Microsoft Has a `Oui’ Problem
Q: Last week I installed Microsoft Office 2007 and on the same day my spellchecker for outgoing messages in Outlook Express didn’t recognize words like “you,”"then,” and “the,” so I became suspicious.
I found that my spellchecker was spelling in French, with no option for changing it back to English. Help!!!
A: You can’t make up some of these Microsoft stories. Yes, Microsoft acknowledges that its latest version of Office is incompatible with anything but French spellchecking in Outlook Express. If you want the whole sordid story, it’s here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932974
There’s been no announcement yet that Microsoft plans to fix it. Instead they suggest finding a third-party spellchecker if you want spellchecking in Outlook Express.
Answersthatwork.com suggests a free program, available at its download site. Go to www.answersthatwork.com and search for “spellcheck” (without the quotes).
Q: I am a 68-year-old who doesn’t know much about computers except for e-mail and the Web. Some how I have been hitting the wrong buttons and I lost all my icons. When I open up the computer I get a blank page. How can I get these icons back?
A: My guess is that you lost all your individualized settings because somehow the computer created a new user identity for you. Your individualized items are kept in a folder, usually in C://Documents and Settings/users/YourUserName (where YourUserName is the name you gave your account when you got the computer).
I’ll bet all your desktop icons are still there, in a folder called Desktop _ try looking for a folder by that name by opening the Start menu, then go to Search, then Files or Folders and enter Desktop as the search term. Look at all the folders you find and see if one contains your missing icons.
I doubt you created a new user profile for yourself by pushing the wrong buttons, but maybe somebody fixed your computer and decided you needed a new profile for some reason. It happened to me recently, and I don’t know why.
You could have other problems too, like losing your Internet Favorites or even the programs you normally see under All Programs on the Start menu. To fully resolve the problem, you may have to copy all the information from the old user profile to the new one.
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Tim Henderson is database editor for the Miami Herald’s computer-assisted reporting team. Send questions to thenderson@miamiherald.com.
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