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Q: I read your reply on 6/2 regarding UTube and not being able to view (I.G.T.M. #306, June 2, 2013).  I tried all the suggestions you made, but in the Control Panel I do not have a “Display” icon. I have Windows Vista. I can access tinyurl.com/d3f4bmb but cannot download because I cannot access the website “Internet Explorer cannot display website” this happens quite often with many sites. I also checked under Internet Option/Advanced and the SSL and TLS protocols are checked. I am sooo frustrated and I hope you can help.

– Kathy D.
Niceville, Florida

A: Wait, what?  You can access it, but you can’t access it?  Hmmm…  I’m going to try and get around that part and answer what you’re really asking, Kathy.  Let’s start with the “Display” icon.  I apologize, but with my limited column space, I can’t possibly provide precise step-by-step procedures for every version of Windows.  In this case, the procedures I gave were for Windows XP, but your Vista machine actually does have a Display icon.  The reason you can’t see it is that you’re looking at Control Panel in Category mode.  In the upper-right corner, you’ll find a drop-down labeled “View by:”.  Use it to select “Large icons”.  Now that a Display icon is visible, you’ll find that the other procedures I gave for XP don’t work in Vista either.  To get to the dialog that has the “Troubleshoot” tab, you’ll need to click on Display, then in the Nav bar on the left, select “Change display settings”, and then click on “Advanced settings”.  The procedures are the same from this point.

As far as the hyperlink, that was a redirect to a website that offers a little tool to measure your connection’s bandwidth to determine if it’s big enough to view YouTube videos.  I test all hyperlinks that I put in the column before I submit it for publication, but it appears that since that column published, the site has been taken down.  Try going to tinyurl.com/gqokd instead.  To help make sense of the results, visit tinyurl.com/lonhmy4. The latter link will help you understand the bandwidth requirements YouTube and some other common web services, plus it has some handy links to the help files for these services.

Q: Recently I can’t print bank, etc. monthly statements.  After ctrl-P, the usual print screen appears with my printer correctly in place.  When I hit print, the “save as” screen appears with the Desktop as the destination.  The file that results is unreadable by Adobe XI or anything else.  I have no idea what got changed on my computer, or how.  I’m running Windows 7, Home premium and the printer is HP Desktop 6940 (drivers up to date). Thanks a ton and have some fun today.

– Sue G.
Fort Walton Beach

A: Thanks, Sue.  I’m spending part of my day writing this column, which is usually fun. Thanks for the nice wishes.  As for your printing problem, start by double-checking the printer that’s selected when the Print dialog comes up.  It sounds like maybe your default driver is one that – rather than print – writes your print data out to a file.  You mentioned one common use for such a driver: creating .PDF files.  Besides that, ever since Vista, Windows has shipped with a built-in printer driver called the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, which will create nice XPS (XML Paper Specification) files. These documents look the same onscreen as they do printed, and they’re supposedly cross-platform compatible, so they’re great for sharing documents with your Mac-owning friends.  That is, so long as they have an XPS Viewer installed.  By the way, if you’re absolutely certain that you’re printing to the correct driver for your HP 6940, go to your list of printers and double-click the 6940.  When the device dialog comes up, double-click on “Customize your printer”.  In the Properties dialog that appears, go to the Ports tab.  If it is set to “File:”, there’s your problem.  There’s no way for me to know what other ports are available on your system, so if it’s not obvious to you which is the one you should be using you may have to re-install your printer driver to correct this.