http://www.bootdisk.com/ 012 June 2007
HouseCall
Welcome to the 12th Edition of HouseCall
INDEX
1) Remove Invalid Entries In Add/Remove
2) Looking For Alarm Clock Software
3) TweakUI For XP To Delay Menu/Mouse Speed
4) Clean Install Of Windows XP
5) Vista RAM Issue Explored
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1) Remove Invalid Entries In Add/Remove
dannysmithuk asked - I've got several programs that are uninstalled but still appear on my Add/Remove Programs list as if they are still operational. Could anyone direct me as to how to remove the entries, preferably without having to download and install programs to do it for me?
detdreyer said:
Removing Invalid Entries in the Add/Remove Programs Tool:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310750/en-us
alperk47 said:
Try Add Remove Pro. It is free and very easy to use.
http://www.shareup.com/Add-Remove_Pro-download-11835.html
http://www.soft32.com/download_9082.html
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2) Looking For Alarm Clock Software
speedy_mike posted - I'm looking for alarm clock software. Microsoft has some for it's Media Center but I don't have that. Anybody have a good line on (free) alarm clock software?
http://www.jumbo.com/file/1999.htm
http://www.cinnamonsoftware.com/alarm_clock.htm
http://computer-alarm-clock.com/
http://www.drive-software.com/atomicalarmclock.html
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3) TweakUI For XP To Delay Menu/Mouse Speed
telegrapher wrote - Working with a friend's laptop, I find that Start Menu programs or menus will start almost immediately on being highlighted, without waiting for a click. The same thing happens on most other menus. My reaction time not being what it used to be, this is driving me nuts.
There has to be a setting capability to delay this response somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere on my home computer or in an hour's search through the Help/Support Center.
Curt C. replied:
Tweak UI for XP has the ability to change the menu speed under "Mouse settings". All of the XP Powertoys including Tweak UI can be found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp
Cooler Dude adds:
If you have TweakUI installed: Look in the "Mouse" section for "X-Mouse and disable it.
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4) Clean Install Of Windows XP
mommadeb questioned - I am trying to get an older system up and running so my daughter can use it to connect to the internet. It is running XP pro and had been used in an office. When they updated, my daughter got this one. It seems that I can connect OK. Don't hear modem noise as usual, but get the messages about verifying password, etc. This is where the problem begins. When I start explorer the only thing I get is the cannot find server thing. I have no ideas what the browser setting should be or since it was an office system if the security is too high.
Ken B. responded:
If I acquired a used computer, the first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the operating system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been maintained, what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses and spyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody else's mistakes and
problems, possibility of kiddie porn, etc., and I wouldn't recommend that anyone else do either.
Malke added:
Since the machine was used, you should do a clean install of Windows.
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316941
*** Or, one can use my XP fresh install bootable floppy or bootable CD to help you out. Read the readme's first.
http://www.bootdisk.com/popfiles.htm
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5) Vista RAM Issue Explored
Haydon asked - If you have 4GB of RAM, it will only show as having 3GB of RAM in Vista, because 1GB is used for hardware. Does Vista allocate 1GB of RAM to hardware improve system performance?
Ken B. replied:
Not exactly. Note four things:
1. It's not all versions of Vista, it's only 32-bit Vista. This is not an issue in 64-bit Vista.
2. It's not just Vista. It's *all* 32-bit versions of Windows.
3. It's not 3GB, it's *around* 3GB--usually a little more than 3GB
4. It's not that the RAM is used for hardware, it's that that portion of the *address space* is used for hardware. The leftover GB or so of RAM just gets no address space to map it to.
Stephan R. explained further:
Ok this is how it works, I am going to attempt to explain it as best as I can.
This applies to pretty much any operating system, be it Linux, Windows, Mac, WinCE and other embedded systems with processors that have a MMU.
A 32-bit processor can address 32-bits of address space, so in other words, 4 gigabytes. In any multi tasking operating system, address space is split into two parts. One is called User space and it generally starts at address 0. The other part is called Kernel space and starts at whatever arbitrary address the kernel chooses for it. In case of WinXP for example, this is the 2 gigabyte, or if enabled via a special boot switch, the 3 gigabyte mark.
Now user-space is reserved for applications. Each single application gets its own copy of user space. So if there are 10 running processes, there are 10 user space mappings all starting at address 0. As the task manager switches between the processes, it sets up the correct mapping starting from address 0 for the process it is going to run next. Rinse and repeat for every process in the list and then start over.
So this is what enables every application to have it's own memory and without stepping on the memory of another application. The task manager has a list of memory pages, usually 4kb in size each and it has a list for each process which of these pages are assigned to it. So basically, if you have 2 gigs of memory then there are about 524288 4kb pages that can be assigned to the various applications. Once you run out of those pages, the system runs out of memory. These pages are assigned to each process in a contiguous manner starting from address 0 to however much memory an application needs to the end of user addressable space.
So on WinXP, since it has a 2 gig user space, it is impossible for any one application to use more than 2 gigs of space even if a system had 4 gigs as it can only address 2 gigs.
Now the second part, Kernel space cannot be used by an application. The various hardware in your system also needs room in the 4 gigs worth of address space. For example, the video memory of your video card is mapped into kernel space. So taking XP as an example, if you have 512 megs of memory, then XP assigns 512 megs of address space, of it's 2 gig kernel addressable space, to the video card. This then leaves 1.5 gigs available for other hardware, the kernel's own memory, etc.
Now all this is done by a Memory Management Unit on the CPU that uses a pagetable directory to figure out what page goes where. It's a really neat thing that can map any 4kb page from *anywhere* in memory *to* anywhere in memory. This is the most basic thing that even allows multi tasking. It however can only map up to 4 gigs of space since the CPU only has 32-bit registers.
Now since hardware also has to be mapped into the same address space as memory, any address space used up by your various installed hardware for addressing, such as video memory, can no longer be used for anything else in the pagetable.
So that means that if you have 4 gigs of ram, any amount of addressable space mapped to hardware and the kernel cannot be mapped to anything else anymore. That is why you see less than 4 gigs available.
64-bit CPUs don't have this problem because instead of 4 gigs of addressable space, they have 17,179,869,184 gigs of addressable space.
I don't think even MS can manage to fill up that many gigs of space anytime soon.
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