This version corrects a few problems reported by our customers:

- The Start Menu did not appear automatically in some situations;
- The Sleep command was not offered on some systems;

If you have previously purchased a license for StartFinity, please feel free to download and install the updated version, free of charge. (All updates to StartFinity are free!)

StartFinity updated to version 1.3 is a post from: WinAbility Software

Besides the compatibility with Windows 8, this version offers many improvements, such as:

• The user interface has been updated, that will hopefully make Folder Guard even easier to use than before.
• The Permissions command has been removed. If you used on this command in the previous version, you may want to use the Group Policy and Local Security Policy commands of Windows instead.
• The Trusted Programs list now uses the full path to the program's file to determine whether it should be trusted. With this change, if you have added a custom trusted program to the list in the previous version, you will need to add it again, using its full path.
• The protection of the folders on the mapped network drives is no longer offered. If you relied on this feature in the previous version of Folder Guard, you may want to use the built-in network security of Windows to control access to the network drives.
• Folder Guard now automatically handles the proper access to the desktop.ini files of the protected folders, to preserve the custom icons and other customizations of the folders, if any.
• Folder Guard no longer supports the pre-Windows XP versions of Windows (such as Windows 2000 and earlier).
• In order to use the filters of Folder Guard, you must now purchase a full (business) license. If you purchase a personal/home use license only, the filters will have no effect.
• Many other improvements and corrections have been made.

As before, Folder Guard 9.0 comes with a free 30-day license for you to try it out before purchasing it.

If you have not done so yet, feel free to download a free no-strings-attached-no-obligation evaluation version of Folder Guard and see for yourself how Folder Guard can be of use to you:

Folder Guard 9.0 certified for Windows 8 is a post from: WinAbility Software

OK, so you've got a flash drive that you want to copy a huge file to, to move it to another computer. You've learned that in order to be able to copy files larger than 4GB to a drive, it must be formatted with the NTFS file system. So you open the My Computer folder, right-click on the flash drive icon, select Format, and... bummer, there is no NTFS option:

There is no NTFS format option. Why?...

This may happen if you have Windows XP and the flash drive is treated by Windows as a removable drive:

Windows XP may not offer the NTFS format option for the removable drives.

Wait a minute, we hear you saying, isn't any drive I attach via the USB port removable? Well, yes, physically any such drive is removable, but some of them are treated as the local drives, even though they can be removed physically. For the local drives Windows offers the NTFS format option right from the start.

Anyway, so you've got a removable removable drive and there is not NTFS option, what to do? Turns out the solution is to change the hardware policy for the drive as follows:

In the My Computer folder, right-click on the removable drive in question, select Properties from the shortcut menu, and select the Hardware tab. There, select the drive in the list and press the Properties button:

Getting to the hardware properties of the removable drive

On the next screen, select the Policies tab, and there, select the Optimize for performance option:

Changing the policy option for the removable drive

Now press OK a few times to close the windows, and try to format the drive again, the NTFS option should now appear in the list:

Windows now offers the NTFS format option

You can format the drive with the NTFS system and use it to transfer large files, just remember to always use the Safely remove hardware icon in the taskbar notification area every time before physically unplugging the drive from the computer:

Always remove the drive safely

Just click the icon and select the rive you want to remove from the list. Only when it reports that it's safe to remove the drive, unplug it. If you unplug the drive without using the Safely remove hardware icon, there is a great risk of corrupting the data on the removable disk, to better not skip this step.

Happy file managing!

If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: <a href="http://www.winability.com/no-ntfs-format-option-for-removable-drive/">How to make Windows offer the NTFS format option for the removable drives</a>

Windows does not offer the NTFS format option for the removable drives? is a post from: WinAbility Software

When you do a lot of things online, you accumulate a pretty massive amount of data that your browser keeps on your behalf: the browsing history, the bookmarks, the cookies, the passwords you use to log in to the secure web sites, and so on. Letting the browser remember such information is convenient, as it allows you not to set up everything from scratch every time you visit a web site. Yet, it presents a security risk: what if someone gets hold of your computer, wouldn't he be able to get to your browser data and extract quite a lot of sensitive information out of it, especially the login names and passwords?

In this article, we will describe how to use our software USBCrypt to create a secure encrypted area on an external (or internal) drive and use it to keep a secure set of the Firefox web browser data (the profile). Why Firefox? Because it makes it very easy to setup an encrypted profile. (We will discuss what to do about other browsers at the end of the article.)

First of all, what is a profile? The profile is a set of files and folders that the web browser uses to store all your web browsing data: the browsing history, the bookmarks, the cookies, the copies of the web pages, the images and the scripts (the cache), and so on. Each browser has a different way of organizing the data in the profile, but the exact details of how it is done are not important to us. The only thing that is important is where the profile is stored on your computer.

In case of the Firefox browser, the profile is usually stored under the folder %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles. If you have a Windows 8, 7, or Vista computer, you can find the profile by navigating to the folder:

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

In case of Windows XP, the location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

If you open such a folder in Windows Explorer (you may need to enable the Windows setting that shows the hidden and system folders first to see this folder), you should see the list of profiles that you currently have. If you have not done anything special to create new profiles yet, you would see just one profile there, with the name xxxxxxxx.default, where xxxxxxxx would be a set of some random characters.

A WORD OF CAUTION: now is a good time to backup your computer. This is especially important if you are not very experienced with files and folders, because if you make a mistake following the instructions below, you may lose your existing Firefox profile and will need to start from scratch! If you are not sure what to do, better ask a friend or a relative who has more experience with the computers for help. If you don't know how to do a backup, stop here, and learn that first. Use the instructions below ON OWN YOUR RISK, we DO NOT provide support if any issues arise. You've been warned!

Now that we know what a profile is and where it is stored, we can consider the possible ways of securing it. For example, you can use our encryption software USBCrypt to create a Virtual Encrypted Disk and then create a new Firefox profile on that disk. After that, the profile would be available and accessible only after you've entered your USBCrypt password to start the Virtual Encrypted Disk. If someone else would get access to your computer, s/he would not be able to use your profile and see what's in it. Your cookies, passwords, web browsing history and other data would be safely locked.

With such a plan in mind, let's get down to it:

Step 1. Use USBCrypt to create a Virtual Encrypted Disk. The procedure is described in detail in the User's Guide. We also have a short video explaining the process, too. How large the Virtual Encrypted Disk should be? It depends, but 1 GB should probably work for most users. (Of course, if you plan on keeping other files in the encrypted area, select a larger size for it.)

Step 2. Start the Virtual Encrypted Disk (by entering its password, of course.) It will appear as a separate drive in the Computer folder, with its own drive letter. In this example, we will assume the drive letter of the Virtual Encrypted Disk is M:. (Yours could be different.)

Step 3. Create a folder on the disk M: to keep the encrypted Firefox profile. For example, you can create a folder named Firefox in the root folder of the M: drive, to remind yourself where the Firefox profile is. (Don't worry, like everything on the M: drive, the name of this folder will be encrypted, too, it won't be visible without your password.)

Step 4. Now press the WIN+R keys (where WIN stands for the Windows key, that has the Windows flag image on it) to display the Run box, and enter the following command to run:

firefox -profile "M:\Firefox"

This command should start Firefox and tell it to load the profile located in the folder M:\Firefox, that we've just created on the Virtual Encrypted Disk. Firefox should create a fresh new profile for you in the folder you have specified. It will run as if you would have just installed it: there would be no bookmarks, no extensions, no browsing history.

Now let's do a little experiment: close Firefox, and then run it again as usual, using the icon on the desktop or on the Start menu, as you did before. When you run Firefox as usual, without specifying a profile on the command line, it will load the default profile that you were using previously, and all you old bookmarks and extensions should load again, as usual. Now close Firefox, and start it again, but this time use the WIN+R keys again and specify the profile, as shown above. The fresh profile will be loaded, see? This way, you can switch between your regular (default) profile, and the encrypted one, by running Firefox in different ways.

Now that you have a new encrypted profile created, you may want to create a shortcut on your desktop to quickly load it, when needed (you can name it Firefox Encrypted or something similar, to distinguish from the regular Firefox icon.) You may want to set up the encrypted Firefox profile to remember the bookmarks and passwords to your sensitive web sites (banking, investments, tax returns, etc.). Then you could use your regular Firefox profile for the casual web browsing, and switch to the encrypted profile to do banking, etc. Just remember to close Firefox completely before starting it with a different profile, or the switch won't happen.

Also remember that you need to start the Virtual Encrypted Disk in order to be able to load it into Firefox. If the Virtual Encrypted Disk is not started, Firefox will complain that the profile is missing and refuse to load.

What if instead of creating a separate encrypted profile, you want to move your regular profile into the Virtual Encrypted Disk and make the whole thing encrypted? It's possible, too:

Step 1. Close Firefox. Locate the default profile used by Firefox as described above and copy it to the Virtual Encrypted Disk. Write down the exact path to the new folder where the profile is located.

Step 2. Open the following file with Notepad:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

In this file, locate the line IsRelative=1 and change it to IsRelative=0

Also locate the line that starts with Path= and specify the complete path to the new location of the profile, for example:

Path=M:\Firefox\profile\xxxxxxxx.default

This change would change the location of the default Firefox profile. Save the profiles.ini file, and start Firefox as usual, without any command line options. You should see your usual settings, etc. (If not, verify that the path you have entered in the profiles.ini file is correct.) If everything looks right, delete the old profile folder, in the %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles folder. From now on, all your web browsing data will be encrypted and only available after you start the Virtual Encrypted Disk.

What about other browsers, you might ask? Well, a similar procedure should be possible with other web browsers, as long as they support loading their profiles from specific folders. Look for this information on the web site describing the web browser you use, you may find it there.

Happy secure browsing!

If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: <a href="http://www.winability.com/encrypt-firefox-profile-passwords-bookmarks-cookies/">How to encrypt Firefox profile with USBCrypt</a>

Encrypt Firefox profile with USBCrypt is a post from: WinAbility Software

The safe mode options screen in Windows 7

In Windows 8, you are supposed to be able to press the Shift+F8 key combination to achieve a similar effect (although you would not find the black-and-white start menu there), except that the window of opportunity for the Shift+F8 keys is much shorter now and it may take you a few restart attempts to press it at just the right time.

If Windows 8 does not want to recognize your Shift+F8 keys, don't despair: there is another way. Wait for Windows 8 to start as usual, and then open the menu that contains the Restart command, but don't select it yet. (You can usually get to this menu by moving the mouse into the top-right corner, wating for the "charms" to appear, selecting "PC Settings" and finally clicking on "Power".)

The Power menu of Windows 8

Now press the Shift key, and while keeping it depressed, click on Restart (and release the Shift key, as well.) In a few moments Windows should prompt you what to do next:

The Restart options of Windows 8

To continue booting in the safe mode, select the middle option, Troubleshoot, and be presented with another screen of options:

The Troubleshoot options of Windows 8

Select Advanced options there to see yet another screen of choices:

The Advanced startup options of Windows 8

Select Startup settings there, and see yet another screen (are we still counting?)

The Startup settings screen of Windows 8

Press Restart on this screen, and after a few seconds we should (almost) reach the destination: the screen that finally lets us select one of the safe mode options:

The screen of Windows 8 that offers the safe mode options

Choose the desired safe mode option, and after a few seconds Windows 8 should boot into the safe mode! Be prepared to see some things not as they used to be: in the safe mode, Windows loads only the most basic components, to keep the running processes to a minimum. The screen may be black, the desktop icons may be moved, and so on. You should see the text "Safe Mode" displayed in each corner of the desktop:

A part of the Windows 8 desktop in the safe mode

When you are done using the safe mode, just restart Windows, and it should boot into its normal mode, as usual, without any additional intervention from you.

What if you want Windows keep booting into the safe mode every time, without going through the long sequence of the option screens every time? Here is how to set it up. First, open the System Configuration utility of Windows: you can find it easily if you have StartFinity, just use it to select Programs - Administrative tools to find this command:

Using StartFinity to run the System Configuration utility

Select the Boot tab on the System Configuration screen, and then select the Safe boot box:

The Safe boot option on the System Configuration screen

Press OK, and you may be prompted to restart Windows. You can do it right away, or after some time, but from this point on, whenever you restart Windows, it should boot into the safe mode.

How to disable the automatic reboot in the safe mode that we've set up above? Open the System Configuration utility, and deselect the Safe boot option. Keep in mind, though, that if Windows is restarted in the safe mode, the StartFinity icon may not be loaded automatically for you, but you can still start it manually using the StartFinity tile on the Start Screen, and then navigate to the System Configuration command as described above.

Good luck!

If you want to link to this article, you can use this HTML code: <a href="http://www.winability.com/restarting-windows-8-in-safe-mode/">How to restart Windows 8 in the safe mode</a>

Restarting Windows 8 in the safe mode is a post from: WinAbility Software

The image viewer of AB Commander can display the most common image files, such as JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and TIFF, but what if you want to view files of other types, such as PDFs or DOCs, without opening the regular PDF viewer or Microsoft Word? There are several third party file viewers that can be used to view such files, and you can set up such an application as an external viewer within AB Commander.

Let's show how to do that using Universal Viewer as an example of such an external viewer. (Note that as of this writing, Universal Viewer comes in two flavors: the Free and the Pro.)

First, you need to download and install Universal Viewer on your computer. If you have chosen to download the free version, pay attention to the optional software it may offer to install in addition to Universal Viewer itself: if you don't want the additional software, decline the offer.

After Universal Viewer is installed, the next step is to set it up as the external viewer of AB Commander: choose Tools - Options from the menu of AB Commander, select the Viewer tab, and press the Options button next to External:

Then, enter the path to the external viewer application, and also specify "%1" in the Command line parameters box (%1 is the placeholder for the selected file, and it needs to be enclosed in the double quotes to allow for the files with spaces in their names to be passed to the viewer application correctly):

That's it! From now on, if you want to view a file using Universal Viewer, select the file within AB Commander and press Ctrl+Shift+I:

Good luck!

Integrating AB Commander with Universal Viewer is a post from: WinAbility Software

Besides the Windows 8 compatibility, MySecretFolder 5 offers a simplified and more straightforward user interface. We've also removed some options that were confusing or did not work well. We are hoping these changes will make using your secret folder a breeze.

Note that MySecretFolder 5 is a desktop application, so it is not for the Windows RT computers. Besides Windows 8, it is also backward compatible with Windows 7, Vista, and XP, both 32- and 64-bit.

Download MySecretFolder 5 now and give it a try!

MySecretFolder 5 certified for Windows 8 is a post from: WinAbility Software

Besides the compatibility with Windows 8, this version offers several minor improvements and fixes, such as:

• The Duplicate Current Tab command, the tooltips that show the full path, and the tabs, and several other improvements.
• A new option: Invoke Go to Parent folder when double-clicking on empty space.
• The horizontal scroll bars now automatically appear or disappear as needed on the Folder bars.
• ... and a few other little things

As before, AB Commander 8.5 comes with a free 30-day license for you to try it out before purchasing it.

Happy file managing!

AB Commander 8.5 certified for Windows 8 is a post from: WinAbility Software

For more information contact:
WinAbility Software Corp.
+1(801)303-7310
http://www.winability.com

StartFinity, the missing Start Menu for Windows 8, is here

WinAbility Software has released StartFinity, a Windows 8 program that adds a Start button to Windows 8 desktop. When the Start button is pressed, StartFinity displays the Start Menu similar to the built-in Start menu of Windows 7 and earlier versions of Windows. StartFinity enables Windows 8 users to utilize the familiar Start Menu interface to navigate to the Documents, Pictures, Music, and other folders, launch programs from the Programs menu, open Control Panel, or use the Shut Down menu commands to perform such tasks in a familiar fashion.

“While not the exact imitation of the Start Menu that Windows 7 has, StartFinity comes pretty close,” says Andrei Belogortseff, the founder and CEO of WinAbility Software. “The StartFinity Start Menu even comes with a search box where you can type a few letters of a program’s name you are looking for, and the matching items will be displayed as a list, for the user to choose from, pretty much like the Windows 7 search box does,” Andrei added.

StartFinity does not remove access to the new Start Screen of Windows 8: it adds a command at the very top of its Start Menu to allow the user to switch to the Start Screen at any time. The user has also an option to use the Windows key to activate the Start Menu (instead of clicking the Start button).

StartFinity can be used with both desktop and tablet computers running the Windows 8 operating system that offers the desktop mode. StartFinity cannot be used on Windows 8 computers that do not offer the desktop mode.

StartFinity Starter edition, that offers limited customization opportunities of the Start Menu, can be downloaded from http://www.winability.com/startfinity-free/ without charge.

The full version of StartFinity can be purchased securely online at http://www.winability.com/startfinity/ starting from $14.95 for a one-computer license. Multi-computer and site license discounts are available. For more information, visit http://www.winability.com or contact WinAbility Software at P.O. Box 630272, Rockville, UT 84763-0272. Voice/FAX: +1(801)303-7310.

# # #

Editorial Evaluation Copy Available on Request.

Press Release: StartFinity for Windows 8 is a post from: WinAbility Software

"Putting a sign that requires twelve seconds to read in a place where customers spend four seconds," Paco Underhill tells us, "is just slightly more effective than putting it in your garage."

Why People Buy

Underhill is the author of the book "Why We Buy - The Science of Shopping." His book discusses how consumers buy products in retail stores. Many of his insights can help us sell products and services on the Internet, too.

Underhill was hired by a number of huge US retailers to study the way people read the signs in their stores. The smallest changes to a store's layout can make significant differences in sales. Tiny changes to a store's signs can increase or decrease sales, too. And the same principles apply to the websites of online retailers.

Get Your Prospects' Attention

"First you have to get your audience's attention," Underhill explains. "Once you've done that, you have to present your message in a clear, logical fashion."

If you don't get prospects to pay attention, your message won't be understood and acted upon. If you give your website visitors too much information, you'll overload them, and send them back to the search engines, where they'll look for your competitors' sites.

Getting Shoppers to Decide

Brand loyalty is much lower than it used to be. Years ago, many buying decisions were made at home, due to consumers' loyalty to particular brands. Today, however, consumers are making their buying decisions after they arrive at the store - or after they arrive on your website.

In today's struggling economy, shoppers are busier than ever. Retailers can't waste shoppers' time when they're looking for products in a retail store, or when they're visiting a web site.

On the web, you can influence how productively people spend time on your site. Write your sales presentation well, and prospects will absorb your message more easily, and feel more comfortable about buying from you. Craft a poor sales message, and your prospects will struggle to understand what you're offering. They won't enjoy spending time on your website.

Designing and Placing Signs

Smart sign placement in a store is critical to grabbing prospects' attention. It's no different on your website.

Websites don't have signs. But there are banner ads, "buy now" buttons, navigation bars, text and display ads, special offers, sale items, closeoouts, discounts, popups, and pop-unders. These are the "signs" that are important. The more you study your web logs and learn how people scan your web pages, the more your online sales will grow.

"Smart sign design (sometimes means) breaking the message into two or three parts, and communicating it a little at a time as the customer gets farther into the store," Underhill tells us. "Thinking that every sign must stand on its own and contain an entire message is not only unimaginative, it's ignorant of how human brains operate."

That concept gives us lots of room for experimentation on our websites, too.

The Bottom Line

Underhill describes a sign that he particularly likes - a sign that he saw in a hotel elevator: "You Look Famished." Below the sign were the menus of a couple of the hotel's cafes, snack bars, and restaurants.

Signs are an essential part of our online marketing efforts. As with every facet of marketing, we need to measure our current sales, experiment with different ways to describe what we offer, and measure again.

Website Signs Boost Sales is a post from: WinAbility Software