Welcome to Bo's Windows XP Tips-n-Tricks Page 14

Check Your DVD Codec
New Connection Wizard is Greyed Out (Two Methods)
Logging on as Administrator
A Simple But Useful Tip
Boot Defragging
Using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility in Windows XP
Command Line Switches for Windows Explorer
Plus 2 other tips
Decrease The Timeout Value For Non-Responsive Applications (XP)
Windows Explorer is so Sloooooooooooooooooooooooow
Slow network browsing in Windows XP
From our Same Thing Only Different Department
Quick Access to Programs
CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM drive appears to be missing after you install Windows XP
After you install Microsoft Windows XP, the CD-ROM drive, the DVD-ROM drive, or CD-ROM R/W drive may not be visible in the My Computer window. Additionally, there may be question marks on the devices that are listed under CD-ROM drives in Device Manager.. - Offsite - MSKB
Open Your System Drive Quickly

When Windows Tries To Download Updates, An Access Violation Error May Occur
Disable Error Reporting
“Cannot Install This Hardware” Error
Obtain More Start Menu Space
Do Your Network Folder Sharing Quickly and Easily
Prevent Tasks From Consuming All Your CPU
Regedit stays expanded
Problem: You're upgrading from Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition (Me) to Windows XP, and in the middle of installing, your PC stops responding.
Solution: This article describes various troubleshooting methods to use when you encounter problems during installation - off site
CD-R drive or CD-RW drive is not recognized as a recordable device
When you attempt to burn data to a compact disc recordable (CD-R) drive or compact disc rewritable (CD-RW) drive, you may not have the option to send data to the CD-ROM drive. - Offsite - MSKB
CD-Rom or DVD Disappeared
Remove Old Restore Points
Cool My Computer Toolbar

Windows periodically creates restore points, such as before a driver installation or new software installs, in case something goes wrong and the user has to 'restore' their PC to a previous time. For many users, the restore points are never used and do nothing more than take up hard drive space. This tip will show you how to clean out all but the most recent restore point by using the system's Disk Cleanup Utility.

Congratulation, you have now successfully cleaned out many unnecessary and old system restore points.

CD-Rom or DVD Disappeared

The below will require a System Registry Edit. If you have never used the System Registry Editor before, please see:

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Blaisdell's Little Corner of the Web, Bohunky0, nor any of it's affiliates can guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Bo's Tweaky Clean Windows

Remove the Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values completely from the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Click Start, Run and enter REGEDIT Go to the branch indicated above, locate the Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values. Right click each and select Delete.

If you desire, you can right click on the {4D36E965..........} branch and select Export. This will create a REG file that can be re-imported should you find a need to.

You may also want to delete the following 4 Registry keys, as per the instructions above:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdr4_2K
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdralw2k
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdudf
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UdfReadr

Under Windows XP, if you use a particular program very often and ALWAYS want it to appear on the top of your start menu even if Windows doesn't include it in the list of commonly used programs, you can use the "Pin To" feature to put it there. A shortcut which is "pinned" in the menu will appear at the very top, left side of the start menu. To put a program there, find it in the Start menu, then right-click on it and choose "Pin to Start Menu".

Slow network browsing in Windows XP
From our Same Thing Only Different Department

There’s a common problem in Windows XP that can make network browsing very slow.

If the 'My Network Places' folder contains a shortcut to a network share, then each refresh of the explorer window will attempt to read icon information from every file in the remote location, causing the system to slow to a crawl.

Removing all shortcuts from 'My Network Places' will return the system response to normal.

Every time you open a file via a UNC name, Windows XP will automatically add another shortcut to the 'My Network Places' folder - so the issue tends to get worse over time.

You can prevent the automatic addition of shortcuts by setting HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoRecentDocsNetHood

If the DWORD value doesn't exist, create it by right clicking in the right hand pane and choosing DWORD Value.

Similar issues affect the Start menu and Desktop - placing a shortcut to a network resource in either location can drastically slow down system response, particularly when the network resource is unavailable. Shortcuts to Domains or Machines don't suffer from these problems as they always have the same icon.

There are methods of accessing the network that will avoid this performance problem:

Method 1
Create a drive map and use this to browse the network files.

Method 2
Create a shortcut to explorer.exe and pass the UNC name of the resource.
e.g.
explorer /e, \\Server\FileShare

A second issue that will also slow down browsing is the desktop.ini feature. This affects Windows XP Sp1 clients using mapped drives or UNC connections.

When listing a directory Windows XP will search for and parse Desktop.ini files. This will noticably affect performance when a large number of subfolders are involved - it does this for the current folder and one level down the directory tree.

Desktop.ini can be used to provide a custom icon, thumbnail view, pop up description and background pattern.
In additions to this 'eye candy' desktop.ini can make normal file folders into 'Special Folders' (eg Fonts, History, Temporary Internet Files, "My Music", "My Pictures", and "My Documents").

Desktop.ini files are only visible in Windows Explorer if you first un-check "Hide protected operating system files" (under Tools, Options, View)

To see the file locks created by this process run the following command on the file server, while an XP client is (slowly) listing a large directory:

A quick solution to this performance problem is to delete the non-essential .ini files:

Before doing this in bulk you should compare your existing folders with some empty folders that don't have any desktop.ini files to see if this improves browsing response time:

To delete all desktop.ini files one level below the current directory run the following from the command line:

Related:

SysInternals - Mark Russinovich traces the same issue (it's fixed in Vista)
Q904160 - File sharing on the network is slower than expected (WinServer 2003 SP1)
Q841978 - Explorer.exe stops responding when you use network shortcuts (XP)
Q834350 - Access to network resources is slower
Q823372 - Word documents take a long time to open
Q822219 - Slow File Server Performance
Q816375 - XP Explorer pane flickers
Q814112 - Network shares open slowly SMB/AntiVirus scanning
Q320138 - Disable automatic search for network printers and folders (XP)
Q320829 - Increase the Request Size Buffer on the file server - (try between 32 and 64 Kb)
Q315237 - 100-Megabit network packets
Q321281 - Desktop.ini does not work correctly when you customise the Default Profile
Q312403 - Distributed Link Tracking
Q245800 - Delay viewing shares (Windows 98/2000)
MFT Zone - Tune NTFS for small files
CleanMgr - Automated cleanup of Temp files, recycle bin
Max Cached Icons - Resize the icon cache

Question: Hey Bo, love your site. I am having a problem with Windows Explorer starting and running very slowly. Sometimes it feels like it takes forever to launch. Any ideas how to repair it or get it back to the way it used to be? Thanks, Leny

We hope that you continue to find some use for us and thanks for high five, it is more appreciated then you can know.

Answer: Repairing Internet Explorer is more than likely what you need to do. Yeah, I know, your problem has to do with Windows Explorer but not with Internet Explorer. Well, big surprise here, they are almost one in the same despite Redmond's claims to the contrary.

First check that no-one has been playing with the settings! Launch Internet Explorer and select
Tools | Internet Options | Advanced | Restore Defaults.

Then close and reopen internet explorer. If its still playing up try each one of these steps in turn...

When you shut down XP, it attempts to end all tasks that are currently running. If a task does not respond nor shuts down, XP will wait a specific amount of time before forcing the task to end. This time frame is referred to as the timeout. If you do not want XP to wait as long to end a non-responsive task, you can decrease the timeout value.

This tweak requires that you open and edit the System Registry Editor. Be sure you know what you are doing to perform this task safely. For more on the System Registry please see

Bo's Tweaky Clean Windows

If you're a Reghead like me you work in the System Registry all of the time, tweaking this, eliminating that, coaxing this to be more efficient and just generally Geeking up everything under the hood of your system.

This how to article utlizes the editing of a very important system file. If you are unsure of the Registry Editor and its uses, please see: Bo's Tweaky Clean Windows

When you enter regedit and expand a folders and open regedit later the folder stays expanded. This get real old, real fast so how can you disable this?

Often times, for me at least, I have to launch a process which consumes a lot of processing power, such as archiving a large database or compressing a large file. These processes use so much of your CPU that your computer is practically unusable until it is done (if you have a single core processor). Simply change the priority this process has by doing the following:

Since pretty much any process you launch normally will run will with normal priority, they will get the CPU first and your greedy applications will get what is left over.

A reader asks: I have a problem. Sense installing Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 my Windows Explorer views default to thumbnail view for all files and folders. I like to use the List view. I have been unable to change the folder views using the standard

Tools | Folder | View Tab, Options and pressing Apply to all folders will not work any longer.

Answer: there are several reasons for this problem and not the least of which is an install of a beta product. Lets face it, it is in beta testing so that those who are attempting to see how the program will work in the real world. You may be expecting to much from a beta product.

On a side note, we too have seen this problems with our test machine and we have already sent a beta error report to Microsoft concerning this issue so they are now aware of it. Another problem we found is that Outlook Express 6.x is not going to allow a default browser different from MSIE 7.0 Beta 2. This is troubling to us as the DOJ as well as many users have complained about the need to run only Microsoft Products on the Windows brand operating systems.

To work a round this problem for Windows Explorer, add the /E switch to a shortcut of Windows Explorer then launch the program. Here is how:

Let's say you need to copy a bunch of files from one folder into another and the destination folder has older versions of some of the files. For example, say you've written a book and have revised several of the chapters, and now you want to copy those chapters to a backup folder in which you store duplicate copies of everything you're working on. If you don't care about keeping the old versions of your chapters, you can select Yes to All when asked whether to overwrite the older files in your backup folder:

But what if you don't want to overwrite the older versions? In that case, you could click on the No button each time the above dialog box appears. But if you're copying a number of files and there are lots of potential overwrites, then you'll be sitting there clicking on No for quite some time and muttering, "Why didn't they include a No to All button on this thing?" Fortunately, there's a way around this problem: hold down the Shift key when you click on No. This prevents Windows Explorer from overwriting any files that have the same name in the destination folder, which essentially achieves the same effect as if a No to All button were included.

When you first got Windows out of the shrink wrapped box it came in (This a problem in itself) you probably created a Shortcut to Start | All Programs | Accessories | Windows Explorer and right clicked it and sent it directly to the Desktop. Lets face it, Windows Explorer is a very important tool for all users who keep track of what is going on at any one time with the rot folders of the file manager tree. Drilling down through a ton of menus to get to the program or file you want is tedious and oft times unnecessary.

If you are like me most likely the first thing you wanted was the Quick Launch bar but Windows XP doesn't have that feature as a default. Why? Such is the wonder of the Redmond juggernaut. You got Quick Launch up and running as one of the first things you did right?

Most likely you dropped the Windows Explorer icon somewhere near the Outlook Express icon and made it visible so you could click on it any time you needed it.

Is there a shortcut to this very important file manager? Well, yes there is and it is this:

Press and hold down on the Windows Key (The key between the Ctrl and alt keys) and press E.

Can't uninstall an application using Windows XP? The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility may be able to help you wash your Windows clean.

Not able to remove or uninstall an application in Windows XP using either the Uninstall option or the Add/Remove Programs tool? Try using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. As long as you installed the application using the Windows Installer, this utility will remove all the folders, files, registry keys, and entries from your system and allow you to start over with a clean slate.

If you only want to share a single folder on a network, you can just right click on it, go to “Sharing and Security”, and check the “Share this folder on the network box”. If you want to share numerous folders and set them up easily, do as follows:

Do this for all of the folders you want to share and you will be done in no time!

If you're like me and have tons of programs you use on your PC on a daily basis, you may want to have a little extra room in your start menu for quick access. To do this, you can remove the "Frequently Used Programs" list from the start menu completely. This will open up that big white space on the left that you see when you click your start menu. Not sure how to use the System Registry Editor? See Bo's Tweaky Clean Windows

After doing this, you can add your own shortcuts to the list by dragging and dropping them into the Start Menu where you please.

If you want to allow faster booting by having Windows XP, enable boot defrag. This will put all of the boot files together on the hard drive for faster access. To do this:

When you replace a defective network adapter in your computer with a later version of the same model network adapter, and then try to install the driver files for the new network adapter, you receive an error message similar to the following:

Cannot install this hardware. There was a problem installing this hardware. Network_Adapter_Model_Name… An error occurred in the installation of this device. The name is already in use as either a service name or a service display name.

This behavior may occur if the defective network adapter leaves entries in the registry when you remove it from your computer.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Not to sure about the uses and benifits of using the System Registry Editor? See Bo's Tweaky Clean Windows

This is an annoying but easy to fix issue. As you may have noticed, every time a Microsoft program crashes in Windows XP, an Error Report dialog appears asking you if you would like to send the information to Microsoft. If you would like to disable these messages, then do the following:

After this, you will no longer have to worry about a message window popping up every time a program shuts down incorrectly! That's the plus side, the down side that Microsoft claims they use this as a tool to better understand real world problems and prepare a fix for these types of problems.

Have you ever needed to login as an administrator but didn't see an option to at the Windows login screen? Unless and until you have run into issues and fixing XP (underwhich case you have to go to Safe Mode to login as Administrator), you can get to the administrator screen by simply pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE twice at the main screen. Even if you're not currently experiencing problems, why not give this a test run to see what you can do?

Check to see if "rasapi32.dll" file is only located in the "C:\Windows\System32" folder. If not, rename any other instance of the "rasapi32.dll" files to the "rasapi32.old" files.

Reboot the computer and check to see if this issue still occurs. If this issue still occurs, try the following method to overwrite the current "rasapi32.dll" file:

1. Insert the Windows XP CD (I will assume that the drive letter of CD-ROM is E. If you have installed more then one drive substitute your drive letter for E:.).
2. Click the Start Menu and choose the "Run…" command (Shortcut is Windows Key plus R). Input the following command:

Windows Automatic Updates tries to download updates on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based or Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, an access violation error may occur in the Esent.dll file.

This problem occurs when Windows Automatic Updates tries to start the storage engine to update the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database. When Windows Automatic Updates tries to start the storage engine, the storage engine encounters a problem in the transaction logs that belong to the database.

For those of you who have DVD players on your computer and are having trouble playing them, you may find that there is a problem with your DVD decoder. If it is out of date or incompatible with your DVD Drive, you may be experiencing difficulty. In order to find out what codec you have, if any at all, you should try these easy steps:

Now you can go on Google or any other search engine and type in your codec name to find information on common problems with it. Note that this has only been tested on Windows XP and may not work on 98 or 2000.