After installing a fresh copy of Windows XP you might have similar issues. This is caused by Windows XPs’ inability to recognize the hardware in your computer, and so skipped installing it correctly. Unless the re-installation CD (or DVD) handles this for you, you’ll have to do this yourself. Not a problem. The drivers are most likely available for download from the website of the manufacturer. For the purpose of this article, we’ll use Dell as the manufacturer.

What’s a driver? It’s a bit of software written by the people who make the hardware. It gets installed in the operating system (OS) and tells it how to handle it. If it’s a video card, the drivers tell the OS what kind of card it is and what it can do. Abra-cadabra – it works.

If you think Windows skipped installing something, you need to check if any drivers need to be installed. Step one is to open Computer Management.

Step One: Computer Management

1. Click on the Start button (bottom left corner)
2. Right-click on My Computer, and choose Manage. This opens the Computer Management window.
3. In the list on the left, click on Device Manager
4. See any question marks with exclamation points? You need to install drivers for these devices.

Step Two: Go get the drivers!

First, let me mention that Dell ships more than one CD with a new computer. One of them in the Windows XP re-installation CD. Another is the Device Drivers CD. All the drivers for your computer’s hardware should be there. If you have this CD, you have a lot less work to do. This article assumes that, like most of my customers, this CD is long gone.

Second, this article assumes your trouble computer can’t connect to the web, or has other problems that make downloading drivers very difficult. So the instructions here ask you to use a second computer that is usable, download drivers to a CD or thumb drive, and move them over to the trouble computer. However, if you’re able to use your trouble computer – the video is working, you can connect to the internet – you can skip the parts about downloading drivers to a CD or memory stick. Just download and install them!

In the case of a Dell computer, go to Dell.com and click Support in the top right corner. Now choose the Drivers and Downloads link. You can identify your computer by finding your Dell Service Tag number, usually on the back of your tower or on the bottom of your laptop. It should be 7 digits, letters and numbers. Once you have it, click Enter A Tag, type the tag number and click Go.

The Dell site will give you a long list of hardware types: Audio, Video and so on. For the sake of this article, we’ll get drivers for our Wireless Network Adapter that connects the computer to the Wireless Network (and to the Internet). You can find this driver under the header Network.

But which one do we choose? If there is more than one option you’ll have to take your best guess. Most computers ship with the standard hardware and Dell mostly uses Intel hardware. So I would choose one that has Intel in the driver name. Click the Download link for that driver and save it to your computer. Then copy the driver to a CD or a thumb drive. Please remember that if your troubled computer doesn’t have USB drivers installed, it may not be able to read a thumb drive. You can use a CD instead to get around that.

Step Three: Install your new drivers

Okay. We’ve downloaded the drivers, and hopefully they’re the correct ones for our hardware (if not, no trouble – just go back to Dell.com and try another one). Put the CD or thumb drive in your trouble computer. Go back into Device Manager (see steps above), right click on the device you want to install the driver for, and choose Update Driver. This new window will walk you through the process of locating the driver on your CD or USB drive and installing it. You might need to reboot your computer afterward.

When your computer comes back up to the Windows desktop, see if you’ve solved the problem. If it’s working, you’re all set. You can also take a look in Device manager again to see if the device is still showing a question mark. If not, the problem might be solved. If you do see a question mark, you might have installed the wrong driver. Back to square one.

Step Four: It didn’t work and I hate my stupid computer’s face!

Admittedly, this process is not an easy one. Locating and installing the right drivers for a computer that has as much of an idea what hardware is inside it as you do, won’t go smoothly for everyone. If you find yourself in this frustrating situation, just call a computer service technician. They deal with this kind of thing all the time!

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A really common question I get is what to do with  a computer that’s slow and, sometimes, outdated. The answer depends on many factors, but I’ll give a few scenarios that might be close enough to home to help you make the right choice regarding your laptop or desktop computer.

Scenario 1:

The family computer is riddled with spyware and viruses

This is the computer I see most often. In some cases it’s just slow and unresponsive, but in other cases it won’t connect to the Internet at all. And most of the time the computer is not that old. I’ve received computers that won’t allow Windows updates due to spyware, and others that wouldn’t print until all traces of spyware were removed. Depending on the severity and number of problems the computer is having,  it can either be repaired or Windows can be reinstalled. But either way, this is a problem that can be fixed. So before throwing a perfectly good computer out the window, consider this:

1. Most slow computers can be cleaned of spyware. If what you need it to do is connect to the Internet and send a few emails, it is still very capable of doing so. A good computer service company should charge about $200 to clean the computer right and get it back to you, spyware free and somewhat more protected from further trouble.
2. Even if the computer has no hope of recovery from the Internet beating that kids put them through, Windows can always be reinstalled. If you can find those installation CD’s that came with your computer (though some computers don’t ship with installation CD’s, they’re installed on the hard drive) you can give them to your local computer guy and he can save your computer. This involves a backup, done by you or by the computer tech. Just make sure you’re not backing up a virus along with your mp3’s. If you have any questions about this process, please ask at the end of the article or give us a call.
3. If buying a new computer still looks attractive, remember that your new computer won’t have any of your saved documents, music, photos, Internet favorites, and other possibly needed email and financial data. These things can be transferred from your old computer to your new one for a fee. Keep reading for info about buying new.

This is coming across as a rough guide; there are so many factors unique to each scenario. But in general what I’m writing are my findings and what your options are, for better or worse.

Scenario 2:

The computer won’t start.

I don’t mean the computer is slow, or that once the computer starts you can’t see your Windows icons. I mean he computer gets no power, no lights come on, no whirring sounds, nothing. There may be hope…

In most cases this is caused by one of two things. Either the power supply has blown or the motherboard has gone bad. The good news is that a new power supply is cheap to buy and cheap to have put in. You might be back up and running for about $90 parts and labor. The bad news is that a new motherboard is a pain in the butt to get together. If you can’t find a duplicate board you’re going to be running into some problems (to put it really simply). In either case you should have the computer tested. If it’s the power supply, tell your computer guy to put it in. If it’s the motherboard you might be better off getting a new computer.

Scenario 3:

It’s just too slow.

Computers today are being used to surf the web, primarily, and the web is growing – new technologies are being added to web sites, slow connection speeds are becoming a memory – probably faster than your computer can handle. Should you junk it for a new one? How about an upgrade?

Upgrading a computer usually involves adding memory. A common misconception is that you need a bigger hard drive. I’m not sure how that got started, but here’s a way to think about it: A hard drive is like a closet. You put you stuff in it. If you run out of room in your closet, then you need a bigger closet (see the previous article about backing up and storage devices). This has little to do with speed on the Internet. Even if you had a walk-in closet with shoe racks you wouldn’t be able to get dressed and out the door any faster. Memory on the other hand is like the little, flat drawer of a desk. You put in that drawer the things you need to grab, fast and often. A computer uses memory in a similar way. It puts things there that it needs to use often and the more room it has to put things, the faster the computer can be. Adding memory to an old computer can increase speed pretty significantly. Here are a few tips about adding memory:

1. Call your computer manufacturer and find out how much memory your computer can take. Every computer has a limit.
2. Ask the manufacturer what type of memory your computer needs. Write down whatever they tell you.
3. Before buying memory directly from them, do a search on the Internet for your memory type. You’ll probably find it for a lot cheaper.

Scenario 4:

We really need a new computer!

Sometimes, no amount of care is going to help bring your computer back to life. At least back to the modern life it’s expected to live. The first place I tell my customers to look is www.Dell.com, and I’m not getting a cent for saying so. Their computers are cheap and they work as well as any other computer make that I come across. Check out their three tiers of computer prices and you should find a pretty good deal.

The ugly truth is PCs are not made to last. Every manufacturer is selling a computer made with hardware from different companies from all over the world, none of whom are trying to make a product that lasts forever, but want to keep their price down low enough to keep getting their business. Hard drives are particularly flimsy lately. But I’ve seen every part of a computer stop working, all by itself, for no good reason.

What I can tell you about buying a new computer is what to look for. If your computer will come with Windows Vista I suggest 2GB of memory, but you’ll be happier with 3 or 4GB. Your computer will run faster and will handle basic processes with ease. This, along with processor speed is what will increase both the speed and the cost of a new computer. The faster the processor the faster the computer is and the longer it will be able to keep up with the tasks to come. Don’t worry about hard drive size. Any 80 – 160GB hard drive is going to handle most music and photo needs for years. If you’re anticipating a lot of music, photos, and especially video, then consider adding extra storage. But an external hard drive can always be added later. A 500GB external drive will cost you about $100.

Then there’s mac. What can I say other than they’re the best computers made to date? Try this: “we have figured out the computer: it’s a mac.” If you don’t want to learn how to use one, stick with a PC, it’s what I use! If you’re still fresh at using the computer and are interested in a mac, head over to your local Apple store and try one out. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

One more thing…

A main concern for me is the environment. The U.S. throws away so much technology every year, it’s staggering. The idea of throwing a computer in a garbage truck, just because it’s got spyware is insane. See what the cost is for cleaning it up first, and ask if it can be upgraded while you’re at it. If your computer can’t be saved your local computer guy might want to take it off your hands. I’ve gotten plenty of computers from customers that didn’t want to pay for repair, so I turned them around (wiped clean of course) and gave them to the YMCA. If you can’t give it away, take it over to Staples. They’ll recycle it for you there.

I hope this article has helped give some good information about what to do with a slow computer. Thanks for reading!

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And looking around on the web, it’s going to depend on who you trust for advice. The problem lies in how and when the computer is writing to the drive. Obviously unplugging something when it’s in use is a bad idea. For USB hard drives (and flash/thumb drives) there is usually an indicator that the drive is in use. For my Toshiba drive there’s a little blue light that blinks when in use, and stays steady when it’s not in use, but plugged in.

I’ve been pulling out USB devices out of computers since USB was made available, knowing well there was a “safer” way to remove it – click once on the little green arrow icon, and click the option to remove the drive. I’ve never had trouble doing so with Windows XP and USB devices. In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone having trouble pulling out a device that was sitting idle. So why would stopping the device first be safer?

The Microsoft response to this was written when XP was still in BETA, and you can read it here. The article says that older operating systems – Windows 2000, 98, 95 – used to write to the drive at different times, called a “caching policy”. The idea was that it could give the computer user more control by writing to the drive when the computer was less busy. And with previous versions of Windows we would see a warning that we did not safely remove the device. Kind of scary! This has been removed in XP because they got rid of the caching policy that delays writing to the drive. This is getting more technical than I thought it would, so I apologize for the jargon.

So what did we learn?

1. If your device (hard drive, thumb drive, etc.) has an indicator that lets you know that it’s just sitting there, idle, feel free to pull that USB cable with confidence. There’s no harm.
2. If you need to unplug your device while it’s busy, use the safely remove hardware icon to help you. Otherwise you risk corrupting the data, possibly making the drive unreadable. Bad for backups!
3. Finally, it comes down to habit. If you’ve seen that warning about yanking out the USB cable (and once could be enough) you might be using the “safely remove hardware” icon to be safe and not sorry. And if you do, it won’t hurt your device one bit.

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For me, I purchased a Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from TidgerDirect.com. First, an external hard drive is just another name for a big closet to keep all your stuff. When you get one, you just plug it in and the computer sees another hard drive (or closet) and you can put your stuff in it. External hard drives can be used as extra storage, but I’m going to use it to make an extra copy of everything just in case the computer goes kaput one day. I bought it on line from Tiger Direct because they’re reliable, have quick delivery, and great prices. But you can pick up an external hard drive at Best Buy or Staples if that’s more convenient for you.

There are different types of External Hard Drives

Another word about External Hard Drives, there are 2 types that you might come across. One is a big, hefty looking thing. This type of drive will be available in large storage sizes, and needs to get power from the wall (in other words, it comes with a power adapter you need to plug in to the wall to turn it on). The second type of external drive is smaller and might say “portable storage”. These drives are indeed smaller and more portable. They also get their power from your computer, so you only need to plug the USB cable into your computer and you’re ready to go. The portable drive I got from Toshiba is 500GB which should be enough storage for the next 2-3 years.

Now to install the drive and get the computer talking to it, you just plug the USB cable (included) into your drive, the other end into your computer and you’ve just installed your hard drive. The next trick is to get the drive to backup your important things – music, photos, documents – and have it do so on a schedule. My Toshiba drive came with software installed on the drive already, so I’ll be using that. But if you’re looking for something that will do this job, there’s a free program called SyncBack I highly recommend, and you can download it here from Download.com.

So, let’s back it up

Because every backup software is different, and to explain how to set it all up is going beyond this article, you might check out the manual for the software (there should be a PDF somewhere) for a detailed explanation. The main idea is to tell the software what you want backed up and how often. An example might be to backup the entire My Documents folder, which includes your My Music and My Pictures folders. Then tell it to backup every Friday at 5pm. If a weekly backup isn’t frequent enough, tell it to back up every hour! The important thing is to make sure the drive is plugged into the computer when backup time comes. If the drive is not plugged in, it will probably just skip that backup session and wait until the next one comes around.

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To make things more complicated, he needed to collaborate in both Word and PowerPoint.  Could he do something like this?

Luckily there’s a cool feature in Microsoft Word 2002, 2003 and 2007 called  “Track Changes”. This feature lets you make changes to a document, and as you do so, it keeps track of everything you change on the side of the screen. PowerPoint is another issue…

To turn on Track Changes in MS Word, open any Word document and click the Insert tab in Word 2007 (in earlier versions you need to turn on the “Reviewing” toolbar – click View -> Toolbars and choose Reviewing).

The image above shows Word 2007 with the Review tab selected. There you’ll see a button called Track changes. Once you turn this on, Word will start tracking all changes you make on your document, allowing you to accept the changes made or reject them and undo the changes.

Microsoft has written a few tutorials that take you through the process step-by-step. Here are a few links I found that you might find helpful:

How to Track Changes in Word 2003 and Word 2003

Track Changes While You Edit in Word 2007

How About PowerPoint?

So here’s the next question: can this be done in PowerPoint as well? The short answer is no, since PowerPoint does not include this feature in any version. However there is a way to keep notes in PowerPoint 2007 that might be pretty useful when collaborating. Comments, which act almost like Post-It notes, can be added to any slide in your presentation and can be saved, edited or deleted. So when collaborating on a presentation, you and your partner can make a change to a slide and leave a comment explaining what was done. The comment could be updated, deleted, or else a new comment could be added.

To add a Comment to a slide in PowerPoint 2007, click the Review tab (the same way it’s done in Word 2007) and click the New Comment button, then add your text to the box that appears. You can then edit or delete any comments on the slide.

Here’s a good tutorial on adding Comments in PowerPoint 2007 from the Microsoft website: Add, change, or delete a Comment in a Presentation

Unfortunately this feature is not the same in PP 2002, and 2003, but you are able to makes notes on slides. Though these are mostly for the speaker and can only be seen when using the print view that includes speaker notes, it is possible to make notes on slides without them appearing in your presentation.

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