ED's COMPUTER TIPS




supered55@hotmail.com




Answers to problems I've had on my computer.  WINDOWS XP/Vista
some changes may work with earlier versions of Windows but are mostly for XP and Vista

Click the link below for older answers for Win 95/98/ME

  OLD STUFF




ADOBE SHOCKWAVE DOESN'T WORK

If Adobe Shockwave doesn't work (you get a black screen)
or nothing happens when you try to download Shockwave, do the following:

Open the registry and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility

and check if the following Registry file is listed - {166B1BCA-3F9C-11CF-8075-444553540000}

If this file is listed then delete it as this is stopping Shockwave from working.




BIOS CREATION DATE

To find the date your BIOS (Basic Input Output System) was created

Open the registry and go to;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ ENUM \ ROOT \ PNP0C01 \ 0000



BLANK PAGES WITH Internet Explorer 6

I had a problem with IE6 showing a blank page when I tried to view some stats on a secure webpage.
Enabling META REFRESH cured this problem.

Open Internet Explorer
Click on TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS
Click on the SECURITY tab
Highlight the INTERNET icon (globe icon)
Click on CUSTOM LEVEL button
Scroll down to META REFRESH and click on the ENABLE radio button



BROWSING PROBLEMS - BROADBAND CONNECTION

Try this option if you are having connection problems

Open Internet Explorer
Click on TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS
On the GENERAL tab click on the DELETE FILES BUTTON (XP Users click on DELETE COOKIES) tick the box and click OK
On the CONNECTION tab click on the LAN Settings button
Ensure there is a tick in the AUTOMATICALLY DETECT SETTINGS box
Remove ticks from any other options currently selected
Click on APPLY and OK


Slow Connection Speeds

USB v Network (ethernet) card

A network (ethernet) cards only function is to allow computers to connect to the internet and connect them
together (network) and share files / printers.
USB on the other hand has many functions. If you are using USB to connect your computer to the modem you will require
a minimum of 80% system resources to be able to achieve optimum browsing and download speeds.

System resource availability is dependent upon the number of tasks the computer is being asked to perform at any one time.
Certain non-essential programs load as soon as the PC starts and will consume resources without your knowledge. You can
help this by closing down all unnecessary applications.

Using USB you can expect a greater fluctuation in speed than someone with the same machine using a network card which
is rarely affected by these problems being far less reliant on the system resources previously mentioned.


Error 403 Forbidden Message

Error 403 Forbidden Message relates to what is known as a proxy being set by another Internet provider.

To resolve this,

Open Internet Explorer, click on TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS, CONNECTIONS tab
Click the LAN settings button and take the tick out of USE PROXY SERVER box
Also, tick the AUTOMATICALLY DETECT SETTINGS box

Netscape users should click on;

EDIT / PREFERENCES / ADVANCED / PROXIES

Ensure that you have selected a Direct connection to the Internet



CHECK ACTIVE INTERNET CONNECTIONS

To see what connections your computer has to the internet, click on;

START / PROGRAMS / ACCESSORIES / MS DOS PROMPT

Type  netstat  at the prompt, press ENTER key



CLEAR THE BROWSER CACHE

If you find changes to web pages you've uploaded are taking a long time to show or you want to be
sure you are seeing the latest version of a web page

Hold CTRL + F5 (for Internet Explorer)   SHIFT + F5 (for Mozilla) to force the latest page to be shown.



CONNECT YOUR XBOX 360 TO THE INTERNET THROUGH YOUR COMPUTER

With your laptop connected wirelessly to your network access point (router),
connect an ethernet cable from the ethernet port on your laptop to the ethernet port on the back of your Xbox 360

Click on the START(Globe) BUTTON / CONNECT TO / SHOW ALL CONNECTIONS
(in WinXP click on START / CONTROL PANEL)

Right click your Wireless Network Connection and choose Properties from the list.
On the Advanced tab, tick the box to Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection.

In the Home Networking Connection drop down list choose Local Area Connection.
Uncheck the box to Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection




CREATE A BACKUP REGISTRY FILE

Click Start
Click Run
Type in   regedit
Click OK
Highlight   My Computer
Click the Registry menu at the top and select Export Registry File
Name the file   backup   and save it to your Desktop.
Should you encounter problems, locate the "backup" file on your Desktop and double-click it.
Select Yes and your registry will be restored.



DESKTOP ICONS KEEP REDRAWING

Increase the size of the Icon cache

Open the registry and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer

On the toolbar Click on:

EDIT / NEW / STRING VALUE

Call the string:
Max Cached Icons

Give it a value of 2000 or higher if you like
Exit the registry



DVD PLAYER - NO CONTROL PANEL ICON

WIN XP ONLY

PROBLEM
Your DVD player has a yellow mark next to it in device manager and In the properties is the following message:

Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device (code 41)

Also the DVD icon doesn't appear in Control Panel


ANSWER
Open the registry and go to

HKLM \ SYSTEM \ CURRENTCONTROLSET \ CONTROL \ CLASS \ {4D36E 965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Locate the UpperFilters, note its value, and then delete it
Locate the LowerFilters, note its value, and then delete it
NOTE: Only one of the above values may exist
Exit regedit

The following may not be necessary (check Contriol Panel for DVD icon)
Go to Device Manager
Right click on the optical drive(s) displaying the error and select Uninstall
After Device Manager has refreshed, select   Action - scan for hardware changes
Reboot computer



FIND YOUR IP / NETWORK CARD ADDRESS

Every machine on the Internet has a unique identifying number, called an IP(Internet Protocol) Address
A typical IP address looks like this: 216.27.61.137

Most broadband connections have DYNAMIC addresses which means they change each time the computer is rebooted.
STATIC addresses stay the same.


To find your IP address in WIN 9x/ME;

Click START / RUN and type   winipcfg


To find the addresses of any Network Cards on your computer,

Click on START / PROGRAMS / ACCESSORIES / MS DOS PROMPT

Type IPCONFIG and press the ENTER key


To find your IP address in WINXP;

Click   START / RUN   type   command   and then type   ipconfig and press enter



HEADPHONES, NO SOUND

If you plug headphones into your CDRW and cannot hear any music, try the following;

Right click on MY COMPUTER
Click on PROPERTIES
Click on DEVICE MANAGER Tab
Click the plus sign next to your CDRW entry
Highlight your CDRW
Click on the PROPERTIES BUTTON
Click on the PROPERTIES tab
Untick the ENABLE DIGITAL CD AUDIO box



INTERNET EXPLORER 6 - PREVENT THE INFORMATION BAR FROM BEING DISPLAYED

When you visit a site which uses the automatic download prompt, the Information bar appears instead of the download window.

To disable this,

Open Internet Explorer.
On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
On the Security tab, click Custom Level.
In the Downloads section of the list, under Automatic prompting for file downloads, click Enable.


To turn off the Information Bar for ActiveX controls,

In the ActiveX controls and plug-ins section of the list, under Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls, click Enable.



INTERNET EXPLORER 7 - SECURITY WARNING IN WIN VISTA

If you alter any default security settings in IE7 in Win Vista, you will see the following page every time you open a web page



To disable this, In the registry, go to;

HKCU \ SOFTWARE \ POLICIES \ MICROSOFT \ INTERNET EXPLORER \ SECURITY

Note: create the Internet Explorer and Security keys if they don't exist


Create these two DWORDs in the SECURITY key and set them as 1

• DisableFixSecuritySettings
• DisableSecuritySettingsCheck

Close and reopen IE



INTERNET EXPLORER WON'T DISPLAY MULTIPLE WEB PAGES

for example:
You have a web page open and click on a shortcut and Internet Explorer closes your open
web page and opens the shortcut page,
do the following:

On the Internet Explorer tool bar click on TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS
Click on the ADVANCED tab
Under the BROWSING heading untick the following box:

Reuse windows for launching shortcuts

Click the APPLY and OK buttons




MISSING SYSTEM TRAY ICONS - WIN XP

If some Icons are missing from the System Tray(next to the desktop clock), try this;

Open   CONTROL PANEL
Click on   ADD / REMOVE PROGRAMMES
On the left side click on   ADD / REMOVE WINDOWS COMPONENTS
Highlight   NETWORKING SERVICES
Click on the   DETAILS   button
Untick the box   UPnP USER INTERFACE
Click on   OK.


For your info this is a list of the items in my Windows Components

Accessories and Utilities - Tick Box
Fax Services - Untick Box
Indexing Service - Tick Box
Internet Explorer - Tick Box
Management and Monitoring Tools - Untick Box
MSN Explorer - Tick Box
Networking Services - Tick Box
Other Network File and Print Services - Untick
Outlook Express - Tick
Update Root Certificates - Tick Box
Windows Media Player - Tick Box Windows Messenger - Tick Box




NO - STEREO MIX - OPTION

My HP laptop has no LINE IN socket only a Microphone socket.
The drivers for the built in Conexant sound card don't support a STEREO MIX function, only a microphone, therefore programs to
record music off the net use the microphone channel and the qualiity is poor.

To resolve this problem, download and install this program called  FREECORDER

It is in the form of a toolbar which can be hidden when not in use and uses it's own drivers to record straight from the
sound card in WAV or MP3 format.
In the Options simply tick the boxes that use the freecord drivers and untick any boxes that use the microphone.



OPENING THE REGISTRY

Click on the START button on the taskbar
Select RUN
Type REGEDIT
Click on OK button


In WinVista

Click on the START globe on the taskbar
Click on ALL PROGRAMS link
Click on ACCESSORIES folder
Click on RUN
Type REGEDIT



REMOVE DESKTOP SHORTCUT ARROWS

Open the registry, go to;

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ Piffile and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ lnkfile

Change the text   IsShortcut  to  IsNotShortcut
Reboot the computer



REMOVE SURPLUS DRIVERS

Boot into safe mode


How to boot into Safe Mode

Win XP/Vista
Start your computer
Repeatedly tap F8 when computer boot window appears(black screen with white writing) or when manufacturers
logo appears.

Win 98/ME
Click START / RUN  type  msconfig
On the GENERAL tab, click on the ADVANCED button
Tick the box  ENABLE STARTUP MENU
Reboot computer
A menu will appear, select SAFE MODE

Your computer will boot to the startup menu until the box is unchecked-
---------------------------------------

When you are in Safe Mode;

On the desktop right click on MY COMPUTER click on PROPERTIES select DEVICE MANAGER tab.(Win95/98/ME)
Click on START / CONTROL PANEL / SYSTEM / HARDWARE (WinXP/Vista) Control Panel classic view needs to be
enabled in Vista
Click on the plus sign next to each device and remove the drivers for any Device which is not installed on your computer.

This will help your computer to boot faster.



SPEED UP INTERNET EXPLORER 8

Spybot Search and Destroy, Spywareblaster and possibly other spyware removal programs load up IE8 with a large number of
sites in the restricted zone,
(Tools/Internet Options/Security tab, highlight Restricted Sites icon, click on Sites button to view entries)
This will slow IE8 down when starting up and loading pages

How to remove them
Either remove them one at a time or use  DelDomains.inf  to remove them all in one go

PLEASE NOTE; Using the Immunize feature in Spybot Search and Destroy or updating Spywareblaster will put the entries
back in the Restricted Sites list.



STOP GOOGLE AUTO SUGGEST DROP DOWN MENU

If your home page is Google.com and you get a drop down menu of suggested searches when you type a query and you
want to get rid of it, do the following.

Set your home page to;

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0

If you want the auto suggest back simply change the 0 on the end of the address to a 1



STOP WINDOWS SCANNING HARD DRIVE AFTER BAD SHUTDOWN

If your computer is shutdown by a power failure/switched off at mains etc windows will prompt you to scan
the Hard Drive when starting up, this is ok but sometimes Windows does it at every bootup.
To stop this do the following

WINXP/VISTA

In the registry, go to;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CURRENT CONTROL SET \ CONTROL \ Session Manager

Right click on BootExecute, click on Modify, type  autocheck autochk /k:c *  Close Reg editor
C is the Hard Drive, if your Hard Drive has a different letter simply change the C to the appropriate letter







SYSTEM INFORMATION

Click on   START / RUN   type   msinfo32





SYSTEM RECOVERY KEY DOESN'T WORK

If you have a shop bought computer you will usually have a recovery partition on your Hard Drive which will
restore your computer to the condition it was in when you purchased it.
The recovery is accessed by pressing one of the F keys (often F2 or F11) at bootup.
For various reasons you may find this key doesn't work and if you haven't created restore discs you are stuck.

To get the restore key working do the following;

Click on START (the Globe in Vista)
In the menu, right click on COMPUTER
Click MANAGE
Click DISK MANAGEMENT in left hand menu
Right click the Recovery Drive
(probably D:\ but if you're not sure click on START(Globe) / COMPUTER and it will show your Hard Drive
partitions, it should say RECOVERY or RESTORE with a letter next to it)

Select MARK PARTITION AS ACTIVE
When you reboot your computer the F button should work



WINDOWS PRODUCT KEY

In the registry go to;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ WINDOWS \ CURRENT VERSION

The Product Key is in the right hand pane



USER DATA PERSISTENCE

User Data Persistence was developed to offer the ability to "persist" information which also lets
you retain style and state beyond a single web page.
User Data Persistence appeared in MS IE 5.0 and is not as well known or as easily managed
as cookies but it allows web sites to store information from your system.

Disable User Data Persistence

Open Internet Explorer
From the Toolbar, click on;

TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS, SECURITY tab

Highlight the INTERNET icon (It's the Globe amongst the four icons at the top of the box in WINME)
Click on CUSTOM LEVEL button
Untick USER DATA PERSISTENCE




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Last updated - November 23rd 2009