Category: Windows

Tip of the day: Unclutter your desktop

There are all sorts of good reasons not to store files on your desktop. One reason you might not be aware of is that the Windows System Restore feature monitors the desktop. If you download an executable file (such as a driver update or a program you’re planning to install) and store it on the desktop, it will be summarily deleted if you use System Restore to roll back your configuration to a time before you saved that file.

Yesterday, I explained how I use the desktop as a temporary holding area for downloads. Here’s how to use the same basic principle for other types of files that tend to clutter up the desktop.

  1. In your My Documents folder, create a subfolder and give it a descriptive name (like Unfiled or Shoebox).
  2. Right-click the icon for the folder you just created and choose Copy. Go to the desktop (knowing one of these shortcuts makes this task much easier), right-click any empty space, and choose Paste Shortcut from the shortcut menu.

You’ve now got a handy place to file stuff you no longer need but can’t bring yourself to toss or file properly. Drag web shortcuts, documents, and other files onto this target to move them to the Unfiled folder. To view the contents of that folder, just double-click the shortcut icon on the desktop.

See also Tip of the day: Keep a clean desktop

Tip of the day: Keep downloads off your desktop

Last year, I explained my strategy for keeping downloaded programs organized.

It’s terribly convenient to download programs directly to the desktop. The trouble is, it’s also terribly convenient to leave them there, and after a few months the desktop is littered with inscrutable shortcuts. Today, I’ll explain how you can use the desktop as a temporary holding area for downloads without turning it into a cluttered mess.

To start, follow the first step I recommended in Get your downloaded programs organized and create a Downloads folder in your My Documents folder (or, if you want downloads to be available to other computers on your network, create a Downloads folder in your Shared Documents folder).

Next, right-click the icon for the Downloads folder and choose Copy. Go to the desktop (knowing one of these shortcuts makes this task much easier), right-click any empty space, and choose Paste Shortcut from the shortcut menu.

You’ve now got a Downloads shortcut on your desktop. As a shortcut, it works exactly like the original folder. When you drag a file or folder onto that icon, it’s moved or copied to the Downloads folder instantly. Here’s how to use this shortcut to keep clutter under control:

  • Every time you download a new program, patch, or utility, go ahead and save it to the desktop.
  • Create a shortcut to the Web page for that download, too. From IE6 or IE7, right-click the page and choose Create Shortcut to instantly create a shortcut on the desktop. Firefox users can drag the page icon at the left of the Address bar and drop it on the desktop, or use the deskCut extension.
  • If you received a serial number or product key with your download, save that information as a text file on the desktop as well.

All the pieces of your download are now on the desktop. If you’re comfortable with using your Downloads folder as a shoebox, select the files and drag them onto the Downloads shortcut. If you’d rather be more organized, create a folder on the desktop first (right-click any empty space and choose New, Folder) and give it a descriptive name that makes it easy to find your download. Now drag the files from your desktop onto that folder and then drag the folder onto the Downloads icon.

What refresh rate should you use with an LCD monitor?

What refresh rate should you use with an LCD monitor? The answer might surprise you.

If you’ve ever used a CRT monitor, you know that fine-tuning your refresh rate is essential. The refresh rate of a display is measured in Hertz (abbreviated Hz) and specifies the number of times per second that a display is illuminated. Setting the refresh rate to 60 Hz – a common default value – tells the monitor to redraw itself 60 times per second. For most people, that setting on a CRT monitor is too slow, resulting in an annoying flicker that can cause headaches, eyestrain, and fatigue. Bumping the refresh rate to a higher number can reduce that flicker, as long as the monitor itself can handle the faster rate.

So, what if you have an LCD monitor? You can safely ignore the refresh rate setting. Changing this number in Control Panel has no effect on an LCD.

Why? This snippet from the NEC Monitor Technology Guide explains it well:

Flicker is a result of phosphor decay; that is, after the energy from the electron gun is transferred to the phosphor material, the energy and the resulting light begin to decay very slowly until the electron beam hits the phosphor again. …

Since LCD monitors do not employ phosphors, refresh rate is not a concern. Basically, the transistors in the LCD remain open or closed as needed until the image changes. This can be a point of confusion for some consumers, however, since most graphics cards still “ask for” a refresh rate setting. This is due to the analog nature of existing graphic cards (see “Inputs” section) and their support for CRT displays. While refresh rates do not apply to LCD monitors, most LCDs are set up to accept any settings from 60Hz and above.

If you still use a CRT monitor, check its specifications and then experiment to find the refresh rate that works best for you – it’s not a one-size fits all setting.

But if you use an LCD monitor, you can take this item off your list of tweaks.

Update: Although the refresh rate setting will not affect your comfort (LCDs don’t flicker), you might find that a change in refresh rate setting affects the LCD’s performance. This article at Apple’s web site, for instance, reports on possible playback problems when using Final Cut to play back video clips on a monitor set for a 60 Hz refresh rate. If the LCD manufacturer specifically recommends a different refresh rate, go ahead and use that setting. In most LCD monitors I’ve seen, the default setting of 60 Hz is ideal for everyday use.

A new old security flaw

It’s really, really misleading for the Washington Post to use the headline Another Critical IE Flaw to describe a newly reported vulnerability that:

  1. Affects only people running Windows Me or Windows 2000 and
  2. Was patched more than three years ago in Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1.

Although the vulnerability may be newly discovered, the underlying problem was fixed long ago. In fact, anyone still using Internet Explorer 5 on either of those two aging operating systems is vulnerable to a whole pack of other security problems as well. According to my stats, about 4.4%[*] of all visitors to this site are using one of those browser versions. The few recent stats I can find suggest that number is about accurate for the web population at large.

If you know someone who still has IE 5.x installed on their computer, do them a favor and install the IE6 upgrade for them. This is an essential step even if they already use Firefox or another browser, because the Internet Explorer components are used elsewhere in the OS and in some third-party applications.

[*] Update: For the first week of February, only 3.3% of all visitors to this site are using IE 5.x. By contrast, about 3.5% are using IE7.

Q&A: Windows Product Activation

Two system builders left interesting questions in the comments section of my earlier post, Everything you always wanted to know about Windows Product Activation.

TJ asks:

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any tool out there that is able to validate a keycode, I mean to check if this keycode is still valid, has not been activated. I know I can call MS but when you have to check over 100’s of licenses its not really convenient.

I know of no way to check the validity of a Windows product key except by trying to activate an installation. In fact, if such a tool did exist, I presume hackers would target it immediately with a flood of requests to find valid, unactivated keys.

The answer (and it doesn’t work retrospectively) is good record-keeping. If you keep unactivated license codes in one file folder, you can pull one out and use it when needed. As soon as that code has been activated, write down the customer’s name and invoice number and then move the paperwork to a second folder, where you keep “used” (i.e., activated) license codes.

Next up, Jake Andrews asks:

We are a small Computer Repair service, and System Builder. We use nothing but legit software and operating systems, all are sold with the OEM OS package: CD/COA-Sticker.

However, we repair lots of Dell/HP etc systems, and often require an OS re-install, and the Keys on the COA sticker do not work without a 10 min call to Microsoft. This has begun to drive us crazy, is there no way around this? Of course the clients don’t have the original CD’s even if they were provided from the manufacturer, but with a legit Key there should be a way around this.

This one’s tricky. If the client brings in the original recovery CD provided by Dell or HP (both royalty OEMs), you can reinstall the operating system and no activation is required. If you use the key on the sticker, however, you have to call in. No way around it, as I explain in the Royalty OEM section of the original post.

If it were my business, I’d tell clients upfront that there’s a $20 extra service charge if they own an SLP-locked operating system and don’t bring in their original distribution media when they bring their PC in for repair. That should cover the 10-minute phone call.

Hello Vienna

You know that you’ve reached a lull between beta builds of Windows Vista when bloggers latch onto the code name of the next version of Windows.

According to a comment by Robert Scoble on this thread at the Channel 9 forums, the N+1 version of Windows is no longer code-named Blackcomb. Instead, it’s going to be called Vienna.

Although Scoble is normally a reliable source, in this case I have my doubts. Vienna was the code name of Live Communications Server 2005, which was announced nearly two years ago, as this press release attests:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the opening of the beta program for Microsoft® Office Live Communications Server 2005, previously code-named “Vienna.”

It’s not like Microsoft to reuse code names. So what’s the real story? And does anyone outside of a small circle of Windows uber-geeks really care?

Update: Mary Jo Foley confirmed the new code name with a Microsoft spokesperson, who said: “The codename for Blackcomb has changed to ‘Vienna’. This does not reflect a big change for us; we have used city code names in the past. These code names are derived from cities/locations in the world known for great ‘vistas’. The kinds of places we all want to see, experience and that capture the imagination. Vienna fits with this concept. There are no additional details to share about Vienna at this time.”

Windows users, don’t let your guard down

The problem with relying on software tools to keep you safe is that a user with administrative privileges and a little knowledge (which, as everyone knows, is a dangerous thing) can defeat or disable those tools. Two examples of this phenomenon appeared this week.

As I’ve mentioned before, I currently am using Microsoft Windows OneCare Live, an all-in-one security suite that’s in beta release right now. On several occasions, I’ve disabled the firewall to troubleshoot problems with my network connection. Whenever I do that, OneCare prompts me to send a quick note to Microsoft explaining why I turned off this essential protection.

Apparently, lots of people have been dutifully filling in that form. Over at the Windows OneCare Team Blog, Microsoft summarizes the results from those submissions:

Based on our investigation, there are four primary reasons people are turning off their firewall.

  1. Do not think a software firewall is necessary
  2. Do not like the (sometimes incessant) pop-up dialogs
  3. An application failed to install with firewall turned on
  4. An application fails to work with firewall turned on

The entire discussion is worth reading, along with the comments. This is one case where I think “nag” dialogs are essential. In fact, I think one commenter’s suggestion of an option to temporarily disable the firewall for a specified period of time (automatically re-enabling it after the time is up) is a good one.

Example #2 comes from George Ou, who reports that Skype 2.0 looks like a virus. The problem? A bug in the latest version of Skype triggers a Data Execution Prevention warning. The most likely reason is that a chunk of memory that contains executable code isn’t properly marked. In that situation, DEP (which uses a setting in the OS in combination with the CPU itself) views this as a potential attack and blocks execution of the code.

DEP is an excellent first line of defense against buffer overflow attacks and other security vulnerabilities. But in this case what’s likely to happen is that the user, because they want Skype to work right now, is going to configure the program as an exception and turn off the warnings. In fact, that’s exactly what Skype recommends on its support pages.

If that happens often enough, it leaves a gaping security hole. The better approach? Skype users should insist that the company fix its code so that it doesn’t load executable code in segments marked as data only.

Those warnings exist for a reason. Turning off the alarm bell doesn’t make the problem go away.

Two more years of XP Home support

Last week there was a minor uproar over the possibility that Microsoft might stick to its published product support commitments and terminate support for Windows XP Home at the end of this year. In my comment on the issue, I predicted : “Microsoft has no intention of pulling the plug on Windows XP early.”

And sure enough, as Gregg Keizer at TechWeb discovered today, the official Microsoft Support Lifecycle document was quietly rewritten this week. Now, in the entries for Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Windows XP Media Center Editions 2002, 2004, and 2005, the notes read:

Mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released.

Windows XP Professional gets the same reprieve, with an additional five years of extended support tacked on as well.

So, XP users, you can relax until late 2008.

Get details about the Blue Screen of Death

In the comments on a post from early last year, How to troubleshoot the Blue Screen of Death, Al expresses a common frustration:

My PC has crashed a couple of times now to a BSOD with a stop error I can’t read quick enough. I see nothing in event viwer, is there any other log of what happened? What the stop error was and what the 4nvd.dll (possibly!) or whatever it was that flashed past is?

Information about a stop error (aka BSOD) should appear in Event Viewer’s System log. If you can’t find it there, try reconfiguring your system to stop after a stop error (what a concept!) so you can read the error on the screen. Here are the step-by-step instructions:

  1. Open the System option in Control Panel.
  2. On the Advanced tab, under the Startup and Recovery heading, click the Settings button.
  3. In the Startup and Recovery dialog box, under the System Failure heading, clear the Automatically Restart check box.
  4. Click OK to close the Startup and Recovery dialog box, and then click OK to close the System Properties dialog box.

After making this change, you’ll find that the details of a (hopefully rare) BSOD will remain on screen for you to study and write down. You’ll need to press a key to clear the screen and restart the computer.