12354584: IT Tutorials

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الثلاثاء، 21 يوليو 2015

How to Automatically Troubleshoot Computer Problems Part-2

In the previous post, I have described on methods to troubleshoot common computer problems automatically using windows troubleshooter. In this post also I am continuing about moreover methods of troubleshooting windows common problems like finding and fixing problems with connecting to the internet, sharing files and folders on other computers, resolving problems with updating windows, finding and cleaning up unused files and shortcuts and conserving power and extending battery life of your laptop.

How to Find and Fix Problems with Connecting to the Internet

If you have the problems to connect to the internet or websites, you can find an fix the problem using troubleshooting tool which is located in windows control panel. You can check the windows problems for connecting to the internet and check to see if the problem is fixed after suggestion given.

Following are the steps to find and fix the problems with connecting to the internet.

First of all go to control panel then click on "Troubleshooting" option.
On troubleshooting window, you can see the different options for fixing common computer problems.
Click on "Connect to the Internet" located under the Network and Internet category.
Go next on internet connections dialog box for starting to find and fix problems with connecting to the Internet or to websites.
You can troubleshoot for connecting to the default website or you can connect to the specific web page.
Click on troubleshoot my connection to the Internet, it will find the problems then provides suggestions for fixing problem.
After implementing the suggestions you can can check whether the problem is fixed or not.

How to Access Shared Files and Folders on Other Computers

You can find and fix problems with accessing files and folders on other computers using windows troubleshooter. It will check whether your computer connected to the computer you want to access files or not, have permission given or not to your computer and the others also.

You can access shared files and folders on other computer using the following steps.

From troubleshooting window go to "Access shared files and folders on other computer" located under the Network and Internet category.
Go next on shared folder dialog box for starting to find and fix problems with sharing files.
Type the network location you want to access i.e. \\networkname\folder then go to next.
It will show detected problems along with their suggestions for fixing the problems.
After implementing the suggestions you can can check whether the problem is fixed or not.

How to Resolve Problems that Prevent You from Updating Windows

You can resolve problems that prevent you from updating windows by fixing problems with windows update automatically.

Here are the steps to find and resolve the problems with updating windows.

From troubleshooting window go to "fix problems with Windows Update" located under System and Security.
Go next on windows update dialog box for starting to resolve problems that prevent you from updating windows.
If you need to troubleshoot with administrator permissions, click on try troubleshooting as an administrator.
Troubleshooter will search, detect and repair the problem.

How to Find and Clean up Unused Files and Shortcuts

You can run maintenance tasks as administrator to find and clean up unused files and shortcuts and perform maintenance tasks.

Following are the steps to find and clean up unused files and shortcuts.

From troubleshooting window go to "Run maintenance tasks" located under System and Security.
Go next on System Maintenance dialog box for starting to find and clean up unused files and shortcuts.
If you need to troubleshoot with administrator permissions, click on try troubleshooting as an administrator.
Troubleshooter will search, detect and repair the problem.

How to Conserve Power and Extend Battery Life of Your Laptop

You can conserve power and extend battery life of your laptop by finding and fixing problems with computer's power setting. It will automatically find and adjust the setting for display and sleep time of your computer improve the power uses.

You can conserve power and extend battery life of your laptop using the following steps.

From troubleshooting window go to "Improve power usage" located under System and Security.
Go next on System Maintenance dialog box for starting conserve power and extend battery life of your laptop.
Troubleshooter automatically find and adjust the setting for display and sleep time of your computer improve the power uses.

How to Automatically Troubleshoot and Fix Computer Problems

If you have problems on your computer and you don't know how to solve the problem, there is a feature on window which can automatically troubleshoot and fix computer problems, so why don't use it, that may solve your problem. Using this feature, you can click on a task to automatically troubleshoot and fix common computer problems.

Here I have listed some common computer problem and their troubleshooting ideas to fix the problem.

How to Run Programs Made for Previous Versions of Windows

If you have problems for running programs in your computer that are made for previous versions of windows, you can use program compatibility troubleshooter to apply recommended compatibility settings for that program to run the program smoothly.

Here are the steps to fix the problem for running programs made for previous versions of windows.

First of all go to control panel then click on "Troubleshooting" option.
On troubleshooting window, you can see the different options for fixing common computer problems.
Click on "Run programs made for previous versions of windows" located under the programs category.
Program compatibility troubleshooter dialog box will appear then click on next to search the list of programs.
After the programs listed, select the program name which have problems and go to next. If the program is not listed select the option "Not Listed" and go to next.
On next you have two options for troubleshooting, one of them is trying programs with recommended compatibility settings and another is troubleshooting program with choosing compatibility settings based on problems you notice.
At first select on option "Try recommended setting" which applies recommended settings for program and allows you to test the program. If the programs runs smoothly save these settings, otherwise choose the option "try for different settings".
Here you can choose the list of problems you have noticed go next and follow the recommended solutions.

How to Find and Fix Problems with Devices and Hardware

You can configure devices and hardware of computer to find and fix problems with them automatically using windows troubleshooting feature. This troubleshooter searches for any hardware changes and find out which have the problem then try to fix that. The troubleshooter will made some changes to your system to run it smoothly.

Following are the steps to find and fix the problems with devices and hardware.

At first click on "Configure a device" option located under hardware and sound category on troubleshooting window.
It will open hardware and devices dialog box, go next to scan the hardware changes and problems.
After troubleshooting has completed, you can find out list of problems. You can try attempting the task you were trying to do before to check the problem was fixed or not.

How to Find and Fix Problems with Printing

Using windows troubleshooter you can find and fix problems with printing or can solve the printer problems automatically.

Here are the steps to find and fix the problems with printing.

From troubleshooting window go to "Use a printer" option which is located under hardware and sound category.
Go next on printer dialog box for starting to find and fix problems with printing.
If there are any problems in printing, the troubleshooter shows the list of problems with printers.

How to Troubleshoot Audio Recording

If you have any problems with recording audio, you can find and fix them with recording audio troubleshooter. This troubleshooter checks audio service status for different recording devices and will try to identify the problem and fix them.

Following are the steps to find and fix the problems with audio recording.

From troubleshooting window go to "Troubleshoot audio recording" option which is located under hardware and sound category.
Go next on recording audio dialog box for starting to find and fix problems with audio recording.
If there is any problems in recording audio, the troubleshooter shows the list of problems with audio device also shows problems are solved or not.

How to Troubleshoot Audio Playback

Similar to troubleshooting audio recording, you can also troubleshoot audio playback using windows troubleshooting feature. If you have any problems with playing sound, can find and fix them using playing audio troubleshooter.

Following are the steps to find and fix the problems with audio playback.

From troubleshooting window go to "Troubleshoot audio playback" option which is located under hardware and sound category.
Go next on recording audio dialog box for starting to find and fix problems with audio playback.
If there are any problems in playing audio, the troubleshooter shows the list of problems with audio device also shows problems are solved or not.

How to Make Your Computer Easier to Use Part-2

In the previous post "How to Make Your Computer Easier to Use", I have described on windows features like Narrator, Audio Description, Magnifier and On-Screen Keyboard. In this post also I am writing about moreover features of window like changing the color and size of mouse pointers, controlling the mouser pointer with keyboard, making the keyboard easier to use, making easier for reading and typing and making touch and tablets easier to use.

How to Make the Mouse Easier to Use

If you are unable to see regular mouse pointer and the cursor, can change the color and size of mouse pointers which you can see easily. If there is no mouse in your computer, you can move mouse pointer even using keyboards numeric pad. You can make easier to manage windows by activating a window by hovering over it with the mouse, moreover you can prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of screen.

Here are the steps for changing the color and size of mouse pointers, controlling the mouser pointer with keyboard and making easier to manage windows.

From Ease of Access Center click on the option Make the mouse easier to use.
On the mouse pointers option choose the type of mouse pointer which you want to use.
To control the mouse with keyboard, give check mark on Turn on Mouse Keys then click on Apply button. Now you can turn on and off using keyboard shortcut keys "leftALT+leftSHIFT+NUM LOCK" and can move the mouse pointer using arrow keys on numeric pad. You can enable keyboard short cut keys from Set up Mouse Keys option.
Give check mark on the options "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse" and "Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge on the screen" to make easier to manage windows.

How to Make the Keyboard Easier to Use

You can make the keyboard easier to type by enabling Sticky keys, Toggle keys and Filter keys. If you are unable to press keyboard shortcut keys like CTRL+ALT+DEL at a time, sticky keys allows you to press one key at a time.

By turning on toggle keys, you can hear a tone when you press CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK, or SCROLL LOCK keys on keyboard. While typing, filter keys ignore or slow down brief or repeated keystrokes and adjust keyboard repeat rates.

Following are the steps for turning on and adjust settings for Sticky keys, Toggle keys and Filter keys.

After opening Ease of Access Center, Click on option "Make the keyboard easier to use".
Give tick mark on "Turn on Sticky Keys" to activate sticky keys, you can activate keyboard shortcut key from set up sticky keys option. Sticky Keys will turned on when SHIFT is pressed five times.
Give tick mark on "Turn on Toggle Keys" to activate toggle keys. After activating, you can turn on Toggle keys by holding down the NUM LOCK key for 5 seconds.
You can activate filter keys from "Turn on Filter Keys" option. To activate keyboard shortcut key for filter keys open the option "set up filter keys" and turn on keyboard shortcut key for filter keys. Filter keys will be turned on when right SHIFT is pressed for 8 seconds.

How to Make Easier for Reading and Typing

You can make easier for reading by turning on narrator, which reads aloud any text on the screen and remove background images where available.

To make easier to type you can turn on sticky keys, which allows you to press one key at a time while using keyboard shortcut keys, toggle keys to hear a tone when you press CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK or SCROLL LOCK keys and filter keys to ignore or slow down brief or repeated keystrokes and adjust keyboard repeat rates.

You can adjust time limits and flashing visuals by turning off all unnecessary animations and setting up time for notification dialog box.

How to Make Touch and Tablets Easier to Use

You can lunch common tools like Magnifier, Narrator and On-Screen Keyboard by pressing the windows button and volume up button together on your tablet can start an accessibility tool. You can set which accessibility tool would you like to be launched.

To set up this accessibility tool, choose the option "Make touch and tablets easier to use" from Ease of Access Center. Select the accessibility tool which you would like to be launched.

How to Get Quick Access to Common Accessibility Tools

You can get quick access to common accessibility tools like magnifier, Narrator, On-Screen Keyboard and High Contrast directly from Ease of Access Center window. When you click on them, they are automatically started.

How to Make Your Computer Easier to Use

There are so many features on windows that makes your computer easier to use. You can make the settings that visually impaired person or the person having low vision power also can operate computer easily. You can also adjust the setting to use the computer without mouse or keyboard. These features on windows allows you to hear any text on the screen, to contrast the screen and to zoom anywhere on the screen using magnifier. Using on screen keyboard you can type using pointing device like mouse.

How to Optimize Computer for Blindness

In windows, there is a special feature, using this feature you can use the computer without display. You can turn on Narrator, which reads aloud any text on the screen and turn on Audio Description feature to hear description of what's happening in videos when available. You can also turn off all unnecessary animations when possible and can also adjust time limits and flashing visuals, for example you can adjust how long should windows notification dialog boxes stay open. When you turn on all of these windows features, they are automatically started each time when you sign in which helps blind people to operate computer more easily.

You can turn on this feature using the steps given below.

At first go to control panel and click on the option "Ease of Access Center".
On the Ease of Access Center window, inter on the option "Use the computer without a display" located under Explore all setting.
Turn on all the features like Narrator, Audio Description and turn off unnecessary animations, also set time for windows notification dialog box.

How to Optimize Visual Display of Computer

This feature is mostly useful for people having low visual power. You can make your computer easier to see with turning on high contrast, hearing text and descriptions read aloud using narrator and audio description, making screen larger with turning on magnifier and making the focus rectangle thicker.

When you turned on these tools, they will automatically start each time you sign in. Following are the steps for turning on the features for making the computer easier to see.

Open Ease of Access Center from Control Panel as given above.
Click on the option "Make the computer easier to see".
Activate the feature for Turing on or Off high contrast using keyboard shortcut keys "leftALT+leftShift+PRINT SCREEN" is pressed. If you have difficulties on reading text on the screen, can turn on high contrast feature using this keyboard shortcut key.
You can hear text and descriptions read aloud by turning on narrator and audio description.
You can turn on Magnifier, if you have difficulties to view small text on screen. Magnifier zooms in anywhere on the screen, and makes everything in that area larger. You can move Magnifier around, lock it in one place or resize it.
You can view the focus more clearly on the screen, making the focus rectangle thicker by selecting the option.

How to Use the Computer Without Mouse or Keyboard

You can use the computer without mouse or keyboard by setting up alternative input devices. You can use on-screen keyboard to type using the mouse or another pointing device such as joystick by selecting keys from a picture of keyboard. You can also avoid using mouse and keyboard by the use of speech recognition feature. Which this you can speak into a microphone to control the computer, open programs, and dictate text.

Here are the steps for setting up using computer without a mouse or keyboard.

After opening Ease of Access Center from control panel, click on the option "Use the computer without a mouse or keyboard".
Give check mark on Use On-Screen Keyboard option then click on Apply button. Now, type using the mouse or another pointing device.
To enable speech recognition feature, click on "Use Speech Recognition" option.
Click on "Start Speech Recognition" option after appearing new window.
On a Set up Speech Recognition dialog box set up microphone for speech recognition and finish the steps. After that when you sign in, this feature will automatically started.

How to Use the Computer Without Mouse or Keyboard

How to Manage Taskbar Items in Windows

There are so many options for managing taskbar items, which may include customizing notification area icons, showing or hiding system icons on notification area of taskbar and locking and unlocking the taskbar. You can also add or remove different types of toolbars on taskbar and can hide automatically. Here I have described these different ideas for managing taskbar items along with their steps.

How to Customize Notification Area Icons

You can select which icons and notifications appear on notification area of the taskbar by customizing notification area icons setting. You can show icons and notifications, hide icons and notifications or only show notifications about the changes or notifications. If you choose to hide icons and notifications, you won't be notified about changes or updates. You can view the hidden icons at any time by clicking on the arrow next to the notification area on the taskbar. If you have selected the option only show notifications, you will only notified on changes but icons are not shown.

You can change all of these setting from Notification Area Icons option located on Control Panel. Following are the steps to customize notification area icons on taskbar.

At first go to control panel and click on Notification Area Icons option. OR you can directly click on customize option after clicking on arrow icon on notification area of taskbar.
On Notification Area Icons window, choose the behaviors of icons for specific icons based on whether you want to show or hide icons or notifications on the taskbar.

How to Turn System Icons On or Off on Notification Area

You can show or hide system icons on notification area by turning on or off system icons. Here are the steps for turning system icons on or off on notification area of taskbar.

After opening Notification Area Icons window as mentioned above, click on the option "Turn system icons on or off".
On system icons window, select the system icons behaviors on or off.

How to Lock/Unlock the Taskbar in Windows Desktop

If you unlock the taskbar, you can move it anywhere on left, right, top or bottom even can drag to increase its width.

To unlock the taskbar, go to taskbar, right click on it and unlock the taskbar option. You can also lock it by clicking on the same option again.

How to Add/Remove Toolbars from Taskbar

You can add or remove toolbars like Address, Links, Touch Keyboard, Desktop and others mannually from taskbar as you want. Here are the steps to Add or Remove toolbars from taskbar.

At first, Right click on taskbar and select on Toolbars option.
Select on the option which toolbar you want to display on taskbar.

How to Auto Hide the Taskbar in Windows

You can make the taskbar, which will hide automatically when not in use and appear again when you mouse over where the taskbar located. You can do the following steps to make auto the taskbar.

Right click on taskbar and select on properties option.
Go to Taskbar tab on Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog box.
Check the option "Auto-hide the taskbar" to hide taskbar automatically.

How to Show Computer Desktop Using Taskbar

If you are working on different multiple windows and you want to close all the windows to show desktop for opening items on desktop.

You can show computer desktop by simply right clicking on taskbar and clicking on "show the desktop" option. Which minimizes all the open windows and shows the desktop.

How to Manage Drives Using Drive Tools

In the previous post I have posted possible problems and their solutions while operating computer and its windows operating system. In this post I am going to write some ideas or tips to manage drives using drive tool in windows. Drive tools manages drives which helps to run them smoothly. You can optimize the drive to defrag them, run clean up to remove unnecessary files and format to remove all files from drives.

Here I have explained in detail with steps to manage drives using drive tools.

# How to Format Drives in Windows

You can format the computer drives along with removable drives like pen drive, if it contents lots of unnecessary files or disk contains viruses or have any problems on computer disks or removable disks.

Here are the steps to format your Drive

Go to "My computer" and select the drive which you want to format
Click on Format option located on manage tab
Under format option dialog box choose the type of format you want to do
Click on Start button to start formatting.

OR you can format the drive just by right clicking on the drive and selecting format option.

# How to Optimize Drives in Windows

You can optimize your drives to help your computer run more efficiently. At first you can analyze the drives to find out if they need to be optimized or not and then optimized them. In optimization process the fragmented files are compressed and make more space available on disk.

Following are the steps to optimize the disk.

Open My computer-select the drive and click on Optimize option located on Manage tab.
Then, drive optimization dialog box will appear.
Click on Analyze button to analyze the disk and click on Optimize button to optimize it.

# How to Optimize Drives Automatically

You can optimize the drives automatically by scheduling it. For this,

Open drive optimization dialog box as mentioned above and then click on "Change Setting" button.
After that, choose "Run on a schedule" option and also select its frequency then choose drives for optimization.

# How to Computer Clean Up

You can clean up your disks or drives to speed up your computer, here are the steps to clean up your disk.You can do it by selecting respective drives and doing clean up using drive tools.