Going Google (apps), Part 1: Move your mail

Going Google (apps), Part 1: Move your mail

Are you getting tired of struggling with Microsoft’s increasingly complex, sometimes arcane, and always expensive versions of Office?

This article, the first in a series, will show you how easy it is to move from bloated and pricey desktop programs to fast, free — though somewhat less capable — Google apps.

Small-biz/family computing is changing — rapidly

My decision to take a detailed look at Google apps was prompted by purely practical needs: finding a simpler and less costly computing system for a family business.

My wife runs a fairly typical small business — a bakery with four locations and 40 or so employees. The bakery’s data needs aren’t particularly demanding: daily sales reports, petty cash, inventory reports, etc. from the shops. It also needs relatively simple accounting: accounts payable, receivables, bank reconciliations, and payroll. Then there’s the usual business email and letters. The bakery’s accountant does all the heavy lifting — taxes, government reporting, and the like.

In many respects, the business is no different from millions of small businesses and innumerable small organizations such as charities, social groups, and clubs. For that matter, individuals (like me!) handle comparable tasks every day: keeping track of investments, budgeting, writing and filing letters — all the stuff Word, Excel, and Outlook have helped us get done for decades.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Office has become too bloated and expensive for the bakery — and many other small businesses — and that’s making alternatives more attractive.

In the March 14 Top Story, Fred Langa talked about two free Office replacements — LibreOffice and Open Office — that provide many of the same features as Microsoft Office. Although they lack some of Office’s capabilities, they’re fabulously priced: they’re free!

I’ve tried LibreOffice. In my estimation, it can be a fine replacement for Microsoft Office, if your needs aren’t extensive or complicated. LibreOffice is, however, PC-bound. It doesn’t fit well into the new world of Internet and mobile computing. Mobile devices — iPads, iPhones, Galaxies, Nexuseseses, etc. — are ubiquitous, and businesses are keenly interested in exploiting their capabilities. And they can so do at virtually no cost beyond hardware.

Whether for a business, organization, or even a family, effective computing no longer requires a full computer to do tasks that are relatively simple. A bakery employee, for example, no longer needs to boot her laptop just to update a simple sales report. She can now do it from her phone. When she needs to check her son’s homework assignment, she does so on an iPad or similar tablet.

Much of mobile computing requires storing your data in the cloud — and feeling confident it’s sufficiently secure. My take on online data storage? If you’re holding state secrets or you’re worried about an intelligence agency such as the NSA snooping in your files, don’t store your data online unless it’s highly encrypted — which brings up other issues. In the real world of small businesses (and families), effectively sharing some data is more important than keeping it all under strict, local lock and key.

All of which brings us back to Google Apps, which are free for personal use but fee-based for business uses. Google Apps for Business (site) costs just U.S. $50 per person per year. It offers all sorts of online tools — centralized email, basic accounting, etc. — that organizations need in order to keep running.

Putting your email back into the cloud

As I stated at the top, this series is about moving from Office to Google apps. I’ll start with email, because it’s the application most of us use every day, yet it’s also the app that’s easiest to switch — more so than word processing, spreadsheets, and, most certainly, accounting.

I’ve been using Outlook since its inception in Office 97. The times I’ve sworn at it are too numerous to recount. Because I don’t want the overhead or expense of running Exchange Server, all my mail is stored in a collection of huge .pst files.

Except — well, some of those files don’t work anymore. For whatever reason, the .psts get gummed up, and running all the diagnostic software in the world won’t bring them back. I’ve found myself diving for backup copies of Outlook files on a monotonously regular basis — and sometimes the backups won’t work.

Outlook itself can be a snarly program. It freezes on me from time to time — and I’m talking about Outlook 2013, not one of the older versions that are even more prone to freezes. Sometimes it crashes and swallows whatever I’ve been typing. But I’ve continued to use Outlook, convinced it was the only email program capable of handling the huge volume of mail I manage every day.

It turns out I was wrong. The only insurmountable obstacles keeping me strapped to Outlook were fear and inertia.

Many PC users — especially business users — worry about getting work done with a Web-based email app. What if the Internet connection goes down? That was a completely valid concern a few years ago. Internet connections were often undependable. Today, however, most business-grade Web connections are quite reliable, and there are often backup connections (such as our smartphones) available.

For the rare times you’re without an Internet connection, a Google Chrome add-in — Gmail Offline (site) — lets you read and respond to mail. (For me, responding to messages without a connection to the Web is like tying one hand behind my back.)

So I made the switch to Gmail and have no regrets. Why not Hotmail/Outlook.com? Microsoft’s Web-based product is similar to Gmail in many ways. But there are also some key differences.

In particular, consider how Gmail automatically groups incoming mail into two bunches — one high-priority, the other low-priority — based on the way you’ve treated similar mail in the past. Gmail is also more adept at synching calendars and contact lists across Apple and Android devices. (And, yes, I’ve seen the Scroogled ads: pot calling the kettle black, IMHO.) Feel free to try both mail services and use the one you prefer.

Move an existing email account to Gmail

It’s surprising how few people know they can use Gmail (or Hotmail) with an existing email address. You don’t have to convert your current address to @gmail.com or @hotmail.com. In my case, I moved woody (at) askwoody (dot com) from my own email servers to Gmail — and nobody knew, not a soul.

Now that my mail is on Gmail, I can easily check for new messages on my Galaxy Note or iPad. The Gmail apps (calendaring and contacts came along with mail) for Apple and Android work quite well. Moreover, I no longer have to worry about backing up .pst files or putting up with Outlook’s weird ways of handling IMAP. Nor do I have to fret over program hangs. Instead of storing every bloody bit of incoming mail in .pst files, I archive selectively.

And searches? Oh my! Where Outlook might take about three minutes to search its Sent Files folder, Gmail takes seconds.

If your current email provider supports POP3 (and it probably does), all you need is your email user name, password, and POP server address (your mail provider should have it). Here are the details for moving all your mail to Gmail:

Step 1. If you don’t have a Gmail account already, go to the Gmail site, click the big red Create an Account box (upper-right corner), and follow the instructions.

Step 2. Sign in to Gmail. Now click the Gear icon (right side, above your messages) and choose Settings. Select the Accounts and Import tab. Next to Check Mail from Other Accounts (Using POP3), click the Add a POP3 mail account you own link.

Step 3. In the dialog box that pops up, type the email address you want to use with Gmail and click Next Step. Enter your username and password plus the details for your mail provider’s server. I typically check the Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server box; it gives me an emergency out, should something go bump in the night. I also check the Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail box.

For Label incoming messages, pick an address from the drop-down list or create a new one. I don’t automatically Archive incoming messages. When you’re done, click Add Account; Gmail then starts sucking up all the mail it can find. If you’ve set up Outlook to leave copies of mail on the server, importing can take hours.

Step 4. While Gmail copies your mail over to its servers, you get a dialog box that asks whether you want to be able to send mail using your original email address (e.g. woody [at] askwoody [dot com]). Click Yes, then Next Step. You’ll see another dialog box that confirms details about your previous user name. Click Next Step again.

Gmail will ask whether you want to send outbound mail through Gmail or through your original email provider. Having been bitten by ISPs that block port 25 (for more, see my Aug. 27, 2009, Woody’s Windows column), I always opt to send via Google; as long as I have an Internet connection, my mail always goes out. Click Next Step.

Step 5. Gmail next asks you to verify the email address you’ll be using from now on (either your old address or a new address). Click Send Verification and then check your old (Outlook) inbox. You’ll get an email with a verification code. Type the code into the next Gmail dialog box and click Verify. And you’re done!

Step 6. Consider carefully whether you want to automatically export all your contacts from Outlook into the Google Contacts list. If you do, follow the steps on the Export Outlook Contacts to Google Gmail page for creating a CSV file and importing it into Google Contacts.

If you’re feeling particularly brave, you can set up Outlook and Google Contacts to sync automatically (more info). But if you’re giving up on Outlook, why bother? A slipstick.com page gives detailed instructions for synching Outlook and Gmail via IMAP.

Step 7. If you want to copy your Sent Mail from Outlook to Gmail, it can be done by jumping through a few IMAP hoops. A How-To Geek story has a step-by-step explanation for setting up IMAP synching between Gmail and Outlook 2007. The steps also work for Outlook 2010 and 2013.

Once you have the two mail systems communicating via IMAP, copy the messages in your Outlook Sent Items folder into the new IMAP Save folder. Next, copy any messages in your Outlook inbox to the new IMAP Inbox folder. Wait a few minutes — or an hour or more — and they’ll appear inside Gmail. From there, you can move them all to your Gmail Archive — or anywhere else you like. Don’t be too surprised if some of your messages disappear; Gmail’s junk filter works much better than Outlook’s.

I still find myself going back to Outlook from time to time, typically to retrieve a deleted message that’s available only on the Outlook side of the fence. But overall, my trips to Outlook are blissfully rare.

Once your email is in Gmail, take a minute to download the Gmail apps for your iPhone, iPad, Android phone, or Android tablet. You don’t need to do a thing: mail you send on your phone appears on your PCl; mail you receive on your iPad is on your Galaxy or your Mac; and so on. For someone accustomed to lugging around a big laptop with a huge .pst file just to run Outlook, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Welcome to the 21st century — no Exchange Server required!

In my next column, I’ll show you how to take all those old Excel spreadsheets you have lying around, stick them into Google Drive, and share them with whomever.

Small boy with big sticks plays gigs

By Kathleen Atkins Avery is a mere six years old — and he’s already an exceptional musician. His drumming is not simply enthusiastic or con brio: he knows what he’s doing. You’re likely to notice this even if you’re neither a rock musician nor a fan of the genre. You might find yourself pondering how many words such as “rare” and “prodigy” might apply to Avery. But don’t forget to enjoy the video, too. Play the video

How do we love thee, XP? Let us count the ways

When Lounge member bhdavis brought performance data from his XP desktop and Win8 laptop to the Lounge, he asked for opinions about the usefulness of additional memory for his Windows XP Home machine. Should he buy more?

He sparked a lively — but friendly — debate, wherein the long-of-tooth XP system was defended as the prehistoric shark, saber-toothed tiger, or T. rex of operating systems. You can follow the route to bhdavis’s decision in the Hardware forum.

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions for which you might have answers:

Office Applications
General Productivity	Dual-boot PC and legal MS Office install
Word Processing	Copy entire template
Spreadsheets	Macro to convert all files into Excel
Databases	Need Access database for employee data
Presentation Apps	Converting Excel sheets into PowerPoint slides
Visual Basic for Apps	VBA object-model error
Microsoft Outlook	Want smartphone synchronization with Outlook
Non-Outlook E-mail	WLM 2012 can’t open new message or reply
Windows
General Windows	Microsoft pulls security update KB 2823324
Windows 8	Locking after 15 minutes
Windows 7	Questions after clean reinstall of Win7
	Error message when moving files: “File is locked by another process”
	Win7 VM failed; how to recover?
Windows Vista	Understanding the UAC
Windows XP	Converting PDF to Word
Windows Servers	Windows 2003 client’s local admin account locked out
Internet/Connectivity
Internet Explorer	YouTube and IE10
Third-Party Browsers	Firefox won’t load any websites
Networking	Problem using wireless to connect laptop to desktop
Social Media	How to get rid of Google Plus webpage that keeps opening
Other Technologies
Security & Scams	Read about new point-of-sale malware called BlackPOS
Maintenance	True Image stopped backing up
Hardware	Will more memory help speed up PC?

starred posts: particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right in to today’s discussions in the Lounge.

More free security tools from Microsoft

Three useful malware tools from Microsoft run on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 but — inexplicably — don’t work on Windows 8!

Plus: Questions about running multiple security apps together, solving hangs at shutdown, and curing homepage hijacking in a browser.

Omission in the Microsoft security-tool story?

Reader Kevin Hobbs suggests another free security tool from Microsoft that wasn’t included in the April 4 Top Story, “Microsoft’s six free desktop security tools.”

• “Fred Langa forgot one obvious security tool that prevents malware from getting onto your system — the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET). It works even with many zero-day threats.

  “Some links for EMET information online: July 24, 2012, TechNet blog post; MS Support article 2458544; EMET v3.0 download page; and EMET v3.5 Tech Preview download page.

  “Months after its release, v3.5 is still a ‘Tech Preview,’ but it has a better user interface than v3.0.”

Thanks, Kevin. I agree that the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit is a worthy anti-malware app. Windows Secrets covered it in Susan Bradley’s Jan. 6, 2011, article, “Protecting your browsing with EMET.”

Oddly, EMET is one of three security tools that Microsoft seems to be abandoning. EMET, the Microsoft Malware Prevention troubleshooter, and the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer are all incompatible with Windows 8 — they either don’t run, run poorly, or give bogus results! That’s why I didn’t include them in that recent Top Story.

But the three tools still work on PCs running XP through Win7 — and they’re still useful in the battle against malware.

For more on the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, see Kevin’s links or Susan Bradley’s article.

The Microsoft Malware Prevention troubleshooter (site) is a standalone fixit that checks whether various XP/Vista/Win7 settings (Policy, User Account Control, Proxy, etc.) are configured for maximum safety. If anything’s amiss, the troubleshooter can make changes for you automatically (Figure 1) — or let you make them manually.

However, try to run the Malware Prevention tool on Win8, and you get the error message shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. The Microsoft Malware Prevention troubleshooter can apply recommended system settings for you in XP, Vista, and Win7.

Figure 2. The Malware Prevention site gives no mention of or warnings about Windows 8, but the fixit fails when you try to run it on the new OS.

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (site) is an installable utility originally intended for use by IT professionals to scan one or more PCs. (It can work across a network.) The analyzer, shown in Figure 3, checks about 24 different security-related system settings, ensuring they’re correctly configured. It checks, for example, that Windows Update is enabled, that all current Updates have been installed, that local system shares and passwords are correctly configured, and that macro security is enabled on installed MS Office products.

Figure 3. A professional-level tool, the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer can scan multiple systems across a network.

I have no idea why Microsoft failed to update these tools for Win8. But it’s a shame; they’ve proved useful on XP, Vista, and Win7 systems.

OK to run multiple always-on security tools?

A comment in the April 4 Top Story, “Microsoft’s six free desktop security tools,” prompted John to ask this question:

• “In the article, you say, ‘… a PC should run only one real-time, anti-malware/anti-spyware tool at a time.’

  “I have been using Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) since you first recommended it. I also use Malwarebytes (paid version) and SUPERAntiSpyware.

  “Is it okay to have those three running together?”

Like MSE, Malwarebytes Pro (site; paid) provides real-time protection. But as a Malwarebytes Product Support Questions page states, the product should be used to supplement other full-time AV tools — it should coexist without conflicts. The free version of Malwarebytes will also run alongside other AV products, but it’s active only when you manually launch it.

SUPERAntiSpyware is a whole other thing. I know it’s hugely popular, and I recently test-drove it again on multiple versions of Windows for last week’s Top Story, “A dozen tools for removing almost any malware.” But for several reasons, I decided to omit the product from the article.

For one thing, parts of its nomenclature seemed misleading. For example, the “SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner Personal Edition” doesn’t really fit the common definition of a portable app. It’s a renamed .exe file that must be installed and run like other common Windows programs. I quickly lose confidence in products that claim something (e.g., portability) they don’t have. (The SUPERAntiSpyware site suggests the app is “portable” because it has all the latest virus definitions when you download it. So you don’t need an active Internet connection to run it.)

SUPERAntiSpyware also didn’t uninstall cleanly. This is 2013! Surely any decent Windows-based app or utility ought to remove itself fully when you uninstall it.

I can’t speak to SUPERAntiSpyware’s effectiveness. The red flags mentioned above caused me to put it aside. The anti-malware product category has many great tools — some mentioned in last week’s Top Story. So why waste time on apps that seem to have obvious flaws and/or drawbacks?

That said, if the three AV tools you’re using appear to be working, then great! You’re probably well protected. (But I’m guessing that Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes are doing most of the heavy lifting.)

Bottom line: You can run a second full-time scanner (such as Malwarebytes Pro) if it’s specifically designed to work with other full-time scanners.

Processes that prevent normal shutdown

Mike O’Byrne’s Win7 system is experiencing hangs and delays at shutdown.

• “Call me paranoid, but when stuff happens on my computer that interrupts what I consider the normal computing flow, I worry that something evil is lurking inside. Can you help me to figure out what is going on?

  “When I run through the shutdown on my Win7 laptop, I usually get a window stating something like ‘Windows can’t shut down because a process is running.’ Sometimes, it names the process, but usually it doesn’t. I’m given the option of forcing the process to close — but with the caveat that I may lose any unsaved work.

  “Before I shut down, I close all of the programs I’ve been running. When I get the warning, I check Task Manager; but nothing seems amiss. Is there some program that could identify the processes windows is waiting for?”

The hung process problem has been with Windows since the beginning. Although each version of Windows has gotten better at detecting and avoiding this issue, it persists. (In fairness to Microsoft, it’s often some third-party process — e.g., a hung driver — that causes the trouble.)

Because it’s an ongoing problem, Microsoft has developed a free tool to help — the Microsoft Sysinternals’ Process Explorer. Available on the TechNet download page, it runs on current Windows versions. The TechNet page also includes links to detailed help resources.

You can also see the Feb. 24, 2011, LangaList Plus item, “Fixing a slow or hung Windows shutdown,” for more information.

Curing a browser’s homepage hijacking

William Campbell’s browser has been modified — possibly by malware.

• “I have Windows 7 and Internet Explorer. Recently, a search.conduit.com homepage has appeared on my desktop, uninvited. This accursed page has proved impossible to remove. If Microsoft has a solution, I haven’t been able to find it. Can I get a clearly explained fix to this problem? Your help would be appreciated.”

You bet, William. The likely problem is that your browser has been hijacked — either by accident or via malware. But the fix is typically easy and fast.

If it’s an accidental change (such as unwittingly accepting a toolbar add-on), resetting the browser should fix it. In Internet Explorer, select Tools (the gear icon), Internet Option, and then Advanced. Next, click the Reset button under Reset Internet Explorer settings. (For more info, see the Jan. 6, 2011, LangaList Plus item, “Return IE to its just-installed state with ease.”

All major browsers can be returned to their default states by some similar process. Check out the related Firefox support page or Chrome page.

If malware is the cause of your trouble, the homepage hijacking will resume even after you’ve reset the browser. In that case, you’ll have to thoroughly disinfect your system — a good thing to do any time something weird starts going on with your PC.

Last week’s Top Story, “A dozen tools for removing almost any malware,” has the info and free tools you need to get your PC totally malware-free!

Giving employees a say over business technology

The days of IT admins proclaiming designated platforms and devices for the entire organization are quickly dwindling.

Instead, businesses are embracing the BYOD trend — allowing employees to make some of their own decisions about which technologies they use.

Giving employees a say over business technology

The name for the trend arose from BYOB — as in “bring your own bottle” or “bring your own booze.” These days there’s a BYOx for almost any endeavor. But in business, BYOD stands for “bring your own device,” the idea that employees can bring their own smartphones, tablets — in some cases, even their own PCs — and other gadgets to work, for work. They’re no longer confined to a specific technology issued by the company.

Personal smartphones are the first and best example of rogue devices finding their way into business use, followed recently by millions of tablets such as the iPad. BYOD isn’t new, but the trend exploded with the introduction of the iPhone. Many organizations were (and some still are) entrenched in a mobile infrastructure built around the BlackBerry. But employees, having bought millions of new iPhones, wanted the freedom to use their shiny new devices for work.

Although BYOD is commonly associated with an employee-impelled movement, the term also applies to another technology trend — IT consumerization. Here, organizations choose and use technologies built with consumers in mind. These devices are popular with employees, but they typically lack the business features and enterprise controls IT admins are used to. However, when the company selects and distributes these consumer-based devices, IT managers still maintain some control over technology support and security.

At BYOD’s most sophisticated level, not only are consumer-oriented devices allowed within a business, but control over which devices are used is given to individual users. Most of us now live in a 24/7 connected world, and business is often no longer tied to a nine-to-five clock. Businesses embrace BYOD because they know that employees need the freedom to be productive from wherever they are — and on whatever device they have available.

The pros and cons of a business BYOD policy

Instituting a BYOD policy has numerous repercussions for employees, IT, and the organization as a whole.

For the company, cutting technology costs is one attraction of BYOD. Letting employees use their own laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other devices frees up dollars a business would otherwise spend on acquiring hardware. Although many organizations subsidize employees’ BYOD purchases, the expense is typically less than the business would have spent to purchase and supply hardware to the user.

But BYOD can also result in conflicts over troubleshooting and support responsibility. When the IT department supplies an employee with a smartphone and the device malfunctions, the user brings it to the IT department for help. In most cases, IT personnel have the expertise to quickly resolve the problem.

On the other hand, when an employee’s personal/business device goes down, this could be at the time and expense of the employee and the organization — if the employee uses company time to repair or replace the device, or if the lack of an operational device interferes with getting work done.

A less quantifiable benefit of BYOD is the opportunity for companies to test and adopt new technologies. Companies tend to be slow or cautious about embracing new technologies and often work with strict hardware-refresh cycles. By selectively allowing employees to use their own devices for work, businesses can explore cutting-edge technologies for little cost. Moreover, employees get to use the devices they’ve grown most accustomed to.

Just as we each prefer a specific brand or type of car, technology users prefer certain platforms or devices for a variety of reasons — most of which are subjective. The “why” isn’t really important; it’s simply a fact that people are more comfortable — and hopefully more productive — with the platforms and devices they prefer.

That said, IT admins can’t give carte blanche to every device employees might want to drag into the office. IT departments are, after all, responsible for business-data security and compatibility. If, for example, the business relies on a custom application developed for Windows, a BYOD policy that allows users to bring in Mac or Linux PCs won’t make any sense.

Businesses in industries such as healthcare and finance are governed by strict laws mandating security and data protection. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and other regulations dictate that organizations implement baseline security measures. They must be able to monitor and protect devices that might contain sensitive information.

A BYOD policy can still be managed in the face of government regulations, but IT must have the authority to put limitations on the platforms and devices employees use for work. Often, IT budgets and staffing, along with regulations, determine the practicality of a BYOD policy.

BYOD here to stay — and it will only grow

Although many organizations are wary of the trend, BYOD has built significant momentum — especially in regard to smartphones and tablets. The practice is also propelled by the growth of online computing and data sharing. BYOD has moved surprisingly quickly from a nascent trend adopted by a few fringe companies to a mainstream movement that can’t be ignored.

If you plan to adopt or promote a BYOD policy in your company, make sure you’ve carefully considered its benefits and constraints. You should have a written policy defining which personal technology is acceptable. Your policy should also outline expectations and responsibilities — for the company, for the IT department, and for the employee.

In an upcoming story, I’ll discuss BYOD in more depth: the current state of BYOD, its best practices, and the future implications for organizations, employees, and technology in general.

20 simple tips and tricks for Win7 and Win8

Over the years of using Windows 7 — and now Windows 8 — I’ve acquired numerous useful tricks for navigating Windows, printing and filing documents, and other sundry computing tasks.

Here’s a quick list of my favorites — some, relatively obvious; others, not so much.

Most of the following tips work in Windows 7 and are, thankfully, carried over to Windows 8. (In the few exceptions where the tip is exclusive to either Win7 or Win8, it’s noted.)

Work faster within Windows

• Rename multiple files quickly. Highlight the files you want to rename and then tap the F2 key. Rename the first file and hit Enter. Each file will get the new name along with a sequential number in parentheses. If you change your mind, press Ctrl + Z to undo the renaming.
• Use check boxes to select multiple files. By default, we use CTRL + click to cherry-pick multiple individual files to copy, move, or delete in Windows Explorer. But as we all know, we occasionally slip with our clicks and have to start over — or undo an unintended copy/move/delete. Clicking check boxes next to each file can be quicker, but the check boxes are hidden until you make a simple settings change.

  Windows 7: In Windows Explorer, click Organize and then select Folder and search options. Next, click the View tab. In the Advanced settings list, check the box next to Use check boxes to select items. Click OK. Now, when you hover your mouse over a file, a check box appears. Click on the boxes next to the files you want to copy, move, or delete.

  Windows 8: From the Desktop, click the folder icon in the Taskbar to open the Libraries folder. Select the View tab and click Options (on the far right). Select the View tab in the Folder Options dialog box and scroll down to Use check boxes to select items.

• Run multiple copies of applications from the taskbar. The Windows taskbar doesn’t just launch applications; you can also use it to launch a second instance of an app. Simply hold down the Shift key while clicking the application’s icon.
• Do the app backflip in Win8. In Windows 7 we can toggle through all open apps by pressing Alt + Tab repeatedly. That still works in Windows 8, but within the tiled Start window, you can view thumbnails of open apps in a left-side sidebar, where they can be accessed quickly or closed.

  With more than one Metro-style app open, hover your mouse or finger over the top-left corner of the Start screen. A small thumbnail will appear. Tapping the thumbnail rotates through open Metro-style apps. Holding the thumbnail open and swiping down slightly along the left screen edge opens the sidebar of open apps (Figure 1). (The Desktop, and all open apps within, are considered one application.) This is particularly handy when you’re switching from one app to another. If you want to close an app, right-click its thumbnail and select Close.

  Of course, if you have a touchpad, you can rotate though apps by simply swiping in from the left edge of the pad or touchscreen.

  

  Figure 1. Win8's quick-list of open applications

Make Windows run more efficiently

• Rearrange the notification area icons. The notification area (or system tray) icons can be rearranged in any order simply by dragging and dropping them as you wish. Hidden icons (click the notification area’s small up-arrow to view them) can be dragged onto the notification area bar so they’re visible full-time.
• Shake the desktop free of clutter. With multiple apps open on your desktop, clutter can easily rule the day. This gets annoying if you’re working on one program and want to minimize all other open apps. In Win7 and Win8, using the shake feature, you can minimize every open window except the one you’re currently using. Just click and hold the title bar of the window you want to stay open, then shake it up and down or side to side. The other windows will minimize to the taskbar. Want those windows back? Shake the title bar again.

  In Windows 7, you must have an Aero theme selected as well as sufficient graphics hardware (which might eliminate some notebooks). Windows 8 doesn’t have Aero. The shake feature works only with desktop apps — not native, Metro-style apps. If you like to hug the keyboard, Windows key + Home does the same job.

• Upgrade to a larger-capacity hard drive. According to Consumer Reports research, on PCs with smaller hard drives that are more than half full, programs and disk operations such as copying and backing up can slow down because the drive heads have to move farther across the spinning disks to read and write data. That’s why it’s a good plan to get a larger hard drive than you think you might need when buying a new PC. Or get a solid-state drive, which has no moving parts. (Disk defragging and compression can also improve system performance.)
• Call Problem Steps Recorder to the rescue. If Windows or an application gives you trouble, go to the Win7 Start menu search box and enter PSR to launch the Problem Steps Recorder (Figure 2). In Win8, simply type PSR in the Start screen and click Steps Recorder.

  Next, click Start Record; it’ll record each succeeding mouse click, screen tap, and key press and also take screen shots. When you click Stop Record, Windows assembles all this recorded info into a tidy, zipped MHTML file. The file can then be emailed to tech support to see where the problem occurred, possibly saving you hours of step-by-step troubleshooting.

  

  Figure 2. The Problem Steps Recorder logs keystrokes and clicks; it also takes screenshots of Windows activity.

• Save memory with font management. Prior to Windows 7, font management in Windows barely existed. In Win7 and Win8, the Fonts folder offers a what-you-see-is-what-you-get preview of fonts installed on your system. Fonts are organized by families of similar fonts. A check box next to each font lets you hide it from view — or delete it outright. You can also right-click on each font to get the same options. The hide option saves memory because visible fonts are loaded into background memory when applications open.

  To open the Fonts folder, simply type Font into Win7’s Start menu search box. In Win8, type Fonts in the Start screen, select Settings in the Search sidebar, and click Fonts in the results.

• Keep a clean screen. Monitors need cleaning from time to time; touchscreens need cleaning frequently. But you don’t necessarily need special cleaning fluids to clean your display. A small drop of eyeglass cleaner or rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol on a microfiber (lint-free) cloth will do the trick. You can even use a dab of dishwashing liquid on a damp cloth. Just remember: Never clean displays with ammonia-based cleaners.

Enhancing the Start menu

• Search the Internet from the Start menu. We’re familiar with using Win7’s Start menu search box or Win8’s Charms-based Search for finding things on our PCs. But with a few tweaks, you can also search the Internet without opening a browser. To enable this feature, you must have administrator rights and be running Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, or Enterprise Edition.

  First, type GPEDIT.MSC in the search box and press Enter. That opens Windows’ local Group Policy Editor. Once there, go to User Configuration/Administrative Templates. Click Start Menu and Taskbar, then double-click Add Search Internet link to Start Menu. In the dialog box that appears, select Enabled; then click OK and close the Group Policy Editor. Now type in a Web address, and your default browser should open and take you to the page.

• Customize the Shut down button in Win7. The default action of the Start menu’s Shut down button is to turn off your PC. If you want the button to have another default action — Switch user, Log off, Restart, etc. — right-click it and select Properties. In the dialog box that opens, click the Start menu tab and select the new default action from the Power button action drop-down list. Press OK. The button should change when you restart Windows.
• Use Win8’s hidden power-user’s menu. Although there’s no Start button in Windows 8, you still can access a power-user’s menu (Figure 3), hidden where the Start button was located. From the Start screen, hover the cursor in the bottom-left corner until you see the thumbnail of the Desktop. Then right-click that thumbnail to get a mini start menu filled with frequently used apps and utilities. But the faster option is to simply press Windows + X on either the Start screen or the Desktop. Now, if MS had just added a shutdown button to the menu, it would be even more useful.
  

  Figure 3. Press Windows key + X to pop up Win8's hidden power-user's menu.

• Swipe-close a Windows 8 app. I don’t know why Microsoft decided to make closing an app a secret in Windows 8. Sure, you can minimize it so it ostensibly uses minimal resources; but if you just want to close it, you have to give it the Alt-F4 salute. Or place the cursor at the screen until it turns into a hand. Click and drag the cursor down the screen; the app will shrink to a thumbnail — and then whoosh, it’s gone.

Make printing easier and less costly

• Save your printer ink. Here’s an odd fact. Research by Consumer Reports found that printers use more ink when using the Arial font, the default font in Microsoft Office prior to Version 2007. Times New Roman and the new default font, Calibri, use less ink. To save even more, use grayscale or black-only mode whenever possible.

  Go to Devices and Printers, either from the Start menu or the Control Panel, and right-click your chosen printer. Select Printing preferences. If the printer’s properties allow it, select Fast, Draft, or Custom mode and then click Apply.

• Don’t shut off your printer. Leave it in standby mode. Many ink-jet printers use more ink when the printer is powered on than when left in standby. And most modern printers use just a trickle of power in standby mode.
• Print with Charms in Win8. Window 8’s tiled interface can drive former XP and Win7 users crazy because it has little in common with the former versions of the OS. For example, print buttons in native apps are often MIA. Instead, you need to open the Charms menu (Windows key + C), select Devices, and then Printer.

Keep your system secure

• Remember: Longer passwords are stronger passwords. I know, I know — we’ve all heard this mantra. But how many of us have followed through? One trick I’ve used is to take the first letter of each word in an easy-to-remember sentence and make at least one letter a capital while adding one special character as well. For example, the sentence (and I don’t recommend using it) “I have changed my password” becomes Ihcmpassw0rd. (Note that the “o” in “password” is changed to a numeric “0.”)
• Protect your portable data. USB flash drives, while convenient, are easy to lose. If they hold any sensitive data, you could have a serious problem. We typically don’t recommend using Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption app for your hard drive, but you can use it on a flash drive if your version of Windows includes BitLocker. To activate it, right-click your USB flash drive letter, select Turn on BitLocker (see Figure 4), and follow the instructions to protect your private files.
  

  Figure 4. If your version of If your version of Windows includes BitLocker (highlighted with arrow), you can use the encryption app to protect USB flash drives.

• Choose your Win8 sign-in account — Local or Domain? When you first set up Windows 8, you’re asked, by default, to sign in with a Microsoft account. (Use SkyDrive, a Windows Phone, Xbox Live, Hotmail, or Outlook.com, and you have a Microsoft account.) Using an MS account with Win8 gives you access to free online storage, mobile entertainment, and the downloadable apps in the Windows Store. In fact, you must have a Microsoft account to shop for paid or free apps in the Windows Store.

  But if you don’t want to sign in with an MS account, you can reset Win8 to a local account (Figure 5). From the Charms Search bar, select Settings and type user to open User accounts. Click the Switch to a local account box to make the change. Note: If you’re signed in as a local user, you’ll have to sign in separately for Hotmail, SkyDrive, and other online services.

  

  Figure 5. Win8 lets you sign in with a Microsoft account or a more limited local account.

I hope these tips improve your Windows experience as much as they have mine.