ItsGeekToMe.co

The official home of It's Geek to Me on the web!

Issue #12: October 11, 2007

I would like to extend my thanks to the Emerald Coast Computer Society for inviting me to speak at your October meeting.  I hope you all had as much fun listening to me ramble as Spouse Peripheral and I had meeting you all.

 Q: I recently switched to VISTA and have noticed that the address bar in IE stores not only the web pages visited, but also every file opened on my computer.  I have searched and can’t find a way to turn off the storage of files opened.  With the 20 or so web pages stored in the address bar history it makes it very easy to quickly navigate to my most visited sites.  How can I turn off the storage of files opened in my address bar history?

– Paul W.
Niceville,FL

 A: Ah, so, you’re among the elite souls who have made the leap toVista!  Personally, I’m not quite ready to fully make that commitment yet.  Of all the computers that I maintain for myself and family members, I’m only runningVista on one machine, and it came already loaded with it.  Watch for Microsoft to release Service Pack 1 forVista in the near future, but don’t expect anything Earth shattering.  Unlike the service packs for XP, rumor has it that theVista service pack is primarily a collection of updates and fixes, with no new “must have” features.

 Now, regarding your question:  I only know of one setting that deals with the list of files opened, and that’s the Start menu’s Recent Files list.  Windows Explorer seems to use this same setting to control whether it adds the recent files to the address bar history.  To get to these settings, right click on the Start button, and select “Properties”.  On the “Start Menu” tab, locate the buttons labeled “Privacy”.  There’s a setting for adding recently opened files, and another for recently opened programs.  Uncheck the ones you don’t want, andVistawon’t add them to the Start menu or to the Address Bar anymore.

 Q: I use AOL as my email service. Recently every time I click on a news item, etc. I get an error message asking me to de-bug. I have tried all fixes I know, but cannot get rid of these messages. Please advise.

 

– Timothy H.
Destin,FL

 A: Your question is a bit vague, Timothy.  For example, it would have helped me to answer if you had included the actual error message text.  Although I can’t help with the cause of your error, I can tell you how to configure Internet Explorer so that when it encounters an error, it won’t ask you if you want to debug.

 In IE, click on the “Tools” menu and select “Internet Options”.  Go to the “Advanced” tab.  Here is a list of advanced settings for IE.  Be advised, changing any of these settings improperly can adversely affect your browser operation, so proceed with caution.  That said, look through the list for the “Browsing” group.  Within it, you’ll find an option labeled “Disable Script Debugging” which for some unknown reason, Microsoft has chosen NOT to check by default.  While you’re here, consider unchecking “Display a notification about every script error” if it’s checked.  On most pages that have a problem, one error is enough to stop everything, so you don’t need to know about any others.

 TIP OF THE WEEK: This tip comes courtesy of Bill F. at the Emerald Coast Computer Society.  Government agencies are safeguarding more than $32 BILLION worth of unclaimed property.  Could some of it be yours?  The National Association of Unclaimed Property (NAUPA) runs a website that allows you to check.  Visit http://www.unclaimed.org/ and click on OWNERS.  From there you can check national and state registries, as well as find links to other unclaimed property sites.


Leave a Reply

March 2024
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Search the site

Archives

Copyright Notice

All content on this site is Copyright © 2007-2024 by Jeff Werner – All rights reserved.