Build 3180. Think of it more as a pre-beta build of SP3 than an actuall beta build.
Full Build tag is: 5.1.2600.3180 (xpsp.070718-2058)

continue reading "Pre Beta of Windows XP Service Pack 3 leaked"

The leaked patches for Microsoft’s new operating system Windows Vista made their round on many Internet sites and blogs last week and caused some heated discussions whether one should install them right away or wait for the official announcement on the Microsoft website.

The discussion should end with the release of both patches on the official Microsoft website. The compatibility and reliability patch has a file size of about two megabytes while the performance and reliability one of about 10 megabytes. Both patches are available for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and can only be downloaded from the Microsoft website if your system is genuine.

I suggest you head out immediately and install both patches if you run Windows Vista. Those who have already installed the leaked patches should probably uninstall them and install the correct versions to be on the safe side.

continue reading "Leaked Vista Patches now officially available"

Toolbars are a plague; Every other software, especially free software asks the user if he wants to install a toolbar on his system. This is most of the time not that useful and clutters only the browser window. Some toolbars do not offer an uninstallation routine at all which means that it is problematic to remove them completely from your system.

The free software Toolbar Uninstaller scans your system and displays the installed toolbars if they are known by the software. It currently detects 53 Firefox toolbars and 3 Internet Explorer ones. This does not seem that much but the author is explicitly asking for help to be able to add more toolbars to the application.

This is done by submitting information about a new toolbar on the developers homepage. It will then be tested and included once a removal routine has been found. The software is currently available as a beta version and definitely something to look after in the future.

continue reading "How to remove browser toolbars"