Thanks H

Soluto might be able to help you sort out a few PC frustrations and at the same time, optimise your PC's performance.

Dive into Soluto Beta from Soluto on Vimeo.

The Other Kevin

Also in the file explorer, right click on a picture file and view properties. Then click the Summary tab and click Advanced. That will tell you the dimensions in pixels, the resolution in dpi and the colour depth in bits.

TOK

If you need to resize some of your pictures, say for sending out with an e-mail, then try

IrfanView

It's a Free Download and quite easy to use.

Tip: For downsizing a picture I prefer to use the % tool

My wife has a Acer laptop that uses Vista and has 1.5gig memory,but as Vista takes up so much of the rsources i am looking at changing it to WinXP pro as i have a spare new copy laying around but if i install Winxp,so will i loose all the progs and setting that had been set up using Vista i dont want to loose everything but i also dont want to carry on using Vista.

If i can find a cheap version of Win7 i could wel be intersted in that option as well as i understand it that does not hog resources either.

Anyone done this before ???

You will lose evrything. You cannot go back to previous Windows like that. Each major version of Windows, Win 3.1, Win 95, Win 98, win NT, Win Xp. Vista Windows 7 do thins in different ways. The big change was after Win 98 but all new version have big changes.

Windows usually has a feature built into the installer to 'upgrade' from a previous version, but NOT to downgrade.

1.5 Gig should be enough for Vista.

What model Acer do you have? You might be better just adding more memory.

@Haystack the wife has got me looking for a higher spec laptop for her so i guess the problem has been resolved.Thanks for your input

Pound notes is usually the solution.

Tell me about it,i almost fell of my seat when i found out the prices of high end laptops,i must have some scottish blood running in my veins as i hate spending money.

Mega: Top end lappies aren't cheap, particularly if you decide a Mac is for you. My current machine is a 2-year old Lenovo ThinkPad T500. By the time I'd finished, it was 1,200. But then, it's my most important business tool and the cost has to be seen in that context.

Mega
if you do decide to install new O.S. you can save a lot of your settings with "easy transfer" (that's what it's called in 7) in system tools. Save to flash drive/cd or whatever and import to new system

Why won't Mrs TOK's Asus notebook connect to the web via my desktop PC ? The icon on her screen shows that it recognises my BT Internet home hub and on my screen the icon status says the local area network is connected. The connection worked until recently when both machines were returned after being away - hers to her employers' techies for a software problem and mine to the local computer shop for a CD drawer which was stuck.
The error message on her screen after running a disagnostic check is:
IE cannot display the webpage.
Your computer appears to be correctly configured but the device or resource (web proxy) is not responding - Detected
Problem with wireless adapter or access point - Detected

Any suggestions for a tech thickie please?

PS Mrs TOK can access the web via a dongle.

You could go into the Hardware Devices tab of the System app via Control Panel and then double click the WiFi adapter. The WiFi adapter on her laptop may have been disabled. Try enabling it. If it is enabled then disable it and enable it then do a restart.

Another avenue is to go to Network Connections via Control Panel. The status of network adapters is normally shown there.

If you have an ethernet cable (you often have a short one or two that come with the hub), then try connecting the laptop via a direct link. It should prove if the network software TCP/Ip etc is configured properly. That way you can isolate it to specifically WiFi or network settings.

I hadn't seen your PS. It is moreliely to be the WiFi adapter on the laptop then or settings associated with it (maybe drivers etc).

Good morning H

Mrs TOK was celebrating her birthday last night so I didn't have much chance to work on this. I'm not familiar with Windows 7 so I couldn't quite follow your instructions but I did establish that her WiFi adapter was turned on and both machines are showing LAN connections.

However, the error message this morning on Mrs TOK's notebook was: "Resource (web proxy) is on line but isn't responding to connection attempts."

I wonder if this means that something needs activating on my machine?

Thanks for your help so far, Haystack.

TOK, I have no knowledge of the workings of an Asus notebook and this may not apply but a friend had similar problems with her Asus EEEPC, she was told that in the box WIRELESS SETTINGS there are TWO boxes which are pre set to AUTO. Change the MODE box to 'INFRASTRUCTURE' from 'AUTO. REPEAT INFRASTRUCTURE.

She cannot remember where she found the Wireless Settings box unfortunately!

I'll have a look. Thanks Kim

Hi Kim. Couldn't replicate the settings you indicated but tried disabling the "Connect automatically" setting but received the same response. Thanks, anyway.

Ah, shame! Worth a try. It might be worth taking a look here:-
http://ask-leo.com/

Mrs TOK took the notebook back to the office techies this morning who say they have sorted the problem. Well, we'll see when she brings it back home tonight. Thanks for all the help.