Microsoft is officially not supporting upgrades from Windows XP to Windows 7, which means they want you to do a clean install. If you're like the average computer user, you have files stored all over the place and might be worried about missing something if you wipe your hard drive and install Windows 7. There is a solution for upgrading XP to Windows 7, but it will require one additional software application.
Every time I launch my browser the window is off-screen. I can't move it because I can't see it. How can I get my browser window back on my screen?"
Having a window open off of your screen can be infuriating if you don't know how to fix it. I once had my email program launching off-screen and thought it might drive me nuts. Fortunately, there's an easy solution to get your window back on screen with a couple of quick keyboard commands.
"I just got a DVD drive for my computer. I have Windows XP and I can't get Windows Media Player to play any of my DVDs. What do I need to do to enable DVD playing in Windows Media Player?"
Windows Media Player requires a specific codec pack to be installed on your computer in order for DVD playback to work. There are several companies that offer this type of codec pack for sale.
One of my favorite codec packs for DVD playback in Windows Media Player is the Sonic CinePlayer DVD codec pack. According to their own tests, the CinePlayer codec pack uses considerably less CPU than competing products, which helps reduce jittery playback of your movies. While their results are certainly biased, I have tended to see similar CPU usage results, although I do also find Cyberlink's products to be quite reliable. Sonic also makes many of the DVD authoring tools used in making Hollywood DVDs, which may have something to do with their claim about getting better performance compared to competing codec packs from Intervideo and Cyberlink.
If you're feeling brave, this video shows you a way to enable DVD playback by editing the Windows registry. Keep in mind you can break Windows if you improperly alter entries in the Windows registry, so proceed with extreme caution if you choose to attempt this alternative.
"I bought a 64-bit computer with Windows XP 32-bit installed. Now I want to upgrade from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Vista. I have tons of applications on here and I'd rather not wipe my hard drive and start over. Is it possible to do the upgrade or do I need to do a clean install of Windows Vista 64?"
Under most circumstances, this is the type of upgrade I'd never do. Too many potential headaches are likely going from Windows XP to Windows Vista in general. Switching to 64-bit compounds the possible problems. xyHD.tv has a straightforward tutorial on upgrading XP 32-but to Vista-64, with the catch that you probably want to install Vista 32 before you go all the way. Most important part of the process - backup your files before you begin. A good rule of thumb in any operating system install, but especially important when you're attempting something like this. Follow the steps to upgrade from 32-bit Windows XP to Vista 64-bit at xyHD.tv.
"taskkill works great in XP Pro, but how do you accomplish the same thing on XP Home system?"
If you want to quickly kill off running processes from the command line in Windows XP Professional, taskkill.exe is a great way to get the job done. XP Home does not include this utility, only including the more limited tkill.exe instead. Microsoft does provide a free solution to this via their acquisition of the Sysinternals team.
One of the best tool collections from Sysinternals is the PsTools collection, which was originally designed to ad functionality to Windows NT and Windows 2000 administration found in newer servers. pskill.exe is bundled as part of that collection, offering a solution very similar to taskkill.exe for taking control of processes both on the local machine and for remote administration.
Here's a quick overview of how it works:
Usage: pskill [- ] [-t] [\\computer [-u username] [-p password]]
- Displays the supported options.
-t Kill the process and its descendants.
\\computer Specifies the computer on which the process you want to terminate is executing. The remote computer must be accessible via the network neighborhood.
-u username To kill a process on a remote system when the account you are using lacks administrative privileges on the remote system, login as administrator using this command-line option. If you leave out the -p option PsKill prompts you for the password.
-p password Specify the login password on the command line so that you can use PsList from batch files.
process id Specifies the process ID of the process you want to kill.
process name Specifies the process name of the process or processes you want to kill.
Keyboard shortcuts help you do things faster by keeping your hands on the keyboard and not reaching for the mouse. Windows offers a number of built-in shortcuts that rely on the Windows key (if you own a Think Pad you're out of luck). Here's a list of the Windows key shortcuts and their corresponding functions.
At its most basic, the Windows key launches the Start menu so you don't need to click it with your mouse.
+ E
Opens a new Windows Explorer window. This is one of the fastest ways to browse files in all versions of Windows.
+ D
Hides all windows and shows your desktop. Use this combo again to return to viewing the most recent Window.
+ F
Open a Find window using this keyboard shortcut.
+ L
Lock your screen on any version of Windows when you step away from your desk.
+ M
Minimize all open windows. This is different than the Win key + D shortcut because it actually minimizes everything instead of simply hiding it.
+ Shift + M
To undo a minimize, use this combo to restore your Windows.
+ R
Display the Run dialog instead of actually clicking Start and clicking Run.
+ F1
Launch the Windows Help files.
+ Pause
Show the system properties without needing to visit the control panel or right-click on My Computer.
+ Tab
Prior to Windows Vista, this cycled through items in the Taskbar. With Vista you get a 3D effect and live window preview.
Download Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows XP may be long in the tooth, but it's certainly not dead yet. If you do only one thing to overhaul the current state of your Windows XP machine, download Windows Live Photo Gallery. This barely exposed update for the baked in Windows photo management tools is one of the most useful upgrades to your Windows user experience. An improved photo import makes this a worthwhile download all on its own. Photo management is upgraded to include views sorted by date and tags (a new tagging tool helps you ID your photos for grouping all pictures of a particular person, event, or location). Simple photo editing for red-eye removal, crops, and adjusting levels handles most common image fixes. If you happen to have a Windows Live Spaces account, there are additional features to publish direct from Windows to your Space or build slideshows for publishing to your Space. Download this free upgrade to the built-in Windows photo management experience and you'll be looking at your images in a whole new way. (The same features also improve Vista) [Windows XP/Vista $0.00]
While the name AutoRuns sounds more like a laxative than a system utility, this is one app that everyone should have in their Windows tool kit. AutoRuns takes the on board Windows MSConig utility to the next level, going far beyond the basics in seeing exactly what's starting up each time you boot your system. Find out all the nitty gritty details about what launches during the boot process and in what order. You can tweak application launching to precisely control what applications, browser helper objects, Windows services, and 3rd party utilities are allowed to start as Windows boots. This comes in handy for helping optimize the Windows boot time, keeps unneeded services from launching when you don't want them, and is also a handy detective tool for discovering malware hidden on your system. If the interface looks overwhelming, consider switching to the mode that hides the official Microsoft signed entires, so you only see startup items that aren't part of Windows. [Windows 9x/2k/XP/Vista $0.00]
"I tired out Windows Live OneCare and now I can't figure out how to get rid of it. What do I need to do to uninstall Windows OneCare from my computer?"
Ideally you should be able to remove Windows Live OneCare simply by going to Add or Remove Programs (aka Programs and Features in Windows Vista). If that doesn't work, Microsoft also offers a tool to help in uninstalling OneCare from your system.
Go to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs
Scroll through the list of installed programs on your computer until you find Windows Live OneCare in the list. Select the program in the list of installed programs and click the Uninstall button.
If this does not work, you can use the Windows Live OneCare Uninstaller OneCare Cleanup instead. Just download OneCare CleanUp directly from Microsoft via that link and remove OneCare from your computer.
Derek writes with two questions about codecs:
"1) Is there any utility or method of determining what Codecs are loaded to XP and whether they are the latest version or most suitable to use?
2) Is there a suggested set or suite to cover all situations? Either open source or commercial."
If there were a set of codecs that covered all situations and tool that actually made maintaining codecs on your system easy, I'd have far less to write about. Instead, there are a convoluted series of components that will help you make the most of a frustrating situation. Here is a set of solutions that will get you close to keeping everything up to date:
"I read somewhere that my computer will be faster if it has more RAM. How can I find out how much RAM my Windows computer already has to see if I need more?"
Adding more memory will speed up some aspects of your computer, but there's no guarantee that more RAM will translate to a blazing fast PC. Other factors, like how many open applications you continually run, whether you're doing memory intensive projects like video and photo editing, how fragmented your drive is, and how long ago your last reboot was contribute to overall performance. Having said that, most computers that ship from Dell, HP, Gateway and the other OEM PC makers are ship with far less RAM than I personally consider ideal.
Nischal writes, "How can I remove START from the Start button in Windows and replace it with my name?"
You need to do a fairly deep level modification of Windows to edit the Start button text and replace it with something else. You are directly editing details inside the explorer.exe file that is the Windows display layer, so if you make a change that messes things up you could very well end up with a computer that won't work. Be sure to backup anything you care about before you venture down the path of making the required changes. If you're still willing to take the risk for the vanity of having a custom start button, then follow the next several steps to get the job done.
Required Software: Resource Hacker is a tool for modifying Windows executable files, like explorer.exe. Before you begin, be sure to download this application.
Before starting down the path of changing your start button, locate explorer.exe in your {system}\Windows folder and make a backup copy of it. Making this backup copy improves your chances of fixing your machine if something goes wrong. Call the copy something like original.explorer.exe or any other name that makes the most sense to you.
Next launch Resource Hacker and open C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Find a folder called String Table. Expand the String Table folder and find a folder called 37. Expand 37 and click on the gear labeled 1033. Over in the right pane, click on the word 'start' and change it to whatever other word you want to replace it with. When you're finished, click the Compile Script button and save explorer.exe with your changes.
You may need to reboot to see your changes take effect, but you should now have a button that says something other than start.
Again, I must caution this is something that can potentially screw up your computer if done wrong, so follow these steps with care. If you are using Windows Classic mode, you can make the change by following the same steps in folder 38 in the String Table folder.
Don writes, "I have set up my old Window XP Pro PC to my home theater system and it works fine. However, I would like to control the PC via RDC so I do not need a monitor or have to buy a video card to hook to my TV. I will RDC from my new Vista machine and have the music play through the Home theater and not the Vista PC. Is this possible? When i remote into the XP machine, all the sound goes to the Vista machine and not the home theater."
By default Remote Desktop brings the sounds from the remote PC to the local PC, which is useful if you are truly working remotely but not ideal in your case. To keep the sounds on the remote PC playing through your home theater, you need to change one of the RDC options before you connect.
"Can I use the Xbox 360 Live Vision camera as a Webcam with my Windows computer?"
In a word, yes. You can use the Xbox Live Vision camera as a webcam with Windows XP or Windows Vista. After you connect the Live Vision camera to a USB port on your computer, the Found New Hardware Wizard should launch automatically. Choose the option to let Windows Update find the driver automatically. Once the driver is installed, the Live Vision camera should work with any software that supports USB cameras, like Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, etc.
Note: The Xbox Live Vision camera does not have a built-in microphone like many webcams. If you want to use it to chat with both audio and video, you will need to connect a microphone to your computer as well.
The power management built into Windows doesn't offer much customization in what gets turned on or off on your system under various configurations. I occasionally find it useful for conserving my laptop battery life, but often Windows power management is more hindrance than help. Local Cooling offers a solid alternative to Windows power management, with a number of handy features. The app automatically turns off your monitor, shuts down or hibernates your PC, and offers a very important option to suspend shutdown when specific applications are running. That last feature is a must because I've lost information due to aggressive power conservation features in the past. I don't necessarily buy into the purported greenhouse gas reduction estimates generated by Local Cooling, but it does offer statistics regarding energy reduction over time, including a competitive feature where you can compare your power savings against the community of other Local Cooling users. [Windows 9x/XP/Vista $0.00]
"Is there any Windows software similar to GarageBand?"
Questions about where to find a GarageBand equivalent for Windows pop in my inbox on a regular basis. My answer in the past has always been Sony Acid is great for loops, but it's hard to use; Propellerhead Reason is great for loops but it's hard to use; Project 5 is great for loops but it's hard to use; Kinetic is easy to use, but limited in functionality. I was cycling through software updates recently and started playing with Acoustica Mixcraft and realized I can finally answer this question with confidence.
Mike writes, "When I boot my XP machine I get a DOS screen with a "please select operating system to start" prompt. How do I change this so it just boots to the correct system without having to go through this screen?"
The option to select an operating system to start usually appears after you've installed more than one operating system on a computer. You can bypass it by turning off the selection option and setting a default operating system to load automatically. There are a couple of ways you can change your start up options so that your default operating system loads and you never need to see that screen again.
The easy way to do this is to open My Computer > Properties, either by clicking Start and right-clicking the My Computer icon in the start menu or typing Windows Key+Pause on your keyboard.
Choose the advanced tab and click Settings in the Startup and Recovery section.
On the Startup and Recovery screen, select Microsoft Windows XP Professional (or Home depending on your version) as your Default operating system and uncheck the box next to Time to display list of operating systems. The next time you reboot, your computer will automatically load XP.
What is it about making backups that's so hard? Not the actual process of creating a backup of important data, but the habit of backing up seems to be one of the biggest challenges in computing. I get a fair number of questions from people who need to recover files they've either deleted accidentally or lost due to a crash. Each time I want to ask why they didn't make a backup in the first place.
Whether you use something free like the batch process copy operation I setup to copy my Outlook PST file or a feature rich backup solution like my personal favorite, Second Copy, the point is you should be backing up your files at least once every day. Free solutions don't always expose some of the obvious features, like checking for duplicates, while the pay solutions offer the roadblock of having a small expense associated with them.
Most of us wouldn't ever think of going without insurance to protect against loss of our possessions due to a fire, or the liability of getting in an auto accident, so why are so many people willing to throw the dice on their personal data? There are unforeseen events that happen that make even a great backup strategy fail, but those are rare compared with losing data because there was no backup in the first place.
If you have a backup plan in place, pat yourself on the back and skip the rest of this rant. If you don't currently have a backup plan, stop reading this, go shopping for an external hard drive and download backup software to copy your My Documents folder and your email at the very minimum. SyncBack is a good place to start is you prefer freeware. I personally like the flexibility of Second Copy because it allows me to do things like run applications before and after certain backup operations. The primary reason I recommend an external drive over something like using blank DVD or DVD-RW media is because those ultimately require human intervention to sustain. Minimizing the human intervention in a backup plan helps make sure the backup plan doesn't get sidetracked at some point.
I use an app called Second Copy for most of my backups. You can schedule backups a million ways with custom profiles depending on whether you need to copy entire directories, only back up files that change or only look for new data at certain times of day. When I originally configured it, my Outlook PST backup would fail because you can't copy the file while Outlook is open. I almost never close Outlook.
While Microsoft has something called Personal Folders Backup to manually backup Outlook, using it interrupts my workflow and it isn't automatic. One of the reasons I use Second Copy is because you can automatically run applications before and after the backup operation. This allowed me to create a batch file to automatically close Outlook before the backup and a second batch file to re-open Outlook after the backup finish. It occurred to me you could do the same thing using a similar batch file, the command line copy operation in Windows and Windows Scheduled Tasks. This tutorial walks you through this free method for backing up Outlook.
First create the batch file to close Outlook and copy your PST file. Open Notepad from Start > Run by typing notepad and clicking OK.
The first part of the batch file closes Outlook with this command:
taskkill /im outlook.exe
Next you need to pause the batch file to give it time for Outlook to shutdown before copying. The easiest way to pause the batch is to have it do something. In this case, we'll have it ping your local machine a couple times. This doesn't change anything on the system, but does by some time. Add the following lines:
@ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000 > nul
@ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000> nul
You need to do the ping twice to make sure Outlook is closed.
Next add the line required to copy your PST file to a backup location. In my case, I'm backing up the file to an external hard drive labeled K:
copy "D:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst" "K:\OutlookTest\Outlook.pst" /y
Replace {username} with your Windows logon. Make sure to use quotes around the source file and destination. The /y automatically overwrites the previous version of the file with the latest version. The finished file should look something like this:
Save the file with some meaningful name ending in .bat, choose the Save as type: All Files
Now it's time to automate backing up Outlook. Open Scheduled Tasks, either from Control Panel or by navigating to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks.
Double-click Add a Scheduled Task and skip past the first screen in the wizard. Click the Browse button and locate the batch file you created eariler.
Choose a name for the Scheduled Task. Set the task to run Daily to make sure you back up your email at least once a day.
Pick a time to run the batch when you won't normally be using Outlook.
Enter your password for your Windows user account.
Once you click Finish the Scheduled Task will begin running at the scheduled time on a daily basis.
If you want to test the backup, right click the task to backup Outlook in the list of Scheduled Tasks and choose Run from the right-click menu.
CC writes, "If I were to use XP Pro remote desktop to access my home computer and send an e-mail, would the home computer's IP show as the e-mail sender or would it show the IP of the computer currently being used?"
As long as the email client you are using is on the remote machine, connecting to a PC via Remote Desktop (RDC) to send mail will result in mail that appears to come from the remote machine. In a scenario where you connect to your home machine over RDC while using your laptop from a coffee shop, the IP address your email is from will be the IP address of your home machine, because that's the Internet connection being used to send the mail.
Rick writes, My Windows Volume Control has somehow been uninstalled, so that my attempt to follow your instruction for restoring the volume icon to the System Tray results in the following error message: "...Volume Control Program has not been installed". How can I reinstall it?
This error message generally means the application that controls volume in Windows, sndvol32.exe, is corrupt rather than uninstalled. There isn't a clear reason why this happens, although I have seen cases where third party drivers from soundcard manufacturers completely damage the entire Windows volume control setup. To make matters more confusing, the error message in Windows is misleading, because you can't restore the problem from Add/Remove Programs.
Homi writes, I get a warning notice when I fire up my PC. My OS is Windows XP Professional saying my "SVOhost.exe" is not there. On looking for it I have found out that it has been deleted by my anti spyware because it was infected with a virus. What is SVOhost.exe and do I have to reinstall it and from where &/or how?
Removing svohost.exe from your system was the correct thing to do. SVOhost.exe is associated with the Backdoor.Nibu.G virus, which attempts to steal password and bank account information. While virus software seems to have no problem catching this infected file, it doesn't always clean up the mess left behind. As with any virus removal there is a common series of steps you need to follow in order to make sure your system remains clean. In the case of Backdoor.Nibu.G, there are a few additional things to do in order to return your system to "normal".
Errors of this type are caused by invalid entries in the System.ini file. You can edit this file by opening Start > Run and typing edit SystemDrive:\Windows\system.ini where SystemDrive is replaced by C or D or whatever your system drive happens to be.
Look for a line like this in the system.ini file:
shell = explorer.exe %System%\svohost.exe
Delete everything after explorer.exe. Save the system.ini file. Next time you reboot you should no longer get the error meesage.
At this point take steps to make sure you are completely virus free.
Since you are running Windows XP, before removing a virus, make sure you disable System Restore from the System Restore tab of System Properties.
Click Yes to confirm you want to turn off System Restore and then click OK. Doing this makes sure you don't end up backing up a version of infected files to your System Restore partition.
Run your antivirus software to scan for possible infections.
Verify Backdoor.Nibu.G did not leave any host file entries behind by opening your hosts file in Notepad at SystemDrive:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc
Right click on hosts and choose Open with. Choose Notepad from the list. Delete any of the following entries found in the hosts file as these prevent you from accessing antivirus software sites:
127.0.0.1 avp.com
127.0.0.1 ca.com
127.0.0.1 customer.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 dispatch.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 download.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 f-secure.com
127.0.0.1 kaspersky.com
127.0.0.1 liveupdate.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 liveupdate.symantecliveupdate.com
127.0.0.1 mast.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 my-etrust.com
127.0.0.1 nai.com
127.0.0.1 networkassociates.com
127.0.0.1 rads.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 secure.nai.com
127.0.0.1 securityresponse.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 sophos.com
127.0.0.1 symantec.com
127.0.0.1 trendmicro.com
127.0.0.1 update.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 updates.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 us.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 viruslist.com
127.0.0.1 www.avp.com
127.0.0.1 www.ca.com
127.0.0.1 www.f-secure.com
127.0.0.1 www.kaspersky.com
127.0.0.1 www.mcafee.com
127.0.0.1 www.my-etrust.com
127.0.0.1 www.nai.com
127.0.0.1 www.networkassociates.com
127.0.0.1 www.sophos.com
127.0.0.1 www.symantec.com
127.0.0.1 www.trendmicro.com
127.0.0.1 www.viruslist.com
After deleting these entries, save the hosts file.
Once you are sure there are no viruses on your system, reboot and then turn System Restore back on.
If following these steps did not solve your problem consider immediate live support.com Online Tech Support.
Leif writes, I have cable internet at home (cox) and Earthlink high speed at work. After being on line and shutting down, I get the message "Others are logged onto your computer, Shutting down now will...". What is going on and how can I prevent my computer from being used as a relay station for some hacker?
Windows XP includes a number of cryptic error messages and nothing is more unnerving than the possibility that someone or something might be logged into your computer. A little more explanation in the message would go a long way to clearing up the confusion. The good news is this message has nothing to do with a hacker using your computer. There are two common explanations for what might be happening.
The most common cause of this message is when you have more than one user profile on your system. For instance, if you and your wife each have your own profile, they can both be logged in simultaneously. When you go to shut down your wife is still technically logged in and so you get an error message warning that someone is still logged in, even if you were the only one using the computer for the last several hours.
In this scenario, you are seeing the error message do to the Switch User feature in Windows XP.
A second possibility exists if you share resources on a network. If someone is logged into a resource on your computer from another computer on the network, including printers and files (depending on the network configuration), you will get this warning during shutdown. To find out which user is specifically logged in, you can launch the Windows XP Computer Management utility by typing compmgmt.msc from Start > Run. Any connected users will be lisetd in the Shared Folders > Sessions section of Computer Management.
Michael asks, Is there any way to get rid of "branding" on a computer? Where computer manufacture advertise there products when you start you computer.
Depending on which computer manufacturer made your computer, you might have a simple splash screen displayed as the BIOS loads or you might be inundated with advertising throughout the entire boot process. These are two separate image locations requiring editing in multiple places and some confidence in your computing skills, as the BIOS option can potentially damage your system if done incorrectly.
I'll start with the Windows boot screen, since that's fairly easy and doesn't necessarily require any direct modification of system files. There are several ways to approach changing the boot screen. One option is to eliminate it completely, opting to display a blank screen until Windows completes the boot process. To turn off the boot logo, Click Start > Run and type MSCONFIG in the run dialog box to launch the System Configuration Utility. On the BOOT.INI tab, check the box next to /NOGUIBOOT and click OK. The next time you reboot your computer, you'll see the BIOS screen and then nothing until Windows loads completely. The downside to this option is you won't get any feedback if your PC gets hung up somewhere in the boot process.
To maintain a more visual boot process, while also eliminating any boot branding, you might simply want to replace the boot image. The easy way to do this is to download a freeware app from WinCustomize called BootSkin. The app automatically overrides the default Windows boot screen, replacing it with one of the many options in the WinCustomize BootSkin library. With some practice you can make your own custom BootSkin as well.
If you want to get really geeky, a third option is to edit the operating system file where the boot screen information resides. You need to be careful in doing this or you can end up with a computer that won't boot. The first part of the process is to create or find an image you want to use. If your computer simply has the all black Windows XP boot screen, with the XP logo like the one pictured below, you don't need a very large image.
Simply create a 215x147 .bmp file with 16 colors (NOT 16-bit) in any image editor and you've got a working replacement. If your computer manufacturer overrides this default screen with something else, you may need to get creative to eliminate all the branding. In general, using a black background looks more consistent, but you can use any of the 16 colors in your palette.
With your new image created, you need a freeware app called Resource Hacker to make some changes.
Before proceeding, locate ntoskrnl.exe in your Windows > system32 folder. Make a copy of the file called newntoskrnl.exe or something equally easy to remember and leave the copy in the system32 folder.
Make a second copy of the ntoskrnl.exe on your desktop (this is the one you will edit).
Open ntoskrnl.exe in Resource Hacker. Expand Bitmap > 5 and highlight the 1033 folder. Right-click the 1033 icon and choose Replace Resource.
Click the Open file with new bitmap button and locate the image you created earlier. Click the Replace button. Save and exit Resource Hacker. You can optionally replace all elements of the boot screen by editing each portion of the Bitmap.
Reboot into SafeMode and copy your newly created ntoskrnl.exe file into the Windows > system32 folder.
Note: If you are using Windows 2000, you can simply replace the image in the Bitmap > 1 > 1033 location with a 640x480 16 color Bitmap to modify the Win2k boot screen in a similar fashion.
To eliminate the branded splash screen associated with your BIOS, you need to obtain the firmware update for your BIOS and edit the logo file that's part of the BIOS fileset before applying the update. Since every computer model and manufacturer uses a slightly different BIOS configuration, it's important to get the BIOS specific to your computer from the support section of the manufacturer's Website. In some cases, like my HP laptop, it's become virtually impossible to replace the logo because the BIOS flash process is contained in an .exe file that runs locally in Windows rather than from a separate disk.
Assuming your PC manufacturer has you create a floppy designed to flash the PC bios, you can fairly easily make a change to the logo displayed. In following the directions to create the BIOS boot disk, simply replace the included logo.bmp file in the BIOS update package with a logo.bmp file created by you. The key here is to use a 16 color (NOT 16-bit color) 640x480 BMP file. Copy your logo.bmp file onto the disk used for your BIOS update and run the bundled logo.bat file by double-clicking it. This converts the logo.bmp to a format ready for the BIOS update.
It's vital to keep all the files in the BIOS update named exactly as they were or your computer may not work after the update. Any changes made to BIOS update files should be done at your own risk and with extreme care.
Additional Windows XP tweaks you might find useful:
Al writes, When I right-click and choose Delete to eliminate a file, it currently takes 30+ seconds to do it. Do you know how to fix this?
The Windows delete behavior varies slightly depending on the way you have your Recycle Bin configured. The default behavior is reserve 10% of your hard drive for the Recycle Bin, with a Delete of any kind moving files into the Recycle bin, which makes the files appear deleted from Windows but doesn't actually eliminate them from your hard drive. If you infrequently empty your hard drive, this can amount to a fairly sizeable section of files on your hard drive being deleted but not actually gone.
Letting files build up in the Recycle Bin is the major contributing factor to slowing down the delete operation. When Windows gets close to the maximum available space for files in the Recycle Bin, it removes older files from the Recycle Bin to make room for the new files. When this happens, you're waiting longer for Windows to first remove one or more files from the Recycle Bin before transferring the file you just deleted into the Recycle Bin.
You can avoid this in one of two ways. Emptying your Recycle Bin regularly keeps the space free leaving plenty of room for newly deleted files. The second option is change your Recycle Bin preferences to automatically delete files when instead of moving them to the Recycle Bin. To change the Recycle Bin preferences, right-click the Recycle Bin and choose Properties. Check the box next to, Do not move files to Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted.
Another thing that can slow down all disk operations on your computer is having a full hard drive. Windows operates best when you keep at least 20% of the drive's total capacity as free space. In other words, if you have a 100GB hard drive, you should never use more than 80GB of the space for best performance of Windows. When you get into the range of 5-10% of the drive's free space available, disk operations like moving files to the Recycle Bin start to get encumbered by the lack of space and performance suffers.
E writes, How does one add additional monitors, to watch/use different computer functions? I have a brand new 15" LCD sitting in a closet that I would like to make use of.
Windows XP makes adding a second monitor relatively easy, as long as you have a video card with support for two monitors. How much you spend on the new card is entirely up to how long you want to be able to use the card into the future. Depending on where you shop, dual monitor video cards are available for as little as $50. The downside to these budget-priced cards is lack of compatibility with some of the upcoming video features in Windows Vista, creating a very short window for ongoing useful life of the card.
Prices start going up if you want to future proof the video card with some of the common place features in both monitor and video card setups. More Video RAM on the card translates to a higher price point, with either 256 or 512 MB recommended over the 64MB common to existing video cards. Dual DVI inputs, common to most of the mid-to-high-end monitors on the market also increase the price of the card you consider. The other big consideration is which type of slot your computer uses for video. Most motherboards manufactured in the last three years use AGP slots for video, with older models relying on PCI. Newer motherboards are shifting away from AGP to support the newer PCI Express slots.
If your computer currently uses a video card on the motherboard slot, buying a new card likely offers the advantage of freeing up some of your system memory. Most on-board video cards share memory with the CPU.
Dualview support can add a second screen by connecting a monitor to the external video port on the laptop. With the monitor connected to your laptop, open the Display Properties by right-clicking your desktop and choosing Properties. Click on the Settings tab and choose the external monitor from the Display dropdown menu. Check the box next to Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor and click OK.
J writes, I've got 2 PCs. One connected to the Internet and the other (home built for video editing) not connected to the Internet. What's the easiest way of keeping up on patches, fixes, firmware upgrades and software upgrades on the machine without Internet access?
The easy solution for getting updates and patches is to connect your computer to the Internet. Since I'm assuming this is either not an option for logistical reasons or something you prefer not to do, the alternative is to use the connected computer to download updates and then transfer the patches over to your offline system. Since each software application has a different mechanism for applying patches, you need to individually visit each site for the software applications installed on your system, manually download update files, and sneaker net them through your house to the offline computer. Microsoft provides a common interface for getting these updates for the Windows operating system.
Microsoft offers a number of automated solutions for downloading updates either through the Automatic Update component of XP or through Windows Update. If your computer is offline, you can still use Windows Update on a second computer to download updates for your offline system.
To keep Windows XP updated, visit WindowsUpdate.Microsoft.com. Depending on whether you've visited before, you might be prompted to install an ActiveX Control required to make the Windows Update process work. On the left hand side of the Windows Update interface, click on the option to Use Administrator options.
In the list of Administrator Options, a link for Windows Update Catalog is included in the Update multiple operating systems section. This link takes you to all available Windows updates.
On the Windows Update Catalog page click on Find updates for Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Choose your operating system from the list of supported versions of Windows and click Search.
Choose the category of updates you want to apply and select any applicable updates.
After choosing the downloads you need, go to the Download Basket, choose a download location and click the Download Now button.
Microsoft will ask you to accept the terms of the download and then begin downloading the files.
When all downloads are completed copy the files to a USB thumb drive or burn a CD or DVD containing all the update files. Insert the media in your offline computer and run the updates.
Julian writes, For no apparent reason that I can see, my computer will no longer shut down; it re-boots OK. I have scanned for viruses and malware with several scanners and am clean. I have also done disk cleanup and defragged. I am baffled. When trying to shut down it logs off OK, gets to the "Closing Windows" screen and after about 30 seconds of HDD activity I can hear the HDD’s park themselves but nothing else happens. No power off. At this point if I manually turn the power off, the computer boots properly next start.
There are lots of potential causes for Windows failing to shutdown completely. With all the various background tasks designed to quick launch apps like anti-virus, office suites, photo editors and music apps, it's quite common for something to stick during shutdown. When your computer fails to complete its shutdown sequence the problem commonly lies with some application on the system leaving a process open causing the shutdown sequence to be interrupted. There's no magic bullet prevent this from never happening, but you can take steps to help solve the problem.
Julian writes, For no apparent reason that I can see, my computer will no longer shut down; it re-boots OK. I have scanned for viruses and malware with several scanners and am clean. I have also done disk cleanup and defragged. I am baffled. When trying to shut down it logs off OK, gets to the "Closing Windows" screen and after about 30 seconds of HDD activity I can hear the HDD’s park themselves but nothing else happens. No power off. At this point if I manually turn the power off, the computer boots properly next start.
There are lots of potential causes for Windows failing to shutdown completely. With all the various background tasks designed to quick launch apps like anti-virus, office suites, photo editors and music apps, it's quite common for something to stick during shutdown. When your computer fails to complete its shutdown sequence the problem commonly lies with some application on the system leaving a process open causing the shutdown sequence to be interuppted. There's no magic bullet prevent this from never happening, but you can take steps to help solve the problem.
One of the best ways to isolate shutdown problems on your system is force Windows to shutdown unnecessary system resources prior to shutting down your system. This includes closing background processes and applications you might not even know are running. While you can do this manually by picking through the Processes and Applications listed in Windows Task Manager, an easier way is to use an application to help you.
SmartClose is an almost perfect tool for this very purpose. I rely on the app to shutdown unnecessary components before doing video editing because I want to free up all available system resources. SmartClose also provides a good solution for shutting down background applications hanging the Windows shutdown process. Simply configure SmartClose to close everything on your system prior to shutting down the system and your shutdown should return to normal. In most cases, you can do this once and future attempts to shutdown will work more gracefully, but without knowing every app installed on your system, it's hard to say for certain what specifically is hanging things up on shutdown, so using SmartClose more regularly might be necessary.
Fred writes, When you go into msconfig and you click off programs from the startup how do you delete or eliminate the programs that you have deleted from your system? It seems like once the program gets there it stays. There are some programs that come with your system like virus programs, that one does not use and therefore disable them and then remove them from the system but they stay in the msconfig lineup.
The MSCONFIG System Configuration Utility offers plenty of powerful options for managing your startup process, while also presenting one of the more convoluted displays in Windows XP. If you disable a startup item, the information in the MSCONFIG Startup tab must be removed by deleting an entry from the Windows Registry. This is not an ideal situation, fortunately there are a number of apps available to act as an intermediary in the process.
For no nonsense MSCONFIG Startup list cleanup, one simple choice is freeware app MSConfig Cleanup. The app has only one function - removing unused items from the MSConfig Startup list. Install MSConfig Cleanup, check a box next to any item you want removed from the MSCONFIG Startup list and click the Clean Up Selected button to remove the items from the list.
For a more comprehensive set of tools for managing startup items, finding out additional details of processes running on your system and a handy set of utilities for managing some other routine tasks on your system, I like some of the additional features in The Ultimate Troubleshooter.
This past week I got a chance to participate in Search Champs V4, a small gathering of academic researchers, search engine marketers and technologists hosted by MSN. The idea behind the gathering is to get feedback on existing and future MSN product offerings in hopes of making them better. One side benefit for me in attending is getting to meet people I read regularly, like Dori Smith, and Mike Arrington and new people like the guy behind We Break Stuff and Donavon West who makes gadgets for Windows Live.
Something I hadn't anticipated was the possibility of switching loyalties in desktop search. For a long time, Copernic remained the mainstay for handling all my desktop search duties outperforming both Google Desktop and Microsoft in a number of key areas. After seeing a few features in the Enterprise version of Windows Desktop Search, I'm switching my desktop search loyalties.
I always liked the live as-you-type results in Windows Desktop Search, but a few other quirks, including the bundling of the MSN Toolbar, turned me off. As I indicated recently, the enterprise version of MSN Search Toolbar is now a solid solution. I still won't touch the consumer version.
I'm an Outlook user by choice. It's the only app that integrates all my email, calendar, contacts and task data in a way that makes sense to me. Searching my email is an unpleasant experience. Lookout helped make searching email better, but the combined MSN Search Toolbar and Windows Desktop Search for enterprise rock at searching Outlook. Search results are relevant, conversational search actually works and the window where the results display sits right inside Outlook (a feature Outlook won't have natively until Office 12 ships).
A trick I picked up from Brandon Paddock, one of the Windows Desktop Search developers, is to prioritize indexing, which updates the index as changes happen instead of waiting for idle cycles. All the search tools, including Google and Copernic recommend waiting for idle cycles to update your search index, but I'm convinced my performance is better after running the indexing service immediately after install and just keeping the index up-to-date. At the same time, I would recommend against prioritized indexing if your computer has less than 512MB of RAM or a processor under 3.0GHz.
Just to be clear, I'm not an MSN Search fanboy. Google remains my primary Web search engine, because the results are simply better. Google has a greater wealth of documentation on various search tricks, mostly through third parties, not to mention people are making it easy to use Google tools inside my Media Center.
Greg writes, In Outlook Express I sometimes get music with the message. Is there a way to grab the music from the message? Such as MIDI,MP3 and WAV. Some of the music is really neat and I would really like to save it.
To locate and save an audio file embedded in an email message, you need to discover the source of the audio file. Typically, the source location is a Web address on the Internet, although occasionally the file is attached to the actual email message. If the file is attached to the message, you can easily save the attachment. For embedded files, you need to do some detective work.
From your Outlook Express Inbox, right-click the message with the audio file in the list of messages and choose Properties from the menu. On the Details tab, click on the Message Source button.
Microsoft doesn't provide a way to search the source, so you need to copy the contents to a text file in something like Notepad. Select all the contents of the message source and paste them into a text file. Open a Find window using Ctrl+F and search for .mp3, .midi, .wma or .wav until you locate the audio file in the message source. You could also scan manually by looking at the source contents which generally takes longer. When you locate the URL for the audio file, which should look like a standard Web address (http://www.domain.com/file.mp3), copy the URL into your browser to locate the audio file and save it.
Chuck writes, I'm running Windows XP Pro and using Internet Explorer 6. When I try to download something I get a message about (50% of the time) do I want to okay the download and there is a new toolbar message at the top of the browser window that I have to right click and tell it to do the download. Is there some setting in IE 6 that I need to change?
This behavior was added in the Service Pack 2 update to Windows XP to help add a layer of security to the browser. In theory it helps prevent the drive-by download scenario common to spyware that attempts to install without your permission. For those of us who are careful to avoid dangerous downloads, the feature adds a certain level of annoyance to the browsing experience. If you feel comfortable in disabling this feature, IE offers a way to override the warning.
Click on the Custom Level button. Locate Downloads in the list and the Automatic prompting for file downloads. This is set to Disable by default. Switch the setting to Enable to stop receiving the Information Bar warning in IE. Click OK and click OK to close Internet Options. All future downloads will start automatically instead of presenting the Information Bar warning message.
Gordon writes, How do I get rid of Content Advisor in XP Pro? I started it accidentally & is a real pain on Internet.
Content Advisor is possibly one of the most poorly implemented filtering solutions available for Internet Explorer. If the password is lost you need a registry hack to get rid of the password. Disabling Content Advisor retains the password you set when it was created (or hopefully you set). If the rating system gets corrupted it causes otherwise safe sites to become inaccessible. Fortunately you can override Content Advisor if you need to.
If you know the password for Content Advisor, Open Tools > Internet Options from the IE menu, click the Content tab and click the Disable button. This will prompt you for the Supervisor password. If you never created a Supervisor password, leave this blank and click OK. If you did create a password, enter the password to turn off Content Advisor.
If you lost the password for Content Advisor, you need to edit the Windows Registry to reset the password to nothing. From Start > Run type regedit and click OK.
In the Registry Editor expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SOFTWARE, expand Microsoft, expand Windows, expand CurrentVersion, expand policies. Click on the Ratings folder to expose the Content Advisor registry keys. Highlight the key called Key and delete it either with your delete key or by right-clicking and choosing delete.
Close Registry Editor. Close all instances of Internet Explorer. Open IE and choose Tools > Internet Options from the menu, selecting the Content tab for the Content Advisor. Click the Disable button. You will be required to enter a password in order to proceed. Create a password to turn off Content Advisor and click OK. To get rid of the password, you can repeat the steps above. Your Content Advisor is now turned off.
Chris wants a MCE feature to find and schedule movies in Windows Media Center based on what's either coming up later in the month or what's coming up next on his platinum package of movie channels. While there's no instant messaging solution with a reminder of upcoming movies, scheduling a recording in advance is a snap.
If you want movies playing now or later today step through the screens below to find something you want to watch:
If you've ever copied music files from one folder to another or over the network, the album art generally doesn't come with the files. If you copy a playlist of tracks using Windows Media Player, you'll end up with a stack of songs all in the same folder with either the wrong album art of missing album art. AV Media Copy transfers songs based on your Windows Media Player playlists, transferring songs while maintaining the original folder hierarchy, album art and all music. You'll save time looking up music data and re-sorting files into the correct album structure. The software developer also makes a handy album art repair tool. [Windows XP $0.00]
Download Designed for Media Center Edition list
Building your own Media Center PC is entirely feasible even if Microsoft isn't clued in on the fact that users shouldn't need a new copy of Windows XP just to run the Media Center code. For about $130, you can pick up an OEM version of XP Media Center Edition from a handful of legitimate retailers. Making sure you have compatible hardware is a little more complicated, because the list of supported TV Tuner cards is smaller than many of the MCE competitors like Beyond TV and SageTV. Fortunately, Microsoft just released the Designed for Media Center Edition approved hardware list, including a recommended list of DVD decoders, graphics cards, TV tuners, remote controls and wireless routers. Microsoft Word is required to read the file and it will prompt for a password, but opens in Read Only mode. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]
Chuck writes, I have a small home network between my computer and my son’s, to share files, internet etc. I purchased and installed a second 300gig hard drive on my son’s computer and I set up 2 partitions, one for him one for me (to back up my pictures, videos, etc). We had no problems at first but now I can not gain access to his computer. When I search for his computer name, it shows up but I get a message that I do not have access to this resource and access is denied. We are using the same workgroup name and file and printer sharing is enabled.
Networking remains one of those things that Microsoft needs to simplify for the average home user. They want to connect an Xbox in every living room to a computer in the office, but don't make it very easy to figure out what's going wrong in a network setup on the other hand. There are a number of potential hazards in setting up shared network drive. I'll step through both an easy way to share files and a more secure method for file sharing. Either should get you to a solution.
If you have sharing turned on, you can find any shared drive on your network by entering the computer name and {drive letter}$ like this:
\\COMPUTERNAME\C$
These are hidden in network browsing by default and are generally reserved for network administration. Best practices suggest creating a resource share specific to the drive or a folder on the drive.
If you use a network file sharing, be sure to have a router with a strong password and a firewall application protecting your network.
In Windows Explorer, choose Tools > Folder Options from the menu and click on the View tab. Scroll to the bottom and verify the checkbox next to Simple File Sharing is checked.
You indicate that both computers are visible on the network, which should mean they are both part of the same workgroup. To verify Workgroup settings match, open the System Properties either by right-clicking on My Computer and choosing properties from the start menu or by using the Windows Key + Pause/Break on the keyboard. Click on the Computer Name tab for each computer and check the Workgroup name.
If the Workgroup name matches on both machines close system properties. If not, click on the Change button and enter the correct Workgroup name.
After making changes you will be prompted for a restart.
From a security perspective, it's safer to share folders than an entire drive. In this case, since you're not sharing the drive containing the operating system files, it's not as crucial, but it's still a good practice to share folders rather than drives.
In Windows Explorer, right-click the hard drive you want to share and choose Properties from the right-click menu. Click on the Sharing tab. If your drive is not currently shared, the warning below will be visible.
Click on the warning message link to expose the sharing options. Assuming you already have your internet connection configured and firewall settings in place, you can choose the Just Enable File Sharing option (unless you already enabled file sharing previously) When you finish, your computer should be prepared to share files on the network. Depending on what's already configured on your network, you may need to disable the Guest account in the User Accounts Control panel for added security.
Check the box next to Share this folder on the network. In order to perform backups like you need, you also need to check the box next to Allow network users to change my files. From here you can also change the network name of the shared drive to make it easier to distinguish.
The more secure method for sharing your drive is to require authentication across the network when making a connection. Rather than using simple sharing, you share your drive on a case-by-case basis and specify which users have access. This way you can disable the Guest account and only allow a user with a password to get in.
For this method of file sharing, open Tools > Folder Options from the Windows Explorer menu and click on the View tab. Scroll to the bottom and verify the checkbox next to Simple File Sharing is not checked.
Right-click the drive you want to share, click the radio button for Share this folder. Click on the New Share button and name your share.
Click on the Permissions button and check the Allow Full Control box (which automatically checks change). Click OK until you exit the sharing setup.
On the computer with the shared drive, create a user account with the same name and password as the account you login with on your other computer. By creating this user, when you login to your computer, you will also be authenticated to access the shared drive. For access settings to take effect you need to reboot the computer with the shared drive (and possibly your other computer as well).
Using this second method of security, you can create additional access control by providing read access for the drive, but only allowing changes to specific folders on the drive.
Just before the New Year, I wrote about a potential security exploit in Windows XP from WMF files. Microsoft just released a patch, ahead of their normal security fix schedule in order to close this major security hole. If you have automatic updates turned on, the update should either be available for download or already downloaded for your system. If you don't use the Windows XP Automatic Update service, it's time to visit Windows Update and patch your system. This is not something you want to mess around with as the potential hole can be exploited simply by opening a link to a specific type of graphic file.
