Ask PC Pro: your questions answered

times passim

Is there a fix to restore .pcx graphics format at system level to Windows Explorer ( i.e. including showing thumbnails ) and also as importable graphics to MS Office ?

By specious on 7 Sep 2010

Broadband Havoc

Does anyone know how to fix the problem of my broadband connection decides to not display pages. I get the problem on my PC running IE 6 and my laptop running Google Chrome 7.

By ITADVISOR on 7 Sep 2010

Vista installation hangs at the "completing installation" stage

I have tried to reinstall Vista and every time the installation hangs every time at the last stage "completing installation". I have searched the internet for solutions and it seems this is a very common problem that no-one seems able to solve.
My system is ASUS pn5e mobo with E6850 processor at 3 Ghz and 8GB RAM with Radeon HD5450 display card and 250GB SATA disk.
I would dearly love to find a solution which would help many others, judging by the number of posts on the subject.
Dave, Slough.

By davesutt2000 on 8 Sep 2010

@davesutt2000

Your 8GB RAM may be the problem. Take it down to 2GB and see what happens.

By Stiggy on 8 Sep 2010

Backing up files with long path/file names

I have a few gigabytes of "stuff" to back up. Many of the files have long concatenated path/filenames (over 200 characters perhaps), exceeding Windows' normal maximum number of characters. As a result, Copy operations fail, and the (few) backup programs I have tried either crash or just fail to deal with the affected files.

Can you please recommend any backup packages and/or online backup services that you know will work with all the files in this environment?

Many thanks

By Zeroes on 8 Sep 2010

Getting rid of the Qword trojan

My wife uses IE8 for some of her surfing, and some pages get hijacked by the Qword search engine. I've tried blocking qword.com, deleting registry references and other tips recommended on the web, but it always returns. A full Kaspersky scan doesn't pick up any problems, and StopZilla and Spyware Terminator don't seem to discover it. While I've told my wife to use Firefox instead, that's only a kludge because it doesn't solve the basic problem. Any thought? Thanks.

By davefaulkner on 8 Sep 2010

Imran

@davefaulkner

Try using SPYBOT S&D, its free and very effective.

By imrankhan1984 on 9 Sep 2010

Contacts Folder as an Email Adress Book

I have installed Office 2010 (Home & Business) on a new W7 VAIO and all the options to make my Contacts Folders used by the Address Book in Outlook are greyed out! I'm foiled at every turn. I can't remove the address book and reinstate it, nor change the Contact Folder properties. I'm reluctant to destroy my email profiles/accounts as they are actually working. I've also used Windows "Easy Transfer" to load up my new laptop - and noticed that some of my Contacts have been disappeared, only to return after a search and perhaps some minor mods! All help gratefully received!! Thanks

By AMurtagh2 on 9 Sep 2010

Future of Software Development in UK

As a software engineer of a certain vintage (it was a good year!) I'm concerned that the UK isn't a software powerhouse any more. Our universities produce Java programmers who know Office but don't know how to build big software systems (how could they? their lecturers can't). Do you think the UK has a future in developing world-class software or should I look to the PhDs coming out of Delhi or Kampala, etc?

By RosslynDad on 9 Sep 2010

HHmmm

I have 2x 2 terabite drives in my pc one runs Windows XP Pro drive1 the other has Windows 7,drive2, i installed Windows 7 on the second drive and created a duel boot system and the boot menu comes up as the computer boots and gives me the option which one i want to boot into.
My question is..
If i wanted to seperate the drives ie, booting from on or the other drives Using the F8 key instead for choosing the boot drive from the Bios would i lose the ability to boot from one or even both drives because of the boot menu created when i installed Windows 7
Kind Regards
Hanstrans 3

By hanstrans3 on 9 Sep 2010

Debugging hardware/driver problems

I have had a long running problem with my ATI video card which manifests iself as intermittent video driver crashes.
I know the problem could down to a number of things including the component itself, MB/PSU/RAM, faulty drivers etc.
Question is, is there a tool which can help debug this problem for you without having to tear your PC apart?

By nabster on 10 Sep 2010

Alternative Windows Blu-ray player

Another question..
Cyberlink's PowerDVD seems to have the monopoly on the Blu-ray player market on Windows - is there any cheaper alternative?

By nabster on 10 Sep 2010

Upgrading the old workhorse.

A long time ago I put together a pc based on a spec from PCPRO which you said would be reasonably upgradeable for some years to come.

It's given me good service but now I want to know if there's anything worthwhile that I can do to it based on my one simple rule?

The rule is that I won't spend more than £50-£55 on any one component.

The current spec is:
MB = Asrock ALiveNF7G-HD720p R5.0
CPU = AMD X2 4800
RAM = 2GB
GPU = 8600GT
HD = 500Gb Samsung
KBD + mouse = MS Wireless laser 6000 v2
DVD writer = LG oem model
Chassis = Asus Vento A2

By Tomble2 on 10 Sep 2010

Dennis Forums Strategy

What are Dennis's Plans for maintaining and developing Forums?

The recent renewed participation of the online team in the PCPro Forum is encouraging, but other disasters such as site revamp, and the shambles that is the CShopper/Expert Reviews forum, and lack of site maintenance/development is worrying.
How committed are you to capitalising on Forum interaction, and developing this aspect?

By incognitii on 10 Sep 2010

VOIP - router config

You want say 10 ip telephones on your voice only LAN using a virtual pbx hosted by your sip gateway provider. You have 2 adsl lines into the office providing load balancing and fail over. how would you setup your multi WAN router to best serve the requirements of VOIP? For instance: set up the router as DHCP server? Have the telephones on public ip addresses or use NAT? Enable or disable the router firewall? Use QOS? etc.

By DavySmith on 10 Sep 2010

Ed Case

Please could you tell me what would be the minimum spec needed to run the i player hd on a computer. I have a good broadband speed available
Thanks

By i8mondays on 10 Sep 2010

How fast are the new iMacs in absolute terms?

You guys seem to have been pretty keen on the new line of Apple iMacs, praising among other things, their performance.

How quick are they in absolute terms when compared to a full blown desktop tower, such as that Palicomp you reviewed recently? Are they merely fast "for an all in one" or are they fast by any standards?

By SirRoderickSpode on 10 Sep 2010

How fast are the new iMacs in absolute terms?

You guys seem to have been pretty keen on the new line of Apple iMacs, praising among other things, their performance.

How quick are they in absolute terms when compared to a full blown desktop tower, such as that Palicomp you reviewed recently? Are they merely fast "for an all in one" or are they fast by any standards?

By SirRoderickSpode on 10 Sep 2010

Core i7 mobile chips

Hi
I recently bought an Alienware M15X and plumped for the Core i7 740QM, I didn't bother refreshing my knowledge of Intel CPUs at the time I bought it, just opting for an affordable quad core model. I have since done so.
The Clarksfield set appear to be older than the new Arrandale set, seeing as they're at 32nm but dual core only. I think I may have bought an old turkey going for the 45nm 740QM!
Heres the question - £ for £, are the new Arrandale processors more capable, despite only being dual core? Should I have opted for an Arrandale chip like the 620M?
Of course, the machine was bought for gaming performance, and I realise there probably wont be much difference, but could I have gotten more bang for my buck?
.
One last thing - a while back you did a CPU megatest or something and produced a graph where different Intel/AMD CPUs were graphed by price (X) and performance (Y or vice versa). It was a fantastic idea, very enlightening, and I'd love to see something like that again.

By Heliosphan on 10 Sep 2010

How do you choose which laptops to review?

Obviously you only have so much capacity (and a lot of this is sod's law) but ineviatbly the laptops I'm interested in don't get reviewed (examples are HP TM2 12" tablet and Toshiba R630 ultraportable).

By Grunthos on 10 Sep 2010

Where are your past podcast links?

I sometimes take a while to catch up with your podcasts if I'm out of the country for a week. I recently listened to your coverage of the new Firefox beta - and incidentally disagreed violently with your conclusion that Xmarks has been blown out of the water by the new sync feature (it syncs across browsers as well as machines) - but couldn't find the podcast post to comment or link to the Firefox beta.

Love the magazine and podcast, by the way.

By rjrcooper1 on 10 Sep 2010

TushDesai

Hi

I'm an architect and use my laptop for a lot of CAD, photoshop, 3D rendering, etc. I'm finding my laptop of 4 years is really struggling with multi-tasks and want to buy a new laptop which can deal with these programmes. My budget is around £1500-£2000 and my knowledge of processors, RAMs, graphic cards is very limited. Can you please advise me on what is the minimum spec I need and if possible which are good laptops to buy for my tasks.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Tushar Desai

By TushDesai on 10 Sep 2010

Fast NAS

I have a DNS-323 NAS, but it is very slow. It claims to support gigabit, but gets only a fraction of that speed. It makes working with files held on it tricky.
Can you recommend a fast domestic NAS?

By roblightbody on 10 Sep 2010

Fast NAS

I have a DNS-323 NAS, but it is very slow. It claims to support gigabit, but gets only a fraction of that speed. It makes working with files held on it tricky.
Can you recommend a fast domestic NAS?

By roblightbody on 10 Sep 2010

Google Chrome Install

Please help me install Google Chrome on my Win 7 Ult 64bit PC!! I double click the installer and click on yes to allow the app to install and that's all I see. Gone! All the tasks have disappeared. Disable everything and still the same. I have 2 instances of Win 7 dual booted and the same result with the other more basic partition. Almost a clean install of the OS. Have checked on-line and have found a few people with the same problem but no solutions as of yet. TA.

By vikarmo on 10 Sep 2010

Digital Magazine

I've been reading PC Pro and Computer Shopper for many years. Do you have a digital archive of your publications, and when will they be available via iPhone etc apps?

By luke20 on 10 Sep 2010

Dell 1557 feeling sleepy

I bought a Dell 1557 based on your reviews last year and very nice it is. However since purchasing it I have lost the ability to put it into Hibernation or sleep. This was present when I bought it, but now if I try to use either of these modes the screen goes blank but nothing else happens. Any ideas?

By Sarcen on 10 Sep 2010

recycling

I have a 5 yr old MESH desktop system based on AMD x64 4800 with 4GB ram and a newish graphics card. This has been replaced for general use by a new laptop. So I would like to turn this into a file store to replace my near to bursting linkstation... How would you recommend I go abou this and what MB and CPU would you suggest. I would prefer something which would be efficient to run (& quiet). Additionally is there anyway to get it to boot up at certain times to allow it to run radiodownloader.

By Sarcen on 10 Sep 2010

Infrared cameras

I appreciate it is not a subject that PCPro would normally cover, but prices are considerably below the £40k that you quote. Basic cameras start at around £2000.

By tirons1 on 10 Sep 2010

damn

my question didnt get answered :(

By Deathtaker27 on 10 Sep 2010

@Zeroes - you should reduce the filenames if you can, or move them closer to the root if possible.

If you can't physically delete or access the files, try mapping a network drive as far down the tree as you can, so that "c:\documents and settings\user\documents\my music\1\2\3\4" becomes simply "z:" and you can carry on down the path from there.

"z:\5\6\7\8\9\10" is shorter than "c:\documents and settings\user\documents\my music\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\10)"

I'm looking for a decent (cheap) backup program myself!

By mulvaney on 12 Sep 2010

@davefaulkner

The free Virus Removal Tool from Kaspersky is very good, but you have to install/run it whenever you want to check (this free version doesn't sit quietly in the background trapping virii on the fly). It's good if you know you have a problem that you want to get rid of, that perhaps your currently installed antivirus solution isn't dealing with (you can run it without uninstalling your current antivirus).

http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/avptool2010?l
evel=2

By mulvaney on 12 Sep 2010

File backup

I'm looking for a simple method of backing up a complete file / folder structure of a non-system hard disk and thereafter only backup the changed files.

I don't want it to backup to a single file or to backup (.bkf etc) files.

I don't need a history of multiple backups, because I'm generally only adding files rather than changing them.

I'd like scheduling too.

I don't need to backup the o/s - just simple folders and files, so that I can whip the backup hd out, take it with me and access the files easily from another PC, without having to restore them first.

I gave good ol' XCopy a go, but I guess I haven't got the parameters right for only replacing files that are newer, so at the moment I'm quick formatting the backup and doing another XCopy or Explorer copy each time, which is a long process.

It would be nice to be able to backup the new data from all drives every night (a few GB) rather than one entire drive (1TB/1.5TB) per night.

Cheers

:o)

By mulvaney on 12 Sep 2010

Backup software

@mulvaney
I would recommend ViceVersa Pro as it can be set to backup to a folder a you type and will only update the changes to a file. can be got from here

http://www.cnet.co.uk/search/viceversa.htm

By curiousclive on 12 Sep 2010

Backup software

@mulvaney
I would recommend ViceVersa Pro as it can be set to backup to a folder a you type and will only update the changes to a file. can be got from here

http://www.cnet.co.uk/search/viceversa.htm

By curiousclive on 12 Sep 2010

Backup software

@mulvaney
I would recommend ViceVersa Pro as it can be set to backup to a folder a you type and will only update the changes to a file. can be got from here

http://www.cnet.co.uk/search/viceversa.htm

By curiousclive on 12 Sep 2010

@TushDesai

The advice in the article is useful, but, for CAD, I'd look at a laptop with ATi FireGL or nVidia Quadro graphics - their openGL performance is much better than the gaming chipsets, the drivers are certified and, generally, more stable and the chipsets themselves are certified to run with CAD software.

By big_D on 13 Sep 2010