Reader questions answered
Today I will answer some questions posted by readers (that you may find useful, too) in the “Q’s and there A’s” format.
Q: taskbar has been disabled by the administrator what to do ?
A: (I have to assume here that we’re talking about the adjustable options found in Taskbar’s Properties.) All modern operating systems allow for multiple users, and the assignment of privilege levels to each user. It is quite often a good idea to restrict what users can do do on a machine, such as guests and the machine is a kiosk.
In corporate environments, schools, and libraries (where multiple machines are in use), it is typical for a single machine “image” to be used, and for all the “adjustable” (think “personalize”) options to be disabled by the Administrator. While this makes for boring uniformity, it greatly reduces the time and cost of maintaining those machines, and restoring them after a serious crash.. they just remount the “image”.
I suppose you could ask the IT department for temporary permission and make your “tweak”, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for approval.
It may help to keep in mind that it’s their machine, and there are very good reasons for them to “lock it down”.
(I have written an article on creating limited [privilege] User Accounts for your children to use. This may be something you’d like to explore; if so, click here.)
Q: I have too many things running on my taskbar – Vinyl Deck, Spybot, Micro Innovations Internet Access Keyboard, Mouse, launch Keyboard properties, and Quicktime. How do it get these off? I believe they are slowing down my computer.
A: Sounds like you may want to manage which programs launch at startup (boot), and stop the unnecessary (non-essential) ones from loading. My advice for doing that is here: https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/manage-startup-programs-in-vista/ (It contains links to How To’s for older versions of Windows as well.)
But, I must also add that, if those mentioned are the sum total of your “too many” list, I doubt they’d noticibly slow down your machine, and I’d look for other causes as well… such as spyware.
Today’s free link: A great CD/DVD/Blu-ray authoring tool, Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free, allows you to create easily installable backup archives (across multiple disks), handles most music formats, copies DVDs, and works with .iso files. Possibly the best free alternative to Nero.
Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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