AskDacs - April 2006

Bruce Preston, Moderator

Members with questions who are unable to attend the general meeting may submit questions for the session by sending them to askdacs@dacs.org. Please include as much descriptive information as you can.

Q. When I boot Windows XP, the start up is slow, especially when displaying the desktop icons. I've already done anti-virus and spyware checks. The icons display as generic pages, and eventually change to the appropriate icon for the application or file type. What is happening?

A. It sounds like your icon cache has been corrupted, or is full of spurious icons that you no longer need. This can happen if you use your desktop as temporary space, e.g. you save a lot of temporary files, downloads, etc. It can take Windows time to sort things out. There is an easy way to reset the cache— boot the machine in Safe Mode, let it re-create the desktop, and once the boot has completed, then restart the machine normally. Safe Mode deletes the icon cache and then assembles a new one. Another thing that can really slow down the boot process is having lots of fonts defined on the machine (in the \Windows\Fonts folder.) Programs such as desktop publishing programs, greeting card programs, etc., all install hundreds of fonts. If you only have one or two such programs, that isn't a problem, but if you have many, you will definitely observe performance degradation.

Safe Mode: For those unfamiliar with booting in Safe Mode - as soon as your machine finishes the POST (Power On Self Test— where you see the BIOS information or the hardware's logo) but before you see the Windows splash screen (the Windows logo)— press the F8 key. You will get a character-mode menu screen - select SAFE MODE. Safe mode will load generic drivers that simplify the Windows installation - no hardware-specific drivers etc. The display will be in standard VGA mode (640x480 and only 256 colors) so the screen will look rather bland. "Safe Mode" will be displayed in each corner. Safe Mode is usually used for trouble shooting - in our case we just need to have it rebuild the cache which it does automatically. To get out of Safe Mode, shut down or restart the computer normally.

Fonts: Your active fonts are in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. You may control its contents via Control Panel / Fonts. The proper way to install fonts is via FILE / Add Font, rather than by just copying the font file to the folder. For fonts you are unlikely to use, copy them to a different folder and then delete them from the FONTS folder.

Q. Has Microsoft published the hardware requirements for Vista yet? How many people intend to upgrade to Vista when it comes out?

A. We had a show of hands, and very few people indicated that they intend to upgrade to Vista. This is probably because few people (other than beta participants) have any idea as to what Vista will provide that isn't in XP. The general feeling was that they'd use Vista if it comes on a new machine, but few (at present) intend to upgrade current systems. Back to the hardware requirements - Vista will probably run find on any machine made within the past two or three years, although it is thought that machines may need more recent display adapters (video cards) to make use of the more advanced video features.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx

In general, a machine with a sticker "Designed for Windows XP" 32-bit PC, or "Designed for WIndows XP x64Edition" will work. Microsoft's site just says "a modern CPU". They also recommend a minimum of 512MB of system memory, and a DirectX 9-class graphic processor board.

Q. I've heard that Windows Media Player sends a lot of information somewhere - what are the privacy issues?

A. The default settings when you install Windows Media Player (or any of the others, such as Real Player, Music Match, etc for that matter) are to collect unspecified information and report it. You can defeat this in their settings panel. One setting that you might want to leave active is the ability to identify audio CDs when loaded in the drive— this will go out to a CD database server and provide the name, track list and timings for the CD. In Windows Media Player 10, look at TOOLS, then OPTIONS and closely examine the SECURITY and PRIVACY pages. It is recommended that on the PRIVACY page you un-check the "Customer Experience Improvement Program" and the "Enhanced Content Provider Services" items. These are the things that "call home".

Q. My desktop system has an internal Lucent WinModem for use with my dial-up internet service. Over time the best speed that I have been able to obtain has deteriorated from the mid-40 kbps to the mid-20 kbps range.

A. A clue is the term "WinModem". A WinModem is an internal modem that relies upon the computer's CPU for all data compression and decompression processing. To get data transmissions over 28kbps it is necessary to compress data - much like using the ZIP utility on both ends of the link. If your CPU is busy with other tasks, your throughput will suffer. We suspect that over time other applications have crept into your system, either by invitation or otherwise. Some concurrent applications are pretty much mandatory - such as your real-time anti-virus protection; but other things, such as Norton's System Doctor, real-time anti-spyware, browser helpers (which are prime-candidates for spyware) etc., all steal CPU cycles to the detriment of your throughput.

By the way, WinModems will only work with the Windows operating system. If you have any interest in other operating systems, such as Linux, you will have to get a modem with its own processor. All external modems that connect to a serial port will have their own processor.

There followed a session in which we looked at applications and processes (using Windows Task Manager) and then used Google to identify what they were. While we couldn't use HiJack This! (free download, go to the author's site www.merijn.org for links to download mirrors) on the hospital's machine, HiJack This! identifies many items that are not exposed by Windows Task Manager. Word of caution: HiJack This! makes absolutely no evaluation as to whether an item is good, bad or indifferent - it just reports that something is present in the machine. Use Google and examine the first several "hits" to identify what the process is and decide whether to keep it or not.

Q. I tried to update my subscription to Norton Anti-Virus via their web-based interface and got into essentially an endless-loop. I ended up with 194 copies in their shopping cart. Has anyone else had problems?

A. Norton has had problems with renewals for years. For example, this article http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,81150,00.asp dated Jan 23, 2002 relates problems. Cynical people feel that it is to encourage purchase of a full upgrade.

Follow-up: The questioner confirmed that it was less expensive to uninstall, and then purchase a new copy with rebate from a discount source than to pay the subscription update fee.


 
 
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