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22nd March 2009

WINDOWS XASPIRATION

Brian Grainger

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brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk


 

INTRODUCTION

I have been using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office ever since 1992, although I don’t maintain the latest version in either. Over the years I have had lots of little niggles. Just occasionally I come across something that is so incomprehensible; so detrimental to the use of Windows or Office; that could so easily be corrected - but isn’t.

I came across a new one, concerning the use of background wallpaper, in the new year so I thought I would share my experiences on this and a few others from the past. If anyone has any solutions do tell!

WINDOWS XP BACKGROUND WALLPAPER

Where I work our Windows XP based PCs are securely controlled. Presently we have roaming profiles to enable us to use any machine on the network. Until very recently we were provided with a background wallpaper with the company name on it and we did not have permissions to change it. Our parent sites in France, Germany and Spain do not have such rigid controls so at Christmas the company provided a new background which users could install should they wish. The discrepancy in the UK led to our IT having to conform with the rest of Europe and they changed the permissions. In addition they removed the old wallpaper so we were left with a horrible plain blue colour on which the desktop icons were difficult to read.

When this happened I had to get new wallpaper so I decided to follow the instructions and download the new company provided wallpaper and set it up. It worked and I thought nothing more about it.

When I started work after the Christmas break in the general tidy up (of my computer) I have at this time I noticed my profile space had gone down from its usual 12MB to about 8MB. I have commented before on how a reduced profile space can be a problem and the things that can impact on the profile space.. A check showed that none of the causes previously found applied this time. No, the problem was that I had the following 4MB bitmap file in my profile space:

Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp

The name of the file did not mean anything but it did not take much investigation to find it was the background wallpaper I had downloaded before Christmas.

Forgetting that I was forced to have .bmp files for wallpaper in previous versions of Windows my immediate reaction was to get huffy and demand to know why the company wallpaper had been created in the memory (and profile) gobbling .bmp format and not .jpg. I later found that it HAD been created in .jpg format but Windows XP had CHANGED it!

My first step in solving the problem was to change the .bmp file into a .jpg file as follows:

    • Used ‘Paint’ to change Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp to save as
      Internet Explorer Wallpaper(BG Mod).jpg

      This reduced the filesize to 79KB (from 3.6MB).

    • Put the revised file in C:\WINNT\Web\Wallpaper (where I found all the other Windows standard wallpapers were stored - also in .jpg format.

    • Reset the Display Background to Internet Explorer Wallpaper(BG Mod)

    • Removed ..\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp

I now had the same wallpaper, (with no appreciable difference in quality), with no negative impact on my profile.

All was well - for the moment!

The next day when I had logged out and logged in again I found Windows did not start with my newly created .jpg file as the background. It was just a default blue colour. I could reset it easily enough by going into display settings and choosing the file again for my wallpaper. Why did Windows not keep my selection from session to session? It does if I change to a standard Windows wallpaper. I never did find the solution. After a while the problem did not recur, but other things happened to my PC as well - like my Internet History was not being deleted on a daily basis as it normally was.

It was while I was trying to investigate this that I found that windoze had changed the format of the original file to .bmp from .jpg - when ‘Setting the picture as background’ or using ‘Save as …’ from the context menu on the picture - with subsequent increase in filesize. No doubt windoze was sticking the file in the profile as well - but there is some justification for that provided it is a small size.

Summarising, there are two gripes here.

1) Why are supplied Windows wallpaper file in .jpg format but a user created wallpaper is rendered in memory/space hogging .bmp format?

2) If you do actually create a .jpg file and set it as a wallpaper why does it not stay selected from one session to the next?

WINDOWS EXPLORER FILE - NEW

File Menu View

I use Windows Explorer a lot and when I want to create a new folder I go to the File menu, select New then Folder. Except that as I am going to type a folder name I don’t usually use the mouse to traverse the menus.

In all versions of Windows before XP I used to go:

Depress Alt key and keep down (Select menus)
Press F (Select File)
Press N (Select New)
Lift off Alt key and hit return (select Folder)

With Windows XP I have to go:

Depress Alt key and keep down (Select menus)
Press F (Select File)
Press W (Select New)
Lift off Alt key and hit return (select Folder)

Que?

Why has it changed from N for New to W for new? The Send To item on the File menu is now using the N key code. Why has it changed from the T key code for all previous versions of Windows?

MICROSOFT WORD TABLES AND HEADER ROWS

When using Microsoft Word you can create text in tables. If you are like me then you use the first row of the table to give the names of the columns.

This all works fine when the complete table is printed on a single page.

When the table splits across 2 or more pages then the column headings in the first row are lost on the second and subsequent pages. Microsoft have thought of this. You can define the first row as, what Microsoft calls, a Header Row. Now when you print the table the first row will be printed at the top of each page. So far. So good.

In my line of employment one of my main jobs is to create a huge table that in each line identifies a failure mode that might occur in the item I am considering - such as an electronic equipment, a subsystem of such equipments, or even a total satellite. Each failure mode is analysed and the various columns of the table identify what impact the failure has, how it is detected and how it is corrected, amongst other things. As you can imagine the number of rows in this table can be large and is spread over many pages. However, it is sensible to break the table up into logical portions, with each portion starting on a new page.

The way to start a new page in Word is to put a Page Break in the text.

Here comes the gripe. At the top of this new page after the page break, (and all subsequent pages), no header row is seen on the printed output! I can think of no good reason why a forced page break rather than a natural one should create a complication, but there it is. When I first started creating these tables I was using an earlier version of Word and there was nothing in the help file to indicate there was a restriction, let alone a solution. You either have to start a new table after each page break, or do what I did in the end, which was to put my header rows in the page header.

At least in the version of Word I am now using there is recognition of the restriction in the help file - but no solution. Absolute madness.

MICROSOFT WORD SELECTION OF WORDS

When I am doing a lot of typing it is natural to have to select words for one purpose or another - to delete them; to add hyperlinks; to select text for a global search; etc. To go one word at a time I use the keyboard, SHIFT-CTRL-RIGHT adds one word at a time to the text selection. To select whole lines I will do HOME - SHIFT-END.

The problem? Whenever whole lines are selected it also selects the final space or hidden paragraph break. Invariably, I never want this is the selection - I just want the words. Therefore, I nearly always have to back up one space in the selection.

Word Selection

With the keyboard it is just a little extra keying that is irritating. With mouse selection the problem becomes a whole lot worse. The spaces between words are added even when selecting within a line, rather than finishing the selection at the end of the current word. Inevitably, there has to be some careful mouse juggling left and right at the end of the selection to omit the final unwanted space or paragraph marker. How much time I waste fine tuning the mouse position is anyone's guess. The Microsoft usability labs never saw me working or they might have done something about it!

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP SAVE AS DIALOG - MY RECENT DOCUMENTS

This final gripe really has me open-mouthed with astonishment. In Windows Explorer I try to keep my folders viewed in sorted filename order. I mention this just in case it is relevant to the problem. I don't think it is. My problem comes when I am saving a newly created file using the file save dialog.

When using an app that uses the standard Windows XP open and save dialog, e.g. Wordpad, I usually want to save my file to a folder that I have accessed recently. The simplest way to find the folder is to select File - Save As and click the My Recent Documents toolbar icon.

Recent Documents View

Now, here's a question. How do you think files on display are sorted? You would expect, as it's My Recent Documents, it would be in Date order with most recent at the top. No - Microsoft think you want My Least Accessed Documents and display in date order BUT oldest at the top. An extra click is always required on the Date Modified column!

It is complete and utter stupidity.

THE FINAL QUESTION

With that comment on Microsoft's programming prowess I will draw the curtains on this little selection of gripes and simply end with a question:

Why did they do that?


 

 

 

 


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