Ankush Shah
This happens when an incorrect driver was installed for the DVD-ROM. There are two solutions you can try.
Method 1: In the Control Panel, double-click System. Click on Device Manager in the Hardware tab. Click the drive with the question mark next to it. Click Uninstall in the Action menu and click OK when prompted for confirmation. Click “Scan for hardware changes” on the Action menu. Your drive should get automatically detected. If this does not happen, try Method 2.
Method 2: Open the Registry editor and go to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/{4d36e965-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
Click Export on the File menu, type “backupkey” in the file name dialog box, and click Save. This will help you revert to the original registry settings for this key, in case you make an error. Now delete the values LowerFilters and UpperFilters in the right-hand pane and restart your PC.
Password Poser
Q. I have Windows XP Professional SP2. I need to change the administrator password, but when I log on as Administrator and double-click User Accounts in the Control Panel, the Administrator account does not show up. So how do I change my admin password?
Rasick Patel
Go to Start > Run, enter “mmc” and hit [Enter]. This will start the Microsoft Management Console. Select File > Add/Remove Snap-in. Now
Change the Administrator password using MMC
click on Add and select the “Local Users and Groups” snap-in from the list, and click Add. Then click on Finish, Close, and OK. Expand Local Users and Groups and select Users. Right-click on Administrator in the right pane and click Set Password. Click Proceed in the dialog box that comes up, and type and confirm the new password. Click OK.
No Option…
Q. There is an option “Folder Options” under the Tools menu in Windows Explorer, but it isn’t there on my PC. What can I do to bring back the option?
Karmit Singh
Open the Group Policy Editor by typing in gpedit.msc in the Run dialog box. Navigate to the following location:
User ConfigurationAdministrative Templates Windows ComponentsWindows Explorer
On the right side, set the “Remove the Folder Options menu item” from the Tools menu to “Not Configured”, by double-clicking it and setting the appropriate option.
If you are using Windows XP Home, you will not be able to run the Group Policy Editor, and you will need to use the Registry Editor method, as follows.
Open the Registry Editor. Browse to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft WindowsCurrentVersionPolicies Explorer
Find the NoFolderOptions key and change the value to 0, assuming you have this key. If you don’t, just create it. Restart your computer.
Plug-N-Play
Q. I installed a certain program that disabled the CD Autoplay feature. How can I re-enable it?
Rajesh Kumar
Open the Group Policy Editor by typing in gpedit.msc in the Run dialog box. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System and double on Turn Autoplay off in the right pane. The default is “Not configured”. Set it to Disabled. This only works with Windows XP Professional.
If you have XP Home Edition, open the Registry Editor and navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesCDRom.
Double-click the DWORD “AutoRun” in the right pane and set its value to 1. Close the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
| Safe And Sound-And Secure Q. I currently have Windows XP Professional, and I want to reinstall XP. I have many files encrypted in my NTFS partition, and I want to be able to access them after reinstalling Windows. How do I do this?
Sarvesh Tonk Many people commit the blunder of encrypting files in an NTFS partition and then installing Windows afresh. There is no way of recovering the encrypted files once this is done. Therefore, making a backup of the encryption certificate is of utmost importance.
In the Run dialog box, enter mmc and click OK. This will start the Microsoft Management Console. Select File > Add/Remove Snap-in. Now click on Add and select the Certificates snap-in from the list, and click Add. Then click on Finish, Close, and OK. Go to Certificates-Current User > Personal > Certificates. Click the certificate that displays the words File Recovery under Intended Purposes. Right-click the certificate, point to All Tasks, and then click Export. Follow the instructions in the Certificate Export Wizard to export the certificate and associated private key to the Personal Information Exchanve or .pfx format. Make sure you deselect Delete the private key if the export is successful. You will be asked to password-protect your keys (to verify when importing later on). Save this .pfx file to a floppy disk or to some other secure location. Now, when you format, or if your keys get damaged, all you need to do is double-click on the exported key and follow the Wizard. You should get access to your files.
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Poof!
Q. I use Yahoo! Mail. I received some important mails, then accidentally deleted them. Can I get them back?
VSujan Rai
There is no way to retrieve mail that has been deleted from the Yahoo! Mail “Deleted Items” folder. Yahoo! clearly states: “Messages in your Trash folder are subject to deletion at any time.” Mail that is deleted can only be retrieved for sure during the session in which it was deleted; it could be lost forever after you log out of the session.
Try and contact Yahoo! Customer Care at http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/payforcare/payforcare-01.html. We would like to state that you need to be a paid subscriber to get help from here.
Pirates Burning (In) Hell!
Q. I installed Nero 7 on my Windows XP computer and registered it successfully. But after a few days, it suddenly started functioning in trial mode, and when I tried to enter the registration code, it said the code was incorrect. I uninstalled and reinstalled the application, but to no avail.
Shamit Kumar
This happens when you use a blacklisted key to register Nero. It may work for a few days, and it will stop functioning when Nero finds out that the key is blacklisted. If you haven’t purchased this copy of Nero 7, please do so at www.nero.com-it costs $79.99 (Rs 3,250). If you do own a legitimate copy, please get in touch with Nero support at http://support.nero.com.
Frozen Frame
Q. I have a Pentium IV 3.0 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 128 MB graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200), and Windows XP SP2. When I play games like Cricket 2005, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and more, the games freeze after 10 to 15 minutes. Some older games also freeze. Why is this happening?
Pugalenthi Iniabarathi
It is highly probable that your computer is overheating -either the CPU or the graphics card. Open the cabinet and look to see whether the CPU fan is functional. Check if all the fans in the cabinet as well as those in the power supply are working. If possible, remove the CPU heatsink, clean the contact surfaces of the CPU and heatsink with a clean piece of cloth, apply a thin coat of thermal paste such as Arctic Ice, and replace the heatsink on the CPU. Neatly arrange and tie up all the wires and cables to allow free airflow. If possible, purchase a rounded IDE cable and install it in place of the flat ribbon cable.
Refer to Going With The Flow featured in our January 2007 issue for more about cabinet ventilation.
If the problem persists, the fault lies with your graphics card, and there is little that can be done except downloading (from www.nvidia.com) and installing the updated drivers for your card. If that doesn’t help, you’ll need to get a new one.
Switch Glitch
Q. I have an Intel 915G based motherboard running Windows XP. When I try to play The Sims 2, I get the following error.
“The ialmrnt5 display driver has stopped working normally. Save your work and reboot the system to restore full display functionality. The next time you reboot the machine a dialog will be displayed giving you a chance to upload data about this failure to Microsoft.”
Manav Gowda
Download and install the latest Intel graphics drivers for your onboard graphics from www.intel.com. If the problem persists, do the following. Right-click on the The Sims 2 shortcut on your desktop and select Properties. Add a space and a “-w” at the end of the target field so that it looks something like this:
“C:Program FilesEA GAMESThe Sims 2TSBinSims2.exe” -w
The path may, of course, vary depending on where you installed the game. Click OK and try and run the game.
Q. I have a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM on Windows XP SP2. I want to connect to the Internet using my Soft V92 Data Fax Modem. When I try to do so, I find that the “Connect using a dialup connection” and the “Connect using a broadband connection” options are disabled.
Mohit Budhrani
There are a number of reasons for this to happen. First, make sure that the Remote Access Connection Manager service is Started, and that its Startup Type is set to Manual. On XP, you can check this by going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. If this doesn’t seem to work, one the following methods will do the trick.
Method 1
Open the Registry Editor. Locate and click the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionTelephonyCards
Delete NextID in the right pane. Exit the Registry Editor and restart the computer. Start the New Connection Wizard, and then create a new dial-up modem or PPPoE connection. If the issue is not resolved, try this:
Method 2
Open the Registry Editor. Locate and click the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionTelephony
Delete the key. Exit the Registry Editor. Perform an in-place upgrade of Windows XP, that is, a repair installation of Windows XP as follows. Boot using your Windows XP CD. When the system prompts you to press [R] to run the recovery console to repair Windows, do not do so. Choose to install a new version of Windows instead. The setup program will then proceed and detect the old copy of Windows. Now it will tell you to press [R] to repair it or [Esc] to install a new version. Press [R]; setup will then proceed to re-install Windows over the old version while retaining all programs, settings and data files. If this does not solve your problem, proceed to Method 3.
Method 3
Open the Control Panel and under Phone and Modem Options, set the area code and other desired settings. If the My Location item has not been created, the New Connection Wizard to create it should automatically appear. You can use this Wizard to enter the area code and other settings. When you’re finished with the Wizard, restart the computer. The Connect using a dial-up modem option should now be available to you.
Virus Hell
Q. I installed Norton Antivirus 2005 and it detected the virus Infostealer.Banker.D, but is not able to remove it.
Vidya Charan
Follow these steps to remove the virus. First disable System Restore. To do this, open System from the Control Panel, click on the System Restore tab, and check the box next to “Disable System Restore on all drives”.
Update the virus definitions and the anti-virus itself, then run a full and thorough system scan.
Delete the values created by the virus in the Registry: in the Registry Editor, delete these keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareHelper”DName” = “[ENCRYPTED STRING1]”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareHelper”Dom” = “[HEX VALUES]”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareHelper”GUID” = “[ENCRYPTED STRING2]”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareClassesCLISD”[TROJAN_BHO CLSID]”
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerBrowser Helper Objects[TROJAN BHO CLSID]
Exit the Registry Editor. If for some reason you are not able to open the Registry Editor, download and run the tool developed to remove these keys from :
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/tool.to.reset.shellopencommand.registry.keys.html or http://tinyurl.com/yrotz.
Explorer Error
Q. I use Windows XP Pro with SP2, and I recently installed Internet Explorer 7 Beta. It was working fine, but last week I found that IE wasn’t opening. An error message is showing up, stating this:
“iexplorer.exe-Entry Point Not Found : The procedure entry point InternetGetSecurityInfoByURLW could not be located in the dynamic link library WININET.dll”.
Chandan Munshi
To fix the problem, do the following:
à Uncompress the IE7 installer file to a directory like C:IE7Inst
Restart your computer and use any live OS CD such as WinPE or Ubuntu Live to boot your computer.
Copy wininet.dll and urlmon.dll from the IE7Inst directory to %windir%System32
Reboot your computer.