As time has passed, many of you have noticed that your PC has gradually become slower and slower starting up. We’ll try to help speed things up using the System Configuration Utility to remove unnecessary and unwanted startup items.
1. Click ‘start’ then ‘run’ to open the ‘Run’ dialog box and type ‘msconfig’ just like the example below. Click ‘OK’
One of the often overlooked methods for troubleshooting a system running XP or Vista is Event Viewer. Event Viewer is a component included with these operating systems and, as the name suggests, allows you to view the event logs on your machine. So let’s get to work on seeing if we can find out some more information in regards to your system troubles.
For Windows XP
1. Click ‘Start’, and then ‘Control Panel’. Click ‘Performance and Maintenance’, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click ‘Computer Management’.
2. In the leftmost column, click the ‘+’ sign beside Event Viewer.
3. You should see ‘Application’, ‘Security’, and ‘System’ should appear below ‘Event Viewer’
4. Click ‘Application’ and look to the right hand column. Look down the list for white ‘X’s’ in red circles with the word ‘Error’ beside it.
5. An ‘Event Properties’ window should open with details as to the error.
6. Input the appropriate information into the ‘Events and Error Message Center’. The link to it is here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/ee_advanced.aspx
7. Repeat the process for ‘Security’ and ‘System’
Since its release in October 2001 to much fanfare, hundreds of millions of people have adopted Windows XP as the choice of operating system. Even with the release of its successor, Windows Vista, a lot of people still continue to use XP. Most people know how to change the desktop wallpaper and have changed it to something more personalized from the default wallpaper. But some of you still use the same bland start, taskbar and windows, and you have to agree that it’s looking a bit dated. There are programs that you can purchase such as TGTSoft’s StyleXP and Stardock’s WindowBlinds that allow you to do such. But if you’re cheap like I am, and don’t mind doing a bit of extra work, read on.
Here’s your typical desktop:
And here’s one of a thousand themes you can choose from after following the instructions:
Most of you coming to this site are here in hopes of obtaining an answer to a problem with your system. Sometimes the answer may already be on your system. For Windows users, it’s just a matter of accessing the ‘Help and Support’ on your ‘start’ menu. The new and improved Vista help menu offers a new feature, which shows up in some responses to your questions, called ‘Guided Help’. ‘Guided Help’ can be easily identified by the blue compass and presents two visual methods that may help you with your situation
Just click on the straightforward options and watch it work. It works either automatically while you sit back and watch or works like one of those late night infomercials hawking educational software where the tutoring CD walks you step-by-step and waits for you to complete the step. A Youtube video posted by czh88 provides a visual example of the feature at work.
You add a brand new hard drive to your new system. You’re all happy of all the new space but the operating system tells you that there’s only somewhere between 127 GB to 137 GB available even though it’s much larger. You’re probably thinking that you got a defective drive or someone’s trying to rip you off. Take a few deep breaths and read on. This limitation affects both Windows and Mac based systems. An article provided by Seagate Technology, a leading manufacturer of disk based storage solutions, provides an explanation and details as to how this issue can be overcome. A link to the article is below:
Make special note of where it says “IMPORTANT: Always Back Up First”
When you go to install Vista, you get a “STOP 0×0000000A”. This occurs if the following conditions are true:
- You have more than 3 GB of RAM in your system
- The computer uses a storage system that is running the Storport miniport driver.
- The computer uses a controller that uses 32-bit direct memory access (DMA).
- You have a Vista DVD which does not have SP1
Furthermore, when rebooting the system get a “STOP 0×0000007e” error after installing the nVidia or ATi Catalyst driver for your video card.
The way to fix this problem is to remove any extra RAM from the system to get you to 3GB or less of RAM. After doing so, complete the installation of Vista and install the Windows Vista hotfix from the link below:
OK, we’ve all been in this position. Either Windows or another program you’re using has become corrupt and you need to reinstall but you can’t find the packaging or card with the product key to reinstall. You’re either a victim of your own ‘controlled anarchy’ that you call your living space or you’re just very good at putting stuff in a ‘safe’ place so that you don’t accidentally throw it out. Although, not perfect, there’s a good program that’s been around for a while that has been doing a very good job of finding product keys and it goes by the unusual name of Magical Jellybean finder. It’s a mere 331 kB in size and requires no installation and best of all it’s FREE. All you have to do is unzip the file and run the keyfinder.exe file. Here’s a screenshot of the program in action.
So you just purchased a new hard drive and when you go to format it, the size reported is smaller than what you expect. Or maybe you got bored and looked into the hardware information and were surprised to see the hard drive being reported in a smaller number. Before you pick up the phone to call your lawyer, you might want to read on.
Basically, the problem exists due to the fact that during the infancy of computers, people in the industry decided that they would call 1024 bytes a kilobyte although the prefix ‘kilo’ should refer to 1000 in the manner a kilometer refers to 1000 meters and kilogram refers to 1000 grams. At first the difference was negligible as drives were still only a few hundred megabytes in size but as they got into gigabytes the difference in size became much more apparent. To make it easier to understand, let’s use beer as an example. A standard can is 355ml. Using the calculations used for bytes (355/1024); it would mean that you’re getting only 347ml. That’s only a difference of 8ml…. not a big deal. Now let’s say you buy a 50 liter (50,000ml) keg. Once again, using the byte calculation, it would mean you’re getting 48.828 liters. That’s a difference of over a liter. This kind of difference would probably be a big issue if you just spent a pretty penny on a keg of your favorite beer. More details on the hard drive size calculating methods can be found from the link below:
So you just plugged in that brand new system with 4GB+ of memory or installed some more RAM in your current system. You go to check your System Information (Vista) or System Properties (XP) and it only reports 2.2 to 3.3 GB of memory. Unfortunately that’s normal if you’re running a 32 bit version of Windows Vista or XP.
32 bit means 2 to the power of 32 which is commonly denoted as 2^32. For those of you that were not very good at math in school, it looks like this:
2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2x2×2 = 4294967296 bytes
4294967296 bytes / 1024 bytes/1 kilobytes = 4194304 kilobytes (kB)
4194304 kB / 1024 kB/1 MB = 4096 MB
4096 MB / 1024 MB/1 GB = 4 GB
Therefore a 32 bit OS can only support up to 4GB of RAM.
Some of you thought you had done your homework when you read up that Windows Vista/XP 32 bit supports up to 4GB of RAM. Unfortunately, Windows Vista and XP reserve higher memory addresses for other devices in your computer. An example in Microsoft’s Knowledge Base Article 929605 explains it well:
”if you have a video card that has 256 MB of onboard memory, that memory must be mapped within the first 4 GB of address space. If 4 GB of system memory is already installed, part of that address space must be reserved by the graphics memory mapping. Graphics memory mapping overwrites a part of the system memory. These conditions reduce the total amount of system memory that is available to the operating system.”
Further reading on the 4 GB RAM limitation of 32 bit Vista:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us
With prices on Blu-ray drives making its way to mid $100 range, some of you are probably considering purchasing one. Or maybe you’re just putting together a list of components that you’re going to order in that new system which you plan to have a Blu-ray drive. Before you do, you need to consider if the other parts of your system are adequate enough to properly play the disc. If you’re looking to find out what you may need to upgrade, here’s a helpful tool from Cyberlink that I found that should help you out.
Cyberlink BD / HD Advisor (Beta)
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/diagnosis.jsp
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past year, you know there’s really no reason to scan for HD DVD support. HD DVD’s are suffering the same fate as Laserdisc and Betamax players (for those old enough to remember what they are).
