Reader Support
Your tech problems fixed
Why can’t I tweak some Start menu icons with Tile Iconifier?
Q i’ve been using Tile Iconifier (Issue 497, page 55) to tidy up my Start menu, but some icons are proving hard to edit. For example, I selected Windows Defender, then double-clicked the ‘Medium icon’, but its icon doesn’t appear, meaning I can’t tweak it. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Jeremy Hall
A A few Windows 10 default icons (including Windows Defender) seem more resistant to Tile Iconifier than others. The solution is to select the program in Tile Iconifier’s main list of shortcuts, click Quick Build Custom Shortcut (see screenshot below), then OK when the Clone As Custom Shortcut box appears. This adds a new shortcut to the list in Tile Iconifier. In your case it will be called Windows Defender (just like the original), but will have a tick next to it in the Is Custom column. Click the new entry to highlight it, then double-click the ‘Medium icon’ box.
When the Icon Selector window appears, click the Browse button (top right), then select Image Files in the dropdown menu at the bottom right. This lets you browse for a suitable image for your shortcut (we selected the Defendericon.png file). Click Open and you’ll see the icon has been added to the Preview box in the Icon Selector window. Click OK, then edit the icon.
To add it to your Start menu, click the Start button and scroll down to the Tile Iconifier folder. Open it and you’ll see your edited icon. Right-click this, then click ‘Pin to Start’. If you already have the original icon pinned to your Start menu, right-click it then select ‘Unpin from Start’ to remove it.
Why does Pdfbooklet freeze when I try to install it?
Q I installed the windows version of PDF Shuffle and Booklet using the Snipca URL mentioned in your Workshop (Issue 496, page 42). However, once downloaded both programs freeze when I try to run them. Am I doing something wrong? Douglas Copland
A WE installed the program on a few of our office PCS and one experienced similar problems to what you describe. It became stuck on the Command Prompt window that opens immediately after double-clicking the Pdfbooklet desktop shortcut (see screenshot above).
The fix wasn’t very scientific. After staring at Pdfbooklet’s Command Prompt window for about a minute, we pressed Enter on our keyboard. That seemed to galvanise the program into action and it loaded after another 15-20 seconds. We’re not entirely sure why this happens on certain PCS. The good news is Pdfbooklet loads in a split second subsequently.
Why has Alldup found images I didn’t even know I had?
Q I tried the Alldup program covered in your Workshop (Issue 494, page 35). I loaded it on to my Windows 10 computer. I got as far as Step 8 and found thousands of unwanted images. Most of them are of news items that I have read previously and depict political leaders, celebrities, people in the news and various images of topical events. There are also images that I don’t even recognise, but appear to be from news stories.
The images I want to retain are mixed up with these unsolicited ones. As there are literally thousands to deal with, I could not possibly spend time ploughing through them all. I am puzzled as these extraneous images do not appear in My Pictures files. What has gone wrong? Peter Gain
A IT sounds like Alldup has included your PC’S temporary internet files during its scan. This would explain why it has found so many images you didn’t realise were on your PC (these will have been downloaded to your PC when you visited a website’s home page. The Mail Online’s homepage, for example, contains hundreds of images.
The problem here is that these files could be located anywhere across your hard drive. And where they are depends on which web browser you use. For example, you’ll find Edge’s temporary internet files in the C:\users\YOUR-USERNAME\APPDATA\LOCAL\ Packages\microsoft.microsoftedge_ 8wekyb3d8bbwe\ac\#!001\ Microsoftedge\cache folder. Bear in mind, to see the Appdata folder you’ll first have to open File Explorer, then click View, Options, the View tab, ‘Show hidden files, folders and drives’ then Apply.
Alldup can help you find where these files are on your PC. Once it has run its search, click the Path column header then expand the column so you can read the full file path of the unwanted images it has found. You might also want to run a cleaning tool such as the free version of Ccleaner ( www.snipca.com/23697) to remove unnecessary browser files.