Recent content by Colonel Biggs

Madame -- Thanks for the Show Desktop explanation. Sometimes I look for the most complex of answers when it is simplicity staring me in the face. Trouble was correct, and I never thought to look for the obvious solution. Your posts have been helpful, regardless, and I appreciate your inputs...

Hi, Mike -- I'm going to guess that as an 84-year old she is the only User, but I will verify that when I am next there. Thanks for your thoughts!

Trouble -- The lady wasn't available to contact until yesterday. Sorry for the delay. Walked her through your comments. Your "shot in the dark" was on the money, because she now has icons on the desktop -- very large ones, says she, but they are there. When I see her next I should be able...

Madame -- It seems that I pulled some terms out of the air without running them against your response. My apologies. I also learned yesterday that this lady (aged 84) had used a "Geek Squad" from Best Buy to set up her computer for her. They were no doubt the ones who installed Windows 8.1...

P.S. I forgot to note that she uses a gmail account.

Hello, Norway....Greetings from Texas. The lady is using Windows 8.1; the assigned workgroup is the standard "Workgroup." I right-clicked the taskbar and clicked-on Show Taskbar, but I'm not sure what that proved. I've never run into this, which is why I am so dumbfounded. Thanks for any...

I have an elderly lady next door that just purchased a laptop with Windows 8. For some reason, she has lost the few icons that were on her desktop (i.e., desktop view as opposed to tiles). Using File Manager, I went to the Desktop folder, right-clicked on the few files there and selected Send...

Just figured it out; how dumb of me.

I am using Windows 8.1 on a laptop. When Windows was first installed, it would boot up to the tile view. Since I would switch over to the traditional desktop, at some point Windows started booting up to the traditional desktop. How do I return to the tile view from the traditional desktop...

In order to create a User Account with a name that is identical to the User Names used on my two other computers (Vista platforms), I created a Local Account on 8.1 with the same User Name. Now that the account is in operation, is it possible to link that profile to my Windows account? My...

I have several Excel files that do a VLOOKUP for data where I have to use the file path for access to the source files (e.g., C:\Users\User Name\file path). Since I use Dropbox to enable use of these updated files on two other computers, I need to have the path names identical for the VLOOKUP...

Hello, Mr. Extraordinary -- I must confess that in four months I will be 76, but I'm not cheering yet. I think my computer history goes back to Word Perfect 4 and MS DOS. I still write programs occasionally in dBase, although the 64-bit platforms have forced me to use VMware in order to load...

Sir Saltgrass -- Please excuse the delayed response, since I have been traveling. You are right on the money. Despite the many years that I have worked with computers, using the Control key and the mouse wheel in combination is one I have never run across. I don't know what keys I must have...

I am using Windows 8.1. Recently, when viewing a graphic on the monitor, I accidentally hit one or more keys on the lower part of the keyboard. The image immediately re-sized to a smaller size. Even when closing and re-opening the program, I am confronted with the reduced-scale image size...

So far - no luck. I am using Windows 8.1, but I can't say that that is causing the problem. Before I log in, after booting up initially, I do have some mouse movement, although a bit erratic. Once logged in, however, forget it. I'll report back when I get to the bottom of this. Thanks for...