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FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 515
(30/05/06)
Q. I recently had a scare
with my PC and was informed that I would have to reformat my hard drive and
re-install Windows XP. I overcame the problem and the system was back to normal
but I realised that the only version of Windows XP that I possess is pre
Service Pack 2 (the latter was downloaded from Microsoft). I have had the
machine for some years and receive regular updates automatically from
Microsoft. Is it possible to create a back-up version of the machine’s current
Windows status?
Geoff Calvert, via email
A.
Yes it is, you can either copy or ‘clone’ your hard drive onto another drive or
partition using applications like True Image or Drive Image -- see Boot Camp
352 -- or you can create a ‘slipstreamed’ Windows XP SP2 installation disc. We
dealt with that most recently in Boot Camp 405. Basically all you have to do is
copy your Windows CD to your hard drive, extract and combine Service Pack 2
with XP then create a bootable CD. There’s an easy to follow step-by-step guide
on Paul Thurrott’s Supersite
for Windows
Q. Scanning my old slides has resulted in many over-sized files, which I
would now like to sort out. Windows Explorer’s Search facility has listed
over a hundred such but I cannot find a way to print them out. I have read your
29/11/05 reply suggesting “Print Screen” and RJH
Extensions. The former works on the ‘List’ setting but inclusion of
the details would make the printout very difficult to read and I don’t think
that RJH Extensions can print or save a directory list of Search results. Could
you advise please?
Eric Stride.
A. There’s several methods but try this one, which uses
an old Windows 95 PowerToy called SendToX. Don’t worry it gets on fine with
Windows XP. Download the Win95 PowerToy
Suite into a folder on your PC, double-click W95powertoy.exe to extract the
files then right-click on SendToX.inf and select Install. Now all you have to
do to print the results of your Search is highlight all of the files in the
right hand pane (Ctrl + A), right-click on one of them and select Send To >
Clipboard as Name. Open Word, Notepad or WordPad and press Ctrl + V to paste
the contents of the Clipboard and your list will appear, which you can then
print.
Incidentally, only a couple of the SendToX features are
any real use in XP the others are either redundant or they do not work. To tidy
it up go to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and select Send To Extensions
Power Toy. Click the Change/Remove button and deselect Clipboard as Contents,
Command Line and the three Mail Recipient entries.
Q. Is it possible to
password protect individual folders within My Documents? I would like to create
one for all my passwords, as I seem to have so many now. I remember someone
asking you once before but I have trawled the archive to no avail. I am
using Windows XP Home edition.
Barry Buckingham, via
email
A. Provided your hard drive has been formatted in NTFS (almost certain unless
it’s more than 4 or 5 years old and/or you upgraded from an earlier version of
Windows) then yes you can. All you have to do is right-click on the folder icon
and select Properties then the Sharing tab. Check the item ‘Make this folder
private’ and follow the instructions to create a password. Windows XP also has
a built-in compression (zipping) utility with a password protection option but
again it only works on NTFS formatted drives. To use it right-click on the file
or folder, select Properties and on the General tab click Advanced and select
‘Compress contents to save disc space, click OK and follow the prompts.
However, as you are doubtless aware virtually all password
and encryption systems can be broken, moreover folders can still be deleted or
become corrupted, and if you forget the password to your password folder you
could be in big trouble. My preferred solution is to keep my passwords and PINs
in a plain text document. I also use a simple (and memorable) encryption scheme
for added protection, like shifting each letter and number by one, so A’s
become Bs, and 1s are 2s and so on. I then give the file an innocuous sounding
name (e.g. sys754.rft’ or something equally meaningless) and bury it several
layers deep inside my Windows System files. The only problem is remembering
where it is kept…
Q. I have AVG Free Edition
with Windows XP Professional. Periodically on start up a balloon
appears with the message ‘AVG Control Centre E-mail Scanner… not fully functional’. What's going on?
Peter Barkett, via email
A. The email scanner is a separate program called
avgemc.exe, which should start automatically with AVG. The next time you see
this message open Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Delete and select
Processes tab) and see if avgemc.exe is running. If so then this suggests that
it is disabled or not set up properly. Open AVG Control Centre, right-click the
email scanner plug-in and click Activate. Make sure that Personal Email Scanner
and Personal Test Configuration options are checked.
Q. Every time I try to
play a CD on my PC the error message “internal error” appears. How do I
sort this out?
Vicky Houston, via email
A. This kind of message is normally accompanied by some
extra information or an error number. Otherwise it usually means that there is
a problem with the drive, there’s dust or dirt on the laser pickup, or the disc
is unreadable. If the disc is okay and it plays on another PC or CD player, and
the drive won’t read data discs, then try using a good quality a CD cleaner. If
that doesn’t help there may be a problem with the drive’s power or data cables
-- they can work loose, or the drive itself is faulty.
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© R. Maybury 2006, 2305
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