Category Archives: Windows Help

Restore the Show Desktop button to the taskbar

Leave a reply

Recently, probably due to a Windows update, I noticed that the Show Desktop option was missing from the Windows taskbar. This option is a small button that appears when you hover your mouse over the rightmost part of the Windows taskbar at the bottom of your screen. I’ve aways found this button very useful for quickly hiding/ minimising the loads of application I have open and letting me double-click another app shortcut on my desktop.

If you find the option is missing, these are the steps I took to restore the option/ button.

1. Open the Start menu in Windows and type Settings then select the Settings app.

2. In Settings, choose Personalization from the list on the left.

3. Then check the box “Select the far corner of the taskbar to show the desktop”.

4. Then close the Settings window.

I’ve shown the checkbox in the Settings window in the picture below.

Show Desktop Option in Windows Taskbar

Show Desktop Option in Windows Taskbar

 

How to Stop Outlook receiving emails for an account without deleting the account

1 Reply

Sometimes it’s useful to have Outlook stop receiving emails for a specific email account. One way of achieving this is to delete the account from Outlook. The problem then is that if you want to receive emails on that account again you will need to reenter the account details like server, password etc.

A simpler way of stopping emails is to remove the email account from the Send/ Receive Groups in Outlook. You can do this by:-

1. Choose File then Options in Outlook.

2. In the Outlook Options dialog, click the Advanced options on the left.

3. In the Advanced options, click the Send/ Receive button to show the Send/ Receive Groups dialog.

4. Select the All Accounts group and then press the Edit button.

5. In the Send/ Receive settings dialog, choose the email account you want to disable on the left then uncheck the Include the selected account in this group box as shown in the picture below.

outlooksendreceivegroups

5. Press OK then back in the previous dialog press Close.

Outlook will now no longer try and download emails from the account.

To re-enable email downloads, repeat the steps above except at step 5 check the Include this group box.

How to always run a Windows program maximized/ in full screen

Leave a reply

On Windows 10 its fairly easy to make any program always open in full screen mode, i.e. fully maximized to occupy the whole screen. All you need do is change the properties of the shortcut you use to launch the program.

You might be launching a program from a shortcut in the Windows menu or from a shortcut on your desktop. The instructions below apply to a desktop shortcut.

Right click the desktop shortcut and choose Properties from the popup menu:

desktop-shortcut-properties

In the Properties dialog that appears change the Run property to Maximized:

program-properties-maximized

Then click OK to save. The next time you run your program it will start fully maximized, occupying the entire screen.

In Windows 10, if you are running the program from the Windows menu, right click the program in the Windows menu and choose Open File Location to browse to the shortcut. Then right click the shortcut and modify the Run property to Maximized as shown above when editing desktop shortcut properties.

Free Email Client for Windows 10

Leave a reply

For a very useful, free desktop email client for Windows 10, try out Mozilla Thunderbird available for download from this website:

https://www.thunderbird.net/

A number of desktop software programs need to be able to launch email clients, e.g. SliQ Invoicing requests Windows to launch an email client when you ask to email an invoice. In Windows 10, Microsoft have made this more difficult than in previous versions of Windows by no longer providing a free email client that supports a protocol called Simple MAPI for which free programs like Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail used to be available. A lot of people have bought Microsoft Outlook for email but, if you don’t have Outlook, we now recommend downloading and trying out Thunderbird as a free alternative.

Stop Snagit Editor Popping up When Snipping Tool Captures an Image

24 Replies

Snagit is a great image editor and capture tool but sometimes it is more convenient to capture using the Windows Snipping Tool. However, by default, Snagit runs up its editor when it detects the Snipping Tool capturing an image. This can be somewhat annoying if all you need to do is quickly capture, copy and paste images into an email (for example) using the Snipping Tool.

To stop Snagit from popping up, do the following:

1. Run Snagit, i.e. run the Snagit Capture tool.

snagit-capture

2. Under the File menu, Choose the Capture Preferences option.

3. Uncheck the Open screenshots copied from System Tools checkbox …

 

snagit-capture-preferences

 

Now you can snip in peace without the Snagit editor popping up.

 

 

 

SliQ Invoicing and Windows 10 Support

3 Replies

SliQ Invoicing works on Windows 10 as well as all earlier non-server versions of Windows from XP, through Vista, Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

If you are taking up the offer of a free upgrade to Windows 10 from Microsoft and downloading Windows 10, during installation choose the option to keep your applications and personal data.

The Windows 10 upgrade process makes some identification changes to PCs. You may find that SliQ Invoicing Plus reverts to a trial copy as a result. If SliQ does display its trial notice dialog, press the Register button on the trial notice dialog SliQ displays when it starts and re-enter your unlock code to get back up and running. You can get your unlock code emailed to you via this web page:

http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/get-copy-of-unlock-code.aspx

We haven’t experienced any problems so far upgrading any of our PCs to Windows 10 with the exception that one of our older printers no longer worked. As no default printer was then selected in Windows 10, SliQ was unable to do a print or a print preview. If this is the case, go into Windows Settings and set a default printer. SliQ will then print and do a print preview OK. You can access Windows 10 Settings by clicking the new Start button at the bottom left of the screen and choosing Settings then accessing the Device and Printer settings option.

One click to maximize Internet Explorer from the Task Bar

Leave a reply

On the whole I prefer using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to Firefox, but one of IE’s most annoying default features for me is that when you have a few tabs open showing different web pages and you want to click on IE in the task bar in Windows 7 in order to maximize IE and show the last web page you were looking, Windows shows a list of all your open tabs, forcing you to pick a specific tab. I’ve no idea why this is the default behaviour in IE as it mean you have to find the last web page you were looking at in the list then click again to maximise the web page in IE.

However, you can change this behaviour and make IE work like Firefox and simply maximize with the last page you were looking at with one click on IE in the task bar.

To change the setting, do the following …

1. Run Internet Explorer.

2. Press the Alt key on your keyboard so that IE shows its main menu at the top.

3. Click on the Tools menu and choose the Internet Options menu option.

IE will then show the Internet Options dialog.

4. Click the Settings button in the Tabs section as shown in the picture below.

internet-explorer-tabs-options

IE will then show the Tabbed Browsing Settings dialog.

5. In the Tabbed Browsing Settings dialog, uncheck the option “Show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar” as shown in the picture below.

tabbed-browsing-settings6. Click OK to close the options dialogs, then close IE and reopen it.

Now, IE maximises from the taskbar in a single click.

For more Windows tips, see:

http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/blog/windows-help/windows-8-how-to-set-live-mail-as-the-default-email-client/

Windows 8 – How to set Live Mail as the Default Email Client

Leave a reply

Note: For a free email client for Windows 10 email, see: Free Email Client for Windows 10. 

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about how to set Windows Live Mail as the default email client on Windows 7. Windows Live Mail is still present on Windows 8 but the procedure for setting it as the default program for sending mail via programs like SliQ Invoicing is different as Windows 8 has a new start menu. Here’s how to set Live Mail as the default:

1. If you are in desktop mode in Windows 8, press the Windows key on your keyboard (which will switch Windows 8 to show the Start menu).

2. Then just start typing the word “default programs”. The Start menu will then list programs matching the text you are typing and should show the Default Programs app on the top left of the screen as follows:

search-results-default-programs-windows-8

3. Click on the Default Programs App.

Windows will then switch to desktop mode and show the Set Default Programs window.

set-windows-live-mail-default-windows-8

4. Make sure Windows Live Mail is selected in the list on the left and click the Set this program as default button (highlighted in the picture above).

Windows Live Mail should now be your default email program, so if you click on a file in Windows Explorer and right-click then email it, Windows Live Mail should be launched automatically.

For more email troubleshooting advice with SliQ Invoicing Plus, see http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/troubleshooting-email-problems.aspx

Setting the Default Email Account in Outlook

Leave a reply

If you have several email accounts set in Microsoft Outlook then when you create a new email, or a program like SliQ Invoicing launches Outlook to send an email, Outlook will use your default email account as the account from which the email is sent. If you are emailing invoices from a program like SliQ then this can be inconvenient since your default email account may be a personal email whereas you’d prefer to use your business email by default.

To change the default email account in Outlook, do the following:-

1. Run Microsoft Outlook.

2. From the Tools menu, choose Account Settings.

3 In the E-mail tab, select the email account you want to be the default.

4. Then press the Set as Default button as shown in the picture below.

outlook-set-default-account

5. Press the Close button.

Windows Mail on Vista – Simple MAPI send problem

Leave a reply

If your application will not send emails using Windows Mail on Windows Vista, it’s worth checking if Windows Mail is set as the default email client. To check if Windows Mail is set as the default:

  1. Run Windows Mail by clicking Vista’s Start button then choosing All Programs. Then click on Windows Mail.
  2. When Windows Mail appears, click on its Tools menu and choose Options.
  3. In the General tab, look under the Default Messaging Programs section at the bootm. If the Make Default button next to “This application is the default Mail handler” is checked, Windows Mail should be the default email client on the PC.
  4. If the Make Default button is enabled, press it to make Windows Mail the default on your PC.
  5. Click OK to close the Options dialog.

It’s also worth checking the default settings in Vista’s start menu …

  1. Click on Vista’s Start button then choose the Default Programs option.
  2. Choose the Set your default programs option.
  3. In the window that appears, choose Windows Mail.
  4. Click the Set this program as default option that appears on the bottom right of the window.

After following the procedures above, if Windows Mail should work properly when another application on your PC uses Window’s Simple MAPI service to send emails.

For help on sending emails using Windows Live Mail on Windows 7, check this blog post.