Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and XP

Which OS for my Netbook?

lemonfridge — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:08:52 -0800

What OS for my Samsung NC20? I'm receiving a Samsung NC20 for xmas, which will become my primary PC for web-browsing, iTunes, Picasa etc.

I've already ordered myself a CD/DVD drive to use with it, and a 2Gb RAM upgrade.

Which OS should I install on it? It comes with XP Home, but I have the option of putting Windows 7 on instead (Ultimate 64bit version).

Should I go for 7, XP, or something else entirely (not keen on Linux, but maybe a dual boot?)

ThinkPad T42 wireless connection problem

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:40:00 -0800

Windows XP Home network connection issues. My son's girlfriend has an IBM ThinkPad T42. In the last couple of days its network connectivity has gone haywire. It has an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter and an Intel Pro/1000MT wired connection, and the laptop is running XP Home, Service Pack 3. Here's what it does:

As soon as I enable the wireless adapter and connect to a network (either secured or unsecured) the connection bounces from disconnected to connected and back again, over and over ad infinitum.

I can't enable the wired adapter at all (it just stays disabled while the "Local Area Connection - Enabling" message shows, after which it disappears with the connection still disabled), which is what makes me think this is a software problem rather than a hardware problem. I have tried all of the following (not necessarily in this order):

1) reset the TCP/IP stack ("netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt")

2) Uninstalled and reinstalled TCP/IP

3) removed and reinstalled the network adapter drivers

4) system restore to earlier restore point

5) installed a PCMCIA wireless card (same result - connected/disconnected over and over)

6) run Malwarebytes (no malware detected)

At this point I am ready to throw in the towel and reinstall Windows unless someone has any better ideas. I don't really mind doing this, but it always irritates me to resort to a reinstall when it seems like there really should be a simpler fix.

Any ideas?

This disc was made for bootin'

CodeMonkey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:10:19 -0800

I would like to make a custom boot disc that is very simple to the user. All it would do is restore an image from 6 DVDs to a hard drive. The only options I would like the user to see is: 1) format drive 2) restore drive 3) exit I would like to create this menu and all sub menus that I see fit. I have seen UBCD but it is too complicated for the people I know. I would like to use Driveimage XML and have it read the discs one at a time to restore the drive. Any suggestions?

Dual Booting For Dummies

mannequito — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:14:17 -0800

Two-part question regarding a potential XP/Ubuntu dual-boot setup: a)Do I still worry about viruses if I'm not accessing the internet from the XP half? b) From reading online it seems that I'll be able to access files from the XP half while in Ubuntu, but will the opposite be true? I've actually never owned a Windows machine so apologies if I seem over paranoid about viruses. I'm just finally considering this in order to be able to record music and use my computer for djing.

And, in case the second question is confusing, what I mean is that as I understand it, anything I put on the computer in Windows will be accessible on the other operating system. But since I would be using Ubuntu for any downloading I'd like to know if that will be readily accessible in XP or if it would require copying it to an external harddrive, booting into Windows, and recopying it?

thanks everyone.

Law-abiding civilian wants to kinda remove personal info from a laptop

salvia — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:41:33 -0800

What are the basic steps to remove personal information off of a hard drive? (XP Home, SP3) I'm trading up a work computer for a newer one. I'd like to make sure to erase things like my frequent flier password, browsing history and downloaded docs, emailed files, and documents I created myself.

I realize many people would find it easiest just to reformat the hard drive, but I'd rather not do that myself, as I don't know what I'm doing or have the disks, plus that'd look more suspicious than leaving behind a few non-work files. I'm not concerned anyone is going to run file recovery software or investigate me, and I don't have any confidential client data that I need to protect. I don't use this for much besides work, and I never save bank passwords, and they're probably going to reformat the computer right away, so I'm not that worried.

I just don't want someone to open a folder and accidentally stumble across some doc I forgot about ("FindingANewJob.doc") or some cached NSFW pic or pdf download that I clicked on in Metafilter, or some embarrassing google search term, or a personal essay a friend emailed me on Outlook that I edited over the weekend. I'm looking for a middle ground between the Department of Defense seven-wipe wiping standard and/or total reformat, and just leaving behind entire folders full of potentially-personal things.

What's a reasonable way for me to clean files and browsing history off of the computer? Is there a good checklist of folders to empty out? Is there a way to know which folders have exclusively system files and which have user-created documents? If you delete a file, then empty the Recycling Bin, is that pretty good or is there one step further you need to take to keep someone from accidentally encountering TMI?

If it matters, I am one of three users on the machine, and I don't know if I have full admin privileges, but I can add and remove programs.

I realize this is a pretty common question, and I've found some decent eHow articles, but I trust AskMe more than my googling skills. Thanks a bunch for any advice you can offer.

Want separate desktop on Virtual Machine

hdh — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:13:22 -0800

Question. I upgraded to Parallels 5.0 to run a Windows Virtual machine on my Macbook. The problem is that icons on the Windows desktop show up on the Mac desktop and vice versa. How can I set up Parallels so that both desktops are separate identities that don't impact each other?

Where's the XP Installer's Undo?

kristi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:17:38 -0800

A Windows 2000 hard disk got clobbered by the XP installer and is "unallocated". What are my next steps? I have an old PC running Windows 2000 (SP 4). There are 3 internal drives:

D: 40 GB (Win2K system disk)
C: 200 GB
F: 500 GB

Recently, I tried to install WinXP on the C drive so I could dual-boot Win2K and XP. I ran the XP installer (new install, not upgrade); it successfully completed but I could never boot from C; it was giving me various errors about missing hal.dll and stuff. I've basically given up on the dual boot on this machine; I don't need it badly enough to spend more time on it.

After my first attempt to install XP, I discovered Win2K no longer mounts the F drive. It still shows up in the BIOS, but not in Windows Explorer; only the C and D drives show up in the Explorer address bar now.

When I go into Computer Management, I can see the missing drive in the Disk List and Graphical View, but not in the Volume List. In the Graphical View, it shows up as

(left side)
Disc 0
Basic
465 GB
Online

(right side)
[no letter drive here]
465 GB
Unallocated

As far as I can tell from Googling around, the F drive apparently had EZ-Drive on it (I tried Partition Magic 6, and it gave me an error saying "EZ-Drive has been detected on drive 0, but EZ-Drive is corrupt. Run the EZ-Drive setup diskette to correct this problem."), and apparently XP hates EZ-Drive.

I've tried running

fixmbr \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0

(that's the device that shows up using Recovery Console's map command) from the Recovery Console, but it didn't change anything.

The Add/Remove Hardware Wizard can see the drive, too (it says the device is working properly).

I ran Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics on the drive - did the Quick Test - and got

Test completed successfully

The drive shows up in the Physical Drive list in WD Diagnostics, but not the Logical Drive list.

I'd like to just undo whatever the XP installer did to the drive and get it back to where I can read and use it again. If I have to partition it, I can do that, but I'm wondering whether EZ-Drive will remain on the disk (it sounded like that would happen, based on some of the reading I've done) and what effect that would have on anything else I need to do in the future.

I only use this machine for a couple of pieces of software and I'd like to spend as little time as I can getting it working again. If at all possible, I'd love to avoid reformatting/repartitioning the drive. It just seems like there should be SOME way to undo whatever the XP installer did.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

How do I change default scan settings?

MrMulan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:44:46 -0800

How can I reduce the file size of a scanned document in Windows XP? I have narrowed it down to something in the XP OS.

Boss has a Canon MFP that would scan to his PC. Test scan file would be about 300Kb pdf.
Boss got a new PC. I installed the same Canon software and used the same settings his old PC used, except now the actual scan takes longer and the file is over 1,000Kb.
I uninstalled the Canon software on both machines and used the built in Windows fax and scan app...same thing...old PC creates a fast scan with small output file, new PC creates a slower scan with a larger output file.
Again, all settings, resolution, ect. are the same on both machines.

I know there is free third party software to reduce after the fact, but I don't want to go there and give him another step to do.

Can't find anything that applies to this scenario on G. As always, thanks in advance.

WIN XP Directory Tree Software help?

dorgla — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:13:54 -0800

Need software which enables saving my Windows XP file directory tree and shows subfolders as a .gif, .jpg or .bmp. Google found some software which saves it as a text file, but I want the visuals of the actual folders in the tree structure.

Fixing a netbook's corrupt registry sans optical drive?

Teira — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:50:25 -0800

How exactly does one go about fixing a corrupt XP registry or reinstalling XP on a device with no optical drive? Okay, so out of the blue with no problems earlier, I start up my netbook (dell mini 10v) and find myself confronted with the lovely missing/corrupted system file error. Now I realize this is going to require some effort with a boot CD, but serendipitously, this laptop has no drive. Now I figure I have three options here for self repair, and I would love to be corrected on these

1) Hopefully there's some way to use my desktop to load the netbook as a target drive, much like holding T at startup on a mac, and fixing things up that way... I have no idea how to do this and googling/mefi...ing aren't proving terribly useful

2) I can figure out how to boot from a thumb drive. I have a fairly speedy 16 gig one, a boot .iso, and my BIOS set to take it first, but I'm a little unsure if I need to do anything special. Do I unpack the ISO into the thumb's root directory? Do I attempt to install windows, onto it and try to use that boot to run a system restore? Again, provided instructions aren't very clear

3) I could force the target drive issue with brute force: ripping open the netbook and shoving the drive in my desktop for intense treatment. I don't want to do this. Please don't make me do this.

Am I being a drama queen here? Are there much easier ways to go about this?

This is a lot of question.

Also since Dell's kind enough to have stopped sending OEM discs with computers, my install discs and .iso are vanilla microsoft installs. I'm going to have horrible, awful driver issues aren't I?

How do I fix this WinXP logon?

imjustsaying — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:34:06 -0800

To begin, click your user name. Huh? I am the only user of my Windows XP Home computers. Until last week, when I booted up a computer I ended up on the Windows desktop.

Since installing a replacement internal DvD drive and it's accompanying software on my office machine, for some reason I now boot up into the screen which has a vertical line down the center, has "To begin, click your user name" on the left side of the screen, and my user name and icon on the right side.

Also, under my user name there's a notification of the number of new emails I've received as well as the number of programs open.

I'd like to go back to booting up into the Windows desktop without having to click through on my user name.

What's up with my music files on my PC?

ishotjr — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:12:02 -0800

What is up with my music files' titles turning into nonsensical four-letter titles? Ok, this is a little long, but it's a weird problem that is hard to describe.

I use iTunes on a (Dell) Windows Vista PC laptop. I noticed this issue probably over a year ago, but was too lazy to do anything about it until now.

Thousands of my music files are in files within "C:\My Music" that are named with F and then a number, F00 thru F49. All of my music was originally in "C:\Users\ishotjr\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music," and some of it still is. Within the F-named folders, the files are named/songs titled in three different ways.
1) Most are with four letters in caps, example: AJOM. They are seemingly random and not acronyms of the real titles. Within this, most, in the artist/album, etc. fields in Windows Explorer, have the correct info. A few have nothing at all in those.
In either case, if I choose to play it in iTunes (by clicking the option within Windows Explorer, where I'm viewing the files), it brings me to the song that is properly titled within iTunes (i.e., AJOM takes me to "Levitate Me" by The Pixies in iTunes).
2) A few of the songs are named with their correct name, but with the track number proceeding it (i.e. 01 Debaser)
3) Even fewer are named completely normally, with just the actual song title.

Another weird twist is that in iTunes itself, there are a handful of files that are actually named with the four letter names. Most of these are all from a Velvet Underground greatest hits compilation, but there are a few that aren't.

There seems to be no pattern as to how I procured the music and what's in these weird files. I did bring most of the music onto my computer from my iPod when I got the computer, but some of it I have purchased since owning this computer. The software I used to bring the songs from the iPod to the computer was some free program that I don't recall the name of and deleted to save hard drive space when I was done using it.

The real kicker is that most of these weirdly-named tracks are NOT duplicates, so I can't just delete them. Most of the time, it's one or two songs from a given album that are named weird and in the F-named folder instead of in the folder with the rest of its album-mates.

It seems that I might be stuck consolidating the 49 "F" folders into one (not so hard, just tedious), then trying to rename the thousands of song backs to their proper names by clicking them through to iTunes and manually entering the name of each song into the file name in Windows, then moving all of the songs to the correct place. It's not necessary to do this to be able to listen to the songs, but it's annoying having my files all over the place, especially when I want to delete entire albums off of my hard drive to make space.

My actual question is two-part:
1) Has anyone ever had this weirdo thing happen to their music files before?
2) Does anyone know a better way to fix it than to do everything manually (which will take for-ev-er)?

How to format old boot drive in XP when it is no longer the boot drive?

teg4rvn — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:06:07 -0800

How do I format a non-boot hard drive without taking it out? Have been constantly upgrading my PC over time. First hard drive was a 160 GB IDE drive with WinXP. When I needed more space I bought a 640 GB SATA drive and installed WinXP, made it the boot drive, and kept the 160 GB in the system. I then bought a third drive (640 GB SATA) and connected it. I'd now like to wipe the 160 GB drive clean, but when I try to format it, I get an error stating I cannot format it and am asked to quit any disk utilities that are using the drive or to close any windows that are displaying any of the drive's contents. Is there a way I could do this?

What do I not need on Windows 7 Ultimate?

mr_silver — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:52:21 -0800

I'm moving from XP to Windows 7 Ultimate. What, that I used to have on XP, do I not need installed any more? I know that defragmentation software isn't needed, but what about Unlocker? What about disk backup software? Anything else?

install Windows XP on Vista laptop

gigimakka — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:43:49 -0800

Trouble installing windows xp on a vista laptop (Acer 6530) I wiped my acer 6530 laptop hd, and upon attempting to install windows xp, it only recognizes 131 GB of the 250 GB hard drive.

Is this because I did not install the Win XP BIOS before I wiped the drive of Vista? (I have the XP bios on a flash drive, downloaded from the Acer site.) I did change the original Vista bios settings from AHCI to IDE, and boot order to DVD ROM drive first.

I'm considering 2 plans: 1) Install Win XP on the 131GB space I do have, and then install the Win XP BIOS, re-wipe the HD and re-install Win XP, or 2) Re-install Vista, replace those Vista BIOS with the XP BIOS, and then re-wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of Win XP. Which would you recommend?

Alternatives? Thanks...

Audio driver problems!

FuckingAwesome — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:21:32 -0800

Audio driver needed for Sony Vaio VGN-SX61MN/B model laptop with Windows XP SP3! I recently downgraded to XP SP3 from Vista and cannot find a suitable audio driver. The ones on the Vaio website seem not to install properly. Very frustrating! Please help.

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes?

booksherpa — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:27:30 -0800

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes? [rant]I can't believe I even have to use a question on this, because it seems like it should be dead stupid simple, but there ya go. Either I'm missing something, my Google-fu sucks, or iTunes really is that annoying.[/rant]

So I've got a bunch of TEDTalks in my podcasts, and everyone of them begins with "TEDTalks : " - i.e. TEDTalks : Joe Blow talks about technology. I'd like to remove all those leading TEDTalks (I know what podcast I'm listening to) because it takes up space on the screen when I'm trying to figure out which is which. I do NOT want to have to edit 70+ files by hand. Nor is TEDTalks the only podcast that demonstrates naming convention.

I run iTunes in Windows XP, so DougScripts are not an option. Nor is getting a Mac or running something in place of iTunes. I've tried doing a search and replace with a file renamer, and a different program that edits mp3 file tags. All that happens is iTunes refuses to recognize the files anymore, I have to reimport the folder where they live, and the names are back to what they were before.

There's got to be an easier way. I can't believe that something as basic as search and replace is impossible with iTunes or a script.

Methods that are free are preferred, but I'll consider paying if the software is that fabulous and time saving.

Local Profile Not Found...Wha???

too bad you're not me — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:56:42 -0800

I recently logged onto my computer (Windows XP), and it said "profile not found". Help, please! Today I started my laptop, and at the welcome screen it said that my local profile was not found, so I was logged onto a temporary profile. All my personalized settings were gone (i.e. desktop picture, menu settings, default internet browser, etc).

I tried to google the problem, but haven't been able to find anything super helpful, and the only AskMe question seemed to be about a work computer that was connected to a server. Mine is a home laptop not connected to a server.

I'm fairly certain all my files on the hard drive are still there, but is this indicative of a problem with the hard drive?

Has anyone had this happen? Why did it happen? Basically any info would be great! Computer savvy people...come to my rescue! :)

XP Pro x64 SP2 non-responsive on the domain

the_binary_blues — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:51:35 -0800

Windows XP Pro x64 SP2 on hp dv4-1430us loads and run's slow on the domain but not when I log on locally. I have an HP Pavilion dv4-1430us running windows XP pro x64 SP2 and my problem is that it takes 7 minutes to login onto the computer when I log onto the domain. Then it is extremely no responsive when it is on the domain and it takes 5 min for word and excel to load. The computer is so slow on the domain I can walk away and come back and it will still be loading.

When I log onto the computer locally it takes 30 seconds to load windows (after I login) and programs open without any latency at all.

I have tried fixing asyncronous loading of networking during the boot up process as described in this article to no avail.

any advice on how to fix this latency issue?

I asked the network admins and they were perplexed and told me something to the affect of we are busy and we will get to it later unless you can find a good solution online that we can try.

the domain controllers and dns servers are w2k3sbs

please help

Firefox has a mind of it's own.

daHIFI — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:47:24 -0800

Why does Firefox randomly break out one of my tabs in a new window? I usually keep several tabs opened at once, and since the 3.5 update I've been having problems, either when switching between windows or tabs, even sometimes when I'm placing the cursor in a text box. It doesn't happen every day but it's annoying the hell out of me. I thought it might be some kind of keyboard shortcut or some unknown mouse gesture that's doing it. So far my google-fu has failed me.

Using FF on WinXP

Any ideas?

Good WinXP sound recorder for bad eyes?

de void — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:25:59 -0800

What's a good Windows XP open source/freeware sound recorder that is easy for someone with vision deficits to use? Suggestions for a microphone also welcome. Details and... Stepdad's father will be doing a piano performance in a week. Stepdad will be flying with his Win XP notebook to attend and would like to record it, direct to MP3 if possible (but I can help him with .wav to mp3 conversion if necessary).

He has some significant vision deficits (nearly blind in one eye, huge amount of correction in the other) and uses the sight disability features in windows (large fonts, mouse pointer trails, screen magnifyer), so a complicated/cluttered interface would be a drag for him.

Money is an issue as well, so open source/freeware would be ideal.

Suggestions for a cheap-ish microphone with decent recording ability that travels well are also welcome.

Need timer softwarer to control a PC

OlderThanTOS — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:20:41 -0800

I need software the will control how long a given user can be logged on AND lock out users during certain hours. Something like you see in some public libraries, but with a lockout feature as well. Any suggestions for a PC running under Windows XP? HELP! Summer has arrived and both kids are home. All the time. And squabbling. All the time. I'm trying to limit computer usage and enforce fair turns with some simple program that will allow each child X minutes of time per day. In addition I want to be able to limit the hours that the kids can use the computer (i.e. from 9 am to 9 pm daily). Anything out there that's Windows XP compatible and price-friendly?

Yes, I've looked at here, but nothing there quite fits the bill. Many solutions there are specific to internet usage only. I need to control the whole PC.

P.S. Anyone who responds with "it's just a matter of discipline" is more than welcome to supervise the kids while I work from home and finish my master's.

N'Sync you are not.

Rewind — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:36:20 -0800

Can you help me figure out my iPod's bizarre behavior? I have a 3rd generation iPod classic (10GB - the one with four buttons across the top and a scroll wheel below) and I'm having a hell of a time trying to sync it up with my iTunes library. Everytime I make the attempt it always copies over the names of all my playlists (and places them correctly beneath the "Playlists" directory) and between 3 - 10 actual files to the iPod but nothing else, leaving the actual playlists there to select, but empty of content. Some details below which may/may not be relevant:

-One week ago, I went from running Windows Vista Ultimate back to Windows XP. Because the directory structure/music file location is different in the two OS's, I ended up having to manually edit the iTunes Library Music.xml file to point iTunes to the proper directory. When I imported the new .xml file it loaded all the files/playlists into iTunes without a hitch. iTunes looks exactly as it did while running under Vista, and I can play all my music files through iTunes now without a problem. The only issue is syncing to the iPod.

-When I WAS running Vista however, the OS crashed on me something like five times leading me to rebuild the machine and have to erase/resync the iPod the same amount of times over a three month span (hence the switch back to XP) so the hard drive has been through a lot in the past three months.

-Per the suggestions of some old AskMe threads, I tried restoring the iPod to it's factory defaults through iTunes. No luck. I also tried putting the iPod into disk mode, formatting the device through Windows, then restoring to factory defaults through iTunes and then resyncing. Again, no luck. Same two or three song sync up along with the names of the playlists and nothing else.

-I also tried bypassing iTunes entirely and copying music over using Sharepod. This worked... somewhat. In total I tried to copy over 10 files (all podcasts) Three copied over. The rest did not due to an "incorrect function" error. It always seemed to be the same podcasts that copied.

-I replaced the battery on the iPod myself about four months ago. It has also been connected to A/C power during every sync attempt so it's not a matter of it losing power.

Any thoughts? I'm more concerned that it's something to do with the library .xml file or the .itl file than the iPod itself. I'll be getting a new iPhone in about two weeks and while that will serve as a replacement, I'm concerned that I won't be able to sync to that either. Any light you might be able to shed would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

How to investigate a slow startup process on Windows XP computers on a medium business domain

joshrholloway — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:11:52 -0800

Is there software or some automated method to audit the entire startup process of a Windows XP computer to find why startup is slow? We run a Windows domain here at work with around 300 computers. Recently the startup process on basically every computer has slowed down significantly. We have enabled verbose messages and we see that "Applying computer settings" and "Running startup scripts" are taking a particularly long time.

I know there is software that can audit the startup process after a user logs in, but we are looking for something that can automatically audit the entire startup process from the time that Windows begins booting so we can see exactly what is happening that is causing the slowdown or what is taking so long to finish running. Is there anything out there that can do this effectively? If not, what is the best way to diagnose this issue manually? Just turning off policies and startup scripts one-by-one through trial-and-error?

Thanks!

An annoying cursor issue!

magnoliasouth — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:10:28 -0800

Please help me get my WinXP cursor (mouse AND keyboard) to work properly again. Here's what happens... I'll turn the computer on, log onto my user account and all goes fine... for a while. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the cursor just stops working. It doesn't matter if I use keyboard shortcuts, or a mouse, it just won't work. Sometimes it happens in five minutes, sometimes in sixty minutes, but it will just stop working altogether. I can't even shut down the computer. I have to just turn it off, which is not good for a Windows machine. Once it reboots, it will start all over again.

I have no idea where to start in trying to fix this issue. It began out of the blue. I made no changes whatsoever. No new downloads, nothing.

I have a XP w/SP2 (I have not upgraded to SP3 due to the bug issues it had, Windows is buggy enough without adding to it) Media Center Edition 2002; eMachine T6532; Intel Celeron CPU 440 @ 2.00GHz 0.99 GB

Is there anything else I need to post here to find out what to do?