How To Fix Windows XP Issues

It has been two months since Microsoft has ended the support for Windows XP operating system. However, the interesting fact is that many users are still unaware about this. Microsoft support executives still receive calls from Windows XP customers seeking support for their operating systems.

However, on realizing that Microsoft no longer provides support for this operating system, they look for other technical support companies in the market. Now, in this post, we will help you to find out how to fix various troubles with Windows XP operating system, as you will no longer receive support for this operating system from Microsoft.

Support forums

When you encounter an issue with your Windows XP operating system, you can always go through different support forums. These forums will provide you with solutions for various Windows XP issues. Microsoft help forum is another place where you will find solutions for various issues with the operating systems. There are also many technical blogs, which provide users with large number of solutions on different issues.

Technical support companies

Even though there is no support for Windows XP operating system from Microsoft, you can still resolve the issues associated with the operating system with the help of other technical support companies. Most of the major technical support companies still offer support for Windows XP operating system. They will help you to remove viruses from the operating system and tune up the computer.

All the technical support companies charge you for the services they offer. Most of them have different packages for the customers. If you wish to fix only a particular issue, you will be charged for a one-time support. However, if you encounter issues with the operating system often, then it is advisable that you go for the annual support packages. With this package, you can avail the support from the technicians throughout the year.

An attractive feature of availing support from these companies is that you can avail support at any time of the hour, as most of them work round the clock. In addition to the support for the operating system, you can use the support package to fix various software issues related to your peripheral devices like printers, scanners, input devices like mouse, keyboard etc.

Therefore, if you are a Windows XP user who still wishes to stick on to this old operating system, you can find solutions to your operating system issues from Microsoft help forum and other technical support firms.

Bookmarking A Windows Vista Help And Support Center Article

If you are using the Windows Vista operating system in your computer, there are chances that you will experience issues often. At times the best option is to call up Windows tech support. Some people use Vista help and Support Center instead, and this works just as well in many cases.

There’s a way to bookmark a specific Vista help and Support Center article, if you find that it might be of use in the future. This is advised because Vista’s Help and Support Center is usually directed to the Microsoft Windows Help Web site, where there’s probably a permanent fix for almost any problem. After opening the web page, go ahead and save the URL, unless you want to print the article instead.

If you do not know how to bookmark a Windows Vista Help and Support Center article, you can follow the instructions mentioned below:

• First, you need to locate the Help article you would like to refer to. Here, let us suppose you are searching for an article by the name Which CD or DVD Format Should I Use.
• After finding the article, you can right-click in the body of the article followed by the View Source option. You will see a notepad window pop up, which contains the actual HTML source code behind the help article.
• Here, you need to check for article’s 36-character ID number. You can find this number immediately after text, and it will look a lot like: mshelp://windows/?id=.
• Make sure you select that text and copy it to the Windows Clipboard. So, if you are looking for the article mentioned above, you need to select 2af64e60-60aa-4d79-ab6c-3a5db5806cbe1033, and copy it to the Clipboard.
• Now, you can open your web browser and go to the website: windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/, then the 36-digit ID number, followed by .mspx. For the CD format article, this would be windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/2af64e60-60aa-4d79-ab6c-3a5db5806cbe1033.mspx.
• You will be able to see the Help and Support Center article in your browser. Now, just like you’d bookmark any content on a normal website, you can do the same for this article as well. So, Bookmark the page if you want to.
• Now, according to the Windows tech support team, you need to open a new tab with the page/Help article. Here, you can copy the address and insert it in a new e-mail message. You can use this email to tell others how to get to a specific Help article.
• Now, simply drag a shortcut to the site/Help article onto your computer’s desktop.

These steps can help you in bookmarking a Windows Vista Help and Support Center article. To get more information on these, feel free to dial our 24/7 technical support number.

Sharing Apps In Windows 8: A Tutorial

With the dwindling number of Windows 8 Users, Microsoft is introducing a lot of changes to attract more users to install Windows 8. With stiff competition from Mac OS and Android platforms, these changes seem to be the need of the hour. The Charms bar, the latest addition in Windows 8, is one such design change.

Users are accustomed to sharing items on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. Most websites are built in with a Share button which immediately shares the data from your social networking profile. Almost every user knows how to share photos, videos and status update with their friends.

Before creating and designing Windows 8, Microsoft programmers realized that the share feature, which is popular among millions of users, can be improved. The share feature which was earlier limited to websites, calendars and e-mails is now incorporated into Windows 8.

Getting Familiar with the Share Feature

Before we start describing how to share content, we have to inform you that this feature is only available in the latest updated version, Windows 8.1. So update your Windows 8 device immediately! Apart from the share feature, Windows 8.1 has loads of interesting features that are not available in Windows 8. Use the Windows 8 store to update and the whole process will be completed in an hour.

Taking and sharing Screenshot

• To take a screenshot, place your mouse cursor on the top right-hand corner of your screen and open the Charms Bar. If you are a touch user, place your finger on the right side of the screen and swipe to the right to reveal the Charms Bar. 
• In the Charms bar, you will see the Share icon. Tap or click on this and a drop down Menu will appear, from which you can select Screenshot.
• Next you have to select the app through which you want to share the screenshot from a list of installed apps. Default apps include Mail.

Sharing Anything else

If you want so share pictures, links or web pages, the share feature works the same way as sharing Screenshots. Here’s how you share in Internet Explorer, the default browser in Windows 8.

• Once you get the page you want to share, bring the Charms Bar as shown before.
• The Share button will share the link using the app of your selection.

At the time, only People, Mail and Reading List are included. Most third party apps will have to bring updated version which supports this Share feature. Once these updates are released, you can share using the above mentioned feature. If you feel you are missing out on all these interesting features, install Windows 8 now!

Windows XP Type Start Menu For Windows 8

With the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft introduced many new features in the Windows operating system culture. People were so excited about the new operating system that they went haywire with the question how to upgrade to Windows 8. Nevertheless, the excitement subsided once they started using the new platform.

One of the major replacements that people noticed was the removal of Start menu from the operating system. Users did not feel great about this change and found it as a dumb idea to remove a feature that the user community appreciated a lot in the previous versions. Users even felt that the new platform is favorable to touch screen devices only.

With the release of Windows 8.1 update, Microsoft tried to patch up some of the damages in the platform. Though a Start button was added to Windows 8, it led them back to the tiled interface, and thus that was not sufficient to convince users.

The third party software manufacturer, however, grabbed this opportunity, and many apps like Classic Shell, Start8, and Start Menu Reviver were launched in the market soon. The best part is that these third party utilities offer a similar Start menu as that in Windows XP. Interestingly, along with the question how to upgrade to Windows 8, users now also ask how to get the legendary Start menu on Windows 8.

The Windows XP style Start menu for Windows 8

The app Spencer is free, portable, and is just the app that you need to get back Start button as that in Windows XP. However, users have to pin the button to the taskbar manually after installing the program. It makes sense only when it is pinned to the taskbar to make it available every time.

Download the application, and extract the compressed files to the computer. Right click on the icon, and then select the option pin to the taskbar from the context menu that opens up. It will display all the files and folders of the Start menu when you run the application, which includes the system folders such as the Run command, Shutdown button, Accessories, and Control Panel.

To organize the Start menu, open the folder in the File Explorer, go to the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs directory, and delete the unnecessary program links along with the folders that you do not need. You can also create a new folder and move desired program files into it.

OneNote Now Available For Mac Systems

Microsoft recently launched its OneNote programs for Apple iOS and PCs for free! This states that Microsoft has finally decided to step up its game and change its tactics to compete with its rivals. The features of OneNote have been much loved by note-takers, but it had limited functionality as they were only supported in Windows platform until now. But with the launch of OneNote for Mac, the tables have turned around now.

OneNote has been bundled with Microsoft Office suite since 2003, and is lauded to be a very useful application. It helps you to create notes from scratch and organize them into searchable, browsable notebooks, and synchronize them with multiple platforms like iPhones, Android, and Windows Phone. It allows users to draw, record audio and video, scan images, embed spreadsheets into the application, and organizes all the information you have added into a visually attractive form.

This venture into the world of Apple-powered PCs is clearly fueled to compete with EverNote, the prime rival of the note-taking software that was launched in 2008 and quickly grabbed a huge share of the market. The free version of OneNote is limited to just home and personal use and are not available for Business customers. Many users contacted our Microsoft chat services to confirm the news. However, business-grade Office 365 users can avail this feature. Another key feature of this application is the release of a browser toolbar to grab web content and place it in OneNote. All these strategies are placed with a clear intention of grabbing the note-taking market away from its rival, EverNote.

The most attractive feature of this software is that it is completely ad-free. Outlook integration, SharePoint support and history capabilities have only been added to the paid version though. Microsoft’s Office productivity suite contributes the highest chunk of revenue when compared to all other services. Microsoft Office alone contributes 40% of the revenue share! Keeping this in mind, Microsoft is compromising on releasing free software and foraging into new markets to expand and dominate in the arena for years to come.

Taking a leaf out of EverNote, OneNote has released the Clipper bookmark, which allows Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari users save snapshots of their web pages directly to their devices. You can even forward messages and web links through your phone though this feature.

What’s more, even though the OneNote application is very intuitive, users can always contact Microsoft chat center for assistance. The prospects look promising, but we will have to wait and see how the app works out for the tech giant.

Custom Email Domain Alternative For Outlook.com And Google Apps

Google and Microsoft are the most popular email service providers in the market now and both the companies allowed the integration of custom domain emails to be used with their email service. Google was the first company to offer the service through their Gmail service using Google apps. Microsoft followed the trend set by Google shortly by initially offering the service through their hotmail.com email service and then through the Outlook emails service. Even though the service was initially made available free for the customers by both the companies, they stopped the free service later.

Google has stopped providing free custom mail support through their Google Apps and Microsoft followed the trend and stopped providing free custom email support through their Outlook.com from last June. From now on, the users will have to pay for getting support from Google and Microsoft for operating their custom email through Google Apps or through Microsoft Outlook email setup. Google now charges the users about $5 a month for single users and the lowest tier plan from Microsoft for single users is $4 per user. Here we intend to describe an alternative email setup service that you can use as a substitute for Outlook email setup program or Google Apps.

If you run a small-scale business, the best option you have is the Zoho Mail service. The service is available free for up to five users in a single domain so it is best suited for small-scale businesses however, large businesses have to look for another option. Here we discuss how you can setup your custom email id with Zoho mail.

Instructions

• The first step you need to do is to enter the domain name of the email that you wish to configure and then enter the email address and password of the first email address in the page that appears on the screen. 
• Verify the email address and domain ownership. Domain verification can be done either by using DNS verification or by uploading a file to your server. 
• The next step is to make sure that you have changed the MX records of the domain. This can be done by opening the Control Panel of the domain from the hosting company’s website. 

If you follow the simple instructions given above, you will be able to setup your custom domain named email in the Zoho Mail application.

Fixing One Of The Blue Screen Errors In Windows OS

The Windows operating systems are notorious for their so-called Blue Screen of Death errors. This happens when the operating system faces some error that crashes the whole OS down. There is no way out of this mess and the system would restart automatically after displaying the Blue Screen error message for a few seconds.

How to fix Microsoft errors that cause Blue Screen of Death

In most cases, such errors occur only rarely when you are using the OS. However, if there were something wrong with the Windows OS you are using, the Blue Screen would occur regularly until you fix this problem. So, you need to figure out what is causing this problem and fix it at the earliest.

For this, you need to first note down the error code displayed in the Blue Screen error message. One of the common Blue Screen error codes is 0x00000077: KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR. This error happens when the XP OS fails to find some important kernel data needed for the functioning of the OS.

Failure to find this important data would result in the crashing of the XP OS and result in the Blue Screen of Death. There could be many reasons for this particular kernel data in Windows XP. It could be caused by a virus infection, corrupt data, hard disc failure, etc.

You need to identify and fix Microsoft errors responsible for this to avoid the OS crashing again. In fact, the details given in the Blue Screen would help you identify the problem. For example, if the error has something to do with the hardware, you would see any of the following error messages at the bottom of the Blue Screen – STATUS_DEVICE_NOT_CONNECTED, STATUS_IO_DEVICE_ERROR, STATUS_NO_SUCH_DEVICE, STATUS_DISK_OPERATION_FAILED, STATUS_DEVICE_DATA_ERROR, etc.

The first two error messages refer to a problem with the hardware used in your system. You need to know figure out if there is something wrong with the motherboard, connection cables, etc. The last three error messages refer to a problem with the hard disc in your system. They might improperly connected, and in need of a replacement.

So, you see any of these error messages, it might be a good idea to reconnect all the hardware components and check their cables. If the problem is caused by a virus infection, then you need to scan your system using updated antivirus application and get rid of the virus. This would fix the Windows problem.