http://www.bootdisk.com/ 014 June 2007
HouseCall
Welcome to the 14th Edition of HouseCall
INDEX
1) WinBuilder - Build Bootable Environments
2) vnetsup.vxd Missing In Win9X
3) External Optical Drives
4) Can Old Restore Point Directories Be Deleted?
5) New XXclone Article
6) Hard To Find Start-Up Programs
7) Pop-Up Blocker Tester
8) Can I Split ISO's?
9) DOS Printing Problem Through XP
10) XP2 Takes 5 Minutes To Boot
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1) WinBuilder - Build Bootable Environments
Often if you have a hobby like I do you get turned on to some of the most promising utilities. Try WinBuilder, freeware from Nuno Brito:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?autocom=Downloads
Readme.1st:
http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/wbuilder.txt
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2) vnetsup.vxd Missing In Win9X
deet posted - When I turn my desktop PC on, instead of the Windows98SE desktop with all the icons being displayed, I get several messages regarding various device files which are listed in system or registry, but are not found on my machine. One example is vnetsup.vxd. The error message also says if this was deleted in error, I should reinstall the application it was associated with. I have no idea what this means and what I should do to correct the errors.
Ingeborg said:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=166832
meerkat adds:
If you`ve got your 98SE CD, then. Go to Run, type in SFC, have the Install CD handy. This should replace any corrupted system files.
*** Sometimes, and/or very often you have to uninstall your all your network protocalls, reboot, and install them again.
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3) External Optical Drives
Luke O. posted - I am having problems with my laptop drive. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Anyway, I need an external USB drive that can read and write CDs & DVDs. Right now my laptop drive, when it works, writes and the blazing speed of 1x!
phony answered:
I just got a Plextor at www.newegg.com and it works great.
http://www.plextor.com/english/products/px-608cu.html
I've always had the best luck with Plextor optical drives, and I highly recommend them. This one powers itself completely off the USB ports. You have to plug it in to two USB ports, or one USB port and the included AC adapter.
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4) Can Old Restore Point Directories Be Deleted?
Richard Lewis H. wrote - I've got lots of old directories in my Windows directory with names like "$NtUninstallKB823182$". Are these old restore point directories and can the be removed to recover disk space?
databaseben said:
you can go to start | run | cleanmgr and see how much windows can do for you on its own.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315246
Bert K. replied:
$NTUninstall folders - Description:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Hotfix_backup.htm
Terry R. added:
Those are updates corresponding to the Knowledgebase article number at the end. If all of your updates are working properly and you don't think you'll ever uninstall them (most don't), you can delete at least the old ones, maybe keeping a month or two current just in case. After you delete the folder, you'll want to open Add/Remove programs (with Show updates checked) and click the Remove button on the update folder you removed. An error message will appear and will prompt to remove it from the list. Go ahead and do that with each folder name you delete
Rock said:
One additional point, don't delete the $hf_mig$ folder. It's needed for future updates.
Poprivet adds:
Those are actually undelete information for each of the windows updates you've received. Their only purpose is to remove an update that's been received and installed. They're also used in places that will show you what updates you have installed.
Yes, you can delete them with no ill effect. You just wont be able to uninstall their related update afterwards; no biggie once an update's in and been working for a week or so.
BUT -- you'll find that deleting them will not gain you any substantial disk space. In the overall scheme of gigabyte drives, they take a very tiny amount of space.
It's better to use the XP Cleamngr; it finds much more space for you.
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5) New XXclone Article
It's been a few years since I wrote about XXclone but this is an email I just received and may be of s some assistance to you.
To the Author of HouseCall
First of all thanks a lot for this wonderful product Xxclone you have on your webpage. I spent a couple of nights tinkering with Ghost 2003 to make a clone system disk on a new drive (Seagate SATA 320GB) from my old drive (Samsung SATA 80GB) on my Desktop Pentium 4 running XP Pro. I tried everything they told at Symantec including physically disconnecting the old drive immediately after the clone. It just wont boot.
Completely dejected and disgusted, I was meandering thru Google and found reference to Xxclone at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootlist/233.htm (BootLIST). I thought of giving it a try. It seemed to be tailor made for what I had in mind. Which was:
1. Clone my old drive C: (system) partition to new drive F: (active) partition.
2. Change the hard disk sequence in BIOS.
3. Reboot to Windows using the new disk.
That is what exactly happened. During my research with Ghost I deduced that if I can somehow switch the drive letters after changing the drives in BIOS, I will be home free. But neither Ghost nor Disk Management provides any such simple solution. After going thru the Xxclone.chm, I was reasonably certain that your preboot swapping of drive letters is what the doctor ordered. And it did the job! I am sure you went thru the same nightmare as me before designing Xxclone. I don't know if I need to upgrade to the Pro version, because I already use Freebyte backup. And it does the incremental backups well. http://www.freebyte.com/fbbackup
I have a post-clone suggestions for whatever it is are worth:
PROBLEM:
Though the system partitions are switched when we change the boot drives, the other partitions retain the same drive letters as before (sticky letters due to Disk Management I suppose) e.g. the D: now will be from the old drive. It is perfectly working of course. But not elegant. I like all the partitions from first drive neatly together followed by the second drive partitions. It also avoids mishaps if you forget.
SOLUTION:
1. Start Disk Management Console (Programs | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Storage | Disk Management)
2. Change the drive letters from the old drive partitions D:, E:, F: etc, one by one to P:, Q:, R: etc (or anything else beyond the last drive letter in the console). Change by right clicking the chosen partition and click "Change Drive Letters and Paths". Click "Change" and then choose the new letter assignment followed by "OK"
3. Once all the old drive letters have been migrated to beyond, start changing the new drive's partition letters to D:, E:, F: etc. Then go back and change the P:, Q:, R: etc to letters following the new drive partitions (actually you can leave them as is also with loss of some DOS memory. Remember "LASTDRIVE=" from MSDOS days?)
4. While you are at it, you can also fiddle the drive letter assignment of the CD/DVD drives to something permanent. These letters get shifted around a lot if you remove one of the hard disks or have external drives/USB drives attached. Thanks a lot again and thanks to BootLIST also for pointing me in the right direction.
SAR.
*** For more information see:
XXCLONE:
http://www.xxclone.com/
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6) Hard To Find Start-Up Programs
nick posted - Got a couple of programs/services being auto started on XP Pro SP2. They show up in MSCONFIG Services, but that does not tell me where they are started from.
I checked all the Startup folders in Documents and Settings, I have checked all the .ini files, config,sys, and autoexec.bat, and I have checked all the registry entries for Run, RunOnce, and RunServices in both HKEY_Current_User and HKEY_Local_Machine. No dice.
Where else are services started? OBTW - these are services for non-microsoft products, such as spybot and adaware.
JS answered:
Try Autoruns from the MS Windows SysInternals site:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx
This will show all apps/etc. that load/run when you first boot and selectively allow you to stop any that you don't want.
Note: To get additional details on an item in the list you may need to highlight the item (right click) and use the 'Search Online' option to get the details, especially useful for the more obscure items in the list.
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7) Pop-Up Blocker Tester
Starman asked - I'm running WIN XP (service pack 1) and want to know how I go about testing my computer to see if it has a pop-up blocker enabled?
paolodistolfo answered:
You could just go to a popup test site like the following and see what will happen. If there are too many the popups appearing, I'll suggest a browser upgrade.
If there are too many the popups appearing, I'll suggest a browser upgrade.
*** Firefox seems to do a pretty good blocking of popups by default:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
However, some sites may require you to accept pop-ups in order to correctly see the page and/or the full content. To enable Pop-ups in Firefox, go to Tools | Options | Content | and one may uncheck Block pop-up windows, or you can even click on Exceptions on that screen and put in the sites you want to see the popups.
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8) Can I Split ISO's?
will_usher inquired - I'm installing software on my PC by mounting one ISO file (with DAEMON manager) but the software asks me to insert the 4th CD at some point (i.e. the 4th ISO file) - Is there a way of splitting one ISO file into four somehow?
Solar answered:
Get a copy of PowerISO. The following is from its FAQ:
Q: Can I Split the image file to multiple volumes?
A: Yes. If you save the image file to a DAA format, you can split the image file to multiple volumes. PowerISO will automatically read the sub-volumes while extracting or mounting.
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9) DOS Printing Problem Through XP
Nadeem wants to know - I have DFX-8000 printer connected with an XP professional installed PC on a Network, but whenever we send print through a DOS base program it's not printing. It is only working in windows environment.
FrankC. replied:
See if this helps:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314499
gattonorman added:
Alternatively, as it's working in Windows, you may want to see if Printfil can help: Print from DOS, Unix, Linux to Windows Printers:
USB, GDI, PDF, Fax - Printfil:
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10) XP2 Takes 5 Minutes To Boot
pyrosarco questioned - Since I got SP2, I have had two problems, one more serious than the other.
The more serious one is that when I restart my computer or just power up to begin the day, the computer takes 5 minutes to boot. It hangs on the windows screen and then a blank desktop. I have gone into msconfig and shut off all the unessentials, I even turned off my firewall and antivirus.
Ron M. replied:
See if Windows XP Boot logger helps you ID the culprit:
http://greatis.com/utilities/bootlogxp/
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