How to backup your computer installed drivers?

Since I came back from seminars and trainings, I have already reformatted 3 PCs and 1 laptop this week. Whew! It's a pain in the neck to be installing all the drivers and programs all over again. With the tons of work piled in my hands, I get so impatient doing the repair.

I came across this site that gave me an idea on how to backup of your computer installed drivers and use it to troubleshoot any driver problems. This backup will be very useful when you will format your computer window due to any reason. There is no need to search the drivers from internet or drivers CD, just import the driver backup and within five minute, you will complete the driver installation process. You can move this backup from one computer to other computer for installation.

To complete the all process, we will use a simple tool called DriverMax. Using this tool, we can easily export the backup of any specific or all drivers and then import it for reinstallation later or elsewhere. You can free download (with free registration code) this tool for windows XP and Vista also. Download it and run the easy setup. After Installation launch DriverMax, the first screen you will get with title "DriverMax - Version" and options "Export drivers, Import drivers and Installed drivers report". Just click on "Export Driver" option to start backup process.

Now after welcome screen, system will take few seconds to create the list of all installed drivers and then show you all installed drivers list.

Here you can select any specific device driver or click on "Select all" button to create the backup of entire installed drivers.


Press the Next button and in next screen you can select the export type (simple backup or in zip format) and then choose the backup location (always choose drive other than C drive).

Again press the Next and system will take some time (depend upon the size of your drivers) to finish exporting the selected drivers.

Click the "Open extraction folder button" to view the backup files or press Close button to finish it.
Now you can use this backup files (using import option) to restore drivers backup or move to any other computer. Copy the Following link to download it.

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Where did your downloaded file go?

Good question. A lot of my students would always complain that they can’t find the file they have downloaded from the Internet or the images they have saved from the internet. I came across the answer from PC Today Magazine written by Jeff Dodd. Here is the answer. I hope this could be of great help to you.
The latest version of Internet Explorer present a Save As dialog box each time you initiate a download so that you can specify where you want to save the selected files. If you forget to specify a destination in the corresponding Save In field, the browser will save the files in the same place you saved your most recent download.
You can avoid such confusion by establishing one destination for all downloads. Open the Registry Editor and highlight the HKEY_CURRENT_USER_\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\INTERNET EXPLORER key. Right-click the corresponding Download Directory value in the right pane and select Modify from the pop-up menu. Type the location of your preferred download folder in the Value Data field of the resulting Edit String dialog box. If you want to save your downloads to the My Documents folder on the Windows drive (the drive on which Windows is installed), for instance, then you would type C:\My Documents in the Value Data field. Click OK and close the Registry.
Internet Explorer will now save your downloaded files to the specified destination by default. Note that the default destination will change if you modify the contents of the Save In field of the Save As dialog box during a future download.

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Windows Error Messages

I work with my laptop 12 hours a day or even more. Windows error messages drive me crazy. I found an answer from Jennifer Farwell on how to decipher them or figure out what is wrong. Here it is...

Microsoft maintains a Knowledge Base for every error message for which its technicians have devised a solution. The easiest way to obtain more information on, or a means to resolve, an error message is to search for it in the Knowledge Base. If your system is not frozen, highlight the text of the message and press CTRL-C to copy the error message, and then paste it into Notepad or similar text editor to sace it. You may also be able to press the PRINTSCREEN key to take a snapshot of the message and then paste it into Paint. If your system is locked up, which is more likely, write down a portion of the error message (the more, the better) and visit the Knowledge Base Web site (support.microsoft.com). Type several words in the Search The Knowledge Base Field, exactly as they appeared on-screen, and press ENTER.

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How to open a corrupted Word doc?

I always have a problem opening files of my students in MS Word (Office 2000/XP/2003) because the files are corrupted. Word sometimes refuses to open a corrupted document, or it opens a document that displays gibberish instead of the actual data you expect to see. It may take a few tries, but you can usually coax Word into working with problematic files. Maybe some of you have the same problem too. I would like to share to you an answer I've read from PC Magazine. This might be of help to you.

If you can open the file, click the Show/Hide button (the one with the paragraph symbol) on your toolbar to display all paragraph markers and spaces in your document. Place your cursor at the very beginning of the document and press CTRL-SHIFT-END to select the entire document. Release the keys. Next, hold down the SHIFT key while you use your mouse to deselect the last paragraph marker in the document. (If there are multiple paragraph markers after the last period in your document, deselect them, as well.) Release the SHIFT key and then press CTRL-C to copy the selected text. Open a new document and press CTRL-V to paste the text, and then save the new document. Close the documents and reopen the new document. If this fixes corruption in the document, delete the old file.

If you can't open the file at all, open a new document, open the Insert menu, click File, and select the corrupted document. This occassionally works when you need to recover a bad file, although you might lose some formatting in the process. Another option is to open Word and select Open from the File menu. Browse to the folder where the corrputed file resides, and in the Files Of Type down-down menu, select Recover Text From Any File (*.*), select the file, and click Open. If this works, you'll discover only the text and not any formatting.

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