Q: I accidentally deleted my Recycle Bin icon in Windows Vista. How do I get it back? I don’t want to do a System Restore, and it’s a brand new computer.

A: Like Windows XP, Windows Vista lets you customize your Desktop, including the icons living on its turf. If your Recycle Bin is missing, then follow these steps to put it back in place.

1. Right-click on your Desktop and choose Personalize.
2. Click “Change Desktop Icons” located near the window’s upper left corner.
3. When the Desktop Icons Settings window appears, click the Recycle Bin box, and click OK to close the window.

Your Recycle Bin should reappear.

Q: We had a death in the family, and I inherited a Dell Vostro PC with Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2. Unfortunately, I cannot get into any of the administrator properties under User Accounts because I do not know the previous owner’s passwords.  Is there some way I can reset the computer back to its original state or reset the administrator passwords or something so that I can make myself the administrator?

A: Here’s a short segment from my book, PCs: The Missing Manual, that helps people retrieve lost or forgotten administrator passwords: Click to read more »

Q: Please help me, as the split screen in Windows is driving me nuts. Somehow I triggered a magnifier, which now comes up at the top, splitting my screen. The movement in this half screen drives me nuts. How can I turn it off?

A: Windows 7 and Windows Vista’s Magnifier, seen below, places a large magnifying bar across your screen’s top. The magnifier enlarges the area around your mouse pointer, helping visually challenged people point and click the right spots on Windows’ buttons, boxes, and windows.

Windows’ Magnifier is easy to turn on by accident, unfortunately, as it’s listed in a helpful-sounding category called “Make things on the screen larger.”

Once turned on, though, the magnifier is difficult to turn off, as it’s hidden deeply in a little-used area of the Control Panel.

If you’re stuck with a huge magnifying glass covering the top portion of your screen, here’s how to turn it off:

1. Click the Start button and choose Control Panel
2. Click Ease of Access, then choose Optimize Visual Display.
3. Click to remove the checkmark from “Turn On Magnifier.”
4. Click the Save button.

Should you miss that large lens, turn the Magnifier back on by following these same steps, this time clicking the blank checkmark in Step 3.

Q: I’m stumped…I have Windows XP Home Service Pack 1 installed on my computer, yet I can’t seem to send or receive instant messages. Whenever I try to sign on to Windows Messenger I receive this message:

Signing in to .NET Messenger Service failed because the Service is not compatible with the version of the program.

Huh? Any ideas?

A: Your version of Windows Messenger is out of date, and Microsoft won’t allow it to connect to its network. (Yes, Microsoft could have saved everybody a lot of time by rewording its error message to say exactly that.)

To solve the problem, download Windows Live Messenger, the latest version. Install the new version, and you’ll be able to send and receive messages once again.

Note: This page explains how to uninstall Windows Messenger completely from Windows XP.

Q: I write in Spanish in my computer, so I installed the Language Bar from Vista’s Control Panel. The Language Bar let me switch easily from English to Spanish keyboard layouts. Two days ago, the icons Language Bar’s “ES” and “EN” buttons vanished from my Taskbar.

How do I put them back?

A: Since you’ve already installed Vista’s Language Bar, it should be easy to put the bar’s buttons back onto Vista’s Taskbar.

Right-click a blank portion of the Taskbar; when the pop-up menu appears, choose Toolbars, and select Language Bar from the options.