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I don't have a DVD. All s/w was pre-installed. But there is a recovery partition and I've made the DVDs. But I'll admit I don't really fancy having to rebuild all the s/w on a brand new PC. I did a quick Google and one suggestion was to turn off System Restore. I may try that.

My new laptop has a 500gb HDD. I want to partition it to keep the OS separate from my data. I started Windows 7 Disk management and it shows drive C as Basic with 454GB capacity; that's OK because of hidden recovery. I chose Shrink Volume which I understand is how to free space to create a new...

Partitioning new PC My new laptop has drive C: and a hidden recovery partition. I want to split C: into two to keep all my data away from software so that it's safe if I have to recover any system stuff. I've made a set of recovery DVDs as recommended so is it now OK just to go ahead with...

A neighbour had problems with repeated failure of the same update day after day. It turned out to be a NET framework problem. It's not exactly your problem but could be worth a try: Go to Start/Control Panel Click Programs and Features (choose ‘classic view’ if you can’t see it) From program...

Thanks for the help. I'll have to have a look around when I have the detailed spec of his machine.

PCI graphics card A friend has just bought a Samsung 1920x1080 LCD display and his XP PC won't support that resolution. I think he has on-board graphics so I assume installing the latest Samsug driver won't help in this case. So the solution could be a separate graphics card. I'm waiting for a...

The eye can resolve about 0.6 minutes of arc. But this is not the whole story. Reading text involves more than just resolution - letter and word recognition and fonts are involved. This site explains: http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/healthycomputing/vdc-crf.html (It seems to me that the 14 and 22...

Elements is really the cut down 'consumer' version of the professionally oriented CS. Elements 9 has just been released for around £58 and CS5 is typically about £560. I own PSE and have used CS3. While PSE has a steep learning curve, CS is practically vertical.

Be careful with increased resolution on screens. Some programs, notably Photoshop Elements, use built-in pixel based fonts and icons which no amount of Windows desktop and font resizing will change. Photoshop Elements is all but unusable above 1366x768 on a 15.6 screen or 1600x900 on 17.3". See...

I agree it is slightly confusing. I now have a spreadsheet to show the effect of different screen sizes and resolutions. Forgive me if I'm explaining at too great a length below, but it took me a while to fathom it out myself. The Photoshop Elements window has the usual File, Edit, View, Help...

Thank you for the suggestion. I've checked Sony and the basic F series model is 16.4" with 1600x900. this could be a problem with the Photoshop text at 1.13mm for a 5px wide upper case letter but I'll think it over, especially as there is a free blu-ray offer for a few days. The HD option at...

Hi, I'm looking for a laptop preferably 17.3" but 15.6" could be OK. The key feature I want is a good quality display with even illumination and decent contrast levels. Most laptops get criticised for contrast ratios under 180:1. (My current 5 year old monitor is rated at 800:1 which was good...

I've just about finished setting up my neighbour's new Acer 5551 with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Display adapter. But the image adjustments on the laptop seem very poor. No contrast, and only Windows 7 Control panel, Calibrate Color to fiddle with. As this relies on a Gamma corrector and the...

Thanks. I thought that would probably be the case. So I assume it will be OK to use the W7 partitioning facility to rearrange the 50/50 space split.

I'm about to start setting up a new Acer 5551 for a neighbour. His old XP Acer (taken over from daughter) had its HDD in two visible equal size partitions - C: and D: All the daughter's software and data was jammed in C:, and D: showed up almost empty. I cleared out the (daughter's) data from...

Thank you all. The machine is now on its way so I guess I'll be busy in a couple of days. I'm going to have to make it look like XP as far as possible to reduce his 'culture shock' which I'm just getting over myself.

That was quick :) Thank you very much

My neighbour is getting a new Acer laptop with Windows 7 64 bit and I will be doing most of the set-up. He has a very old Works Suite pre-installed on previous laptop (so no disk) and wants to avoid buying MS stuff just for word processing. Can anyone tell me if Open Office 3.2 /3.2.1 is OK...

My neighbour is about to buy an Acer 5551 laptop and I will be helping him set it up. I suspect that one of the first things to do is create a set of recovery disks. I've downloaded the available manuals which say how to do it but don't say what type or how many blanks are needed. Can anyone...

Thought this might be useful for people looking at hi-res laptops A lot more laptops are turning up with 17.3" screens and 1920x1080 resolution. I thought it was worth pointing out that higher resolutions can give problems with Photoshop Elements menu area and tools palette. These are not...