When you see an error ‘Unable to Clean’ on a Brother MFC printer, the following solution may help resolve the problem without bringing it in for service.

1. Machine off
2. Switch on the machine while holding down the “menu” button until all the leds are flashing on/off. Now you are in “maintenance” mode
3. Press 80
4. Press the “mono start” button several times until you see “purge: xxxx”
5. Press “2783” in order to reset the purge counter. You will see: “purge:0000”
6. Press the “stop” button
7. Press “99” to exit the maintenance mode

If pressing “99” does not exit the maintenance mode, just unplug and plug the power cord back to restart the printer. This solution works on MFC-420CN; it may work on other models as well.

It is getting harder and harder to locate the temporary internet files for each new version of Windows and Internet Explorer. Most people know that temporary files, created while browsing the internet, are stored under some hidden folders (or specifically called ‘Temporary Internet Files’), the parent folder path will differ depending on the version of Windows/IE.

Even if you can find ‘Temporary Internet Files’ after turning on the settings to show hidden files and protected system files, you won’t be able to see all temporary files. There are many ways to get around this but I’ve found one of the simplest ways is to copy the above-mentioned folder to another location. All ‘super hidden’ folders and files will then be revealed.

In case some files are locked by other open programs, preventing them to be copied, you may consider using some utilities such as ShadowCopy that will copy files even they are in use. (Note: the system at the discussion is running Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9)

Invest some time to go through this video. Upon completion you will know a lot more about Windows 8, a major revamped Windows version (at least at the user interface level). You will also find out that many old and traditional features are still there, just under a new skin.

(UPDATES 2013-07-07) There are problems when creating bootable USB drives and I’ve found a comparable utility that seems to be working better. Download the program from the following site:

http://download.cnet.com/Free-ISO-to-USB/3000-18511_4-75880271.html

There are circumstances when you may want to write an ISO image to a USB drive, bootable or not. This free utility called ‘ISO to USB’ could come in handy.

Program Information  

ISO to USB is a free and small software that can burn the ISO image file directly to USB drives; these USB drives include USB flash drives, memory sticks and other USB storage devices; it also supports to create a bootable USB disk with Windows operating systems……(click here for details)

 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.