How to get a start menu back on Windows 8 for FREE using Classic Shell Start Menu!

There have been many articles written on how to get back your Windows 8 Start menu but they are riddled with ads and make things so confusing for you, so cutting through the BS here is what I think is the simplest way to get a start menu back on Windows 8. Beginners scroll to the bottom of the page to the beginner directions for an alternate method of installation.

An open source project on Sourceforge project called Classic Shell is the solution I suggest. Classic Shell was originally written to get the old familiar Classic Start menu back onto Windows 7. It has been adapted to work on Windows 8 now.  What is really cool is the fact that if you do not like the Windows Live tiles the program can be set up to make it so you only see your old familiar Windows 7 desktop in Windows 8.

To download Classic Shell Start Menu for Windows 8 go to the desktop by pressing the Flying Windows Key on your keyboard (if you are on the tile screen)and then open Windows Internet Explorer.  Then click below link to browse to the following page

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/index.html

 Click on the download now button at the top of the page. When you get the yellow alert at the bottom of the screen from Internet Explorer choose the run button.

You will see the Classic Shell Welcome Screen, click on Next button. On the next screen click to check the box to accept the license agreement and then click on the next button. The next screen will give you options of what components of the program to install. Anyone who has installed an Office product should be familiar with this screen. You only need the Classic Start Menu feature to be available and you can choose the drop downs to make the other items unavailable on each item. Click on next and then click on the Install button. Say yes to the yellow windows security alert. Then click on Finish and you are done!

Claassic Shell should come up running so you can configure how you want your start menu to work.  The main tab in the Classic Shell Start Menu setup you are concerned with in Windows 8 is the one that says Windows 8 Settings.

If you NEVER want to see the Windows Live tiles all you need to do is click the check box on this screen that reads Skip Metro Screen. Uncheck that box if you want both.  I highly suggest you try at least playing with the Live Tiles in Windows 8 first before entirely getting rid of them. Under disable active content I suggest that you set that setting to Start Screen.  Click OK and you will be done and a start menu will be installed! 

BEGINNERS:

For the novice user there is even an easier way to do this through a really neat PC setup page called Ninite.com.  This site will make a package file of all the plugins you need like Flash, Java, and more.  All you need to do is point Internet Explorer to http://ninite.com/ and once there check off the programs you would like to install on your computer. Classic Start is available under the Utilities section. Once you have checked all the programs you want, click on the big Green Get Installer button at the bottom of the page.  You can either save the file or run it when prompted with the yellow security bar at the bottom of your Internet Explorer window.  If you save the Ninite Installer file you can click on it at a later time after you have already installed the programs and Ninite will perform and install any needed updates for you.  One other benefit of Ninite is that it removes all of the extra toolbars and nagware that a lot of the programs try to add when you install them. 

Good Luck!!

 

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How do you permanently set a default the zoom level in Internet Explorer 9?

 

To permanently set the zoom level on Internet Explorer 9 some registry know how is required. Do not attempt this action if you are unsure about any steps! Bad things can happen when you mess with the registry if you do not know what you are doing. You have been warned.

This article is adapted from and then embellished by me from the Microsoft Page at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2689447

Internet Explorer Zoom lets you make the screen display larger or smaller so that a webpage is easier to read. Unlike changing the font size, zoom enlarges or reduces everything on the page, including text and images. You can zoom from 10% to 1,000%. This article describes how to set the default zoom in Internet Explorer 9 to a custom level.
Some people want the zoom level in Internet Explorer 9 to stay at a level they set. Unfortunately there is no way to do this without opening the registry and setting a value yourself.
Once you set the value all Internet Explorer Windows will open in that zoom size until you go back into the registry and change it back.

So here is a tutorial from Microsoft on how to do it.

You can permanently set the default zoom in Internet Explorer 9 to a custom level if you want to. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type regedit in the search box, and then click regedit in the Programs list.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Zoom
3. In the details pane, double-click ZoomFactor.
   
   
4. Click Decimal.
   
   

5.  If you want to set the default zoom level to 125%, type 125000, and then click OK.
     (For 150% type 150000, for 200% type 200000, etc.) To reset back to 100% follow
     the above directions again and change the value back to 100000

6. Close Registry Editor.

7. Log off of Windows and then log on again. (or shutdown and restart your computer)

8. Open Internet Explorer. The zoom level should now ALWAYS be set to 125%.

 

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How do you Remove or Delete the Windows.old folder in Windows 8 (Windows8) after you upgrade from Windows 7?

When you upgrade to Windows 8 the OS will back up your old system files to a folder called Windows.old.  You may notice that this folder takes up a lot of disk space and can not simply be deleted using file manager. Taking control of the folder will not work either.

There is a correct way to remove this folder using Microsoft's built in Disk Cleanup tool.
To run the tool log on to your Windows 8 computer as an administrator.  Move your mouse down to the bottom right hand corner and right click. Then left click on the All Apps Charm. Scroll to the right and you should be able to see Disk Cleanup under the Administrative tools menu. Click on that to start disk cleanup app. If you can not find the Disk Cleanup shortcut icon you can create one by moving your mouse down to the left corner in the Windows Menu and clicking on Desktop to go to the desktop. Right click on the desktop and choose New and then Shortcut.  In the shortcut location dialog type in:

"%windir%\sytem32\cleanmgr.exe"   (without the quotes)

Name the shortcut Disk Cleanup and click OK.

Now you can click on the shortcut to open the Disk Cleanup tool.
CAUTION: Before you use Disk Cleanup, make sure that all of your files and settings are in  Windows 8 where you expect them to be. Deleting the Windows.old folder can not be undone!

After starting Disk Cleanup if you're prompted to choose a drive, click the drive you just installed Windows on, and then click OK.
     
In the Disk Cleanup dialog box, on the Disk Cleanup tab, click Clean up system files button in the bottom left of the window. As seen below.

Disk Cleanup will most likely restart and if you're again prompted to choose a drive, click the drive you just installed Windows on, and then click OK.
     
Now in the Files to delete section look for and Select to put a check mark in front of the "Previous Windows installation(s)" check box, and any other check boxes for the  files you want to delete, and then click OK. You might want to delete the previous installation log files also.
 You will now get a new message that appears, click Delete Files and disk cleanup will run and delete the Windows.Old installation for you.  I suggest that you restart your computer after the Windows.Old installation is done being removed. This method also works if you upgraded your computer from Windows XP to Windows 7 and want to delete the Windows.old in your Windows 7 installation.

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My Windows 8 Upgrade experience! Windows 8 IS Really better than ALL other versions of Windows!

 

So I took the plunge and went ahead and upgraded my Windows 7 computer to Windows 8 Pro today, the first day it was available to download.

 

Yeah, I am a trailblazer.  It isn't like I didn't play with Windows 8 previously though, because I downloaded and ran the preview edition months ago and installed it in a VM.

 

The upgrade process was pretty painless, albeit it took HOURS!  It started by me getting a link from Microsoft with a coupon code that I signed up for when I purchased my daughters laptop last month.

 

I clicked on the link and was asked to install the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant.  The upgrade assistant told me that a few of my programs were not compatible with Windows 8. Would you believe Microsoft Security Essentials is one of them? This is because Windows 8 has Windows Defender that is the new er old name for their security product. Other programs along with Security Essentials I had to uninstall were a Roxio plug in and my Daemon Tools program. Otherwise I was good to go.

 

Well I continued on in the install process and was asked if I wanted to download and install Windows 8 or download the file and install at a later time. I chose to download and install Windows 8. It was a 2 GB download that took about 20 minutes to download on my 10gb cable connection. Your mileage will vary. Once downloaded the installation began. Thus ensued an over 3 hour most of the day process of installing Windows 8.  Seriously, put aside an entire day if you are going to do this.

 

At one point my computer rebooted and nothing came up on the screen but my computers hard disk light was lit and the drive was flashing furiously.  This went on for 10 minutes (maybe longer) I was very tempted to force turn off the computer and reboot it again so the screen would come up but my years of learning to be patient with computers paid off and after some time the computer rebooted again on its own and the screen came back up.  So this is critical folks, just cause you do not see anything on the screen for a long time DON'T PANIC, JUST WAIT! My monitor light even was in saver mode (yellow) during this process.

 

So when Windows 8 came back up it proceeded to install and then after it installed it proceeded to migrate my settings.  This took over an hour. Finally when Windows 8 booted I was presented with my login screen (I had multiple user accounts on my Windows 7 PC but it chose the one I had been using to upgrade by default) I entered my Windows password and was informed I could login with a Windows Live or Hotmail account so my desktop could be tailored to my preferences. I logged in with my Hotmail account and after a minute was presented with the familiar tile screen.

 

The first thing I did was select the Internet Explorer tile. All of my favorites and IE settings were intact and there! I went to my favorite download site for Windows Plugins called Ninite.com.

 

Ninite is a cool site that lets you select the Windows plug ins and programs you want by clicking a check box next to the ones you want and it will create an install file of all the programs you chose without all the google/yahoo/etc toolbar crap for you. All you need to do is click on the Install file Ninite creates for you and it will install it on your computer.  But I went to Ninite for a particular reason. There is an open source program called "Classic Shell" you can choose on Ninite and voila you will now have back the Windows Start Menu that everyone is complaining is missing in Windows 8 when you go to the desktop by pressing Start + D.

 

I do not have a touch screen on my desktop computer and would not use it if I did. The mouse works beautifully in Windows 8.  Along with a few keyboard shortcuts and the scroll wheel you can get around Windows 8 in a snap.  The thing that changes the most is that instead of using the Ctrl button you are using the Start button much more often to access shortcuts.

 

A few of the most common keyboard shortcuts besides Start + D for the desktop you will use the most is Start + C for the charms menu Start + I for settings charm and Start + Q for the search Charm.

 

The biggest frustration I have had is getting the Photos App to recognize my pictures I had already on my drive. They are in the proper folder I "think" but the app tells me that there are none there. I know they are there because I can bring up File Explorer from the desktop and see them when I click on the Pictures library. It is not a big deal because I never used Windows native picture viewer in the past opting for Google Picasa instead, which still works fine as does iTunes.

 

And finally when you run a "live" app off of one of Windows 8 tiles it opens in full screen . It isn't quickly apparent how to close the damn thing.  Well there are 3 ways I found to do it. First you can use the classic windows shortcut key Alt + F4 key to close the app. Really? Second you can press the Start button and you will go back to the Windows Menu, however the APP WILL NOT BE CLOSED! If you move your mouse over to the upper left corner of the screen the App Task menu will appear and you can right click with the mouse and choose close to close the app.

Finally you can use task manager(which I haven't found a shortcut to yet) to close the app.

 

The corners of the screen are your friends when you are in the Windows Metro screen or in an App. Each corner will take you places, or open something.  The Top left corner opens the apps switch menu, the upper right opens the charms menu, the bottom right gives you the Metro screen or desktop depending on which you are in and the bottom right will work like the old show desktop if you hover there.

 

So there you have it, that is what I figured out so far.   From start of installation to writing this blog entry approximately 7 hours of my time spent today on and off the computer getting this upgrade done. (took me about an hour to write this blog) Good luck folks and remember the word of the day if you are upgrading to Windows 8 is PATIENCE! 

 

 

 

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Help I just loaded IOS 6 and now Facebook and Twitter are denying photos to post

Maddening, you upgrade your iPhone right, and then you go to post a great picture of your cat to facebook and you get faced with a little popup that asks if you want to allow facebook to access your photos. You always say no to those things, right?

Well if you do you will get a prompt from your Device telling you that "This App does not have access to your Photos or Videos"  You can enable access in Privacy settings.  What now?

Well you must now do the iPhone menu shuffle and dig into the new IOS 6 settings. And they added privacy settings every darn place you can imagine.

To Fix you will need to click on settings icon on your iphone--->> Choose Privacy about half way down the screen ---> Click on Photos (not facebook as you would think on that screen) and tadaa lo and behold You will see Facebook and twitter and other apps there with an off and on slider. Click to turn the slider on and you can now post photos again!

Same goes for shared calendars or contacts you use from facebook or email apps you will have to select each item under privacy to get things working again.

And that other Facebook Privacy choice off of settings -->> Privacy? Well that is for allowing or denying other applications on your device access to Facebook.

Granularity can really suck sometimes. Be careful what you say no to.

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How To: Save and Retrieve Passwords across multiple devices including Windows, Apple iPhone, iPad, Ipad 2, iPod Touch, and Android OS

Lately every single web site that I have been visiting has required a password. It is getting out of hand! Lots  of sites allow logon using a Facebook, Google or other common password service.  I do not like doing this at all! I try to use a different password for every site I visit and it is a good habit and practice that I reccomend for EVERY person on the Internet.

Back in the day, I used to reccomend to my staff members that if they really had a hard time remembering their many passwords, they could pick any base eight to ten character non dictionary word or phrase and than attach the name of the website to the front or the end of it. For example if your base password is dog8kitty, you would use yahoodog8kitty or dog8kittyyahoo for your yahoo password. That way they could have a different yet easy to remember password for each site. Just make sure no one gets ahold of your base password though! My users were notorious for still writing down the base password and posting it on a sticky note on their monitor. I never had a problem accessing their stuff...lol.

And still users are faced with the issue that not all sites let you set your own password type and require all sorts of stupid combinations for your password. How do you remember them all? The truth is, you can not!

My INEXPENSIVE solution to this problem(meaning free) is an open source program called Password Safe along with DropBox.  Now grant it, you STILL have to remember a single safe combination password for Password Safe in order to open up your safe and enter your DropBox credentials as necessary once to setup the programs with my solution, but it is far better than having to remember sometimes hundreds of passwords. Just make CERTAIN that you choose a strong safe combination to open your safe and strong dropbox password!

This quote is from the SourceForge website, "Password Safe allows you to manage your old passwords and to easily and quickly generate, store, organize, retrieve, and use complex new passwords, using password policies that you control. Once stored, your user names and passwords are just a few clicks away. "

"Using Password Safe you can organize your passwords using your own customizable references—for example, by user ID, category, web site, or location. You can choose to store all your passwords in a single encrypted master password list (an encrypted password database), or use multiple databases to further organize your passwords (work and home, for example). And with its intuitive interface you will be up and running in minutes."

Basically Password Safe will allow you to save all of your passwords into an encrypted "safe" file that is even very portable if you want it to be.  By portable I mean that you will be able to access your passwords from almost any computer or mobile device you own, including your iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, and computer! Further you can organize your passwords into file folders by type of password.  Is that not fabulous?

Read on and I will explain to you more about PasswordSafe, how to get it and a bit how to use it.

Windows
I'll start by explaining on how to find, download and install Password Safe for Windows. The freely available Open Source version of Password Safe can be downloaded from this web link.(you could also choose run and not download the file if you just want to automatically install the program.)  Once downloaded Password Safe, click  on the pwsafe-3.27.exe file to install the program.  If you receive a Windows security warning dialog click on the run button. Next choose a language from the next popup, English is the default, and click on the OK button. Click the I agree button to agree to the license agreement, and now a prompt with a dialogue box that asks what type of install you would like. A regular, (on your computer) or a disk on key, which will allow the ability to install and run the program and save your password database on a USB Key Drive to carry it with you and plug it in and use it on any other Windows Computer you want. To install it on your computer leave the regular choice ticked and click on the next button.

The next screen Choose Components, is to select additional languages, if you only want English click on the next button. The next screen, select the location to install the program to on your computer. You can use the default or change it if you want. Click on the install button to start the installation. Password Safe installs very quickly and will give you a completed screen that you can now close.

There will now be a Password Safe icon on your desktop you can click on to get started using Password Safe. If there is no icon look for the Password Safe folder in the start menu and run the program from there.

There are quick start instructions for the program on the website here.

When starting Password Safe for Windows, there will be a window like the picture above. Click on  theNew Database button and enter your chosen Safe Combination, twice.  The "safe combination" will be your KEY to open your safe and access all your passwords.  Do not write it down or give it out! Be sure you will not forget it either. It is the one password you need to remember always! Click OK.

By default Password Safe will create safes in your Documents/My Safes folder. The safe location can be changed after running the program from within the file menu by resaving the safe file elsewhere. All safe files end with a file extension of .psafe3.   

Entries can be added to the "Safe" by clicking on the + icon on the toolbar of the program to bring up the password entry window. The + icon is also in most of the apps and is used to add an entry in Password Safe.  The password entry window will allow the addition of a name of the site the password is for, username, password and more.  Password Safe will even generate a strong pasword for you. Advanced settings allow setting password policies for Password Safe to use. If  urls of the web sites login page are added then the user can click on the site entry within the program to go directly to the website. Password Safe can even auto enter in the passwords on some sites!

Portability - DropBoxI alluded to putting the Safe installation on a portable USB drive during installation above, but you can make your safe even more portable by placing it in the cloud (web or Internet for you old folk) in a (you got it) password protected PRIVATE folder with a website named DropBox. 

Dropbox is a very handy tool to use which gives the user the ability to access your files from just about any device. Many of the Apple App store apps use Dropbox so it is worth checking it out. In order to have the same database across all of your devices, go to the DropBox website at http://www.dropbox.com and click on the big blue Download Dropbox button.

Follow the instructions to install Dropbox. Note that Dropbox will create several folders on your computer in the Documents folder. Once you create a SECURE logon for the dropbox site, any files put in those folders will be uploaded to the DropBox site. MAKE CERTAIN that you only save your password and any personal files into the PRIVATE folder of Dropbox if you do not want anyone to be able to access them. Using the DropBox Private folder is how to access your passwords on all your devices anytime.  Remember your safe file is encrypted and has your personal KEY. The PUBLIC folder for DropBox means just that! Files in the PUBLIC folder will be seen by everyone on the Internet!! Don't ever put password files in this folder!

Apple iOS Apps for the iPhone iPad and iPod Touch

There are two programs that I personally have used that will open  Password Safe .pwsafe3 database files for Apple ios devices like the iPhone , iPad , iPad 2 or iPod Touch.

The programs are Password Touch by EMMA Multimedia and the one I strongly reccomend is called pwSafe Password Safe for iOS by App 777 Informatica.   

(DO NOT GET CONFUSED! There are several programs in the iTunes APP store called Password Safe. The below two are the only ones I have used and reccomend that work with the open source Password Safe program available on SourceForge described above.)

pwSafe - Password Safe for iOS by App 777 informatca is available at this link*****.

The pwSafe program by App 777 cost $1.99 but it is worth every penny in order to open Password Safe files on you iOS device.  This is MY choice as the best iOS app for the open source Password Safe! The added benefit of the App 777 version for PasswordSafe is that you can create and make local safes on your iPad , iPhone or iPod Touch. Further pwSafe can sync your safes in Apple's iCloud to use on all your iOS devices! However iCloud will not let you share the safe file seamlessly with your PC, so DropBox is a better choice to use.  PwSafe allows you to enter your DropBox.com credentials and connect to your safes in your PRIVATE folder and open them using your private KEY combination code specified for the safe. You can have multiple safes on your device local, on iCloud and those from DropBox.com.

Password Touch by EMMA Multimedia Mobile is available from this link.

The $4.99 Password Touch by EMMA is not only $3 more than the pwSafe app by APP 777, it is also not worth the addional amount because it lacks many of the features the APP 777 one does.  A DropBox account is required for the app and it must have internet available to link to the safe from your DropBox account.  I do not reccomend this product and it is overpriced in my opinion for what it does.

The iOS version of DropBox needed for the above programs is available from this link in the iTunes Store

A third iOS program I have NOT used is the $1.99 DropSafe by Smith Surasmith available from here. However it appears to be very similar in functionality to the PW Touch program only using the database from DropBox so I would not bother with it.

Android

The port PasswordSafe for Android, reccomended by the developers, is available at https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jefftharris.passwdsafe

I played with this on a G2X and am very impressed. It doesn't look like  much until you press the bottom left menu key. Then you see the power of this port of PasswordSafe. It works flawless to make your own safe on your android device. DropBox can also used and available from http://www.dropbox.com

 Linux

 PasswordSafe for Linux is Beta software but versions can be downloaded from here. I'll have to admit again that I have not had a chance to even look at or test this version of Password Safe so I can not offer any reccomendations or insight on how well this works.



And for those brave souls who want to tinker there is even a version of PasswordSafe for Windows Mobile Phone Project going on at this link.

Different versions of PasswordSafe are constantly emerging. Check out the related project page at http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/relatedprojects.shtml to see if your OS is supported.

Password Safe and Dropbox have served me quite well over the last few years as a secure way to save my passwords and make them available across all my devices. I have found no other password wallet or utility that is so diverse. Give it a try today.

Disclaimer: There is really never any way of knowing if Dropbox, iCloud or any place else on the web or in the "cloud" where you store any of your files or email is ever 100% secure. *The fact is it probably isn't. There is also no guarantee your data is out there permantly. Always back up important data in at least 2 places.  This doesn't necessarily mean you can not store secure files out in the cloud, it just means you have to be very very careful HOW and WHERE you do it. Always use trustworthy web sites to store your files. Always encrypt personal information and password protect files if possible. Always use strong passwords with letters, numbers and special characters if possible.
 Follow Microsoft's Tips for Creating Passwords.

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