Send your favorite tips to the address at the bottom of this page. We will also try to include some of the tips 
mentioned at meetings which are of wider interest to our members.

---

There are several bootable CD systems which will help rid an infected computer of malware, especially when the infection does not allow you to start the infected computer. The latest is from Microsoft, called SystemSweeper and is currently released as a free beta version.

It can be obtained from: https://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper

There are separate versions for 32 and 64-bit systems but it works with XP, Vista or Windows 7.

The download is a fairly small file, around 500kb, but when you run that it requires an internet connection and a blank writeable CD or DVD. Running the downloaded file then downloads about 250MB from Microsoft and creates a bootable disk. Therefore it should be created BEFORE you have problems, though it can be created on another computer running the same operating system.

To run the CD your system must be able to boot from the CD/DVD drive. This may require entering the BIOS so it is a good idea to check now that you can boot from a bootable CD and if you cannot, then go into the BIOS using the key combination which usually appears on the screen just before Windows starts. Do that now so you know whether it just involves pressing another key during the startup or whether changes have to be made to a BIOS setting.

Make a note of the keystrokes or changes which may have to be made and keep it with the newly created bootable disk as we hope it will be a long time before it is needed, if ever. A full svan may take several hours.

---

Want to give someone with a Smartphone the link to the Mornington Peninsula SIG website? Then give them this:

---

If you read books or magazines on computers you will have come across experts such as Woody Leonhard  and Fred Langa. The home base for them and many other experts is Windows Secrets an email newsletter with an associated forum that is free to subscribe, though you can pay if you wish to receive additional content and some free extracts from books such as Windows 7 for Dummies. There is no set subscription; you pay whatever you wish. It had and still has many close links with Australia but it is now very much an international operation.

---

Opening DAT and other strange files
If you receive a winmail.dat file with an email, it can be opened with a small utility called  Winmail Opener which is a339kb file.
For other strange files which will not open with a known program, try opening in WordPad or even NotePad and see if a program is named in the first few lines of the file. If that fails try Free File Viewer but note that it uses an install program called InstallIQ which, though not dangerous, does try to offer you many other utilities of mixed quality. Make sure you only select Free File Viewer to install. Then you will be able to open PDF, DOCX, FLV MP4, PSD, BIN, DIZ and dozens more. It is worth the care needed to be taken with the install. It is a 2.21MB download.

---

From: "Ian Rankin" : Subject: PC Update on CD

Hi,
As you know from July 2011 our magazine, PC Update, will be coming out in .pdf format as a CD rather than in printed format.

There will be a few changes such as :-

The address for the editor is now editorpc@melpc.org.au and this comes into effect from tomorrow 14th May 2011.

The closing date for all submissions is the first of the month preceding the issue being addressed. In other words, the July 2011 magazine closes on 1st of June 2011, the August magazine closes on 1st July and so on.

In the past SIG's and indeed everyone, have been limited in the size of articles etc., that go into the magazine.

This limitation has now been removed, you can, within reason, submit as much as you want to and it will get published. By within reason, it means that the SIG reports can be as big as 800 words or a page.

It would be very much appreciated if a head and shoulders image of the person submitting anything for publication could be included. This particularly applies to the SIG conveners. These images to be in the .jpg format. If you do not have and cannot get such a photo, please contact Roger Wragg rdwragg@melbpc.org.au and he will arrange to have a relevant one taken.

When authors submit articles for publication, it would be appreciated if appropriate images could be included. Again these should be in the ..jpg format.

Regards,
Ian Rankin,
Secretary.

---

How many emails do you have? Have you changed email programs or thought of it and been put off by having to either convert old emails or having no way to search all the old ones? An answer could be MailStore Home, or even better the new MailStore Home Portable (scroll down the same page) which is in beta but seems to me to work as expected.
The portable version needs no installation. Just unzip it to a folder wherever you wish, including on a USB stick or USB hard drive. It will find and archive email as you wish from Outlook, MS Exchange, Thunderbird or Windows Mail or from Google Mail or any IMAP or POP3 mailboxes. It will also archive direct from eml, msg, pst or mbox files. It puts the resulting data files into a folder where the program resides, but in this case that is what you want because you run the program from the drive where you save the data. You can also export the emails to most of the import formats (which makes it a useful way of converting between programs). The search process is fast and can be as detailed as you wish with options for searching in various headers or in the body, or even in attachments if you set it up to search those too. You can also specifiy whether the email you are searching for is with or without attachments, and by how old or in a date range.

The program is free. MailStore make their money with mail archive programs for servers. The portable version is a 13MB download.

---

One of the more difficult tasks in Windows has been to copy a list of files from a folder. There's plenty of Web advice on how to do screen shots and some older advice on how to use the Command Prompt to send the file list to a text file in what is basically a DOS command. But it can be done with some fairly simple editing of the Registry.

Firstly, take all the usual precautions. Then, the How-to Geek has a simple download of a zip file that contains two .reg files, one to add the hack and another to undo it. You'll find the file near the bottom of the page at:
howtogeek.com  or http://tinyurl.com/ycvmxg2

Now, if you call up Windows Explorer, and shift right-click on an open space beside the list of files you will see a new command "Copy list to clipboard". This produces just a list of files, no sizes etc but there is advice on how you can get all the details with a very small change.

Works for Win 7 and Vista. With XP too, but there may be an extra step; you need a file called "clip.exe" in the Windows folder. You can download this from Microsoft and you may in fact already have it.

---

If a user password is lost, there are ways of getting into a PC via Safe Mode as Administrator, but what if it is the admin password that is lost? In that case try http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

It is a bootable CD download as a 4MB zip file and has been updated for Win7 by the Norwegian creator.

---

Mailwasher Free 6.5.4. <http://www.mailwasher.net/> There is a pay version at http:www.firetrust.com but the free version works perfectly, writes Graham Swanston. This lists what mail is sitting in the server. You can preview items without downloading nasties. You mark items friend or blacklist or just mark to delete if needed. The friend or blacklist decisions are stored in the program. You can edit the list. With some items it may tell you that the origin is blacklisted. Some items are marked Spam? When you click on process mail it deletes what you do not want then opens your nominated email program. In your mail program you click on download messages. The bad messages have been wiped from the server. Gordon Woolf's PC Update article on an earlier version.

---

---