Windows fixes thread

[matt2000]

Welcome to the Windows XP fixes thread. this is the place to come if you have a problem with your PC. me and other members will post up our ideas, so if you have one, post it! i will be keeping track of what people post and giving it an index. so here's the list of current fixes and program suggestions:

XP SP2 missing hardware drivers fix
Packard Bell Diamond 1200 Plus driver fix
Network fix program
Crap cleaner (temp files remover)
faster boot times
fixing missing volume controls/no sound
Fan speed controls

the Linux fan's idea of a fix...

fix 1:

there is a problem with XP SP2, where any new hardware plugged in does not install, and the 'Add new hardware wizard' comes up. you search, and there are no drivers for your device. click back and go into manual install, and don't seach, choose to manually select device. on the next page of the wizard, click add new device. if the wizard tells you there are no drivers at all, you have this problem.

it is caused by manually pointing the add new hardware wizard to a location on your PC, and this screws up the registry key. you need to go into your registry editor and find the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\DevicePath. change this from %SystemRoot%\inf of whatever it is to C(or main windows drive letter):\windows\inf. this fixed the problem for me.

Matt

[Quiky]

Sure thing. Just add a link to every fix in your original post so it will remain organized.

If your 9x/2k/XP system is having strange networking issues, run WinSockFix.

For clearing out temporary files and garbage you don't need, try CrapCleaner.

[bone]

if pc boots slowly, use registry mechanic

[WheatKing]

best fix ever.. www.ubuntu.com



someone had to

[matt2000]

Originally Posted by WheatKing

best fix ever.. www.ubuntu.com



someone had to

hey Linux is what killed my PC a few months ago

[bone]

correction, you MADE linux kill your pc

[matt2000]

people who have this scanner are probably having problems with using it in windows. 'windows cannot detect the scanner' errors appear. this is not the scanner as i thought. do not throw it out. this is the driver. a replacement driver can be found here

[matt2000]

ok if you can't access windows volume controls, there is an error somewhere, and it sounds like your Wave volume has been muted of turned right down. if you don't want to perform a repair install of windows, use a free volume control program like this one

also, if you have AC97 audio drivers, try reinstalling them from your disk (you should have got one with the PC). if you don't have the disk and the volume control program doesn't work, get back to me and i'll sort you out a driver.

to check if you have AC97, go into control panel > system > hardware > device manager and look under sound, video and game controllers for Realtek AC'97 audio driver

Matt

[matt2000]

got new fans for your PC? need a way to control them?

if you don't really want to buy an external fan control unit with speed controls, try Speedfan. it's free and lets you control each fan in your PC. it can also be set to auto to adjust the speed to the temperatures of the PC.

[epp_b]

Ooh, this thread's gonna fill up quick

[october]

DISCLAIMER: EDIT THE REGISTRY ON YOUR PC AT YOUR OWN RISK!


Hi guys,
If your machine has 512MB or more of RAM, you can boost its performance by setting it up to keep the core system in RAM and deal less with (slower) hard disk. This is what I do on any new PC I build with 1Gb or more of RAM.

Note that doing this on a PC with LESS than 512MB RAM may/will slow the system down

Click the link below for animated instructions. I don't know how to embed the file into this post so I guess this will have to do. I'm mainly a hardware tech not a web designer.


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/461271...m_performance/

[andyhui01]

I have a question:
One of my Hard Drives on my desktop recently crashed... when I try to open it it says "The File in the Directory is Corrupted and Unreadable". Does this mean the HD is dead and I cannot recover the files? The funny thing is there are 2 partitions on the HD, but one died in the morning, the other died at night (>12 hours apart). When a HD crashes, doesn't it just crash full stop?

[Z102]

Originally Posted by andyhui01

I have a question:
One of my Hard Drives on my desktop recently crashed... when I try to open it it says "The File in the Directory is Corrupted and Unreadable". Does this mean the HD is dead and I cannot recover the files? The funny thing is there are 2 partitions on the HD, but one died in the morning, the other died at night (>12 hours apart). When a HD crashes, doesn't it just crash full stop?

It depends on what part of the disk fails. If you shake/hit/drop the disk while it's spinning, you'll most likely damage the surface of the disk in random areas, which may or may not contain data. I used for a long time a 40GB disk with a ton of damaged sectors. They were all in the first 10 GB or so, so I just made a 10 GB empty partition in the beginning and used the other 30 GB. It worked fine for almost a year. That's most likely what has happened to your disk: damaged sectors scattered around the disk. If that's the case, backup what you can before the damage spreads.

On the other hand, when that 40 GB disk finally died it did because of an electrical surge, which killed it and my main 80 GB disk. In this case, it was the disk boards what were damaged, and I was left with two paperweights: one branded Maxtor and one branded Samsung. The PC wouldn't even detect them, and I would have lost several important files, hadn't I backed them up in my other PC the night before.

So yes, it's possible that a disk fails in several stages, it depends on what is failing.

[october]

Hi guys,
Top PC tip: ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES!

Personally I have three copies of all my data on three different hard drives which I keep synched. So all in all if one fails then I have two to rely on to replace the data. Also I'm starting to archive my important stuff to dvd. All my Top Gear & Fifth Gear stuff for example are also on backup DVD just in case

I know it sounds obvious but you should ALWAYS have a backup & keep it up to date. Only when you lose your data will you realise that you should have done this months/years ago. It's not that hard to do nowadays & it could save your ass!


Typically when a drive is dying there are two major clues to this:

1: Hard drive access can becomes much slower on the drive. Some data cannot be read. Or no data at all. This is when the alarm bells should start to ring LOUDLY!

2: For no apparent reason your drive starts to make strange 'clicking' noises when nothing is happening on ths PC....ie: you're just browsing the net but your drive is 'clicking' away unusually. Again this is going to be terminal.

Mission critical stuff 'can' be recovered but at a price. Avoid this by having a backup & buy a replacement drive.

You only get out what you put in....

[The_Finn]

i was fooling around with my Quicklaunch placement and moved it out of my task bar now i have decided i liked it back where it was and moved it back. Now here is my issue i used to have a 3 "level" task bar the top was my quicklaunch and then the 2 "levels" below were for tasks I cannot seem to get it set back that way at all. when i try to expand the task bar my top 2 "levels" become the quick launch. Can anyone shed anylight as to how my might beable to get it back to the way it used to be

[matt2000]

i've just had a play around to try to replicate this and i think i can help . try unlocking the taskbar, clicking the quicklaunch part of the bar and drag that up. that will place the quicklauch on the top level with the start menu. this is what i got, think this is what you wanted

[The_Finn]

Originally Posted by matt2000

i've just had a play around to try to replicate this and i think i can help . try unlocking the taskbar, clicking the quicklaunch part of the bar and drag that up. that will place the quicklauch on the top level with the start menu. this is what i got, think this is what you wanted

thats where i am at right now. what i am looking for is 1 level of quick launch (the top) and 2 levels of tasks. I am willing to bet that if you look at what you have there it is only one level of tasks and 2 levels of qucklaunch ontop

[jeffy777]

Just re-installed windows and Windows Update automatically downloaded IE7. Well, I've been using Firefox for years so I haven't loaded up IE in awhile.

I was amazed at how much sharper and pleasant the text looked in IE compared to Firefox!

Couple images to compare:

IE text:



Firefox text:



Did some Googling and found out how to make all your Windows text look that nice:
http://liveslick.com/2007/09/22/why-...fox-and-opera/

Makes a huge difference! I don't know why I didn't do this before

[swek]

I need a fix for XP's broken avi indexing. TechZ gave me a link to