Eric Vaughan should get a medal

The Web is littered with Windows tips and tweaks, may of dubious quality and accuracy. Eric Vaughan’s TweakHound is one of the few sites that actually tests and rejects the bogus tweaks. If you’re thinking about making some changes to your registry because some random site told you it would speed things up, I suggest visiting the Bad Tweaks page first:

Many of these once worked in some version of Windows and virtually every tweak guide and program use these tweaks. My guide also used to contain some of them. It has taken a considerable amount of research and testing to come to these conclusions. While others have incorporated these into other guides and tried to pass it on as their own work I’ve done the investigation and benchmarking (and AFAIK I was the first to publish these en masse on the web). I’ve Googled up one side of the net and down the other. Sometimes I think I’ve seen every page at Microsoft. I’ve hosed installs, applied and removed settings, and spent more time tracking the registry than I care to admit (far more than I would like my wife to know about!).

Nicely done, Eric.

Tip of the day: Get free antivirus tech support

Think you (or someone you know) has contracted a virus or been afflicted with spyware? According to Microsoft’s Security Help and Support for Home Users page, you can call 1-866-PCSAFETY (1-866-727-2338):

This phone number is for virus and other security-related support. It is available 24 hours a day for the U.S. and Canada.

If you live in another region, there’s a link to find the phone number for your area.

(Thanks to Suzi Turner at Spyware Confidential for the pointer.)

One more service pack for XP

CNET News.com says that a spokesman for Microsoft France has confirmed that Service Pack 3 will appear sometime after Windows Vista ships next year:

Windows XP SP3 will be available sometime next year–after the launch of Windows Vista, which “is the priority for the development teams,” according to Microsoft France.

Microsoft has yet to reveal details about the contents of the service pack. Laurent Delaporte of Microsoft France said: “Historically, certain functions of new versions of Windows are integrated in the service packs of previous versions.”

Intriguing. Wonder how many Vista features can be ported backwards?

Toolkit for a shared computer

Microsoft’s Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP is now available. It looks like a nice collection of tools that a parent can use to keep kids (and other “untrusted users”) from monkeying with disks and system settings.

I haven’t tried it yet, and I wish we had known about this when we were putting the finishing touches on Windows XP Networking and Security Inside Out!

If anyone wants to post a review here, feel free to use the comments section.

Tip of the day: Repair a hung network connection

What do you do when your broadband connection stops working? Your first troubleshooting step should be the automatic Repair option available with all network connections.

Open the Network Connections folder from Control Panel, right-click the connection icon, and choose Repair from the shortcut menu. (Alternatively, you can double-click the connection icon, click the Support tab, and click the Repair button.)

Repair net connection

Selecting this option has the same effect as typing the following commands from a command prompt:

ipconfig /renew Automatically renews your IP address from a DHCP server
arp -d Flushes the Address Resolution Protocol cache
nbtstat –R Reloads the NetBIOS name cache
ipconfig /flushdns Clears the DNS cache
ipconfig /registerdns Registers the computer’s name on the appropriate DNS server

Collectively, this set of repairs takes care of most common network problems. If it doesn’t work, move on to more elaborate troubleshooting steps. A word of caution: The Repair button disables the current network connection first and then reenables and resets it. If you’re in the middle of a download or other important network activity, don’t try this!

Tip of the day: Find a file, jump to its folder

These days, Windows is littered with search utilities. You can use the ~~Find~~ Search tool in Windows Explorer to hunt for individual files. You can do the same in Outlook and Outlook Express. If you really want top-notch search capabilities, you can add a third-party utility like those from Copernic, MSN, Google, and X1.

Every single one of these tools produces a list of individual items. And every single one has an incredibly useful command hidden away. Right-click any file name in your list of search results and choose Open Containing Folder from the shortcut menu. That option opens Windows Explorer and displays the contents of the folder that contains the item you selected.

This option comes in very handy when you’re searching for all the files associated with a project, or when your search turns up a file that’s related to the one you’re looking for but isn’t quite right. If you’ve organized your files by folder, you’ll have better results by switching to Windows Explorer than by trying to refine your search.

If you’re searching using the built-in Find tools in Outlook Express, you’ll have to dig a little deeper. In Outlook Express, the Open Containing Folder option is buried on the File menu and not available via right-click shortcut menus. The Open Containing Folder option isn’t available at all in Microsoft Outlook’s Advanced Find window, but this feature shows up on right-click menus if you use X1 or Copernic Desktop Search.

It’s another example of the axiom every Windows user knows: When in doubt, right-click.

Update: It works with Firefox downloads, too.

Windows Explorer, Media Player, and big libraries

Thomas Hawk ranted about Media Center the other day. Charlie Owen and Matt Goyer of Microsoft’s Media Center team responded (Matt on his own blog and in comments on Thomas’s blog), and the upshot is that Thomas’s complaints are being taken very seriously.

I’ll have more to say about the MCE part of this post over on Ed Bott’s Media Central, although probably not till next week. But I want to address one of Thomas’s specific complaints here, because it’s more related to Windows in general.

Some background: Thomas has a very, very large digital music library. Last December, when he and I first exchanged details of this problem, Thomas’s library contained 141,000 files. I’m sure it’s larger now.

Thomas says he encounters disk errors when he tries to copy or back up those files:

Windows Explorer sucks. With a large digital library I simply cannot effectively copy files or back files up without having disc errors. Large batch copy jobs are super difficult as one little error aborts the whole job.

Let’s break this down. As Charlie Owen noted in his response, and I can attest, this is not normal behavior. I have 19 hard disks, internal and external, distributed among seven computers in my office. Collectively they represent well over 3 terabytes of storage. I move large numbers of files between computers constantly. I routinely copy the 16,000 files in my music library over network connections between external hard disks, and I don’t get disk errors. Now, if I try to copy a group of files, one of which is in use and locked by a running process, then Windows Explorer will stop. That is a weakness in Windows Explorer that is (1) being fixed in Windows Vista and (2) easily avoided by using third-party file-management tools. (It’s also what I was referring to when I said Thomas had a “legitimate complaint.”) But aside from that known issue, I’ve never encountered the problems Thomas describes. Nor should any properly configured Windows system, Media Center or otherwise.

So why is this happening to Thomas? I’ve read his complaints on this issue and we’ve exchanged some e-mail messages on this topic in the past. Thomas has told me that MP3 files are being randomly corrupted at frequent intervals. This is not normal behavior. It is not caused by Windows or Windows Media Player. There is no reason why any Windows user should get even a single corrupted file. If this happens, it indicates either a hardware problem (such as a buggy USB controller), a bad configuration (like cached writes being lost during copies), or data being damaged by software.

If I were Thomas, I would do the following things:

First, I would run a thorough diagnostic tool (like Ontrack’s Data Advisor) on all of the hard drives that were giving me problems.

Second, I would convince one of my buddies at Microsoft to put me in touch with an engineer who could verify that all drivers in my storage subsystem were working properly. If necessary, I would have that engineer hook up a remote debugger and then start the copy process until it fails, so that the exact error could be captured.

Third, I would find an MP3 diagnostic utility and check all of my MP3 files to see if any of them have damaged tags. The MP3 file format is flaky, especially in files that use the older ID3v1 format. If the file format is damaged, it could be causing problems during copies. I suspect that the WMP option to save star ratings to music files might be at least partially to blame for this problem. (In fact, I would recommend that Thomas use a batch MP3-editing program to translate all ID3v1 tags to ID3v2 and then rewrite all tags. This would be time-consuming but would have long-term benefits.)

Fourth, I would temporarily disable all features in WMP 10 that update or change music file metadata, especially those that affect star ratings. (This would not have any impact on currently stored ratings.) I would also disable folder monitoring temporarily.

Somewhere in that process, I’m sure the real cause of this problem would become apparent. Is this a lot of work? Well, yes, but this is also an absolutely certain way to fix the problem once and for all.

Tip of the day: Find your e-mail folder fast

Do you know where your e-mail messages are stored? That’s not just a theoretical question. If e-mail matters to you, you need to back up the files containing your messages so that you can restore them in the event of a hard disk crash or other problem. Here’s how to find your e-mail files with three popular programs:

Microsoft Outlook 2003: With Outlook closed, open Control Panel and double-click Mail. In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Data Files and then click Open Folder. This opens Windows Explorer using the folder where your Outlook Personal Stores (PST) file is located. The default name is Outlook.pst. Back up that file, which contains all your messages, rules, contacts, and appointments.
Outlook Express: Open Outlook Express and click Tools, Options. Click the Store Folder… button and highlight the entire string contained in the Store Location box. Press Ctrl+C to copy this location to the Windows Clipboard. Close all open dialog boxes, open Windows Explorer, and paste that location in the Address bar. Back up the complete contents of this folder, which contains all of your messages. Note that it does not contain your Address Book, which must be backed up separately.
Mozilla Thunderbird: Click Start, Run. In the Open box, type %appdata%\Thunderbird\Profiles and click OK. Windows Explorer opens, showing the contents of your Profiles folder. In a normal installation, this should contain a single folder with a random name (like uepsg00s) followed by .default. Copy this folder, which contains all settings and data for Thunderbird. You can restore it in the event of a crash.

If you use another e-mail program and you know how to find its data files, leave details in the comments section.

Dear Microsoft, why not sell Starter Edition everywhere?

I originally wrote this post about six months ago and never published it. Given the current discussion about different editions of Windows Vista, and especially the contention from Robert McLaws that Microsoft still hasn’t decided on the product mix for Windows Vista, I thought it made sense to update it.

The Internet has a big problem: People continue to use old, insecure versions of Windows. I can’t find any up-to-date statistics, but my WAG is that between 10 and 20% of people on the Internet today are running operating systems from the Windows 9X family. These old computers are less reliable and far less secure than they would be if they were running Windows XP, and they aren’t able to install many modern programs.

Why don’t these people upgrade? Because upgrading is expensive. The upgrade package is $90-100 if you’re a good shopper. A new PC is going to run between $400 and $500. That’s a lot of money for people who are on a fixed income or who are struggling to make ends meet.

Microsoft already has a solution: Windows XP Starter Edition. It was designed for use in emerging markets where the average annual income can’t justify the cost of a full Windows XP license. First released in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, it soon spread to Russia, India, and Brazil, and it’s now available in 22 countries and in six languages. (There are some interesting details in this article from Microsoft Watch and a very Microsoft-friendly profile, with screen shots, at Paul Thurrott’s site.)

Well, we have plenty of people in this country who can’t afford the cost of a new PC or an expensive upgrade. But they might pay $30, especially if they got some bonuses kicked in with the deal, like a six-month subscription to Microsoft’s OneCare security software, or a limited version of MSN.

Would Starter Edition cannibalize sales of existing Windows versions? I don’t think so. The operating system has some serious limitations that would rule out its use by any computer enthusiast:

Only three programs run at a time. (Hey… You can’t reliably run more than a handful of programs on Windows 9X anyway.)
The display runs only at 800 X 600 resolution. Most people who are stuck with old hardware and an old version of Windows are probably running at this resolution anyway.
No home networking or multiple user accounts.
Settings are preconfigured for novices.

But think of the serious advantages. Upgraders would have all the security fixes of Service Pack 2. They’d be able to run IE7 when it’s available later this year. They could run Windows AntiSpyware. They’d have an easier time with digital cameras and portable music players.

So why not make Windows XP Starter Edition (and the Windows Vista equivalent, when its time comes) available here? Sell it for $29.99. Make it available only as an upgrade to Windows 98 or Windows Me. Maybe the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation could set up a program with clinics in low-income neighborhoods that could offer upgrade services or low-cost, Starter Edition-powered computers for families with school-age kids and seniors.

I suggested this back in January, but the more I think about the idea, the more I like it. Windows 98 and Windows Me are long overdue for retirement, and a move like this would help make the Internet a better, safer place.

One patch next Tuesday

The Microsoft Security Response Center Blog highlights the advance notification for security bulletins due next week (Patch Tuesday).

~~Good news: There’s one and only one patch.~~

~~Bad news: It’s a Critical Update for Windows.~~

~~Good news: “We don’t expect this update to cause a reboot and it can be deployed and detected with MBSA, Microsoft Update, and WSUS.”~~

Update: Microsoft’s Mike Reavey says there will be no patches next week:

This afternoon we revised the information in the Advance Notification to reflect a change for next week’s release. Microsoft will not be issuing any new security updates on September 13th as part of the September monthly bulletin release cycle. You can check out the revised information here.

So, why did we do this? Let me explain. Late in the testing process, we encountered a quality issue that we decided was significant enough that it required some more testing and development before releasing it. We have made a commitment to only release high quality updates that fix the issues at hand, and therefore we felt it was in the best interest of our customers to not release this update until it undergoes further testing.

I have a great deal of respect for the people who do this thankless job. If they put out a patch that causes problems on a significant number of machines – hell, on any machines – they take heat. If they delay a patch for quality reasons, they take heat. Ultimately, someone had to make a pretty tough decision here.