By Stephen Bucaro

Sometimes you need a print immediately, other times you need to continue working with your application while printing. You can make your printer accommodate your needs by configuring your printers "Spool Settings" and "Print Queue".

An application can transfer its data much faster than any mechanical printer can create document on paper. For this reason, when you print, data goes to a "spool" which acts as a buffer between your application and printer.

If you need a print immediately, you can set spool to start printing as soon as it gets enough data to create first page of document. But this forces your application to wait until that first page is transferred to spool.

If you prefer to continue working with your application, you can set spool to start printing after it has received entire document. This moves printing operation to background.

To configure printers Spool Setting, select Start | Settings | Printers. In Printers window, right-click on icon for printer you want, and in popup window select "Properties". In printers Properties dialog box, on "Details" tab, click on [Spool Settings...] button.

In Spool Settings dialog box, set radio button for "Spool print jobs so program finishes printing faster". Then set radio button for either "Start printing after last page is spooled", or "Start printing after first page is spooled".

If need a print super fast, you can set radio button for "Print directly to printer". This bypasses spool entirely. Note: If printer is shared, you may not have option to print directly to printer. If you have required rights, you can temporarily disable sharing.

By Stephen Bucaro

System Restore is ultimate band-aid fix for buggy Microsoft Windows. If you make a hardware or software change to your Windows Me or Windows XP system, and then it doesn't work right, System Restore acts like a giant "undo".

For System Restore to work, you need a "restore point" to go back to. A restore point saves a copy of registry, drivers, and crucial operating system files. The files are saved as compressed .cab files in a folder named _RESTORE/ARCHIVE.

System Restore monitors all partitions on your computer (Windows XP lets you select which drives to monitor) and automatically creates restore points. The actual number of restore points saved depends on how much disk space has been allocated for System Restore. System Restore will not run if your system has less than 200 MB of free space.

= Types of Restore Points

- System Check Points: Scheduled restore points created by Windows. System Restore automatically creates a restore point every 10 hours (if your computer is on). Your computer must be idle for a few minutes before a restore point can be created.

- Manual Restore Points: Just before you make a hardware or software change to your system, you can maually create a restore point.

- Installation Restore Points: Restore points created by an installation program. Not all installation programs create a restore point.

= Make sure System Restore is enabled

1. Select Start | Settings | Control Panel and open System Utility.

2. On Performance tab, click on [File System] button. The "File System Properties" dialog box appears.

3. In File System Properties" dialog box select "Troubleshooting" tab.

4. On "Troubleshooting" tab, make sure "Disable System Restore" checkbox is not checked.

= To Create a Restore Point