Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with WindowsXP and resolved

Activate Windows AGAIN?

~Sushma~ — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:35:26 -0800

After cleaning up my WindowsXP Professional OS (Dell) to give to my son, all of a sudden The nag screen comes up and tells me I have three days to 'activate' my product! I bought the program new years ago, and have legally installed it on three of my Dell machines with no problems. WTF? It appears that I turned off the restore function and automatic updates, I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Any hiv-ers know why this occured? I went ahead and updated it three times, once on the phone because the network card didn't work due to the cleanup losing the driver, then after fixing the networking problem I did it again twice online. I have a sneaky suspicion that Microsnoot fubar'd SP3 because I have been getting a 'server too busy' error on the support site for XP.

Those "Save As" and "Open" locations...

Ky — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:17:42 -0800

I'm in Windows XP. Whenever I manage files in various apps, like "save as" or "open file," there's that stack of location icons on the left such as My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Computer, My Network Places, etc. I want to destroy the My Recent Documents and My Network Places locations and add a custom folder or drive to that stack of location icons--or whatever the heck you call that. There must be a way! (Apologies if this has been asked, but I don't even know what that stack of icons is called so I can't search for it...)

Why is my PC shutting down randomly?

desjardins — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:58:26 -0800

My desktop PC is powering down overnight randomly and I can't figure out why. Windows XP Pro SP3. The power options are set to shut off the monitor after 20 minutes, but never to shut off, standby or hibernate. I have turned off automatic updates (it was downloading windows updates and then restarting, so I shut off the auto-updates, and now it's just shutting down without restarting).

I'm not sure what other info is relevant, so I'll try to watch the thread. I only use the desktop every few days, so I'll come back to it after a day and it will have shut down. But sometimes not. It never does this while I'm using it. Nothing else is funky. It's almost exclusively used for web surfing, iTunes and utorrent. It's on a network with other computers in the house (that don't have this problem). Virus and spyware scans are clean.

Do I need to upgrade to IE7/8 if I don't browse with IE?

ravcasleygera — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:29:26 -0800

I just reformatted an XP laptop and installed Service Pack 3. I don't use Internet Explorer for browsing - do I need to upgrade to IE7/8 anyway, just for in-built security? Or can I safely leave it at 6 if I don't use it to browse? Apologies if this question seems really, really dumb.

How do I replace a Visual Basic 6 runtime file killed by a Windows security update?

bcwinters — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:47:48 -0800

A Visual Basic 6 (ugh) runtime file distributed with our internal Access database has been killed by a recent Windows security update. It's hard to gather support information (especially since VB6 is about 8.7 million years old) and so I was wondering if anyone out there can help me track down a more recent copy of the runtime file in question—msflxgrd.ocx—or otherwise fix the problem? It's my understanding from reading a couple of tech forums that there is a patched version of msflxgrd.ocx that was rolled out in a VB6 security update some time in the last few years. However, we don't have VB6 installed on any of our machines so I can't run the patch program to get this one updated file. I don't want to get a copy from one of those FREE OCX W00T! websites that come up when searching for the filename, for pretty obvious reasons. Can anyone recommend a better way to get a copy?

In the meantime we have been uninstalling KB960715 on our PCs as a temporary workaround. I believe I could rewrite a key in the registry to make the security update stop killing the OCX but I would prefer not to meddle on individual machines like that if possible.

Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

P.S. I am WELL aware that we should be moving onwards and upwards with more modern tech, but for the short-to-medium term the nonprofit using this system really doesn't have the time or resources to rewrite the front end to use something other than this control. (Honestly, I'm really hoping to get something out to them today so they can get some work done again!)

Digital Immunodeficiency Disorder?

Rhaomi — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:44:21 -0800

My laptop's been infected by something that is interfering with all the usual solutions. Please help! After the recent hacking attempt that brought down Mefi, I scanned my laptop for any problems it may have picked up from it. AVG detected one threat, a trojan, which it promptly deleted. But that wasn't quick enough, apparently.

Now, my Windows XP setup is exhibiting weird behavior all around, and everything I've tried to do to fix it has been blocked. Here are all the symptoms:

Firewall - was originally turned off; I'm not sure for how long. I've since turned it back on.

Security software - AVG isn't detecting anything, but there's obviously something still wrong. Attempting to update the virus database throws an error. Most troubling, I cannot install the newest version of AVG as its website is blocked. Ditto for all the other major antivirus vendors -- trying to access their websites results in a page error.

Tech support sites - Same as above. Something is blocking all attempts to connect to the major tech help sites. I knew enough to check my hosts file, but can see no problems there. At least AskMe still works...

Google search - Searching Google for solutions leads to a standard results page. But when I click on a result, instead of going to the relevant page, it opens up a new tab and goes to a random spam site. This happens on Yahoo and other search sites as well. I can still get to the page I want by copying the URL and pasting, but it's slowing me down. And of course any link that points to a support site won't work.

Other browsers - I'd been using Firefox 3 up to this point, so I tried the other browsers on my system on the off chance they'd work better. No luck -- Google Chrome refuses to connect to *any* website, and Internet Explorer crashes immediately after launching.

System Restore - fed up with all the problems, I tried to roll back my system to a point before the infection. But to my great surprise, all the old system restore points have been deleted.

So to sum up: AV software is borked, security and support sites are blocked, searching is hampered, and I can't go back to an older system configuration. Any ideas?

PS: I know you are not my tech support, but like I said, all the more dedicated help sites I'd normally consult have been disappeared. Thanks for your time and patience!

Can I link from desktop wallpaper?

Joleta — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:37:17 -0800

Is there any way I can create desktop wallpaper that has a link to a specific web site? Our company is launching a new human resources online system. We're going to push new wallpaper with a logo and tag line about the new system to all our Windows XP desktops. I was asked if we can include a link to the HR system login page. I've never seen this done within desktop wallpaper, but I don't want to just say "no" without checking. I do the graphics for all our corporate desktop wallpapers, but I'm not a programmer.

Hope me get my settings back.

dirtynumbangelboy — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 10:08:51 -0800

Had to reinstall XP Home. How do I get all my old settings back? Something inside my computer went all explodey. I'm not sure what happened, but I could not boot at all. Had to reinstall XP Home from the CD.

I had thought that all that would do would be repair whatever was broken in XP. Clearly I was wrong. I've managed to find my old 'my documents' folder, and restore the Start Menu to how I had it before.

What I need to find (if possible) are:

1) whatever file governed how my taskbar was set up, including quicklaunch

2) My Firefox settings, including add-ons and skin

3) Basically, actually, all of my old settings.

Am I hooped?

Will Vista-Native drivers work in XP Pro? Y/N

SlyBevel — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:52:52 -0800

I have a client system that has Vista preinstalled. The client wants XP Pro on the system. It's a laptop, and the manufacturer (HP) only provides Vista drivers. Will the Vista drivers work in Windows XP? Is there a hardware-equivalent HP system that is the Windows XP version that I can get drivers for to use on this one? It's an HP DV6235NR. Thanks!

iPod Fails to Connect to PC

monju_bosatsu — Thu, 11 May 2006 07:05:52 -0800

Why won't my iPod show up correctly on my work PC? I have a 5th generation video iPod that I've used without difficultly on my both home and work PCs, both running Windows XP. Recently, the iPod stopped showing up correctly on the work PC, and instead displays in iTunes as "Vol1," not the correct name of the device. iTunes also fails to display any of the music on the iPod. I have the same problem with the new version of Winamp on my work PC, and it doesn't show up in diskmode, even though it's set to do so. I've tried resetting the iPod, but that doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

Re-connect to HDs after XP re-format

panoptican — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:41:16 -0800

In an emergency situation, facing a serious deadline, Windows decides to stop working. Not knowing what else to do, I reformat the harddrive. Crisis averted. Now, how do I re-connect to my second and third harddrives? I can see them, but I only get the option of formatting the harddrives completely thus losing all data. They work(ed) fine. One is a SATA and one is an IDE. Both only have data (music on one, videos on the other). I have a feeling there are some steps I should have taken to make this process a breeze, but like I said, it was an emergency and I didn't take much time to figure it out. Thanks for your help.

Computer specs: Windows XP (which is installed on C), two additional harddrives H and I. H is a Seagate Baracuda SATA drive. I is a Maxtor drive of some sort.

How do I do I add a TV capture card to an XP machine without running afoul of the 'hardware configuration' key?

headspace — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 08:15:28 -0800

I'm getting a new computer in a few weeks, but I have a TV capture card I want to transfer from my old machine into the new one. Since it's going to be an XP machine, in light of the weird "hardware configuration" key they built into the software, should I install the capture card before I boot the machine for the first time, or should I wait until afterwards? On the one hand, I'd like to make sure the machine works as is before I crack it open, but on the other hand, I would not like to spend a bunch of time on hold with Microsoft to get the damned OS unlocked. How touchy is the XP hardware configuration key? (I know, I know, buy a Mac...)