http://www.bootdisk.com/ 170 July 2004

The BootLIST

Welcome to the 170th Edition of The BootLIST

INDEX
1) The Elder Geek On Windows XP
2) How To Stop Messenger Running When Opening OE
3) Apps In Add/Remove Disappeared
4) Slow CD Burning On New Dell
5) Referencing The Defragging Of The Pagefile
6) Free CD/DVD Burning Software


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1) The Elder Geek On Windows XP

Every once in a while I find a Windows XP tech site that I'm proud to recommend. No hoops to jump through to get the info you want. Nice, easy to understand tutorials which include fast graphics. And an index that actually works!

The Elder Geek On Windows XP:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/

I asked the Elder Geek himself to share with us a little history of his site:

"A few years back the computer system crashed in the emergency room where I worked. Unable to reach IT, one of the nurses said, "Where the hell are all those geeks?" Another one looked at me and said, "I don't know where they are, but we've got the elder geek here." A few weeks later I had a blowout with a useless supervisor, got fired, and the next day The Elder Geek on Windows XP was born. Best thing in the world that ever happened to me."


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2) How To Stop Messenger Running When Opening OE

JethroUK asks - How to stop messenger running in background when I open o/express?

Frank S. explains:
Turn off the Contacts pane.

From http://www.fjsmjs.com/OE/disabmes.htm

To prevent MS Messenger from loading with OE you must do BOTH of these things if you don't want to edit the Registry:

In Tools | Options uncheck the option to automatically logon to Messenger.
AND
In View | Layout uncheck the Contacts Pane.
OR
Go to Start | Run and type Regedit

Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Outlook Express
Add a New, DWORD value called Hide Messenger and set the value to 2. (This step is required to prevent a long delay when opening OE with the Contacts pane enabled)

To just stop it from running at all follow this advice from Kelly:
Only 3 Registry edits are required to stop Messenger and get rid of the delay in OE. Start | Run | Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Messenger\Client

Add the following values as New, DWord Values:
PreventRun
PreventAutoRun
Set the value of each of these to 1

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Add a New, DWORD value called Hide Messenger and set the value to 2. (This step is required to prevent a long delay when opening OE with the Contacts pane enabled)

You can also stop the spam without disabling Messenger. In Messenger select Tools | Options and open the Privacy tab. In MSN Messenger 5 there a check box Only people on My Allow List can see my status and send me messages that you can check (turn on). In Windows Messenger 4.7 you can select the All other users in My Allow List and move it to My Block List. In both cases the popups should stop and you can still IM with your friends.


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3) Apps In Add/Remove Disappeared

V Green writes - Sometime over the last two days, about 2/3 of the items in my Add/Remove Programs list have disappeared.

I can still see the entire list using Everest, and uninstall from there, but this makes me REALLY edgy and wondering what the heck happened.

Richard U responds:
There are some program installs that place a large, blank area in the add/remove list. Scroll down to the end of the list [and past the blank area]. See if your other programs are [down] there.


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4) Slow CD Burning On New Dell

Jacob questions - A month ago I bought a new DELL computer with 3.0 GHz Pentium 4,800 bus, 512 MB memory. I tried both HP 9700 CD burner with 16x speed, and IOMagic 8x dual DVD burner rated at 40x for CD reading and burning. In both cases I could not get more than 7.5x CD copying speed.

I'm using Windows XP Pro, Roxio Easy Media Creator 7. I tried three different brands of blank CDs rated at 48x, all with the same result. IDE controller for IOMagic showed Transfer mode: DMA if available, and Current Transfer Mode: PIO mode.

Bob K. suggests:
My guess is that your IDE controller is stuck in PIO mode. There are a variety of fixes here:

IDE ATA and ATAPI Disks Use PIO Mode After Multiple Time-Out or CRC Errors Occur:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472

The simplest method is to uninstall the IDE controller from Device Manager and let XP re-install it.

Nelson L. adds:
Need to get it out of PIO mode and into DMA mode to get faster performance. Try going into the BIOS and checking the settings of the device attached to the secondary master.


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5) Referencing The Defragging Of The Pagefile

I always check the pagefile of systems I get in the shop - many are severely fragmented. You cannot effectively defragment the pagefile, though products such as Diskeeper make a good run at it. In cases where the pagefile is broken into more than 5 or 6 fragments I do the following:

Reset the pagefile size to the minimum allowed (usually 2MB) and reboot the system, then set the size back to its original or the desired size and reboot again.

The pagefile is not reset to default on each boot, that is recreated clean. It is cleared, but it simply clears the data and does not remap it. Find a machine with a severely fragmented pagefile and run a pagefile mapper, you can even use Diskeeper for this, and you will see that it is in as miserable shape as it was before.

All that aside, this is not usually necessary is a PC with adequate memory, however, most off the shelf lower end boxes (Dell, Gateway, Compaq) come with a whopping 128MB of RAM. It is technically feasible to run XP on 64MB, but it is not useable.

C. Ridley
OnCall Solutions
Onsite Technology Solutions for Your Home and Business


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6) Free CD/DVD Burning Software

http://www.deepburner.com/


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