Baffled by EVERY time you open a Microsoft Access Database file, receiving the message "Can't change the default directory to..>" or are you having general Windows errors 1606 such as when you try to install programs or updates?

It's probably due to bad links in the users' Shell folders. Especially if you have recently moved resources on the network, such as upgrading or moving servers. A bad or non-existant path within the Users Shell Folders will cause problems, but fortunately they are easy to check and to correct.

I was attempting to connect through to a Windows Server 2008 R2 hosted WebApp (using Remote Desktop Services) from a Windows XP machine running service pack 3 when I hit the following error:

The remote computer requires Network Level Authentication which your computer does not support.

One of my clients was confused by his laptop which would randomly come out of hibernation during the night. This could cause problems if he wished to hibernate the laptop for travelling - if the laptop were to wake itself unexpectedly it would drain the battery and pose the risk of possible overheating whilst in his luggage.

I stumbled across a very useful command line tool which allows you to see which device last caused the laptop to 'wake'.

Open Command line (Start > Run > type 'cmd' and run).
At the prompt type: powercfg -lastwake

@Google

No no no!! Please do not keep up this silly test of using background images all over the place. The main reason I set my homepage and many of our clients' homepages to Google is because it loads quickly. All day, every day I have to remote desktop to our clients' machines to do testing and repairs. Loading up Google as their homepage now takes about 10 times longer because of the huge background image.

Microsoft has released a game called  Ribbon Hero, which is a fun way to familiarise yourself with the Office Ribbon.

We had a very irritating issue with offline files in Windows 7 recently (although the same would apply to Vista). A huge share on the server had been incorrectly set to be available offline. Needless to say the sheer size of the share caused sync problems. Once it had been realised that only one of the subfolders within that share needed to be available offline instead of the whole thing, it was tricky to remove the sync partnership with that share.

There have been a lot of bogus virus alerts doing the rounds lately. These programs are designed to look genuine and appear to be helpful by bringing up warnings on your computer about infections. It's vital to be alert and not always take these warnings on face value. The alerts are often traps to make you click on a link to download something far more undesirable or worse still to try to make you pay for something you don't need whilst obtaining your card details!