Well, we did it! Yesterday we installed CamStudio and today we created our first official Computers Made Simple video. It’s short, less than five minutes but we show you how to boot to your desktop, add a PIN to log on to Windows and, best of all, how to shut down your computer.
We will still be writing posts now and then but we’re trying to open up our audience. We will post every new video here, of course, so you won’t miss anything. Speaking of that, why not head over to our Facebook page and click the Like button? That way, you’ll always be on top of our latest posts and videos. Here’s the link to that: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
Thanks for reading! Comments on the video are welcome…just don’t be too critical.
Windows 8 is due out in a few days. We’ve tried the evaluation version a couple of times but didn’t get very far with it. After loading it twice, we decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to get to know it. The change was a bit too much from the Windows 7 that we’ve been using. Sure, we love to try new things but, because this was an evaluation copy, we didn’t feel comfortable changing everything around just to see what it felt like.
If we buy a new laptop or desktop, we might be forced into learning the new OS from Microsoft but, for now anyway, Windows 7 works just fine. Did you know that many businesses are still using Windows XP? XP was the last version of Windows that allowed you to run it on several different systems. For that reason alone, we’ve stopped buying anything from Microsoft.
If a Microsoft OS comes with a computer, we’re fine with that but we won’t go out and purchase anything that Microsoft puts out otherwise. Why? Because the pricing of any Windows version is far beyond what we consider a reasonable expense. Apple, for instance, offers their OS X software at surprisingly low prices, even offering a family package that allows the purchaser to load the OS on several different computers.
Yes, Apple sells hardware and their prices for that hardware are atrocious but their lovely operating system doesn’t break the bank. Windows, on the other hand, has to get all of their money from their various bits of software, mainly Windows. Additionally, Microsoft is heavily into Digital Rights Management, something that we feel goes against creativity and the development of new products and ideas. Part of the reason that the U.S. is heavily into a recession now can be traced back to initiative-killing DRM.
Lots of versions, no native DVD support…many reasons to ignore Windows 8
Something that we’ve played with before, and loved, is Linux. We’re in the process of moving towards a version of Ubuntu on one of our laptops, just to see what’s changed since the last type we tried. We’ll post our success or failures as we proceed. For now, tell us what you think of Windows 8. Have you used it? Did you like it? Let us know what your experience has been like.
Windows 8 is available on a demo basis right now. (Spring 2012) Installing the demo version as your main operating system isn’t a great idea, obviously. However you want to do it, make sure you install Windows 8 in a dual boot scenario, either on its own separate drive or on another partition of your main hard drive. If you can spring for an SSD, even better. You don’t have to worry about creating the dual boot option yourself, Windows does that for you.
The problem arises when you want to get rid of Windows 8. The dual boot menu still pops up every time you start up your computer. For me, this meant waiting around for the choice to come up then scrolling down to Windows 7. I couldn’t just push the start button on my computer and head off to make a coffee. Disaster!
After some searching, I came across a cool little program named EasyBCD by NeoSmart Technologies. (NeoSmart sounds like they weren’t smart before but are now, doesn’t it?) Their website is here: http://neosmart.net/ and you can check out some of their other software while you’re at it. EasyBCD is free as long as you are just a home user. If you’re using this commercially, cough up some bucks to buy it.
The software comes with ample online documentation but the main thrust of the whole thing is to show you which boot options you have (in my case there were two: Windows 7 and Windows 8). Using a small, efficient menu, EasyBCD displays your current options and allows you to remove the one(s) that you don’t want. The various options are on the left, as you see here:
I've already deleted the Windows 8 option, leaving only Windows 7.
I wasn’t planning to write a post on EasyBCD so I had already deleted the Windows 8 option. Basically, you do this:
1. Choose View Settings to see what your choices are.
2. Click Edit Boot Menu then highlight Windows 8 and choose Delete.
3. Highlight Windows 7 (or your normal operating system) and make it the default choice. Do that by clicking the box to the left of the word ‘Yes’.
4. Click the Save Settings box on the bottom right.
That’s it! EasyBCD has other uses as well and you can investigate what they are using the Advanced Settings or the BCD Backup/Repair and Useful Utilities. I just used it to delete the dual boot option, however.
TIP: If you screw up your boot menu, you won’t be able to start your computer. That’s kind of obvious, right? If you are at all squeamish about doing stuff like this, ask a techie friend to help you out. I’m just here to tell you about EasyBCD and give you details on what worked for me.
Thanks for reading!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
