HP Windows Media Center computers often come with a remote control and an Infrared receiver/transmitter. There are many version of this IR transceiver built for different versions of Windows. So if you use the remote in the version of Windows that it is intended for, you don’t need a special driver as it will already be included in the Windows installation.

But if you happen to have the following specific model but would like it to work in XP environment, you will need a special driver (download  here) for it. Be sure to identify the device as all versions of the transceiver look the same physically.

Model: OVU400102/71
P/N: 5187-4593
VID_1934&PID_5168

If you remove a USB drive while data are still being written to it, you may end up corrupting the drive and it becomes unusable. The device shows up as “XXXXXXXX U167CONTROLLER USB Device” in Device Manager when plugged in. The device LED light just blinks forever and Windows cannot recognize it properly as a mass storage device. If this happens to you, the following little utility may help you reclaim the drive (but not the data though).

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2kpxnoep835dak4

If you are on Windows Vista, 7 or 8, set the compatibility mode to Windows XP SP2 and run as administrator.

When your ISP’s Domain Name System (DNS) is out of service, you may experience problems browsing the Internet. In this case, it may be a good idea to use an alternate DNS for temporarily bypassing the problem. A good choice is to use the free DNS from Google. Here is the technical information.

If you have multiple computers in your network and don’t want to change the TCP/IP settings on each computer, you can change the DSN settings on the router and restart the router. All computers will take the new settings next time they connect to the router.

If you experience problems (e.g. no dial tone) using your Voip phone after installing a new router (where you will get a new IP address from your Internet service provider), the following may help resolve the issue.

Disconnecting and reconnecting the phone adapter (ATA) may not solve the problem. In this case, you need to log in to the ATA (find the IP address of the ATA from the router’s local network status page). The password may very likely be ‘admin’. Go through the details of the configuration to see if anything is suspicious. Finally reboot the ATA from the configuration tab. You may notice your ATA will now be assigned a different IP address by the router. Hopefully your Voip phone should work again after performing the above steps.

Sometimes, malicious and other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits, try to install themselves on your PC. This can happen when you connect to the Internet or install some programs from a CD, DVD, or other media. Once on your PC, this software might run immediately, or it might run at unexpected times. Windows Defender Offline can help remove such hard to find malicious and potentially unwanted programs using definitions that recognize threats. Definitions are files that provide an encyclopedia of potential software threats. Because new threats appear daily, it’s important to always have the most up-to-date definitions installed in Windows Defender Offline. Armed with definition files, Windows Defender Offline can detect malicious and potentially unwanted software, and then notify you of the risks.

Read the full story and download the free tool here.

Whoever said nothing in this world is free hasn’t spent a lot of time at Google Play, the online store with more than 600,000 apps for Android devices — many of which can be downloaded at no cost or close to it.

Now, Toronto’s Clickfree – a company best-known for its external hard drives that back-up your computer’s important files – has launched a free app called Clickfree Automatic Backup . As the name suggests, it can make a secure back-up of your Android smartphone or tablet, just in case something happens to your portable device. And no PC is required. …………(read the whole story)

At first glance, it may look like Microsoft disabled recording of internal—or “what you hear”—sounds in Windows 7. Well, they didn’t. It’s a little trickier, granted, but this is (often) a quick fix.

To enable it:

1. Right click on the speaker icon in the system tray (bottom right).
2. Choose Recording Devices
3. In the empty white space, right-click and choose Show Disabled Devices. You should see Stereo Mix appear in the list.
4. Right click on Stereo Mix and choose Enable.
5. Right click on Stereo Mix again, and choose Set as Default Device.

Now you can record anything you hear through your speakers.

If your USB keyboard does not work when plugged in a USB port, it is logical to think there could be a problem with the port itself since wired USB keyboard is such a simple and universal device. Upon careful examination, evidences often point to a different direction. First of all, the keyboard actually works when the system is booting up (or in BISO setup); the problem only surfaces after Windows takes over. Secondly you may find that the keyboard is not working no matter which USB port it is plugged in. The chance of having all ports fail at the same time is not impossible but very slim.

By this time, you are almost certain this is a driver issue. This is what happened: when a keyboard, wired or wireless (via its receiving adapter), is plugged into a USB port, Windows will automatically install the following drivers under Human Interface Devices after the device is recognized:

USB Human Interface Device and HID-compliant device

You will need to update the driver for HID-compliant device and force it to be a HID Keyboard Device (don’t let Windows automatically install the driver; instead, choose yourself and select a compatible driver to install). Once the driver is successfully installed, the keyboard would start to work even without restarting the system.

The MP3 encoder that comes with Windows Media Player (since version 10) has problems ripping certain CDs. The tracks may play perfectly in the media player; but you may experience skipping or other problems when playing the ripped MP3s, especially for CDs with less-than-perfect physical conditions.

The audio quality of the encoded MP3 is also not up to par with other MP3 encoders (free or commercially available). If you are concerned with the above-mentioned issues, look for other replacement MP3 encoders such as this one from Cyberlink.

With more than a million downloads of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview there must be some who want to use a virtual machine for getting some firsthand experience with Microsoft’s latest.

Installing Windows 8 into an existing virtual machine running Windows 7 or the Windows 8 Developer Preview is straightforward, quick, and uneventful.

VMware Player is a popular virtual machine, but even the latest update (Feb 2012 to version 4.0.2 build-591240) does not yet know about Windows 8, so installing Windows 8 as a new machine is a bit tricky. (read the whole story………..this is a very helpful write-up)