Another way to quickly access essential information about your PC

There are several ways to get information about your computer system. One of them is the "computer management" tool (right click on "My Computer" icon and choose "Manage") using an Administrator account. However, if all you need is to quickly access part of that information, like hardware components, open Devices and Printers (press the Windows Key and start typing "Devices and..." to get there) then localize your computer and right click to see the menu shown here. The menu choices are self-explanatory and from there you can control major PC settings but if you want to get a closer look at the hardware settings and drivers, select "Properties" and then the hardware tab. In general, the Devices and Printers utility can show you a bird's eye view of your entire computer ecosystem.

TurboTax 2011: Windows XP Mode to the rescue but problem persists under Windows 7

I had to resort to Windows XP Mode to be able to run TurboTax 2011 after one last attempt (one of many) to reinstall the program. Apparently, disabling the antivirus program, and modifying the Firewall inbound and outbound rules before installing did not help this time either. Same old story: I get a terse "TurboTax 2011 Is Installed" message with a "Done" button to click on. Then, the same frustration (see previous post) and the program does not start and does not even say whatever is wrong. Will I, or any of my readers, ever know what happened?On the other hand, Windows XP mode, which I like a lot, is not intended to run "new" software. "New" software should run well under Windows 7. No excuses. On the other hand, it is clear that Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, is aware of this problem, as indicated in their user forum here,  and also here, where other folks have complained too. It seems that this "old" problem apparently has not been taken care of. That is just unacceptable!

Waiting for TurboTax to get things ready... in time for tax season?

This year the TurboTax 2011 software has a serious problem which is basically that it does not start (!) All it does is showing the screen we see here and then, a few seconds later, it is gone with no message, no warning. Nothing. I have installed and reinstalled this software (I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit) to no avail. Trust me, I have followed all the suggestions found in http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/, which, by the way, are mostly related to Windows XP, no matter what they say. I have even tried the "Repair" option (in the uninstall program), waited patiently to finish and see some sort of "successfully repaired" message. But that is not true. Finally, I applied the manual update, to no avail, in spite of the message shown below, a false positive, and not true either. This is the first year I get to have such a frustrating experience with one of my favorite software applications... Is this related to the version of the .NET Framework you are running, or to Java? Go figure! Intuit, please get ready asap! [FYI, I tried this, and this]