Windows XP Helpdesk

information on how to get rid of spyware, adaware will be posted shortly,
there will also be a feature on how to do a system recovery and small DIY maintanence.

And a little later 'how to copy DVD's'

The Windows 98 Helpdesk

Just to help some people out there's a small computer helpdesk right here....No search topics nor search engines just scroll throug!

Fixing or cleaning the registry the Mickey Suck way.
Restart the computer and go into DOS mode by pressing F8 immediately after 'Loading Windows98' appears. Type Scanreg /FIX at the prompt, the program will clean up some of the junk acumulated over time, makes a registry backup. Typing Scanreg /opt after the prompt reappears does a registry optimize to enhance performance a tad. Other option is exporting the registry and importing it again...Just send me a mail and I'll send you a batch file and manual to do just that. or download it here, or how about MicroSoft's RegClean 4.1A

If the computer doesn't go
If the computer boots but crashes whilst loading windows and you've tried the above, you can always rerun the windows setup, usually all the updates are left as they were and windows will try to fix and recreate the registry, some adjustments will be reset so you'll have to do some tinkering. The easy and fastest way to re-install windows 9X make a directory on your C drive called win98 or Win95, Type
SMARTDRV C+ 8192 at the c-prompt (smartdrv.exe can be found in your windows directory and on the cd in win98 or win95 directory), copy all the files from the CD-Rom's WIN98 or WIN95 to the newly created directory on your computer. Run setup from that directory.
Q: Why this way
A: well, while installing, the files are loaded from the hard disk which is much faster and while installing you don't have to look for the cd all the time because the windows files are on-line.
Q: Why use smartdrv,
A: well, it caches the read and write operations therfore enhances installation speed dramatically
Even re-installing windows on a blank harddrive I'd copy the files to the win98 directory and run setup from there, just for speed and accessability. To do this you need your installation diskette which loads the CD-rom drivers to make the CD-rom accessible. Select the option to start windows98 with cd-rom support, then load smartdrv +C 8192 (Win98 or Win95 directory), copy those files again as mentioned above and run setup!

32 Bit Fat support
Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98 support 32 bit Fat which is very useful if you want to use large hard disks in your computer, there are some drawbacks. Do not make partitions above 8 gigs unless you don't mind 8 or 16 kb size clusters, so on a 20 gig hard disk there will be 2 8 gig partitions and 1 4 gig partition. Create these with Fdisk.
If you've got a drive up and running Windows 98 and you want to add another, than first make sure your bios supports large harddisks (usually the manual will tell you what the limit is), install the drive as the manufacturer explains in his documentation however jumpered as slave. Then start the computer and dive into the Bios (press insert when the POST appears). Select the main setup page and make sure all disks are set to auto. Save the changes when exiting (usually F10). Let the computer boot and go into DOS mode by pressing F8 immediately after 'Loading Windows98' appears and selecting DOS mode. Type Fdisk <enter>.....If you get a file not found error than first type CD\Windows\Command and the Type FDISK <enter> Answer the large disks question with Y, select option 5, this should display 2 drives make sure the one you select is your new bigger disk. We'll select 2, the first menu reappears again, select 1, and 1 again for the first partition. Reply N to using all the space , a field appears where you may alter the max size, fill in 8000, and let it roll. When its done you end up on the main menu, select 1 and 2, accept the amount Fdisk tells you. after this is done you go back to the main menu, select 1 and 3, make the first logical drive 8000 meg too, after this is finished you end up in the main menu again, select 1 and 3 and agree for the leftovers to become the last partition. After this is done exit FDISK by pressing escape and reboot the system. let it boot completly and start explorer to see the extra drives it created. If you had a C only you should now have a D a E and a F drive too. Right click on the F and select format...same goes for the E and D. And now you've got a whole lot of diskspace. Migration of windows might be a good Idea if the new drive is faster (see topic migration).

DISK Migration.
I'd suggest using a tool to do this, but there are other options. Option 1: Make sure you have microsoft Backup installed. Make a backup of your current Hard disk to the second partition of your new disk providing the old disk partition was not larger than 8 gigs. Make sure you selected the backup registry option too. After this run SYS D: from the dos box to install the system files on the second hard disk ( if this is the 1st partition on the second drive ). Now start MSBACKUP and do a restore to a different location (lower left hand corner) and select Drive D:. After this is done shut down the computer and change the jumpers on both drives, the old C drive will become Slave, the New Drive will become master. Switch on the computer and dive into the Bios (press insert when the POST appears). Select the main setup page and make sure all disks are set to auto. Save the changes when exiting (usually F10). When the system reboots the Computer should now boot from the 1st partition on the new drive. D will be the old hard disk. All should work okay, if not note down th files it couldn't find and copy these manually preferabaly in dos mode. So now all works okay, and you double double checked you can remove the backup file on partition 2 and format the old drive so all is clean and there's lots of space
Option 2: use a freeware partition copying tool from http://www.shareware.com or one of the other shareware sites.

Booting after installing wrong hardware drivers
This happens quite often and isn't such a problem to handle. What to do is let the computer boot and go into Safe mode by pressing F8 immediately after 'Loading Windows98' and select safe mode. Go into the configuration screen, select system, select devices, and select the device you installed that went wrong. click on the plus sign (+) and delete the device. Shutdown and restart, and now make sure you have the correct drivers to install.
looking for drivers....some places to visit are http://www.driverguide.com/ http://www.drivershq.com/ http://www.windows95.com/drivers/

Going for compatability
Some tips: Buy popular hardware from companies that have a good track record, cheaper cards or compatible cards have a catch, being compatible means it does have a compatability somewhere, but by no means fully compatible. I'd definately do research on any piece of hardware that costs more than US$ 10.
Popular add on hardware I'd choose. Creative Labs; Diamond; Matrox; ATI; Seagate; Western Digital; 3Com; US-Robotics; Plextor; Pioneer; Sony; Mitsumi; Matsushita; Adaptec; Xircom; Hewlett Packard; Toshiba; Hitatchi; MAG; Viewsonic; ADI; Agfa.
If in doubt, send me a mail about the item you want to buy, preferably detailed so I can advise you on the matter.

CD-Rewriters
Recently a hot issue since prices of disks and hardware have gone down dramatically.
First you have to figure out what you want to do, make your own cd's, copy cd's, copy game cd's and last but not least make your own multimedia cd's. Don't go for the bundled software and other stuff that comes with the kit, usually it's value edition crap and just fit to plainly copy or make simple disks. Roxio's EZCD Creator Deluxe 5.01 is one of the better products with a frequently updated drivers and other stuff list. Pretty good score. One thing you shouldn't do is install different cd mastering programs on the machine, they seem to render each other non operational, even de-installing doesn't remove all the drivers! Hardware: This is a catchy part. I'm a SCSI nut and can assure you that's the way to go if you want speed and reliability. Currently a couple of good scsi CD-RW drives come from Plextor, Sony, HP and Yamaha. Make sure they have at least a 2 mbyte buffer if speed is 8X or above, do consider a BurnProof drive. For extracting Audio (Ripping) a scsi cd-drive is a better option, faster and less errors. Why not IDE/ATA, well it's the technique used that does eat a bit of processing power shoveling data to the IDE interface, whereas SCSI hardware uses it's own processing power to handle most of the shovelling. IDE has so many variants like DMA / PIO / UDMA and sometimes the writer and hard disk will share each others incompatability to surprise you with coasters, and the search for some of the IDE drivers that work properly with your board can be pretty tedious. Ok SCSI might be more expensive, but than again it's reliable!
Copying disks: Yup this is where shit happens, there are again various modes for creating cd's and copying a cd in a drive that does not support the mode the cd's are supposed to be copied in, gives you another coaster. There are some good cd copier programs out there that copy all sorts of cd's in raw mode (straight track data) to copy PSX and some protected cd-rom's, CD Clone is one of them, unfortunately not all cd-drives are supported, this is trial and error debugging, but usually worth a try since some of those PSX cd-s cost a multiple of blanc cd's and if you've got it and can remember the setup, you can do a great duplication. And of course there are CD's in all makes colours and options. There are mini cd's, 74 min, 80 min cd's. I try to get quality at a good price. Sony and Nashua and TDK do a good job on that. Some of these cd's can't be played in all audio cd players and some older cd-rom drives because of the green or blue die, so my music cd's are usually Gold from Maxell or Mitsui, they have a really clear die and I can play them in almost any player. Making sure it all works is one of the most important things, test the system before you write, see if it performs to standards. Switch off the screen saver and other resident junk that does things on the background that will probably reduce transfer speeds between system and writer. Make sure the system is defragmented and there is enough swap file space. And make sure the source cd's are of a perfect quality because a read retry can cause a buffer-underrun on a really perfectly tuned system.
Creating your own Audio collection CD's adds more fun to making CD's for easy listning, imagine 80 minutes of your favotie beach boy tunes. There's an easy way to do that, extract those favorite tunes from several cd's to a directory with a digital extracting tool like Windac, or if you have a Plextor with Plextools, when around 680 megabytes see what it all looks like fitted on cd with your writer software, you might even be able to go to as near as 700 mb to reach those 80 minutes. You can usually rearrange the files to make up your own sequence, and maybe you've got CD text...nifty, Roxio's CD-Creator supports that too!
Anyhow, this beats those MP3 Files by miles!!! ..have fun

If all else fails try this