Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with WindowsXP

Windows XP SP2 hangs on install. Why?

Electrius — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:56:19 -0800

Help me with a weird Windows install problem. I have a two-year-old MacBook Pro which I have upgraded with 10.5. I was able to successfully install Windows Vista on it with the Bootcamp Beta under 10.4. Later, I wiped my Windows partition and resolved to install Windows XP instead. Using a tested Windows XP CD, I started the install but it would hang when it reached this screen, before I even press ENTER or F3 or R, all of which I have tested and which have had no effect. I have tried this with two different Windows XP Professional SP2 discs and the result has been identical.

I have searched far and wide to try to find the answer to this problem on Google and have plumbed the depths of Apple's support files, but to no avail. Apparently this problem is either unique or I'm not calling it by the right name.

I would prefer to not have to either use Windows Vista or try to find another Windows disc, although if that's the only option I suppose I have no choice if I ever want to play Team Fortress 2 again. I am reasonably computer-literate.

So, then, the questions:
1) What is causing this? CD drive failure? Bizarre bug in the particular verison I'm using?
2) How can I fix the problem? Some voodoo key combination at bootup? Use a different version of Windows altogether? Give up? Repartition my hard-drive?
3) Does this problem indicate a larger issue with my computer?

Active Directory is not trusting

ijoyner — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:58:50 -0800

I'm working with an Active Directory domain that has had a rash of PCs losing trust with the domain. Whenever users log on to the domain and try to access shares on the server, they are denied access. I've found a way to fix this, but would like to know the root problem. Everything was running normally until this happened, nothing was really a catalyst for this to occur. It happened once on Friday and twice today. The users called and said that whenever they tried to access network apps or files on the server, they were given access denied errors (don't have the exact error with me, but I searched it and didn't come up with anything related to this issue). I attempted logging in as the domain Admin on the computer and it gives the exact same errors, so I know that it is the workstation having problems, not the server or account. I also tried system restore on the PC and it did not help (as usual). I have come across this before and I had to perform the following steps:
Take PC off domain, join to workgroup, restart
Rename PC (appended a 1 after the current name), restart
Delete old PC name out of Active Directory
Join PC to domain again, restart.

Upon restarting, we are able to choose the domain, log in with the user and it uses the same profile they had used before taking off the domain. The only difference is that they now have file server access. What could be causing this issue? Should I be looking for indications in the PC or server event log? Is there a way to prevent this from happening on the other PCs in the network?

My transparencies are not transparencies

B(oYo)BIES — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:57:35 -0800

My GooFu Fails me... I am having problems with transparencies showing up with black backgrounds. See image for details. Xp Pro x64
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT

I have searched Google, which I am usually pretty successful at, but I am not able to find anything that resolves this issue. Could be that I just don't have the right search terms, so I am turning to MeFi to help me find an answer.

This issue occurs at random (could go by a day, a week, or a month).

Rebooting fixes the issue.

The issue occurs globally (OS, apps, and websites).

Ideas?

How to create a convenient and secure multi user set up in windows XP.

vegetableagony — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:02:08 -0800

What is the best way to set up multiple user accounts on my computer to: minimize security risk, allow me to keep some files/passwords private, but still let others use my computer for basic tasks? I like having all of my passwords saved, leaving all my websites logged in, and just generally needing to type passwords as little as possible. (currently I just use a master password in firefox)

But I also don't want anyone walking by my computer to be able to see my email and facebook (unpleasent experiences with modifications to my profile that took me a while to notice).

I also want to make sure that someone is able to use basic functions of my computer like web browsing and movie watching without needing a password.

Is there a better way of doing this than my current set up, which involvess one account with a password to login and a masterpassword in firefox, plus a guest acount?

On a mostly connected note, is there a reason for some web pages that I have a saved password/screen name they are pre entered and i only have to click login, but for others like gmail i have to type a couple of letters of my screen name before it offers the option of completing both the screen name and the password?

How to preview pdfs in Explorer?

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:30:26 -0800

How do I preview a PDF file in Windows Explorer (XP Professional) without opening it? My father is an attorney who deals with a lot of PDFs. He has set me with the task of finding a way to preview the PDFs in Windows Explorer (much like Cover Flow view already does in Leopard) without actually opening them. I work on a Mac, so my immediate response was to switch him over to Leopard - but he's a staunch supporter of Windows. I've searched high and low and have yet to find anything even remotely similar to Cover Flow on a Mac. He says doesn't need to be able to page through the files, just a quick look at the cover page.

Fax Problems

mccarty.tim — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:51:56 -0800

How can I get my office's computer fax machine to receive faxes more reliably? My office has been having trouble with junk fax messages, so my boss decided he wanted me to install a fax modem on one of the computers, and have it receive faxes while the existing fax machine would send faxes (it's easier for the administrative assistant to use) and pick them up should the computer be down (it's an always on machine, as it does some other maintenance things on the network). The way I achieved this: I set up a splitter from the fax line and sent one line to the computer and one line to the machine. I used the default Windows XP fax software and set it up to receive faxes after 2 rings, and set the fax machine to pick up after 4 rings. That way, the computer gets the call by default.

What has been happening, though, is that some of the longer faxes are cut off early. The modem was bought from Newegg - it's listed as "ENCORE ENF656-ESW-NDPR 56Kbps PCI Bus (Plug & Play) Fax Modem - Retail". It was cheap and a brand I never heard of, but it was my impression that's how it is with near-obsolete technologies like 56K modems, and the ratings were good. The phone cords are short, so I don't think it's an issue of signal degradation, and the dedicated fax machine has never had any problems. Is this a software problem, and if so, what fax software would you recommend? Or should I have picked a different modem? I imagine the people on Newegg are reviewing it based on its performance for internet browsing. It's a V.92 modem.

I know there are fax-over-email services which would eliminate headaches, but I don't want to go that route, as my boss already pays for a dedicated fax line, has bought a fax machine, and just paid for the modem (although that was just around $10). I would hate to tell him he needs to change his fax number and pay a monthly fee just to avoid junk faxes.

Going from an old PC to a new iMac, migration possible?

mathowie — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:05:13 -0800

I'm finally retiring my dad's virus-laden PC running XP with a new iMac. Is there any way to migrate his old settings from the PC over to a VMWare instance of XP running on the iMac in case he must use a PC-only app after the upgrade to a new machine? My dad has been doing the horrifying thing of running a PC for the past few years and about every six months, when his PC gets overrun with viruses and adware, buys a new $500 PC running XP like his last computer, and the process repeats. I swear the last time I checked out his PC there were several weird taskbar apps running, one of which was in chinese (he can neither speak nor read it).

To ease the transition, I figured installing XP under VMWare would be a good option, in case there is one last PC app or game he needs to use occasionally.

But then I was thinking, even though it may be riddled with viruses/adware -- is there a way to migrate all the apps and settings from the old PC to a new VMWare XP instance? I use VMWare only rarely to test out websites in IE/PC, but I've never tried anything like this and I don't know how sophisticated the Microsoft apps are for migration of apps and profiles and such.

Has anyone ever done something like this?

I promise this is the last computer question I'll ever ask.

backseatpilot — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:09:27 -0800

I hate doing this, but I have a computer issue and need help. Apologies in advance. Random pauses while it's running... what broke? So, I have a machine running Windows XP with some older-ish hardware - Athlon 64 processor, etc. Within the past week, some interesting things have started happening. The computer will hang for about 15 seconds (where NOTHING happens), and then continue on its merry way. If task manager is running, after it gets itself back together it will show a 100% CPU spike during the brief hang.

It has started happening more and more frequently to the point that I get about 30 seconds of useful time followed by a 15 second pause. Previous to this the lags seemed much more random and spread out.

I disabled a few of the startup programs (Nero's, Adobe's, and Office's startup checker thingies) using msconfig, and that helped for about four hours. Now it's back with a vengeance. Adware and virus scans don't yield results. I have not installed any new software recently.

I am led to believe it is a hardware issue, mostly because I now see it during the Windows XP splash screen. Removing the RAM (my initial guess) did not help. My best guess now is that the motherboard is killing itself - does this seem reasonable? It may be an overheating issue, but all the fans are running fine and are relatively clean.

The one last bit of (possible spurious) evidence I have - a previous issue to this one involved the computer failing to make it past the memory check during boot. That hasn't happened in awhile, but it did take some creative power cycling and jamming of power cables to unstick it from that situation.

Hope me!

Moving old data to a new drive

Zaximus — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:19:50 -0800

I am upgrading my PC and I have questions regarding transferring my data. This is probably a total newbie question but I can't seem to find a straight answer anywhere. I will be installing a new motherboard, CPU, graphics card, RAM, and 640GB hard drive into my case. I am planning on doing a clean install of XP and SP3 onto the new drive.

Once the new system boots up, I want to plug in my old 160GB HD (also SATA) and pick off all the files I want to keep, which would mostly be several gigs of music and the entirety of the My Documents folder. The old drive also has XP installed on it.

As long as I ensure that I boot up from the larger, newer HD, this should work fine, correct? Is there much risk involved in this process? If the total amount of data to be transferred is less than 10GB and I don't need to clone the entirety of the old disk and old OS, is there a safer way to go about this?

Thanks in advance.

How DO you backup Windows XP?

Ikazuchi — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:56:18 -0800

My mom and my brother are looking for a simple, solid online backup solution for their Windows XP computers. I know that there are sites like Carbonite, Mozy, and Crashplan. What I don't know is how good or simple any of these sites are or if there are others that are better that I just don't know about. Also, how heavily does the background services these site's software install impact system performance?

How to fix windows premissions for torrented files

Four Flavors — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:10:39 -0800

Torrented files can't be read by a remote machine until they are cut/pasted. Why, and how to fix it? I have 2 computers, one of which downloads torrents. The completed directories can be seen by the other computer, but clicking on them gets an 'access denied' error. Moving the directory somewhere else, then moving it back where it was causes the error to go away. This happens long after the file is done & the torrent stopped.

What could be causing this? I use uTorrent, in case it matters. The torrents are downloads of movies I already own on VHS from various trackers. Both machines are windows XP boxes, in the same workgroup. Both users have admin rights on their respective machines, and the share allows all users full access. No users are set to 'deny'.

One version of Windows isn't enough, I need three!

Snyder — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:27:12 -0800

Will Windows 98 and XP run and dual boot (or, treble boot, I suppose,) with my new Vista running computer? I'm being given a slightly used computer that is currently is running Vista, but I'd like to bring over my hard drives from my current computer. Right now, I have two hard disks, one with Windows 98 and one with XP, and I have a dual boot setup. The computer I want to move them two is a Dell Inspiron 531S, an ACPIx86-based machine, with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2009 Mhz, 958 Megs RAM, and the BIOS is Dell Inc, 1.0.3 6/15/2007. This is all I can easily find out at the moment, since I didn't buy the computer originally and I'm not used to Vista.

To be brief, can I run a triple boot system with Vista, Win98 and XP with this hardware? My idea is to have the backwards compatibility of 98 with the robustness of XP, while Vista gets itself sorted out. Any adivce in that direction too would be appreciated. Thanks for the help.

Maybe this partitioning scheme wasn't as clever as I thought ...

Nelsormensch — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:30:54 -0800

Is it possible to reinstall Windows XP on a small partition (~20 GB) of a single 300 GB hard drive? When I installed Windows XP originally, I made a small partition for Windows and left the rest of the disc unpartitioned. After installing SP2 (when Windows can detect hard drives greater than 127 GB), I partitioned the rest of the 300 GB hard drive for everything unrelated to the OS. I did this to allow Windows to be reinstalled without having to worry about backing up and restoring hundreds of GB of personal data.

However, today when pondering an OS reinstall, I realized that the installer on the Windows XP disc can't correctly handle HDs greater than 127 GB. It doesn't detect my HD being one 20 GB partition and one 280 GB partition. Instead it just sees one 127 GB partition of an unknown type. Obviously this means I can't just nuke the Windows partition and reinstall the OS by itself.

Aside from backing up the 280 GB partition and restoring it after reinstall up to SP2, is there any way to reinstall Windows XP without affecting the other partition?

Help me restore my Windows XP settings. DARN YOU SP3!!!

slavlin — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:57:08 -0800

How can I restore the settings I had from my previous Windows XP setup? I recently made the mistake of installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 and, to make a long story short, I had to use the restoration feature. During the restoration, I had another HP_Administrator folder was created with the name HP_Administrator.computername and none of the system's settings will register from the original "Docuements and Settings" folder.

I would like to know if there is a way to redirect it back to the original settings and documents folder, as it is still there, just not referenced by the current account.

Customizing Windows XP

wabbittwax — Wed, 07 May 2008 08:21:47 -0800

Does anybody know how to edit the (Open, Save as, etc.) dialog box in Windows XP so that it displays folders of my own choosing in that column to the left instead of "My Documents", "My Computer", etc.?

How can I turn my old Windows XP desktop into a print server for a wired network with Vista and XP machines?

abkadefgee — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:07:01 -0800

How can I turn my old Windows XP desktop into a print server for a wired network with Vista and XP machines? I've tried plugging in an old machine, installing two USB printers, and sharing the printers, but the other machines on the network can't seem to connect. I'm running everything through an old Linksys router. Even with the firewall down on the machines, I still can't seem to connect. Are there compatibility issues with XP print sharing with Vista and should I just install some flavor of linux? And if so, how should I do that? I really appreciate your help!

How do I rename a file to user input and then FTP it, all from a batch file?

Ky — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:58:32 -0800

I want to create a batch file compatible with Windows XP and Vista that will do the following: 1) Get user input (name) 2) Rename an existing file to the input name string 3) Upload the renamed file to an anonymous FTP server that takes neither username nor password (no prompting) I don't know what the differences are between XP and Vista in terms of command line--I did read somewhere that Vista reintroduced CHOICE, but I don't want to use that if XP users don't have it. Would /p still work? I'm completely stuck on how to get the input string into a new filename.

For the FTP part, I would like the batch file to show that it's being uploaded and to wait, or something to that effect.

(Do both OSes have the same ftp.exe? But I don't know if users will have it on their systems, and it may be better to find a free command line FTP app that can upload to an anonymous FTP server without username/password. Suggestions?)

Sorry if you think there are obvious answers elsewhere, but my Google-fu isn't helping much. Thanks in advance!

so. slow.

Pants! — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:57:56 -0800

Changing the default Open/Attach location in Windows XP? Due to the way our administrator set up our profiles, it takes about ten minutes to open a open/attach dialog box as it tries to go over our network to discover the contents of "My Documents" - the default folder for this dialog box.

Is there a way to change the default location to my desktop, since this is local, faster, and the primary place I have recent files saved anyway?

Send me to computer jail

snowjoe — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:54:07 -0800

PC Help again again. I have an old pc with windows 2000 server installed on a 20gig SCSI drive. I am trying to install a 40 gig IDE drive that has xp on it. I don't need windows 2000 server anymore so I want the computer to boot into xp but it isn't happening for me. What am I doing wrong? It is a D850EMV2 intel motherboard with 512kb of that super expensive ram. A custom built computer, not a brand name.

I removed the scsi card and uplugged the scsi drive and then plugged in the IDE drive. The cd drive was connected to the secondary IDE connector so I moved that to the primary connector and connected the middle part of the connector to the ide hard drive and the end to the cd drive. I also moved the led light switched to the motherboard from the scsi card. I get a failure to boot error message. I did nothing with the bios. I am not a computer guy but i sure would like to make this work. What am I doing wrong?

I put everything back the way it was and it boots into windows 2000 server fine. By the way I also tried to format the scsi drive but the os wouldn't let me.

Shouldn't I be able to do this?

Build Custom Windows XP Install Disc

HC Foo — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:03:03 -0800

Can I create a custom Windows XP install disc with all of my favorite applications, drivers, windows updates already installed? If so, how do I do it? I have a tendency to break Windows. I am generally really rough on the operating system. Thus, I like to reformat my drive, and reinstall windows about every year to keep things running smoothly. The worst part about the re installation process is reinstalling all of my drivers, and favorite applications. I would love to be able to create a custom XP installation disc that will, when installed, already have all of my applications on there.

Thanks in advance.

How do I use my mac to remote desktop to a XP Home computer

Scientifik — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:19:56 -0800

What is a free solution to do remote desktop to an XP Home computer from a Mac? This is basically for remote tech support for family members

Any experiance with Faxing from within Windows... sans modem?

TrueVox — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:36:10 -0800

Anyone familiar with using a Fax/Printer to send a fax from Windows XP, connecting to a Fax/Scanner/Printer?? At my company we have one fax machine for all 15 of us, which would be fine. Except we're fairly spread out throughout a few different rooms. However, all of our machines are networked to each other. I realize that Windows has an inbuilt function for sending faxes, but everything it wants to do for me requires a modem (which few of our computers have). I'm thinking there MUST be some way to make our computers look to the Fax/Printer/Scanner combo we have out in the front office, but I can't for the life of me figure it out!

Any suggestions? Or, failing that, any alternative solutions? We're trying to avoid pay-per-use services such as eFax, so that's right out. We'd like to avoid buying modems for all our machines, but if that's the only way to fax from Windows (which seems strange to me), then I suppose that's what we'll end up doing.

Thanks in advance!!!

Prepare for launch.

sperose — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:56:43 -0800

I need to know if nuking WindowsXP (Home) is the right way to go with my computer problems. Short version: recycle bin won't empty, antivirus going berserk, FF getting popups, general WTF-ery. Details inside. The computer that was once shiny and new has now seem to have fallen on some hard times.

I have all my files backed up, but I'm down to only 85% free space (eep!).

The problems are as follows:
-- 85% free space (which is when my last computer died a terrible death)
-- The recycle bin won't empty. (It will empty some files, but will say 'cannon delete file: cannot read from source file or disk' even if I can't see anything in there, using 'explore')
-- My antivirus has been going batshit for a while, telling me that logon.exe is infected and demands to reboot. Also, every day, random dll things show up as being deleted or quarentined
-- Firefox went all wonky a few days ago (after the last update, I believe) and slowly started deleting my bookmark folders (one at a time, one at each new FF startup) but that seems to have gone away after a reinstall of FF only.

I have a backup HD (personal files only), a legal copy of WinXP Pro, Microsoft Office, and pretty much everything I need to nuke from orbit.

My first question is: what the hell caused all this to go completely freakazoid?

I'm not very good with computers and diagnosing problems, but I've run my antivirus scans (Symantec from pop's work), AdAware, and Spybot multiple times. I've defragged. The only thing I can think of is that something got in through uTorrent (but I read the comments and whatnot to make sure things aren't completely trashed).

Last questions:
#1: Should I reinstall XP?
#2: If I was to reinstall, how do I go about doing that? I've got all my personal stuff backed up (FF bookmarks and the like) and everything else I can re-download.
#3: How can I keep this from happening again?

Thanks y'all. I've looked through a lot of the tags relating to this, but none of them really seemed to give a hand-holding approach, which is what I really need.

What Windows XP games are must-play?

rifflesby — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:26:51 -0800

I've just bought a new dual 2.8 GHz quad-core Xeon Mac Pro, and am planning on running Boot Camp and Windows XP. Having never owned a Windows box before, what games have I missed that are must-play? (I already have the Orange Box, Bioshock, the Hitman trilogy, and Grim Fandango on order.)

Clean me up, Scotty!

rhoticity — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:47:51 -0800

What's the best way to erase my hard drive for resale if I don't have original OS reinstall CDs to work with? I have a 1.5 year old Dell laptop running Windows XP SP2 which I'm selling in the next couple of weeks (getting a Macbook... YESSSS). I'm going to make an attempt to sell it here on campus or through Craigslist before I try other methods, and so as soon as I transfer everything I want to keep over to my new computer, I want to clean the hard drive off as well as I can. The problem is that, in a misguided money-saving attempt when I first ordered the Dell, I did not request physical Windows XP reinstall CDs. Obviously I cannot just completely reformat the hard drive, then, since I will have no way of reinstalling the OS.. right? What do I do to get this thing ready to sell to a stranger?

For the record, there's nothing terribly "sensitive" on here, just personal/academic documents and photos, but I'd rather get it as clean as possible just in case some total weirdo gets a hold of it.

Any other tips on dealing with the less-than-stellar electronics resale market would also be appreciated.