Q: If I was to buy movies on my iPod what format are they in? Can one transfer the movie or show to computer and view it and then transfer it to DVD and play in a DVD player with HD TV? If so what software would you use to do it?

A: Movies for iPod use are in the MP4 format. Whilst there are plenty of programs that will take various movie formats and convert them to MP4 for use on an iPod there are fewer that will do the job the other way. Try Free DVD Creator. You can also have a look at Aimersoft DVD Creator, though this isn’t free (it costs US$35.95), there’s a good tutorial to guide you through the conversion along with download links for the program at http://bit.ly/hFgPZq. However, commercial movie files are likely to include DRM which will prevent them from being copied.

Free DVD Creator lets you take an MP4 file and convert it to DVD format

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I’m in the process of changing from BT broadband to TalkTalk. Someone has told me that I will lose not only my email address but also all the contents of my inbox going back over some time. If this is true, is there any easy way apart from printing hard copy to preserve the messages contained therein?

A: You will lose your email address as this is tied to your BT account – though ISPs do someties allow you to retain an address for a small fee. Assuming that the email system is using POP3 or IMAP and messages are downloaded onto your PC each time you connect then you shouldn’t lose any of your old mail. It’s a good idea to back it up though.

If your account is operating as webmail – that is you read the mail messages on the server without downloading them – then you will lose your old mail. The way around this is to open a free Gmail account and forward all the messages you want to keep on to yourself at the new Gmail address. By using Gmail as your main mail account in future you’ll be free to change ISPs again without the need to change your email address. You can choose to operate Gmail as webmail or as a POP3/IMAP account, or indeed both – you can have messages downloaded to your PC and retained on the server.

What you need to bear in mind when changing your email address is the need to update your details on any websites where you’ve registered your address as part of the login process.

The Gmail site has instructions for configuring the most popular mail clients

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I don’t know whether you have had any queries about the purchasing of new laptops. I was asked by a friend last week to go with her to advise her on which laptop would be suitable for her. We went to Curry’s to see what they had to offer. They do stock quite a few makes, but the problem was that all but two makes (the ones I didn’t recommend) had 64-bit operating systems installed. Now Windows 7 as you very well know, has only been out on the market (that’s after the release candidate version) for just over a year and it came out with a 32-bit operating system. Why have all the laptop manufacturers suddenly gone for the 64-bit system after only one year? This move has now made a lot of software useless and getting drivers for some of the older equipment, printers etc, impossible in many cases. I know the 64-bit system can look at more than 3GB of memory, but that’s not much use if programs designed for the 32-bit system don’t work on it.

Is it Microsoft once again forcing us users to buy suitable software for the 64- bit system by discontinuing the 32-bit system after such a short time, it never happened to XP where updates prevented software working, so why is this happening, who has made this decision? The only way round this at the moment is to purchase a separate 32-bit operating system (which are still available) for about £150 for the Home Premium version and installing that, but I am told that if that is done, it will void the warranty, so where do we go from here? Any ideas from your team would be gratefully received.

A: It’s a change that’s driven by the hardware industry rather than by Microsoft. 64-bit processors are now commonplace and although they can be run using a 32-bit OS you lose some of the advantages. In particular, and as you pointed out, the ability to access more memory, in fact you’ll get the best from a 64-bit machine if it has 4GB or more of RAM.

For the most part 32-bit software will work in 64-bit Windows without too much trouble. You won’t see much advantage though unless the program is specifically written to exploit 64-bit systems. As yet this only applies to graphics and video tools so you won’t see an improvement in your Web browser or word processor. The biggest problem is with drivers which may prevent you from using older printers and such like on 64-bit machines.

When you buy a boxed copy of Windows 7 it can be installed as either a 32- or 64-bit version, so the answer might be to buy a PC without an OS and make your own choice. This is harder to do with laptops than it is with desktop systems but they are available if you shop around.

You can buy laptops without an operating system if you shop around

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I recently upgraded to a Windows 7 machine and installed IE 9, which was unavailable to my old Windows XP OS. Although my emails are listed, I cannot access them with a click unless I turn on the Compatibility view. I get messages saying that IE9 works best with Compatibility view turned off. The problem seems to be a setting on IE9, but I don’t know what it is. Could you please help?

A: Are you using Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail? If so then what you’re seeing is a feature rather than a problem. It’s designed to make you double-click the message to view attachments and embedded graphics in order to protect you from malware. Both these mail programs use elements of IE in the viewing process, so the only way around it is to uninstall IE9 and revert to IE8.

Upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 may affect the behaviour of Windows Mail

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I would like to know how to defrag Outlook 2007. The program is showing 16GB when I try to use normal Windows defragmenter.

A: Outlook data files can get quite large as all of your emails, calendar and contact information is stored in a single location. The Windows defrag tool won’t touch Outlook .pst files because the program has its own Compact option which periodically tidies up the files – you’ve probably seen messages about this when launching the program.

You can try downloading the Contig tool from Windows Sysinternals this runs the old NT defragmentation routine which allows you to target individual files. You need to run it from the command line – instructions are on the webpage – and make sure that Outlook isn’t open during the process. This will merely ensure that the file is stored in a single contiguous location, it won’t do anything to reduce the size. The only way you’ll do that is by deleting or archiving old messages. You can run an archive from within Outlook by going to File/ Archive which will move old messages to a separate .pst file.

You can manage the size of your Outlook data files from the Mailbox Cleanup option

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I have always used Windows XP with Microsoft Works 9 for light home business and personal applications. Recently I have become the recipient of a new HP computer which has Windows 7 with Microsoft Office Home & Student already loaded on it. I have several files which I ran in Works which will not run in Microsoft Office, which I presume is a compatibility issue. Is there anyway I can get the Works files to open with Microsoft Office? Thanks for any help you can be.

A: In order to open MS Works word processor files in Office you need to download the free Works 6-9 Converter from the Microsoft site, close Office before installing it. Once you have the converter installed you’ll be able to open Works (.wps) files in Word. You can’t save them in Works format though so you’ll need to use the Save As function to convert them to .doc files.

If you still have access to the old machine with Works installed it’s better to use its Save As function to save the files in and Office compatible format such as .rtf or .doc as you’ll introduce fewer errors.

You should be able to open Works spreadsheet files with the .xlr extension in Excel without conversion. Microsoft doesn’t provide a conversion tool for Works database files but there is a third-party conversion tool at www.codealchemists.com/worksdatabaseconverter.

You can save documents from Word so that they can be opened in Works

Originally featured in PCU140

Download our exclusive PC Utilities Keep Calm and Fix Your PC wallpaper available in square and widescreen versions.

Click the appropriate thumbnail to view a larger image then right-click and choose Save Image as or Save Picture As to store the file to your hard drive. You can then right-click and select Set as Desktop Background.

1280x1024 wallpaper

1920x1080 Wallpaper

Q: I have a particular problem. At the present time I find I go over my monthly 2G allowance and so incur an extra charge. I use Vodafone Wireless using a Vodem. So I need find ways of keeping to my 2G limit. One way would be to somehow analyse on a daily basis exactly how much I have used.

Can anyone let me know of any software (preferably free) running on Windows 7 starter that would do this please? I mainly use Firefox as a browser, and sometimes Google Chrome, Safari and Opera and occasionally (where I have to) Internet Explorer. Such detail as: name of website including its URL, size of pages downloaded including any files (PDF, DOC and any programs), date of browsing site, time spent on site, would be the type of data I need.

I have found that the free program Super Winspy will do some of what I need. However, it seems as though it only works with Internet Explorer and I need similar data using Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. Do you know of a similar free program to do this? Also I still need a way of determining how much data was downloaded from these web sites to give me the complete picture. Any further help you can give me would be most appreciated.

A: There are several bandwidth monitor tools around which should do all or part of what you want, though you may have to pay to get all of the features you require. Try Bandwidth Monitor Lite there’s also a pro version available with more features. There’s also Bandwidth Monitor which isn’t free but you can download a trial to see how it works.

Also take a look at iTraffic Monitor. The most comprehensive is probably SoftPerfect Bandwidth Manager which has lots of features but is quite expensive.

Bandwidth Monitor can log the amount of data you’ve downloaded

Originally featured in PCU140

Q: I have an Amazon Kindle and have found it great for reading eBooks from the Amazon store. Recently, however, I downloaded a book from Lulu.com in PDF format – the Kindle’s spec says it reads PDFs. But when I loaded the file onto the device via USB the font was very small and when I pressed the Aa button to make it larger the right-hand ends of lines disappeared off the screen so I have to scroll sideways to read them. Is there any way that I can get the Kindle to display PDFs in a larger font without this happening?

A: Although the Kindle can display PDFs, as you’ve discovered it doesn’t make a very good job of it. When you switch to a larger font the Kindle doesn’t re-flow the text so you end up with the right-hand edge of the page off the screen. The only way around this is to convert the PDF to a format that the Kindle is more comfortable with.

You can do this on your PC by downloading the free Calibre program. This can convert PDFs to the MOBI format which your Kindle will read properly and you can upload via USB.

An easier way is to make use of a little known facility that is available to all Kindle users. When you buy a Kindle it’s allocated its own email address, this takes the first part of the email you use to sign in to your Amazon account and adds it to @free.kindle.com to create a new address. So for example if you signed up to Amazon with another@anymail.com your Kindle address would be another@free.kindle.com. Send a message from your account address to your Kindle address with the PDF attached and put CONVERT in the subject line. What will happen is that Amazon’s servers will convert the file into the Kindle’s native AZW format. You’ll receive a confirmation email when this is done – it takes around 10 minutes – then next time you turn on your Kindle the file will be downloaded in the same way as a purchased book. Because it’s now in the Kindle format you’ll be able to change the font size and the text will re-flow correctly.

With either of these methods there is a slight loss of quality in the conversion process – line breaks and indents in particular tend to go astray – but for the most part the text remains readable.

Calibre can convert eBooks to different formats but the results are variable

Originally featured in PCU140

System: Windows 7 64-bit

Q: This is a general question pertaining to any PC. I often use registry tweaks as suggested in your wonderful magazine. My new laptop is running 64 bit Windows 7. Often your advice to make a tweak involves creating a new Dword and I’ve never questioned this before. But I was applying some of the printer and network tweaks from the Registry Workshop in issue 137 and I noticed it asks me if I wish to create a new Dword (32-bit) or Qword (64-bit).

So if I’m employing a registry modification, should I be making a Qword if running a 64-bit OS instead of a Dword? If so, should you be alerting readers to this? Or am I barking up the wrong tree and it has nothing to do with 32-bit versus 64-bit?

A: Whether you use a Dword or a Qword is dependent on the length of the entry rather than the version of Windows. Dwords came first, but Qwords were first introduced in Windows 2000 and you can use them on 32-bit systems.

To explain how and why this works we need a bit of history. The universal unit of digital information is the byte, consisting of 8 bits (binary digits), each byte forming an individual text character. The x86 platform, which still forms the basis of modern processor architecture, handled data in 16-bit (2 byte) chunks and this unit became known as a word. More recent systems use 32-bit or 64-bit words, but in order not to confuse things 32-bits is known as a double word (or Dword) and 64-bits as a quadruple word (or Qword). But effectively a Qword is still four 16-bit words bundled together rather than a single 64-bit one, so it’s just a way of getting more information into a field.

You only need to use a Qword in the registry when the particular program you’re dealing with requires it.

Qwords in the registry aren’t unique to 64-bit systems

Originally featured in PCU 139