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You Can Quiet But Not Kill Reminder

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By ROB PEGORARO, The Washington Post

Published: December 24, 2007

How can I stop Windows from reminding me that deleting a desktop shortcut doesn't get rid of the program? I figured that out a long time ago.

Most routine warnings from programs come with a "don't remind me about this again" checkbox you can click to bypass them the next time around. But not this one; Microsoft seems determined to advertise just how hard it is to remove an application from Windows.

I have yet to find a way to get rid of this particular nag, but you can suppress both it and the standard "Are you sure you want to send 'Useless File' to the Recycle Bin?" dialogue.

Right-click on the Recycle Bin and click Properties; in the Properties window, click the checkbox next to "Display delete confirmation dialog" to clear it.

You will need to make sure you don't trash a file by mistake.

But if you've spent enough time on a computer to realize that you must use the "Add or Remove Programs" control panel to get rid of a Windows program, you probably also know that you can recover a deleted file by double-clicking the Recycle Bin and dragging the file back to the desktop or your My Documents folder.

Some Mac downloads come as ".bin," ".sit" or ".hqx" files, but most are ".zip" or ".dmg" files. What's the difference?

A file that uses any of the first three formats is either very old or was provided by a company that needs to refresh its acquaintance with the Mac. Those formats haven't been in widespread use in years; you'll usually need the free Stuffit Expander (stuffit.com/mac/ expander/) to open them.

Most applications are now provided in ".dmg" - short for "disk image" - files that Mac OS X can handle by itself. Others, such as Dashboard widgets, arrive as .zip files that OS X can open for you.

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