Date: May 7th, 2008

Author: Mark Kaelin

The venerable Web browser continues to evolve. No longer just an application for displaying HTML, the Web browser now has to handle JavaScript, PHP, Java, Active X controls, loosely coupled Web services, plug-ins, multimedia, XML, RSS feeds and more. The Web browser has become an integral part of the total computer experience. All of those expectations make choosing a preferred browser more important than many ever thought it would or should be.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Mozilla Firefox 2 are the latest Web browser contenders for your attention (apologies to fans of Opera and other Web browsers, but these are the two that garner the most attention). Many of us have tried both and made a decision about which is the browser of choice.

If you have chosen Firefox 2, then you may want to uninstall IE7. But this brings up two questions: Can you uninstall IE7 and if you can how do you do it? The answers are: Yes, you can and here’s how.

This blog post is also available in PDF format in a TechRepublic Download.

Uninstall IE7

If your installation of IE7 was successful and uneventful, then uninstalling it is relatively simple process. The following steps will uninstall IE7 and restore IE 6.

If where to buy viagra online for some reason Windows Internet Explorer 7 does not appear in the Add or Remove Programs, you should:

• Open Windows Explorer
• Click Tools | Folder Options
• Click the View tab
• Make sure the radio button next to Show hidden files and folders is on
• Click OK
• Click Start, and then click Run
• Type: %windir%\ie7\spuninst\spuninst.exe into the text box and click Enter

Specified user account

In some cases, you may get an error message when you try to uninstall IE7 that says you cannot uninstall from a specified user account. To get around this check you will have to edit the Windows Registry.

Warning: Editing the Windows Registry incorrectly can cause the Windows operating system to stop functioning completely. This is an advanced operation and you are encouraged to back up the Windows Registry before you attempt any editing of the file. You have been warned.

Bypass the user account check with this Windows Registry edit:

• Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.
• Right-click the Internet Explorer key, click New, and then click DWORD value.
• Type InstalledByUser as the name, and then press ENTER to finish creating the new registry value.
• Try to uninstall Internet Explorer 7 again.

More help

If you find yourself still needing help uninstalling Internet Explorer 7, check out the IE7 release notes found on the Microsoft MSDN Web site.

Date: June 18th, 2007

Author: Susan Harkins

This information is also available as a PDF download.

As I discussed in a previous entry, the My Places bar was introduced in Office 2000. It appears on the left side of the File Open and File Save As dialog box in all Office applications. My Places offers shortcuts to frequently used folders, but customizing it isn’t exactly an intuitive process.

Initially, the bar displays icons for the following Windows folders:

Most of us don’t use these default folders, or not all of them. Fortunately, you can add the folders you do use frequently. In the Open or Save As dialog box, select the folder you want to add from the Look In drop-down list. Then, choose Add To My Places from the Tools menu in the dialog box. To move or resize an icon in the bar, right-click on it and choose the appropriate command from the shortcut menu.

Office applications share one common My Places bar. Changes will show up in all the applications’ dialogs. Note that you can’t alter My Places in Office 2000, and Office XP’s user interface for updating My Places is more limited than 2003’s.

Removing the built-in icons

Removing custom icons from the My Places bar is simple. Right-click on the icon and choose Remove from the shortcut menu.

It isn’t as easy to remove the built-in icons, which is too bad: Deleting them would free up a lot of space for shortcuts you do use. To get rid of those icons, you have to edit the registry.

As always, before you begin editing the registry, be sure you back it up. where to buy viagra in uk Also, while you’re in the registry, don’t change anything unless instructed to in the following steps:

1. From the Windows Start menu, choose Run.

2. Enter regedit and click OK to launch the Registry Editor.

3. As shown in Figure A, expand the nodes to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Open Find\Places

Figure A

4. Update the version number 11.0 in the above key if appropriate. The StandardPlaces key contains the built-in icon values. UserDefinedPlaces contains custom icons. (Don’t worry if you don’t have a UserDefinedPlaces folder yet.)

5. Right-click on the Places key and choose Export. You’re creating a backup file of the current My Places bar. If anything goes wrong, you can simply double-click the file and the Registry will automatically restore the My Places keys, using the contents of the backup file. Give the file an appropriate name and save it where you can find it later. Click Save to create the backup file.

6. In the Places or the StandardPlaces key, double-click on the key you want to disable. Doing so updates the key values to the right. If the icon you double-clicked on has a Show value, double-click on it to display the Edit DWORD Value dialog box.

7. The Value Data value will probably be 2. Replace it with 0 (zero), as shown in Figure B, and click OK.

8. After disabling all the built-in icons that you don’t want to see, exit the Registry Editor.

Figure B

If the built-in icon values don’t include Show, add it as follows:

1. Click on the key that represents the built-in icon you want to disable.

2. Choose New from the Edit menu and select DWORD Value. The Registry will display a new value in the pane to the right. Name it Show and press Enter.

3. Repeat steps 6 and 7 above for each key, accordingly.

The results

When you display the Open or Save As dialog box, the built-in icons will be gone, as you can see in Figure C.

Figure C

Unstable My Places

The My Places user interface isn’t particularly stable, so you might experience problems after adding custom shortcuts or disabling the built-in icons. Usually, you can tell that things have gone awry when the Move Up and Move Down commands are grayed out. If this happens, reboot your system. Sometimes, this clears it up. If it doesn’t, and you want to shuffle your shortcuts, return to the registry and reset the Index values for each key, where 1 shifts an icon to the top, 2 positions an icon just below the first shortcut, and so on. Just remember that the custom shortcuts are in the UserDefinedPlaces key.

Date: May 14th, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

Date: April 23rd, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

If you’re using MSN Messenger as your chat and videoconferencing tool, you may never use Windows Messenger anymore and have removed it from the startup group to keep it out of your way. However, you may have seen it pop up on occasion and had to struggle with closing it down. The reason that Windows Messenger makes these impromptu appearances is that Outlook, Outlook Express and even some Microsoft Web pages can still make it load automatically. Fortunately, where can i buy viagra online you can banish Windows Messenger from your desktop by making an alteration to the local group policy with the Group Policy Editor. Here’s how:

Note: This tip applies only to Windows XP Professional.

Date: February 20th, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

If what is viagra you’ve ever wanted to create your own font or maybe just a special character — for example, a character showing your initials for when you wish to approve documents with your “signature” — you can easily create your own special characters using a hidden Windows XP tool called the Private Character Editor. Here’s how:

Once you save your new character, you can access it using the Character Map tool. Here’s how:

1. Press [Windows]R to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type charmap in the Open text box and click OK.
3. When the Character Map appears, select the Font drop-down list and select All Fonts (Private Characters).
4. Select your character, click the Select button, and then click the Copy button.

You can now paste your font character in any document that you want.