Tag Archive for 'Windows'

Ubuntu 8.04

Published
by
Cody
on April 16, 2008
in Personal and Technology
. 0 Comments

Following my computer problems of a few days ago, I decided to go ahead and make room to install a distro of Linux on my laptop alongside XP and Vista. I have to say, it was a lot easier than the last time I triple-booted. I installed XP first, then Vista, and finally Ubuntu. I installed Ubuntu’s bootloader to it’s own partition, which allowed me to use Vista’s bootloader to load up everything (configured with EasyBCD). It all works perfectly.

I took the chance to try out the latest beta version of Ubuntu, which is due to be released in about 8 days (as you can see by the nifty counter in the sidebar). Compared to past versions of Ubuntu I’ve used, 8.04 is amazing. Sure, the actual interface doesn’t look or act much different (it’s a little shinier, perhaps, and the new search function is pretty cool), but the main difference I noticed is that I didn’t get a debilitating error upon start up. See, with older versions of Ubuntu installed on my Dell laptop, the wireless and graphics cards would not work, and the alternate drivers Ubuntu tried to use would break the system, forcing me to drop into a command line interface to install a special script. But with 8.04, everything actually worked upon start up, displayed in my native resolution of 1280×800 (instead of a rather blurry 1024×768). I had to do some minor configuration to enable the non-free graphics and wireless drivers so I could use my graphics and wireless cards to their full extent, but it was much less work than before.

I’m definitely pleased with this version of Ubuntu. I still doubt that I’ll like it enough to abandon Windows, but at least I haven’t needed to wrestle with it just to make it work right. Hopefully it’ll just get better once it’s out of beta next week.

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B0rked

Published
by
Cody
on April 8, 2008
in Personal and Technology
. 1 Comment

This seems to be a theme with me. I get my computer to perfect working order, and then I decide to mess with it. Why? I don’t know. Some kind of weird compulsion, I guess. Whatever the case, I broke my computer. Again. Well, that’s not completely true. It was only partly broken. For a while, I’d been dual-booting Windows Vista and Windows XP. In case you think that’s odd, I’ll explain why: I use XP for games and Vista for everything else. Games played in Vista tend to have a lower framerate than when they’re played in XP, so I’m sticking with XP for my gaming needs. However, I prefer the Vista interface, which is why it’s my primary operating system.

I recently bought a 320 GB hard drive for my laptop and completely reinstalled everything from scratch. Everything was going great. Then I tried to install Linux. Again. Honestly, I can’t tell you why I have to try this time after time. Maybe I figure that I’ll like it this time, even though I haven’t the past 17 million times. At any rate, it shouldn’t have been a problem to resize one of my Windows partitions and try out a new distro of Linux I downloaded (the beta release of Kubuntu with KDE 4, ’cause the screenshots looked pretty). Turns out, it was a problem. Vista didn’t want to play nice, so I turned to GParted. That stalled out, so I booted up XP and tried out Partition Magic. That completely corrupted my Vista partition, making it impossible to boot into it. Luckily, XP still worked fine, so I was able to go into damage control. Damage control failed horribly (even when I turned to the Vista install disk’s repair function).

Luckily, I had, in my infinite wisdom, completely backed up Vista the night before. Since the only important information on XP was saved games and a few documents, I backed up a couple of folders on XP and wiped the hard drive clean. This time, I was going to reinstall everything and include Linux with it. But I abandoned Kubuntu and went with plain ol’ Ubuntu 7.10, which has worked for me in the past. In a couple of weeks, Ubuntu 8.04 will be out, so I’ll be able to easily upgrade.

The problem now is that I still need to copy over all my documents to the reinstalled Vista. And then I need to reinstall all my programs. And fix all my settings. And update everything…

I just did all of this a couple of weeks ago. It’s killing me.

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Missing recent documents in Vista

Published
by
Cody
on January 15, 2008
in Guides
. 6 Comments

This may be an unusual problem, but I figured I’d post a how-to just in case. Anyways, ever since I installed Microsoft Office 2007 on my copy of Windows Vista Home Premium I have been unable to view recent documents. Normally, there’s a list of documents you’ve opened that shows up in a few places in Windows, including all the Office programs. For me, it has always been grayed out. Why? Apparently, my administrator (a.k.a. me) disallowed recent document history using group policy. Now, since I had done no such thing, it must have been something Windows did on its own. Or something. My copy of Windows is really screwed up.

Anyways, I know all about group policy. On any other version of Windows, you could simply go to your Start men, and type “gpedit.msc” (no quotes) in the Run box. Here’s a short tutorial for this on Windows XP and earlier. It should also work on Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. Unfortunately, you can’t use gpedit.msc to edit group policy on Vista Home Basic or Home Premium. Instead, you have to directly edit the registry. Don’t panic! I’ll guide you through. But always be sure to make a backup before editing the registry. This is easily done by clicking File>Export… in the Registry Editor and selecting “All” at the bottom of the screen that comes up. Do it now. Do it.

Go ahead and open up the Registry Editor by typing “regedit” (no quotes) in your Start menu search box and pressing enter. Find the following registry key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. (HKCU stands for HKEY_CURRENT_USER.) Double-click on the value inside the key labeled “NoRecentDocsHistory”. Change the 1 to 0. If it’s already 0, you don’t even need this tutorial and have wasted five minutes of your life. Way to go.

Anyways, now that you’ve edited this value, you should be able to view recent documents in Office programs and Windows itself. At the very least, you can actually edit the recent documents options in Windows and Office. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone. Maybe I just have strange computer problems that never show up for anyone else… And if I was too technical or confusing in this guide, feel free to leave me a comment.

Finally, if you’re interested in editing more group policy stuff in Vista Home Basic or Home Premium, I suggest downloading this Excel spreadsheet from Microsoft, which lists all the group policy settings and their corresponding registry keys. Very useful, especially without gpedit.msc (which is basically an easier to use interface for these particular registry keys). Or you could spring for Vista Ultimate.

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Mac vs. PC

Published
by
Cody
on November 27, 2007
in Rant
. 3 Comments

The more I use Macs, the more I wonder why they’ve got such a reputation for being stable. It’s getting to the point where I hear people espouse the wonders of Mac OS and wonder if they’ve ever actually used one. Same goes for people who claim Windows crashes all the time.

I own and use a PC regularly. It’s a Dell laptop and it runs Windows Vista. What’s more, it runs Windows Vista without crashing. Amazing, isn’t it? Excuse the sarcasm, but I’ve been told a number of times that I’m a fool for using both a Dell and Windows, but I’ve never had any more problems than I had on any other brand of computer or version of Windows. Heh, I’ve actually had more problems using Macs. Anyone who says Macs don’t crash has never seen me use one. And no, it’s not because I’m an incompetent computer user who clearly doesn’t know how to use a Mac. Indeed, I get hung up on the command key (what, exactly, was wrong with the control key?) and I hate how closing a window doesn’t quit the program running it, but I know what I’m doing.

Continue reading ‘Mac vs. PC’

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Upgrade

Published
by
Cody
on October 24, 2007
in Asides
. 0 Comments

I upgraded my laptop memory from 1 GB to 2 GB, and I have to say I’ve noticed a huge increase in performance already. Word to the wise: if you get Vista, don’t stick with the bare minimum of RAM.

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Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States