CompuClever Blog

Improve computer performance by tweaking printer settings

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Sometimes it’s the little things that optimize your PC and improve Windows performance. Ideally, using the computer should be a painless, fluid experience, but even with all of the advances of Windows 7, it can still take time to get things just right.

Take printing, for example. Often the printer default is set to “color”. This can be kind of expensive (and ultimately annoying), especially if you’re printing out something for your records, or as a first draft that you intend to correct and then revise once again on the computer. When the default printer setting is color, every time you print a document from Windows, you need to manually set the printing preferences to black and white, to avoid wasting expensive color ink. Before you know it, your color ink cartridge is empty, which often means you won’t even be able to use your printer at all!

improve computer performance

A good way to solve this problem is to have your printer default to black-and-white. That way, everything will print black and white unless you manually set it to color, which is much more convenient than the other way around.

How to set the printer default to black-and-white on Windows 7:

1. Click the “Start” menu button and double-click Control Panel.
2. Look for the icon that says Devices and Printers and double-click it.
3. You should now see a list of printers. Find your default printer (the one your computer uses when printing), right-click it, and select on Printer Properties.
4. When the multi-tabbed properties dialog box appears, click the “General” tab, then click the “Preferences” button. Look for a color setting and set your printer to default to Greyscale (or black-and-white) printing. When you are done press “OK”.

Now your printer will default to black and white instead of color, and that should save you time, ink and money!

– Nevin Thompson frequently blogs about how to improve computer performance

Improve PC Performance and Windows Explorer Speeds

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Windows Explorer is a file manager that has been  included with every release of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95. It provides an easy and relatively intuitive way for us regular humans to view the computer’s file systems.

However, over the years Windows Explorer has become supercharged, and has received so many upgrades and extra added features that it’s hard to keep track of them

Windows Explorer in Windows 7 and now features something called “Libraries”, folders that collect content from various locations, including shared folders on computers on the same network. Libraries are generally stored in the Libraries special folder, which allows them to be displayed on the navigation pane.

By default, a new user account in Windows 7 contains four libraries, for different file types: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. They are configured to include your user profile folders for these file types, as well as the computer’s corresponding Public folders.

In addition to collecting and presenting information about multiple storage locations, Libraries allows you to arrange and filter results (kind of like using Google or Bing search in a web browser) For example, selecting the “By Month” view in the Pictures library will display photos in stacks, where each stack represents a month of photos based on the date they were taken. In the Music library, the “By Artist” view will display stacks of albums from the artists in your collection, and browsing into an artist stack will then display the relevant albums.

Search Filter Suggestions are a new feature of the Windows 7. When the user clicks in the search box, a menu shows up below it showing recent searches as well as suggested filters that the user can type. When one is selected (or typed in manually), the menu will update to show the possible values to filter by for that property, and this list is based on the current location and other parts of the query already typed. For example, selecting the “tags” filter or typing “tags:” into the search box will display the list of possible tag values which will return search results.

You can speed up the display load time of Windows Explorer by disabling the option to search for network printers and folders.

By default, each time Windows Explorer is opened it will try to locate any printer or folder on your computer network. If your computer is not on a network and/or you have no network printers, folders being shared, disable this option by following these steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Click the Tools drop down menu and then Folder Options.
3. Within the Folder Options tab click the View tab.
4. Uncheck “Automatically search for network folders and printers.

– For more on how to improve PC performance, please give PC TuneUp Maestro a try.

Windows tips: What’s the difference between Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate?

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One Windows tip we’re often asked for (but are only just getting around to addressing) is what is the difference between the different versions of Windows 7? Currently, Windows 7

Windows 7, released now just over two years ago in late July, 2009 includes a number of new features, such as  improved performance on multi-core processors, a new version of Windows Media Center; the Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center, which includes security and maintenance of the computer.

The Windows 7  taskbar has also been improved; the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar. To the far right there is a small rectangular button that replaces XP’s “Show Desktop” icon. This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. Hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop.

Windows 7 has many more features and improvements on XP – too many to list here – but needless to say it’s a real improvement over Vista, and looks quite nice as well (perhaps even better than iOS).

What is the main difference between Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate?

Consumers are, however, presented with a dizzying assortment of choices when shopping for a new PC or laptop installed with Windows 7. There’s:

  • Starter
  • Home
  • Basic Home
  • Premium
  • Professional
  • Ultimate

Which one is best?

Windows Starter really is a basic version, and allows for little or no control over your machine. For example, there’s no way to change the desktop background or themes, and it’s generally impossible to set up a home network (or HomeGroup in Windows-speak). Windows Aero (which makes Windows 7 looks so pretty) is also disabled. It’s great for netbooks, but is not really suitable as an all-purpose computer for school or at home. On the other hand, Home Premium (which most consumers will choose), offers the ability to get the maximum power from the CPU, codec decoders for Media Player, the ability to create and join a HomeGroup, Backup and Restore, and support for multiple monitors. Professional offers the ability to backup your system to the network, as well as the ability to encrypt your data.

Windows Ultimate includes everything but the kitchen sink, and is best for hard-core developers.

 

 

 

 

Windows tips: how to adjust the Windows taskbar

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The Windows taskbar is a pretty important, and pretty basic tool that appears in every version of Windows.

windows tips

As in the image above, the taskbar that usually appears at the bottom of your screen, and it shows the programs you have loaded, and you can pin icons on any program you like for easy access. It’s possible to set the taskbar so that it automatically hides or disappears when not in use (this saves real estate on your Windows desktop), or you can also lock the taskbar in place. The thing is, it’s something we use all the time while working on our computers.

Then suddenly one day something happens: and the taskbar is now showing on the side of your screen and you can’t get it back to where it was. Or perhaps the taskbar is twice as thick as it normally should be. Or, on the other hand, maybe it’s more conventient to move the taskbar to the left-hand side of the screen (I do this for video editing).

How do you move the Windows taskbar?

1. Right-click on a blank area in the taskbar and deselect “Lock the Toolbar” by left-clicking on it. If there’s not a checkmark next to it, it’s already unlocked.
2. A divider line should now be showing next to the Start button. Left-click the area between the Start button and your divider (if you’re using Vista, you can left-click in any blank area of the taskbar).
3. While keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the taskbar to the new location (top, bottom, left or right). The taskbar will jump to the new position.
4. Release your mouse and right-click any blank area and Lock the Toolbar.

Resizing the Taskbar:

1. Move your cursor to the top edge of the taskbar and when you see it change to a double up/down arrow, left-click and then drag it up or down to make it bigger or smaller.
2. Release your mouse and right-click any blank area and Lock the Toolbar.

Watch out for new PC maintenance scam

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There’s a new PC scam popping up that we thought we should let our users know about.

You may get a call from someone claiming to be a computer repairman (and this person will most likely have a heavy accent). Once you pick up, there will be a slight pause as they connect you with a “technician”, who will then start asking you questions.

Many people will get fooled at this point because the technician will address them by first name and by their surname.

The first question they ask you is: Do you have a slow PC?

The technician will tell you the reason that your computer is slow is because your computer is full with “junk files” that are stored on your computer when browsing the internet. They will ask you to follow some steps that will show you the junk files:

  1. Turn on your PC
  2. Once Windows is running click on the windows key and R
  3. In the dialog box type eventvwr
  4. Now go to Windows Logs on the left panel and select Application

Eventvwr will show a large number of processes. What is eventvwr? It’s a legitimate Microsoft Windows XP program that displays event logs:

In Windows XP, an event is any significant occurrence in the system or in a program that requires users to be notified, or an entry added to a log. The Event Log Service records application, security, and system events in Event Viewer. With the event logs in Event Viewer, you can obtain information about your hardware, software, and system components, and monitor security events on a local or remote computer. Event logs can help you identify and diagnose the source of current system problems, or help you predict potential system problems.

Anyway, as mentioned, eventvwr will show a lot of processes that your friendly scammers will identify as “errors” that are slowing down your computer. After this the scammers will talk you into giving them control of your PC or laptop by remotely accessing it over the internet (something you should never do unless you absolutely trust the other person), and then, after that, your credit card information.

So be careful! And if you do have a slow computer, you can always speed it up by cleaning the registry. PC TuneUp Maestro does this quickly, easily, and, most of all safely.