Background computer downloads free

If you've taken our tips and your PC still isn't working properly, you should look online for some advice. There are plenty of sites dedicated to helping users solve their computer problems.

All-In-One

Experts Exchange www.experts-exchange.com This is a giant site populated by many professional IT experts. You earn points by answering questions and can then trade in your points to ask questions and view answers. Alternatively, you can pay a monthly fee. Questioners are expected to report whether the answers solved their problems. The site boasts massive amounts of accurate information, but you have to plow through a lot of irrelevant answers to find the one you want. Be aware that canceling a paid subscription requires sending or faxing a hard-to-find paper form.

Suggest A Fix www.suggestafix.com This free forum has lots of friendly visitors giving detailed and generally relevant answers on most any computer-related topics you can think of, with an emphasis on Windows. But the site can be slightly frustrating if you're researching a problem, because many questioners don't report whether the answers they received worked or not.

Tech Support Guy www.helponthe.net More like a raucous, crowded bar than a one-on-one consultation, this wide-ranging site is littered with lots of replies from people who don't know anything about the subject in question. But eventually a real expert gets a word in and provides terse, accurate information. One suggestion: Always look at the latest answer in a thread before plowing through the rest.

Windows

Annoyances.org www.annoyances.org This long-established site combines well-documented troubleshooting articles with thousands of archived requests and answers, all accessible through clear site design and an effective search engine. The questions and answers are cluttered with insulting and unhelpful replies, but the articles created by the site's staff are reliable and useful.

BlackViper.com www.blackviper.com This is a site that power users tell each other to visit for its unique guide to the background "services" running in Windows XP that you can selectively turn off to increase speed and stability. It's not for beginners, but expert users who are willing to follow this site's prescribed safeguards can hot-rod Windows XP with the lucid, careful information on the site.

Doug's Windows Tweaks and Tips www.dougknox.com Doug Knox's site should be your first stop for ultrareliable tips for tweaking and repairing Windows XP. Downloads include the author's free Visual Basic scripts, shareware utilities (including one-click solutions for tasks like changing the name of a registered user), and elaborate programs that give more control over security settings than anything Microsoft offers in Windows XP Home or Pro.

JSI FAQ www.jsiinc.com Just the FAQs, no fancy graphics. This venerable no-nonsense site has 7,000 detailed, trustworthy tips about the Windows NT/2000/XP platform, each in a clear step-by-step format, with a search engine that lists dozens of possible matches in order of relevance to improve your chances of finding a solution. If you can't solve your Windows XP problem here, it may not be solvable.

TweakXP.com www.tweakxp.com This rapidly growing collection of Registry and other tweaks helps gamers and control freaks squeeze every last ounce of performance out of Windows XP. Unlike many tweak sites, which seem to endorse everything users submit, this one has a collection of "incorrect hints," which can save you from computer myths found elsewhere.

Windows XP Expert Zone Community www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone Microsoft's own tip and troubleshooting site for Windows XP and related products is packed with columns by Microsoft technicians, who often tell you to ignore the company's printed instructions and use more effective techniques, which they spell out in detail. The user forums seem less useful than the third-party sites listed elsewhere in this story, and a disappointingly large number of posted questions are left unanswered.

Software

Adobe User to User Forums www.adobeforums.com Adobe's graphics prowess is well hidden by these forums' bare-bones interface. With lists of hundreds of messages, it's a good thing that the search engine almost always leads to the best possible solutions to problems with Adobe products. And the first items on the list in each forum answer the questions you're most likely to ask. Problems that can't be solved generate vigorous complaints, so you won't waste time looking elsewhere for nonexistent answers.

Inside Outlook Express http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com This site is a comprehensive guide to enhancing and repairing Outlook Express. It provides explanations on how to back up messages, lists all known bug fixes, and reassures you that you're not the only user dealing with unfixed bugs, like that mysterious file named "~" that OE sometimes leaves on your desktop.

Joseph Rubin's ExcelTip.com www.exceltip.com Hundreds of well-organized tips on everything from keyboard shortcuts to Visual Basic programming, along with details about every recent version of Excel, make this a one-stop source for Excel answers. If the Webmaster's tips don't solve your problem, ask in the visitors' forum, and you can expect to get a helpful answer in a few hours or less.

Microsoft Office Online http://office.microsoft.com Microsoft's official Office information site isn't as easy to navigate as it should be, but if you're persistent you can use the forums (click on Office Community in the left-hand menu), where volunteer users give expert answers. A separate Assistance area is devoted to content created by Microsoft—complete with mistakes cheerfully noted in postings on Woody's Office Portal.

Russell Brown's Homepage www.russellbrown.com Most Photoshop advice sites are so badly designed that you really have to question how valid their advice can be. This elegantly designed site, created by an Adobe staffer, provides clear, accurate tips and tutorials in QuickTime movies and Adobe Acrobat PDF files.

Woody's Lounge www.wopr.com/lounge The misnamed Lounge area of Woody's Office Portal swarms with Microsoft Office workaholics who gather to answer questions and exchange tips (and Visual Basic macro code). If you want to learn a simple keyboard shortcut or get a full explanation of why your macros work differently in Word 97 than in Word 2003, this is the place to go. Other forums in the Lounge offer equally expert exchanges about Windows in general.

WordPerfect for DOS Updated www.wpdos.org Haphazardly organized with spaghetti-style cross-references, this site [run by contributing editor Edward Mendelson, who wrote this review] has tips and tools that make WordPerfect for DOS run smoothly under Windows. Downloads include updated printer drivers and add-on software donated by the original authors.

WordPerfect Universe www.wpuniverse.com Among the people who answer questions at this magnet for WordPerfect's remaining loyalists, you'll find such notable experts as the programmer who wrote the WordPerfect for Windows macro language. Almost all questions produce accurate, helpful answers. The only downside is a link page that is littered with broken links.

Hardware

PC Mechanic http://forum.pcmech.com People who build or upgrade their own PCs converge on this site to trade tips and links. Topics range from professional-level configuration questions (like how to set up a RAID system with Serial ATA drives) all the way to cool time wasters (like "stealthing" your CD drive by replacing its front plate with a blank rectangle that matches the color of your computer case).

TweakTown www.tweaktown.com The forums at this hardware-obsessed site overflow with friendly, accurate answers to visitors' questions, but the most impressive postings are the answers to frequently asked questions posted at the top of most of the message lists. You may find the answer to your hardware question before you even ask it.

Macintosh

Apple Discussions http://discussions.info.apple.com Don't get misled by the eye-candy design of Apple's discussion groups: This is a serious, scrappy site where Mac users complain about hardware and software problems—and usually get answers, often in the form of links to well-written posts that summarize every known fix for common Mac problems. When problems strike, start here.

MacFixIt www.macfixit.com Addictive daily bulletins about newly discovered Mac problems and fixes, together with tens of thousands of archived message threads, make this an indispensable site when your Mac misbehaves. If there's no solution to the problem, at least you can be reassured that hundreds of other users are suffering in the same way.