Previewing all fonts on a system has previously been difficult, but Windows 7 has introduced a very nice Fonts interface. Go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel > “Appearance and Personalization” > “Fonts”. The Fonts control panel will display all fonts installed on the system. To see the variants of a font, double-click and it will show all the types of that font (e.g. bold, italic, etc.). You can then double-click on a particular type to preview that font. Alternatively, if the font does not have any variants, then double-clicking on the font will immediately show the preview.

I am receiving emails from Outlook Express warning that I am exceeding 90% of my email allowance. However, there are fewer emails stored within Outlook Express compared with previous times so I do not understand why this message appears. I thought that compacting the Outlook Express folders may resolve the problem, and Outlook Express has been prompting me to compact the folders each time I close the program. However, when I try to compact the folders a message appears saying “The folder is in use by Outlook Express or another application”. Can you advise whether compacting the folders will actually fix this problem, and what compacting the folders will do? The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

Around one year ago I purchased an HP computer with Windows Vista. On my previous computer running Windows XP I used photos from the My Pictures folder as a screensaver and after about half an hour of inactivity the monitor would go to sleep, reawakened by movement of the mouse. However, when I use the Photos screensaver in Windows Vista the monitor does not sleep, although if I select a different screensaver it does go to sleep after the configured period of inactivity. Why is this happening and is it detrimental to the monitor if it does not sleep? (more…)

On opening a folder in Windows 7 a side-bar is visible on the left-hand side titled “Favorites”. You can add frequently visited locations to this Favorites bar allowing for quick access to those locations. To add a folder to the Favorites list, simply open or navigate to that folder and then right-click on the “Favorites” side-bar heading and click “Add current location to Favorites”. Alternatively, you can also drag a folder onto the “Favorites” heading to add that folder to the list. To remove a folder, simply right-click on the folder to be removed in the Favorites list and then select “Remove”.

When attempting to print PDF files using Adobe Reader 9.2 the computer hangs until a message appears that the system is closing the application for protection, and advises that the Data Execution Protection settings can be changed to exclude the Adobe product. However, I am unsure about what is Data Execution Protection and how this procedure can be completed. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)