At Sixes And Sevens

Method #2:
Go to Start > Search, and select “All Files and Folders”. Select “More Advanced Options” and place a checkmark next to the “Search Hidden Files and Folders” option. Ensure that “Search System Folders” and “Search Subfolders” are also checked. In the “All or Part of the File Name” box, type in “ie.inf “. In the “Look In” drop-down, select C: (or the letter of the drive that contains the Windows folder). Click Search.

In the search results pane, look at the ie.inf file located in the WindowsInf folder. Right-click on this file and select Install from the context menu. Reboot when the file copy process is complete.
 
Partitions Going Poof!
Q. I have a P IV 3 GHz on an Intel original 915GAV motherboard with Windows XP Pro SP2. I also have an 80 GB SATA hard drive and a DVD-ROM drive. I recently installed a 40 GB IDE hard drive as a primary slave, because there is only one IDE slot. The problem is that the partitions on this drive suddenly disappear from My Computer, and are visible only after I restart the computer.
Vivek Dembla
 
It seems that the power connector of the IDE drive is faulty and needs to be replaced. This is a serious issue and needs to be remedied as soon as possible; it can cause permanent damage to your hard drive.

Of Insomnia And Amnesia
Q. I have a P IV 2.66 GHz on an Intel original motherboard (D101GGC), with 512 MB of RAM and Windows XP Pro SP2. When I open the Power Options in the Control Panel, I see the Hibernate option greyed out.

Also, when I run Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I get an error message: “Grand Theft Auto VC: not enough memory.”
Harpreet Singh

It is clear that the drive where your Windows paging file and hibernate file exists does not have enough free space, and that you are therefore low on virtual memory, which is required by most applications to run properly. Free up space on this drive by deleting unnecessary files and/or moving data to another partition.

We recommend you remove the paging file completely from the drive where Windows is installed-place it on a different drive. Since you have 512 MB of RAM, we recommend a page file of 768 MB (both initial and maximum values).

On The Back-Burner
Q. I have an Intel 915GAV motherboard with an Intel P IV 3.0 GHz processor, NVIDIA GeForce 6200, 1 GB RAM, and a 160 GB SATA hard drive. Is it possible to run Windows Vista on my computer? Also, I have a Sony DRU-820 DVD-Writer and an HP DVD 635 DVD-Writer. Burning a 4 GB DVD at 8x takes more than 20 minutes-why? I am running Windows XP SP2 and using Nero.
Amit Mukim

As for your first question, it is indeed possible to install Vista on your computer; your system configuration meets the requirements.

There could be several reasons for the DVD-Writer taking this long to write. Check if your drive is operating using DMA mode. Open the Device Manager by running “devmgmt.msc”. Under “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers”, check the properties of all the channels, and in each case, check in the Advanced Tab whether the Transfer Mode is set to DMA or PIO. Set it to DMA if it is PIO. Then restart your PC. The next thing you should do is to check whether your C: drive has at least 5 GB of free space. If it doesn’t, make some. If freeing up more than 5 GB is not possible, open Nero, select File > Options, and click on the Cache tab. Set the Cache location to a drive with at least 5 GB of free space.

When you burn a DVD, you should disable programs that run in the background, especially the anti-virus. You should also defragment your C: drive. If your problem persists, try using a different brand of recordable media. Update your drive’s firmware as a last resort.

Am I Unwelcome?
Q. I use Windows XP Professional. For the past few days, I have not been able to see the Welcome screen, and have to use the classic login. I want to enable Welcome screen so I can use Fast User Switching. I have tried changing the settings in User Accounts (“change the way users log in”) in the Control Panel, but it didn’t help.
Sunny Jha

Open the Group Policy Editor by running “GPEDIT.MSC”. Now go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon. Double-click on “Always use classic logon” in the right pane. Select the “Disabled” radio button and click OK. Close the Group Policy Editor.

 
Use the Group Policy Editor to restore the Welcome Screen

If XP won’t start, it may be due to a damaged boot sector, or missing (or corrupt) ntldr and/or ntdetect.com files.

To replace the damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com, you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console. At the command prompt, type in the following (where “X” is your CD-ROM drive letter) and allow the new files to overwrite the old ones.
COPY X:i386NTLDR C:
COPY X:i386NTDETECT.COM C:

Like we said, it could even be a damaged Boot Sector. In that case, what you need to do is, at the command prompt, type in “FIXBOOT” and press [Enter]. Then answer “Y”. Remember that this won’t cause any harm even if the boot sector is not damaged.

Deep Sleep
Q. I have Windows XP Pro installed with 1 GB of RAM. I recently noticed a 1 GB file called hiberfil.sys in the root of the C: drive. What is this file, and is it safe to delete it? It occupies so much disk space!
Pragat Mukesh

This is Windows’ “hibernate” file. It stores the contents of your RAM when you put your computer into hibernate mode, so its size is equal to that of the RAM installed. You cannot just delete this file; it is locked by Windows.

Your computer is currently configured to be able to hibernate. If you want to remove the hiberfil.sys file, you’ll need to disable hibernation: open the Control Panel. Double-click Power Options. Click the Hibernate tab, de-select the “Enable hibernation” checkbox, and click Apply. Restart your computer, and the hiberfil.sys file will be automatically deleted. Note that you now won’t be able to hibernate your PC.

Driving Me Crazy
Q. I recently bought a Nokia 6600. I am unable to use it as a modem to access the Internet on my PC. The modem is detected, but when I dial, it gives an error: “Error 777: modem on the remote computer is out of order.” Is the modem in the phone faulty, or am I doing something wrong?
Karan Lodhi

In all probability, you have installed your modem with an incorrect driver. Install the drivers either from the driver CD that came with your Nokia 6600, or download and install the latest drivers from www.nokia.com.

Help Needed-Literally!
Q. I installed Windows Vista RTM and it runs very well. I have several old WinHelp files (files with the .hlp extension). When I double-click to open these files, I see a message that I can download a Vista version of WinHelp from Microsoft. When I follow the link, I find that no such download exists. Where can I find them?
Bikram Ramani

Open Windows Explorer. Go to your Windows folder (C:Windows), and locate the existing winhlp32.exe. Right-click on the file, select Properties, and choose the Security tab. Click on Advanced, go to the Owner tab, and click Edit. Select your user name in the list, and then click OK four times to close all the Properties and Security windows. Right-click on the winhlp32.exe file again, select Properties, and then go to the Security tab again. Click Edit, then on Administrators in the list, and place a checkmark next to “Full control” in the Allow column. Click Yes, and then on OK in each of the two open Properties and Security windows.

Next, get the Windows XP SP2 version of winhlp32.exe. The size should be 283,648 bytes, and the version number should be 5.1.2600.2180. You can get it from any PC running Windows XP SP2, or from a Windows XP disc. Drag and drop the XP SP2 version of winhlp32.exe into your Windows folder, replacing the Vista version that’s there.

If you’re not the Administrator of your PC, you won’t be able to replace the Vista version of the winhlp32.exe file that came with XP SP2. Just leave the XP version of winhlp32.exe on your Desktop, and then just drag and drop .hlp files onto it to view them.

The first possible reason for this happening is that the component registration for the Jscript.dll file or for the VBSript.dll file is corrupt; the second is that one or both of these files have become unregistered. The solution is to re-register the Jscript.dll and Vbscript.dll files. To do this, start the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd > [Enter]) and run the commands “regsvr32 jscript.dll”and “regsvr32 vbscript.dll”.

A Burning Question
Q. I have a P IV with 1 GB of RAM and Windows XP Pro SP2. I have a Sony CD-RW which has performed very well thus far. But for the past few days, I have not been able to burn any data using the drive. It shows up as a CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer, and the Recording tab is not displayed in its Properties dialog box.
Mahesh Kumar

A recordable drive is sometimes recognised by Windows as a non-recordable device, and this can be easily solved. Follow these steps after opening the Registry Editor:
1. Navigate to the sub-key
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerCD BurningDrives

2. Go to File > Export, type in “Drive key backup” in the dialog box, and click Save.

3. In the left pane, click on the “Volume{GUID}” folder under Drives (“GUID” here is a 32-character hexadecimal value).

4. Double-click on Drive Type in the right pane. In the Value data box, enter “2” and click OK.

Quit the Registry Editor. Windows should now recognise the drive as a CD-RW drive.

A Control Freak
Q. I have upgraded to Windows XP from Windows 98, and many icons in the Control Panel do not show up at all. How can I restore them?
Shashank Mathur

This is caused by a bug in Windows XP where certain Registry settings left over from previous versions are misinterpreted. Here is how to (easily!) fix the problem: in the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl Panel. Delete the “don’t load” key entirely, and close the Registry Editor. The missing Control Panel icons should appear immediately.