Bryans Blog

Ever want to try a different OS, but not lose everything on your PC.  Although these "Live" CD’s have been out for quite some time, you may never of heard of them.  What A Live CD does is let you run a different OS, directly off of the CD.  Nothing gets installed, no files are lost, you have Internet access, network access just like it was your only OS installed.  The best part, when your done, you reboot your PC with the CD in and your original OS is back up and running.

This is probably the best way to test out a different operating system, on your hardware, other than Windows.  Most flavors of Linux have some type of "Live CD" offering.  If you decide you like it better than what you are currently using, you may be able to install right from the "Live CD" itself. 

By using a Live CD, you will find out if all your hardware is compatible BEFORE you actually install.  For the most part, the OS will find all of your devices built into your PC,  I find that wireless network cards can be a little tricky sometimes.  Each Live CD offering will usually have a hardware compatibility list to check before you try or install, so be sure to check it out.

Live CD’s can also be used for other things.  There are some that allow you to run scans to clean up viruses, others allow you to repartition or clone your hard drive no matter what OS is installed.  Lately I have seen many "Live CD’s", turn into "Live USB" meaning that if your PC is capable of booting from a USB device, you can run the "Live" OS from a USB stick.

There are other ways to test or run other OS’s.  Creating a virtual machine or environment will allow you to run 2 or more OS’s simultaneously.  That means you can have Windows XP AND Linux running at the same time.  This can be a way to run your legacy applications but move on in all the other ways you need to as well.  Pretty neat if you ask me.

If you have any system questions or concerns call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us.

-Bryan

There may be a time when you want to move the "My Documents" folder to a different location, say on another bigger hard rive in your PC.  In Windows 7, this is a very easy task. 

Once you navigate to the "My Documents" folder, and look at the properties, you will notice a "Location" tab.  Just change the path in the box to where you would like to move the folder, and click the "Move" button.  This will work with the "Downloads" folder. There are some folders that you cannot change, but most are changeable. This can help with your backups, by making the Windows 7 System Image smaller.

This is also possible in Windows XP and Vista, just as in Windows 7, but the wording is a little different.  Microsoft’s Knowledge Base shows exactly how to do this in XP and Vista.  In Vista the folder you can change is in your user folder as Documents.

There are a couple of alternative ways of relocating folders to facilitate separating operating system and content elements.  These can help when you have large files or a lot of similar files distributed throughout the drive.

• For Special Folders:  copy the folder to a remote location, then make a shortcut to the new location to put in the original folder.  You can then delete the original content from the original folder and copy the shortcut to it.  To access your files go to the original folder and click the shortcut.   Make sure to backup the original content to another device before deleting it.  To simplify this further you can add a shortcut to the Favorites Column in Windows explorer.
• For other folders you can do a similar thing but preserving the folder name is optional.
• This technique is also helpful in consolidating some of your highest value content in one directory on a remote for backups and using shortcuts in the locations the content is normally accessed.  For example, if you develop spreadsheets, you could have a remote drive G: with a Directory Excel and Folders Sales, Marketing, Shipping.  On your C:\My Documents you could create these same Folder names as shortcuts to the G:\Excel Folders.  You can then backup G:\Excel and get all the sheets.   If you backup C:\ you will get the operating system and not all the content. This may make the System backup and restore simpler and much shorter.  This can allow you to find a Sheet without using a lengthy search, as a side benefit.   

Of note, it is recommended you take caution when moving these "special" folders to an external drive. If you ever need to re-install Windows 7, it will re-create these folders in their original locations.  This may cause preemptive access problems.

For some more information check out this link here

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us.

-Bryan

 

Purchase a new PC or laptop lately for your business?  Here are a couple tips to help you get it up and running on your network.

Username/Password – When setting up your new PC, it usually will ask you for your name.  The name you enter becomes your new username.  If your username on the old PC was different, now when you try to access the network, you will be prompted for a username and password.  You could always add the new username and password to your Server, but that’s one more step that may not be needed.  If you make a new account on the new PC, it will create a new desktop that does not have any of the personalization’s the original account has.  Use the same name and password on the new PC as the old one, unless they are both to be on the network at the same time.

Firewalls – Most Pre-installed PC/Laptops come with some sort of trial anti-virus/Internet Security Suite.  Most Internet security suites have a built-in firewall, that if not properly setup, could keep you from accessing your Server resources and applications.  You may want to check each of these and tune the firewall for each if it complains. You can turn the firewall off until you tune it.  Make sure the rest of the system is working and come back to this step.

Consistency – This is probably the most important tip.  Be consistent on how your PC’s are setup.  A good example of how this can cause complications comes to mind.  A customer recently bought a new Pre-installed PC that came with Windows 7.  He ran through the start-up steps the PC guided him through.

This PC was replacing a current older PC, that shared a printer.  He attached the printer but had no luck printing from any other PC’s.  The main issue here was that most of the PC’s in the business were authenticating through a Domain Controller or Server.  The network was setup this way because most of the administrative tasks could be performed there instead of having to go to each PC administration.  With the mix of Domain and non-Domain PC’s, only some of the machines could access the new one.  To complicate things one of the more important PC’s could do what it needed over the network.

There are many other ways to help keep things running smoothly in a network.  I have listed the 3 that I find most people do not pay enough attention to on new installations.   They are some of the easiest to make things "just work".

If you need some network help, or some general advice on adding or replacing a PC on your network, please call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us

-Bryan
 

 

Do you have a Vista PC or Laptop that uses a wireless connection?  Have you experienced strange behavior of the router "cycling" the wireless connection on and off (Wired connections are unaffected).  Hope you did not buy a new router to fix the problem.

Although I have not been able to pin down the actual cause, the fix is free and available from the maker of your router – not Microsoft or a Vista hotfix or patch.  Depending on your wireless router, you may only need to update the firmware (embedded in the router that makes it do what it does), or the software .

If you did buy a new router and the problem got fixed, is most likely because your new router already had the firmware update installed.  So if the old router is still around, you may be able to use it else where.

There are several other causes for intermittent wireless router connection problems.  We have just highlighted one in this article.

If you need help updating the firmware of your router, or have general system questions.  Call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us.

-Bryan
 

I recently wrote an article about software and supported operating environments.  If you have not read it yet here is a link to it.  In it I try to explain and give some examples of why a software vendor may not "certify" a particular OS or combination of hardware and software.

In the article I also mention that even though something might not be certified, that it may still run and there is a reason that its not certified.  I also recently ran into a situation that may explain this a little more clearly.

I received a call from a customer that went against what CCS recommended and installed an unsupported OS with his new software.  All things seemed to be working OK, but there is a certain task that he was trying achieve that kept giving him an error message when working on the Server.  This task could be completed without error on other workstations (which do have a supported environment) but when tried on the Server, always error ed.

Luckily the error message was clear enough to see exactly what was happening, and after a little research, I was able to find a couple of resolutions.  Unfortunately, as soon as I tried the most logical resolution, I received another error message giving the real reason for the problem.  We have to remember that most software has more than 1 file that activates or runs a particular function, and all those files must work and run for the function to run.

 The cause of this problem was 1 file was not compatible with the underlying environment, hence the error message from the software, and the task failure. This business has other machine’s where this task could be accomplished. Being able to run it on the Server could have cut down on the time to find a PC that is not in use, or the need to work remotely from home or anywhere else for that matter. 

As explained in the previous article, the software may install and seem to run fine even though the underlying OS is not "certified", but there is a reason it is not certified and it can be anything.

If you have any question on supported hardware or software for your environment, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us.

-Bryan

 

Malware and viruses can be pretty tricky to remove from your PC.  Add in any mission-critical applications to the mix makes it that more difficult.  Although there are many computer repair services out there, many don’t have the knowledge of how important the data is.

A recent example of this comes to mind.  A customer of CCS recently infected their Windows Server with a virus.  They took their server to a local repair shop that is a little closer to them then CCS is.  There is usually not a problem with this but after getting their Server back and plugging everything back in, nothing worked as expected.

Once I was able to get everything working again, the anti-virus software was complaining the the system was still infected.  The owner took the server back to the repair shop, and later received a call that the system needed to be reinstalled.  As she should have done, she called CCS to ask what we thought.  I explained that in some cases its necessary but I did not feel it was in this case. I asked if she would bring the server to CCS which she agreed.

I got the system up on the bench and saw why the previous repair shop wanted to re-install the system.  Without knowing the consequences I could see why, but it was still unnecessary.  In a matter of a few minutes, I had the system back up, cleaned of all malware/viruses.  One important thing that I saw was that none of the Windows updates were installed since they started using the system.  This is usually your first line of defense against getting infected.  Your ant-virus/malware software and Windows Updates will usually protect you against infections.  Being aware of what your doing can also help against infection.

Although most of you know this information, did you know that CCS Retail Systems has close to 100 years of aggregate experience in computer systems. We can usually clean a machine of infection without any data loss in half the time that most computer repair shops.  We also have a comprehensive Malware blog (here) that will help you be proactive in keeping your systems clean of infection and down time.  Personally I have seen some of the most destructive infections,  and have been able to resurrect the system back to stability with no virus/malware infections.

If you need help cleaning a system, or have questions about what another shop might do, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us.  BEFORE giving another shop the go ahead to re-install anything on a mission-critical system. check with us

-Bryan

Many of you may have gotten a new PC or Laptop over the holiday season and more than likely it came with Window 7 installed.  With the many new features and improved performance that comes with Windows 7, you may have noticed that Outlook Express was not included. 

I have been asked many times about installing Outlook Express on Windows 7.  It is not being supported anymore by Microsoft, meaning there will not be any security fixes for it.  There may be a way to get it to run in Windows 7. 

Although there are many different email programs available, Microsoft "changed" Outlook Express and it is now called Windows Live Mail. It is available with Windows Live Essentials 2011 which can be downloaded through Windows Updates. 

Some other email programs that work well with Windows 7 are:

• Mozila’s Thunderbird (Made by the same company that makes the Firefox Browser), 
• online web mail sites like Gmail and Hotmail. 
• the business and pro version of Office include the full Outlook program

The only way I have been able to get Outlook Express back into Windows 7, is to install the XP Mode functionality.  Outlook Express was part of Internet Explorer.  It was dropped with Internet Explorer 7 (around the time Vista came out). 

Installing the XP Mode functionality, installs a version of Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6, which included Outlook Express.  If Outlook Express is the only reason to install XP Mode, I would recommend looking at the other email clients as an alternative.  As with most things new, there might be a little learning curve to a new program, but there will be more functionality and better security.  New software can usually import all of your old mail and contacts.

If you have any system questions or concerns, contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 425-672-4806 or email_us.

-Bryan

Source KOMO News

The FCC has approved new rules meant to prohibit broadband companies from interfering with Internet traffic flowing to their customers. Known as "net neutrality," the rules prohibit phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, such as those from rivals.

If you remember, not too long ago a large Internet ISP was blocking or slowing down the traffic to a popular file downloading protocol known as Bit Torrent, which makes large files faster to download by splitting it up into many smaller downloads which are then put back together into one big file, usually used for downloading movies.

The ISP was claiming it was "shaping" or limiting the bandwidth so that other users would not experience slowdowns. The new rules, although not in effect until congress reviews and passes them are designed to "preserve basic Internet values" according to the FCC.

There are many pros and cons to the new rules, and I'm sure they will be modified before they take effect, if they even take effect at all.  Some groups claim, the regulations are not enough, while others think the rules amount to unnecessary regulation.

We will see what happens when all is said and done.  Personally I don't think ISP's should be able to determine what gets "full speed" and what doesn't based upon content. This could possibly lead to what is being called a two tiered Internet, where a content provider pays more for getting the "full speed" service.

What are your thoughts?  Check out the CCS users forum (free registration required) to see what others have to say.

If you have any system concerns, call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 425-672-4806 or email_us.

Happy Holiday's
-Bryan

I recently replaced some equipment for a customer who has been using their system for quite some time.  After getting everything hooked up and transferred, as usual, I ask for them to test the system to make sure everything is working the way it is expected  They said everything looks OK.

I received a call the next day, and was told that they couldn't do a certain task.  I asked what they are trying to do and no one could explain exactly what that was.  All they could tell me is that before when they "clicked the button" it just worked. 

This makes it a little hard for me fix when they can't tell me what they are trying to do.  They got so used to just "clicking" buttons and not really understanding what they are actually doing.  I am not saying you need to know how all the "Under the hood" stuff works, but its helpful to know if you're trying to transfer a file over the network or from one place to another.

I went back on site for them to show me what they were trying to do.  It ended up being a critical part of their procedure that no one tested while I was on site the first time. 

It mostly had to do with what Windows calls a "MRU" or "Most Recently Used" list.  This is the list of files that shows up when you select a file that you have opened in the past.  Most of the time Windows remembers the folder and files that were last used. 

In this case, since the computer was replaced, Windows was using the default location of the "My Documents" folder.  I have become pretty good at transferring data from one PC to another. That includes all your mail, contacts, Internet favorites, and desktop icons, but I have not found a way to transfer the MRU list.  I know why I cant, but its not an easy thing to explain the registry entries involved. 

Although the fix was as simple as browsing to the folder where the files were kept once, it caused confusion, and frustration for everyone involved.  We all like to be on auto pilot and just click and go. We have to remember that, if something changes, we need to know how to get back to auto pilot mode That would include knowing what folder(s) your files are kept, knowing  if the files are local or on a local or remote PC, and how to explain your problem. 

You'd be surprised at how many different ways there is to explain something.  Much of the time your CCS techs can figure out what you're trying to say.  Documenting what you do and how you get there, can help save time money and frustration for the next person who may need to use or repair your computer.

If you have any system problems or concerns, give the CCS Retail Systems Support Department a call at 425-672-4806 or email_us.  We are always here to help.

-Bryan

This is a little off topic for my blog, but I think it is important to be aware of.

After reading a current news paper article, I found out how easy it was to inadvertently charge your credit card with "in-app" purchases.  A "in-app" purchase is when an application for your smart phone or tablet allows you to buy "tokens" from within the app to help you advance further or faster.

For example, in the new article, a smart phone users young child was able to charge over $60 playing a popular games geared towards young children.  The "tokens" that were purchased allowed the child to get to the next level of play without going through the whole "maze" to get there.  No passwords were needed, and as far as I can tell there were no warning messages that stated your card was going to be charged.

This is not limited to smart phones or tablets either, this can happen on your PC also.  Many of the social networking sites have games that can be played, with "tokens" that can be purchased to help you get further, faster.

With the Christmas holiday right around the corner, and with most people being on a budget, I thought this might be helpful to point out if you are not sure where that extra $$ may have gone if you recently bought some "smurf berries" while you or your children were playing "The Smurf Village" app on your smart phone.

Always read the description of the app, it should specify that purchasing in-app items will cost real money.  In the cases that were described in the news article, it seemed that most parents were able to get a refund, but that might not always be true.  The app stores and makers are trying to make this more clear before a user accidentally purchases a "wheel barrel full of smurf berries" for $100 in just 1 click!!!!!!

If you have any system concerns or questions, please contact the CCS Retail Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us

-Bryan

Source – Komo News