terrypin

Thanks both, appreciate your help. I'll following up those suggestions. However, I'm not sure I would want to get rid of Norton SystemWorks. It not only includes WinDoctor, but also a 1-button check that I run weekly, and Norton Unerase, which has proved very useful occasionally, when inadvertently deleted files are not caught by the Recycle Bin. And, as mentioned CCleaner also reports these 'invalid' items. marcolopes: So it does look like a graphics card issue then? A month or two ago I upgrade my nvidia drivers from 81.98 to 93.71, shortly followed by 93.81, but reverted to 81.98 again after reading several posts questioning their stability. Maybe I should give the upgrade another go. And carefully remove the existing drivers as you recommend. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Norton WinDoctor is reporting over 100 'Invalid ActiveX/COM Entries'. It says "The ActiveX/COM sections of your Windows Registry contain one or more invalid entries..." They mostly look like this: Missing or Invalid Key: "DisplayServer.AppSettingsBasic" Problem ProgID, "DisplayServer.AppSettingsBasic," refers to an invalid ActiveX/COM entry, "{9B5EC720-9A44-4811-8B9F-24BD53F2050D}." Missing or Invalid Key: "DisplayServer.AppSettingsBasic.1" Problem ProgID, "DisplayServer.AppSettingsBasic.1," refers to an invalid ActiveX/COM entry, Missing or Invalid Key: "Video_TVServer.VideoZoom" Problem ProgID, "Video_TVServer.VideoZoom," refers to an invalid ActiveX/COM entry, "{D385E909-3F89-4ECD-B38F-AC11F9FE6F1C}." etc But if I select the option to Delete any of these, Norton reports 'Repair Failed'. Other registry cleaners like CCleaner and System Mechanic don't get rid of them either. Although I don't seem to be having particularly unstable performance on this XP Home (SP1) PC, FWIW I have had a couple of crashes in which my monitor just went suddenly blank and a rebbot started. Can anyone help me identify/fix this issue please? Or even guess what these entries are supposed to do, as I'm technically out of my depth here. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

There's a good chance it would probably now be OK I reckon, which I assume is your implication? But frankly, my personal curiosity apart, there seems little motive to do that, at least for a while. Apart from seeing a lot of posts on the groups and forums about IE7 issues/glitches/etc, there wasn't an awful lot of additional benefits over IE6, from my brief experience of it. The exception of course is tabbing, which I've had for years with Firefox. But it seems my wife hadn't really noticed that new feature, so I doubt she'll miss it much! Robustness and reliability are far more important to her. Because of tabbing, I'd probably seriously consider trying it again myself (when it's stable), but I think it's an SP2-only update, and I'm still on SP1, for various reasons. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

That link appears broken, giving "Firefox can't find the server at djlizard.net.nyud.net." But this works OK: http://djlizard.net/software/Dial-a-fix-v0.60.0.24.zip Why did you recommend running this BTW? Any downsides or precautions needed? As you may have seen from my post a few minutes ago, my wife's XP SP2 PC is now back on IE6, but I may try installing IE7 again sometime. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

"Why don't you just use Firefox or Opera?" I do. As I said in my opening post. To close off the thread, happy to report I took the option to uninstall IE7 and roll back to IE6, which works fine. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Thanks, appreciate your reply. But I am 99% confident it's not malware/spyware (regularly scanned with Spybot and AdAware). She does have NAV running, and from research I gather that should have been disabled when she upgraded to IE7, but too late now! I've spent most of the day on this issue, still without resolving it. But the crash now appears to be confined to one site. At least, we tried half a dozen others involving similar types of search, and IE7 didn't crash. Using Manage Add-Ons, I disabled all 6 that were 'currently running', but same crash occurred. HOWEVER, when I used Start>Accessories>System Tools>'Internet Explorer 7 (Start with no add-ons)', it was OK. If someone could try the exact same search it would be much appreciated please. From http://www.lastminute.com/ with Flights+Hotels checked (which I think is the default), enter: Departure point: London Gatwick Departure date: 5 April Departure time: 09.00 Destination: Nice Return date: 8 April Return time: 17.00 Adults: 2 Class: I don't mind Direct flights only: Checked On clicking Search, we got the crash, either immediately or just after seeing the result. FWIW, I've tried it many times on my own PC in IE6 with no problem. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

First, is there a group dedicated to IE7, as there is for IE6? My newsreader couldn't find one. Meanwhile, maybe someone can help with this urgent problem please? My wife has IE7 on her XP Home PC. It's apparently been OK since she upgraded from IE6 a couple of weeks ago, but today she has a serious problem. As soon as she starts any search, IE7 closes immediately. No message, nothing. The search was set to LiveSearch when I first saw the problem. I changed default to Google, but that hasn't helped. I cannot help by trying to reproduce the problem on my XP Home PC, as I have IE6, not IE7, as I use Firefox as my browser. Hope someone can help us isolate and fix please. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

In Win XP Home, it seems that the list that appears when you r-click a file and choose 'Open With...' is limited to 9. One drops off without warning if you exceed that (by choosing Browse to select a new one). Does anyone know if there is a simple, risk-free way of increasing that permanently please? Ideally I'm hoping there's a registry entry in which '9' can be modified to say '12' or whatever. The AVI type is what prompted this post, but several of my file types can usefully be opened in more than 9 programs. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

My wife is using Powerpoint 2000 on her XP SP2 PC. A recent problem that has developed is that some images that displayed OK when opened on her laptop are now invisible on the PC! Although it was maybe a year ago, she's positive they used to display OK on the PC too. To be more exact, on loading the file, at first all images on the slide are visible. But on doing anyhing, such as going to another slide and returning, the one or two of the dozen are invisible again. They never reappear (unless PP is closed and re-opened again.) Clicking the space where such an image is located displays the familiar rectangle, and Format Picture displays the same sort of information under all tabs as the visible images. And if we change Fill from No Fill to a colour, a rectangle of that colour appears. It's as if the content is transparent. If it's relevant, the original source of the images was copy/pasting an image from elsewhere, such as a cell in a Word 2000 table. This seems to be a file-related issue, or some conflict between XP and PP 2000, because I've just copied the file via floppy and opened it in Powerpoint 2000 on my own XP SP1 PC and I get exactly the same behaviour. Can anyone suggest likely causes and how to fix please, as this is now getting seriously exasperating! -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

To a question I didn't ask Not true here. None of the files in Content.IE5 appear to be in the 'standard Explorer view' of TIF.Here's a screenshot showing both Content.IE5 obtained as above, and the 'normal' view of TIF: You can't see, but there are *no* subfolders in the latter. Almost all seem to be Cookies. Also, ETO36HQ9 just contains one file (an unimportant JPG I haven't used for a couple of days!) and the other subfolder is empty. And, to add another aspect of the puzzle, those screenshots were taken immediately after opening IE6 and using Tools>Internet Options and deleting all files and all offline files! (Maybe a reboot is needed as a follow-up?) Thanks, yes, I found that elsewhere meanwhile. In fact that's the only way I can see the folders and their contents. (BTW, it works from my regular account; there's only me on this PC, and I have Administrator status of course.) Before emptying TIF, there were about 8 subfolders; I didn't check all their contents, but they were an odd mix of stuff. None of it looked worthy of secret hiding! Thanks, appreciate your helpful reply -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Anyone know the answer to my actual questions please? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

I've been trying to unravel a mystery (concerning embedded MP3 and WMA files in PowerPoint and Word docs, but that's another story). In the course of that I stumbled across this puzzle. One application I was using (my music player) referred me to a file that was in a folder like this: C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\083A8GIF I tried to use Windows Explorer to find that but was surprised that I couldn't do so. I gather these 'Content.IE5' folders are hidden. But why? (I can view all other hidden/system files I think.) And how would I find the files they contain? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

For anyone else that ends up here with similar query, happy to report the following approach proved successful: 1) Copied C:\Documents and Settings\Janet\My Documents to G:\C-MyDocs\My Documents to reduce size of C: by about 3GB, and provide another backup in addition to one made automatically last night of entire C:\Documents and Settings. 2) Installed PM 7.0 and made Rescue Diskettes. (I'd previously done chkdsk on C: and G:) 3) With PM, resized 38GB C: partition to about 8GB. That was the step I was most nervous about, but it went smoothly. (Note that I could *not* do this in DI as I'd thought earlier.) 4) Used Drive Image 2002 to Copy Drive C: to F: That took a long time but again went well. 5) Was then able to dual boot as desired! 6) Used PM 7 to resize C: back up to 38GB 7) Copied G:\C-MyDocs\My Documents back to C:\Documents and Settings\Janet --------- The only glitch was that somehow both versions of XP (on C: and F:) now identified the special folder 'My Documents' as being G:\C-MyDocs\My Documents. So various programs Open/Save interfaces were now misleading and irritating. Took a while to stumble on the cure: from Start, r-click My Documents and in Properties use the Move option to re-specify C:\Documents and Settings\Janet. (I'd be interested if anyone can explain why that issue arose please.) On testing the alternative boot, I'd forgotten about the 'active' partition apparently always getting called C:, so it came as a surprise that C: and F: were reversed . So that's a nice friendly environment on tap immediately should she ever have another disaster with the other HD. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Following a major crash, my wife recently had a second 40GB HD installed. Unfortunately, the installer took the simplest option of making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB and 32GB, as on the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as follows: HD1 --- C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data HD2 --- F 8GB: Empty G 32GB: Backups That's obviously more secure than before. But I'd like to go further. I want to use Drive Image 2002 'Copy Drive' facility to copy the OS to F, so that in an emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB, it says there is insufficient space. From study, it looks as if I can temporarily resize C: safely, so that DI will let me copy it to E: Then I can resize C: back up to 40GB again. But it would be reassuring to hear from more experienced DI users before I press on! Hate to think of the marital consequences of wiping WinXP! Note that I don't intend to do this copy as a regular backup. After much effort, we now have all the programs my wife uses on a regular basis. Not much will change form now on. If, heaven forbid, we had another disaster in a year from now, I reckon she would be able to boot into E: and be instantly familiar with the environment. Any advice would be much appreciated please. -- Terry, UK

Following a major crash my wife had a second 40GB HD installed recently. Unfortuntely, the installer took the simplest option of making the whole new drive a single partition, instead of two of 8GB and 32GB, identical to the other drive. The organisation is therefore now as follows: HD1 --- C 40GB:Win XP Home SP2, programs and all data HD2 --- F 8GB: Empty G 32GB: Nightly backups of all data and settings from C That's more secure than before, but I'd like to go futher. I want to use DriveImage 2002 to copy the OS to F, so that in an emergency we could boot up to that instead of C. But DI won't allow that. Even though C contains only a TOTAL of about 7GB, and F is 8GB, it says there is insufficient space. It's been 3 years since I last used DI, so I'm nervous about how best to proceed. Can I achieve my aim bu using the facilities under Disk Operations to 'Redistribute free space among partitions'? Is that relatively risk free? Hate to think of the marital consequences of wiping WinXP! <g> Any advice would be much appreciated please. Terry, UK

Thanks. Happily, a restart proceeded to a successful install! I had removed as much as I could with TM, BTW. Oddly, I couldn't remove NAV. I had already sitched its AutoProtect Off, but consistent attempt to End Process in TM did nothing. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Upgrading my wife's XP Home PC to SP2 with WU. Downloaded proceeded OK, about 4 hours on dial-up. But it has now been apparently stuck in the installation stage for about half an hour, with no progress bar movement (only 3 green 'bars', which is same as I found it after the download) and no HD activity. Messages read "Downloading SP2... done!" "Initializing installation...done!" "Installing SP2..." (This is where it is frozen.) Before clicking Cancel (the only option offered), I'm posting here to see if anyone can offer any other suggestions on how to proceed please. FWIW, all other applications that can be closed *are* closed. NAV is in 'Autoprotect disabled'. I cannot completely close it, even from TM. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Thanks. I've now finally realised the cause of my difficulty - a language problem! The box on the Control pages which says 'With selected' should IMO say something like 'Apply to selected entries'. 'Unsubscribe with selected' just didn't make any sense to me. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

So I must assume the facility is broken? Or that the mod cannot be bothered to investigate my query? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

No one? Still no answer from a mod in the appropriate forum either... -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

I've been trying to get an answer to this in the Site & Forum Issues forum, but so far haven't had one. Can anyone here help please? I'm having difficulty unsubscribing. The instructions (on every email) say: 'You can unsubscribe at any time by logging into your control panel and clicking on the "View Subscriptions" link.' There is no such link, but I gather it means 'Subscriptions>View Forums'. However, what exactly do I do when I get there please? The drop-down box already contains 'Unsubscribe' which I find confusing, as that seems to be exactly what I want to do. But that does nothing. The drop-down choices also include: 'Change to: No Email Notification'. But after choosing that and clicking 'With selected'? (which I assume means 'Apply selected option') I am still getting email messages. (Note that I do have the other option disabled, about getting emails from the Administrator.) Similarly, I cannot seem to unsubscribe from a topic. Whatever I do, it persists in displaying the 'delayed email option'. Has anyone else managed to unsubscribe and/or stop emails, and if so can you tell me how please? Or does this Board simply not work properly? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

XPerties: Thanks, but that gets me nowhere. Any chance you might answer my actual questions please? As I said in my original post, I'm aware of those links. But what exactly do I do when I get to them? As I've already said, choosing the default 'Unsubscribe' and clicking 'With selected' does not work. Nor does choosing 'Change to no email notification' and clicking 'With selected'. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

Do any moderators actually read this forum? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

No one know how to do this please? -- Terry, West Sussex, UK

I no longer want to get emails for every topic posted in forum "Microsoft Windows XP". But I'm having difficulty unsubscribing. The instructions (on every email) say: 'You can unsubscribe at any time by logging into your control panel and clicking on the "View Subscriptions" link.' There is no such link, but I assume it means 'Subscriptions>View Forums'. However, what exactly do I do when I've done that please? The drop-down box already contains 'Unsubscribe' which I find confusing, as that seems to be exactly what I want to do. But the drop-down choices include this appropriate entry: 'Change to: No Email Notification', so I selected that. What then? Do I just click the box 'With selected'? (Does that mean 'Apply selected option'?) I did that last night, yet I am still getting email messages this morning. -- Terry, West Sussex, UK