bizzybody

A bootable CD running a system with write access to NTFS that also doesn't abide by Windows' protecting corrupt files. ERD Commander (now Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Tools- DaRT)* don't work for this. I suspect that a disc built with Bart PE or UBCD for Windows won't work either. Soooo, I'm going to see what's out there for Linux goodies, perhaps the regular UBCD, eh? *DaRT 5.0 is for XP, DaRT 6.0 is for Vista and includes more tools- some of which can also be used on an XP box. Mainly the Standalone System Sweeper (use a CD-RW for 6.0 cuz the builder updates SSS malware definitions) for malware removal. The "full meal deal" includes both versions of DaRT and some other stuff is collectively called MDOP.

Tried Unlocker and Move on Boot. Those don't work either. It looks like nothing operating from within Windows will fix this. Is there some bootable CD image with a disk utility that works better than CHKDSK?

My sister's laptop with Vista Ultimate SP1 will not install Microsoft Update so it can download Office 2003 updates. My laptop, same model, same OS, all current updates exactly the same and exact same custom install of Office 2003- Microsoft Update installed just fine. She's always installing those $#W^$^ing Google and Yahoo and MyPoints and other toolbars and things like WeatherBug (finally got her to quit that one, but has one from The Weather Channel). I tried uninstalling all that cruft but MS Update still refuses to get past the step where it's supposed to download. It appears to be some ActiveX issue, but of course the link on the failure page is not helpful.

I'm attempting to remove a user account on a PC with XP Home but there's one folder under temporary internet files that Windows says is corrupt and can't be read. I don't need to read it, I need it GONE! I can rename the folder but can't see anything in it. I've tried KillBox, Delete Dr., Disk Investigator (which claims the folder is empty) and various things with XCACLS. I've also booted it with Microsoft's DaRT 5.0, both connecting to the Windows install and not doing so. Windows is determined to hang onto what it should destroy with extreme prejudice. CHKDSK /F doesn't fix anything, run from a safe mode command prompt under Administrator login or with DaRT, it claims there's nothing wrong yet every time the PC is booted normally CHKDSK runs and says the volume is dirty, but no other problems found or fixed. What use is a repair utility that doesn't work? Ye Olde SCANDISK would find the bad file, "recover" some of it to useless .CHK files and nuke the rest. Is there a Linux bootable CD image with a utility that can get rid of this problem? I know I can "fix" it by running the system restore (it's a Dell Dimension B110 desktop) but that's the "nuclear option" to one stupid corrupted file or folder Windows should've been able to detect and remove without ever bothering the user. (Especially since it's in a TEMPORARY file location.) As to the cause of this, I assume it was from especially bad Internet Explorer crash or malware. I've run into this with XP a few times before, and have always had to resort to reformatting the entire drive or partition after copying off anything that needed saved. There has to be a better way!

Well, that didn't help. Earliest restore point was 11/11/08 so whatever deleted the start menu shortcuts also wiped out all the prior restore points. If there's one thing I wouldn't mind 50 annoying levels of security on, it's the system restore backup files! Oh well, time to make sure I have all the latest drivers and everything else I need then nuke and pave for a clean install. Fortunately I have my custom vLite'ed SP1 install disc and an up to date Autopatcher download.

Hmmm. I could try System Restore. I did try logging in as Administrator and the icons are also gone there. It looks like something cleaned out that part of the All Users start menu. Ok, now this is odd. Last night I renamed the Computer shortcut under Start > Programs from not having a name at all to Computer. I just checked now and it's back to no name. This falls under the classification of NOT GOOD. At least there's still several restore points available. The only time a nasty bit of malware got past me on vista, it deleted all the restore points.

I've a DVD video disc (DVD+R) which I recently burned on this computer running Vista Ultimate 32bit. InfraRecorder says the disc is fixated and Nero 7 can't burn a DVD video without finalizing it. Yet for some reason Vista insists the disc is blank, but also has 4.3G of data that it won't let me see. PowerDVD plays the video from it without problems. I just burnt another DVD to the same brand of disc with Nero and it works fine. Looks like I need to re-burn the other one.

A couple of days ago I noticed all the icons under Start > Programs have vanished, except for Computer, which had its name erased. All the subfolders and their contents are still there. I don't know *exactly* when this happened because for the past couple of weeks I've left it running 24/7. Three days ago I discovered it'd rebooted itself, but that was most likely due to Windows Update. I'm running Ultimate 32bit with the Classic style Start menu, Aero Glass enabled. I'm running Avast! antivirus which automatically updates and I never find anything but some tracking cookies with Spybot and AdAware.

That's for uninstalling .NET and cleaning things up so .NET will install correctly. It's not for removing the backup files that allow .NET to be uninstalled. I want to remove those files AND leave .NET installed. Website of the author of that utility. http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/200.../08/406671.aspx

I've deleted all those. The entries are still in Add/Remove Programs and I get no error message and prompt to remove it from the list when I click the Change/Remove button. CrapCleaner doesn't find any orphaned Registry entries for them, like it did for SP3 and other hotfixes. The .NET and .NET hotfix uninstall files must be somewhere else.

How do I get rid of the uninstall files for .NET (all versions) and its hotfixes? They'll never need uninstalled, so the uninstall files are wasting space. This is on an older laptop with XP Pro and a 30 gig hard drive.

I contacted SONY via their online chat. The person I got insisted that the recovery discs didn't set a password and all I could do was re-do the restore. PFAUGH! on that. I used the options to reformat the drive then restore, so there wasn't any way any pre-existing stuff could cause a password to be set. SONY support = FAIL. At no time was I asked to enter an Administrator password, not even during install of SP2 or SP3. Sooo I booted it with a DaRT 5.0 CD and used Locksmith to change the password. I'd still like to know what the default is. Since that's been crowbar-ed, the only other issue I have is finding a way to have it turn the display off when the lid is closed, like every other non-Sony laptop I own or have owned.

I did a clean install of a Sony VAIO PCG-GR270P (The end P is for XP Pro) from its recovery CDs (which put on original release XP Pro), installed SP2 then SP3, all the available driver and application updates and all the latest updates from MS. Now WTH did Sony set for the Administrator account password?! It's not blank, it's not SONY nor is it VAIO or password. I have boot CDs that can change the password, but I want to know what Sony set it as so I can put it in a text file on a CD-R with all the updates and other stuff that will be going to the laptop's new owner. I don't have the books and Sony does not have any manual to download, so if it's in the manual, that does me no good. (All Sony has for docs are a spec sheet, quick start guide and warranty.) I need to login as Administrator to set the power options there to see if that'll cure the stupid thing from ignoring what I set. I set it to NEVER turn anything off when plugged in, but it keeps changing it to Standby in 25 minutes on AC and never turn anything off on battery.

It didn't have the choice of getting updates for XP SP2 or XP SP3 when I posted that back in MAY.

Is there some way to make XP Pro allow more than two DNS addresses for a dialup connection? The servers at my ISP are having problems, their sysadmin quit and they don't have anyone there who knows beans about fixing them. I want to add the US servers from The OpenNIC Project http://www.opennicproject.org/en/ to my dialup connection. The ISP has three dialup phone numbers. Two are slow but most of the sites I visit are usually accessible, but quite often I have to refresh multiple times before it'll quit claiming the server doesn't exist. The third number is plenty quick for dialup but they have something broken to where I can get to only a few sites- NOT including msfn.org, yahoo.com, mail.yahoo.com, (and all the rest of yahoo.com) microsoft.com and many other sites that are virtually never offline. This is one area where Mac System/OS has been better at networking than Windows. You can enter as many DNS addresses as you want on any TCP/IP connection, dialup or LAN. (Windows since 95 has been able to manage multiple protocols on multiple, simultaneous connections, a feat the "Classic" Mac OS could never do without 3rd party software.)

Do you have a list of the post SP3 hotfixes?

How about an option in apup that downloads only updates appropriate for Office XP for after SP3? (and for after the latest service packs for the other versions too) I've tried to find a list of all post-SP3 hotfixes and addons for Office XP so I can edit the scripts and delete the un-needed updates myself, but haven't been able to find such a list.

Can this just pull everything from downloads done with AutoPatcher? I've already done the administrative install and slipstreamed SP3. Do I have to manually select the hotfixes for this or does it already know which ones are post-SP3?

It does the same thing with Avira. Without an AV program it shuts down and reboots fine. With Avast or Avira it won't shut down properly and games in full screen run slow. I haven't tried AVG 8.0 yet on this new install of XP, but (aside from the no-option install and bloatware factor and slowing down internet use) it had zero effect on the system shutting down or restarting properly or on games. So what else is there for free AV software? I have Avast on my 1.73 Ghz Celeron 530 laptop with 1G RAM and Vista Ultimate, no problems detected- yet. I haven't tried it on dialup or the games Avast and Avira cause problems with, but I will soon. I just wish AVG hadn't decided to ruin their product!

Avast is a bust. A clean install of XP slipstreamed with SP3 will not shut down after installing Avast. Remove Avast and it shuts down and reboots fine. Avast also dragged the system down to a crawl, a 2.53 Ghz Prescott Core Celeron with 512meg RAM- acting like it's 1/4 that fast, especially with games.

Thanks. I'll try this.

I've just done a clean install of SP3 slipstreamed XP Pro on a Dell B110. That has an Intel 865 chipset. I have a 128 meg PCI nVidia GeForce 5200 FX card installed. After installing XP and the latest chipset (Intel says 6.3.0.1007 is for 800 series), video (forceware 169.21) and modem drivers, then using Autopatcher to install all the latest updates, including IE7 and Media Player 11, the $%$$^$# thing refuses to shut down unless I launch Task Manager and use its shutdown command. I also installed the intel video drivers, then disabled it in Device Manager. There is no way to disable the onboard video in BIOS! It only allocates part of the main memory when there's a monitor connected. The only other software installed is Office 2003 (just Word and Excel), Avast 4 with only the basic protection enabled (the others were blocking access to sites like Yahoo and Microsoft), ICQ 6 and Spybot Search and Destroy, and the drivers for an HP Photosmart 3110. I had the Alternative input thing installed for Office 2003 (was going to try speech recognition) but the .exe for that was hanging at shutdown. Removing that didn't cure anything. I may just go back to Office 2002/XP. The other problem is that the video resolution will not return to 1440x900 after exiting a fullscreen program that uses a lower resolution. (19 inch widescreen LCD, Envision brand, they have no .inf for it.) Prior to this clean install, it did not have either of these problems. The drivers are the same versions I used with XP SP2. With SP2 it would not allow both video controllers to be enabled at the same time. (If there are bugs with these drivers and SP3, Intel, nVidia etc have not released any updates to correct them.) I did the clean install because it had some other problems going back to a quite nasty stealth trojan/virus that deleted AVG 7 and Spybot and blocked installation of any other scan/remove software I tried. I was able to clean it by connecting the drive to another PC. SP3 could not complete installation, so "nuke and pave" was the only way to go. But even with all the problems it had, it NEVER had the problems it has now.

Is there a way to 'export' Microsoft Photo Editor from Office 2002 (XP) and wrap it up as a standalone install, to be used after installing Office 2003 or 2007? Installing 2003 or 2007 removes MS Photo Editor. You are not given a choice to keep it like you are with the previous versions of Word, Excel etc. I know you can pop in the Office XP CD and wade through the custom install, selecting everything to NOT install and selecting Photo Editor to install, but that's tedious and annoying.

I re-created the .iso changed nothing and it worked.

I like Vista Manager, mainly because it can make UAC STFU and go away without breaking anything.