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| A low-tech but ingeniously distributed E-letter by Mr. E Vol. I, No. 19 — October 25, 2001 (last updated April 11, 2004) To read previous issues of The E-List, click here. Send comments about The E-List to: elist@aumha.org Please see Legal Notice. |
This newsletter tracks new information, and improvements in existing information, on the Windows Support Center, my website supporting Windows desktop systems and leading application software. I also include small, useful items that might not find a permanent place on the site, but that I would like to pass along, and anything else I feel like writing!
Click here to subscribe. If you subscribe, you will receive email notification when there is a new issue of the newsletter. (You will not receive the newsletter itself by email. That’s why I call it low-tech.) My intention is to provide a new and further way to serve the 50,000 people per month who visit my site. Previous newsletters are available online, and their content searchable through this site’s search engine. Enjoy! — Jim Eshelman
CONTENTS of this Issue
NEWS & VIEWS
Yes You Can... Buy Windows XP!
And, we have lift-off!
Yes, Windows XP was officially launched today. I attended the launch event here in Los Angeles, at Universal Amphitheater. What can I say about it? I went. I got the shirt. I ate the muffins. I saw the demos. I didn’t win anything (though a friend of mine, 3,000 miles away, won a copy of Win XP autographed by Bill Gates — I really must remember to kid him about how fast he’s heading to E-Bay with it! <g>) Overall, it was a lot of fun, and some of the sessions (such as that on deployment) were quite worthwhile for the knowledge, too.
But, for me personally, all of this pales when compared with my last six months of using this operating system in its various pre-release versions, as it made its way toward completion. I don’t do sales — I lose out on what I’m told are great job opportunities because I simply won’t do sales — but it’s really hard for me not to sound like a salesman when I talk about Windows XP. It is the Windows everyone has been asking for and hoping for ever since Windows 95 first appeared.
A couple of months ago, weeks before September 11 flew by, I told regular readers that I would be more irregular in these newsletter issues for, well, a couple of months while I worked on another project. That’s why you haven’t seen so many newsletters during that time. But, in the interim, a lot of new material has been added to this site. I have enough material on Windows 95, 98, ME, and XP backed up for at least three issues of The E-List. To kick things off, and in honor of today’s launch event, I’m dedicating this issue almost entirely to information that will be particularly useful to those who are now buying, installing, and running the new operating system. Next week, we will return to more diversified offerings.
If you are interested in learning about Windows XP, I recommend you start on my Windows 2000/XP page. It has links to numerous introductory articles, and many of the more important Microsoft Knowledge Base articles emerging on the product. But don’t look only on that page — look all over the Windows Support Center site, on pages devoted to the particular topic that interests you (such as hardware, error conditions, shutdown problems, or the “Commands, Utilities, & Files” page, to name a few). Increasingly, the Win XP material is being integrated into the rest of the site.
One more important tip: Last night, Microsoft posted the first major Windows Update download for Windows XP. Once the OS was released to manufacturing in late August, they kept working on the bug list. In the two months intervening, Microsoft compiled 1.9 MB of fixes that are available right now. Be sure to download and install this “critical upgrade” right after your installation of the operating system itself. (On a 56K modem, it only takes about 7 minutes.) Several articles mentioned below address specific issues covered by patches that already exist.
But before we get into all of that, here’s a little news update about something that happened to me three weeks ago...
Annual MS-MVP Awards
In early October, Microsoft announced its annual Most Valuable Professional (MVP) awards. As described on the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Web page:
Each year, Microsoft awards the most outstanding members of its online community. The MVP Award is given in recognition of a recipient’s technical expertise, spirit of community, thought leadership and willingness to help their peers and customers. MVPs consistently provide reliable and accurate answers to technical questions about Microsoft products and technology and their commitment to help others is unparalleled.
I am very honored to be included, for a third year, among those upon Microsoft has seen fit to bestow this award. It is, indeed, an honor to be associated with the roughly 700 people worldwide who were awarded this year. With scarcely an exception, a generous spirit of services has marked each Microsoft MVP I have known personally. They make one tremendous group of folks! MVPs are also a diverse lot. As the Microsoft page continues,
Award recipients... represent a diverse group of backgrounds and professions, many of which are non-technical. These are men and woman who are artists, authors, teachers, students, police officers, firefighters, doctors and more. They range in age from 18 years old to the mid-60’s. Despite this diversity, they all have two things in common: great expertise in one or more Microsoft products, and a willingness to freely share their expertise, and their experiences, with their peers.
Some received the MVP award in past years; others received it this year for the first time. You may know many of them from the Web sites you have visited, linked on my Windows Support Sites page. A few people who received the award for the first time, but whose sites have been listed here for some time, include Harry Ohrn and Kelly Theriot. New awardee Rick Rogers has launched a new support Web site, only recently added here, titled Nutcase’s Home. To Rick, Kelly, Harry, and the many others, whose efforts were first formally acknowledged this year, my warm congratulations.
WINDOWS SUPPORT SITES
SITE OF THE WEEK:
MVP WEB SITES by Karl PetersonSpeaking of MS-MVPs (as I was above), about half of the “Sites of the Week” that I have presented to you have been the work of an MVP. This isn’t for any other reason than that these are some of the best Web sites I know for Windows support of all varieties! Most of the rest of the sites I’ve highlighted this way are created and maintained by people who subsequently have been given the MVP award. I guess the cream really does rise to the top!
Beyond any one such site, though, is Karl Peterson’s collection of links to the Web pages of past and present MVPs. Links are provided for more than 300 sites on almost every topic you could imagine concerning Microsoft software, from Access to Works, including every flavor of Windows, the full range of Office products and programming languages, and much more.
The cumulative support knowledge in these pages is remarkable. If you can’t find an answer on the present site, “The Big List” (as it is fondly called by those who know it well) might well be the next place you should look. Heck, look there anyway! And don’t miss the additional resources on the same site’s home page.
WINDOWS SUPPORT &
“HOW TO” ARTICLESGary Woodruff: Upgrading to Windows XP
Many of you are familiar with my friend Gary Woodruff’s earlier articles on Upgrading Win98 to Win98 Second Edition, and Upgrading to Windows Millennium. He has now prepared a new one on Upgrading to Windows XP. I heartily recommend it.
There’s a story worth telling about this article. The story concerns how quickly it has caught on. Last Monday afternoon, when Gary and I agreed it was “ready for prime time,” I posted a notice about it on the Windows XP newsgroups. In the four hours between when I posted this notice and when my Web host tallied my daily site statistics, over a thousand people hit the page! Now, I easily remember two years ago when I was thrilled to get a thousand hits per day to the entire site! Here, in four hours, this one page was hit that many times. Apparently, this is a very hot topic. It has been very enthusiastically received by those who have read it and then written us.
Furthermore, the next day, October 23, there were 52,463 hits to this site overall. That’s the single highest one-day hit rate in the history of my Web site, topping even the 50,371 hits we got in the 24 hours after Fred Langa mentioned this site in his newsletter last January 28. I guess, therefore, that people really like Gary’s article. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to host it on this site. (PS — I just learned that the daily record was broken again today, October 25, with 61,065 hits. There was a time we didn’t get that many visitors in two months. Thanks, everyone, for your votes of confidence!)
Startup Program Loading
I’ve updated the article, STARTUP PROGRAM LOADING: Where Do Things Load From? How Do You Stop Them? to include new information relevant to Windows XP. While there are several small changes scattered throughout the page, the most important addition is the section on “Services in Windows XP.” These take up system resources, too, and there may be some that you don’t want to run chronically. Among the information in that section, don’t miss the link to the new Web page on How to Determine What Services Are Running in Windows XP by MS-MVP Mike Burgess.
How Serious is the Windows XP Shutdown Problem?
I’ve had to ask myself this question much more lately. The interest that has been shown in my Windows XP Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting page. As Windows XP moved from its last Beta edition (RC2) into full release code, and that final code began getting into people’s hands (through MSDN subscriptions, Beta tester courtesy access, and other means), the XP Shutdown page rose from not even being in the Top 10 most hit sites in August, to being No. 2 in September, and vying for the No. 1 most hit page on this site in the month of October. This is a very significant statistic, since, in the two-year history of this site, no page has ever come even close to matching the popularity of the primary (generic) Windows Shutdown Troubleshooter, to which the XP page is merely auxiliary. Now, though, the interest in resolving Windows XP shutdown problems is sufficiently high to threaten to break that hold on first place.
Of course, if Roxio would just get their new CD-writing software finished and available, it would take care of half of these Windows XP shutdown problems! We’re regularly assured that this new Windows XP version is coming R.S.N. (For non-geeks, that’s a TLA — Three-Letter Acronym — for “Real Soon Now.”)
Is there a serious shutdown problem with Windows XP, aside from this one piece of software? Well, there’s a problem. We still have to see how serious it is. I want to wait for the major hardware manufacturers to get all their new drivers out before passing judgment. But I have been getting dozens of letters from page visitors adding new information on their own struggles with Win XP shutdown, and my next goal for the site is to organize and check their reports, and fold them into a new, substantially supplemented version of the XP Shutdown troubleshooting page.
KB ARTICLES: Specific Commands
How to Obtain Remote Assistance by Sending an E-mail Message Win XP
This article is just what the title says: It tells you how to use Windows XP’s new Remote Assistance feature to ask for, and provide, help to any Windows XP user who requests it, without being physically present. Definitely cool!Remote Assistance May Not Connect to a Multiple-Homed Win XP Computer with the Personal Firewall Feature Enabled Win XP
The problem is that remote users on a multi-homed Win XP computer may not be able to respond to a Remote Assistance request if the XP native firewall is running. (The firewall only lets you through the first bound network adapter, so you get blocked at the second.) This is a bug. Microsoft has a patch for it already. See the article for the patch.KB ARTICLES: Control Panel
How to Add a Control Panel Tool to a Category Win XP
Unless you change it, Windows XP’s Control Panel groups its applets into nine categories. Many people find that this makes it much easier to find the tool they need. But, what if your mind doesn’t organize ideas the same way as the program manager at Microsoft? What if you want to organize these applets differently? Can you move them around? Yes you can. This article tells how.KB ARTICLES: Hardware, Drivers & RAM
How to Troubleshoot the Display Adapter Driver in Safe Mode Win XP
How to Use the Driver Roll Back Feature to Restore a Previous Version of a Device Driver Win XP
These titles are self-explanatory — unless you didn’t know that Windows XP provides an easy way to “roll back” a driver that you’ve recently installed. If the driver is the wrong one, or somehow flawed, and causes problems, this lets you recover easily back to the prior working state of your computer, before the bad driver was installed.Compact Disc Recorded in Win XP Is Missing Files or Folders, or Is Unreadable
Writing files to your CD-R or CD-RW may not work right in Windows XP until you install a patch. You may not be able to read what was written on the CD, or you may only be able to read it sometimes and under particular circumstances, or it may appear to work except that a few files are lost along the way. This is bad news, of course! Fortunately, there’s a fix. This is one of the problems Microsoft has already solved, and they have a patch for it. The article tells you how to get the patch.IEEE 1394 General Troubleshooting Win 2000, Win XP
FireWire troubleshooting in Win XP. This article is definitely a keeper!Using Performance Monitor To Identify A Pool Leak Win 2000, Win XP
I haven’t seen any complaints of serious memory leaks in Windows XP; but, if you have any suspicion that you have such a leak — where memory is allocated to a process, but the process does not return the memory when it closes — then use this article to investigate the matter.KB ARTICLES: Startup & Boot Log
How To Change the Logon Window & the Shutdown Preferences Win XP
Windows XP has a newly designed logon screen. Many users will want to keep it. But many others will prefer the Windows 2000 style of logon, where a user must press Ctrl+Alt+Del to access a logon dialogue. This article tells you how to have it your way.How to Disable the Prefetcher Component in Windows XP Win XP
Win XP also has a “Prefetcher” component. This is a memory management component which usually helps to shortens Windows startup time and program load time. However, you might want to disable it for troubleshooting purposes; or, though it isn’t usually recommended, some users have claim that their startup time is shortened by disabling this. Oh, you can disable it? (Say: “Yes you can.”) Whatever your reasons might be, this articles tells you how.KB ARTICLES: Windows XP
Windows XP Update Package, October 25, 2001
This is the one you especially want to read. As the title suggests, it describes the Update Package issued today, October 25. You should get this and install it soon after installing Windows XP.Windows XP Upgrade Advisor
You’ve probably been hearing about this one. When Windows XP starts its installation process, it first offers to check all the hardware and software on your system for compatibility with the operating system. This lets you anticipate and prevent many types of problems. If you think your hardware or software is borderline, you might want to check it before spending the money on XP. To allow for this, the Upgrade Advisor component can be downloaded and executed separately. This free tool from Microsoft checks your hardware and software to see if they will support an upgrade to Windows XP Professional. One caveat: It’s a 50 MB download. Another is that it is conservative — so, if it says a piece of hardware or software won’t work, it might be wrong, though if it says they will work, you can count on it being right.How to Use the Files & Settings Transfer Wizard By Using the Windows XP CD-ROM
Files & Settings Are Not Transferred When You Use the Files & Settings Transfer Wizard
You definitely want to know about the File & Settings Transfer Wizard (popularly called FAST). It allows you to export system settings on your existing machine before undertaking a clean installation of Windows XP, then to import those settings afterwards into the new installation. It gives you some of the advantages of an Upgrade installation, while letting you install clean instead. See Gary Woodruff’s article on Windows XP upgrades for details about it. Of these two articles, the first one simply describes how to use FAST. The second article is more serious, though. It documents the fact that sometimes this doesn’t work right! You don’t want to rely on it for data preservation, then find it didn’t do it right. Fortunately, Microsoft already has a patch out for this bad behavior. The article tells you how to get the patch.NetBEUI Protocol is Not Available in Windows XP
How to Install NetBEUI on Windows XP
Here’s another nice pair of articles. It seems that NetBEUI is on the way out! The first article says that you won’t find it in a default clean installation of Windows XP. Strangely, though, the article says that NetBEUI is “not available to install.” What I think they meant to say is that NetBEUI isn’t supported in Win XP; because the next article does tell you, step-by-step, how to install it!Ports That Are Used by Windows Product Activation
Windows Product Activation (WPA) over the Internet uses ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS, or Secure HTTP). If either of these isn’t working, WPA won’t work. This article explains how to troubleshoot them if you have trouble activating your Windows installation, or how to configure your firewall so that it won’t interfere in the first place.KB ARTICLES: Windows Setup
I thought I should include a couple of articles on issues that you might encounter during Windows installation.
How to Use a Command Prompt During GUI-Mode Setup
If you need to reach a command prompt while you are installing Windows XP in GUI mode, press Shitft+F10. That’s it! (See, now you don’t have to read the article.)”STOP 0x0000007B Inaccessible boot device“ error message Installing Win 2000 Professional or Win XP to Mirror Volume
Neither Win 2000 nor Win XP, in their Professional versions, supports mirrored volumes. You need Windows 2000 Server for that. Therefore, if you try to install Win 2K or Win XP on a mirrored volume, you’ll get an error message. The solution is to remove the mirror volume.Happy computing, everyone!
Jim Eshelman
THE NECESSARY LEGAL STUFF
DISCLAIMER: Any information given in this newsletter, or on any other part of the Windows Support Center website, is researched by me and believed to be accurate. However, I cannot guarantee, and do not guarantee, that all the information provided will work on all computer systems, for all users, all the time. Also, I sometimes make mistakes (that’s life!), and it is possible I made one or more of them here. All information herein is offered as-is and without warranty of any kind. In other words, I rely on the best information sources I can, and do my best to get it to you accurately; and, thereafter, you take your life in your own hands if you trust me on it. Neither James Eshelman, this site, outside contributors to this site, people quoted on this site, nor my cat is/are responsible for any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, resulting from application of any information presented here.
The E-List. Copyright © 2001 by James A. Eshelman. All Rights Reserved.
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