Another Outlook 2010 Annoyance

I do not dial phone numbers from my computer, so why does Outlook keep asking me for my phone number every time I add a new contact’s phone number?

 

The only way to stop this annoyance is to go to the Control Panel/Phone and modem and put your phone number and location in the asked for fields.

Now I just hate putting un-needed information anywhere. There surely must be a way around this, but finding out how was almost an exercise in futility.

Finally I found where someone suggested turning off Telephony. So I turned it off by going to Services and disabling Telephony. To get to Services, just type Services in  the search box and the click Services at the top.

Services

Telephony Service

Telephony Service Properties

 

Now when I add a phone number in my Outlook Contacts, that annoying dialog does not pop up. In the event I should ever need Telephony enabled, it will be a simple matter to enable it again in Services.

It's Gone

The hard drive finally failed for good. Chkdsk couldn’t fix all of the bad clusters fast enough.

I knew it was failing, so I made very frequent backups.  When MacriumReflect couldn’t complete because of errors, I decided it was time to remove the failing drive and put in the new one.

It didn’t take very long, once it was determined how to open the drive compartment on this laptop.

Replaced the drive, popped in the Restore disk and Macrium did the trick.  The last complete backup was only a few days old, so it didn’t take long to update the files from my data backup.

There are still a few things I need to check on, but for now, I am a happy camper.

I still haven’t decided whether or not to install Windows 8 and dual boot, but now everything is in place so I will probably do it one of these days.

Connect Two or More Windows Computers Using Homegroup

Setting up a home network has never been easier than now, using the Homegroup feature first introduced in Windows 7 and also in Windows 8.

Start by first making sure each computer to be added to a homegroup has the same Workgroup name. To find out the Workgroup name, right click on ‘Computer’ and select Properties.

(On Windows 8 , right click on ‘This PC’ and select Properties.)

If the name has never been changed, it defaults to 'Workgroup'.

Windows 7

Windows 8

Each computer has a default password for Homegroup. On one computer open the Homegroup by going to the Control Panel and clicking’ ‘Homegroup’.

Copy or print the password on this computer and then Cancel out.

On the other computer/computers, open the Control Panel and click on Homegroup. On this computer select ‘Change the password’  and type the password from the first computer and save the changes.

After each computer now has the same password for Homegroup, you can access each computer by clicking the name in Computer on Windows 7.

Or ‘This PC’ in Windows 8.

How easy is that!

Hard Drive Failing!

Monday my Hp notebook took a very long time to load.  In fact it took so long I thought it wasn't going to load.
However, once it did load everything seemed to be OK. I decided to make a full backup using Macrium and the backup failed.

I ran chkdsk and Windows ‘replaced bad clusters’ in a lot of files.

Now Windows won’t load. It seems like it will load, but then I get a funny looking screen with a lot of text telling me basically, Windows is toast. But the mouse is working, so perhaps all is not lost.

After trying numerous times to get Windows to load, with no success I closed it up and turned on my old Compaq and started looking online for a replacement drive.

This Compaq has always had some issues and frustration begins when I can’t make my external backlit keyboard work.

Several hours later I decide to try the system repair disk for my Hp and finally it loads Windows.

I know the disk is failing. Macrium still can’t make a good backup and tells me to run chkdsk.

I just hope it will last until I get the new drive, which should arrive Wednesday. I am trying to decide whether or not to put Windows 7 on the drive or use my unused Windows 8 Pro on the drive. Maybe I’ll just use both, a dual boot.

Stay tuned!

Outlook 2010 Annoyances

Sometimes I wonder, WHY does Microsoft make things so difficult?

I have some vision problems and I am trying to make it easier to read mail in Outlook, but it is not easy because MS has sprinkled the settings all over the place.

So I go to File/Options and click the Mail tab.

Now I get this screen and have to change the fonts in three places’

Things started to look bigger, but not through, not yet!

I can change the font size in almost everything in Outlook 2010, but it's a real pain to find out how. I finally managed to find it all, but the way to make messages open with larger text. There is a way, but I don't like it.

If I open a message in Outlook, to make the text larger I have to use 'Zoom', but if I use the Preview Pane I can move the slider to make the text bigger. Sliding to make the text bigger may not be a problem for some, but I get a 'LOT' of email.



To change the font size in the Navigation Pane, right click on the Mail icon and select ‘Navigation Pane Options.  At least I only had to change this once.

Now I get this:

OK The navigation Pane is much easier to read.

But now I need to make the Header list bigger. So I right click on the Arrange by column and get this!

Clicking the ‘View Settings brought up this box:

Then I clicked Other Settings and got this Box,

I had to change each setting,  Column Font, Row Font and Auto Preview Font.

Another annoyance, I have to change the settings on every folder! Why isn't there a setting to change all folders? I also have a LOT of folders! This is really making me mad. There should be a way to make changes universal in Outlook, but I can’t find a way to do it.

Outlook is now no longer my default email program. I still use it for RSS, but this all just annoyed me so much I left it and no longer love it.