Software Built for Windows Over the years there has been many software problems of different types. Sometimes this will happen with free software, but sometimes with software you paid for, and depending on the software you might have paid a lot for it. We depend on professional software developers making sure their software operates properly before releasing it, but mistakes do happen and sometimes one program can affect another and cause it to have problems. I use Microsoft Edge as my web browser and it began to give me problems. It has refused to save downloaded files as Microsoft Edge files, but saves them as Internet Explorer files. That may not seem like much of a problem to some people, but for my type of work it is. I didn’t want to wait for a fix so I though maybe if I deactivated Internet Explorer that might solve the problem, so I did. This resulted in Microsoft Edge saving internet files as empty voice files. Something I never would have expected. As of this moment I am hoping the problem gets repaired quickly and it is not the result of another updated program interfering somehow with Microsoft Edge. Sometimes I would write reviews of new software programs and an author would send me one to test. One time I was sent an Amiga computer emulation program, an idea which was dear to my heart. I value my opinion and would not tell others anything but the truth on a review. As I began testing, I couldn’t believe how dysfunctional the software was. It was so bad I got the idea the software had never been trial tested. I contacted the author and told him I was going to do him a big favor and not review the software because there was so much wrong with it, hoping he would fix it before putting it on the market. Instead of thanks, I got an angry reply. Can you imagine if I had reviewed this software, what it would have done to him? One of the things which get really annoying is when you have a piece of software which works perfectly for you and it is one you depend on for making your job easier and then an update comes out and you install it, and now your software has problems and either does not work anymore, or has lost some of its functionality and even worse, you have some project which is due and the software is necessary to accomplish the task. This has happened to quite a few people. When I first started writing articles, I had to know Hypertext Markup Language or html. That is the code which created your website and which also created all the web pages you would put your articles into. After a while some very good software came out which allowed for much easier website construction. One of those excellent programs was by Adobe and named Dreamweaver. It was expensive but was a great program and every few years a better edition would come out. It allowed people like me to concentrate more on the writing of an article than on html. These programs have advanced and now when a person purchases a host for a website there is usually free software which makes it much easier for that person to build their websites. The software does have its limitation and is nowhere as powerful as Dreamweaver, but it is fine for the hobbyist. I have never had a malfunction with Dreamweaver and have been using versions of it since it first came out in 1997 by a different company. It was acquired by Adobe in 2005. Sometimes the problems with Windows and Windows software can be overwhelming. It seems on a Windows update, there are always some people getting what is known as the window of death. That is a blue window on a blank screen and is indicative of the update crashing for some reason. It can be a disaster, especially to those who are novices and might entail hours of time on the phone with Microsoft after waiting for someone to answer. They will however eventually solve most problems. One of the things which should be made immediately on getting a Windows computer is creating an emergency disk. The second thing which should be done is to back up your work or even better back up your entire hard drive at least once a week. That way the most you can lose is a week’s work. Some people may wonder the best and easiest way to back up a computer. I have found a simple way to do it over the years. First of all, I use a separate drive which I keep disconnected from the computer until I do a backup and then I disconnect it again. As far as software goes, years ago I found an excellent piece of software for doing this that comes two ways. There is a free version, which will work find for most people and a professional version which I use. The name of the software is AOMEI Backupper. It has saved me a couple of times and also allows for single backed up programs to be restored. I have found over the years there are some freeware programs which are as good or better than some of the software attached to Windows. Many of us like taking photos very much. My son’s wife takes hundreds of photos every month. She uses her cell phone for every computer related function. For those of you who use different versions of Windows, I find the best photo software is InfanView. Also, it is free. How can that combination be beaten? Millions of people around the world are said to be using it and I can see why. Not only is it great for viewing photos, but it contains many features to edit them. I have been using it since it came out, it has been around for decades, it was released in 1996 and is the work of one man, who keeps it up to date. In all fairness there is something I would like to say in defense of Microsoft software. The Windows computer is able to run software from everywhere, that is the beauty of a Windows system. Every once in a while, someone will create a piece of software which is not entirely compatible with the Windows operating system causing problems. This is a risk we know we are taking with a Windows system, but it is a small one and is beyond the control of Microsoft. If you want a mostly reliable system, Windows is the way to go. There is more software available for Windows than for Apple computers.
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