My Tech Fundas: Tips and Techniques

Windows errors - (Errors and fixes may vary depending on your version of Windows)

• Your are unable to copy and paste in Windows Explorer.
  Go to Start, Settings then Control Panel. Select the Internet Options icon and click on the Security tab. Then click on Custom Setting, and make sure the "Drag and copy or paste" option is enabled.
• Windows encountered an error accessing the system Registry (Windows 98/ME)
  Do a search on the C Drive for the User.dat file. If the file size is 0k, delete the file so Windows will recreate it next boot up.
  
  
• Your files do not open with the program you want to open them with.
  Hold down shift while right clicking on the file. Select Open With from the menu. Select Choose Program and find the appropriate program from the list. If the program you want to use is not listed, click on Browse. Navigate to the executable (.exe) for the program and then click on Open. Check the box that says "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox.
  
  
• Error deleting file or folder
  This message will most likely occur if you attempt to delete, save over, or move a file while it is in use by another application. Close the open file and try it again. If it is open by another user over the network you will get the same error.
  
  
• llegal Operation Errors
  An illegal operation is usually when the computer requests an operation that is unknown to the operating system or processor and that can't be performed. The operating system or processor usually terminates the program that made the illegal request. If this keeps happening you should reboot your computer.

Web Browser Errors

One way is from a command prompt. To open a command prompt the easiest way is to go to Start, then Run and type in cmd (command for Windows 95/98) and click OK. You will see a black box with a cursor like the image below.

If you just want to find your IP address you can type in ipconfig and press enter. You will get a listing similar to this.

You will notice 3 pieces of information. The first is the IP address which is the address of your computer on the network. Then you have the subnet mask which determines what subnet your computer is on within the network. Finally you have the default gateway which is a node on the network that serves as an access point to another network, in most cases out to the internet.

If you need to know more detailed information you can type ipconfig /all to get a listing of other IP related information.

This option gives you information such as your host (computer) name, DNS & WINS information and your MAC or physical address of your network card.

Another way to get your IP address is from your network connection properties. Right click your My Network Places and select properties. Then right click your Local Area Connection icon and select properties again. You will see a window similar to the example below.

Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click on Properties.

Here you will see you IP address information

If you are getting your IP address automatically (using DHCP) there will not be anything listed in the boxes and this method will not work to find your IP address.

One final way I will mention to obtain your IP address is to click on the local area connection icon in your taskbar.

Then click on the Support tab to display the following.

Windows has always offered a way to shut down your own computer or other computers on the network remotely via a command line using the shutdown command. There is a way to modify the command so you can use a graphical interface instead to make it easier to choose what computers to shutdown or even restart.

The shutdown command uses switches to control how it is used. For example you can use the –r switch to reboot rather than shutdown and the –t switch to control how long before the computer is shutdown or restarted. If you use the –i switch then it will launch the graphical interface which allows you to fine tune how you want the computer to shutdown. You can make a desktop shortcut for the graphical interface by making the target for the shortcut be %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe –i. That way you can have it as an icon that you can double click to run

When you launch the shutdown interface you can click on the Add button to add computers by name or the Browse button to browse Active Directory looking for computers if you use a domain.

Then you can choose if you want to shutdown, reboot or log off the users and how long until that event happens. If you want to tack your reboots you can use the Shutdown Event Tracker to have a description of why you shutdown the computers.

Windows errors - (Errors and fixes may vary depending on your version of Windows)

• Your are unable to copy and paste in Windows Explorer.
  Go to Start, Settings then Control Panel. Select the Internet Options icon and click on the Security tab. Then click on Custom Setting, and make sure the "Drag and copy or paste" option is enabled.
• Windows encountered an error accessing the system Registry (Windows 98/ME)
  Do a search on the C Drive for the User.dat file. If the file size is 0k, delete the file so Windows will recreate it next boot up.
  
  
• Your files do not open with the program you want to open them with.
  Hold down shift while right clicking on the file. Select Open With from the menu. Select Choose Program and find the appropriate program from the list. If the program you want to use is not listed, click on Browse. Navigate to the executable (.exe) for the program and then click on Open. Check the box that says "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox.
  
  
• Error deleting file or folder
  This message will most likely occur if you attempt to delete, save over, or move a file while it is in use by another application. Close the open file and try it again. If it is open by another user over the network you will get the same error.
  
  
• llegal Operation Errors
  An illegal operation is usually when the computer requests an operation that is unknown to the operating system or processor and that can't be performed. The operating system or processor usually terminates the program that made the illegal request. If this keeps happening you should reboot your computer.

Web Browser Errors

Windows Vista comes with a nice screen capture utility called the Snipping Tool which allows you to take screen shots in a variety of ways and place them into other programs, save them or email them right from the utility.

You can use Snipping Tool to capture a screen shot, or snip, of any object on your screen and then annotate, save, or share the image. Simply use a mouse or tablet pen to capture any of the following types of snips:

After you capture a snip, it's automatically copied to the mark-up window, where you can annotate, save, or share the snip. It will also add the screen shot to the clipboard by default so you can easily paste it into another application

To capture a snip

1. Open the Snipping Tool by clicking on Start, All Programs and then Accessories
2. Click the arrow next to the New button, select a snip type from the menu, and then use your mouse or tablet pen to capture a snip.
3. Once you have captured the section of the screen you like or the whole screen itself it will be placed into the Snipping Tool mark-up window.

To annotate a snip simply use a mouse or tablet pen to write on or around the snip using one of the pens or the highlighter.

To save a snip, do the following:

1. Click the Save Snip button.
2. In the Save As dialog box and enter a name for the snip
3. Choose a location to save the snip in
4. Choose a file type to save the snip as. You can save a snip as an HTML, PNG, GIF, or JPEG file.
5. Click Save.

To share a snip Click the arrow on the Send Snip button, and then select an option from the menu. You can send it as an email attachment or have it embedded in the email itself.

Symantec pcAnywhere provides secure, remote access to computers and servers. Symantec pcAnywhere supports network connections over a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet, modem-to-modem connections, and direct cable connections using a serial or parallel port

Common uses for pcAnywhere include managing computers remotely, supporting and maintaining servers, transferring files between computers and working from a remote location.

If you support multiple computers in a networked environment then you can connect to a specific computer and control it as if you were sitting in front of it. It is similar to Microsoft’s Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance except pcAnywhere supports older versions of Windows that Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance do not. The only downside is that you can only have one concurrent connection to a particular computer at a time.

If you need to demonstrate how to do a specific procedure on a remote computer, you can take control of the computer while other people watch as you demonstrate.

You may also need to access files or email on a remote computer such as your home PC. Simply log onto your home computer and use it just like you were at home.

You can even install or modify software on the multiple computers from one location rather than having to go to each individual workstation. pcAnywhere lets you have multiple sessions with different computer open at the same time. There is an option to perform file transfers between the local and remote computer as well.

There are several different components of pcAnywhere that allow you to perform specific tasks. These include:

The pcAnywhere Manager is the main window for pcAnywhere. From the pcAnywhere Manager, you can manage your connection items, start a session, access pcAnywhere tools, and customize preferences. The navigation bar on the left of the window lets you access pcAnywhere session options, configuration files, and tools.

Quick Connect
Quick Connect lets you connect to another computer with minimum setup. Use this option for one-time or infrequent connections to a host computer. Before connecting, you must know the computer name, IP address, or modem number of the host computer and the logon information.

Setting up a Host computer
pcAnywhere lets you set up a host computer to receive a connection by modifying an existing connection item or creating a new one. pcAnywhere provides the three default connection items, which are pre-configured to optimize security and performance.

Once you setup your remotes you can access them simply by double clicking on their name/icon to start the connection. You can even copy pcAnywhere configuration to another computer running pcAnywhere instead of having to setup all the remotes again.

Sysinternals are a group of utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications. Microsoft acquired Sysinternals in 1996 and offers these tools free of charge for people who want to get the most out of Windows and other software. Some of the programs are GUI based while others only work from a command prompt. The Sysinternals site is broken down into several categories for the different types of utilities offered.

File and Disk Utilities - Utilities for viewing and monitoring file and disk access and usage. Some examples include AccessEnum which shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on your computer and PageDefrag which lets you defragment your paging files and Registry hives.

Networking Utilities - Networking tools that range from connection monitors to resource security analyzers. Some examples include PsFile which lets you see what files are opened remotely and Whois which shows you who owns an Internet address

Process Utilities - Utilities for looking under the hood to see what processes are doing and the resources they are consuming. Examples include Process Explorer which shows you what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open and which DLLs they have loaded and also PsExec which will execute processes remotely.

Security Utilities - Security configuration and management utilities, including rootkit and spyware hunting programs. Examples include AccessChk which shows you the accesses the user or group you specify has to files, Registry keys or Windows services and LogonSessions which lists active logon sessions

System Information - Utilities for looking at system resource usage and configuration. Some examples include Regmon which lets you see all Registry activity in real time and PsLoggedOn which will show users logged on to a system

Miscellaneous Utilities - A collection of diverse utilities that includes a screen saver, presentation aid, and debugging tool.

The site also offers a discussion forum for any questions you may have about any of the utilities as well as a blog containing information about any updates and other news. If you would like training on the Sysinternals software or other topics there are Webcasts available as well as DVD training. Click here to go to the Sysinternals website.

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) allows you to assess the administrative vulnerabilities present on one or multiple computers on your network. MBSA scans the specified computers and then generates a report that contains details for each computer about the security checks that it performed, the results, and recommendations for fixing any problems. You can check your computer for security problems in Microsoft SQL Server and Internet Information Services (IIS) as well as check to see if your computer has the most current Windows and Office updates installed.

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) checks computers running Windows Server 2003, Vista, XP and Windows 2000 with Internet Explorer 5.01 or later installed for common security mis-configurations. You must have administrator privileges for each computer you want to scan though.

Scanning Options
The following checks are optional and you can choose whether or not to run these checks before starting a scan of the computer.

Check for Windows administrative vulnerabilities
This option scans for problems with the way that Windows is configured on the target computer. Such factors as the number of members of the local Administrators group, file-system type, and whether Windows Firewall is enabled are checked and reported.

Check for weak passwords
This option tests the passwords of local user accounts to determine whether any are blank or have other problems that might allow them to be guessed easily.

Check for IIS administrative vulnerabilities
This option checks for Internet Information Services administrative vulnerabilities.

Check for SQL Server administrative vulnerabilities

Selecting this option checks for administrative vulnerabilities on each instance of SQL Server, Microsoft Data Engine, or SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE) running on the target computer.

Check for security updates
Selecting this option checks the target computer for missing Windows and Office updates. When you select this option, you can also specify the following options:

Configure computers for Microsoft Update and scanning prerequisites
This option installs the current version of Microsoft Update Agent on the target computer if it is absent or out of date and configures the target computer to meet other requirements for scanning for security updates.

Scan using Update Services servers only
Selecting this option scans only for those security updates that are approved on the computer's Update Services server. The Microsoft Update Web site or an offline catalog are not used.

Scan using Microsoft Update only
Selecting this option uses only the security update catalog downloaded from the Microsoft Update Web site to determine the updates to be checked. Updates that are not approved on the computer's Update Services server are reported as though they were approved.

Once you select your options you can pick which computer you want to scan and click on Start scan.

When completed you will see the results of the scan which can be sorted in different ways such as the worst results first etc.

There will be links within the results that you can click for more information such as what was scanned and more details about the results. Icons will be placed next to each result showing statistics such as failure, passing, warning or information.

There are other options to print and copy your report to paste into another application such as Word. You can also view previous scans if you want to make comparisons.

A MAC address, short for Media Access Control address, is a unique code assigned to most forms of networking hardware. This is a unique identifier specific to the network card inside the computer. The MAC address makes the host recognizable to and distinguishable from other hosts.

CC Get MAC Address is a tool for finding MAC address and computer names from IP addresses. You can use it to find the MAC address, computer name and IP address of a computer on your network or the whole LAN range itself.

CC Get MAC can resolve MAC addresses from IP or computer name. Also, you can find the IP address from the MAC address. CC Get MAC Address also can be used with the Wake On LAN feature of your network card. You can use it wake up any computer on your LAN remotely (To use Wake On LAN function, you must have a network card with chipset that supports this feature)

Windows 2000 and up included a utility called Disk Management that is used to view and change your hard drive and other drive configurations. With Disk Management you can get a graphical view of the layout and partitions of your hard drives. It will also tell you if the size of the partitions, how they are formatted and the volume label. You can also see CD and DVD drives as well as flash drive configuration.

If you need to change partition configuration or change drive letters you can do so from here as well. So if you want to organize your drives and CDROMs you can switch the letters around so they will be in a more logical order. Just be aware that if you change the drive letters and Windows has programs installed with different drive letters that they most likely work anymore.

You can also format drives and change basic disks to dynamic disks if needed. Disk Management can also be used to setup spanned or striped volumes or software RAID configurations depending on what version of Windows you are using and how many drives you have in your system.

If you are installing a drive from another computer and it is not recognized you should check Disk Management to see if its listed and many times import the foreign disk to have it recognized by the system. Sometimes a drive will be recognized but not get a drive letter assigned to it and you can take care of that here.

If you were ever wondering how the personal computer (PC) got started and when it all began here is a brief history lesson illustrating the key events in the computer's evolution.

1958
Texas Instruments completes building the first integrated circuit.

1960
Digital Equipment introduces the first minicomputer, the PDP-1, for $120,000. It is the first commercial computer equipped with a keyboard and monitor.

1963
Douglas Engelbart invents the mouse.

1964
At Dartmouth College the BASIC programming language runs for the first time.

1968
Robert Dennard gets a patent for a one-transistor DRAM cell and the basic idea in the three-transistor cell. (Dynamic RAM)

Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Intel Corporation.

Hewlett-Packard introduces first programmable scientific desktop calculator.

1969
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is founded.

IBM builds SCAMP, one of the world's first personal computers.

1970
Intel begins work on the layout of the circuit for what would be the 4004 microprocessor.

Bell Labs develops UNIX.

1972
Intel introduces its 200 kHz 8008 chip.

Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie develop the C programming language.

1973
The first operational Alto computer is completed at Xerox PARC.

1974
Intel releases its 2 MHz 8080 chip, an 8-bit microprocessor.

1975
Bill Gates begins writing BASIC for the Altair.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft.

IBM's Entry Level Systems unit unveils the IBM 5100 Portable Computer.

1976
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs finish work on a computer circuit board, called the Apple I computer.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporate the Apple Computer Company.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel sign a patent cross-license agreement, giving Advanced Micro Devices the right to copy Intel's processor microcode and instruction codes.

The trade name Microsoft is registered.

Bill Gates drops out of Harvard to devote his full attention to Microsoft.

1977
Microsoft creates the File Allocation Table (FAT) to store data on diskettes.

Apple Computer releases Applesoft, their version of BASIC.

1981
IBM released their new computer, named the IBM PC.

Microsoft releases the MS-DOS operating system.

1983
Apple introduces the first computer with a GUI (graphical user interface) called the Apple Lisa.

1984
Apple releases the smaller Macintosh computer.

1985
Microsoft releases its first Windows operating system.

A hard drive is the component in your computer that stores information such as the computer’s operating system, programs and your files. They have been around for over 50 years. The very first computers did not use hard drives but instead ran off a floppy disk that you booted with. This is not practical with today’s computers since they have so many large files and would simply not fit on a floppy disk. Plus hard drives preserve data, programs and your operating system even while the computer is off. There are a few exceptions such as operating systems such as Knoppix Linux that will run off a CD. The only problem is once you turn off the computer there is no place for the data or any changes you have made to be stored.

The main components of a hard drive consist of a motor, spindle, platters, read/write heads, actuator and electronics. The main circuit board is where the brains of a drive are found. This board contains embedded software that tells the hardware what to do and communicates with your computer. On many computers, the hard controller is built into the motherboard. This circuit board also contains the drive's buffer which is a holding area of memory for data that's waiting to be written or sent to your computer.

The drive is housed in a sealed aluminum box with the electronics attached to one side. This enclosure protects the drive internals from dust and condensation. The electronics control the read/write mechanism and the motor that spins the platters.

Hard drive platters spin at speeds ranging from 5,400 RPM to 15,000 RPM. 7,200 RPM is the average speed of most drives in use with home computers today. Each platter has a magnetic surface on which digital data is stored. Hard drives typically have one to four platters that are 3.5 inches in diameter and are coated on both sides with magnetically sensitive material, and stacked millimeters apart on a spindle.

The arm is the component that holds the read/write heads that are used to read data off of the platter. The arm is able to move the heads from the center to the edge of the drive.

The arm and its movement mechanism are very fast. The armature moves the heads across the platters as they spin, allowing each head access to the entirety of the platter. Since the heads are so close to the disk surface, any contamination of the read/write heads or disk platters can lead to a head crash. The distance between the head and the platter is the thickness of a human hair. This is why its not a good idea to move your computer while it is running to avoid any sudden jolts that would make the head come in contact with the platter. In order to increase the amount of information the drive can store, most hard disks have multiple platters and read write heads. Data is stored on the surface of a platter in sectors and tracks.

A hard disk can be accessed over one of a number of interfaces. Some of these interfaces include IDE, Serial ATA, SCSI, FireWire and USB. Most home computers use the IDE interface with Serial ATA (SATA) starting to take the lead. Many business servers use SCSI because of its higher speed. SCSI is a much more expensive interface and not really practical for home use.

There are a couple of ways to measure the performance of a hard disk.

A CD-ROM drive (Compact Disk - Read Only Memory) is a type of device used by your computer to read CDs. These CDs are used for a variety of purposes such as installing software and playing music. They are installed in almost all computers in use today. I’m sure you have used one but may be wondering how exactly they work. In this tip we will explain how they work to give you a better understanding without going into too much detail to confuse… or bore you.

A CD-ROM drive operates by using a laser to reflect light off the bottom of the CD or disc. The reflected light pulses are read by a photo detector. These incoming pulses are decoded by the microprocessor and then sent as usable data to the rest of the computer where it is processed and used.

The CD-ROM drive gets its power from the computer’s main power supply. An IDE controller inside the computer sends instructions back and forth between the computer and the CD-ROM, telling the CD drive to send data to the computer. This is the same type of controller used with IDE hard drives. Some CD-ROMs use another type of data connection called SCSI which is a faster type of connection. The IDE controller sends and receives information to and from the drive using a 40 pin ribbon cable just like with a hard drive. CD-ROMs also send data over an audio cable that attaches to the sound card or to a sound port on the motherboard. Then the sound card sends the sound and music to the computer's speakers.

Data is stored on the disc as a series of tiny indentations or "pits”. A laser is shined on to the reflective surface of the disc to read the pattern of pits and lands (the space between the pits). A standard 120 mm CD-ROM holds 650 or 700 MB of data depending on the type. By increasing the speed at which the disc is spun, data can be transferred at higher rates. The fastest transfer rate in use on current drives is 52x or 10,350 rpm which transfers data at 7.62 megabytes per second. CD-Recordable drives (CD-RW) are often labeled with three different speed ratings, one speed for write once operations, one for re-write, and one for read only. That’s why you see drives that say something similar to 52X/32X/52X as the speed rating.

Although the discs and the drives of the CD and CD-ROM are pretty much the same, there is a difference in the way data storage is organized. There are 2 modes for CD data storage. Mode 1 is for storing computer data and Mode 2 is for compressed audio or video data. The CD-ROM, like regular CDs, has data encoded in a spiral track beginning at the center and ending at the outermost edge of the disc. The spiral track holds 650 to 700 MB of data. A CD-ROM disc is made of an aluminized or gold flashed reflective material, with polycarbonate plastic for durability. Then the discs are given a lacquered or plastic coating.

Although IDE hard drives are starting to be replaced by SATA drives which offer faster data transfer rates there are still many computers out there that use IDE drives. If you ever have ever had to replace an IDE hard drive or CD/DVD drive for that matter you may have noticed that there are jumper settings that have to be set to make the computer recognize the drive correctly. A standard IDE cable will have two connectors on it for the 2 IDE devices. Some cables may only come with one though. The slave drive does not rely on the master drive for its operation or vice versa. It’s just used so the computer knows which drive to send data to.

Most computers come with two IDE controller ports on the motherboard that will support two drives each for a total of 4 drives in the computer. The only time you really need to worry about which drive is master and which is slave is when you are setting up your operating system drive on the primary IDE controller port. You should set the OS drive as master and connect it to the primary IDE port so it boots the computer correctly.

When connecting more than one hard drive or other IDE device to a computer on the same IDE controller, you have to assign one as the primary or master and one as the secondary or slave using jumpers.

The placement of the jumpers will vary on the hard drive. The drive should have a diagram on the back or top of the drive indicating what position to put the jumpers for what setting.

Cable Select (CS) settings were designed to make it easier to connect hard drives by making it where you didn’t have worry about the Master or Slave jumper settings. You simply set the jumper to Cable Select on both drives and depending on where you connected them to the cable the computer would know which is Master and which is Slave. If you are going to use Cable Select you need a special 40 conductor IDE cable that would determine master and slave connections. Most IDE cables you buy today should be of this type.

If you set both drives on the same cable to master or slave then the computer most likely won’t recognize the drives in the BIOS and therefore you won’t be able to boot the computer with the drive or install your operating system on it. So always check your settings when installing a new drive. If you are replacing an existing drive simply set the jumper to match the setting on the old drive.

Universal Serial Bus, or USB for short provides a single, standardized, easy to use way to connect devices to a computer. It uses a much higher data transfer rate than many common serial data formats. You can attach up to 127 individual devices to your computer using USB. Some of the devices include.

• Printers
• Scanners
• Mice
• Keyboards
• Joysticks
• Digital cameras
• Webcams
• Speakers
• External hard drives

If the device you are installing is new to the computer, Windows will auto detect it and asks for the driver disk if needed. If the device has already been installed, the computer will start using the device right away. USB devices can be connected and disconnected at any time making them hot swappable. Typical USB connectors have an A connector on one side and a B connector on the other. You can have other types of connectors for different devices such as cameras and cell phones.

Typical USB cable

USB A and B connectors

The PC host typically has connections for two or more external USB ports. Each of these connectors on the PC is actually a connection to a separate root hub inside the PC. A USB host controller in the PC is integrated into the chip set on newer systems and orchestrates the sending and receiving of data between the PC and an external device. When the host powers up, it queries all of the devices connected to the bus and assigns each one an address. The host keeps track of the total bandwidth that all of the isochronous and interrupt devices are requesting.

If you don’t have enough USB ports on your computer to accommodate all of your devices then you can buy a USB hub. Hubs can be powered or unpowered. Hubs can be part of the device such as a keyboard or monitor with USB connections on it. The USB standard allows for devices to draw their power from their USB connection. A high power device like a printer will have its own power supply, but low power devices like mice and cameras can get their power from USB bus so you don’t need external power. Individual USB cables can run as long as 5 meters.

USB 1.1 was released in September 1998 and USB 2.0 was released in early 2000. With USB 2, the bus has a maximum data rate of 480 Mbps which is 40 times faster than USB 1.1 and has full forward and backward compatibility. USB 3.0 should be coming out around 2010 and will offer a maximum speed of 4.8 Gbit/second which is about 10 times faster than USB 2.0. USB 2.0 cables work off of four lines, a pair for in/out data transfer, one line for power, and the last for grounding. USB 3.0 adds five new lines.

Many USB devices can be put to sleep by the host computer when the computer enters a power saving mode. There is a set of drivers included in the newer versions of Windows that support certain devices called human interface devices or HIDs. These devices don't require much data to be transferred to or from the host computer. The firmware inside these peripheral devices must support the Windows HID protocol if you want to use the existing HID drivers.

USB is supported in Windows 98 SE and higher. There was some support in Windows 95 and the first edition of Windows 98 but it was problematic.