/dev/Sunnybrook/Blog: Google Pack

/dev/Sunnybrook/Blog: Google Pack

Download the Google Pack. Comes with all the necessities, firefox, virus protection, google talk, instant messenger, etc. Great for fresh Windows Installations.

Self Destruct Reboot

Ever get a message that pops up that starts counting down from 60 seconds saying your computer is going to restart or shutdown? This happens on Windows XP only. It also occurred during the blaster worm. There is a way to cancel this, but you only have less than 60 seconds to do it, so follow these instructions very quickly.

Press the windows key + R. Type in cmd press enter.

Type in shutdown -a press enter.

Done Problem Solved.

Turn Off System Restore

System restore sucks and doesn't always work. The worst thing about it is that it takes a killer amount of hard disk space. To turn it off, right click My Computer and click properties. Click the System Restore Tab. Click on the box to put a checkmark next to Turn off System Restore. Click OK. You may need to restart your computer for it to take effect.

Removing Stuff from Startup

Sometimes things on you computer that are programed to come up on startup can slow down your computer. Things like Peer to Peer download programs or AOL Instant Messenger, etc. Some stuff is running in the background and you probably don't even know it. Experiment by turning things off of startup by going to start then run. Type in msconfig. Press enter. Click on the startup tab. Remove checkmarks off of things that you don't need. Save the settings and restart.

Win98SE to XP

Hi

In the summer I'm going to see a friend in the South of France. I know
that he has a W98 machine with only one partition and everything's in
it.

Let us suppose that he buys a British PC with XP already installed
into one cathedral like partition. How should we proceed to transfer
from one machine to the other, hopefully using Acronis or Ghost 2003?

I imagine that I should take out the new hard drive and jumper it as
slave. Connect it to the W98 system and clone it to the slave. Then
transfer the drive to the new system and jumper it as master. It
should then run as a W98 machine.

If I had an XP upgrade disk instead of a new installation one would I
then be able to turn it into a new machine running XP.

What does anybody think.

The win98SE machine is in France and it is old and the HDD is probably
smallish and not got long to go. Let's call this the old PC.

I anticipate that my friend (Australian) will buy a British PC because
of the keyboard etc, though I don't much care if it is French. Let's
call this the new PC.

I am familiar with cloning.

I have not worked before on a transfer from Win98SE to XP without
doing a fresh install..

I was suggesting cloning the HDD from the old PC onto the new HDD in
the new PC and for that I was proposing connecting the HDD from the
new PC to the old PC as slave. This would be purely to receive the
O/S and data. Then I thought that I would carry the new PC's HDD
(sneakernet, remember that) to the new PC and install an upgrade of XP
over the Win98SE O/S.

Then install several partitions at my convenience.

" cathedral like" was what I said to Dell when I had to install theiir
replacement HDD for someone. We only had limited time and they wanted
to spend 1½ hours formatting the entire 160Gb HDD. I told them it was
like decorating a cathedral when all we wanted was a little side
chapel big enough to hold the essential O/S and device drivers. 5Gb
would have done it. I could have formatted the rest any day of the
week.

They wouldn't listen so I had to go along with them. The software we
installed represented about the space of a dozen seats in a cavernous
cathedral. All that precious time spent formatting space we didn't
need right then.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Is there any reason why you couldn't install the "old" HD that contains the
Win98SE OS in the "new" machine and clone the contents of the old HD over to
the new HD? And then simply perform an XP Upgrade install over that Win98SE
system? Would not that process achieve your objective? But I'm sure you're
savvy enough to know this so I fear I must be missing something here.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

My friend in France phoned me today. It seems that the machine in
question is a laptop running "Windows 2003". I think he means 2000.
He actually wants to keep all the dross. Because he's a friend I want
to catch it all before it falls over.

Even so there would be no downgrade, would there? The level would be
the same until the upgrade, but nothing would go down.

As for the device drivers surely that will be taken care of in the XP
upgrade exercise.

I should be happy to safely clone it all to the new HDD then do an
upgrade to XP.

I was just checking with you to see if
the clone followed by the upgrade is feasible. If he finishes with
the same as before but with XP and on a safe machine I think he'll be
delighted.

Two Pentiums in One

Windows XP Hibernation Feature

Its amazing, Windows XP has been out for about 5 years now and people still didn't know that XP can hibernate. Hibernation is when the information in the memory, like all the windows on your taskbar and unsaved stuff you have open gets saved to a hibernation file on the hard drive. Then you can shut down your computer and restart and have all your stuff open just as they were. Its kind of like stand by except you can cut the power off, unplug your computer, whatever and everything will remain in tact. Plus even if all your stuff is closed you can hibernate the computer for a faster boot up.

Hibernating is easy just click start then shutdown. Then hold down your shift key. The icon that is normally standby no becomes Hibernate. Now click it.

Restarting Windows Without Restarting the Computer

Did you know you can restart Windows 95 without actually having to go through POST or restarting the entire computer? It works for Windows 98 as well. Its just like before, remember in Windows 3.1 you would just go file exit and you would be back in DOS. Hold down the Shift key while pressing OK in the Shut Down box.

How to Use IE Even If iexplorer.exe Doesn't Exist

Hey guys, my parents back home were creating problems with spyware related stuff and they were still using Internet Explorer even after I made them stick to Firefox. So I had to do something drastic. I deleted iexplorer.exe . However there are some cases were you actually need Internet Explorer like to do compatibility testing with websites or blogs you may create. Here's how to use IE without clicking Internet Explorer.

Open something like My Documents, My Computer or My Network Places. Click View, Toolbars, and put a checkmark next to Address Bar. Now type in a web address in the address bar and press enter. You are now using IE.

Batch Renaming File Extensions

Lets say you have a bunch of files in a specific directory and they are all of one file type and you want to switch them all over to another file type but it would be a pain to rename them manually. You can create your very own batch script to do this. Open notepad and create a file. Click file save as and type in rename.bat . Be sure to add the .bat at the end otherwise it will save the file as a .txt Now type in the following in notepad:

cd..
cd..
cd..
cd..
cd..
cd documents and settings
cd yourname
cd my documents
cd file folder
rename *.html *.php
pause

Here's what is does now. If you start the program in some crazy directory cd.. goes down one directory. That should be enough (cd..). Cd documents and settings goes into the folder you wish to go into, you can cd into any directory you want, this is just for an example. Once you cd into the directory of your choice the (rename *.html *.php) command renames all files of the .html file extension to the .php file extension. You can rename any file extension to any file extension you want, just change the .html and .php . Finally the pause puts a pause in the program that says: press any key to continue... This allows you to see if everything went successfully. Otherwise you can take it out and it will run the program quicker then the blink of an eye and you won't really notice it.

System Restore Won't Work

Whenever i try to go to a restore point i have created i get the message:

"Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored to (whatever point it was i selected) Please choose another point.

I choose another point....matter of fact....none of them i choose will work. I even turned off system restore...and then turned it back on....thereby purging all restore points. When you do this an automatic restore point is created. I tested this automatic restore point after one to two days...and it works fine during that period....but after that......any restore points i have created...or even that automatic one that was generated when i turned system restore back on....none of the restore points will work.

I even chatted with HP online....and they gave me a patch to install saying this would solve the problem....this was the patch right here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/systemrestore.reg

It did not work.

I found out through some research of my own....that if i turn off my computer....and boot it up tapping f8 and enter using safe mode...and THEN go to system restore....that i am successfully able to restore my computer........but this is impractical...and takes a long time to do!

Why does this work in Safe mode....and not like it is supposed to in regular operating mode??

HP also told me that if the patch did not work....that my only alternative would be to reformat my hard drive....and i REALLY don't want to do that unless it is absolutely neccessary!!

What i am ultimately wanting....is for system restore to function normally and consistently in the manner it is supposed to.

HELP!!!

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Hi,

If System Restore works in Safe Mode but not in Normal mode, then there
is most likely an application interfering with it's functioning.

Let's take a look at Event Viewer for any System Restore logs that may
have been created recently that may help us diagnosing the problem.

Go to Start - Run and type eventvwr.msc and press enter.
Click on System in the left pane.
Click the gray title "Source" at the top of the source name column in
the right pane to sort by source name, look for "sr" and "srservice".
Double click on each of these events, then click on the button below the
two arrows in the upper right corner. This will copy the event
information to the clipboard. Paste the information for each of the two
event here. There's no need to post duplicate Event ID's.

How do I use the Event Viewer to search for System Restore logs?
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/tips.html#EventViewer

I should have also added that this could also be caused by virus/malware
infection. This will need to be ruled out.

Virus and Spyware removal and prevention steps:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/spyware.html

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
i was able to find the event logs where it gave me Restoration
Incomplete.

I posted two instances of them below.....also....there is an instance
where you can see where i disabled System Restore.

Like i said earlier though.....i can't make heads or tails of the
information in the log.

Event Log

Event Type: Information
Event Source: SRService
Event Category: None
Event ID: 111
Date: 3/14/2006
Time: 6:07:23 AM
User: N/A
Computer: YOUR-XHTR8HVC4P
Description:
A restoration to "System Checkpoint" restore point failed. No changes
have been made to the system.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Event Type: Information
Event Source: SRService
Event Category: None
Event ID: 116
Date: 3/14/2006
Time: 6:11:55 AM
User: N/A
Computer: YOUR-XHTR8HVC4P
Description:
System Restore monitoring was disabled on all drives.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Event Type: Error
Event Source: sr
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1
Date: 3/11/2006
Time: 10:09:33 PM
User: N/A
Computer: YOUR-XHTR8HVC4P
Description:
The System Restore filter encountered the unexpected error '0xC000003A'
while processing the file '_filelst.cfg' on the volume
'HarddiskVolume2'. It has stopped monitoring the volume.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0e 00 00 00 04 00 4e 00 ......N.
0008: 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 c0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
Event Type: Error
Event Source: sr
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1
Date: 3/11/2006
Time: 10:20:03 PM
User: N/A
Computer: YOUR-XHTR8HVC4P
Description:
The System Restore filter encountered the unexpected error '0xC0000034'
while processing the file '_filelst.cfg' on the volume
'HarddiskVolume2'. It has stopped monitoring the volume.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0e 00 00 00 04 00 4e 00 ......N.
0008: 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 c0 .......À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The last two event logs are helpful. Good work. I appears that the file
'_filelst.cfg' is interfering with the SR filter. And that
'_filelst.cfg' is located on a partition or drive other than the one
Windows is installed on. I would suggest disabling SR on all
drives/partition other than the one Windows is installed on.

Can not create a "con" folder.

No idea why, but for some reason if you try to create a folder called "con" Windows doesn't allow it. Must be a bug or something. I tried this in Windows XP Home SP1, not sure if this issue exists in other versions of Windows.

Windows 1.0 Screen Shot

Buy Windows 1.0 !

Windows 3.1: Move Windows Using the Keyboard

By accident, I moved the open Control Panel to the top of the screen. Now the Title Bar is completely inaccessible, which means I cannot drag the window down or move it at all. I can expand the corner downward, but still cannot get to the menu. Any keyboard command to open the Control Panel menu results in an obnoxious beep. All that is visible is the bottom row of icons. Help me.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

First, open the Control menu using keyboard commands: Alt-Spacebar (hold down the "Alt" key and then press the Spacebar). Then press the letter "m" and press . This Moves the window. Now use the cursor arrows - not the mouse - to move the window down, down, down until the Title Bar is visible. Press again when the window is positioned correctly.

In higher versions of Windows you can right click the window on the taskbar and click move then use the cursor arrows on your keyboard to move the window, press enter when it is positioned properly.

Shutdown, but Restarts Instead

I've been having this problem for a long time now. It's really more annoying than anything. When I go to Start->Turn Off Computer->Restart, my computer shuts down. I've searched all over trying to find a solution.

I am thinking it may be related to this error I get in Event Viewer:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: USER32
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1073
Date: 5/18/2005
Time: 9:49:08 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: LAPTOP
Description:
The attempt to reboot LAPTOP failed


Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 ....

I am thinking maybe I have a service that is not stopping correctly, but I have not been able to find it yet.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

It looks like the system was hanging when trying to "Restart", because of my brother using an encryption program, called MaxCrypt. It's a nice program, but it has always had problem showing up in the tast bar. So, I now have it set up to NOT run at startup, and I will now only use it when I am going to shut it down again before I try to "restart".

XP Installation Shutdown

I am building a new system for my friend. I am trying to install windows xp professional on the machine but it doesn't get past 34 minutes complete and then the whole system willshut down.I've tried other discs, and i've tried a windows xp home edition disk.i have no idea what is wrong.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

All Intel processors are built with a thermal sensor to detect if they are overheating and will shut the machine down in the event of it. Some AMD motherboards (ASUS) have thermal sensors built into them that provide the same functionality. A bad add-in peripheral or bios mis-managed hardware (as well as a shotty motherboard), or faulty device driver can cause a system to shutdown during Windows setup (or in general) but this will only usually happen when the device is being activated such as boot-up, Windows detection, or utillizing it.

If I'm not mistaken format for the hardrive is done in text mode install of Windows setup and that doesn't display a time remaining. If I remember correctly the first thing that Windows does in gui mode setup is to start detecting devices which would indicate the latter of
my two given reasons.

One thing that you can try is to reset your bios to setup defaults. If that doesn't work try disabling anything you don't need in the bios.

Also since you mention you are building this system the last thing you should start doing is ripping out add-in cards to see which one solves the problem. Also changing the order the cards are in might fix it as well.