March 7, 2014
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 pm by President Chuck Horner. See Lola Hunter at the ticket table, for raffle tickets, door prize tickets, and 3" x 5" cards to
write questions for discussion/answers at the end of the Meeting. Get at least
one $5 raffle ticket for this month's raffle prize, a LiteOn internal DVD writer.
Chuck welcomed visitors John Stokes and John Fee, who are friends of Michael Wong; Marv Beck.
Chuck asked for a volunteer to help coordinate presentations.
Chuck has had a discussion with the new principal at Hayward Adult School. We are in the process of developing a memo of understanding so that PCC can have a refurbishing space there again.
Presentation: Diane George presented features of Windows 8.1. She demonstrated booting directly to the desktop by right clicking on he taskbar and opening the Taskbar and Navigation Properties tab under Properties. Hitting the Windows Key will open the Start Screen.
Meanwhile, back at the Start Screen: you can choose how apps are organized. Mouse/touch the upper left corner and a thumbnail of open application(s) will display. Click to open your choice.
Right click on the Windows symbol on the Taskbar to open a menu of common functions such as Restart and Shut Down. Get the same menu by right clicking on the Desktop.
To Search, start typing in a blank section of the Desktop. Close an app by dragging down from the top border.
Windows 8.1 comes with 7 GB of SkyDrive space. Outlook and Hotmail allow the creation of Alias email addresses, to help sort and provide anonymitiy.SkyDrive is now called OneDrive. You can share contents of a specific folder.
The Desktop has a number of built-in applications. The App Store has many free and low-cost games and other applications.
Office 365 is a combination of desktop and online. You can install/ it on up to 5 systems for $10 per month or $99.99 per year. You can run and store your files locally or via the Cloud.
The Microsoft site has an Upgrade Assistant program that will check your computer hardware and software for compatibility with Windows 8. Running Belarc Advisor will give you a separate report to compare. The Belarc Advisor generates a report that
contains enough information to find driver upgrades or recover from a problem.
The Microsoft site also lists minimum computer specifications for running Windows 8.
After the break, Andrew Tews reviewed steps for Creating a Bootable USB Drive from a Windows DVD.
1. Click START > All Programs > Accessories > right click Command Prompt
Select > Run as Administrator
2. type > DISKPART and hit enter
3. type > List Disk and hit Enter (it will show disk number of your USB drive)
4. type > SELECT DISK (your USB disk number) and hit Enter
5. type > CLEAN and hit Enter
6. type > CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY and hit Enter
7. type > SELECT PARTITION 1 and hit Enter
8. type > ACTIVE and hit Enter
9. type > FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK (if using a new USB drive) and hit Enter
10. type > ASSIGN and hit Enter
11. type > EXIT
12. type > E: (or other letter of DVD drive), insert Windows DVD and hit Enter
13. type > CD BOOT and hit Enter
14. type > BOOTSECT.EXE/NT60 F: (where F represents the driver letter of your USB drive) and hit Enter
Copy Windows DVD contents to USB drive (Highlight all files of the DVD
Right Click COPY;
Point to USB drive and right click PASTE
Do not interrupt the operation until you see Copy Completed. The last fifteen or twenty seconds will be the longest in your life [LOL].
On the USB Drive you should have 5 folders and 4 files.
Files > autorun; boot mgr; bootmgr.efi; setup
Microsoft reports a secure password: Hewey Louie Dewie Dasher Dancer Prancer Rudolph Sacramento. (Seven characters and a capital)
Door Prizes
Firefox notebook - Diane George
Honeywell water bottle - Andrew Tews
Luci inflatable solar lantern - George Kornbluth
PaintShop Pro x5Fire - Marv Beck
Paragon Virtualization Manager 12 - Bill George
PureStorage tee shirt - Bayle Emlein
PureStorage tee shirt - Bob Sorensen
Chuck shared a Thank You card to George Kornbluth from Donna. George rescued several pictures from her telephone.
Raffle Prize
LiteOn internal DVD writer - Bayle Emlein
Thank you to George Kornbluth for taking care of refreshments and Michael Wong for managing room logistics.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:50 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Bayle Emlein, Secretary
