How You Roll back a Devce Driver

When new driver updates or application updates are released sometimes they cause more problems than they fix. With Windows drivers it is relatively easy to roll back to the last driver.

• Bring up your device manager (Right Click on My Computer --> Manage --> Device manager).
• Find the device that you want to rollback and right click and select properties
• Click on the driver Tab and you should see an image something like below

Can you see the Roll Back Driver button - click that button and follow the prompts to restore  your previous driver version.

Usb Safely Remove Hardware

When using USB removable devices like portable USB sticks or USB hard drives you need to ensure that the data you change on the drives is written to the drive completely.  Generally by default the properties for USB devices are set to write caching and when you want to remove the drive you need to use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' option to make sure all data is flushed to the drive.

Write caching essentially means that any changes you make are either kept in memory or hard disk virtual memory to be written to the drive at a later time.  Ideally data should be written to the device during idle time however that does not always occur.  The possible result of removing a device before data is synced is data corruption.

What you can do to avoid data loss and save time is set individual policies for your drives whether they're removable or fixed.  Here are the steps:

• Go to My Computer and right click on an drive and left click on properties
• Click on Hardware tab and select one of the USB drives for example
• Click on properties and then click on the policies tab

Now you should see a tab that looks something like this:

Now if you use a USB stick for quick transfers only you could select 'Optimize for quick removal' which will mean slower performance than caching.  If you use a hard drive that is semi-permanent you may want to select optimize for performance, ie, write caching is enabled.  The risk is if you have a power failure you could lose some data.

You can set these policies for each individual drive.  Fixed drive policies have a slightly different screen however you can still select or de-select write caching.

Printing a File Quickly

Here's a tip to save time when printing a file or group of files.  You can print documents or images in a multitude of ways but this is a real time saver.  Open up your printers folder and create a shortcut to your desktop for the printer(s) you use.

Now to print a file you simply click and drag over the printer icon and release.  The application the file was created in will launch and automatically print to the printer you created the shortcut.  Best thing is you can do this with multiple files of different types like a Wordpad and Notepad file for example.

Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

Whether we like it or not, the keyboard is still an important component of modern computer systems.  Used in conjunction with the mouse you can really complete tasks efficiently and quickly.  Here are a list of Windows shortcuts we use all the time:

• F1: Help
• CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu
  
• ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs
  
• ALT+F4: Quit program
  
• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently
  
• Windows Logo+L: Lock the computer (quicker than CTRL+ALT+DELETE)
  
• F2: Rename object
• F3: Find all files
  
• CTRL+X: Cut
• CTRL+C: Copy
• CTRL+V: Paste
• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete selection immediately bypassing the Recycle Bin
• ALT+ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object

Difference between Software, Applications, Add Ons, Plugins and Drivers

I answered this question at Yahoo Answers and I think it's valuable enough to re-post here.

"Software is a broad category and in it's most simplistic definition can be described as a set of instructions used to command hardware. The other definitions you require can be a subset of software.

Application is generally described as software with which a human would interact such as a word processor, a browser, an ERP system, a game etc etc

Add-ons and plug-ins are very similar in that developers who write applications create them so that the functionality of their application can be extended without them having to write more code. For example Firefox allows add-ons such as spell checkers, colored tabs, download utilities etc. A development editor may allow plug-ins that add spell check, specific language syntax highlighting, advanced text manipulation options etc etc.

Drivers are generally non-interactive pieces of software that are used to abstract operating systems from hardware or other software devices. The driver 'talks' to the operating system in one language as do other drivers and the driver talks to the webcam for example in it's specific language."

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Windows Systems Maintenance and Configuration

Windows, Linux and other operating systems contain a myriad of front end and behind the scenes options in order to maintain them in regards to reliability and performance.  Most end users will use a limited set of functions and may not know how to keep their Windows system in tip top shape.

Windows operating systems are built on some key components such as device drivers, registry database, software drivers, hardware drivers and more.  The Windows operating system contains some tools and basic functions in order to maintain these sub-components however a number of specialist companies have developed and released tools to specifically optimize the registry or keep your drivers up to date.

Like a car or piece of equipment, your operating system needs to be maintained and these specialist tools can greatly assist in keeping system stability and performance so you can continue working or running your business optimally.