Category: Windows

The trouble with troubleshooting

Larry Seltzer has an insightful column about the difficulties of troubleshooting Windows, entitled Gee, I Think I Have a Virus:

When strange, inexplicable things happen on your Windows computer, what do you assume is the cause? Probably, you’ll think you have a virus, or some spyware, or one of those other bad things you read about even in the local newspaper. But you may be wrong.

Oh, can I relate. Invariably, when someone contacts me with a tricky troubleshooting problem, they go through the litany of stuff they tried first, which typically includes defragging, scanning for spyware, and scanning for viruses. Most of the time, those are pointless exercises. Larry points to a recent column by the guru of Windows Internals, Mark Russinovich, in which he stepped through the troubleshooting process to track down a tricky problem that turned out to be caused by a missing file on a networked computer. Windows kept looking in vain for that file, and it would slow the system to a crawl while it engaged in its futile search. Fortunately, with the help of his own company’s tools and utilities (many of them available for free) he found the cause.

Larry continues:

But only very sophisticated users, mainly developers, are capable of this, and normal users would be befuddled by the task.

[Russinovich] closes by observing, “This is just one example of the many types of Windows issues that cause users to complain that their systems slow down over time and that result in a general ‘I don’t know, just reinstall’ mentality. I hope Vista does better.”

I bet a lot of those users would take this sort of behavior and assume they have a virus. The ones who were a bit more sophisticated would assume they have some sort of spyware, and they’d still be wrong.

There actually are some excellent Windows troubleshooting tools, but they are not for mere mortals. Most of the really nasty problems I see are the result of bad drivers, faulty hardware, or poorly written software.

Like Mark Russinovich, I really hope that Windows Vista can do a better job with helping nontechnical users keep their systems running smoothly and help them diagnose problems more effectively. I’d love to see some of the people selling snake-oil “optimizing” products go out of business.

Tip of the day: Customize Windows power settings

Opening the Power Options dialog box in Control Panel lets you adjust some settings that can make Windows XP easier to use. Here are the adjustments I typically make for a desktop computer.

  • On the Power Schemes tab, I choose the Home/Office Desk entry from the Power Schemes list and configure the Turn off hard disks and System standby settings to Never.
  • On the Advanced tab, I select Shut down as the default option for When I press the power button on my computer.
  • On the Hibernate tab, I make sure there’s no check mark in the Enable hibernation box.

With these settings in place, my computer is running at full speed all the time. I never have an annoying lag when it resumes from standby, and I’m not wasting 2GB or more of disk space (equal to the amount of RAM in my system) on a hibernation file.

Because my portable PC has a battery that needs management, its Power Options dialog box has a completely different group of settings. On this PC I’ve enabled hibernation. I’ve configured the power button so that Windows shuts down when this button is pressed. I’ve told Windows to go into standby when I close the lid on the computer and to hibernate if the computer remains on standby for more than 30 minutes. If I press the Sleep button, I get a dialog box where I can choose whether I want the notebook to go into standby or hibernate.

Power Options

What sort of power management do you need? Every computer and every individual is different; if you spend a few minutes adjusting these options, you’ll be sure they match the way you work.

Can you transfer your Windows license to a new PC?

A commenter on another thread asks:

can i upgrade my mobo to a totally different socket type and still use my oem xp license or will some bloke in india tell me “please buy another copy sir”

The short answer is, “It depends.” If you purchased your OEM copy from a reseller and built your own PC, or if you bought a PC from a white box builder who is a member of Microsoft’s OEM System Builder program, then yes, you can upgrade your motherboard and reinstall your copy of Windows. You may have to activate the new installation over the phone, but you should be able to use your existing CD key.

However, if you purchased your copy of Windows preinstalled on a PC from a so-called “royalty OEM” – i.e., one of the largest 20 PC makers – then it is system-locked, and your CD and license key will only reinstall on the same computer (or one with an identical motherboard and BIOS).

More details here and here.

Yet another reason why I recommend smaller system makers and DIY projects over the big names.

Tip of the day: Get to know your power button

It used to be so simple: A power button was an on/off switch, period. But on modern personal computers, things are more complicated.

Most PCs built in the 21st Century use a combination of motherboards and power switches designed to cooperate with the operating system. Typically, pressing the power button puts the PC into one of several standby modes (or wakes it up from this “sleep” state). If Windows is running, pressing the power button might activate the Windows Shut Down function.

What happens if your computer is misbehaving and you want to shut off the power and restart? This one stumps many people, who press the power button repeatedly and conclude that it’s broken when it doesn’t seem to work. The secret? Press the power button and hold it down for three to five seconds. This shortcut overrides the normal action of the power button and turns the power off. (If this doesn’t work, you may have a loose wire in the connection from the power switch to the motherboard and power supply.)

In tomorrow’s tip, I’ll explain how to configure the operation of the power button (and a few other, related settings) in Windows.

Final version of SyncToy released

I’ve been using the beta version of SyncToy for a few weeks. The final version is now released. This white paper explains how it works:

SyncToy is a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows XP that provides an easy to use, highly customizable program to help copy, move, and synchronize different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without adding complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of directories at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another. Unlike other applications, SyncToy keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

It also includes a download link.This is a marvelous little program, and it’s free. Ironically, Walt Mossberg in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal reviews some commercial products that perform similar functions. If you need a PC-to-Mac solution, one of those alternatives might make sense; otherwise, SyncToy should do the trick.

Update: As Hubert Kay points out in the comments, the programs that Walt reviews also include online services and are primarily intended for synchronizing folders over the Internet. They typically cost up to $100 a year. If you need to sync files on machines that aren’t part of the same network and you’re willing to pay that price, read his review. For synchronizing files between two or more computers on your own network, though, the free SyncToy is a better choice, IMO.

A welcome change in Microsoft licensing terms

For the past few years, OEM copies of Windows and Office have been sold under licensing terms that are just plain silly. Yes, you could buy an OEM copy of either product, at a substantial savings over the retail versions, but you had to purchase a “qualifying non-peripheral computer hardware component” with it. This resulted in the absurdity of people buying a 99-cent cable for a power supply to make the purchase legal. It also created lots of confusion in the marketplace

That’s now changed. The new licensing rules (link restricted to registered members of System Builder program) allow resellers to distribute unopened packs of Windows and Office to any “system builder” without requiring a trivial hardware purchase:

If you don’t open the pack, you can redistribute to other system builders without any hardware.

The new rules also specifically recognize hobbyists and PC enthusiasts as system builders:

OEM system builder software packs are intended for PC and server manufacturers or assemblers ONLY. They are not intended for distribution to end users. Unless the end user is actually assembling his/her own PC, in which case, that end user is considered a system builder as well.

So, go build yourself a PC!

Tip of the day: Fix problems with your default browser

In yesterday’s tip, I pointed out how to use the Set Program Access and Defaults utility to change your default browser. When you use this tool, the browser you specify appears at the top of the Start menu and should open whenever you click a link.

In theory, that’s true. In practice, you may find that some types of shortcuts continue to open with your old browser. (The problem isn’t limited to Internet Explorer, either. If you experiment with different browsers you’ll find that most don’t do a good job of cleaning up after themselves.)

If you find that your old browser continues to open even after you’ve specified a new default browser, check your file associations to see if you can identify the problem. Open Control Panel, double-click Folder Options, and click the File Types tab. You’ll need to inspect the entries for six file types:

These three file types have no file name extension:

  • Internet Shortcut
  • URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol
  • URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy

These three file types have specific file name extensions:

  • HTM – HTML Document
  • HTML – HTML Document
  • URL – URL File

On one of my PCs, I’ve specified Maxthon as the default browser, but as the screen here illustrates, the URL file type is still associated with Internet Explorer.

URL_file_type

In this case, you can fix the problem fairly easily by clicking the Restore button. In other cases, you may need to click the Change button and choose your browser from a list of available options. If that option is not available, click the Advanced button (which appears where the Restore button is shown here) and edit the associations manually. This isn’t a job for the faint-hearted. You may need to enter a collection of obscure DDE commands to make the file type work properly. Your best bet is to look on another computer (one that hasn’t been customized) to see the correct settings and then copy those.