Microsoft has officially announced it will be releasing FIVE versions of Windows 7:  Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate, and only Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional will be sold in retail.  Apparently this is to remove confusion caused by all the versions of Windows Vista.  They’ll be selling Home Premium to basic users, and Professional to businesses.

Microsoft, I think  the confusion came from having a billion versions of an operating system, and you’re doing it again?!  *Smacks forehead*

To top it off, the Windows 7 beta that 2.5 million or more of us are testing is Ultimate – but will only be offered as an upgrade.  This means we’ll be forced to buy Home Premium or Professional, and then pay even more for “Ultimate.”

Windows 7 Ultimate beta 7000 is nice, so why don’t you just sell what you’ve been having us beta test – and leave it at that!

Microsoft: this is blatant stupidity, and it’s moves like this that are going to make more and more people convert to OS X and become a “Mac.”

It’s a company called Stardock.  These people have come up with possibly the most wonderful programs I have ever used.  Using their products, you can change virtually anything on your XP/Vista machine.  Allow me to show you a few that I thoroughly enjoy.

Firstly, CursorFX.  This Product comes in two versions, a demo and a full version.  The demo alone, however, lasts forever and comes with alot of features.  What this software does is allow you to create or download animated, 3D/2D, just-plain-awesome mouse cursors.  You can choose virtually an unlimited ammount of cursors, and with the full version, you can add effects and sounds to them for any action they perform such as clicking sounds and trail effects.  My personal favorite cursor is the Finger.  No not the middle one, the pointer one.  It is a 3D hand with it’s finger pointing outwardly; when you click, the finger moves down as if it were pushing a button; in place of an hourglass, the hand roll taps its fingers from pinky to pointer; when hovering over a link, the finger points upward and “taps” the link repeatedly.  That’s right, it’s 3D and animated!  There are many others like this, and if you are a graphic artist or have pictures you’d like to make as cursors, you can do it with CursorFX!

Second is ObjectDock – This unique little gadget has taken the place of the common taskbar.  It is a nice dock that has animated effects and beautiful icons for various items.  It’s something that is difficult to explain, so you should just go and visit Stardock and see for yourself what it can do.  It makes accessing programs alot easier AND has a great look and feel to it.

Next is ObjectDesktop – this comes with ALOT if you buy the full $70 version.  This is a great deal because ObjectDesktop comes with alot of separate programs and allows you to use each one to their full capacity.  Now, I don’t have all of these programs, so I’ll show you a few that really catch my eye and are fun to use.

1.  WindowBlinds – This program allows you to completely redo the look of nearly every aspect of Windows.  You can do this by downloading skins for free from WinCustomize.com OR by creating your own if you have the “Bundle” version which comes with SkinStudio.  You can change your taskbar, start menu, scrollbars, and much much more with this handy little program. 

2.  IconPackager – I really like this one.  The full version is only about $10 but there is a free shareware version available.  It allows you to replace hundreds of common icons with new, sleek, amazing icons.  Trust me, the icon packages you can download are amazing.  If you get the IconDeveloper program, you can even make your very own!

3.  ObjectBar – If you have Vista, you know about the sidebar it comes with, well why settle for just that one look?  Why can’t XP users have the same bar or an even cooler one?  Well they can now!  And why just have one when you can have 2, 3, 4, or a billion?!  That’s right, you can have your own custom bars where ever you want on your desktop, each with a beautiful, sleek design.

4.  LogonStudio – This is a FREE program, but it also comes with ObjectDesktop.  This allows you to customize your Windows Logon experience.  You can download skins for your logon screen at WinCustomize.Com, OR use the included editor and make your own!

ObjectDesktop has ALOT more to offer than just the above 4; each program comes with several skins/presets to choose from, but you can always visit www.wincustomize.com and download as many as you’d like.  And, if you buy the full versions, you can always create your own!

So why wait any longer?  Make your computer’s look and feel reflect YOU, get your custom cursors, icons, sounds, docks, logon screens, and more at www.stardock.com

What Do You Think?
What do you do to customize your OS?  Is there another set of programs like the ones Stardock has to offer for Mac Users as well?  Have you designed your own skins/cursors/icon packages and would like to share them with me?  I would love to hear from each and every one of you!  My e-mail is david@funkytower.com and I look forward to hearing from you!

Take it easy,
David Crandall

We tend to take lightly the warnings that our own online protection software notifies us about.  We don’t take the time to read where these files are located and what programs these files are associated with.

Recently, my sister had a problem – she had some massive spyware/adware problems; she had alot of pop-ups, which, in my opinion, were caused by some P2P (Peer-to-peer) softwares she had downloaded.  So, she took my advice and downloaded Spybot S&D on her Windows XP SP2 machine, downloaded it definition updates, ran a full scan, and deleted all unfixed files.  The result – extremely slow and incomplete bootup.  It seemed as if all that booted up was a black screen and the mouse cursor.  She called me and asked me to look at it to see what I could do.

Well, I went to her house and did the typical things: I booted up normal, but to only encounter the black screen.  I booted up in safemode, and got the same thing.  I booted up in safemod with DOS, but STILL couldn’t do anything.  After hours of trying different methods WITHOUT reinstalling Windows, at the end of the night, we decided to turn the computer on in the morning and just let it sit.

About a 30 min to an hour after booting up normally, we got a backgroundless desktop with the normal icons, but no start menu.  This told me that the taskbar (start menu) was having trouble booting up and was using up all the PC’s memory.  So, I conjured up some more ideas.

First, I tried to pull up the MSConfig menu and keep some programs from running on startup – sadly, MSConfig just wouldn’t pull up – it said I had to be running an Administrator account.  So, I restarted the computer and waited awhile, except this time, I tried to pull up MSConfig earlier on in the process.  It still did not work.  I tried this also in safemode and safemode with DOS – both got me nothing – no msconfig, no desktop icons, nothing.

So, since this alone took HOURS, I decided to come back the next day.  So, keep in mind, this is day number THREE.  The computer was painfully slow.  I decided that since explorer.exe was partially working (evident by the desktop icons) that I would pull up Windows Explorer to browse files and find the System Restore program.  If anything could fix the problem, one would think this would be it.

After an hour of browsing, I finally got to the folder where the System Restore program was located.  I tried opening the program, but an error came up telling me that System Restore could not repair my computer and to try again another time.  By this time, I was getting really frustrated.  Since we didn’t have the tools at hand to back up files, and since my sister really didn’t care anymore about losing files, I got a Windows XP SP2 disk to reinstall Windows.  I put the disk in the drive, restarted the computer, hit F8 for boot options, and booted from the CD Drive.

Now, this disk has the option to fix Windows, or install/replace windows on a hard drive.  The “fix” mode took me to a DOS screen, and all that really did was tell me useless information.  I exited THAT and rebooted back to the disk drive, and selected to reinstall Windows XP.

Now here’s where the SOLUTION is:

When you select a hard drive to install windows, it recognizes that there is already another version of Windows XP on that hard drive – so, it asks if you would like to repair that version, or replace it.  Well, if I replace it, all the files on the computer would be gone – which would stink, but repairing would keep all my sister’s programs, settings, and files installed.  So, obviously, since I had nothing to lose, I chose repair.

It went through the whole process and acted as if it was completely reinstalling Windows XP, it even took around 40 minutes – just like I was reinstalling windows!  How fun!

Well, the wait was worth it, because at the end of the day, I was able to boot up the machine like it used to boot up before encountering any problems.  I decided to get her AVG Free Antivirus – since she didn’t have that.  I installed it, ran it, and had all problems fixed.  There was a good chunk of “unfixable” files that could be deleted, which I checked to see what they were for.  I found they were not essential to the PC’s performance, and had them deleted.

Finally after midnight of the 3rd day, my work was done.

So what’s the point?

Simple, be smart and use common sense when dealing with  your PC’s safety.  Don’t delete things you don’t know about unless you’re sure it won’t effect your PC’s performance.  This applies to many things like messing with msconfig’s start up options.  Also, don’t use P2P programs, they are dangerous.  You can read about all these things in another one of my articles about speeding up your computer.

Also, when your at wit’s end and are about to take the step to reinstall windows, choose the drive to reinstall it on, AND THEN CHOOSE REPAIR!  This way, you can at least save your files.

So if you’re having that wretched problem of a black background and white cursor with no start menu or desktop icons, pop in that Windows install disk, pick the hard drive to reinstall it on, and choose the repair option.  I hope that helps ANYONE who has had this problem – which I have done some reasearch and know that there are many who have had the same issue – nothing seemed to work, so they just reinstalled windows completely, and sadly, lost all of their files. 

Again, be sure to use this repair option that the disk offers after you pick a hard drive to reinstall windows on, it could save you some head aches.

Note:  This solution was tested on Windows XP, nothing older, nothing newer.  I’m sure any newer version of windows would have the same option, but as far as an older version of Windows – I’m not completely sure.  Anyways, if you have a computer THAT old, you need to upgrade.  Just do it, you’ll aprreciate it

What Do You Think?
Did this help you out at all?  Do you have any questions?  Have you found a different solution to this “black screen and cursor only” problem?  Whatever you have to say, let me know.  You can e-mail me at david@funkytower.com and I’ll be happy to get back to you.

Take it easy,
David Crandall