Archive for March 2010
Office 2010 Beta
Microsoft’s new version of Office is now availbel to beta testers. The Beta edition is one that is free to download and install, usually has a limited period before it will stop working and is usually full of bugs. This gives Microsoft a chance to get lots of testing done for free and lots of feedback. It gives everyone else a chance to play with the new Office before it comes out and make up their minds on it.
I liked it. I think it’s going to be pretty nice. It is again a new menu layout, but it is a mix of Office 2007 and older offices. With the older offices you had your nice menu bar – File, Edit etc, across the top and some shortcut toolbars underneath. Then came Office 2007 which had tabs which were meant to make things easier but really meant you had to search for the print button.
Now it is tabs again but more laid out in the File, Edit etc. It’s quite nice and easy to use.
I am back to Office 2007 though. Outlook, which I rely on heavily has a few too many bugs. Neither of my main syncing applications like it. Google Calendar just refuses to work with it while Mobile Me keeps throwing up errors and warnings. So I uninstalled it and will put it on a test machine again later.
For now? Office 2010, I like it and I think it will be good if all these bugs get sorted before the RC edition. If you’re interested in testing it out, you can download it here : Office 2010 Beta.
Outlook 2010
Cleaning your computer
At TekBusters we clean a lot of computers. Ones that started off nice and shiny and fast and are now going slower and slower. As well as removing malware and blowing out the case we also delete old files and run a disk defragment (see here for how to defragment a hard drive).
Sometimes though even after we delete temporary files the disk defragment wont run as there is not enough free disk space, well it will run but miss a lot of files. Disk defragmenter needs at least 15% free space to run properly. To free up space on XP you might consider disabling System Restore.
System Restore remembers changes you made to your computer so you can restore it to an earlier known good point. This is useful if you install some software that crashes your system. You can then restore your computer to how it was before you installed the dodgy software.
So is this safe? Yes, if your PC is running well. Once you have your updates installed and cleaned out temporary files, ran virus scans etc then reboot. Make sure your PC is running well. Now you can disable System Restore and run defragment. After the defragment you can enable system restore again (though you could use the option to use less space). Since you have checked that your PC is good up to this point, now when you restore it will go back to how it is now.
To access System Restore in XP click on Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore
Posted in Computer Support | 
Tags: defragment, not enough space to run a defrag, system restore | 
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