OK, so I’m a cheapskate.  I still use CorelDraw 7 even though they’re up to X3 (or is that down to X3?) now.

 I found that when I opened a directory with a .CPT file in it, Windows Explorer would close spontaneously.  Fellow workers said it’s something to do with the automatic icon-making function in PhotoPaint and they were right.

 To fix it, go to CORELDraw7 | Graphics Utilities | Uninstall Thumbnail display.

 Job done.

The message to take away, is that Norton Internet Security 2006 is the outright wam bam winner.  On a PC that boots in 75 seconds, adding NIS2006 reportedly added a further 43 seconds to the boot time.

And this is good to know about: If you have 1000 fonts installed, that’ll add almost 25 seconds to boot time compared to having just 100 fonts.

I rushed to clean up my fonts. Still have some to go.  The other software mentioned in the article added 14 seconds or less.

Read all the detail at the link:

http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/what_slows_windows_down/

After setting up a new PC, instead of the cursor stopping at the edge of the screen it disappeared off the edge.  The mouse had to be moved a long way back before I could see it.  I found that the display had defaulted to dual view (two monitors).

Right-click desktop | Settings | Advanced | click on your graphics adapter’s tab and set the display to single view.  Worked for me with an nVidia display adapter.

If you use SlickRun and you can see it running in Task Manager but not on your screen, check if it’s running on a display your computer thinks you have, but isn’t really there.

Right-click desktop | Settings | Advanced | click on your graphics adapter’s tab and see if the display is set to dual view.  Worked for me on an nVidia display.

If you have a file in a Topicscape that you know you’ll work on often, right-click on the occurrence and choose “Create desktop shortcut”.  Then you’ll have it available any time.

You can drop folders on the Topicscape Islands post just behind the hit and history lists. This can be a useful place to park a new topic or group of topics, if you haven’t decided where to put them yet. 

If Topicscape isn’t running at the time, you might choose to use Topicscape Box instead, but having them in a specific Topicscape means they will be found in a search. 

Old versions of MS Office on Windows XP:

If, when you open a MS Office document by double-clicking its icon, you get message “yyyyyyy is being used by xxxxx do you want to make a copy?”

Fix it like this

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate and select the following registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\open\comma nd
If you find that the (Default) data string looks like this:
“D:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\winword.exe” /n “%1″
you should change the string to look like this:
“D:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\Winword.exe” /n
To change the (Default) data string, follow these steps:
a. Click to select (Default).
b. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
c. In the Value data box, delete the “%1″ and then click OK.
d. On the Registry menu, click Exit.

As always, Registry changes are at your own risk.

A similar fix works for Excel, instead of Word.Document.8 look for Excel.Document.8

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q200915/

This is a collection of 3D Topicscape hints, Windows and software fixes, and information about where Topicscape Personal Edition and other editions are heading.