Specifications

SOLUTIONS SOFTWARE
Offi ce 2007 Whacks OE
Spell-Checker
Q
I have a Windows XP Media Cen-
ter Edition PC, which includes
Internet Explorer and Outlook
Express as well as Office 2007.
I am English, but I can get only French
in the OE6 spell-checker. How can I get
an English (U.K.) spell-checker? My old
computer with OE6 checked in English!
—Christine Henderson
A
Outlook Express doesn’t actually
have a spell-check feature of its
own, but it will exploit Microsoft
Offi ce’s spell-checker if it’s installed. Your
loss of English-language spell-checking
is a side effect of installing Office 2007.
Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article
932974 confi rms that installation of Offi ce
2007 “upgrades” the spell-check fi les for
English, Spanish, and German to new ver-
sions that are incompatible with Outlook
Express.
Microsoft does not offer any solu-
tion for this problem, but it suggests you
“use a search site to find spell-checking
programs” or get advice in the Microsoft
Communities discussion forums. You’ll
have the added concern of fi nding one that
supports English (U.K.) and not just Eng-
lish (U.S.).
Of course, you could just switch to
using Outlook for e-mail. It’s part of Offi ce
2007, so you’ve already paid for it. When
you fire it up, it will offer to import set-
tings and messages from Outlook Express.
Who knows—you might come to prefer it!
(Hmm . . . is this a sinister plot by Micro-
soft to marginalize Outlook Express?)
Turn Off USB 2.0 Warning
Q
Every time I start my PC I receive
a message in a dialog box inform-
ing me that the device (an external
drive) I have attached to the USB
port could perform faster if I attached it to a
USB 2.0 port. I have not yet added a USB 2.0
card to the PC. I wonder, how can I prevent
the message from appearing in the mean-
time?—Brian Abbishaw
is dimmed. I have even tried to change the
shadow effect, but Excel maintains the cur-
rent effect while applying the new effect.
How do I remove an existing drop shadow? I
have searched the Microsoft Excel help and
the Internet for a solution but have not been
able to fi nd one.—Dwight Jessup
A
If you simply select those Excel
cells again, you will indeed find
that No Shadow is dimmed. And,
yes, if you select one of the shadow styles,
you’ll just get an additional shadow—the
original won’t go away. But if you look
closely, you should see a skinny border
around the block of shadowed cells. If
you don’t see it, move the mouse slowly
around the edge of the cells until it
changes to a four-way arrow. When you
click the border, the display will change
to show a set of object handles around
the cells. In other words, you’ll see little
circles at each corner and at the middle
of each side, plus another that looks like a
handle sticking straight up.
Making sure the object handles remain
visible, click the Drop Shadow button in
A
You can turn off that message, but
only by turning off all USB-related
error messages. Right-click My
Computer and choose Properties from the
pop-up menu. Click the Hardware tab and
click the Device Manager button on that
tab. Near the bottom find the entry for
USB devices; click the plus sign at left to
expand it. Find the entry for the controller
itself—it should have the word “Univer-
sal” or “Open” in its name. Right-click it
and choose Properties. Click the Advanced
tab, check the box titled Don’t tell me about
USB errors, and click OK. If there are
multiple controllers listed, do this for each
of them.
In the future, if you experience any
odd behavior or other USB device prob-
lems, go back and temporarily turn off the
option to suppress USB error messages.
Back from the Shadows Again
Q
I have applied a drop-shadow
effect to several cells in Microsoft
Excel 2003. I now wish to remove
the shadow-box effect, but the “No
Shadow” selection on the Drawing toolbar
Ask
Neil
I’LL STICK WITH 1.1 If you don’t plan to add USB 2.0 functionality to your older computer,
you can turn off the warning that appears every time you plug in a USB 2.0 device.
106 PC MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 6, 2007