http://www.bootdisk.com/ 280 January 2007
The BootLIST
Welcome to the 280th Edition of The BootLIST
INDEX
1) Add/Change Programs
2) CDrom Drive Letter Changes
3) Where Has My Hard Drive Space Gone?
4) Can Email Messages Attachments Carry Malware?
5) Eject CD With Mouse Click
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1) Add/Change Programs
ChasHyde asked - When I go to this utility, the window says 'please wait while the list is populated' and then, when the list comes up, about half of the programs are shown, the rest are there, at the bottom of a long blank section, some parts of which have black bits in them. Any ideas of why and/or how to rectify it?
elmogeek answered:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Line 226 (r-h column) Remove the White Space from Add or Remove
Alan E added:
Go here:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
Go down to here on that page:
"Add or Remove - White Space"or try: Add And Remove Section:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/arp.htm
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2) CDrom Drive Letter Changes
bnus440 wrote - How do I keep my CDROM drive from losing its drive letter? Sometimes it's F: and sometimes I lose it I guess when I plug in other devices like digital camera or flash drive or voice recorder. My DVD drive is always present on E:. But I lose the CDROM drive [when I plug in other devices.
*** When you build a new computer and put an OS on it it's always best to first, yes first, even before you install any software, to
assign higher drives letters to your CDrom drive(s). Same theory goes for when you buy a new PC. Reason is that windows will
generally assign new drive letters in the order of the alphabet and may push your CDrom drive letter back. This often causes
niggles with games and such.
Personally I like to put my CDrom reader as Drive R: and my CDrom writer as drive W:.
Rock said:
Assign the CD and DVD drives to higher drive letters such as Y or Z. Leave the lower letters for removable devices. Insert a CD in
the drive, right click My Computer | Manage | Disk Management. In the right pane right click the CD drive, and changes it's drive letter.
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3) Where Has My Hard Drive Space Gone?
Shelterdog posted - I'm down to 9% free space on my 80 gig C drive and I've tried all the usual ways to free up more--defragging, adding a second hard drive and deleting or moving programs I don't need, etc. Is there a way to determine precisely what programs and files are taking up so much of the space? I can't seem to make much of a dent in it.
*** One can try:
http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm
GENERAL FILE UTILITIES
Show Folder Sizes
Also note that with time your Windows folder becomes quite large an so does your Programs folder. Many computer geeks will simply recommend a newer larger hard drive. A 250 gig now is less than $100. Also note that defragging does NOT free up any hard drive space.
Bruce C. said:
A primary space waster within each user profile would be IE's penchant for storing copies (or significant portions thereof) of nearly
every web page your friend has ever visited. Try reducing the amount of temporary Internet files cached, which is huge by default. I always reduce it to a maximum of 50 Mb. In Internet Explorer, click Tools | Internet Options | General, Temporary Files | Settings.
Same principle for the Java cache. Start | Control Panel | Java | Temporary Internet Files > Settings.
The System Volume Information is the folder in which WinXP's System Restore feature stores information used to recover from errors. By default, WinXP sets aside a maximum of 12% of the partition's size for storing System Volume Information, but the amount of space set aside for this purpose can be adjusted by the user. Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Restore | System Restore Settings, select the pertinent partition and click Settings. If you don't want to use System Restore at all, simply turn off the System Restore feature (Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Restore, System Restore Settings) and reboot. This will delete all of your Restore Points, freeing up the hard drive space.
Another great waster of space can be the Recycle Bin. By default, this takes up to 10% of your hard drive capacity. On today's large hard drives, this is tremendously wasteful. It can be set to a lower limit by right-clicking the desktop Recycle Bin icon, selecting Properties, and using the slider bar to lower the maximum size to something more reasonable -- 1% to 2% should be more than enough space.
LMO buds in:
To answer your question of how do you see what progs and files are taking up space, I use SeqoiaView. It gives you a visual presentation of drive usage. Best of all, it's free!
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/
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4) Can Email Messages Attachments Carry Malware?
bkaras inquired - Do e-mail messages and/or attachments carry malware? Sometimes I receive an attachment from a friend and it never opens up.
*** Very often, especially if you open up the attachment or have your email app set to auto open attachments. The attachment may
not "seem" to open up, but it may already have installed spyware on your PC. Best strategy is to NOT open ANY attachment unless
you are expecting it.
Especially if you just open up attachments that are simply forwarded to you from family or friends. Best bet in that case is to save the attachment to a new folder or existing download folder and scan it for viruses/malware first. Note that if you open/view the attachment first it may contain a virus/trojan that has already disabled your anti-virus program.
Or, the attachment may be perfectly safe, but you dont have the application installed and set up to view it. Personally I dont want to even download attachments I'm not expecting so I have my email program set to NOT even put in my Inbox any email that is larger than 10K.
Ronnie V. says:
Of course they do, in fact this is probably the most common path of infection for virus and malware.
Ken B. buds in:
If an E-mail message is in HTML, yes it can carry malware. For that reason I always choose to read all mail as plain text, even if it
sent in HTML.
And attachments can be anything at all, and they can certainly be malware.
You often see advice not to open attachments unless they are from someone you know, but I think that's extremely dangerous advice. It implies that the opposite is true-that it's safe to open an attachment from someone you know or trust.
In fact, almost the exact opposite is true. Many modern viruses and worms spread by sending themselves to everyone in the infected party's address book. That means it's *more* likely, not less likely, that a message from someone you know and trust is likely to be infected.
My advice is to open attachments only it's something you are expecting; even if you get it from a close family member, it's wise to check with them first before opening.
My own personal practice is even more stringent. I almost never open attachments at all; I make an occasional exception, but only for an extremely trusted source, who I am confident applies safeguards as good as my own.
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5) Eject CD With Mouse Click
mcp6453 questioned - Is there a key combination (or freeware utility) to allow me to eject the CD tray with a hotkey combination or a single mouse click?
Ayush responded:
Use NirCmd. You can do lots of things with it.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
Nepatsfan said:
Download this utility:
http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm
Place it in your C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINDOWS\System32 folder.
Go to your Desktop. Right click an open spot and select New | Shortcut from the menu. In the location box, enter the following, substituting the drive letter of your CD drive for X.
Wizmo open=X
Hit the Next button. Enter an appropriate name for your new shortcut such as Open CD Tray. Click Finish. Drag and drop the new shortcut onto the Quick Launch tool bar next to your Start button. You now have a one click button which will open your CD tray. You can also create one that uses Wizmo close=X.
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