insight ■

■ troubleshooting

Video errors, installation and upgrade problems, using Hindi fonts

and much more—find your answers here

Internet telephony chatting software to adjust the volume lev- you send. You can use any good virus
I have a 1 GHz Celeron processor, a els. For instance, in MSN and Yahoo! Mes- scanner such as Norton AntiVirus to look
motherboard with integrated sound and senger, these options are under the Tools for infected files. Before this, you should
graphics and Windows 98, with a modem. and Help menus, respectively. An error in modify the registry. Open the Registry
I use this system primarily for voice chat- these wizards will let you know the cause Editor by running regedit from Start > Run
ting with my husband. The problem is of your problem. Finally, go to Start > Set- and go to HKEY_Local_Machine\Soft-
that he can hear what I'm saying but I tings > Control Panel > Multimedia. Make sure ware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer-
can't hear him. Is this problem related to that the name of the soundcard under the sion\Run. Delete the value Kernel32
the soundcard or the telephone line? Playback and Recording sections is the under this. Next, browse to HKEY_Cur-
Shamina right one. Also, check the box titled ‘Use rent_User\Identities\[User ID]\Software\
Via e-mail only preferred devices’ and turn up the Microsoft\Outlook Express\[Version]
Master and Wave volumes in Volume Con- \Mail and delete the values Compose Use
This problem could occur due to vari- trol by going to Start > Programs > Accessories Stationery, Stationery Name and Wide
ous reasons. Check if the headset is > Entertainment > Volume Control. If you have Stationery Name. Under HKEY_Cur-
plugged into the correct port on your amplified speakers, increase their volume rent_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\
soundcard—it should be in the head- as well. 9.0\Outlook\Options\Mail, delete the
phone-out port. Use the audio-tuning wiz- EditorPreference value and finally, under
ards that come bundled with the voice Viral attack HKEY_Classes_Root\dllFile, delete the
I have Windows 98 SE installed on my keys Shell, ShellEx, ScriptEngine and
PC. A few days back, I noticed two files, ScriptHostEncode. Next, open Start > Set-
Folder.htt and Desktop.ini, recreated in tings > Folder Options and switch the view to
every folder. I formatted the hard drive Classic style instead of Web style. Restart
and recreated the partitions, but the prob- the machine for the changes to take effect
lem persists. It causes an adverse effect on and run the virus scanner.
the system speed too. Apparently, the files
are also infected with the VBS/Redlof@M USB camera
virus. Which virus scanner can I use to I have a Pentium III system running
remove it? Windows 98 SE. I have been using a
Vijay Tripathi Canon IXUS 300 digital camera for the
Via e-mail past one year without any problems.
However, now whenever I connect my
This is a polymorphic, encrypted, camera to the computer using a USB
VBScript virus that infects HTML-based cable, an error, ‘STIMON caused an
and VBScript files on all drives. The virus invalid page fault’ is displayed. I have
also copies itself to either the Kernel.dll uninstalled and reinstalled all the software
or Kernel32.dll files and changes the bundled with the camera. When I access
default association for DLL files. It will Scanners from the Control Panel and
Select your soundcard as the preferred device then embed itself into every HTML e-mail select the camera in the window, an error

92 JANUARY 2003
with Sticpl.cpl is displayed. Recently I had
downloaded and installed the Windows Installing Solaris disk. The OS does not support disks
98 Q323255 Update. Could this have I have a Compaq Presario PC with beyond 32 GB, as documented on the
caused the problem? Windows XP pre-installed on it. The Sun Web site. Your BIOS probably does
Nitesh Kumar Jain partitions of my 40 GB hard disk support the drive, as Windows
Via e-mail are 37 GB (NTFS) and 2.7 XP is installed and running on
GB (FAT32). I want to it. One workaround to this
It seems that the Stimon.exe file on install Solaris 8 on my is to get another smaller
your PC is damaged. Press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + machine. When I hard disk and install
[Del] and check if Stimon is running. If it boot the Solaris ker- Solaris on it, install the
is, end the task. Delete the file from \Win- nel, it gets terminat- patches for Solaris that
dows\System. Run the Registry Editor and ed and the system enable support for
navigate to HKEY_Local_Machine\Soft- gets restarted. Is large disks, then
ware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer- there a problem with reconnect the 40 GB
sion. Look for a value named my BIOS, which is not drive. Another possible
StillImageMonitor under either the Run or allowing the kernel workaround is to install
RunServices keys. Delete the value and to run on it? Solaris 8 on a smaller hard
restart the PC. Now reinstall the drivers for Gaurav ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar disk and then connect the 40
the USB camera. Via e-mail GB drive, but disable it in the BIOS. You
could also try setting the drive to 32 GB
The installer is probably having in the BIOS and installing the operat-
some problems with the 40 GB hard ing system.

Order or First Boot Device. Ensure that A sent has seen the message?
or Floppy is set as the first boot device, Sukhbir
save the changes and exit the BIOS. Via e-mail
Henceforth, it should boot from the
floppy. If it still doesn’t, the problem could You can request a notification when
be with the floppy drive itself, in which the recipient reads the message using the
case you will have to get it replaced. Request Read Receipt option in Outlook
Express. When creating a message, click
Restoring a file using System File Checker Running old programs Tools > Request Read Receipt to enable this for
I need to run a DOS accounting soft- the message. A better option would be to
If you still get an error, replace the Stic- ware under Windows Me, but I have to enable this permanently, so that the
pl.cpl file, too. To do this, run sfc from Start change the Files variable to 100, which by request goes with every message you send.
> Run and insert the Windows 98 installa- default is 10. In Windows 98, I used to set To do this, open Tools > Options > Receipts
tion disk. Select the option ‘Extract one file it from the config.sys file, but in Windows and enable ‘Request a read receipt for all
from installation disk’ and click Browse. Me I cannot edit it. How can this be done? sent messages’. Here, you will also notice
Locate Sticpl.cpl in the \Windows\System Rahil Mehta how Outlook Express should respond to
folder and click Start. Restart the machine Via e-mail receipt requests it gets from other senders.
after restoring the file. When the recipient first opens your mes-
You can set the environment variable sage or views it in the Preview Pane,
Bootable floppy from the autoexec.bat file instead of the
I made a bootable disk several times, config.sys file. Use the DOS command SET
using different floppies, but my PC does- to assign a value to a variable. Thus, you
n’t boot from it. I can see the file list on can enter the following line in the
the disk from DOS and Windows. What autoexec.bat file, or type it directly at the
could be the problem? Command Prompt:
Ashish SET FILES=100
Via e-mail To remove an environment variable,
type the SET command without any value
Your PC is probably not set to boot (SET FILES=) and simply type SET to view a
from the floppy drive. This is a setting in list of current variables.
the BIOS, where you can choose what
device chain it should look through for Receipt confirmation
booting. While the PC is booting, press I have a Pentium II 433 MHz system
the [Delete] key ([F2] on some BIOSes) to with 128 MB RAM running Windows 98
enter the BIOS setup. The way to access SE. I have Outlook Express 6 installed as
this option varies across different BIOSes, my e-mail client. How can I confirm that Enable Read Receipt requests in Outlook
but just look for an option such as Boot the person to whom the mail has been Express

93 JANUARY 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

You have not mentioned what operat-

XP Service Pack XP Professional should be unaffected. ing systems each machine is running. The
I have a Pentium III 1.14 GHz proces- During the installation of Windows problem can occur due to incompatibili-
sor and 128 MB SDRAM. I tried installing XP Professional, you are prompted to ty of network protocols across the
Windows XP Service Pack 1 from the enter a 25 digit Windows XP Product machines, or simply some network set-
November Mindware CD. After it copied Key, which XP uses to generate the sys- tings. Ensure that the same set of proto-
all the files, it gave a message that the CD tem’s product ID. Because of security cols and services are installed on both
key is not valid. If the key was not concerns about piracy, Microsoft does systems and they should be able to com-
valid then Windows XP not provide a tool that allows you to municate with each other. Also, if you are
would not have installed view the Product Key that was used to using only TCP/IP on both machines,
in the first place. Why install the operating sys- make sure they both have valid IP
am I getting this error? tem. The Product ID addresses in the same subnet. You can
Meetesh Jain can be found by right- configure all network settings by right-
Via e-mail clicking My Com- clicking Network Neighborhood and
puter and choosing clicking Properties. Most importantly,
Since the release of Properties. To deter- ensure that File and Print Sharing is
Windows XP, mine eligibility for enabled on both computers.
Microsoft noticed that the update, Service
the vast majority of Pack 1 compares the Hindi on the Web
illegitimate copies are Product ID on the sys- I would like to put a Word document
using a small handful of tem against the list. Ser- containing Hindi script on the Internet. The
leaked CD keys. In an effort vice Pack 1 for Windows document has been created on Windows
to thwart these illegitimate users, Win- XP will fail to install if either the 98 using Word 97, using Akruti fonts. The
dows XP Service Pack 1 will not install XXXXX-640-0000356-23XXX or the fonts have been embedded into the docu-
on systems using these keys. Microsoft XXXXX-640-2001765-23XXX range of ment and I tested it on several computers
claims that legitimate licensed users of Product IDs is found on your system. where Hindi fonts are not installed. The
document opened properly, so I sent it to
London, where the Web site is being main-
Outlook Express will either send back a Pentium 4 system with a Compex tained. The feedback from there is that
message saying that the e-mail has been RE100ATX/WOL Lan card. I connected they cannot see Hindi script as the font is
read, or ask the user for confirmation to do them with a cross-crimped cable and not available. What could be the reason for
so, depending on the settings. It may also after logging on, the IBM node was avail- this? Are there any limitations in embed-
be set to never send such notifications. able in Network Neighborhood of the ding true type fonts in Word?
Thus, it is possible for the recipient to not Pentium 4 system. When I tried accessing Prasad DVR
send you the receipt notification. it, it displayed a message that the node Via e-mail
was not accessible and the IBM system
Autorun does not show Pentium 4 at all. On con- It is possible that the document is
How can I create an Autorun CD? necting the two via a hub on an existing being viewed within Internet Explorer at
Prabhat network, both machines can access other the other end. Thus, the embedded fonts
Via e-mail systems on the network, but not each may not show. Also, it is possible that the
other. Please help. document is being viewed on a different
To create an Autorun CD, simply place Pathanjali Nadiminty version of Microsoft Word, which may be
a text file named autorun.inf in the root. Via e-mail handling the file differently. Create dif-
The contents of this text file can have a ferent versions of the document on dif-
lot of property and behaviour-defining ferent versions of Word and see if they
parameters, but the ones you will use open properly. Word 2000 and higher
most are the following: have stricter licensing policies when
open=<program path and name> embedding fonts than Word 97, so this
icon=<icon path and name> could cause the problem.
Each parameter must appear on a sep-
arate line. Also, ideally the path should be Startup screen
relative, since the CD-ROM drive letter I’m facing a curious problem. Normally
would differ from PC to PC. Thus, if you when Windows boots, it shows the graphi-
want to launch a program named cal bootup screen of the Windows version.
runcd.exe from the Autorun folder on a I have Windows 98 SE on my machine. For
CD, the text would be open=autorun\ the last three months, my bootup screen
runcd.exe. has changed to that of Windows Memphis.
I don’t know how it got changed. I looked
Cross cabling for the logos.sys and logow.sys files, but
Add, remove and configure protocols and
I have an IBM NetVista with a D-Link these are intact. The screen had changed
services on Windows 9x
Lan card installed. Recently I purchased a after I installed some software. I have

94 JANUARY 2003
 uninstalled it, but the screen has not
FAQs changed back. Is there a way to solve this
problem other than reinstalling Windows?
TV tuner problems No picture Abhradeep Biswas
I have a Mercury TV tuner card. TV I have a Compaq Presario 7500 run- Via e-mail
programs are captured with quite poor ning Windows XP Professional. It has 192
quality while recording in VCD mode. MB of RAM and a Compaq DVD/CD- The startup screen is not loaded from
Changing the resolution has not helped. ROM SD-612B. I use Windows Media the logo.sys or logow.sys files. If the
Can I directly save the video capture in Player version 9, but am not able to see logo.sys file exists, it is used for the start-
DivX/MPEG4 format? I can’t afford to movies on it—I can hear the sound, but up screen, otherwise the default system
record raw video as I have only 7 GB of there is no picture. Please help. screen is used. Thus, to revert back to the
free space. Ankush original display, simply locate and delete
Anoop Via e-mail the logo.sys file. This could be in the root
Via e-mail of drive C or in the Windows folder.
The problem is with either the player
The quality at which you can capture itself, or the video codecs. This problem Noisy drives
video is largely dependent on the TV has been documented in earlier versions When I start my PC, the floppy drive
tuner card—cheap, low-end cards can of Windows Media Player. Version 6.4 makes some noise and after entering the
never match the quality of a dedicated has been the most stable player till date, BIOS password, it again makes some
video capture card. The quality that you but most bugs seem to have been fixed in noise. After the operating system is
get is probably a limitation of your hard- version 9. Also, until now only Release loaded, when I start any application, my
ware. Try checking the driver configu- Candidates for the new version have hard disk also starts making some noise.
ration of your card to see if it offers a been made available, which means it Please help me reduce these noises. I scan
high-quality mode. You can do this by tends to have bugs. The final release will and defragment the hard disk regularly.
referring to the manual or the manu- have at least the most apparent bugs Kamalshil Lokhande
facturer’s Web site (www.kobian.com). Cap- fixed. You can download and install the Via e-mail
turing to DivX formats is very earlier version from www.microsoft.com/
processor-intensive and requires a high- windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp On starting the PC, after POST and after
end CPU. You can download the latest and try watching the movies. entering the BIOS password, the BIOS may
DivX bundle from http://www.divx.com/ It would be difficult to determine be looking up the floppy drive to check if
divx/. After doing so, you can choose to whether it’s a codec problem, since you a bootable disk is inserted, causing the
encode into DivX from your TV tuner have not mentioned what kind of noise. You can disable this option from the
card’s video capture settings—if your movies you are trying to view—whether BIOS and have it boot directly from the
processor has the necessary power, you they are MPEG or AVI files, VCDs, or hard disk instead (see question, Bootable
will be able to get good video encoding. other formats. DivX videos that you floppy). Also disable ‘Boot Up Floppy Seek’
If your processor is not up to it, try download off the Internet could pose from the BIOS. When you start applica-
using other codecs such as Intel Indeo problems. There are several flavours of tions, Windows would be transferring a lot
5.x or Radius Cinepak. These are not the codec such as SMR, FlaskMPEG, of data to the hard disk to use the sswap
very heavy on the system and do not Microcrap, etc and if the videos are file. There is not much you can do about
cut away too much visible clarity. Do encoded with any of these, you would this. The hard disk will make noise every
note that encoding has very little to do need to have the relevant codec installed. time there is heavy disk activity. Setting a
with the video quality of live feeds. The Since these codecs are very similar at the permanent swap file after defragmenting
codec only compresses the incoming core, the player may open the file any- the hard disk once may help, but will not
video feed and further quality loss due way and not display any picture. If the reduce the noise much. If you have Win-
to encoding is usually marginal codecs seem to be the problem, try dows 9x, to set a permanent swap file open
(depending on the codec settings). The downloading and installing the Codec Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual
only other way encoding affects quality Pack of ELISOFT from http://codecpack. Memory. Enable ‘Let me specify my own
is if frame-drops occur due to slow elisoft.net/. virtual memory settings’ and set the same
processors. Thus, if you notice that the Another problem, though unlikely, value for the minimum and maximum
video feed itself is good quality and only could be with the video files them- swap file size. Ideally, this value should be
the recording is poor, check the codec selves if they are DivX files. Some two-and-a-half times the amount of RAM
settings—changes such as using a dif- video files get corrupted during trans- you have on the PC. Thus, if you have 64
ferent codec (keep away from the CPU- fers or encoding software add unnec- MB of RAM, set this value to 160.
intensive ones), reducing the amount of essary headers. Open the file using
compression and using more keyframes VirtualDub (www.virtualdub.org) and save
Send your computing
can tremendously improve quality. For it as a different file using the Direct
problems to
better video quality, the best option Stream Copy option for video and
[email protected]
would be to record video at higher res- audio. This will cut out unnecessary
or write to Digit,
olutions, but you may have to upgrade bytes from the file that the player may
D-222/2, Om Sagar, MIDC, Nerul-400
the TV tuner card for that. not understand. 706, and we may answer it here!

95 JANUARY 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Missing identities, skewed history, compatibility issues,

dying music, disappearing arrows—the doctor will see you now...

A failing hard disk errors, such as cross-linked or fragmented C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\
I’ve been facing a strange problem late- files, let ScanDisk repair the files. But if it Start Menu\Programs\Startup. The user-
ly. Windows shows an error message about reports more than a few physical errors, it’s specific Startup folder is the same except
the name and location of files and folders time to immediately back up your data. It that the username replaces ‘All users’. Ver-
that I know are there on the hard disk— is a good practice to run ScanDisk once a ify these locations in Windows Explorer.
I’ve been working with these files till month to catch hard disk problems in Open the registry (go to Start > Run and
recently. Is my hard disk about to crash? time. Also, try using Search to locate the type regedit) and browse to the following
Rama files in case they’ve been moved acciden- keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Soft-
Via e-mail tally. Run an anti-virus program to elimi- ware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer-
nate the possibility of the filenames being sion\Explorer\Shell folders
It could simply mean that a rogue changed due to a viral attack. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\
software has scrambled your data or that Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ex
it is an isolated hardware glitch. Double trouble plorer\User Shell Folders
Run ScanDisk and set it to examine I am facing a peculiar problem with HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\
the entire disk for physically damaged sec- Windows 2000 Server. The programs in the Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
tors. If you’re using Windows 98 or Me, Startup folder or the All Users Startup fold- Explorer\Shell folders
click Start > Programs > Accessories > System er starts twice, slowing down my startup. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\
Tools > ScanDisk and enable the Thorough Rita Joshi Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
option. In Windows 2000 and XP, open Via e-mail Explorer\User Shell Folders
For each key, examine the right-hand
The likely reason for this is that the pane for values named Startup or Com-
registry entries for the two Startup folders mon Startup. The All Users Startup can be
are pointing to the same place. The All correctly identified as %ALLUSERSPRO-
Users Startup folder is usually located in FILE%\Start menu\programs\Startup,
and the user-specific startup as %USER-
Let ScanDisk PROFILES%\Start Menu\Programs\Start-
automati- up. Double-click to fix the ones that point
cally correct to the wrong folder.
all errors it
encounters Error reporting gets irritating
If any of my programs causes a fatal
My Computer, right-click the drive, select error, Windows XP doesn’t force me to
Properties > Tools and click the Check Now reboot, but it keeps asking me if I want to
button under Error-checking. Next, check send a report to Microsoft, which is quite
‘Automatically fix file system errors’ and annoying. Is there some way I can stop this?
‘Scan for and attempt to fix bad sectors’. The Registry Editor is a very powerful tool for Natasha
If ScanDisk reports only a few logical modifying Windows settings Via e-mail

91 FEBRUARY 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Unable to kick-off FIFA games and seasons. A simpler solution

I had used my external CD-ROM would be to simply swap the drive let-
drive to install FIFA Football 2002, but ters for your CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
that drive has developed a fault and drives. In Windows 98, go to Device
needs to be repaired. My problem is Manager and right-click on CD-ROM.
that when I try to run the game from my Next, under Properties, select the new
DVD-ROM drive, the system tells me drive letter from the list.
to use the correct drive. Will I If you are running
have to reinstall the game Windows XP, go to
using the DVD-ROM Control Panel > Perfor-
drive or is there mance and Mainte-
another solu- nance > Administrative
tion to this? Tools > Computer
Shalini Management. Select
Mazumdar Disk Management
ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar
Via e-mail from the left pane
Disable error reporting in Windows XP and locate the two
FIFA Football 2002 and other drives in the graphical view on the
Allowing Windows XP to send the games that require you to use the instal- right. Right-click on the DVD-ROM
error report to Microsoft has some advan- lation CD to start playing the game, drive, select Change Drive Letter and
tages to it—it helps the company develop work only when the CD is in the drive Paths, and assign it the letter original-
patches to make the OS more compatible from which you installed the game. ly held by the CD-ROM drive. Similar-
with applications. But if this is happening If you reinstall the game from the ly, change the drive letter for the
too often, you can disable it. Right-click other drive, you would lose your saved CD-ROM drive.
on My Computer and select Properties.
Select Advanced > Error Reporting and disable
error reporting. If you have an application remove the carriage returns in one go,
that causes a lot of errors, you can even instead of deleting them one by one?
disable error reporting for specific pro- Manish Saxena
grams by clicking Choose Programs. Via e-mail

Lost identities You can remove the carriage returns

Ever since I installed the service pack 1 through the Find and Replace dialog box
upgrade for Windows XP, I haven’t been in Word. Before you begin, make sure that
able to use my multiple e-mail identities in there’s a blank line between paragraphs.
Outlook Express 6—I can only access the Bring up the Find and Replace dialog box
main identity. Selectively delete URLs from your IE History by pressing [Ctrl] + [H] and clean the doc-
Should I uninstall service pack 1 for ument as follows:
Windows XP or reinstall the other identities Somebody using your PC must have Step 1: Replace ^l with ^p (here ^l repre-
with the associated e-mail addresses? visited the site in question, as the Auto- sents a new line (manual line break) and
Sarita Ramakrishnan Complete entries in IE’s address bar are ^p represents a paragraph mark).
Via e-mail drawn from your IE history. Step 2: Replace ^p_ with ^p (here the
A drastic step would be to get rid of the underscore represents space).
There is an easier workaround for this entire history list by clicking Tools > Inter- Step 3: Replace _^p with ^p (the under-
problem. Select Files > Identities > Manage net Options and clicking the Clear History score represents a space). Steps 2 and 3
Identities and uncheck ‘Use this identity button, but why lose the benefit of auto ensure that you don’t miss out the paired
when starting a program’. Now every time completion? You can prevent a particular paragraph marks because of any inter-
you start OE, you will be prompted to URL from appearing in the address bar: vening space.
select an identity. If you want to switch click the History button on the toolbar, Step 4: Replace ^p^p with %$#@. In this
identities, restart OE and select another click on Search and locate the URL. Then step the actual paragraph breaks (a pair of
identity. right-click each page in the history list paragraph marks represents the blank
that matches the URL, and delete. lines separating the true paragraphs) are
Skewed History replaced with a text string that does not
When I type www.t in Internet Explorer’s Formatting text from the Web appear in the document.
address bar, the auto fill-in suggests a site I Text copy-pasted from the Web into Step 5: Replace ^p with a space. This takes
find distasteful and have never visited. Is Word often has odd formatting and car- care of any stray paragraph marks.
there a way to remove the site from riage returns after every short line of text. Step 6: Replace %$#@ with ^p^p. This
Internet Explorer’s address bar auto fill-in? This makes the article take up quite a few restores the correct paragraph breaks.
Nikhat pages when I take a printout. Is there a In the Find and Replace dialog box,
Via e-mail quick way to format such text so I can click on More and expand the Special drop

92 FEBRUARY 2003
down list to select these characters. You can record these steps as a
macro, which you can apply every time you copy text from the Web.

An issue of compatibility
I recently upgraded to Windows XP Pro, but some of my old
games and programs don’t run in XP. What could be the problem?
Basant Kulkarni
Via e-mail

You can get your legacy applications to work in XP by trying out

the different compatibility modes. Right-click on your application’s
shortcut and in Properties, click
the Compatibility tab to launch
the Compatibility wizard. Select
either the Windows 98 Compati-
bility mode or Windows 2000
Compatibility mode and see if
your application works. If it does-
n’t work, try selecting the Disable
Visual Themes option. If the
application still doesn’t work, try
dual-booting your PC with Win-
dows 98 or another OS that you
know works with the app.
Remember to first install the
older OS and then the more
The Compability option allows recent one. For example, install
older games to be played in Windows 98 first, and then install
Windows XP XP on another partition.

Missing msconfig in Win2000

I am running a PC with Windows 2000 Pro with Service Pack 2.
After a spree of experimentation, I ended up with a lot of programs
running on startup. As a result, my system takes ages to load.
However, I cannot locate msconfig.exe in Windows 2000 for clean-
ing out the System Tray. Please help.
Anand Kukreja
Via e-mail

Unfortunately, msconfig is not included in Windows 2000, but

there is a way to check which programs are starting up with Win-
dows and weed out the ones you don’t want.
First of all, look in the Startup folder in your Start menu and
delete the shortcuts you don’t need. Next, go to the registry (click
Run in the Start Menu and type regedit) and browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cur-
rent version\Run. Each key in this folder starts an application that
runs every time Windows starts—remove the ones you don’t need.
However, we suggest that you don’t remove any program that’s
located in the c:/winnt or c:/windows directory or any of their sub-
directories. Also, as a general rule, retain any shortcuts that run
toward RUNDLL32.EXE.

Dim memory
I have a PC with a Pentium III 800 MHz processor. The mother-
board is an 815 chipset motherboard. I recently upgraded my mem-
ory and installed a 512 MB RAM module in my PC. Though my sys-
tem reads installed memory as up to 512 MB RAM, it shows as just
256 MB in the Windows 98 Control Panel. Why is this so?
I also experience hiccups when playing Quake III Arena, even
though I have a 32 MB nVidia GeForce card. Even the audio gets

93
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

stuck during games or if I play music while

FAQs working in Photoshop. Please help.
Santosh R.
Transferring files on the other machine, put the disk in the Via e-mail
I often need to take work home and I do computer and click the Import shortcut.
this by copying files to a removable The reason for your RAM problem is
media and then copying them back onto Save Our Screen that your motherboard doesn't support 512
my home computer’s hard disk. After I’ve I have heard that running a screensaver MB RAM DIMMs. The 815 chipset mother-
finished my work, I copy the files to the program prevents the screen from boards have three DIMM slots that togeth-
removable media again, so I can cart it burning out and helps prolong the life er support a total of 512 MB RAM—they
back to work. Is there a better way to of the monitor. Is it true? What else can don’t support a solitary 512 MB DIMM. If
transport files between my work and I do to prolong the life of my monitor? you exchange your RAM for two 256 MB
home computers? Mitoo modules, it will show up correctly.
Ramez Mistry Via e-mail Regarding your gaming woes, even a
Via e-mail very old GeForce is more than enough to
play Quake III Arena, unless you are playing
There’s an old DOS command that the game at a resolution over 1024x768.
makes it much easier to transfer files. Also, disable the motherboard’s onboard
This command works with hard drives, graphics from the BIOS and/or the Device
Zip drives, CD-RW (via packet-writing Manager. Make sure that you have the lat-
software such as Roxio’s Direct CD) and est Intel chipset drivers (for the mother-
other removable media. board) and the latest nVidia drivers (for the
Right-click a blank space on the GeForce graphics card) installed. Finally,
desktop or in Windows Explorer’s right make sure you have the latest version of
pane and select New > Shortcut. In the DirectX (www.microsoft.com/directx).
Create Shortcut wizard, enter xcopy If you want hassle-free audio, consider
‘’import folder name\*.*’’ x:\transfer /d /y /s. replacing the onboard audio with a sound-
Here, ‘import folder name’ is the loca- card. But before you spend any money,
tion and name of the folder you want check that the audio problem is not
to copy and ‘x’ is the drive letter of your because you have the wrong drivers loaded
removable medium. For instance, if you for your onboard audio. If you do decide
want to copy from c:\Windows\Desk- on a soundcard, make sure you uninstall
top\Work via your floppy drive (a:), your audio drivers and turn off the onboard
enter xcopy ‘’C:\Windows\Desktop\ audio in the BIOS or via the motherboard
Work\*.*” a:\transfer /d /y /s. Click Next jumper before you install the soundcard.
and name the shortcut ‘Export’. Click Set Windows to automatically shut down the
Next, choose an icon for the shortcut if monitor after a certain period of inactivity Did I kill my graphics card?
you want to, and then click Finish. In I recently bought a new PC with 512
Windows 98 and Me, right-click the In the days of monochrome moni- MB of PC2100 DDR SDRAM, an AMD
shortcut and select Properties. Under tors, characters (such as the C:\ Athlon XP 2100+ processor, a GeForce4 Ti
Program, check ‘Close on exit’ and prompt in DOS) and images could get 4600 graphics card and a KT333 mother-
click OK. permanently burned into the screen if board. Everything was working fine, till I
Now select the Export shortcut and the screen was left static for too long. exchanged the graphics card with the one
press [Ctrl] + [C], then [Ctrl] + [V] to cre- Today’s monitors are sturdier. in my old computer—now I am unable to
ate a new shortcut called Copy of The best thing you can do to boot. I’ve put back the GeForce4 in my new
Export. First rename this as Import and prolong the life of your monitor is machine, but still nothing. Have I caused
then right-click it and select Properties. to switch it off when not in use. my graphics card some serious damage?
Click the Program tab and reverse the You can set Windows to automatically Shiv
two paths so that the one to the trans- power down the screen if it’s been Via e-mail
fer folder on your removable medium inactive for a certain period of time. If
comes before the one to the hard drive you have Windows 98 or Me installed, The most likely reason for your trouble
folder. For instance, change the exam- click Start > Settings > Control Panel > is that you’ve shaken something lose
ple above to xcopy a:\transfer "C:\ Power Management. Under the Power while you were switching cards. But just
Windows\Desktop\Work\*.*" /d /y /s. Schemes tab, select a time from the to make sure that your GeForce4 is still
Click OK. drop down menu next to ‘Turn off fine, try booting your older PC with the
Create similar shortcuts on your monitor’. card installed in it.
home computer. Your monitor’s worst enemies are To fix your new PC, reinsert the
Next time you want to transfer files, heat and water—add a fan if your dis- GeForce4 and make sure it’s firmly in place.
put a disk in the drive and click your play is running hot and keep it safe Also reseat the other components such as
Export shortcut. To access the contents from moisture. the memory and power to make sure that
nothing came lose while you were tinker-

94 FEBRUARY 2003
 When the music died
Whenever I play an MP3 file on my laptop, there is an inter-
ruption at the beginning of the song and then it continues to
play. If I stop and replay the song, it runs fine. My laptop is a
Compaq Presario with a 533 MHz AMD K6 and 96 MB of RAM
and I have the latest versions of MusicMatch Jukebox and
Windows Media Player. I’ve redownloaded some songs, updat-
ed the drivers and even defragmented and scanned my hard
drive for errors, but the problem persists.
Swadesh
Via e-mail

There’s noth-
ing wrong with
your laptop or
your media play-
ers, except for the
fact that your laptop is
just too slow—the specifications you’ve listed are the minimum
requirements for running MusicMatch Jukebox and Windows
Media Player. And remember, like Zip files, MP3s also have to
be decompressed before they can be played—this process can
be quite taxing for an older processor running a new, resource-
hogging media player while simultaneously running other soft-
ware in the background. You can verify this by playing some of
your MP3s on a faster desktop PC.
To solve your specific problem, try running a light and no-
frills software MP3 player such as Sonique (www.sonique.com) on
your laptop. Also remove unnecessary applications from the Sys-
tem Tray so that they don’t load automatically at startup—for
instance, you could temporarily disable some applications such as
the anti-virus program and the IM. Go to Start > Run and type
msconfig. Click on the Startup tab and uncheck anything you don’t
want to automatically launch (you can always enable these later).
These steps should help you squeeze out enough power from
your laptop to play your songs.

ing. If the motherboard has an onboard speaker, enable it; if the speak-
er is external, ensure it’s plugged in so that you can hear if you are get-
ting a POST beep code error.

No arrows
How do you remove those ugly little arrows that appear over
icons in Windows 98?
Username
Via e-mail

It is very simple to get rid of the shortcut arrows. Just download

TweakUI from Microsoft’s Web site (you can get the Windows XP ver-
sion at www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/ downloads/powertoys.asp).
After installing TweakUI, launch the program and open the
Explorer tree and then the shortcut selection. Change the Setting
from ‘Arrow’ to ‘none’.

Send your computing problems to

[email protected] or write to Digit,
D-222/2, Om Sagar, MIDC, Nerul-400 706,
and we may answer it here!

95
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Blank screen while loading games, missing data, floppies that don’t work,
problems with qudraphonic speakers—the doctor will see you now…

The right to write mission of the files you want to delete. I have Windows XP as the operating sys-
I own a PC with a P4 processor, Right-click on the file and select Proper- tem. My problem is that whenever I start
128 MB RAM and a 40 GB hard disk. For ties. On the window that appears, select Windows XP, the dialup connection starts
quite some time I’ve been unable to the Security tab. You will now be able to automatically. The same thing happens
delete some of my files from my hard disk see the names of the users and the per- when I start a program. What could be
and I get the message, ‘cannot delete file. missions granted to each. Check if there the problem?
Check whether the disk is write protected is an entry such as ‘Everyone’. If yes, click Kumash Desai
or not in use.’ This is extremely frustrating. on it and select Full Control. Via e-mail
Please help. If you can’t find Everyone, check if
Anand Kumar there exists an entry by your username To solve your problem, go to Control
Via e-mail (login name) and click on the entry to view Panel and double-click on Internet
the permissions. If this is also not present, Options. In the pop-up window, click the
You haven’t mentioned which OS you then enter your username or ‘Everyone’ by Connections tab and select ‘Never Dial a
use or the kind of file system adopted by clicking on the Add button and then click Connection’. Click OK to save and close
you; we are assuming you use Windows Everyone or your login/username. Finally, the window. This will solve your problem,
2000 or Windows XP with NTFS partition. add the required set of users and then click but now whenever you wish to get on the
First, you will need to check the per- OK. Now activate the ‘Full control’ rights Internet you would have to manually dial
box for Everyone. Press the OK button to a connection.
close the window. You will now be able to
delete the file since you have the rights to
access the file.
However, if you are using FAT32 file
system, check whether the files are being
used by any other program running in the
memory. If not, ensure that you have no
file protection software or any such utili-
ty installed on your computer. If you have
software installed on your machine that
gives you the facility to password-protect
certain files, then check the permissions
of the file using the software. Remove all
protection, then delete the files.

XP autodials to the Net

My system has a P4 2.4 GHz proces-
sor, an Intel 845 GBV motherboard, Stop your Internet connection from auto
Right Access to users in Windows 2000 256 MB DDR RAM and a 40 GB hard disk. dialling

124 MARCH 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

I draw a blank!
I have a Pentium III processor with a Scandisk scans tirelessly ensure less damage. Scandisk tries to
Compaq Presario 5000 installed with My PC has a P4 1.5 GHz processor, a detect the problem and update the reg-
Windows Me. The problem I am facing is 20 GB Samsung hard disk and an Intel istry entry properly. In your case, Scan-
that some games, after being loaded to 845 motherboard. My problem is that disk, even after successful completion,
play, show a blank screen, but the sound when I start the machine, it automati- is unable to remove the entry, hence
works fine without any disturbances. The cally runs Scandisk and also shows a Scandisk appears every time you boot
busy light on my CPU remains on through- message that the hard disk contains up.
out. In a few other games, the graphics bad sectors. This is You could try dis-
appear on screen gradually. Please help. despite the fact that I abling Scandisk
Aditya Bajaj shutdown the manually in the
Via e-mail machine properly. But msdos.sys file, but
after completing the this would perma-
The problem pertains to the display surface test, no bad nently disable Scan-
drivers (VGA drivers). In the Control sectors are found. disk. It will not run
Panel, double-click on System and then on Why is this happen- automatically even
the Device Manager button. Click on the ing? Please help me in case of an error. So
plus (+) sign next to the display adapters— solve this problem. ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar the safest bet is to
it should not be showing a yellow icon on Shubha Nambiar reinstall the operat-
it. If it does show an error icon on the dis- Via e-mail ing system.
play adapter, then you need to load the Alternately, since you have a Sam-
updated set of VGA drivers. Anytime a problem occurs while sung hard drive, you can download a
However, if the adapter is configured accessing the hard drive, Windows diagnostic utility, SHDiag.exe, provided
properly then the problem could be makes some entries in the registry. The by Samsung on its Web site. In case this
because you are using a low-end VGA next time you boot up the machine, utility detects an error it can't repair,
card. In this case, the only option would Windows recognises the entries and you should take your hard disk to the
be to upgrade the VGA card to the level takes preventative/corrective steps to RMA centre for repairs.
required by the game. A GeForce MX or
above should be more than adequate for
most games. your hard disk. Also ensure that the ‘Show You are facing this problem in Win-
hidden files and folders’ option is checked dows 98SE because its Windows Media
Invisible Data (Click on Tools > Folder Options or View > Player (version 6.4) cannot play videos
A few days ago I had taken my home Folder Options depending upon the operat- encoded with the newer codecs. To solve
hard disk (a 40 GB, 7,200-rpm drive) to my ing system installed). this, you need to install the appropriate
college to copy some data. I had connect- As for your second problem, as time codecs. The DivX codec is available at
ed my home hard disk as Slave (CL) and passes a lot of temporary files are created www.divx.com and the Nimo codec at
copied around 2 GB of data to it, but when in the system, so it takes time to prepare http://nimo.titanesk.com/modules/mydown-
I checked the hard disk at home (connect- a list of the unwanted files. If you feel that loads/. You can even download the latest
ed as Primary), it didn’t show the copied the machine hangs, run Scandisk with the version of Windows Media Player from
files, though the used up space reflected Thorough option checked. The Thorough the Microsoft Web site.
the size of those files. What should I do? option checks the hard disk surface for
Should I format my C drive and reinstall the physical damage. It would take some time Ruling the messages
OS? Or is there another way out? to check but after the test is complete, the My company receives around 200-
There’s another problem with my C problem should be solved. 300 messages a day, which are distributed
drive: when I run Disk Cleanup, it doesn’t to the employees concerned through
clean the disk properly. It stops in between, Cannot playback audio stream Postmaster. In case a virus in a message
at ‘Compress old files’. CPU usage reaches I have a Celeron 633 with 64 MB RAM damages a system, we have to run
the 100 per cent mark and it doesn’t come and a 20 GB hard disk with four partitions. Windows setup again on that PC. This
down even when I cancel it—it remains in The primary partition (C:) has Windows obviously erases all the Message Rules set
the ‘Tasks Running’, so I have to manually XP Professional and Windows 98SE in Outlook Express.
end cleanmgr.exe to make things stable. installed (in different folders); the last par- Is there some way to back up Message
Any ideas about these strange problems? tition (F:) has Mandrake Linux installed. Rules in Outlook Express so that they don’t
Deep Ganatra In XP and Linux, video and audio files have to be recreated in case of a Windows
Via e-mail run well, but Windows 98 shows an error, reinstallation? Also, can one rule be applied
‘Cannot playback the audio stream, no to all the terminals on the network?
Problems while copying from hard audio hardware is available or the hardware Sarita Sawant
disk to hard disk usually happen while is not responding (Error =80040256)’; a Via e-mail
performing Drag-N-Drop copy. It is very little later the video starts without audio.
easy to drag the files to the wrong folder. How can I fix this? Outlook Express does not provide any
So if you remember some of the filenames Anoop Kumar Vaidya mechanism to export/import Message
that you had copied, search for them in Via e-mail Rules. So there’s no option but to

125 MARCH 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

re-enter each rule once you reinstall your

operating system. There is also no way No scrolling
to implement these rules over the I have a P-III 500 MHz system, Intel 810 motherboard, 128 MB RAM, a 10.2 GB
network. hard disk, with Windows 98SE installed. I use Internet Explorer 6. The problem is that
What you could possibly do is switch often when I want to scroll through Web pages or even scroll in Word or Excel files,
to Microsoft Outlook which does allow my computer freezes and I have no other way than to do a warm reboot. I even for-
you to export as well as import rules. matted the hard disk, but it doesn't work. Please help.
You can do this through the Tools > Kaushik Dutta
Rules Wizard Options in Microsoft Outlook. Via e-mail
To export the rules, press ‘Export Rules’,
type the filename and press Save. To You need to check whether the
import the rules, press ‘Import Rules’, problem occurs when you scroll using
select the filename and press Open to your mouse or keyboard. Generally,
browse previously saved rules. the problem will be with your mouse,
so just check the drivers for the
System hangs the first time mouse. For a Logitech compatible
I am facing a rather strange problem. mouse, use Logitech drivers only. If
If I boot my system after a fairly long inter- the problem persists, try changing the mouse. If this doesn’t work either, there could
val, say 4 hours or so, it always hangs the be a problem with the PS/2 port on your motherboard. As an alternative, if
first time. I have a Pentium III 800 MHz you have a free USB port, you could try using a USB mouse or even a serial port
system with 128 MB RAM and 500 VA capable mouse.
UPS. I leave the UPS charging all the time.
R.B. Rajesh
Via e-mail needs 3D and OpenGL, whereas the VGA FixKlez from http://securityresponse.syman-
card in your system does not support tec.com/avcenter/tools.list.html to clean the
The problem seems to be with the these, then you need to upgrade the VGA registry entries.
SMPS of the system. If you have access to card too.
a spare SMPS, try changing to it. If this Of keyboards and handycams
fixes your problem, then you should Afflicted by virus I have installed both Windows 98 and
get the original SMPS checked by a I have a Pentium III based system run- Windows XP in my computer. In MS Word
professional. ning Windows 98SE. It is connected with (Office XP), the numeric keys and other
10 other systems on the LAN. The prob- special symbol keys were not working
A halting response lem is that the system is affected by virus- properly—they seem to have become
Whenever I run any applications or es—alevir.exe, scrsvr.exe, marco.scr, jumbled up. For example, when I press
games, they stop responding for a few brasil.pif, brasil.exe. I am using Norton [#], I get the symbol £. Everything is work-
seconds. Even after ending tasks of other 2002 and AVG AntiVirus, and I update ing properly in Windows 98 and DOS.
applications (expect Explorer, System these regularly. Even though I’ve deleted Please suggest a solution.
Tray), the problem persists. Is this due to a the virus-affected folders from the My second problem relates to the fact
virus? I have an Intel 810E motherboard, a Windows directory, they reappear after that I have a handy cam that is non-com-
Pentium III processor at 1.0B GHz, a 40 GB some time. Please give me a solution. patible with PC. Is there some way to con-
hard disk and 128 MB RAM with Windows Sibasis Das nect it to my PC so I can view recordings on
Me and XP installed. Please tell me what Via e-mail my computer, and store and burn the
to do. recordings onto CDs?
Rohit Yadav Hemant Dwivedi
Via e-mail Via e-mail

It all depends on the games you are Regarding the problem with your key-
trying to play. Every game has its own board, go to Control Panel and select Key-
minimum hardware requirement, so do board. Here, set your default keyboard to
check in the manuals and/or documents FixKlez from Symantec cleans the registry US instead of UK or any other.
of the game. You can analyse the RAM entries made by the virus As for how you can connect your
requirement from the Task Manager win- handy cam to your PC, buying a TV Tuner
dow in the status bar. It shows the Mem- Your system is infected with the Klez card would solve your problem, but first
ory Usage as current/maximum. virus. Norton or for that matter any check whether your handy cam has a
Remember that the maximum includes other anti-virus software can only Video Out jack. You can then connect the
the virtual memory, so check your current clean/remove infected files from the sys- Video Out of your handy cam to the
usage value relative to the 128 MB RAM tem. They do not clean the registry Video In of your TV Tuner card. Finally,
that your machine has. If it falls short, entries and Klez is a virus that makes using the software that came with the TV
you need to upgrade to more RAM. some entries in the registry, which Tuner card, you can record the movie on
Another factor to check is the VGA sup- makes it possible to re-infect the system. the computer while simultaneously play-
port required for the game. If the game To eliminate the Klez virus, download ing the movie on the handy cam.

126 MARCH 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs Rear speakers do not work

I have a P4-based system with
Floppies don’t work Problem multibooting 256 MB RAM and an ASUS SL133 moth-
I have a P-III processor and 128 MB I have an assembled computer with a erboard. I also have an ADCOM four-
RAM. Of late, I've been facing a problem P-III 700 MHz processor and 20 GB hard channel support soundcard. My speakers
with my floppy drive—whenever I put in disk. I had seven partitions—C, D, E, F, G, are Creative Cambridge 4.1. The speak-
a floppy, it returns a message saying the H and I, plus J as the CD-ROM drive and ers work fine with Windows 98. The
floppy is not formatted, and then the K as the CD-RW drive. C drive runs problem is with Windows XP—when I
computer stops responding. I have tried Windows 98 and D runs Windows 2000 use Winamp and Jukebox 7.0, the two
formatting the hard disk. When I scanned Professional. I also had Visual Studio.NET rear speakers do not function and pro-
the floppy drive with an anti-virus soft- and SQL Server 2000 installed in G under duce only a light buzzing sound. With
ware, it said that the boot record has Windows 2000 and everything was work- other software such as Samsung’s media
changed. I checked the BIOS settings, but ing fine. The problem began when I player or Windows Media Player, there is
couldn't figure it out. Please help me. installed Red Hat Linux 7.3. no problem. I have tried changing the
Rocky Smith Now, booting into Windows 2000 advanced settings in the control panel to
Via e-mail takes about 5 minutes. After booting, quadraphonic speakers and have even
whatever I do, whether it is opening My reinstalled Windows XP, but to no avail.
Try using a brand new IBM formatted Documents or an application, the machine Please give me a solution.
floppy diskette in the drive. If the floppy hangs. It is working fine in the case of Win- S. Ragunath
functions properly, then your previous dows 98 and Linux. Via e-mail
floppies are either damaged or are infect- I had deleted the H and I partitions to
ed by virus. However, if the new floppy install Linux (creating Linux native and
gives the same error message, then your swap partitions), but these drives are still
floppy drive needs professional servicing. displayed when I open My Computer in
As for the ‘boot record has changed’ Windows 2000—they are not displayed
message, it appears if you have enabled in Windows 98 though.
the ‘virus warning’ options in the BIOS. Bhaskar
To get rid of it, you will have to disable Via e-mail
this option in the BIOS.
The reason your system performance
Missing boot.ini has slowed in Windows 2000 is because
By mistake I deleted a file named Explorer is trying to access the deleted H
boot.ini from my hard disk. I tried to and I drives in the background.
recover the file with the help of a recov- Check whether the drive types of H
ery software, but it was too late. Now and I are Swap and Ext or FAT or FAT32.
when I boot my PC, I get an error saying If these partitions use the Swap and Ext
‘invalid boot.ini file. Booting from file system, then you need to format
c:winnt\’ and then the PC boots nor- them through Windows 2000 and rein-
mally. Is this a serious problem? So far I stall Linux. This time, be careful about
haven’t faced any problem. I also tried the type of partition you create through
to search for the missing file in the Linux (it should be FAT or FAT32) and
Windows 2000 Professional CD but in don’t forget to delete the partitions Set the keyboard to US
vain. Please help me with my problem. before Linux makes new ones for itself.
Hitesh Boricha Here are the steps you need to follow Since you are facing problems using
Via e-mail to install Linux the right way: Select Winamp in Windows XP, you should
‘Manually partition with Disk Druid’, install the A3D plugin. Installing
To solve your problem, create a text then click Next. Select ‘/dev/hda6’, click the plugin would enable all the speakers
file in Notepad (or any text editor). Type Delete and confirm by pressing Yes and you can hear from all of them.
the following five lines again. Select ‘/dev/hda7’, click Delete The plug-in is available at http:// clas-
[boot loader] and confirm by pressing Yes. Click New sic.winamp.com/plugins/browse.jhtml. Simi-
Timeout=1 and type ‘/’ for Mount Point. Select ext3 larly you could try this for Jukebox
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)parti- for File System Type and enter the size 7.0 also.
tion(1)\WINNT of the partition. Select the ‘Forced to be
[operating systems] a primary partition’ checkbox.
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINN Select the ‘Check for bad sectors’ Send your comput-
T="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" checkbox, click OK. Under New, select ing problems to
/fastdetect Swap as File System Type and enter the [email protected] or
Save the file by the name, ‘boot.ini’ size of the partition. Click OK and then write to Digit,
in the C: drive. Now you won’t face this continue with the rest of the installa- D-222/2, Om Sagar, MIDC, Nerul-400
error anymore. tion process. 706, and we may answer it here!

127 MARCH 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Web cam conflicts, blue screens of death, unrelenting recycle bins, burning errors—we’ve got
solutions for all of these and more...

Run in C The default location of Turbo C 3 is C:\tc, the installed hardware.

Recently, I bought an assembled PC and that of include and library folder is To increase or decrease the refresh rate
comprising PIII 600 MHz, a KOB 810 DSMT C:\tc\include and C:\tc\lib, respective- of a optical PS/2 mouse, go to Control Panel
Motherboard, 64 MB SD RAM and a 20 GB ly. If you have not installed Turbo C in > Mouse > Hardware > Select your mouse device
hard disk. It runs Windows 98 SE along the default location then type the Direc- > Properties > Advanced settings. Now change
with C and C++. I have installed the Turbo tories settings as per the installation in the sample rate from within the drop box.
C++ 3.0 IDE. Whenever I try to compile or your case. Now all your C/C++ programs Click OK and you're all set.
run any of my C or C++ programs, I get the will compile and execute properly.
error message saying “Unable to open Web cam conflict
include file ‘stdio.h’”. This happens with all Whats my comp’s temperature? I have been facing a strange problem:
the include files that I use. Hi, I need to know a few things. What I run Windows 98 and have only 8 GB of
Ajay Paul is the normal and maximum temperature hard disk. Recently, I formatted my com-
Via e-mail for a hard disk? Is there any software utility puter. It was running fine until I installed
to measure the temperature of the proces- my Web camera. Now, when I restart the
C/C++ programs do not run unless all sor? How do I increase the sample/refresh PC, it does not start in the Normal Mode;
the #include files (header files) and library rate of a PS/2 based optical mouse? it always goes in the Safe Mode. If I try
files are present. A single missing file will Carl D'Souza bringing it to the Normal Mode, it gives
throw up an error message during compi- Via e-mail an error message saying “Please restart
the computer”. Is my hard disk about to
For any hard disk, there are two tem- crash?
perature ranges to be taken care of—one Tushar Kapoor
while the hard disk is in operation, and Via e-mail
the other when it is not. These tempera-
tures vary from manufacturer to manu- First, check if your hard disk is working
facturer. But the approximate range in correctly by running ScanDisk in the Thor-
operating condition is 2 to 55 degrees ough mode. If the ScanDisk finds any bad
Celsius and non-operating is 40 to 65 sectors on the disk, the reliable solution is
Turbo C3 degrees Celsius. to replace your hard disk since you risk los-
Most new motherboards have the ing your valuable data.
lation. Thus every compiler needs to capability of sensing the temperature of But since the problem started after you
know where the library files reside. the installed hardware. In case you wish installed your Web camera, it is likely that
In Turbo C 3.0, the it is specified in to see the temperature of the processor, those drivers are corrupt or do not support
the Options menu. Go to Options > Direc- you can download utilities such as the Windows 98. Try downloading the drivers
tories. Now you will be able to check the Motherboard Monitor from http://www.3d afresh from the company Web site. Before
settings for the include and library folder. news.ru/download/tweak/mb/motherboard- you install the new drivers, remember to
If they are incorrect, you have to correct monitor/, which gives you a complete uninstall the previous drivers completely.
the settings to the proper folder location. snapshot of the various temperatures of If the problem persists, browse through the

94 APRIL 2003
troubleshooting guide provided by the
manufacture—this will have a list of the Transfer problems Communications > Details. Here select
most common problems experienced. If all I have two PCs—one at my house Hyper Terminal and click OK to install
else fails, reinstall Windows. and the other at my office. I want to it. Do this for both your computers. Set
transfer a few of the Mp3s from my the Hyper Terminal on your office
Screen of death home PC to my office computer. I don’t machine to ‘Wait for a call’. To do this
I use an ASUS motherboard with Athlon have a CD Writer, and want to transfer go to Call > Wait for a Call. Now call the
XP 1700+ processor, 256 MB of DDR RAM the files through the telephone line as office machine from the house
and run Windows 98 SE. The problem is it will be faster and cheaper than the machine by going to Call > Call. Speci-
that while loading Windows, after POST, File Transfer utility in the
the system shows a blue screen with the Instant Messenger. Please
error: “A fatal exception OE has occurred at tell me the name of the
017F: BFF8AB97. The current application software which can be
will be terminated.” When I restart the sys- used for this kind of dial-
tem again, Windows shows a message say- up transfer of files and the
ing, “Windows did not shut down proper- settings which will be
ly.” Then the ScanDisk begins, after which needed.
Windows starts in the Safe mode. Vikram S. Shah
ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar
Babu K Via e-mail
Via e-mail
The only software you need is Win- fy the Country Code, Area Code,
Whenever you install a new program, dows 98 with the Hyper Terminal Phone Number and Connect using
check if it is compatible with your exist- installed. To check if your system has then click OK.
ing OS. This problem generally occurs Hyper Terminal installed go to Programs Once the connection is set up, you
upon installation of a new program, > Accessories > Communications. If you will be able to transfer files from your
which may have replaced some DLL files, don’t find it here, go to Control Panel > house machine by clicking Send with-
resulting in the improper behaviour. Add/Remove Program > Windows Setup > in the Transfer menu.
Many of the programs freely distributed
on the Net are not properly tested for
bugs, causing your system to crash. In this all your computers in a LAN, you need to There are a few things you can do to
case you have no choice but to uninstall make one machine a proxy server. This increase the data transfer rate—use a 80
the program from Control Panel > can be done by installing a software called pin conductor cable to connect the CD
Add/Remove Program. AnalogX. The program is fairly easy to Writer to your PC. Next, run Disk
use, and involves minimal configuration. Cleanup to free up more space on the
Internet sharing After installing AnalogX, note down hard drive. This will give the burning
My problem is that I have five com- the IP address of the machine on which software more space for cache the files
puters which are connected in a LAN. The you have the Internet connection—this while writing the CDs. Finally, defrag-
operating system on all computers is will be your proxy server. Now to gain Net ment your hard disk to speed up the read
Windows 98. Out of the five computers, access from each PC, go to Tools > Internet and write process, thus hurrying the data
one is connected to the Internet. I wish to Options > Connections > LAN Settings. Click on transfer rate.
extend the same connection to all other ‘Use a Proxy Server’ and enter the IP
computers. How can I do this? address of the proxy server as the Address Can I rollback my OS
Sunil and 6588 as the Port. Now you can access I have a Compaq Presario Pentium III
Via e-mail the Internet through every machine you 933 MHz with 128 MB RAM, running
have configured. Just keep in mind that if Windows Me that came pre-installed. I
To extend the same Net connection to you are using a dialup connection, the
speed will be relatively slow as the band-
width is shared by all your machines.

Slow burner
I recently bought a 32x CD-Writer. My
system is built on a Pentium III 667 MHz
with 192 MB RAM. I have dual installation
of Windows 98 and Windows XP. When I
write a CD, I get a data write speed of 2
MB to 2.5 MB per second, whereas a 32x
write speed should give me a transfer rate
of 4800 KBps. I have tried using 32x and
40x CDR media disks.
Kunal The 80 pin conductor cable will hasten your
LAN Settings in Internet Options Via e-mail transfer speeds

95 APRIL 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

want to upgrade to Windows XP but my

vendor raises a doubt that after I upgrade, No scrolling
I may not be able to roll back to Windows I have a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz PC with 256 MB RAM, MSI 845E, 64 MB AGP and
Me, even through the Compaq Recovery two hard drives—4 GB and 5.1 GB respectively.
CD. I need Windows Me in case I cannot Every time I try to empty my Recycled Bin, I get the message “Cannot delete
upgrade my printer drivers to be compat- BE__: Cannot find the specified file, make sure you specified
ible with XP. the correct path and file name”. I have tried to view
Dipesh Naigaonkar the file by changing the settings to ‘View all files’
Via e-mail in Folder Options, but I am still unable to view
the specified file. I have even done an anti-
Yes, you can roll back to your previous virus (AVG 6.0) check on the folder but
Operating System (OS) by removing the found nothing. However, the anti-virus
upgraded OS. All you have to do is go to reports state that ‘d:\recycled\dd0\my
Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and music\BE__.BM cannot open; not
remove the new OS. checked.’ What should I do?
Akter ul azim parvez
Impossible Outlook 2000 Via e-mail
I have been accessing my Hotmail
account through Outlook Express. But The solution is to run ScanDisk in the Thorough mode. This error is caused by
now I wish to access my Hotmail crosslinks, but once ScanDisk checks and removes these cross links, the error does
account through Microsoft Outlook not appear again.
2000. How can I do that?
Ishak Patel
Via e-mail er it is connected to, but when I try to Recording woes
print from the other machine, it does not I have a PCI TV Capture card
Microsoft Outlook Express version 5 print and displays the message ‘Printer (ADCOM Make). I am able to view the
onwards have the facility to access Hot- could not print the document.’ It does not cable reception, but whenever I record
mail accounts from the e-mail client and even print the test page. with the bundled software, it records in
download e-mails. You cannot download Naiyer Rizvi .avi format. The .avi files take up huge
e-mails in Microsoft Outlook 2000, but if Via e-mail space on my hard drive. So please tell me
you wish to access your hotmail account, of some freeware that will help me
type www.hotmail.com in the address bar You can very well share a USB print- record the live video in MPEG format. I
er just like any other printer. The have used the trial version of PowerVCR
problem seems to be with the printer and Ulead Video Studio 6 which has cer-
drivers that have not been installed tain limitations.
properly. Uninstall the drivers and install Also, tell me if I can record only audio
them afresh. A printer connected to from the TV Capture card. The sound
either USB port or LPT port does not in recorder in Windows can record only for
any way cause a problem while printing 60 seconds and that too in WAV format.
on the LAN. Anurag Gupta
Via e-mail
Call monitoring
I have a 56 KB internal fax modem. I First, the size of the file is directly
Microsoft Outlook 2002 want to monitor all the incoming and out- dependent on the bit rate at which you
going calls on the telephone line. Please are recording. Higher bit rate results in
and check your e-mails without closing tell me if this is possible and which soft- more hard disk space and vice versa. Also
Microsoft Outlook. ware should I use. .avi files are of two types—uncompressed
If you insist on downloading your e- Deepak and compressed. So check whether the
mails in Microsoft Outlook, upgrade to Via e-mail software you are using is recording in
Microsoft Outlook 2002 which has incor- compressed or uncompressed mode by
porated this feature. You will be able to monitor your default. Change it to compress mode to
calls only if the call are made via the save space.
Printer problems computer. If calls are made from the tele- To record the live video in MPEG for-
I have connected two PCs that run phone instrument, there is no mat you have two options. The first one
Windows 98 SE with peer-to-peer net- way to monitor each incoming and is to get a CODEC from the manufactur-
working without a hub. One of the com- outgoing call. Proprietary software er or the Internet that supports your soft-
puters has a HP LaserJet 1000 printer con- usually bundled with the modem will ware. With this, you can directly convert
nected on the USB port. I have shared the let you monitor your calls. In case if your live video to MPEG format. But bear
printer and installed it as the network you don't have software along with in mind that the performance of your
printer on the other machine. your modem, try using Super Voice machine will be severely tested when
The printer works fine on the comput- from www.supervoice. com. directly recording to MPEG format. The

96 APRIL 2003
 FAQs second option is to record the video in
.avi format and then convert it to MPEG
Memory Overload format using third-party software such as
I have a Compaq 5000 with a 1 GHz WinMPG 2.5 and TMPEGenc 2.5.
processor, 128 MB RAM, running As for recording only audio, you can
Windows Me. When I try to launch the do so using third-party software such as
Explorer, it does not start; even if it does, Total Recorder and Cool Edit. These are
it hangs abruptly while surfing. I even get shareware programs available on the
the following message, “KERNEL32 internet in demo version for free. In most
caused a general protection fault in mod- systems, the Audio Out of the TV Tuner
ule KRNL386.EXE at 0001:000075a8”. card is connected to Line In of sound-
My system hangs a lot while running card. Hence, you can use any audio
other applications too. Also, the Task recording software. Most recorders record
Manager shows many programs on its list in .wav format but plug-ins are available
such as Explorer, Gmt, Cmesys, etc. on the audio recording software's Web
Satish Dubey site if you want to record in different
Via e-mail Store Folder in Outlook Express formats such as mp3.

The amount of memory you possess is look Express message store already in WordStar via network
inadequate to run all your tasks, causing the folder that you have chosen. Do you At my office, we have four PCs
the Explorer to hang. To make most of want to switch to using that store? If connected in a LAN. All the machines
your memory, press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] to not, it will be deleted and replaced by have Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz processor
start the Task Manager. Now end any pro- your current store.’ Press Yes. with 256 MB DDR RAM and run
gram which you may have exited but is Now restart Outlook Express to see Windows 98.
still running in the background. Next, go all your stored e-mails. I have WordStar 4 running on one PC.
to Control Panel > Add/Remove Program and Is it possible to access it from the other
remove the unused programs from the Computer amnesia terminals? If so, how?
list. Also check is if a virus is eating into I have a Pentium III 850 MHz with Deepak
your memory as well as processing powe. 128 MB SD RAM, a 32 MB 3D card and Via e-mail
If all these steps do not amend your prob- an Intel motherboard. After I returned
lem, try installing your OS anew. from a trip of 2 months, my computer To run WordStar 4 over the network,
showed 96 MB RAM instead of 128 MB. you will have
Store your mails safely I tried every way to get back the remain- to map the net-
I want to know how to backup and ing 32 MB, but to no avail. Just hope you work drive
restore my Outlook Express mails in guys have some bright ideas up your first. To do this
case I wish to format my PC. sleeve! go to Network
Saugat Ray Chaudhury Another question is that I have two Neighbour-
Via e-mail RAM modules of 64 MB each. Can I get hood and go to
a third 128 MB module? the shared
To back up your mails go to Tools > Hashim Mehmood folder in which
Options > Maintenance > Store Folder > Change Via e-mail WordStar 4 is
and select Change from the popup win- stored. Right-
dow. Select the location you want to copy Firstly, check if your VGA card has its click on it and
your mails to. If you wish to format only own 32 MB of memory or is it sharing it select Map Map Network Drive
a particular drive, choose the location on with your RAM. If this is the case, then Network Drive,
some other partition or save it on an the 96 MB RAM is accurate. If your VGA and Press OK. Now you can execute
external storage device. Once the loca- card has its own memory, then one of WordStar 4 through this network drive.
tion is chosen, click OK and again OK to your RAM modules is corrupted. Don’t forget that you need to have
complete the process. Here’s how to fix it yourself-check enough number of licences to access
You will now get a window showing the size of your modules. If both of WordStar 4 from the network.
the message ‘Your store location will not them show 32 MB of RAM, then your
be changed until you shutdown and VGA card is sharing the system memo-
restart Outlook Express’. Click OK and ry. But if one of them shows 64 MB and Send your comput-
restart Outlook Express. other shows 32 MB, then the latter is ing problems to
After you format your PC and the damaged. [email protected]
installation is complete, you can restore As for your second query—yes, you or write to Digit,
the mails by going to Store Folder > Change can insert a 128 MB module with your D-222/2, Om Sagar, MIDC,
and select the location were you had existing modules, provided your 128 MB Nerul-400 706, and we may answer
copied the e-mails. You will get a win- module is working on the same fre- it here!
dow saying ‘There appears to be an Out- quency as your 64 MB one.

97 APRIL 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Get your vaccinations here for bogus clock speeds, dirty fans, BIOS flashing, Linux problems, dual OS
installations and much more...

Under clocked processor motherboard manual to set the frequen-

I have an AMD Athlon 2000+ proces- cy to 133 MHz. Go back to BIOS and
sor on a MSI motherboard, with 256 MB ensure that the CPU FSB clock is set at
RAM and a 40 GB hard disk. The OS on 133 MHz. Restart your machine and
my machine is Windows XP. While boot- check the frequency at which your
ing, the machine shows the processor processor is working.
speed as 1.25 GHz instead 1.65 GHz.
What is the problem? Cross your BIOS limitation
Ajit Wakode I have a Pentium III 450 MHz proces-
sor on a 440ZX motherboard, with 256
As your processor is working at a MB RAM and Windows XP Professional as
lower frequency then normal, you need the operating system. Recently, I upgrad- Setup options while installing Visual Studio
to check the settings in your BIOS. On ed to a 40 GB hard disk, but the system
POST press [Del] to enter the BIOS. Go detects the hard disk as a 27.27 GB. What
to Frequency/Voltage Control. Here you is the problem? While installing Visual studio, you
Sreedharan may have unselected Data Objects. Rein-
stall Visual Studio using the ‘typical’
Most old motherboards have a limita- option or select Add/remove in the exist-
tion for the largest capacity of hard drive ing installation and install Data Objects.
that they can detect. You have a mother- You will be able to execute your applica-
board that does not support a 40 GB hard tion now.
disk, thus resulting in the improper detec-
tion. You should visit your motherboard Days of Cobol
manufacturers Web site, and download I wish to convert the existing data
the latest BIOS update. A word of caution: from RM Cobol to any other database or
If the update process is interrupted while text format. I have the data files but I can’t
updating your BIOS, your motherboard make out the file structure. How do I con-
The Frequency and Voltage control inside may be rendered useless. vert it?
the BIOS Uday Shetty
Visual ache
need to check two values—CPU FSB I run Windows Me and have Microsoft One way to convert your data to a
Clock and CPU Ratio. Since the AMD Visual Studio 6 installed. I have developed text file or a .csv file, is to write a small
Athlon processor series work on 133 a small application in Visual Basic, but am program in COBOL that reads the data-
MHz, the CPU FSB clock should be set to unable to execute it. I get an error mes- base file and writes it to a line sequential
the same. The Ratio value should be set sage saying, “Cannot find DAO350.DLL”. file. One constraint in this approach is
to Auto. If the CPU FSB Clock is not at How should I tackle this problem? that you must know the record layout.
133 MHz, arrange the jumpers as per the Navin You can find the record layout from

93 MAY 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

the COBOL source (.cob) files.

Search for a file named recover2.cob. Faster than the watch
When you execute this file (type My problem is that I can’t
runcobol recover2.cob and press [Enter]), it change the time and date in my
will dump the contents of an index file to machine. I have even changed the
a binary sequential file. The new file will CMOS battery, but still the prob-
be more understandable and you will be lem remains. I observed that the
able to extract the data easily. second counter was moving fast, as
If you still can’t get the data on your if it were the microsecond counter. Is
ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh benkar
own, you can also convert your data, at a the problem with my BIOS?
price. Data readers and converters auto- Gopi V counter is true, then the RTC (Real Time
mate the task of converting data to any Clock) in your machine is not working
other database format. If you have not tried changing the normally. A number of applications and
One such software is available at date or time through MSDOS then do games rely on the RTC for time. A faulty
http://www.siber.org/sct/datafile/data-view- so. Sometimes, Windows causes the RTC can cause these applications to per-
er.html. problem leading to a belief that the form abnormally. The only option is to
CMOS clock is not working. get the RTC chip replaced at one of the
Clearing the MBR If your observation about the second service centres.
I have a Pentium III 650 MHz with a
dual boot system, running both Windows
XP and Linux. Recently I manually deleted World of Linux 9
both the partitions of Linux—swap and I have an AMD Athlon XP 2000+
ext3—but still get the initial dual boot processor on an ASUS A7N266-VM moth-
screen. How can I remove this? erboard, with 128 MB RAM, 40 GB hard
Amit Aggarwal disk and onboard graphics (GeForce2
MX). I have GRUB as the boot loader.
The solution to your problem is to When I try to install Red Hat Linux 8.0 on
go to MSDOS prompt and type my system, I get the following warning
C:\>fdisk/mbr. This will get rid of the initial message while creating a new partition:
dual boot screen. “Warning: Boot partition/may not meet Use GRUB to partition your Linux machine

94 MAY 2003
booting constraints for your architecture. Load the Windows NT CDROM and applications by right clicking on the
Creation of a boot disk is highly encour- look for the DSclient.exe file in the CD. application and selecting the Compati-
aged.” Below the warning message there Run the application, which will reinstall bility option. Here you can specify the OS
are two options, the first is ‘Modify some other driver files apart from the one that needs to simulated. As you have
Partition’, while the second is ‘Add any- you have specified. This will solve your upgraded from Windows 98 to XP, you
way’. When I select ‘Add anyway’, the problem. should select Windows 98 in the combo
setup continues and the installation is suc- box. Now you won’t get the error and will
cessful. But when I reboot my system and High speed compatibility problem be able to execute the game normally.
boot into Red Hat Linux, I get the follow- I have recently upgraded from If the game still does not run, try
ing error message, “Error 28: Selected Windows 98 to Windows XP Professional. reinstalling the software again and/or
item cannot fit into memory. Press any key I installed NFS4: High Stakes. Whenever I updating the driver files. You can get the
to continue...” When I press a key, the try to run the game, i get an error mes- latest drivers from the Web site of the
boot menu shows up again. What do i do? sage: “Nfs4 is not a valid Win32 applica- manufacturer. The latest patch version is
Sanju B Nelli tion”. Please help me. 4.50, which is available at http://www.
Arvind Madan gamesdomain.com/patches/n/3237.html.
It seems that you have created a swap
partition that is equal to the size of the Certain applications do not run in Playing the graphics game
memory you have in your computer (i.e. Windows XP, because they were not I have an assembled computer with
128 MB). You will have to create a new designed for it. You can still execute such Pentium III 667 MHz, inbuilt 4 MB graph-
256 MB swap partition. ics chip and Windows 98 SE loaded.
To do this, restart your machine and Recently, I purchased a DVD ROM drive,
boot via the Red Hat installation disk 1, but while watching movies, found that
now select Linux rescue, and login as the motion is not smooth. I have been led
root. Start the GRUB utility by typing grub to believe that I have to purchase a graph-
at the command prompt. ics card. Please suggest a card suitable
Once within GRUB, type root (hd0,0) only for watching DVD movies, as I don’t
and press [Enter]. Check the file system require it for gaming purposes. Secondly,
and partition type values—they should will high-end graphic cards, such as
have ext2fs and 0x83 values respectively. Ti4200 or Radeon 9700 pro, improve the
If not then issue a root (hd0,1) command quality of the picture.
and check again. Repeat the exercise till SK Biswas
you find the correct partition.
Once you have found the correct par- Normally, a DVD movie runs quite
tition type setup (hd0). This will install the smoothly on the configuration you have
boot loader in the MBR of the hard disk. specified. Ensure that there are no mem-
Now exit GRUB and restart your comput- ory or CPU-intensive applications run-
er. You should not get the problem again, ning in the background. At the same
if you still face the problem, then it would time, increasing the memory capacity
be a good idea to use LILO as the boot Changing the compatibility mode for a would be a good option.
loader and try again. program under Windows XP For the second question, a high-end

Bad client service from Windows NT

During the Startup of my PC, I get an Putting the cart before the horse
error saying, “Windows Networking: I have a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz processor with Windows Me. Whenever I try to install
Unable to load the dynamic link library Windows 98 it shows an error message “already has an upgraded version” and after
msnp32.dll, the system cannot find the file the error message the installation stops.
specified. Some or all, of the following fea- Isn’t it possible to install both
ture is not available: Microsoft Network”. I Windows 98 & Windows Me
have tried at my best to resolve this but in on different partitions on
vain. I seek your advice to solve this error. the same computer?
Anand Jha Partha Bhattacharyya

This is an error, which relates to a file Yes, it's possible to install

named ‘DSClient.exe’ (directory services Windows 98 and Windows Me
client) in Windows NT. This file forms a simultaneously. But for your multi-
part of the security functionality of Win- boot system to work properly, you need to
dows NT, and automatically installs other install Windows 98 first, followed by Windows Me.
important driver files including Different partitions are not necessary as along as the folder names
secur32.dll, vredir.vxd, vnsetup.vxd and are different. Install Windows 98 first and then Windows ME and your problem
msnp32.dll. To reinstall it from your Win- will be solved.
dows NT CD-ROM, follow this procedure.

95 MAY 2003
 insight ■
■ troubleshooting

graphics card will definitely boost the video quality in a big way.
Since you want one only for movies, a GeForce2 MX 16 MB card
is a good choice, as it will offer good value for money. What’s
more, you will also be able to play demanding games, such as
Quake III and Unreal Tournament, which may change your attitude
towards gaming.

Remove that Buzz

I recently bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop with a Pentium 4 1.8
GHz, 256 MB DDR RAM, 30 GB hard drive and an internal modem,
running Windows XP. I face with two problems. First, when I use the
modem to connect to the Net, it dials the number properly, but
makes an extra beep when activated. It occurs at regular intervals of
about 3 seconds and the laptop shows the message, “The phone line
is busy”. I have tried changing
the number, the telephone line
and also reinstalled the modem
driver, but to no avail.
I also want to connect this lap-
top to my home PC that has a
NIC and runs Windows XP. I
failed to connect using the NIC
and tried the wizard, as well as
manual configuration. How can
I solve these problems?
Jitesh M K

You might have configured

the dialing pattern as ‘Tone’ in
Setting the phone line for Pulse your Dialing Properties. Many
Dialing telephone connections still do
not have the facility for Tone
dial. To change the dialing mechanism go to Control Panel >
Modems > Dialing Properties. Now change the ‘Dial using’ to Pulse
dial.
To transfer files from your laptop to your PC, you need to connect
them via a network. You need to have network cards in both, the
laptop and the PC, and connect them with a cross-linked cable.
To create a cross cable, connect pin 1 and pin 2 at one end, to pin
3 and pin 6 at the other end, respectively. As you are connecting
only two computers, further configuration is not required, just
connect the cables and you will be up and running.

Transfer on the move

I have a Mobile with an IrDA port, which I want to connect to
my computer. The problem is, my computer doesn’t have an IrDA
port. Do I need an IrDA port, and what will it cost me? My com-
puter is an IBM Net vista, with four USB ports.
Chaiatny Sharan

As you do not have an IrDA port on your computer, you need

to get an IrDA device. IrDA devices are external devices that con-
nect to the computer via the USB port or even the serial port. These
devices are available, but expensive and cost about Rs 5,000. If you
are serious about using IrDA, upgrade to one of the latest mother-
boards, which have the infra-red facility.

Cassettes to MP3
I have many audio cassettes. Is there any way I can convert the
songs on them in to the MP3 format and store them on CD’s?
Rajat

96 MAY 2003
 FAQs
Secure your Outlook Express remember that instead of the normal in turn causes the machine to act up.
I use Outlook Express to manage my exit, you have to click Exit and Log Off Cleaning the fans and fixing the
Hotmail account. As my computer is also Identity in the File menu. SMPS, will solve your problems.
used by others, I want to know if there is
any way in which I can password protect Tired fans Hard disk: on/off?
or hide my inbox from public view? I have assembled my own PC, it I am running Windows Me and have
Sidhartha Mohapatra consists of a Pentium 4 processor on an noticed the option of turning off the
original Intel motherboard with 128 hard disk in Power Management. What
MB SD RAM and a 40 GB hard disk. exactly is the purpose of turning off the
One day the computer just shut down hard disk? In what specific cases should
normally, but refused to start up again. the hard disk not be turned off? What
It started after an hour, but hung after happens if the hard disk turns off while
10 minutes. On opening the cabinet, I an MS Word window is open? Can it
observed that the fans (both the SMPS cause any harm to the system?
and the processor fan), were not work- Bharat Bhatnagar
ing properly. They were starting and
Manage identities stopping unpredictably. What is the The main purpose of power manage-
and set passwords problem and how do I solve it? ment is to save power. This benefits us in
to secure your
account in Outlook Vijay two ways—reduced electricity bills and
an increase in life expectancy for periph-
Outlook Express does have a facility You have done a good job of trou- erals. There would be no data loss, even
to manage users, to access it go to File > bleshooting. On first thought, dust seems if the hard disk shuts off automatically.
Identities > Manage Identities. Here, you to be the culprit—quite often the fan’s As soon as you use the system the hard
have two alternatives—you can create a ball-bearings jam due to the dust. As a disk will pick up from where it left off.
new identity or use the default identity. result is that the fan doesn’t work prop- One can set the power management to
If you create a new identity, you will erly and causes the machine to function STR (suspend to RAM) from the BIOS.
have to set up your Hotmail account abnormally. This option causes all the data to be
again. To secure your identity click on If dust isn’t the culprit, get the SMPS stored in the RAM, and switches off all
Properties > Require a password. As soon as checked by a professional engineer. Since the peripherals in the system except the
you click the checkbox a window both fans are behaving unpredictably, the RAM and the CPU fan. Power Manage-
appears for the new password. Enter SMPS might not be able to supply enough ment does not harm the machine, in
your password and your Outlook power. If a fan doesn’t work properly, the fact it reduces the strain on the devices
Express is secure. It is important to temperature in your machine rises, which and thereby increases their life.

record, you should use decent sound a few days. I have Windows XP and
recording software, such as SoundForge or Windows 2000, and the problem persists
MusicMatch Jukebox. Once the songs are with both the operating systems. Please
on your computer, you can burn them help me solve this problem.
onto a CD. You can also refer to our Octo- Suman
ber 2002 issue, where we conducted a
workshop on converting audio cassettes Everything depends on the graphics
into MP3s. There you will find step-by- card you have, and the games you wish
step instructions on how to transfer songs to play. An on-board graphics card is nor-
from a cassette to a PC. mally not recommended. As you have a
problem with DirectX, you should be try-
DirectX misbehaving ing installing DirectX version 9 instead of
I have a P4 1.7 GHz computer, 128 MB DirectX 8. You can download it from
DDR RAM running Windows XP. I have a http://www.microsoft.com/windows/
problem running my games. I tried the directx/downloads/drx90.asp.
DirectX diagnostic troubleshooting tool,
and found that there is some sort of DirectX Send your computing
Convert audio tapes into MP3s using error. When I ran the Direct3D test, a mes- problems to
MusicMatch Jukebox sage is displayed saying, “You cancelled the [email protected]
test by pressing a key”, even though I never or write to Digit,
To do this, you will have to get a Line- touched any key. I installed DirectX 8.1 D-222/2, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC,
On/Line-Out cable. The cable is connect- from one of the earlier Digit CDs, but even MIDC, Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400 706,
ed from the line-out of the audio player to that didn’t help. I tried to repair Windows and we may answer it here!
the Line-In port of the soundcard. To XP, which solved the problem, but only for

97 MAY 2003
insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Get your vaccinations here for bogus clock speeds, dirty fans, BIOS flashing, Linux problems, dual OS
installations and much more...

Compulsory activation taken back to the Window where you acti-

My PC runs three operating systems— vate Windows. If you get the later win-
Windows XP, Windows 2000 and dow, then you can carry on with the acti-
Windows 98. A few days ago, during vation process and if you have any issues
reboot, I was asked to activate Windows getting it done over the Internet, you can
XP. I tried to do so online, but it showed contact Microsoft India’s toll free number
me the error message ‘Online Services and get it activated over the phone.
temporarily unavailable’. I then formatted
the old partition, and installed the OS on Flashy BIOS
a different partition. After a few days, I got I have a Pentium III 733 MHz proces-
a pop-up box asking me to activate sor on a Mercury KOB 815e FSX mother-
Windows, again. Strangely, after pressing board. I recently downloaded an update Take a backup of the BIOS before updating it.
the OK button, it never asked me to acti- for my BIOS. As per the instructions, I cre-
vate again. What could be wrong? ated a DOS disk, copied the flash utility A:\AMIFLASH xxxxxx.bin or A:\AWARDFLASH
Tamilarasan into it and ran it after restarting. It xxxxxx.bin. Here, xxxxxx.bin is the name of
prompted me to provide the necessary the BIOS file. Press [Enter], and follow the
‘File Name to Program’. Since I did not instructions. After you are done, remove
know the name of the file, I just typed the the floppy and restart the machine. This is
model number of the motherboard, and the correct way to flash the BIOS. Howev-
the name of the updated file as the source er, before you do this, please refer to the
file. It made me wait for more than a half motherboard users manual and see if a
an hour, after which I had to restart again. corrupt BIOS flash can be recovered by set-
Before the memory test, it showed an ting any jumper on the motherboard. If it
error in the BIOS. Please help. can be done, please recover the BIOS,
Rejin Ravi reboot the computer and check if it is
working fine. Then shut down the com-
Updating the BIOS is always a danger- puter and perform the instructions men-
ous affair and the error you get is due to an tioned above to flash the BIOS properly. If
Manually activate Windows to get updates improper update. It is advisable to take a however, the corrupt BIOS cannot be
backup of the BIOS. Also, before upgrad- recovered and your system remains unus-
It seems that you have already activat- ing, make sure you have downloaded the able, then you will need to contact your
ed your copy of Windows XP. You can ver- right version for your motherboard. In system vendor to get this issue resolved.
ify this to be sure. To do so manually, go to your case, go to http://www.kobian.com/
Start > Run and type ‘oobe/msoobe /a’. If dl_mb_get.php for the latest version. Unzip A backup number
Windows XP is activated, then you will the contents to a floppy, and configure the Can you please tell me how to take a
get a window say that the product is first boot device to Floppy in the BIOS. On backup of my data in Tally using Nero?
already activated. If not, then you will be restarting the machine, type the following: Saura

232 JUNE 2003

 Incompatible music player sion CDs. There are a few exceptional
I run Windows 2000 and use Nero players that can read multi-session
5.5 to write my CDs. The problem CDs, but most do not
is that if I create a multi-session support this feature. You
MP3 CD, the songs recorded in will have to buy a CD
the first session are read by my player that reads multi-
CD player, while those record- session CDs. You writ-
ed in second, or later sessions ing at 8X speed is only
are not. I write at 8X speed. going to matter if you
What is the problem and how can are making an audio
To backup a company’s details, note its code it be solved? CD(.cda audio files) as
number in Tally Arindam Singha ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper some players cannot recog-
nise audio CD’s written at
Locate the Tally data directory manu- It is quite common for CD player’s higher speeds. The core of the issue
ally, and copy the entire directory to the to only recognise the first session, as it here is multi-session CD’s which is not
Nero window. The default location of this is not designed to handle multi-ses- being recognized by your CD player.
folder is C:\tally\data. Press the Burn but-
ton, and that’s it.
If you wish to copy just one company You can also clear the temporary To view pages offline, open an Internet
and not the entire directory, then first files, cookies and uninstall unnecessary Explorer window and on the Favourites
start Tally and note down the code num- programs on the hard drive to get more menu click on ‘Add to Favourites’. Select
ber shown beside the name of the com- hard drive space. Otherwise, you will the ‘Make available offline’ checkbox. To
pany, go to the data folder and copy all need to get a new hard drive. update the page regularly, you can specify
the files with the same number. This problem can also be caused by a a schedule and also the amount of content
virus. You need to run an anti-virus to be downloaded for that page by clicking
Space-eating virus check with the latest virus definitions for on Customize. Then follow the onscreen
I use a Pentium 4 system with NT and your software. In case you cannot update instructions. Remember this will only save
Windows 98. After using Windows 98 for your virus definitions, you can do an the current Web page for offline viewing.
a while, I get an error saying, ‘Hard disk is online scan by logging on to www.panda- You can repeat this for all the web pages
full. Delete unwanted files or disk software.com. that you want to save.
cleanup’. I have 367 MB of free disk space, You can also use utilities such as
and have installed Norton AntiVirus, but Extension confusion WebZip or WinMHT to download, and
the problem persists. What should I do? Can you please tell me which program save entire Web sites to your hard drive so
Manoj Nambiar can play RM extensions, as I am unable to that you can view them offline.
play downloaded songs with this exten-
Windows NT and Windows 98 use sep- sion? Also, what are files with the PHP Reset your cookies
arate swap files. The default setting is set to extension? Whenever I try to log into the Yahoo!
‘Let Windows manage my virtual memory Sandesh Messenger, it shows an error message say-
settings.’ Since you are getting this error in ing, “Reset your cookies”. However, my
Windows 98, what you can do is specify The RM extension for songs refers to friends can log in from the same computer.
the amount of swap space to be used by the Real Media format popularised by Real What should I do?
Windows. You can do that by going to Start Networks. Either download the latest Real Shantanu Bhattacharya
> Settings > Control Panel > System > Perfor- Player software from www.real.com, or get it
mance > Virtual Memory. Set the options as from the Mindware CD we have provided. The Yahoo! Messenger stores your
per your requirement. You will need to The PHP extension is used for files con- preferences as cookies on your comput-
restart the computer to save the settings. taining scripts in PHP language. These files er. Whenever you visit, or connect to
are used by software programmers to their services, these cookies are sent back
design Web sites. to the Yahoo! server. Some even store
sensitive information, such as your
Online, offline password. Generally, these cookies are
I use Internet Explorer 6 SP1 as my Web created and deleted automatically by the
browser. Recently, I haven’t been able to messengers, as and when required. But
view Web pages offline. I can see the Web sometimes due to some reason, the cook-
pages offline through history only just after ies are not updated. This results in error
disconnecting from the Internet. But, when messages. To solve this problem, you
I try to view the pages later, they do not have to reset all cookies by deleting
open. I have tried reinstalling Internet them. As you have not mentioned your
Explorer but that didn’t help. What should operating system, you have to locate the
You can perform an online scan at I do to view pages offline? cookies folder. To do this go to Start > Find
Pandasoftware.com Jodil Davis > Files or Folders and type ‘cookies’. Press

233 JUNE 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

‘Find Now’, and delete all the files that

are found.
FAQs
Unauthorised modem 4X, the card should run at 4X. To verify
Virus Attack I have an 800 MHz Processor with 128 this download the latest 4-in-1 drivers
I have a 10 GB hard disk with two par- MB RAM and a Conexant Soft 56 Kbps from the Via Web site and install it. Con-
titions. The second partition has a file internal modem. I run Windows XP and figure this utility and it will show you
named win386.swp. Can I delete the file? Windows Me. Whenever I try to install the the information about your mother-
Another problem is that when I open modem drivers in Windows XP, I get the board including the AGP information.
the HTML files from my Web site in message ‘Modem is not digitally signed’.
FrontPage, I get an error stating illegal The modem drivers were working per- Type mismatch
operation. When I open the same file in fectly with Windows 98, and the problem With reference to the January 2002
Notepad, it opens showing a new line. started only after I upgraded the OS. issue of Digit, whenever I type 'gpedit' in
The line appears to be some sort of VB Pawan Sudedi the run command, it gives the message
script that I do not remember adding in ‘Windows cannot find gpedit, make
the file. When I removed the line, the Microsoft has a laboratory called sure you typed name correctly, and
HTML file started loading faster. What can Windows Hardware Quality Laboratory
the problem be? (WHQL) that tests drivers and digitally
Parimal Satyal signs them. The purpose is to ensure
that the user gets drivers which comply
to a standard quality. The drivers that
are provided by manufacturers along
with the devices are the latest ones, and
in most of the cases are not tested by
Microsoft. The unsigned drivers are
recognised during installation in Win-
dows XP, due to which you get that error
message. Go ahead and install the driv-
ers by clicking on the ‘Continue any-
way’ button. Just make sure that you
download and install the latest WHQL
Certain viruses add lines of code to files drivers from the device manufacturers
Web site as soon as they are available. then try again. To search for a file, click
Win386.swp is the Windows swap file. start button, and then click search’.
If you delete the file, Windows will recre- The upgrade dilemma I also wish to know how to allow
ate it. But it is essential for Windows to I have a Pentium III 800 MHz, and deny access to the DOS mode
have this file as it will cease to boot if this 256 MB SD RAM, Creative Vibra 128, using the registry. I use Windows XP
file is absent. The default setting is set to ASUS CUV4X-E, GeForce4 Ti4200 128 Professional and have an administra-
‘Let Windows manage my virtual memo- MB and a 10 GB 7,200-rpm hard disk. tive account.
ry settings.’ My motherboard manual clearly Gajendra S
To change this, go to Start > Settings > states its support for AGP 4X. But,
Control Panel > System > Performance > Virtual when I connected the above men- What you need to type is ‘gpedit.msc’
Memory. Here set the option ‘Let Windows tioned graphics chipset in the AGP (you missed out the .msc file exten-
manage my virtual memory settings (Rec- slot, it seemed to work in 2X mode. sion). This command actually means
ommended)’ to Yes. Here, you can also When I try to change it to 4X, nothing Group Policy Editor, which controls the
specify a new partition, the minimum happens. I have also checked the BIOS administrative rights for the user.
swap file size and the maximum swap file settings, which is set at AGP 4X. The To deny access to MS-DOS Com-
size. driver version is 31.00, which the latest mand Prompt, follow these steps:
Your second problem is caused by a version available from MSI. Upgrading Using Regedit find the key below:
virus called HTML.Redlof.A (also known to version 43.45 might not help as I HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Micr
as VBS/Redlof@M, VBS.Redlof, might not be able to get the MSI tabs. osoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Poli-
VBS_REDLOF.A and VBS/Redlof-A). It Hardik Malekar cies\WinOldApp.
acquires control of your machine, and Create the key if it does not exist. To
modifies the registry and infects all the You are right in assuming that do this, right-click in the right pane of
.html, .htm, .asp, .php, .jsp and .vbs files upgrading to driver version 43.45 may the window, select DWORD Value,
with the line you found in your HTML file. not have the MSI tabs. But that does not name it ‘NoRealMode’ and modify the
Once a machine is infected, each e-mail it impair the functionality of your video value of NoRealMode to ‘1’. If you wish
sends will be infected with the virus. card in any manner. You have not men- to enable it in the future, you can do so
Update your anti-virus package, scan tioned the manner from which you have by changing the value to ‘0’. Note that
the entire hard disk and delete all infect- concluded that the card is running in you need to reboot your PC for this
ed files. If you do not have backups of the AGP 2X mode. Since, the BIOS is set to restriction to come into force.
files, you will have to remove the VB script

234 JUNE 2003

 amount of size. The difference in the disk
Blurry monitor three OS’, the consumption shown and as assumed by
I have a Pentium III 866 MHz problem rests you is because you are not considering the
CPU with 128 MB RAM. For the either with your size of the hidden files.
past few months, I have noticed display adapter, In order to check if you are indeed
that the display gets blurry a few or your moni- consuming 3.77 GB of space, in Windows
minutes after I turn my computer tor. First, try Explorer go to View > Folder Options. Select
on. This happen with all the three uninstalling ‘Show all files’ and press OK. Now go to
OS I run. your the C drive, select all files and check the
If I turn my monitor off for half display adapter total usage of disk space by right-clicking
an hour, I get a sharp picture for a drivers and on it and selecting Properties. This
few seconds after I turn it on again. then re- will confirm the amount of space you
Kindly suggest a solution. install them. If are using.
Alip Kumar Saha the problem still persists, then get the
picture tube of your monitor checked DirectX misbehaving
As the problem persists in all the from your vendor. I have a P4 1.7 GHz computer, 128 MB
DDR RAM, running Windows XP. I have a
problem running my games. I tried the
from each of the HTML files manually. If startup time taken by Windows. DirectX diagnostic troubleshooting tool,
you miss even a single file, it will spread Regarding your second query, it seems and found that there is some sort of Direc-
again. that your CMOS battery has drained out. tX error. When I ran the Direct3D test, a
Even though it shows the correct time, it message is displayed saying, “You can-
Aging battery will decrease over a period of time. We celled the test by pressing a key”, even
I have a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz with a SiS recommend you to replace it. though I never touched any key. I installed
chipset motherboard, with Windows 98 DirectX 8.1 from one of the earlier Digit
SE and 2000 installed. When I start my Exaggerated disk usage CDs, but even that didn’t help. I tried to
computer in Windows 98, the logo I have a PC with Pentium 4 processor, repair Windows XP, which solved the prob-
remains for a long time, but then the 845E mercury motherboard, 256 MB lem, but only for a few days. I have Win-
machine starts normally. RAM, 40 GB Seagate hard disk and dows XP and 2000, and the problem
I also have another problem. The Windows 2000 Professional. The problem persists with both the operating systems.
CMOS system password works until an is that my machine shows my disk usage Please help me.
error occurs or I restart the PC. Then it more then it actually is, i.e., I use 2.11 GB, Suman
displays a message ‘CMOS checksum but it shows that I use 3.77 GB. The parti-
error defaults loaded’. I think it is due to tion size is 9.31 GB. Can you tell me why It seems that some application is
the low power in CMOS battery, even Windows extrapolates my disk usage? modifying settings in your computer
though it displays the time correctly. What Ramprasad that is preventing or disabling DirectX
can be the problem? from functioning properly. What you
Shiladitya Mohpatra Windows is not extrapolating your disk can do is restore your computer using
usage; in fact, your OS is showing the exact the System restore feature. Then check if
Normally, Windows loads applications DirectX functions properly, and if you
after the boot up process. If your PC takes are able to carry out the diagnostic tests.
a long time to start, it is because of the Then install the applications that you
device drivers and files loading in the normally would. Check after each appli-
background. You can also use the Mscon- cation or game installation, if the Direc-
fig utility in Windows to disable all back- tX functionality remains. If you face this
ground programs that may affect your problem after installing a game, then the
Windows startup time. After you have game is to blame. An easier way around
reached the Windows desktop, perform this is to download and install the latest
these steps below DirectX 9. It will upgrade your version
Click on Start > Run. Type ‘MSCONFIG’ of DirectX and also fix any corrupted, or
to get a window with a title ‘System Con- missing files.
figuration Utility’. Click on the Startup
tab. Here you will see a list of programs
installed on your computer. These are Send your computing
programs that load automatically when problems to
Windows is started, and they keep run- [email protected]
ning in the background. Please clear all or write to Digit,
the check boxes except for ‘ScanRegistry’ D-222/2, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC,
and ‘SystemTray’, then click OK. The MIDC, Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400 706,
computer will now prompt you to restart. Remember to select hidden files as well if you and we may answer it here!
This should help you reduce some of the want to know the exact hard disk space usage

235 JUNE 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Do away with compatibility problems, display disorders, power matters,

messaging headaches, and mystery files more mysterious than the errors…

Compatibility disorder I have a computer that runs Windows Till recently, I was able to use my
I have a PIII 450 MHz machine, with 95 and has an Internet connection Iomega 100 MB zip drive without any
128 MB RAM and Internet Explorer 5.5. through the LAN. My problem is that the problems. I recently changed my mother-
When I was installing JetAudio, I got the old version of RealPlayer no longer plays board, and then installed my printer and
error message ‘Incompatible version of radio stations or steaming audio, and Zip drive. When I tried to install my CD-
RPC stub’. What does it mean? How can the latest version requires Windows 98 Writer, I reached a situation where I could
this problem be solved? or more. My organisation refuses to use either my zip drive or my CD-Writer.
Ashwin K upgrade the OS. Is there any software that Nitesh Kumar Jain N
can play radio stations such as BBC on
This error occurs when the Setup pro- Windows 95? It appears that you’ve switched to a
gram finds an incompatible version of Satish Kumar Gajbhiye new motherboard without installing the
OLEAUT32.DLL, OLDPRO32.DLL, ASYC- required drivers. Thus, Windows is most
FILT.DLL or stdole2.tlb files. Certain pro- You can play radio stations such as probably using incorrect drivers, due to
BBC on Windows 95 using Pirate Radio, which it ended up corrupting the ASPI
or with the Destiny Media Player layer that interacts with removable drives
available online at w w w . p i r a t e r a d i o . c o m. such as the CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Zip and
Mixed up drives Jaz drives, etc. This driver is essential for
the smooth functioning of these devices.
What you can do is back up your data to
another partition, or another hard disk.
Then, format your system, and re-install
Windows. After completing the installa-
Download and run the repair tool to remove tion, first install all the necessary moth-
incompatible files erboard drivers, and then install the VGA
or Display card and sound drivers. Now,
grams might have replaced these files install the Zip drive’s drivers. Finally,
with an incompatible version. install the printer drivers and the neces-
Download and run the .exe file available sary applications. This should solve your
at h t t p : / / d o w n l o a d . m i c r o s o f t . c o m / d o w n l o a d / problem.
msninvestor/patch/1.0/win98/EN-US/
m c r e p a i r . e x e . Click on Yes when prompted Outlook errors
to overwrite newer files. Reboot the When I export messages from Outlook
computer, and start the program again. The Destiny Media Player from pirate radio lets Express version 4.0, using F i l e > E x p o r t >
Radio matters you play online radio M e s s a g e s, I get an error message which

112 JULY 2003

says “The export could not be performed.
An error occurred while initializing MAPI”. Oops, my display!
However, I can export the address book I was playing with the display Boot the computer and keep [F8]
without any errors. properties of my PC and set pressed. You will see a Startup
Sanjay Kot the resolution to maximum. menu that should have an
The computer went all fuzzy, option of booting into Safe
This can happen if you configure Out- and I received the follow- mode. Boot into Safe mode,
look Express as the default Messaging ing error message—’The and access the display
Application Programming Interface output signal is out of properties by right-click-
(MAPI) client. To work around this prob- range. Please check your ing on the desktop and
lem, restart your computer and start Out- signal source.’ Could you choosing Properties. Set the
look Express. Go to T o o l s > O p t i o n s . Under please let me know the resolution for the moni-
the General tab, clear the ‘Make Outlook process of setting my tor to what it was earlier
Express my default Simple MAPI client’ PC back to its normal and then click on OK.
check box and click Apply. Click OK resolution? ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper Reboot the computer. This
when you receive the prompt, ‘The Sim- Sarveh Patil should solve the problem.
ple MAPI client has been changed.’ You
may need to restart your machine for the
changes to take effect. Quit Outlook RAM compatibility best upgrade you can opt for is a 933 MHz
Express and restart your computer. You I have a few questions to ask: Will a PIII processor, though it is really hard to
should now be able to import or export 32 MB RAM and a 128 MB RAM work find one now since Intel has officially
messages without any hassles. together? stopped its PIII production.
Secondly, I have a SIS 630 mother- If you wish to know whether your
Fatal exception board with a PIII 533 MHz processor. sound card supports full duplex opera-
I use an ASUS motherboard with an What is the best upgrade for this configu- tion, in Windows, go to C o n t r o l P a n e l >
Athlon XP 1700+ processor, 256 MB DDR ration? S y s t e m s > D e v i c e M a n a g e r . Here, double-
RAM and run Windows 98 SE. The prob- Thirdly, how do I know whether the click on the ‘Sound Video and Game
lem is that while loading Windows, after sound card is full duplex, or not? Controller’ item. Select your sound card
POST, the system shows a blue screen Vikram Aditya Mishra and go to Properties. In the Settings tab,
with the error message ‘a fatal exception look for a checkbox labelled ‘Allow Full
OE has occurred at 017F: BFF8AB97’. Duplex Operation’. This indicates that
Why is this so? the sound card has the full duplexing
Babu Govindharaj K feature.
You may also use the MSN Messen-
The problem seems to lie with a ger’s ‘Audio Tuning Wizard’ by accessing
memory module-timing mismatch T o o l s > A u d i o a n d V i d e o T u n i n g W i z a r d or the
between the RAM modules. This will corresponding Yahoo! Messenger utility
mostly be the case if you use two 128 MB through H e l p > A u d i o S e t u p W i z a r d to check
RAM sticks. It is also possible that the whether the sound card has a full
motherboard cannot detect the RAM duplexing feature.
modules settings properly. Get a BIOS
update and see whether it happens Bad clusters
again. Also, in the advanced settings of I have an Intel Pentium III 866 MHz
your BIOS, try setting the CPU to MEM- and Windows 98. In the past, I had two
ORY ratio to 1:1, after setting all jumpers hard disks that developed bad clusters,
and switches back to their default values Audio tuning using MSN messenger which I replaced. I would like to know
according to the motherboard manual. whether I lost those two hard disks due to
Change the above settings after selecting non-availability of a UPS. Is it necessary to
‘Load bios defaults’ in the BIOS, then Your 32 MB and 128 MB RAMs will use a UPS or is a stabilizer enough? If a
reboot for the changes to take effect. The work together, provided both of them UPS is needed, what is the best brand?
problem should be solved. have the same frequency, or speed rat- Raghu Gadiga
If it persists, try checking the memory ings. The speed rating is usually printed
modules on a different PC, or a different on the RAM module itself. If they are dif- Bad clusters are actually physical dam-
memory slot on your machine. This ferent, set the DRAM clock to the lesser ages that occur to your hard disk platters.
would help determine whether the fault of the two, in the BIOS. The RAM speed The cause for this could be either a man-
lies in the motherboard or in the DIMM adjustments can generally be found ufacturing defect, or a voltage fluctuation.
slots. If the DIMM slot is faulty, then use under the ‘Advanced Chipset Settings’ The latter can occur if you don’t have an
another DIMM slot for the RAM module. section. Set all the values you find UPS or CVT. The fluctuation may not be
In case the motherboard is defective, you there—Memory Clock, RAS\CAS apparent to you, but it can still cause
will need to get it serviced by the mother- Latency—to their slowest settings. trouble to your hard disk. Even a trouble-
board vendor. Keeping the same motherboard, the some SMPS can do damage. So, it is advis-

113 JULY 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

able to connect your PC to a UPS as it also than the actual physical memory of Linux appears in the command line.
prevents problems caused by power fail- onboard. The graphics driver for the i810 Also, the Windows setup doesn’t proceed,
ures, rather than using just a stabilizer or configuration can request up to 6 MB of giving a cryptic message and starts the
CVT. APC and Emerson are a couple of memory from the OS to maintain the thorough scandisk on the system. Is there a
good brands you can consider. i810’s maximum screen resolution of way out?
1,024 x 768, 2 MB for a command buffer Anirban Sen
Power puff! and 4 MB for Z-buffering. For high per-
I’ve recently purchased a Compaq formance 3D applications, the drivers GRUB stores the details of your boot
Presario that has a P4 1.6 GHz, 128 MB request larger allocations of system mem- partitions on your Master Boot Record
RAM, and a 40 GB hard drive. After a few ory for AGP graphics textures. When the (MBR). But since you deleted the parti-
months, it stopped working properly. It 3D application is closed, the OS will then tions and created new ones, it has no rel-
turns off suddenly, a few minutes after I re-allocate system memory back for nor- evance now. Also, when you installed
start my PC. When I reboot my PC, it takes mal Windows use. So the integrated Windows, it did not clear the MBR. So
a lot of time and shows a red light. Please graphics chipset will pick up the video the information is still present in a cor-
suggest a solution. RAM allocation from the system memory. rupted manner. Flushing the MBR, and
Vickey Kumar Increasing the system memory should installing Windows again can solve this
provide you with more video RAM. You problem. The command to flush the
There could be a number of reasons can also refer to the users’ manual that MBR using FDISK is f d i s k / m b r . Do this
for this. First of all, this can occur when came along with the computer to see if using a boot floppy. This will clear your
the inside of the cabinet gets heated. you have BIOS settings to allocate more MBR and after that, you can move on to
Check if the power supply fan, at the RAM for your video applications. This is the Windows installation.
back of the tower, is working properly typically found in the Advanced Chipset
when the PC turns off abruptly. If it isn’t, Settings or Integrated Peripherals sections Bad cookies
then it is a power supply issue. Call the of the BIOS. How dangerous can cookies be, and
service engineer if your machine is how does a hacker get information about
under warranty. Getting rid of Linux my computer using cookies?
If your machine is not under warran- I have a peculiar problem with my Amit Dugar
ty, then follow the instructions given Zenith PC, which has a Pentium 4, 128 MB
below, but only if you have previous and a 40 GB hard drive that has five parti- In general, cookies are stored as text
hardware experience. Ground yourself tions. I had Windows and Linux installed on files and can cause no harm to your PC
properly by touching a metal or wear an different partitions. To format and re-install or spread viruses. Hackers—or rather,
anti-static strap. Power off the PC, and Windows from a scratch, I used FDISK, and commercially driven Web sites with no
open the cabinet. Check whether the deleted the non-DOS partition and then regard for your privacy—surreptitiously
RAM and video card are properly seated. the logical, extended and primary parti- plant cookies and then retrieve them in
Ensure that the monitor cable on the tions, one after the other. I recreated the such a way that it allows them to build a
back of the video card is properly tight- partitions (without the non-DOS partition), detailed profile of your interests, spend-
ened. Now turn on the PC, and see and formatted the disk. The problem now ing habits and lifestyle, making you a
whether the processor fan and the fan is that, if I boot from the hard drive, GRUB prime target for e-mail based advertising.
on the video card are spinning properly.
Leave it like this, and see if the comput-
er remains on. If it goes off, then there is Trojan at your backdoor infected files is to download the
an issue with one of these three compo- The Backdoor Sdbot Virus has infect- removal tool from w w w . s y m a n t e c . c o m , or
nents. Remember that you can only nar- ed my Windows system file, i.e., from w w w . p a n d a s o f t w a r e . c o m. Execute
row down the possibilities of a fault in msvcrt.exe. I have used Norton this program, which will analyse all
components such as these. If there is a AntiVirus 2002 to amend this, but to no the files and remove all strains of the
problem with the motherboard, then avail—it has only quarantined the file, virus from the machine.
you will not be able to detect it easily. not repaired it. Please give me a solu-
tion.
RAM happy Gurpreet
I have a Compaq Presario 5000, built
around the i810 motherboard. How can I This virus is a Trojan horse
dedicate more RAM to my integrated that allows the hacker to control
graphics chip? your computer. It can also update
Nitin Kundra itself regularly using the Inter-
net. The virus shows up under
The Intel i810 uses a technology called the file name cnfgldr.exe or sys-
Dynamic Video Memory Technology mon16.exe in the task manag-
(DVMT). The OS will typically require er. The executable files can be
allocation of up to 1 MB of system mem- found in the c : \ w i n d o w s \ s y s t e m
ory to support legacy VGA. This means folder. The only way to repair the
that system utilities will report 1 MB less

114 JULY 2003

 FAQs Unfortunately I have forgotten the pass-
word. How can I recover it?
Help me with my help files files. These *.gid files are nothing but Rana Basu
I use Windows XP with SP1. I am pointers used by the above programs
unable to use the Help files from any for faster searches and sorting of Help There are many recovery software
program in my PC. I tried opening the databases. available on the Internet that you can
*.chm help files but I get an error that Yes, you can safely delete them. use. MSOfPass97 and Advanced Office 97
the file cannot be found, even though it However, the .gid file will be re-built by Password Recovery 1.33 are a few of
is present. the original Help file, the next time you the most popular ones. MSOfPass97 is
Nitesh Kisan Raut access it. Also, some Windows programs available at http://www.lostpassword.
require the .gid file to be present, so it’s c o m / m s o f p a s s 9 7 . h t m, while Advanced
The problem lies within your Win- better to let sleeping dogs lie. Office 97 Password Recovery 1.33 can be
dows setup. The file winhlp32.exe is downloaded from h t t p : / / w w w . s o f t p i l e . c o m /
probably corrupt. There might also be Watching TV Utilities/Password_Recovery/Download_
corrupt Internet Explorer files present. I have an Athlon XP 2000+ with 128 00557_1.html.
So, update your Internet Explorer or MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive and an ASUS
simply rerun the setup available from A7N266-VM motherboard with Corrupted C
Microsoft’s site at h t t p : / / d o w n l o a d . onboard VGA and sound. The operating Every time I try to boot into my
microsoft.com/download/ie6sp1/finrel/6_sp/ systems installed are Windows 98 and machine, it shows the error, ‘Unable to
W 9 8 N T 4 2 K M e X P / E N - U S / i e 6 s e t u p . e x e . This Mandrake. I have a Pinnacle PCTV which read drive. Abort, Retry or Fail?’ I used a
will replace winhlp32.exe, and the cor- works fine in Windows 98. How do I Startup disk, and booted into the DOS
responding files necessary to run the watch TV in Linux? There are no Linux mode successfully. Now the data in drive
*.chm help files. drivers bundled on the driver CD, or D is safe, but drive C is corrupted.
found on the Pinnacle Web site. I used some data recovery utilities that
Unidentifiable files Avninder Singh were bundled in the Digit CD, however, I
In the recent past, I have found that can see only unreadable characters
many *.gid files are being created in my The Pinnacle PCTV card can be used instead of filenames.
computer. What are these files for? I in Linux, using the BT878 TV chipset Arvind Singh
hope they are not related to any virus. support. This should be available as the
I use a Celeron 300A processor with bttv kernel module. The application you This error appears because the File
128 MB RAM, running Windows 98. need to use is called xawtv. Try running Allocation Table (FAT) of your C drive
Rakesh xawtv from the command line to see if has been corrupted, or the hard drive
you have it installed. If not, download itself has gone bad. Firstly, you can try
There is no need to be alarmed. an appropriate package for Mandrake diagnosing the problem with the hard
These files are created every time you from h t t p : / / r p m s . m a n d r a k e c l u b . c o m / r p m s / drive. You will require a Norton Disk
use any of the Help files available with- mandrake-devel/cooker/i586/Mandrake Doctor floppy disk, or CD-ROM for this.
in Windows, generally as *.hlp or *.chm /RPMS/xawtv-3.88-1mdk.i586. html. Boot the computer using the Norton CD
or a Windows 98 boot disk, or a Win-
dows 98 CD. If you boot via a Windows
Shutdown shortcut bootable, then choose the option to start
How can I create a shortcut icon to the computer with CD-ROM support.
shutdown my computer? Type ‘NU’ to start the Norton Utilities
Abhishek Srivastav Program. Once you get to the menu,
select 'Disk Doctor' and again press
To create a shutdown shortcut, [Enter]. Choose ‘Diagnose Disk’, select C:
right-click on the desktop and go to N e w and press [Enter] once more. In the event
> S h o r t c u t. Then type ‘ c : \ w i n d o w s \ r u n d l l . e x e that Norton is unable to revive your
u s e r . e x e , e x i t w i n d o w s ’ as the command computer, you can try recovering the
line—make sure you keep the spacing the data from the hard drive, and formatting
same. Give the shortcut a name, such as and reloading the OS on the hard drive.
Quick Shutdown and press Finish. You can use programs such as Stellar
You can download the PlayStation emulator Data Shield or Easy Recovery Pro to
PC PlayStation to run PlayStation CDs recover the data.
I have an Intel Pentium 4 system
with Windows 98 SE. I have some obtained at h t t p : / / w w w . g a m e - r e v o l u t i o n . Send your computing
PlayStation CDs that do not run on it. com/download/emulator/playstation.htm. problems to sos@jasub-
How can I run them on my machine? hai.com or write to
Rajeev Handa Lost word Digit, D-222/2, TTC
I have Office 97 installed on my PC. Industrial Area, MIDC, MIDC, Nerul,
Navi Mumbai-400 706, and we may
You can get the CDs to run by Recently I password protected both the
answer it here!
using a PlayStation emulator that can be read and modification options of a file.

115 JULY 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

A file that needs to be locked away, an intriguing mark on the CPU, a motherboard that refuses to
recognise hard disks... Here’s the denouement to it all!

Windows 98 to XP program even before Explorer starts. This motherboard model at the manufactur-
I was unable to install Windows XP Profes- feature is used by software such as er’s Web site, and follow the steps given at
sional in the MS-DOS mode. I had to install Norton AntiVirus, McAfee, etc., to exe- the site, to flash the BIOS. However, they
Windows 98 SE first, and then upgrade it to cute the program automatically. may not be an update available for your
Windows XP Professional. Is there a way to To eliminate the error, you will need motherboard, it being too old.
install Windows XP Professional without to change the settings in the anti-virus Get an add-on IDE controller. Pur-
having to follow this procedure? program so that no virus scan is ini- chase an IDE controller card, install
Mahendra tialised at startup. Restart your comput- the drivers, and connect it to the high
er and the error should not occur again. capacity hard drive. Though being an
You can install Windows XP by exe- If it persists, then another application expensive solution, it will surely solve
cuting the winnt.exe within the i386 may be causing the error. You will have your problem.
folder on the Windows XP CD. The setup to find the program that starts at startup, Use utilities provided by your drive
then asks for the path of the source files, and disable it. manufacturer:
and starts the installation. Another alter- If you use a Maxtor hard drive, down-
native is to install it directly using a Upgrade to higher capacity drive load the utility at http://www.maxtor.com/en/sup-
Windows XP bootable CD. To change I wish to upgrade my PC’s BIOS to port/ downloads/big_drive_enabler.htm
the boot sequence, re-start your PC and allow it to recognise large hard disks. I Seagate’s utility is available at http://www.
press [Del] (or [F2], or [F12], depending have a Pentium-II 266 MHz, 128 MB RAM, seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/index.html
upon your motherboard) to enter the 4.3 GB hard disk, SG200A video card,
CMOS setup. Change the first boot 440LX motherboard, and the Award mod-
option to CD-ROM and keep the hard ular BIOS Version 4.1. I wish to have both
disk as the second boot option. Now Linux and Windows on this PC. My prob-
boot your PC using the Windows XP CD. lem is that although I am keen on using a
The setup should start automatically. large hard disk, say 40 to 60 GB, my
motherboard manual says it will not
Keep less work at startup recognise hard disks beyond 8.4 GB. What
I get a USERINIT.exe error, whenever I I can do to solve this?
switch on my computer. The PC runs V.A. Kowshik
Windows XP Home edition.
Deepak Dugar This is a problem faced by many.
There are three methods to solve this
This error occurs when Windows ini- problem:
tialises the users environment. There Update your motherboard’s BIOS. Maxtor’s Big Drive Enabler provides support for
exists a way by which you can start a Download the update available for your larger hard drives

106 AUGUST 2003

Video memory size
I have a P4 1.5 GHz, 256 MB SDRAM, Relay not allowed services depending upon
40 GB 7,200 rpm hard drive and a 64 MB The outgoing mail server for Dishnet your need.
SDR nVidia GeForce2 MX 400 graphics DSL and NOW no longer works. Their If you are
card. help desk says that they have removed unable to send e-
While fiddling about with my BIOS the facility to send e-mails from a mails through
recently, I came across an option wherein domain account such as mine. your Dishnet or
the AGP aperture size is set to 64. I would What do I do now? NOW e-mail id, then
like to know whether this is applicable Paradise first check the pass-
only for integrated graphics chipsets. If word. If you are using the
not, what does it mean for my system It appears that you correct password, then you
configuration. Will increasing it to 128 have an e-mail id on a will need to contact the ISP
increase my graphics performance? domain other than that help desk.
Sai Krishnan provided by Dishnet, or Another solution is to get
NOW. Many Internet SMTP services for your domain
ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper
The AGP aperture is the portion of Service Providers such from the Web hosting company
the PCI addressable memory range that as VSNL and Sancharnet, provide that is hosting your Web site. You may
is dedicated as graphics memory address SMTP solutions. also host your own SMTP server on a
space. It determines the amount of sys- Under this service, e-mails from pri- system that is connected to the
tem RAM that can be allocated to the vate domains are relayed through their Internet 24 hours a day. IIS under
graphics card for storing texture details. SMTP server. Purchase one of those Windows NT is one such alternative.
It is recommended that the aperture size
be half of your system RAM. Typically,
set the aperture to 64 MB or 128 MB. As gpedit not available PIII 500 MHz system with only an 8 MB
the memory on the graphics card I tried to bring up the group policy AGP card. I want to know what affects the
increases, the system requirement editor by typing the command gpedit.msc graphics capability of a system—a proces-
decreases. Hence there is no need to set in the Run dialog box in Windows XP. But, sor faster by 200 MHz, or a graphics card
the aperture size to half the system the PC gave up an error message saying, with 16 MB of extra RAM? Is there any
RAM. The aperture size is in no way “Windows cannot find ‘gpedit.msc’ Make way I can improve the performance with-
related to performance. Increasing it to sure you typed the name correctly and try out buying new hardware?
the largest setting would not result in again”. I tried several times, but to no Piyush Mishra
performance gains. avail. So, I tried to locate that file by using
the search utility. I found that there is no Your friend’s PC is a PIII, which has
Can’t boot file named gpedit.msc. Kindly help me! an optimised instruction set that han-
I have a Pentium 4 processor, 128 MB Benenet dles the graphics better than your PII.
DDR RAM and a 40 GB hard disk. When The processing speed also cannot be neg-
I boot up Windows XP, I get an error say- You probably have Windows XP lected; after all, everything depends on
ing, “Unmountable boot volume” Home installed on your PC, under which the CPU’s processing power. Hence, a
displayed on a blue screen. The error the gpedit.msc command is not avail- surplus of 200 MHz processing power
directs me to remove recently installed able. Hence, you will need to upgrade will definitely make a difference.
hardware or software first. Since I also your operating system to Windows XP Sorry, there is no way you can improve
have Windows 98 SE in another partition Professional. you system performance without upgrad-
that works fine, how can I get rid of the ing the hardware.
error message? Graphics card or a processor
Arvind Kumar I have a PII 300 MHz system with 128 Crack game
MB RAM and a 32 MB Sis 300/305 AGP I was using the trial version of the
This problem occurs when you have card. I have noticed that games such as 7Tools Partition Manager 2003. Ever since
a corrupted boot.ini file. Boot up FIFA 2003, which run very slow on my PC, the trial period expired, I get an error
using the Window XP CD. Press [R] run smoothly on my friend’s computer—a message about the expiry that waits for a
when you get the Setup screen, to get to minute at the boot up screen, every time
a DOS-like mode. Here, type chkdsk /p I start the PC.
and press [Enter]. After it is done, type I also receive a message saying that a
fixboot, press [Enter], then [y] and then CD is needed when I try to play Age of
again press [Enter]. After this, type exit to Empires. This error occurred after installing
reboot to Windows. This should solve an update for the game, downloaded from
your problem. the Microsoft Web site.
If it doesn’t, boot into the CD again. Vinodh
Type chkdsk /r to switch to the recovery
mode. When it is finished type exit to Upgrade to the full version of the
reboot to Windows. This should defi- The group policy editor comes with Windows Boot Manager. If you don’t want to buy
nitely help you out. XP Professional the program, un-install it and the mes-

107 AUGUST 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

sage should go away. found.” How do I get rid of this message? since I upgraded from Windows 98 to
The reason why Age of Empires doesn’t Manoj Windows XP Professional. If I try to enter
work anymore is that you originally the BIOS setup, none of the configuration
installed the game from a pirated CD, or This is a known problem with Real options are highlighted, and I cannot
copied a cracked version from a friend. Jukebox. You get this error when the change any of the settings. Help!
The crack modifies the game’s .exe file to pngu3263.dll file is missing or corrupt. Kabeer J Barooah
bypass the CD check. When you installed The solution is either you re-install Real
the update, the cracked file got overwrit- Jukebox or disable it at startup. To un- BIOS settings need to be highlighted
ten by the update and it started checking install it, go to Control Panel > Add/Remove so that they can be changed. The reason
for the original CD again. Program. they are not highlighted is that someone
The solution? None; one of the lessons may have set up an adminis-
to be learnt of playing pirated games! trative password without your
knowledge like maybe your PC
Not enough memory dealer. You will have to reset
I have a Celeron 1.2 GHz, Intel 810 the BIOS, either by removing
motherboard, 128 MB RAM and a 40 GB the battery or
hard disk drive. I am a multimedia stu- changing the
dent, and the software I use brings down jumper on the
my system resources. Whenever I connect motherboard so
to the Internet, I frequently get an error, that the CMOS
indicating that there is not enough mem- is reset. Refer to
ory. Sometimes, it even causes my PC to the mother-
hang. However, my friend’s PC that has board manual
the same configuration with 64 MB RAM You can disable Real for the proper
faces no such problems. Why is this so? Jukebox at startup jumper set-
Parivesh Jain via regedit, or tings. Be very
msconfig careful when
We assume that you are using changing the
Windows 98, since this and the previous To disable the program from starting jumper settings, it being an intricate
versions are the main operating systems automatically you have two options. One process. You could always get a profes-
that faced such problems. This happens is using the msconfig utility. Go to Start > sional to do the needful.
because browsers such as Netscape need a Run and type msconfig. Press [Enter]. Go
lot of resources, and operating systems to the Startup tab, uncheck all the entries Mark of the CPU
restrict each application to a 64 KB limit. related to Real Jukebox, press OK and I have a PC with a Pentium 4 1.8 MHz
These applications do not release unused restart the PC. processor. It is shown as Intel Pentium (R)
resources, and simultaneously demand The other option is to directly modify 4. Its L2 cache is 256 KB. This perplexes
more resources thus resulting in crashes. the registry. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ me since I read somewhere that P4 has a
To over come this problem, you need Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer- 512 KB L2 cache. Also, why is that brack-
to install patches, or fixes available at the sion\Run, and delete all the keys pertain- eted ‘R’ between Pentium and 4? Have I
browser’s Web site or upgrade the brows- ing to Real Jukebox. Playing around with been taken for a ride? Please comment!
er to a newer, more stable version. the registry can cause Windows to crash, Prasad
so it’s a good idea to back up the registry
Real Jukebox before you use regedit. Don’t worry, your hardware vendor
Every time I start my PC, I get a mes- has not duped you. In its initial stages,
sage saying, “Error starting program, A Can’t change BIOS setting the Pentium 4 was built with only
required .dll file, PNGU3263.dll, was not My PC restarts automatically ever 256 KB cache. Later on, it was revised to
include a 512 KB L2 cache. This can be
confirmed by taking a look at the CPU
Behind the firewall also have to packaging box. If it says that the CPU is
eDonkey2000, installed on get the port a Pentium 4 1.8 A, then must be a
my Windows 98 PC, does not 4662 opened 512 KB cache processor whereas if it just
connect to any of the available on the says Pentium 4 1.8, then it is a 256 KB
servers. Do I have to change some Internet serv- cache processor. As for the R, it stands for
settings for it to work? er. Check the ‘REGISTERED TRADE MARK’. See?
Mandar Sawant status of the Nothing to worry about.
port 4662 at
Check if your computer is the following Walk with the world
behind a firewall. If you happen Web site: I have a PC with a Celeron 1.1 GHz
to be behind one, then you need to http://www.preinheimer.com/cgi-bin/con- processor, 128 MB RAM, a 40 GB hard disk,
change the proxy settings. You will nectiontest/connectiontest.cgi and an Asus motherboard. I have a sepa-
rate 6 GB partition for Linux. First, I

108 AUGUST 2003

 FAQs
IRQ Locking un-select ‘Use automatic settings’.
I am unable to install the SBLive Under Resource Type, select IRQ and
CT4830 sound card in Windows 2000, hit Change Setting. Now select the
but the same hardware works fine in IRQ you wish to bind the sound card
Windows 98. I think the problem lies in with.
the IRQ sharing. I wish to know how I The hard disk is unable to provide
should lock the IRQ for my sound card. data to the CD-Writer at the speed
Another problem is that whenever I that it is required to. This may occur
burn a CD, it gets burned at a maximum due to many reasons—the hard disk
speed of 8X, even if the CD supports 24X. maybe slow, or other applications Password protect your documents, using Secure
If I try to burn the CD at a speed exceed- might also be accessing the hard disk Files 2.8
ing 8X, it gives an error message saying, at the same time, or the data might be
“Buffer under run”. Why is that so? fragmented, or CPU utilisation by other marked for protection just vanish from
Tamal programs maybe very high. To reduce their locations. They are visible only
such errors, use such tools as scandisk when the application is running. It also
To manage IRQ settings for the and defrag. Try not to run other appli- has an icon, which when pressed, clears
sound card, right-click on My cations while your CD is burning. the recent file list.
Computer and go to Manage > Device It is also possible that you maybe
Manager. In the right pane of the win- using an early version of a CD-Writer DLL file missing
dow, double-click on Sound, Video and that does not support buffer under run My Windows 98 SE PC has an Intel
Game controllers. Now right-click on protection. Hence, it maybe time to buy 815 motherboard and a PIII 933 proces-
the appropriate sound card driver, and one of the latest models that support it. sor. After updating the audio driver for
select Properties > Resources. Here you can my motherboard, I found that it is throw-
change the IRQ settings for the device. Locking files in a Safe ing the following error message at start-
To manually set the IRQ settings, first I wish to know how to password pro- up – “Error starting program; a required
tect my important files and folders so .dll file - DEC2MIME.DLL not found.”
that no one can peek into them? Due to this missing .dll file, the startup
Brajesh Manohar programs such as MusicMatch, Norton
AntiVirus, Task Scheduler, Intel active
There are many utilities such as monitor do not appear on the system
Secure Files 2.8, FileVault 2.7, tray and task bar. The programs work
bProtected 2003, noDelete 1.51, etc. fine when activated, using the desktop
to achieve this. Secure Files is one of icons.
the best. With this utility the files S.S.Samanta
remain protected even if the appli-
cation is not running. Add the files The missing .dll file—
to be protected, add the password DEC2MIME.DLL—is actually a
and close the application. That’s it! Symantec decomposer file, which
The files are protected. They can belongs to one of the recently installed
only be retrieved after you start the Symantec products. What you can do is
application and provide your pass- reinstall that Symantec product. It
Resolve resource sharing conflicts by changing the word. As soon as you stop the appli- should solve your problem and your
IRQ settings cation from running, all the files system tray icons will reappear.

installed Mandrake 8.2 without any prob- is indeed Redhat 9.1. The Red Hat site don’t give a separate /home partition`.
lem whatsoever. When I tried to install Red lists Red Hat 9.0 as its latest stable distro. Allocating separate space for /home does
Hat Version 7, I got a message indicating Running Red Hat 9.0 on your system will not really make much of a difference on
that the disk space is not enough. 256 MB be quite torturous as the minimum sys- a home PC as the number of users will be
for Swap, 4.5 GB for Root (/), and 1.2 GB tem requirement is 128 MB RAM. The very less.
for home. When I tried to install Red Hat Red Hat 7 installation should work fine
9.1, the system hangs after 7 per cent of (even a Red Hat 8 needs 4 to 5 GB of hard Send your computing
the installation. At my workplace, the same disk space for a typical install). The low problems to sos@jasub-
version installed itself smoothly without any disk space warning could be because you hai.com or write to
glitches. Will you kindly help me? allocated separate space to /home but Digit, D-222/2, TTC
G.Harish not to the other directories such as Industrial Area, MIDC, MIDC, Nerul,
Navi Mumbai-400 706, and we may
/boot, /usr, /etc, and /var. Try allocating
answer it here!
Do make sure that your distribution just the swap space and the / partition—

109 AUGUST 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Haunted computers, cameras that don’t work, CDs that refuse to run, computers that won’t shut
down, or just upgrade advice... Tell us about it and we’ll help you solve it

Camera can’t find file Windows you have installed. motherboard in the list of in-built drivers.
I recently bought a Sony DCR- Time for action Where can I find the required drivers for
TRV355E USB and a Sony DSC-P8 Whenever I try to explore any folder my video card?
USB camera. When I restart the machine, including my CD-ROM drive, Windows Saumik Pal
after installing the required drivers, I get displays an error message saying, “A run
an error message saying, “File USB- time error has occurred. Do you wish to
NTMAP.SYS is missing.” This happens Debug? Line: 0 Error: Type mismatch:
for both the cameras. Can you tell me ‘KJ_start’’.” Can you help me?
what I’m doing wrong? Sharma Gourishankar
Abhinav
Uh-oh! Looks like your machine is
Since the message says that the cru- infected by a virus; you’ll have to
cial file is missing or corrupt, the solu- delete all the files with the ‘htt’ exten-
tion would be to replace the needed sion. The easiest way is to go Start > Find
file—all you have to do is copy the file (or Search in case of Windows XP), type
from the original Windows CD. Look ‘*.htt’ as the criteria and start searching. The KOB 845G/GL NDSMx motherboard is
for the file named driver.cab in Once the search is complete, select all supported by newer versions of Linux
Windows XP and 2000, or base2.cab in the files in the search window and
Windows 98 and Me, and extract and press [Delete].
copy it. If you do not have the original Now that you’ve learnt your lesson, If you are really attached to your
CD, or if you can’t find the file, go to go to your anti-virus vendor’s Web site, version of Linux, and do not want to
http://www.usb-drivers.com/ driv- download the latest update and scan upgrade to a later version, you can
ers/49/49917.htm and download the file your hard drive. download precompiled binaries in the
of the same name for the version of rpm format from ftp://aiedownload.intel.
Where’s my graphics card? com/df-support/6080/eng/dripkg-1.
[email protected] I have a PC with a Pentium 4, 1.5 0-4.i386.rpm. If you want to compile the
E-mail us your computing GHz, 128 MB DDR RAM, a 40 GB code yourself, go to ftp://aiedownload.
problems, and we may Samsung hard drive and a Mercury KOB intel.com/df-support/6185/eng/20030425-
answer them here! Since we get more 845G/GL NDSMx motherboard with an i386.tar.gz, and get the readme file from
mails per day than we can handle, it may Intel chipset, and onboard sound and ftp://aiedownload.intel.com/df-sup-
take some time for your query to be video. My problem is that whenever I try port/6080/ ENG/readme.txt.
answered. Rest assured, we are listening! to install Linux 7.2, it does not recognise On the other hand, since your PC
my video card. Linux 7.2 does not list my configuration is definately good

128 SEPTEMBER 2003

enough, you can run newer versions of
Linux that have the drivers for your A Boot for a boot
motherboard and graphics card. These When I create a bootable CD using
distributions are available on the DVD Nero, the system prompts me to
provided with the August 2003 issue insert the bootable Windows 98
of Digit. CD. So I need to make, is a
bootable Windows 98 CD. How
Faulty CDs should I go about doing this?
I have a Compaq Presario with a Atul Jain
Pentium III 1 GHz processor, 256 MB
RAM and 20 GB hard disk running To create a bootable Windows
Windows XP. Recently, I got a book called 98 CD, you need the Windows 98
Red Hat Linux 8 Bible, which bundled installer CD, as well as a bootable
three CDs for installing the operating sys- floppy handy. What you need to
tem. Whenever I try to install Linux from do is insert the bootable floppy,
these CDs, it gives me an error message and then start Nero. Select ‘win98’
ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper
that says, “The second stage of the install CDROM (Boot) as the type of CD to f o l d e r
which you have selected does not match create and specify A: (or whatever from the Windows 98 installer CD to
the boot disk which you are using. This your floppy drive is called) in the your new compilation, add any files
shouldn’t happen and I am rebooting ‘Bootable logical drive’ box. Copy the that you want and write the CD.
your system now”. Can you help me
solve this problem?
Amita software was not designed to work with In Windows XP, the computer
this OS, and may not work. I decided to reboots automatically when a fatal error
Unfortunately, you can’t—not using continue installation anyway. occurs. If that fatal error only occurs
those CDs at least. The problem is that Now, when I try to download when you’re shutting down, the system
your CDs have the publishers edited pictures, I get a series of five errors, reboots automatically. If you haven’t
version of Red Hat 8 with incorrect starting with ‘Failed to get USB device’. changed any of the system failure set-
file sizes. What you can do is Can you please tell me the solution tings, you should be able to see the
download the correct version from to this problem? error in the Event Log—right-click on
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/ Abhinav Sharma My Computer and go to Manage > Event
errata/redhatpubed/. Viewer > System.
You don’t even need to do that; just Looks like you’ve been duped! The This can also occur if the Logitech
get the Digit August 2003 issue that has Frontech ClassyCam does not offer iTouch software version 1.5, or earlier is
a DVD, with the best Linux distribu- drivers for Windows XP, nor are any installed for some Logitech keyboards,
tions, including Red Hat 9. available on the Internet. In order to such as the Cordless Freedom models.
use this camera, you’re going to have to Install the latest iTouch drivers from
Misinformation connect it to a machine running www.logitech.com.
I have a problem with the Frontech Windows 98, 2000, or Me.
Classycam digital camera that I bought No can hear
about two weeks ago. My computer is a Never shuts down I have a Pentium 4 with 128 MB RAM
Pentium 4, 1.5 GHz with 256 MB RAM I have a Pentium III, 800 MHz and a 40 GB hard disk, running Windows
running Windows XP. It said on the box processor with an 810e motherboard, Me. About a month after installing Power
that the camera works with Windows XP, 128 MB RAM, and two operating Screensaver Builder, I began facing a
but when I installed the driver provided systems—Windows 98 and Windows XP. problem with the sound. I got an error
with the camera, I got a warning that the The problem is that my Standby option message that said “MMSYSTEM266 the
has been greyed out, and if I select Shut device could not be loaded, verify that
down, the computer just restarts. The the driver is installed correctly”. I tried
problem exists in Windows XP only, and
not with Windows 98. I even checked the
power options in the BIOS and Control
Panel—they all seem to be OK. Then, I
tried to disable restart from System
Properties > Advanced > Startup & Recovery,
but got the Error; “0x0000007E
(0xC0000005, 0xFC7F1945, 0xFC9589B0,
0xFC9586B0) kbdclass.sys - Address
FC7F1945 base atFC7F1000, DateStamp
36d82f3”. I have to reboot in Windows 98
The Frontech Web site clearly states that there just to shut down. What should I do? Use System File Checker to replace missing
are no Classycam drivers for Windows XP Nitin system files

129 SEPTEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Boot the multi-boot menu /fastdetect. This successfully clears the tings are configured to force the faster
I have an Intel 933 MHz on an Intel boot menu. UDMA modes.
MB815e motherboard, and an ATX Replace the 40-conductor cable with
power supply, running Windows 98 SE Windows XP doesn’t install an 80-conductor UDMA cable. Simulta-
and Windows XP. The PC works perfect- I have a Pentium III 933 MHz with neously, in the BIOS settings for your
ly except that when it shuts down it Intel 815EEa2 computer. My problem is computer, load the ‘Fail-Safe’ default
displays “It’s now safe to turn off that I cannot install Windows XP. When settings and then reactivate the most
your computer”, instead of directly I restart, it shows an error stating frequently used options such as USB
shutting down. “error: unmountable_boot_volume”. I Support.
My second problem is that I have recreated the partition and then for-
formatted my D drive, where Windows matted the hard disk, but still it did not I lost my Red Hat
XP was installed, but still get the menu work. What should I do? I run Windows Me and recently
to choose which operating system Ryan installed Red Hat Linux 7.2, after which
to boot from. How do I solve these it showed the LILO boot menu. Next,
problems? 40-conductor cable I installed Windows XP but the LILO
Ruhit boot menu disappeared. Now, I have to
use a Linux boot disk just to run Linux.
Ok here’s what you have to do; to How do I fix this?
fix the shutdown problem, go to the Seejo
CMOS BIOS settings by pressing
[Delete] when the PC boots. Go to the
Power Management option in the
BIOS menu and enable ACPI, press
[Esc], save changes to CMOS and exit
the BIOS screen.
Now, for your second problem,
right-click My Computer and go to 80-conductor cable
Properties > Advanced and click on
Settings in the 'Startup and Recovery' Use an 80-conductor cable to connect You can repair your LILO boot manager
section. Here, set the 'Default operat- UDMA drives, instead the standard from within Linux
ing system:' to Windows 98, and set 40-conductor cable
the 'Time to display list of operating There’s no need for concern—
systems:' to zero. The boot menu This occurs if your computer uses Windows always overwrites other boot
option will not be displayed thereafter. an Ultra Direct Memory Access loaders. To fix your system, you have
A definitive solution involves modify- (UDMA) hard disk controller, and to boot into Linux using the boot disk
ing the boot.ini file. Click on Edit in the following conditions are true: You you have. Login as root and go to the
the same tab to open the Boot.ini file use a standard 40-conductor connec- command prompt and type ‘lilo’ and
in Notepad. Here, change the default tor cable to connect the UDMA drive press [Enter]. You should see some-
entry to default= c:\, and delete the line to the controller, instead of the thing like ‘DOS added’ or ‘Linux
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WIN- required 80-conductor cable, and the added’. Now restart your PC, and the
DOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" basic input/output system (BIOS) set- problem will be fixed.

referring to Help but everything seemed between running a complete set up and PC to PC
to be in order. I re-installed the software copying all the files again—choose the I want to know how to connect my
but the problem persisted. I am able to ‘Copy all files again’ option and your PC to my friend’s PC, who lives around
play my sound files in all other programs. problem will be fixed. 2 Km away from my house. We both
Dev Another way to do this is to extract have phones and modems, and do
only the files you need from the not want to buy any extra hardware.
This error is caused if any or all of Windows CD, using System File We both run Windows 98. Can we
the following files are missing or cor- Checker (SFC). To start SFC, go to Start > do this?
rupted: Msvideo.dll, Dciman.dll or Run, type ‘sfc’ and press OK. Next, click Vishal
Mciavi.drv—all located in the Windows on ‘Extract one file from installation
System folder. Reinstalling a multime- disk’, type the file name ‘Msvideo.dll’ and Sure you can. Just go to Start >
dia component from Control Panel > press Start. The next screen will show Programs > Accessories > Communication >
Add/Remove Programs does not replace you where to ‘Restore from’ and the Hyper Terminal on both PCs. Now either
these system files. You will have to run location to ‘Save file in’—press OK. you or your friend can call each other
Windows Setup from within Windows, Repeat the steps for all the files men- using your modems, and transfer data
as then you are prompted to choose tioned above. just as if you were on a network.

130 SEPTEMBER 2003

Web camera stopped working Tweaking Windows XP Too many drives
I have Windows 98 installed on my I have an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ I have a Athlon XP 2000+ processor, 40
machine. The Web camera installed on my with Asus-A7V8X motherboard, 256 MB GB Seagate hard disk, 128 MB DDR RAM,
system was working perfectly until recent- DDR 266 RAM and run Windows XP as the ASUS motherboard and run Windows 2000
ly—it just doesn’t activate anymore. I tried operating system. The problem is that my Professional. I also have a Sony 52X CD-
re-installing the drivers, but the installation machine takes a very long time to boot up. ROM and an LG 48X CD-Writer. Recently, I
failed. The camera is not detected when I Santosh Choudhury bought a 16X DVD-ROM. The problem is
plug it in either. I have checked the BIOS, that my vendor says it’s not possible to
and found the USB port is enabled. I also Anytime an operating system is install all three at the same time, reason
tried installing another camera, but even booting up, it requires time to load being that the PC won’t be able to locate
that wasn’t detected. Finally, I installed my device drivers, start-up programs, etc. both, the DVD-ROM as well as CD-ROM at
camera on another system and found that it The loading time is further dependent the same time. Is this true? If yes, what is
works perfectly. What do I do? on devices being initialised by their the solution?
Narender Negi drivers. Sometimes a slow device Dipanshu Banerjee
such as an external modem can
Now that you’ve narrowed down the increase boot up time. Windows XP PCs are normally limited to four IDE
possibilities, we suspect that the USB port is a big step forward from previous devices. From the information that you
is the culprit. As you have already versions—it brings along a lot of have provided, you already have a hard
checked it is enabled, the port is probably excess baggage in terms of services that disk, CD-ROM and CD-Writer installed.
malfunctional. To be doubly sure, you start when you boot. To reduce the This leaves one IDE connector to which
can install a version of Windows with boot up time, you can use tweaking you can connect your DVD-ROM. If you
better USB support, such as Windows XP. utilities such as bootvis, available at do not have a free IDE connector, then
If the problem persists, your USB port is http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/ you need to buy a combination drive that
definitely kaput! You are then left with platform/performance/fastboot/bootvis. accommodates both a CD-Writer and a
two options—either buy new USB ports mspx. If you want more information DVD-ROM. Use of a splitter in case you do
with cables that connect to the USB on how to tweak Windows XP to not have a spare power connector for the
header on your motherboard (if your improve performance, take a look drive. Also, you might run short of drive
motherboard has such headers), or buy a at the Tips & Tricks special that bays. Some cabinets have only two bays
USB PCI card for new USB ports to con- came along with the June 2003 issue for optical drives. If so, you will have to
nect your devices to. of Digit. buy a new cabinet with three bays.

1/2 pageH AD

131 SEPTEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Want to play games? Find out a shortcut? Retrieve a password? Tell the difference
between master and slave? Read on...

I want shortcuts the message ‘disk geometry error’. How do all instances that are found. Restart
I have PIII 1.13 GHz processor with I convert the partition? your computer.
Windows 98 SE and Internet Explorer 6. Sumit
When I want to type a site name, I have to Some play, but some do not
type ‘www.yahoo.com’ to open it, but on Oops! Looks like you botched the I have installed quite a few games
another PC, I can just type ‘yahoo.com’ and partitioning process. Relax, it’s possible such as Max Payne, Need for Speed: Hot
press [Enter] to open it. What is the solu- to make amends using the latest version Pursuit 2, Quake III, etc. Quake III works
tion? of Partition Magic, viz., Partition Magic 8 fine, but when I run Max Payne, or Need
Pradeep Gade (www.powerquest.com). Alternatively, you for Speed, my computer restarts and
can even begin the partitioning process I see the paths ‘D:\windows\minidump\
You don’t even need to type site- from scratch. Note that since Linux uses mini072303-01.dmp’ and ‘D:\documents\
name.com for sites that begin with the EXT3 type partition to function, you SPF743~1.sen\local~1\temp\wer6c.tmp.dir00
‘www.’, and end with ‘.com’, like stand to lose all your data when you con- \sysdata.xml’ mentioned. D: is the parti-
www.yahoo.com; just type ‘yahoo’ and vert the partition. tion I have installed Windows XP on.
press [Ctrl] + [Enter]. IE6 will fill up the I also have a problem playing files that
rest. Depending on the browser you use, Forgot something I saved from CDs in Winamp 3. Strangely,
there are different shortcuts for Web I have a Pentium III 850 MHz comput- I have no problem playing the same files in
addresses. er with 128 MB SD RAM, 20 GB Seagate Winamp 2.8. Please help!
hard drive, running Windows 98. When I Nabarun Sengupta
Back home start Windows, I get an error message that
I have a PIII 500 MHz system with ‘A required .DLL file, IMBROWSE.DLL is Your computer could be acting up for
64 MB RAM and a 10 GB hard drive with missing.’ Please tell me how to rectify the various reasons. There could be a problem
three partitions, running Windows 98 and problem. with your drivers, or with DirectX. Since
Mandrake Linux. I want to change the file Srikanth Quake III uses OpenGL, it might not face
system of the Linux partition back to the same problem. Update its drivers for
FAT32. When I run Partition Magic, it gives The file probably belongs to an appli- all your hardware, and then upgrade the
cation you have recently uninstalled or DirectX version to 9.0b.
[email protected] re-installed. Start Windows in Safe Mode This can also happen if you possess a
E-mail us your computing (Press [F5] when starting), go to Start > high-end video card, but a weak power
problems, and we may Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, and supply. If you have such a card, make sure
answer them here! Since we get more remove all unnecessary programs. If that you have a power supply of at least 300
mails per day than we can handle, it may doesn’t work, go to Start > Run and type Watts to eliminate this problem. Also,
take some time for your query to be ‘regedit’. Press [F3] remember to re-install the games after
answered. Rest assured, we are listening! to bring up the Search box, type updating your drivers, so as to replace any
‘IMBROWSE.DLL’ in the box, and remove corrupted files. ➜

112 OCTOBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

We suggest you stick with Winamp

2.8, as it is known to be more stable. To Word, Excel and Outlook crash
enable enqueuing in Winamp 2.8, press I have a Pentium III 500 MHz,
[Ctrl] + [P] to enter Preferences, move 256 MB Ram, 20 GB hard disk,
to ‘File Types’, and check the ‘Enqueue nVidia TNT 64 graphics card and run
as default action’ checkbox in the Windows Me. I have also installed
bottom right. Office 2000 Professional and Vcom
System Suite along with many other
Graphics card for game freeware and shareware programs. I have
I just bought an old Hercules Stingray the latest Windows and Office updates. ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper
PCI 128/3D model S3318 card, and Of late, when I start either Word, Excel or
would like to know the Web site from MS Outlook, I get this error message: Windows Me, go to Start > Search > For
where I can download its drivers. Also, do ‘Excel (Word or MS Outlook) has caused Files or Folders, and type ‘mso9.dll’. In the
let me know if I can play Grand Theft Auto an error in MSO9.DLL. Excel (Word or Look In box, select My Computer, and
3 using this card. MS Outlook) will now close. If you con- click Search Now. When the file is
Sanjana Sinha tinue to experience problems try restart- found, right-click on it, and select
ing your computer’. When I start either Rename. Change the extension of the
Visit http://us.hercules.com/support/old PowerPoint or MS Access, this problem file to .old (mso9.dll.old), press [Enter],
_driver.php3 to download the drivers for does not occur. I have tried repairing the and close the Find Files window. Go to
this card. Click on the appropriate Office application, but to no avail. I have Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove
operating system to get the drivers. run the Office SR patches and tried Programs, and select Microsoft Office.
Unfortunately, you will not be able to removing the MSO9.DLL file, but still the Click on Add/Remove, and in the pop
play Grand Theft Auto 3, as the card does problem persists. What do I do? up box, select Repair Office. Now, click
not meet the minimum requirements for Parin A Jhaveri 'Repair Errors in my Office 2000 installa-
the game. tion', and click Finish.
The procedure is pretty simple, just You could also try un-installing
Expired, but locked make sure you follow it carefully. For and then reinstalling Office.
I have installed a shareware version of
Style XP to enhance the look of my XP.
Now, the software has expired the trial peri- the feature off, you’ll be able to restore bad sectors. I am surprised that computers
od, but my XP was not restored to the older your system to the exact state it was in in cyber cafes are used extensively and do
condition. The Fast user switching remains before you installed the program. Simply not get such problem, yet my sparingly
disabled, and it prompts for administrator select the corresponding restore point. used hard disk does. What is the main rea-
password each time I try to log off, by dis- son for bad sectors in hard disks?
playing a message that my computer is Misleading information Vijayananth
locked. What can I do to restore my XP to I recently purchased a Samsung 40 GB
the original default settings? hard disk, but it does not get detected in Bad sectors are the bane of our exis-
Ram Kishore the BIOS. When I refer my motherboard tence. They can be caused by a myriad of
manual, it says that my system chipset is reasons such as a malfunctioning device,
In most cases, uninstalling the pro- ‘Intel 82440ZX PCIset (82443ZX + a failing magnetic medium, severe jerks
gram should restore your system set- 82371EB) w/AGP solution’ and also men- during transportation, etc. Voltage fluc-
tings. You’ll need to boot into Safe tions ‘Dual ultra DMA/33 IDE ports sup- tuation and power outages can also
Mode—press [F8] at startup and choose port greater than 8.4 GB HDD’. Why is my result in the head touching the disk sur-
‘Safe Mode’. Then go to ‘Add/Remove 40 GB hard drive not getting detected? face and causing physical damage. Please
Programs’ in the Control Panel. Rahul A Kavthankar do check your mains for any voltage
Windows XP offers the ‘System Restore’ fluctuations, and verify whether you
option in Safe Mode. If you haven’t turned Your manual only mentions ‘greater have a 350 Watts of power supply.
than 8.4 GB’, what it doesn’t tell you is
that it cannot support hard disks above I am stuck with 580 x 600
the 32 GB limit. Your 40 GB hard disk has The current resolution of my com-
a jumper setting at the back that says ‘32 puter is 580 x 600 with 16 colours.
GB clip’. Setting the jumper to this posi- Whenever I change my display settings,
tion will let your motherboard detect the it prompts me to restart the computer
hard disk. Remember, enabling this also though I have set it to ‘Change settings
sets your hard disk to the slave position, without restarting’. Even after I restart, I
so ensure that it doesn’t clash with anoth- get an error message that says, “There is
er device on the same channel. a problem with your display settings.
The adapter type is incorrect, or the cur-
Bad is really bad rent settings do not work with your
Though my computer is only a year hardware”. How do I fix this?
Use System Restore to revert to a stable, old, my hard disk has already developed Gurpreet Singh Kalsi
previous state
114 OCTOBER 2003
 FAQs
Lost partition Don’t worry, Linux
I have Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz proces- always creates a root user
sor, with 128 DDR RAM and a 40 GB hard that acts as the administra-
disk, running Windows 98 and XP. The tor of the computer.
problem is that when I boot my system Simply enter ‘root’ as the
into Windows XP, it shows four partitions. username, and ‘mahendra’
However, when I boot into Windows 98, it as the password.
just shows three partitions. It omits the
partition in which Windows XP is installed. Where is DMA?
What should I do? I use the Parashar
Soman Dubey Jyotish software, but
when I try to print a page
Soman, you will need to purchase a it shows box like charac-
utility called Paragon NTFS for ters, instead of actual font.
Windows 98 (http://www.paragongmbh. I have installed the soft- Access the DMA settings in the Advanced Settings tab
com/n_ntfs.htm), which will mount the ware in all the versions of
Windows XP NTFS partition in Windows—Me, 98, 2000 and XP. bring up the Properties sheet. In the
Windows 98. Alternatively, you can re- I am yet to find a solution. Can you Advanced Settings tab, you’ll find the
install Windows XP and convert the help me? Also, I want to know necessary settings. Access the DMA set-
partiton into FAT32. where the DMA option is located in tings for ‘Secondary IDE Channel’ in
Windows XP. the same manner.
What’s the name again? Krishn Kant Pandey Regarding your problems with the
I installed Red Hat Linux 8.0 on my pc. printout, it is program plus printer
While installing, I was asked to enter root To access the DMA option in specific. Most likely, the program uses
password, I entered it as ‘mahendra’. Then Windows XP, go to the Control Panel a font that the printer doesn’t support.
I was asked to make users, but I didn’t. and double-click on System. Go to Check the printer’s Web site for updat-
Now when I boot my PC, I am asked to Hardware and click on Device Manager. ed drivers. Alternatively, you may
enter username and password, since I had Double-click on the ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI contact the software manufacturer to
not created any user. What should I do? Controllers’ category, and then double- check if they have a software update for
Mahendra click on ‘Primary IDE Channel’ to the application.

The fault, Gurpreet, lies with your ber to buy the same speed RAM or else Professional and 512 MB RAM. For months
graphics card’s drivers. An incorrectly system conflicts will occur. You can buy now, I have been plagued with a recurring
installed driver can cause this problem. RAM on a testing warranty basis to check problem that leaves me frustrated. Every
You haven’t specified your system con- for system compatibility. now and then, my PC crashes, leaving me
figuration, so you’ll have to locate your with the dreaded blue screen saying, “A
manufacturer’s Web site and download Who came first? Master or slave problem has been detected and Windows
the latest drivers for your operating sys- I have a Pentium III 1.13 GHz machine has been shut down to prevent damage to
tem from there. running Windows 98 SE and Windows XP. your computer”. This is followed by some
My hard disk is connected as secondary generic advice about how to fix the prob-
Buying a RAM master. When I connect another hard disk lem. Further, two important things that
I have a Compaq system Celeron 333 to my PC (as secondary slave), it does not show up are: a program called win32k.sys
MHz, with 64 MB SD RAM and Windows boot from my secondary master hard disk, along with a memory address, and second,
Me. My computer is very slow, so I have and boots from secondary the slave ‘IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL’. How can I
decided to increase the RAM. Are there instead. CMOS setting shows first boot fix this problem?
any technical specifications that I have to device as HDD0. Please give me a solution. Mark
note before buying the RAM? I’m not sure Pradeep Gade
about my motherboard, but I found The problem can occur due to rea-
(using Dr.Hardware), that my mother- First, connect the hard drive that has sons, such as incompatible hardware or
board uses the Intel 440EX PCI chipset. your operating system to the primary software, or a conflicting device driver.
Vinay Nair IDE channel, and configure it as your Pin-pointing the exact cause is difficult
primary master. Next, connect the other since you have not mentioned the exact
The specifications you need to keep in drive to the secondary channel and con- error message. However, you can visit
mind are the RAM type and its speed. In figure it as a secondary slave. This will http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/de
your case, the type is SDRAM, the speed solve your problem. fault.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/r
could be 66 MHz or 100 MHz. Look for a eskit/prmd_stp_hwpg.asp for the detailed
100 MHz module for the upgrade. In case Dreaded blue screen plague steps to help you diagnose and rectify
you decide to keep your old stick, remem- I have a Pentium IV with Windows XP the problem.

115 OCTOBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Hard disk woes me the site from where I can download the driv-
I recently partitioned my 40 GB HDD using ers of the card? Also tell me if I can play Grand
fdisk from DOS. The partition structure of my Theft Auto 3 using this card.
hard disk is as follows C: (Fat32), D: (Ext2), E: Sanjana sinha
(Linux Swap), F: (NTFS), G: (FAT32), H: (FAT32).
I had installed Windows Me on the C drive, Win- The drivers for this card can be found at
dows XP on the F drive, and Linux on the D http://us.hercules.com/support/old_
drive. After repeated attempts I was unable to driver.php3. Click on the appropriate operat-
install X-Windows in Linux, so I removed Linux ing system to get the drivers. Unfortunately,
and re-installed Windows Me. Now my boot you will not be able to play GTA 3 as the card
loader shows Windows XP and Windows Me, but does not meet the minimum requirements for
boots only to WinME. ‘fdisk’ does not run and the game (16 MB 3D video card).
hangs the machine. I tried loading Partition
Magic 6.0 but this shows an error ‘Disk Geome- Ring tone on Infrared
try error. Partition’s drive letter cannot be iden- I have a Nokia 8250. It has an infrared com-
tified’. Please help me solve this problem. munication system. I would like to send Ring
Amit Paul tone from PC to my mobile. What are the things
I will require.
Nothing to worry about Amit, just use a
Windows XP bootable CD to repair the In order to send a ring tone from your PC,
Windows installation. If that doesn’t solve it, you must first connect your phone to it. This
run the XP setup and delete the Linux parti- can be done either via a data cable or using an
tion when you are prompted to partition your infrared port. So you need to purchase a com-
hard disk. XP will automatically detect previ- patible data cable or get an external infrared
ous versions and configure the boot loader port if your PC does not have one. You will
accordingly. also need connectivity software such as Nokia
PC suite. Once connected, depending on the
Speed Boosters software you use, you will be able to send a
I have a Pentium III 933 MHz PC with 128 ring tone across. If you use a Nokia PC suite,
MB SD RAM. My computer takes a long time to you can compose your ring tone and click on
start. Secondly, the CD-ROM drive takes a long the ‘Send to phone’ button
time to access when I click on My Computer. I
want to make my PC faster, is there any software www.Blank.page
available that will do this? Whenever I try to open Web pages (both
Nitish Trikannad offline or online), the Internet Explorer 6 win-
dow appears blank, but I can see the title and
Tsk, Tsk! Always remember to mention the icons. I have a Pentium III, SM56 Motorola Inter-
operating system you use. In general, unin- nal modem, and runs Windows XP Professional.
stalling all unnecessary applications, closing Sudeep
all background programs, and deleting
unused fonts from the ‘Windows\Fonts’ This problem occurs due to a rendering
directory will speed up your computer. You fault with IE. Try installing an alternate
can use ‘msconfig’, an inbuilt utility to do browser, such as Opera, to see if it persists. If
most of this (go to Start > Run and type Opera works well, then you need to re-install
‘msconfig’, and press [Enter]). As for your CD- Internet Explorer.
ROM, it probably has a faulty lens and there-
fore takes time to identify CDs. Replace the
drive if it’s within the warranty period.

Graphic Card for Game

I have bought an old Hercules stingray PCI
128/3D model S3318 card. Can you please tell

116 OCTOBER 2003

insight ■
■ trou-

Haunted computer place! The solution is actually quite

Over the past few days, simple. You are probably using
whenever I move my Microsoft Office XP with
mouse, the pointer starts Speech Recognition
running by itself and enabled. The problem is
opens unwanted appli- that you haven’t con-
cations. At first, I figured the Speech
thought that it might Recognition, which
be some often results in
sort of virus, so I ‘haunted computer’
formatted and rein- syndrome. There’s no
stalled with an up-to- need to go about un-
date version of Norton installing Speech
AntiVirus 2003, but I Recognition either, as
still face the same you might want to use
problem. I have even it at a later stage.
removed and re- What you can
installed my mouse do immedi-
driver. It worked for a ately is dis-
while, but started acting up able it, and
again. What’s wrong with my PC? later if you want, you can configure it
Praveen Tanwar to your voice. To disable it, go to Start
> Settings > Control Panel > Regional and
Calm down Praveen, there’s no Language Options, in the applet go to
need to go chasing mice all over the Languages > Details, and check the

117 OCTOBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Web camera stopped working Tweaking Windows XP Too many drives

I have Windows 98 installed on my I have an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ I have a Athlon XP 2000+ processor, 40
machine. The Web camera installed on my with Asus-A7V8X motherboard, 256 MB GB Seagate hard disk, 128 MB DDR RAM,
system was working perfectly until recent- DDR 266 RAM and run Windows XP as the ASUS motherboard and run Windows 2000
ly—it just doesn’t activate anymore. I tried operating system. The problem is that my Professional. I also have a Sony 52X CD-
re-installing the drivers, but the installation machine takes a very long time to boot up. ROM and an LG 48X CD-Writer. Recently, I
failed. The camera is not detected when I Santosh Choudhury bought a 16X DVD-ROM. The problem is
plug it in either. I have checked the BIOS, that my vendor says it’s not possible to
and found the USB port is enabled. I also Anytime an operating system is install all three at the same time, reason
tried installing another camera, but even booting up, it requires time to load being that the PC won’t be able to locate
that wasn’t detected. Finally, I installed my device drivers, start-up programs, etc. both, the DVD-ROM as well as CD-ROM at
camera on another system and found that it The loading time is further dependent the same time. Is this true? If yes, what is
works perfectly. What do I do? on devices being initialised by their the solution?
Narender Negi drivers. Sometimes a slow device Dipanshu Banerjee
such as an external modem can
Now that you’ve narrowed down the increase boot up time. Windows XP PCs are normally limited to four IDE
possibilities, we suspect that the USB port is a big step forward from previous devices. From the information that you
is the culprit. As you have already versions—it brings along a lot of have provided, you already have a hard
checked it is enabled, the port is probably excess baggage in terms of services that disk, CD-ROM and CD-Writer installed.
malfunctional. To be doubly sure, you start when you boot. To reduce the This leaves one IDE connector to which
can install a version of Windows with boot up time, you can use tweaking you can connect your DVD-ROM. If you
better USB support, such as Windows XP. utilities such as bootvis, available at do not have a free IDE connector, then
If the problem persists, your USB port is http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/ you need to buy a combination drive that
definitely kaput! You are then left with platform/performance/fastboot/bootvis. accommodates both a CD-Writer and a
two options—either buy new USB ports mspx. If you want more information DVD-ROM. Use of a splitter in case you do
with cables that connect to the USB on how to tweak Windows XP to not have a spare power connector for the
header on your motherboard (if your improve performance, take a look drive. Also, you might run short of drive
motherboard has such headers), or buy a at the Tips & Tricks special that bays. Some cabinets have only two bays
USB PCI card for new USB ports to con- came along with the June 2003 issue for optical drives. If so, you will have to
nect your devices to. of Digit. buy a new cabinet with three bays.

1/2 pageH AD

118 OCTOBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Weird resolutions, truant system files, the dreaded Blue Screen, Linux problems,
whatever your problems, chances are they’ll be answered here...

Missing system files You’ll need the original Windows 98 graphics card drivers, and install the
I get the following error message CD, or the location of the CAB files from latest version of DirectX from
when running the demo version of where you installed the operating system. www.microsoft.com/directx.
SuperBike 2000 on my Windows 98 SE Repeat the procedure for imm32.dll,
system: ‘Error starting program: The which is also located in the Windows Sys- Deadly blue screens
IMM32.DLL file is linked to missing export tem folder. If that doesn’t work, try un- I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 512
USER32.DLL: User32InitializelmmEntry installing and then re-installing the game. MB DDR RAM, a Radeon graphics card and
Table. A device attached to the system is an Asus A7V8X motherboard running Win-
not functioning’. Please help me. Trouble with monitor resolution dows XP Professional. The problem is that
Saktidip I have a Pentium 4 1.8 GHz PC with whenever I play a game, I get a blue screen
512 MB DDR RAM, an nVidia GeForce4 error asking me to disable cache and shad-
A corrupt or missing instance of the 440MX graphics card and a 14-inch owing, or remove any recently installed
files you’ve mentioned might be playing Samsung Samtron 45Bn monitor running software or hardware. Also, does my moth-
spoilsport! Replace them using the Windows XP Home Edition. Whenever I erboard have any compatibility issues with
‘System File Checker’. Click on Start > try playing Warcraft III Reign of Chaos, the my graphics card as far as the supported
Run, type ‘sfc’ and press [Enter]. startup video runs smoothly, but when the AGP voltage is concerned?
Choose ‘Extract one file from installa- game begins, the monitor goes blank, its Sachin Siva
tion disk’, type ‘C:\windows\system\user32. power LED starts flashing and I can only
dll’ and click Start to begin the process. get sound. It returns to Windows normal- Boot the system and press [Del] to
ly when I press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del]. I enter the BIOS. Here, go to the Advanced
tried changing the resolution and Settings option—you will find an option
refresh rate of the monitor, but that to disable video cache and shadowing.
didn’t help. Help! Also, you can try lowering the AGP
Girish Joshi Aperture size to the minimum (generally
4 MB) and the AGP speed from 8X to 4X
The monitor blanks out or 2X.
because the game switches to a res- As for incompatibility in terms of volt-
olution and a refresh rate that it ages, your PC wouldn’t boot if there was
does not support. You’ll need to one! So relax, Sachin, your system is fine.
reinstall the game, and set its reso-
lution to a lower value. Also, set What is System Zone2?
your desktop resolution to a low I have a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz proces-
value, say, 800 x 600 x 16, before sor on an Intel 865GBF motherboard. I
you run the game. get a message from Intel Active Monitor
System file integrity checker in Windows 98 While you’re at it, upgrade your while playing games such as Need for ➜

103 NOVEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Speed 2 or Project IGI, stating that System Looks like you will have to go
Zone2 has exceeded its temperature in for a clean install of your graph-
limit. What is System Zone2 and how do ics drivers. First un-install them
I solve the problem? from Start > Settings > Control Panel
Ashish Yadav > Add/Remove Programs, reboot your
PC, and when Windows prompts
System Zones refer to specific areas on you, select your card type as ‘Stan-
your motherboard where important chips dard VGA’.
are located. System Zone1 refers to the area Now, restart the system, install
near the PCI expansion slot, and System the latest drivers and reboot. Next,
Zone2 refers to the area where the system install the latest version of Direc-
RAM is located. The error message occurs tX and reboot your system one
if the warning temperature for the Active last time.
Monitor program has been set too low for Since you’ve changed the You can turn off File Protection by editing the registry
your system. You need not worry as long as location of your unit, there’s a
your PC doesn’t crash after playing games. possibility that the jerks it experienced PC, or try to access the CD-ROM drive.
Simply set the warning temperature a little might have loosened a card or two. So, Sigh… Do I have to live with it all my life?
higher in the monitor program. check the RAM sticks and AGP card to David Lalsama
make sure they’re seated firmly.
3D device missing No David, you don’t. The best option
I have an nVidia Riva TNT2 graphics Turning off Windows file protection here is to load the Windows XP installa-
card on my Pentium 4 1.5 GHz system with I have a PC running Windows XP Pro- tion CD when prompted, and allow Win-
128 MB SDRAM running Windows XP. I can fessional. Instead of using Style XP, I dows to restore the missing files. Of
play Cricket 2002 and Fifa 2000 properly on replaced Windows uxtheme.dll and also course, you can also disable Windows File
my system. However, ever since I changed the system32.dll. Protection—the system that prevent users
my cabinet’s position, all my games showed When I rebooted my computer, a Windows from deleting system and program files
up error message saying that they required file protection error message appeared, stat- by editing a registry value. Be very careful
graphics acceleration. Also, though the ing that certain files that were required to when you do this.
Device Manager lists the graphics card, it run Windows properly had been replaced Go to Start > Run and type ‘regedit’,
does not show up in the 3dsetup of the and needed to be restored. Thereafter, it navigate to the SFCDisable key in
games. Installing the latest drivers did not asked for the Windows XP installation CD. I ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft
help. What do I do now? cancelled the message and ever since then, \Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon’ and
Rakesh Khan I get the same error whenever I reboot my edit it to hold the value ‘0xFFFFFF9D’. If
you want to re-enable File Protection, just
reset this value to ‘0’.
Incorrect temperature readings odd behaviour, such as frequent system
I have a Pentium 4-based PC with an crashes. Update your BIOS from the Intel Installing Windows 2000 Professional
Intel D850GB motherboard. During nor- Web site (www.intel.com), and the prob- I am unable to install Windows 2000
mal operation, Intel Active Monitor shows lem should be solved. Professional in MS-DOS mode. I had
the 65 C - 66 C temperature in System As for keeping the system cool, just to install Windows 98 SE first, and
Zone1 whereas the safe temperature indi- ensure that you are using a good-quality then upgrade it to Windows 2000 Profes-
cated is 50 C. What needs to be SMPS such as sional. Is there a way to install Windows
done to reduce the tem- Antec, and 2000 Professional without having to fol-
perature? I have an always opt for a low this procedure?
ATX cabinet and large and Amey
I have an addi- roomy cabinet.
tional fan Check the orien- Yes, there is. You can install it direct-
installed next to tation of the ly using a bootable Windows 2000 CD. To
the SMPS but installed fan. change the boot sequence, re-start your
apparently, it One fan should PC and press [Del] ([F2], or [F12], depend-
does not circulate expel hot air from ing upon your motherboard), to enter the
much air. the case, while the CMOS setup. Change the first boot
Murli other draws in air option to CD-ROM and keep the hard
ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar
from the outside. If disk as the second boot option. Now boot
You are fac- both the fans drive air in your PC using the Windows 2000 CD.
ing this problem because of the older the same direction, it’ll actually increase The setup should start automatically.
BIOS that provides incorrect informa- the internal temperature. Clear the air- If you do not have a bootable Win-
tion to the Intel Active Monitor. You flow path of the processor fan by secur- dows 2000 CD, you can still install it
need not worry about your system being ing the IDE and power cables with a using a bootable Windows 98 CD. First,
overheated unless the system shows any rubber band or string. boot into MS-DOS using the Windows 98
CD. Next, swap the Windows 98 CD with

104 NOVEMBER 2003

your non-bootable Windows 2000 CD
and then type ‘drive: \i386\winnt.exe’ at the AMD overclocking. following accessories to ensure that you
prompt. This starts off the installation in I just upgraded my PC to an AMD don’t blow up the processor. The first
MS-DOS mode. AthlonXP 2000+, Asus Nforce mother- and foremost is a quality heat sink and
board and a 40 GB hard disk. I heard that fan combination—ideally, a copper heat
Retrieving Linux partition the Athlon XP2000+ can be safely over- sink with a high-rpm fan on it. Second-
I have a PIII 933 MHz system with 128 clocked up to 2 GHz. ly, you need a spacious cabinet with
MB RAM and a 20 GB hard disk. I have two How do I do that? adequate ventilation for the
Windows partitions and one Linux parti- Girish Kulkarni
tion. I run Windows XP and Mandrake 8.1,
and the dual boot system worked fine. AMD processors
However, the boot option disappeared can be overclocked
when I installed Windows 98 on the Win- easily, but do bear in
dows partition, and the Linux partition is mind that doing so
inaccessible. How can I boot into Linux and reduces their life.
retrieve my Linux partition? Start the system, press [Del] to enter
Arindam Sarkar the BIOS and increase the FSB of the
processor by a small step, say, 1
The Windows 98 installation flushed MHz in the Advanced Chipset
the Master Boot Record, and hence you features. At the same time, also
lost the boot loader (LILO or GRUB) that increase the memory speed in the same circulating air to bring down the tem-
was installed by Mandrake 8.1. There are a way. Keep doing this until you have a perature within the cabinet.
number of ways to restore the boot loader. stable system. Frequent crashes after As said earlier, overclocking tends to
One of them is to use a utility called tweaking the system indicate that it has reduce the life span of all the compo-
LOADLIN that is present in the Linux been overclocked above limits. You will nents and it also makes your warranty
CD under the DOS utilities folder. Copy have to decrease the above-mentioned void. Indeed it’s risky; so don’t do any-
this utility into a folder called, say, FSB speed. thing unless you know what it is you
LOADLIN in the C drive. Next, boot to You also need to have some of the intend doing.
Windows 98 in MS-DOS mode and type
‘C:\LOADLIN> LOADLIN vmlinuz /dev/hdb1 ro’
at the command prompt. Here ‘vmlinuz’ is SiSoft Sandra does not measure the new floppy drive and installed a new
the Linux kernel image that’s located in fan speed; it just takes the data available cable, but it was of no use. However, the
the DOS utilities folder of the Linux CD from the BIOS and displays it. Also, the disk worked fine on my friend’s comput-
and ‘/dev/hdb1’ is the location of your BIOS is often incorrect in measuring the er. I think the motherboard has some
Linux partition. The kernel should be actual fan speed, temperature, etc. defect and needs to be replaced. Also, are
available in the same directory as that of Hence, you cannot take its word for the there any IDE cables that work with
LOADLIN. This loads the Linux operat- spinning speed. floppy drives?
ing system, and then type ‘LILO’ when Open the chassis and check the speed Akash Chhibber
you get to the Linux command prompt. of the fan. As a thumb rule, if you can
If this does not fix it, do a minimal make out or read the name written on Akash, had there been a problem
install of Mandrake 8.1 using the instal- the fan, then, yes, it’s slow. However, if with your motherboard, the floppy drive
lation CD. Here, choose to upgrade when it’s blurred out and the green AMD logo would not have turned up in Windows
you get the install options, but don’t looks white, then the fan is running at Explorer. Since you can see it there,
select any files for upgrading. This way, the right speed. It is just the BIOS that is nothing is wrong with the board. Check
the setup installs the boot loader and the reporting the wrong speed, for which the ‘Standard Setup’ in the BIOS settings
whole installation finishes in about 10 you can ask Compaq support to provide to see if the floppy disk type is set to
minutes. you with an updated BIOS. The recom- ‘1.44 MB’. Also, the ‘Floppy Disk Con-
mended fan speed for the Athlon XP is troller’ in the ‘Integrated Peripherals’
CPU cooler for AMD approximately 5000 rpm and it is always menu should be set to ‘Enabled’. In
I own a Compaq Presario S3010IL PC good to go for a faster one, say the Vol- ‘Advanced BIOS Setup’, set ‘Boot up flop-
that has an AMD XP 2000+ processor. cano series from Thermaltake. py seek’ to ‘Enabled’. This forces the
SiSandra2003 reports that my CPU fan is BIOS to check for a working drive every
spinning at 981 rpm only, and the system Can’t delete from floppy time it boots.
fan speed is 1,850 rpm. I verified this with While formatting a floppy, I received Try deleting the contents of the floppy,
the BIOS information, and found them to a message that it was already formatted. by getting into DOS mode and typing ‘a:
be the same and that’s the reason why the However, it would not let me store a DEL *.*’ at the prompt, or format it in the
system becomes hot after a few minutes of 500 KB file on it saying that the drive DOS mode using ‘format a:’.
operation. I would like to know the recom- was full and I needed to insert another Floppy drives use their own connec-
mended fan speed for the AMD Athlon XP floppy. I did so and the error appeared tors and cables. They do not use an IDE
2000+. yet again. So, I tried deleting the files, interface and consequently, do not work
Devasish but even that did not happen. I bought a with an IDE cable.

105 NOVEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Sound problem with games Most of the trailers provided on
I have a P-III 1 GHz, 128 MB RAM the Digit CDs are in DivX format so as
and a KOB 815etfsx Mercury mother- to reduce the file size while maintain-
board. I use Windows 98 as well as Win- ing video quality. You need to install
dows XP. My problem is that whenever I the DivX codec, which is on the
play 3D games, sound becomes scratchy Mindware Digit CD, to play these files.
and later it just stops sounding right.
I have to restart my PC to rectify this.
Is there a solution?
Harpreet Singh

Since you haven’t mentioned

which 3D games you run, we assume
the problem occurs in all of them.
Scratchy sound is usually a result of
outdated or corrupt sound drivers.
Update them to the latest available Configuring MailWasher 2.0
version. You’ll need to refer to your
manual to figure out the codec you’ve MailWasher won’t filter out the spam
installed, in case you’re using the messages. Obtain them from your e-
onboard sound. You could also down- mail client settings. In the case of
load and install DirectX 9.0b from Outlook Express, go to Tools > Accounts.
Microsoft’s Web site Here, select the account name, click
(www.microsoft.com/directx). Properties and go to the Servers tab to
get the above-mentioned addresses.
Configuring MailWasher 2.0 The Divx video encoder
I have a problem related to Mail- Playing trailer videos
Washer 2.0.40 beta. During the I have a Pentium 4 with 128 MB RAM Download the latest drivers avail-
installation process, it gave me a message and a 32 MB S3 Savage4 graphics card, able for Savage4 from
stating that I should give the address of running Windows Me and Windows XP www.s3graphics.com for Windows Me. If
the SMTP and POP server. How do I do Professional. The trailers of games and this does not fix it, revert to the older
that? films on Digit CDs do not play on either version of DirectX using System
Pratyesh Somani Windows ME and Windows XP. Restore. Go to Start > Programs > Acces-
Also, I am unable to play games sories > System Restore. Select a restore
It is a must to enter the addresses such as Quake III ever since I installed point prior to installing DirectX 9 from
for the incoming (POP) and DirectX 9 drivers on Windows Me. the list. This restores your system to the
outgoing (SMTP) mail servers, else Malkeet Singh previous DirectX configuration.

RPC error right-click your Internet connection and check ‘Protect my computer and network
I use Windows XP Professional. While select Properties. In the Advanced tab, by limiting or preventing access to this
working, I get a Remote Procedure Call under Internet Connection Firewall, computer from the Internet’ to enable
(RPC) error and my PC starts a shut- the firewall. Now, apply the security patch
down procedure by showing a available for this worm at the Microsoft
countdown of 1 minute, after which Web site.
it actually restarts! This happens quite A detailed description about the worm,
often. Help needed, sincerely! its solution and update is available
Kalpesh Gajjar at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=/directory/worldwide/ja/kblight/t009/7/
Yikes! It’s the win32.Blaster 02.asp.
worm that’s infected your system.
Here’s how you manually remove [email protected]
this worm from your system. Press E-mail us your computing
[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] to bring up the Task problems, and we may
Manager and remove any currently answer them here! Since we get more
running instance of msblast.exe. mails per day than we can handle, it may
Enable the Internet Connection take some time for your query to be
Firewall in Windows XP. Go to answered. Rest assured, we are listening!
Control Panel > Network Connections, This is the error message that MSBlaster brings up

106 NOVEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Installation problems, games going haywire, CD-ROM problems,

missing drivers, etc. You name it, we solve it

Game for an error ASUS V8170 64 MB graphics card, run- The most basic problem could be a
I have a 633 MHz CPU, on an Intel ning Windows XP. I have installed games malfunctioning keyboard. Check to see
82810e motherboard with in-built VGA such as The Hulk, GTA: Vice City, Enter the that the arrow keys, or whichever keys
and sound, running Windows Me. I get Matrix, etc. The problem is, I can’t seem you have configured to move left and
the following error message when trying to control the characters, they just move right, are not stuck—a few sharp taps on
to install Delta Force: “Intel® 82810 E left or right on their own. I don’t have these keys will unstick them.
graphics controller. This video card does this problem with The Age of Mythology. What’s more probable is that you
not support HWT &L (Hardware acceler- What do I do? Also, your Mindware and have installed, but not configured, some
ated transform & lighting). Delta Force Playware CDs do not autorun on my other input device such as a joystick or
has been optimized for cards supporting computer. gamepad. This may cause a conflict and
HWT &L and therefore will run slower on Somesh can cause your game to go haywire. Go
your hardware. The resolution has failed, to your game’s control options
please make sure that you have the latest and disable the use of joysticks.
drivers for your video card and run the If the CDs do not autorun,
video test again.” but you can still browse
Please help me solve this problem, through them, it means that
and if possible include the latest drivers in the autorun function has been
the forthcoming CDs. disabled on your PC. Double-
Praveen S Bohra click on My Computer, right-
click on your CD-ROM drive
Whoops! Sorry Praveen, the problem and select Properties. Now,
is not with the graphics drivers; the bit- click on the AutoPlay tab and
ter truth is that your hardware is just not then click on ‘Restore
good enough. What you need is a better Defaults’. This will turn the
graphics card, at least a GeForce2. auto play function back on,
Unfortunately, since you have an i810- and you can enjoy our CDs.
based motherboard, you probably don’t
have an AGP slot. Though it hurts, both Too many restarts
your pocket and your heart, you’re going I have an 8 GB hard disk
to have to do a massive system overhaul with two partitions, a 2 GB one
if you want to play any of today’s games. and a 6 GB one. My problem is
that whenever I run either
Height of AI ScanDisk or Disk Defragmenter
I have a Pentium III 1.13 GHz, Check ‘Auto Insert Notification’ to enable autorun on your on my C drive, it runs properly
256 MB RAM, 80 GB hard disk and an system. for a couple of minutes and

159 DECEMBER 2003

 insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Musical computer the motherboard, you’ll need to check

I have a Casio synthesizer with the BIOS (generally under Integrated
a midi port, and my computer Peripherals) to see whether the
has a sound port is enabled and has
card with an address. Next, you
midi/game need to add the hardware
port. How can I into Windows. The proce-
connect both of dure varies by OS version; a
them to create common method is to use
great music? the ‘Add Hardware’ wizard
Saurabh from the Control Panel.
Once the device is
First you installed, check if it
need to con- shows up in Control
nect the two Panel > Multimedia
together with a suitable ILLUSTRATOR: Mahesh Benkar
Devices.
connector, which should Finally, you’ll need
have come bundled with software that can handle an
your synthesizer—if it isn’t, you’ll have external synthesizer, such as Cakewalk,
to buy one. You haven’t specified although there are plenty of alternatives.
whether your sound card is integrated or Now, you’re all set to make cool

1 col AD not; if the MIDI port is integrated into digital music.

then restarts. The reason that appears for ponent—the graphics card—we have to
the restart is ‘Drive Contents Changed’. assume you don’t haveone. Instead of
This is really driving me mad. I run spending on a PC upgrade, you should
Windows Me. What should I do? buy yourself a good graphics card. For a
Dhananjay Gupta Pentium III 800 MHz, a GeForce4 440MX
or GeForce FX 5200 should do nicely.
ScanDisk restarts when it detects a These cards cost about Rs 2,500 andRs
program writing to the disk. Therefore, 5,000 respectively.
before you start Scandisk, ensure that If you just have to upgrade, we sug-
all other programs are closed—especial- gest an AMD-nForce combination. This
ly the ones in the System Tray, such will save you money, as you will not
as anti-virus programs, system moni- have to buy a separate graphics card.
tors, firewalls, etc. You can press [Ctrl] +
[Alt] + [Delete] to bring up the End Task Three times the problem
box. This lets you see all programs cur- I have three questions:
rently running on your system. Is there a way by which we can
If this fails to work, reboot into Safe retrieve a forgotten password for a pro-
Mode (press [F5] before Windows starts) tected Excel worksheet?
and run ScanDisk. This will almost Recently, I partitioned my hard disk on
certainly solve the problem, but will my home PC. I run Windows XP and Win-
make ScanDisk run rather slowly. dows 98 SE. Is it possible to operate a
Video Mate TV tuner card in Windows XP?
Intel or AMD? I can’t find the required Windows XP driv-
I have a Pentium III 800 MHz with ers. The instruction manual doesn’t men-
256 MB RAM. I want to upgrade my tion the manufacturer’s Web site. Where
processor, as I can’t run the latest games can I find original or compatible drivers?
smoothly. Please suggest what I should I am not able to type the ’@’ character.
buy—AMD or Intel? Is the latest software When I press it, I get an ‘a’.
compatible with AMD processors? P. P. Chaukimath
Harsimranjit
Yes, there are tools for recovering
OK, we’ll say it again: please write in passwords of protected Excel files. One
and give us entire PC configurations if of them is Excel Key. A demo version
you want us to solve your problems can be downloaded from http://www.
properly. Now, since you haven’t men- lostpassword.com/excel.htm. Another utili-
tioned the most important gaming com- ty is Accent Office Password Recovery

160 DECEMBER 2003

LT; the trial version can be downloaded from http://www.pass-
wordrecoverytools.com/store/aofpr_setup.exe.
As you haven’t specified the manufacturer of your TV tuner
card, we presume it is a Compro VideoMate TV. This card works
perfectly with Windows XP. You can download the drivers from
http://www.comprousa.com/download/index.htm#VMTV
The ‘@’ problem is caused by incorrect settings for the key-
board layout. In Windows 98, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel
and double-click on Keyboard. Select Language and click on
Properties. Select ‘United States 101’ from the drop- down menu
and click OK. This should solve your problem.

Save settings of Outlook

I want to format my hard drive and reinstall Windows. How do
I back up Outlook’s User Account Settings and Mail Message Rules?
Michael Jeyabalan

Go to File > Import and Export > Export to a file > Personal Folders
File (.pst), and select the folders to be backed up, as well as the
save location. Remember the password so you can open it later.
To save rules, go to Tools > Rules Wizard and select the rule you
have created. From ‘Apply rules in the following order’, click
Options at the bottom right corner, click on ‘Export Rules’ and
save the rules to a separate partition. After reinstalling Win-
dows, you can import these PST files and rules.
1/2 V Ad
Floppy drive flop
Of late, I can’t read the contents of floppies. I get a pop-up
box that says that the disk is not formatted. The same floppy
works in other drives, and Inever got these messages before.
What’s the problem?
Swadhin Sahoo

Update, date no update

My system configuration is: Pentium III 450 MHz,
DirectX 9.0, VIA VT82C693 Apollo Pro Plus motherboard
chipset, 128 MB SDRAM. I have a SiS 6326 graphics card (8
MB video, 32 MB AGP) running Windows 98. Recently, I
purchased a game (Cricket 2002), and installed it. I then
updated my old SiS driver (dated 03/15/2001), and the
game started, but there was a problem with the display. I
decided to update the driver again, but the driver shows the
same, old date (03/15/2001), and the game still refuses to
run. Should I change my graphics card?
Pradeep

There’s nothing
wrong with your
graphics card
Pradeep, except for
the fact that it’s out-
dated. Cricket 2002 is
a fairly recent game
and thus requires a
good 3D accelerator
card. To play the game,
you’ll need a slightly high-
er powered card, at least
a TNT2 or GeForce2.

161 DECEMBER 2003

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■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Disappearing CD-ROM drive Properties. Go to Device Manager > means that you’ve bought the right to
I have a Pentium III 450 MHz proces- Hard disk controllers > PCI bus master use that software product as well.
sor running Windows 98. When I boot, IDE controller, and click on Properties. Therefore, you can go ahead and regis-
my CD-ROM drive is detected, but later Now, go to Settings and set the Dual ter on the Web site without any fear.
on the icon disappears. I reinstalled the IDE Channel setting to ‘Both IDE
OS, but the same thing happens again. Channels enabled’. Just click OK Internal modem in Windows XP
What do I do? and restart the PC, and your problem I have a 900 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM
Misbah Munnawer is solved. and a Motorola SM56 PCI 56 Kbps inter-
nal modem. This modem runs properly
To solve your problem, right-click Legally free? with Windows Me, but not with Windows
on My Computer and choose I recently purchased an assembled XP. I get an error message saying,
Pentium 4 computer for my home. The “Modem is not digitally signed”. When I
motherboard driver CD contains the PC- force the driver to install by clicking Con-
Cilian2002 anti-virus. I want to know tinue, the modem does not work.
whether I can register it with the compa- Abhay Rana
ny for upgrades and
latest anti-virus defi- To use your Motorola SM56 modem
nitions. What is the in Windows XP, you need to install the
legal position of this proper drivers. As Motorola has stopped
product? its support for this modem, there aren’t
Rajesh Kumar. any certified Windows XP drivers avail-
able. First try the Windows 2000 driv-
Don’t worry, you ers. Remove the modem from its cur-
stand on solid rent PCI slot, so as to completely delete
ground legally. the old driver files. Try any of the
You’ve purchased a following drivers: http://modemsite.com/
In the Settings tab, you need hardware product 56k/_downloads.asp?dl=xflt/sm56/
to set the value of Dual IDE that included soft- sm56xp8440.exe,ftp://ftp.dell.com/comm/
Channel Settings to ‘Both IDE ware as part of the ZBRCFE11.EXE or http://www.motorola.com/
Channel setting enabled’ package. This softmodem/data-fax-voice.htm#DFVwinXP.

cations in Windows 2000, edit the from www.viaarena.com. These are impera-
The answer’s simple really—your ‘config.nt’ file located at C:\winnt\ tive for a stable system. Now, download
floppy drive just died, or is too dirty to system32\config.nt. Add these attributes and install the detonator drivers for your
operate. First, clean the drive with a at the end of the text: operating system from www.nvidia.com.
floppy drive cleaning disk. If this does files=250 If the problem persists, set your card
not solve your problem, get the drive buffers=40 to lower speeds for more stability. Go into
repaired, or just buy a new one. This will solve your problem. the BIOS, and in the ‘Advanced Chipset
Features’, look for ‘AGP Bus Speed’ and
MS-DOS programs refuse to run Between dealer and compatibility ‘AGP Aperture Size’ and set them to the
I can’t run DOS-based programs I have an Athlon XP 1700 on a KM133 minimum level.
in Windows 2000. I was told that DFI motherboard. Recently, I bought a As a last resort, visit your mother-
editing the system.ini file to show the fol- GeForce2, but now all my games hang board manufacturer’s Web site, down-
lowing settings, works for Windows Me, the system and the monitor flickers every load the latest BIOS update and flash
98 and 95: few seconds. I went to the motherboard your BIOS. Remember, flashing your
[386Enh] dealer, and he says it’s a compatibility BIOS is dangerous and may render your
PerVMFiles=250 problem. Is he right? If he is right, then motherboard useless if not done cor-
PerVMBuffers=40 please tell me why this happens, as I have rectly—preferably, get your mother-
ebios=*ebios a 4x AGP slot. The dealer who sold me board dealer to do this for you.
For Windows 95 or 98, the config.sys file the GeForce2 card is not ready to take it
was edited to reflect: back. What can I do? [email protected]
FILES=200 Shantanu joshi E-mail us your computing
BUFFERS=40 problems, and we may
What are the equivalent settings for Motherboards based on VIA chipsets answer them here! Since
Windows 2000? generally have certain stability and we get more mails per day than we can
handle, it may take some time for your
Arif N Khan compatibility issues that can be solved
query to be answered. Rest assured, we
by installing the latest drivers.
are listening!
For running legacy DOS-based appli- First, download the Hyperion drivers

162 DECEMBER 2003

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Here are the remedies for Knoppix headaches, faltering game frames, nasty bootups,
nastier errors and cellular annoyances…

Linux not booting from disk and installed the latest xmms (1.2.8) from new .tar file. Uncompress it using tar xvf
While re-installing Windows 98 SE on www.xmms.org, but MP3s just won’t play. filename.tar.
my PC that also runs Red Hat Linux 9.0, I The progress bar moves quickly and the This creates a new directory contain-
received a warning about modifying the speakers emit nothing! My sound card is ing the xmms source code. ‘cd’ to
boot sector. Upon restarting, I found the configured properly, since I can play audio this directory that has the name of the
LiLo boot menu missing. I tried the solution CDs. tar file and type ‘./configure’. Next, ‘cd’ to
given in one of your earlier issues to a sim- I don’t know how to play VCDs either. I the sub-directory named ‘Input’, and
ilar problem, but Linux would not boot am unable to find software that plays type the following commands one after
from my boot disk. SOS! .dat files. the other:
Nikhil My PC is a Pentium IV 1.5 GHz that has make
128 MB RAM, an 845 motherboard and an make install
Use the loadlin program to boot into AC97 onboard sound card. This compiles the MP3 libraries
Linux from DOS mode. loadlin is located Ashish Mehta and installs them in /usr/lib/xmms/Input.
in the dosutils directory on the Red Hat 9 You should be able to play MP3s
Installation CD. Copy loadlin and vmlin- Unfortunately Ashish, Red Hat 9 after this.
uz—the Red Hat 9 image file—located does not support MP3s anymore since Check if the library is installed prop-
under the autoboot directory onto your the codec is no longer free. However, erly. Open XMMS, right-click on the main
Windows partition. Restart in DOS mode, there are a few workarounds. One is
and type loadlin C:\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdXX to use the encoder library from an
at the command prompt. Replace XX in older Linux installation. Copy
hdXX with the location of the Linux root libmpg123.so located in /usr/lib/xmms/
(/) partition, e.g. hda1. This will boot you Input/ from a PC running Red Hat 7.3 or
into Linux. Modify the /etc/lilo.conf file to older, to the same location on your PC.
reflect Windows by adding the following Else, download the source rpm for an
entries to the end of the file: older version of xmms, preferably Open XMMS and right-click on the main
other=/dev/hda1 xmms-1.2.7-2.i386, from http://www. window to access Visualization.
optional megaloman.com/~hany/RPM/libmpg123.so.h
label=Windows tml. Next, run the rpm -ivh xmms-1.2.7- window, and go to Visualization > Visualiza-
Here, change ‘hda1’ to your Windows 2.src.rpm command. Replace xmms-1.2.7- tion plug-ins, or use the shortcut [Ctrl] + [V].
drive. Now, type ‘lilo’ at the command 2.src.rpm with the name of the down- Click on the Audio I/O Plugins tab and
prompt to place the Linux loader in loaded file. This installs the source code in check if MPEG Layer 1/2/3 Player 1.2.7
the MBR. usr/src/redhat/SOURCES/. ‘cd’(change to a [libmpeg123.so] is listed and enabled in
directory) to this directory and unzip the Input Plugins.
Red Hat not playing MP3s xmms file with extension .tar.bz2, using As for playing .dat files, use mplayer,
I am unable to play MP3 files ever since the bunzip2 filename. which you can download from
I installed Red Hat Linux 9. I downloaded This replaces the .tar.bz2 file with a www.mplayerhq.hu. ➜

119 JANUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Fatal error with .exe files from the server. However, I cancelled GeForce2 that supports hardware trans-
I developed a software application in that and installed it later from an offline form and lightning, and 256 MB of RAM,
Visual Basic 6.0 with Oracle as a back-end setup pack. Now, whenever Windows starts to play the game smoothly.
and Windows 2000 Server. I receive a fatal up, it prompts me to connect to the Inter-
error when I try to execute the .exe file of net. On clicking Cancel, it indicates that the Deleting games
the application in Windows 98 or 95. How- auto setup failed and a complete setup icon How do I delete the default games that
ever, it runs fine in Windows XP. Can you is placed on my desktop. come with Windows 2000 Professional?
help me find a solution to this? Also, while playing The Hulk, I get Vibhor Mangla
Silishi M a DirectX error even before the main
menu loads. Use Notepad to open the Sysoc.inf
Check whether the program gener- Shitanshu file that’s located in c:\winnt\inf\ sysoc.inf.
ates errors after installing Visual Basic Remove ‘HIDE’ from the line
6.0 on a Windows 98 PC. If it does not, You have described the problem too ‘Games=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,games.inf,HIDE,7’
then you need to install the Visual Basic vaguely for us to determine the cause of and ‘AccessUtil=ocgen.dll,OcEntry,accessor.inf,
Runtime Setup, downloaded from the Internet connection error message. HIDE,7’, and save the file.
www.microsoft.com, on the Windows 98 Assuming that the auto setup you’re
and 95 machines that execute your referring to is the Windows Update Web
program. site, you could try turning off Auto
Update to resolve it. To do this, go to
Setup goofups Control Panel > System and click on
I have a P4 1.6 GHz, nVidia Riva TNT2, ‘Automatic Updates’, and uncheck the
128 MB RAM and a 40 GB hard disk run- ‘Keep my computer up to date’ box.
ning Windows XP Home. DirectX 9.0b is Your system does not meet the mini-
installed. I had initiated the setup for an mum requirements of The Hulk. You need
application that automatically downloads a graphics card such as the ones from

Bits or bytes? second. A byte is made up of 8 bits and

I bought a data cable for my Nokia requires a few error or parity bits. Hence,
7250 to connect to the Net, but it turned a single byte of data uses at least 10 to 12
out to be a serial cable. I cannot use the bits. Thus if the bandwidth is 43 Kbps,
Nokia software since it works either using then, in terms of bytes, it is 4 KBps. It
infra-red or the DKU 5 USB data cable. should provide 4 KBps bandwidth, but
Some third-party software allow for trans- as a general observation, speeds of more When you open the file in Notepad, it will look
fer of files, but I cannot access the Internet. than 2 KBps are not available. Hence the as shown. To enable uninstall for a particular
Is there a way to make this serial cable Net speed is far inferior to the dial-up program, just remove the word ‘HIDE’ without
work? Are there any USB converters that I speed. The newer GSM phones support disturbing the rest of the file
can use? Will they work? And lastly, will Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolu-
the Internet speed be better than dial-up? tion (EDGE) that gives you download Next, go to Add/Remove Programs > Win-
It takes me 20 to 30 seconds to rates of 21 KBps. dows Setup > Accessories and Utilities, de-select
download a ring tone of 7 KB the Games option and click Apply.
- 10 KB on my phone.
Ishaan Not smooth with games
I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ on an
The cable you pur- MSI KM266 chipset-based board with 256
chased is a DKU-3 cable MB DDR RAM and a GeForce2 MX graph-
that provides serial connec- ics card. My PC does not run smoothly
tivity, while the DKU-5 when playing Quake III Arena. It also takes
cable provides USB connec- a lot more time to load Windows 98 SE
tivity. That is the only differ- than my older PIII 1.0 GHz with 128 MB
ence. Once the mobile is con- SDRAM and an 810E chipset. Another
nected to the PC, it appears as ILLUSTRATOR: Mahesh Benkar problem is that my processor heats up to
a modem. You can then use over 53 degrees and often crosses 56
any dialer, including the Windows dial- Finally, you can use Nokia PC Suite degrees when playing games.
up connection, to connect to the on your mobile since it does not depend Dhananjay Kulkarni
Internet. on the type of connectivity used.
As for the speed of the GPRS, it is You may also like to try Oxygen Jerky game frames could be due to
4.0 KBps. The difference between Kbps manager software (www.oxygensoftware. various reasons—application conflicts,
and KBps is that b indicates kilo ‘bits’ per com) that has most of the features of dated drivers, etc. Close all background
second, while B indicates kilo ‘bytes’ per Nokia PC Suite. applications, especially virus scanners,
while playing games. No other program

120 JANUARY 2004

 An incompatible chipset
I have an HCL BusyBee that
comprises a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz,
128 MB SDRAM, Intel 845G/GL
chipset and a 40 GB hard drive.
The sound card did not get con-
figured when I installed Linux
Red Hat 8.0. According to my
system administrator, the
845G/GL chipset does not sup-
To reach Game Options, you need to click on port version 8.0. Do I upgrade
setup and then Game Options after starting to a higher version? Also, can I
Quake III use Windows XP along with Red
Hat 9.0 without any hiccups? for 845G/GL motherboards are includ-
should be running when you Dipti Ranjan Nayak ed in Red Hat 9.0. However, if you
play Quake III. want to use Red Hat 8.0, download the
Update your graphics drivers to pro- You can use Red Hat 9.0 along with necessary drivers from www.linux-driv-
vide a boost in performance. any version of Windows. Sound drivers ers.org.
Decrease the game resolution in Quake
III by going to Setup > System > Graphics.
Next, just leave the Simple items options You may also refer to the exten- You can increase the size of
enabled in the Game Options menu and sive documentation available at virtual memory page file manually.
turn off the rest. http://www.freenet.org.nz/misc/knoppix- The maximum value that it can be
Your OS could be taking a longer time install.html and http://librenix.com/?inode= set to is the amount of free space
to load due to the presence of several 3250 to install Knoppix. on the drive. You can even allot
Startup items, a large number of fonts, space on more than one drive for
fragmented files, etc. Uninstall unneces- Too much memory is too less the page file. However, before you
sary applications, and run Scandisk and I have a Pentium IV 1.8 GHz, a 40 GB look at increasing the size of the
Disk Defragmenter to speed up disk hard disk, 128 MB DDRAM and an nVidia page file, try to reduce the number
access. As for the CPU temperature, 53 to graphics card running Windows 98 and of running applications, and stop
56 degrees is quite normal for the AMD. Windows 2000 Server. I have VB.Net all unnecessary services, including
Just make sure you have a good quality installed in Windows 2000. I get a mes- IIS. Virtual memory page files are
fan to dissipate the heat. sage that says, “Your Computer Virtual very slow to access. Ideally, you need
Memory is too low” when trying to load to have at least 256 MB of RAM to
Knoppix headaches VB.Net applications. The partitions on my use VB.Net.
I have a Compaq PC that has a Pentium disk are as follows C: has 10 GB, D: has 20 Programs written in VB 5.0 or
III 733 MHz and 64 MB RAM. I use a Knop- GB, on which I installed VB.Net, E: has 5 VB 6.0 need the VB Runtime files
pix CD to run my system. Booting from that GB and F: has 5 GB. The minimum paging to be present on the computer that
CD is very slow. Can I install Knoppix on the file size is shown as 192 MB, and maxi- they are running on. Similarly,
hard disk and boot from it instead? If yes, mum is shown as 384 MB under D:. The applications written in any .Net lan-
let me know the steps to do so. other fields are kept vacant. Can I use this guage require the .Net Runtime to be
Narender Kumar Kalra option to increase the virtual memory set- installed. The Runtime files are about 20
ting? What is the maximum level that I MB, and are present on the VB.Net
Narender, don’t expect a Knoppix can set it to? Will it affect the normal installer CDs.
CD to boot at the speed of lightning working of the system? Will it load the
on a PC with 64 MB RAM! You VB.Net project files without any problem? Changing shut down message
need to have at least 128 MB for a Currently, the system slows down when I have a Pentium III 600 MHz, a 10.2
speedy bootup. doing so. Help! GB hard drive, 64 MB RAM and an ATi card
Here’s how you install it onto your Another problem is the execution of running Windows 98 SE. How do I change
hard disk. Boot via the Knoppix CD and the project file in VB.Net. I created a short- the default shutdown message?
wait till the OS is loaded completely. cut for the .exe file on the desktop and Gurpreet Singh
Press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F1] to reach the console. executed the same without any problem
Type ‘knx-hdinstall’ and press [Enter]. Fol- in Windows 2000. However, when I copy That’s simple! Open C:\Windows\
low the installation wizard till it reboots. it to Windows 98 and try executing it, I logos.sys in MSPaint, modify the message
If the language is not set properly, go get a message saying that mscoree.dll is in the .bmp file and save it. Shut down
to Control Center > Personliche Einstellungen not found. Where can I get this file and the PC to see the new message. As a
> Land und Sprache. Here, choose ‘locale where do I copy it to? The .Net project precautionary measure, back up the
and language’ as ‘English’. Click uses an MS Access database that is avail- original file. You may also use any
Andwenden and restart the Control Cen- able under both OSes. picture available in the .bmp format as
ter to get the change effected. Venu Gopal S a shutdown screen.

121 JANUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Boot failure File > Burn Image. Select the ISO file and Backing up Norton
I have a Pentium III. Using the steps press Open. Next, click Write to burn I have an Intel Celeron 1.10 GHz, 160
given in the magazine, I burnt the Red the image. MB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive, run-
Hat 9 ISO images present on the Linux ning Windows XP.
DVD, onto three CDs, and changed the Memory dilemmas I updated the virus definitions for
BIOS settings. However, I get a message I own a PC with a Pentium 4 1.4 GHz, Norton Anti-Virus, but lost them all when
indicating boot failure at startup. Is there an Intel 850 chipset and 128 MB of I formatted the system. How do I
any method to make these CDs RDRAM. I want to upgrade my memory backup virus definitions and restore
bootable? Also, is it necessary that they to 256 MB and make use of a graphics them after formatting and installing
be bootable? card. A hardware vendor told me to pur- Windows afresh?
Prasann Vyankatesh Nadgauda chase a single 128 MB memory stick, Giri Giri
while another said that I need
two 64 MB sticks. I have two All virus definitions reside in
free slots on my motherboard C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec
and two 64 MB RAM sticks Shared\VirusDefs. Copy them onto a CD
already on the board. How do or a floppy disk before formatting, and
I go about doing this? then copy them back to the same loca-
Raj tion. Alternatively, download the
standalone .exe file from www.syman-
RDRAM modules
need to be installed
in pairs. This means
that either you install
two 128 MB sticks, or
four 64 MB sticks.
Since you already
have two 64 MB mod-
ules, the cheapest
Once you start Nero, click on File, then on Burn Image option would be to
and finally the image to burn buy and install Take a backup of the virus definitons before you
another two of the format your hard drive
The CDs have to be bootable. The same capacity. Ask the retailer
CD-Writer may not have burnt the to fit the modules onto your tec.com, and double-click it to update
images properly. Open Nero and go to motherboard. the virus definitions.

An error unknown... up while playing Command & Conquer. open to ensure the best ventilation. Re-
I have a PC that comprises a Pentium Downloading drivers from the Internet did install the games after updating the driv-
4 1.7 GHz, a VIA motherboard and a 120 not help. I even replaced the graphics card ers to replace any files that may have
GB hard drive running Windows XP SP1. I with the GeForce 4 440 MX SE, but the been corrupted.
installed a GeForce 4 440 MX graphics problem persisted. Enter the BIOS by pressing [DEL] or
card and 256 SD RAM to play Age of Prasanchandra Lakhani [F2] at bootup. Here, in the Advanced
Mythology. However, a message stating Chipset Features menu, set the AGP aper-
that an unknown error has occurred The reasons for the error can be ture size to the lowest value, typically 4
appears while playing Age of Mythology, many. There could be a problem with MB. Next, reduce the AGP bus speed to
and the game quits. The error also comes your drivers, or with DirectX. Update all 2X. Also, disable the Enable 4X AGP set-
the hardware drivers, and then update to ting. AGP 4X needs more bandwidth and
DirectX 9.0b. Visit www.viaarena.com to hence, more resources than AGP 2X. As a
download the latest 4-in-1 Hyperion last resort, check for a BIOS update on the
drivers for the VIA motherboard. Also, manufacturer’s Web site.
update your sound drivers.
Reason number two can be insufficient [email protected]
power. This can happen if you possess a E-mail us your computing
high-end video card, but a weak power problems, and we may
supply. A supply of 300W would eliminate answer them here! Since we get more
this problem. mails per day than we can handle, it may
Run a check on all the fans installed in take some time for your query to be
Modify the logo.sys file to change the your system to make sure they’re running answered. Rest assured, we are listening!
shutdown message at full speed. Play with the system case

122 JANUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

A network drive with hiccups, a short-sighted screen, upgrade troubles, lame Autoruns
and sick CPUs... queue up now to get it all fixed

Yahoo! It’s up again er), but it didn’t start. Is there any way to
I recently installed Windows open SFC in Windows 2000 professional?
XP on my PC. The configuration is Amish Mehta
Celeron 733 MHz, 128 MB RAM
and an 8 GB hard disk. Whenever Don’t be alarmed. The fact is,
I try to access the site http:// Windows 2000 only has a DOS-based
groups.yahoo.com I get the follow- SFC. To start it, go to the command
ing error: prompt, type ‘sfc’ and press [Enter].
“Gateway Timeout Here, you’ll find some help on how to
The following error occurred: use sfc.exe, and the syntax to use.
A gateway timeout occurred. The
server is unreachable. Moody network drive
Retry the request. I run Windows 2000, and whenever I
(GATEWAY_TIMEOUT) start Adobe Photoshop, I am unable to
Please contact the administrator.” Click the Groups link on the Yahoo! Groups page access a Mapped Network drive; it gives
All other Web sites open fine. the following error message: “Insufficient
What do I do? You should be able to access the site quota to complete the requested service.”
Avinash now. If you still face problems, go to If I close Photoshop, I can access the drives
www. yahoo.com, click on Mail, and log again. Only rarely can I access network
Don’t worry. This happened in with your username and password. drives while using Photoshop.
because the government of India Now click on the Yahoo! link on the Shiva Pillai
banned the Web site for a short while. top right, and when the page loads,
click on the This problem is caused by either a
Groups link. corrupt TCP/IP protocol, or a memory
leak problem. Firstly, try to re-install
Where’s the SFC? the TCP/IP protocol—go to Start >
I have a Pentium Settings > Control Panel, right-click on
III with a 20 GB Network and select Properties. Now
hard disk, an 810e select TCP/IP, and remove it.
motherboard, 128 Remember to note down the configura-
MB RAM and a Sav- tion settings before you remove it, as
age display card. I you will need these settings again while
recently installed re-installing. Now restart you machine,
Windows 2000, and and reinstall TCP/IP.
tried to run SFC The actual problem occurs when the
Click the Yahoo! Link on the top right corner of the page to move ahead (System File Check- Windows I/O operation fails due to ➜

141 FEBRUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

faulty module, program, appli- Adding more cards

cation, or driver that is causing I have a Pentium IV 1.8 GHz Processor
the memory leak. The leak is and an 845 GLVA Intel original mother-
caused because of a driver or an board, which has inbuilt audio and video.
application that uses the mem- I want to know if I can install external audio
ory to function, but does not or video cards on this motherboard, and
release it as soon as the work is whether I need to change any BIOS set-
complete. This builds up over tings. Is there any way of knowing the
time, until all the system speed of the DDR-RAM that my system cur-
resources are utilised, causing rently has?
errors. This is why the problem Tathagata Ray
is temporarily solved when you
restart—the memory is cleared Sorry, your motherboard does not
and reallocated. have an AGP slot, so you’re stuck with
You can use Performance the integrated graphics chipset. If you
Monitor to detect faulty appli- want, you can install a PCI video card
cations, or use Poolman.exe to such as a TV-tuner card to get better
The error that appears when attempting to access a detect driver problems—this is graphics. For a better sound solution,
network drive found in the \Support\Tools you can use an add-on PCI sound card,
folder on the Windows CD- and all you need to do is disable the on-
insufficient system resources, which ROM. If you find a program that’s caus- board sound card from the BIOS.
means you may have a memory leak. As ing the problem, make sure to remove Windows does not provide a reliable
a system’s resources vary from one any service related to that process. utility to check the RAM clock speed, but
moment to another, you actually might Next, remove any other program or you can see it when you start your system.
be able to access network drives after a application interacting with the same At the first screen, where you see the RAM
few minutes or seconds. An immediate process, and finally, remove the faulty count taking place, you can also see the
solution is to close unimportant appli- process itself. RAM clock speed. Another option is to use
cations to free some resources, and try You should also send a detailed e- a freeware utility called WCPUID (www.h-
accessing the files again. mail to the vendor or manufacturer of oda.com), to see the RAM clock speed.
If this does not help, or if you have that application to inform them of your
nothing else open anyway, the next best problem. Hopefully, they will find a Driver shop
thing is to restart Windows. For a more solution, and prevent others from fac- Two months ago, I bought a new
permanent solution, you need to find the ing the same. PC with a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz processor,
512 MB of DDR RAM, an 80 GB Seagate
Barracuda, on an ASUS P4S533 MX
Enlarge my X screen Motherboard. I bought an nVidia Riva
I recently installed Red Hat Linux 9.0, TNT 2 graphics card with 32 MB of video
and noticed that the X-window GUI RAM. I want to know whether my card
screen occupies less than my monitor supports OpenGL. Also, my ASUS moth-
viewable area—an inch on both the left erboard has the SoundMax Sound
and the right. I have an ASUS mother- chipset. The drivers provided with the
board with an Intel 845GL chipset, motherboard CD are incorrect. Where can
128 MB of DDR RAM and on-board 8 I get the latest drivers?
MB VGA. My monitor is a 15-inch LG Anshuman
Studio-works 520Si. Are there some
extra parameters to be given in The nVidia TNT2 card that you have
XF86Config? on your PC has full support for OpenGL.
Sandeep Install the latest drivers from
www.nvidia.com for maximum game per-
The problem is that the screen command formance. For better performance, we
Illustrations: Mahesh Benkar
resolution is too high—reducing it to prompt. You suggest a new generation graphics card,
1,024 x 768 or 800 x 600 will solve your can also type it in the dialog based on the GeForce or Radeon chipset.
problem. Since you’re using Red Hat 9, box that comes up after clicking on the You can get the latest SoundMax driv-
you don’t have to worry about adding Run… option under the Main Menu, or ers from http://www.asus.com.tw/support/
extra parameters to the XF86Config go to Main Menu > System Settings > download/item.aspx?ModelName=P4S533-
file—this was the only way out with Display. Adjust the resolution using the MX&Type=Latest.
previous Red Hat versions. Red Hat 9 drop-down box, and then restart the X
has an excellent GUI configuration tool server by either logging in again, or by Long story short
called ‘redhat-config-xfree86’ that can using [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Backspace]. This will I recently upgraded my home PC, tak-
be invoked by typing the same at the solve your problem. ing your advice for the latest motherboard,
processor and graphics. My configuration

142 FEBRUARY 2004

is: an MSI KT4 Ultra SR, 333 FSB mother-
board with VIA Technologies Inc VT8377 Temporary Linux
chipset, Apollo KT400 CPU to PCI Bridge, I run Windows XP, and want to
A6590VMS V1.1 091102 AMIBIOS Version know how to run Linux without
3.31a, an AMD Athlon XP 2600+, 2.083 overwriting XP. Can I run it off the
GHz, 333 MHz FSB processor, Kingston CD without installing it, or do I
DDR 512 MB, 333 MHz RAM, Seagate Bar- require a bootable CD?
racuda ST380011A, 80 GB, 7,200-rpm Mahesh I
hard drive, SMEDIA nVIDIA GeForce MX
440 SE, 64 MB DDR w/TV, AGP 4X graph- Yes, you can run Linux with-
ics card—all running Windows 98 (C Drive) out installing it. If you have the
and Windows XP (D Drive). I also have an August 2003 issue of Digit, use the
ibox cabinet, a 300 W power supply and an Linux DVD to create a bootable
APC Back-UPS UPS. CD of Knoppix—a Linux distribu-
The problem is that my AMD Athlon tion meant for users who want to
XP 2600+ runs only at 1.90 GHz, when it try Linux without taking the risk
should run at 2.083 GHz. The CPU per- of installing it. Just pop the bootable etc). Once you’re convinced that you
formance is also at par with an Athlon XP Knoppix CD into your drive, and boot want to run Linux, take a look at the
processor running at 1.90 GHz, which I into Linux. However, you cannot do ‘Boots in Control’ article on page 137 of
tested with the SiSoft Sandra 2003 this with any of the other Linux distri- this issue to learn how to install both
Standard software I got from your June butions (Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Linux and Windows XP safely.
2003 CD.
In the BIOS setup (AMIBIOS New Setup
Utility 3.31a), the current values set under The older models clocked 2.13 GHz, but to these files, thus allowing you to
the ‘Frequency / Voltage Control’ sub- ran at 266 FSB with 256 KB of L2 cache. download them. Make sure you’re not
menu are as follows: Check the AMD processor box, and you violating a site’s copyright, or breaking
Spread Spectrum: Disabled (other avail- will see the clock speeds in the fine print any piracy laws by doing this. Read the
able options: ±0.25, ±0.5, ±0.75), CPU FSB near the bar-code. The Athlon XP 2800+ fine print on the site to be sure.
Clock: 280 MHz (100 to 280 - in steps of 1) runs at 2.083 GHz.
CPU Ratio: Auto (x6.0 to 12.0 - in steps of
0.5, 14.0, 15.0, 12.5x13.0) Downloading
CPU Vcore (V): Auto (1.625, 1.650, 1.675, tutorials
1.700, 1.725, 1.750) I want to learn
DDR Voltage (V): Auto (2.6, 2.7, 2.8) 3D software such
Termination Voltage (V): Auto (1.27, 1.29) as Maya, 3D Studio
AGP Voltage (V): Auto (1.6, 1.7, 1.8) Max, Softimage,
I have also observed that when the etc. I have visited
CPU FSB Clock speed was set at default many of the tutori-
value of 100 MHz, the processor was being als sites on the
recognised as an Athlon 1.25 GHz; and Net, which have
when the speed was set at 266, the proces- online tutorials in
sor got recognised as an Athlon 2000+, the form of Quick
1.67 GHz. Now the CPU FSB Clock speed Time movies. How
is set at the maximum available option of can I save or down-
280, and the processor is recognized as a load these movies
2600+, running at 1.90 GHz. to view them later?
Tell me how to get my processor to Sunil
work at its designated speed of 2.083 GHz.
S. Sinha This is easily
done by using
Wow! Now that’s a complete list of such programs as
specifications if we ever saw one. You D o w n l o a d
certainly did your homework, and all the Accelerator
troubleshooting possible. Here’s the (DAP), down-
dampner—there’s nothing wrong with loadable from
your processor. It’s running at the correct www.downloadac-
speed. There are two versions of the celerator.com. DAP
AMD Athlon 2600+ available in the mar- operates in the
ket. You have the latest version with 333 background, and
MHz FSB and 512 KB L2 cache; this runs traps the Web
at a clock speed of 1917 MHz or 1.9 GHz. links that point

143 FEBRUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Stop, spam! To create CDs from the
Recently, I signed up for e-mail from DVD, you have to use CD-
certain Yahoo! Groups. I provided them burning software such as
with two e-mail IDs, one Rediffmail and Nero, and use the ‘image
one Sancharnet. Now, I get too many e- burn’ feature. To burn an
mails. I figured out how to block these e- image in Nero, go to File >
mails in Rediffmail, but Sancharnet has Burn Image. To burn CDs in
no block option. How do I stop them? Linux, you need to use the
Atul Shinde ‘cdrecord’ command. For
more help on the syntax,
Unsubscribing from a Yahoo! refer to the man pages by
Group is really simple. Just send a blank issuing the ‘man cdrecord’
e-mail to <groupname>-unsubscribe@ command in the terminal
yahoogroups.com. Here the <groupname> is window.
the name of each group you wish to Even if you don’t have The mouse cursor changes to a typing cursor when you
unsubscribe from. If the e-mails still a CD Writer, but have a move it over a text field
don’t stop, send a complaint to DVD-ROM drive, you can
<groupname>[email protected]. install Linux directly from the DVD. fields—the mouse cursor changes
The group owner will receive your mes- Visit http://www.thinkdigit.com when you move over it. If the
sage, and manually remove your address /howto.html for a detailed procedure. form you downloaded happens to
from the list. have such fields, you can fill it up,
Online forms print it and fax it. However, you won’t
Bypass CD-Writers I have a PDF form that I want to fill be able to save the form, or fax it from
In your August 2003 issue, you pro- up. Is there any software that I can use? your computer.
vided Linux distributions. I want to know I have Acrobat Reader installed on my If the PDF file doesn’t have special
how to install Linux, as I don’t have a machine, but it is unable to write to entry fields, as seems to be the case
CD-Writer. I also want to know how to the file. with your form, your only option is to
create CDs for the same. Kali Dass print it, fill it in by hand and then
Sumeet Srivastava Sometimes, a PDF file has special fax or post it.

Bootable CD I searched my computer for these files, and games? If so, please give me a list of the
I have problems making a bootable CD. found them in the \Windows and \Win- best cards available.
My PC consists of an Intel Celeron 1.3 GHz dows\System folders. The older Digit CDs— Ravi.
processor, running Windows 98 and Nero October 2002 and November 2002—work
for CD writing. Can you tell me the step- fine. My PC is an Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Unfortunately, PCI 3D accelerators
by-step process for creating a bootable CD with 256 MB RAM, 48 GB hard disk running have been dead for quite some time now.
with Nero? Windows 98 SE. Hardly anybody buys them, as AGP has
Pratik Netake Antariksha Das completely overtaken the graphics card
market. You’ll really have to search hard
Before you start, make sure you have Download a fresh copy of the required to find a suitable card.
the Windows 98 bootable floppy. Start DLL file from http://www.useyourbrain. Some time ago, Visiontek offered a PCI
Nero and press New—close the wizard if co.uk/missing-dll-files/advapi32.zip. After card based on the GeForce2 GTS chipset.
Nero starts in wizard mode. Select the downloading, copy the same into your This would do nicely for the games you
‘CDROM Boot’ option and set the \Windows\System32 and \Windows\System wish to play. Another PCI card worth look-
Bootable Logical Drive to ‘A’. Insert the folders. Restart your computer. ing for is the PowerVR Kyro. Happy hunt-
bootable floppy into the floppy drive, ing and best of luck!
and press New. Now copy the data files of Good old PCI
your choice to the CD, and finally, press I have an Intel 815 EGEW board, an
the burn button to burn at the speed 800 MHz Pentium III processor, 128 MB of [email protected]
you want. RAM, and onboard Intel integrated graph- E-mail us your computing
ics. I can’t play games such as Quake III problems, and we may
Autorun can’t run Arena and UT 2003; games such as FIFA answer them here! Since we get more
I can’t use my Digit CDs (September 2003 and Need For Speed HP2 are quite mails per day than we can handle, it may
2003 and October 2003). I get the follow- sluggish. I don’t have an AGP slot, so I take some time for your query to be
ing error: “mshta.exe file is linked to miss- can’t install an AGP graphics card. Can I answered. Rest assured, we are listening!
ing export advapi32.dll: free library”. add a PCI graphics card to play these

144 FEBRUARY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

MIssing L2 caches, installer problems, Explorer crashes, Firmware upgrades,

DOOMed installers, etc. You’ve got a problem? We’ve got the solution

Where’s my L2 gone? about it. My friend’s PC, a Pentium 3, [Pause] key when your system’s hard-
I want to know what the L2 cache shows 256 KB of L2 cache. The perform- ware information is displayed. This
memory is, and why it is marked as 0 MB ance of his computer is good. information appears as a table just after
on my system. I have an Intel Celeron I used the ‘trial-and-error’ method you’ve switched on your PC, and just
1.7 GHz, 128 MB SDRAM, a 40 GB on the external cache option provided in before Windows starts. You’ll need to be
Seagate hard disk, a Mercury KOB82845 the BIOS, but there was no performance a little quick, or you’ll miss the screen.
G/GL NDSMx motherboard with the difference. My friend’s PC has DDR RAM. Look at this table, and you’ll be able to
Intel 845 GL chipset, onboard VGA Is the L2 cache dependent on the type of view the correct system information.
and sound. RAM? Please help.
According to your October issue, a Gaurav Malji Unhandled Exception while
Pentium 4 has 256 KB of L2 cache, but installing
my machine has 0 MB. I asked my com- All CPUs have an inbuilt L2 cache, and I have a Pentium III 450 MHz com-
puter vendor, but he knows nothing it isn’t dependent on the type of system puter with Windows 98 SE. The problem
memory you have, or is that recently, I tried to install the demo
anything like that. version of Clive Barker’s Undying. The
The L2 cache, which installer for the game comes with the
increases the CPU’s Install Shield Wizard—the newer one,
performance, is with the soft-blue icon. The installer
inbuilt in the proces- showed that it was reading the packages.
sor. Then, a box popped up showing that
A Celeron 1.7 setup was preparing the Install shield wiz-
GHz processor ard, along with the progress bar. Every-
should have 128 KB thing was fine until this point. Then, a
of L2 cache. There message box popped up saying, “Unhan-
are two possibilities: dled Exception”. The exact error message
the first is that the said: “Error number: 0x80070725
L2 cache in disabled Description: Incompatible version of the
in the BIOS, in RPC stub Setup will now terminate”.
which case you’ll Another interesting fact is that this
have to enable it. now happens for every installer that uses
The other possibility Install Shield. I’ve installed the game
is that the program before, and It ran fine then. Also, the disks
you’re using reports I installed from were clean, so the error is
the cache status not with the source.
This chart shows the different combinations of processor and cache incorrectly. To verify I updated my drivers, and reinstalled
that are available this, press the DirectX9. There was no change. The one ➜

111 MARCH 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

thing I could not do, is use an older back- oleaut32.dll. To correct this problem, You gave the Linux version of DOOM
up of the registry, as I’d just taken the follow these directions to remove the in the previous CD, but I’m new to Linux,
backup that very day. I tried it out old file and reinstall it. First, download and don’t know how to install it on
though, but it didn’t help. the file appropriate to your operating Red Hat Linux 9.0.
Kaisar system to your desktop, but do not exe- Hira Nand Prasad
This error is caused by an incompat- cute it. The download locations are:
ible version of a DLL that was installed For Windows 98: http://support.install- The version of DOOM supplied on
on the system, such as Oleaut32.dll, shield.com/ kb/files/Q108188/dcom98.exe the CD in the February issue is neither
Olepro32.dll, Asycfilt.dll, or For Windows 95: http://support.install- for Windows nor for Linux. It’s for a
Stdole2.tlb. For example, version 3.50 shield.com/ kb/files/Q108188/dcom95.exe Mobile, i.e., the Symbian Platform. It’s
of Oleaut32.dll is installed and used Now go to Start > Shutdown > Restart in a Java-based application; you need to
only by Windows XP. So, you get this MS-DOS mode. At the command prompt, attach the mobile phone to the com-
error if it is installed on a machine run- enter the following commands on sepa- puter, and transfer the application to
ning any other operating system. rate lines as shown: the mobile, in order to use it. But this
There are three fixes you can try. Choose CD c:\windows\system version is meant only for the Symbian
the appropriate for your computer: rename oleaut32.dll oleaut32.old platform, so you’ll be able to use it only
If you have Microsoft Office or an exit if you have a mobile running the
Office 2000 component installed, Now Windows will restart. Ignore the Symbian OS.
install the Office 2000 Service Release 1. error message: “A required .DLL file,
You can use this solution for any oper- C:\windows\system\oleaut32.dll, was I need a service centre
ating system. not found.” Double-click the file you I stay near Charni Road, Mumbai.
If you do not have Office 2000 or an downloaded to your Desktop earlier. Could you please recommend a good
Office 2000 component installed, down- Click Yes at the dialog that opens. The service centre or technician who won’t
load and install the mcrepair.exe tool dcom.exe file installs a new oleaut32.dll insist on me signing a yearly contract to
from http://download.microsoft.com /down- file. After DCOM has been installed, make home visits?
load/msninvestor/patch/1.0/win98/en- restart the system. My system is three years old, and it’s
us/mcrepair.exe. When it prompts you to If this procedure results in your PC been showing the wrong time for the
overwrite newer files, make sure you getting even worse, simply go back to past two months. I believe this problem
click ‘Yes’ for each file. You can use this the MS-DOS prompt, and rename the can be solved by replacing the CMOS
solution for any operating system. oleaut32.old file back to oleaut32.dll. battery. But according to my vendor—my
If you’re using Windows 98 or 95, the system is assembled—this is a crystal
error is due to a bad version of You’re mistaken, mister oscillator problem. Is that true? Can a
motherboard fault cause the wrong time
to show up in the system tray?
User discipline I’ve not signed a yearly contract with
I have five PCs running my vendor, so he won’t send a technician
Windows 2000 Professional for inspection of the fault.
connected over a LAN. I cre- Ashar Bhavesh
ated user accounts with group
membership as Guests so as to Firstly, sorry: We can’t recommend
prevent users from installing any company or individuals to you.
software without my permis- But regarding the CMOS battery, you
sion, though they should be can boot your machine without the
able to download software, CMOS battery. The only difference
MP3s, video, etc. However, would be that the machine will gener-
users can still install software ate a CMOS checksum error, and you
at will. I run a cyber café, and would have to press [F1] each time
it’s really difficult to spy on you restart. Also, if CMOS battery is at
each and every person who fault, it will not be able retain the
Illustrations: Mahesh Benkar
walks in. changes made to the time.
Hari and press OK to set the new permis- Replacing the battery is not difficult.
sion. Now, the guest user won’t be able Open the cabinet, locate the old bat-
If your file system is NTFS, then to install any software. Next, create a tery, remove it, and insert the new one.
the simplest way about it is to provide common folder wherein users can A CMOS battery costs around Rs 20.
write permission for the entire C: drive download software. This folder should If the problem is not rectified after
to the administrator only. Right-click have read and write permissions for replacing the battery, then it might be
the C: drive, select Security, and here all, and can be on the C: drive or any due to the oscillator, in which case
remove all groups with the exception other partition. Alternatively, you can you’ll have to take the motherboard to
of the Administrators group. Check get the users to download software a service centre.
the ‘Inherent to sub-folders’ checkbox, onto a floppy disk.
Windows Explorer keeps crashing

112 MARCH 2004

 My Windows Explorer keeps crashing
whenever I do a search, or use Explorer Fan in another fan?
for a long time. I’m running Windows XP I have a 1.5 GHz
+ SP1. To zero in on the problem, I mon- CPU with an Intel
itored Task Manager to see the cause of 845GBV mother-
crash, and disabled all startup programs, board, a 40 GB hard
including antivirus software. I found a disk, an nVidia
program, Dr. Watson, which starts imme- GeForce4 MX 440
diately and causes Explorer to freeze, and graphics card and
then it crashes, and closes all Explorer a Creative Sound
windows, including Windows Explorer. Blaster Live DE
I’m really frustrated. I tried searching 5.1 sound card.
the Microsoft XP online database for Can I use anoth-
a patch, but none was available. What’s er fan for the
the solution? graphics card
Shankar instead of its
own fan? If so, what kind of fan should I However, you can increase the number
It’s not necessarily Dr. Watson that’s use? Will it enhance my card’s perform- of fans in the cabinet, as it might
causing the problem. When an ance? improve the cooling system, and there-
error is reported, Windows starts Udayan by increase the lifespan of the compo-
Dr. Watson, which creates a log file. nent. Make sure you have a better fan
This log file comprises the current The fan that comes with the card is to keep things cool in case you wish to
state of the machine. This file can then more than enough! You need not overclock your graphics card for better
be sent to the Microsoft technical change or add any more fans to it. performance.
support for help. Alternatively, you
can configure Dr. Watson to create
a crash dump file, a binary file that Explorer that’s causing the problem,the Second, is it possible to use a 40 GB
can be analysed with the help of fastest fix is to re-install Windows. hard disk on a 486 system? If yes, how?
a debugger. Lastly, is there a Web site I can go to,
By default, the log file created by Dr. Help on the Internet for suggestions on these matters?
Watson is named Drwtsn32.log, and is My first question is whether it’s possi- Manoranjana Mohapatra
saved in the C:\Documents and Settings\All ble to download attached e-mail files
Users. WINNT\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr directly from the server—Hotmail or For your first question, if you mean
Watson\ folder. Sify—using FTP commands from within downloading attachments from e-mails
Check the log file for the program Windows, using the e-mail ID and pass- in your Hotmail or Sify mailbox, then
that’s causing the error. If it’s Windows word, without using a browser? you can’t. You can download attach-
ments only after logging in via the
usual interface. You can, however,
download your Hotmail e-mails direct-
ly using e-mail clients such as Outlook
Express or Outlook.
Now for your second query: Yes, you
can, with the help of utilities you can find
on the hard disk vendor’s Web site. For a
Seagate hard disk, go to www.seagate.
com/support/disc/drivers/, and for Samsung
drives, go to www.samsung.com/Products/
HardDiskDrive/utilities/index.htm.
To answer your last question: We
have a forum at http://www.thinkdigit.com
/forum/viewforum.php?f=2 to discuss such
issues. You are more than welcome to
join us.

Firm wary
I have three questions: What is a
firmware update, and what does it do?
Which of the following needs regular
driver and firmware updates for optimal
At http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2 you will find the QNA section where functionality: Motherboard, chipset,
you can discuss your problems graphics card, sound card, hard disk,

113 MARCH 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Read carefully Restoring data Whenever you restore the system to
My CD-ROM drive is driving me nuts. I am using Windows XP Professional an earlier point, Windows XP creates a
It reads every software CD as an audio on a Pentium 4 system. Recently, restore point, and then proceeds with
CD. How do I put some sense into it? my display and sound drivers were the restore. To undo the change, go to
Yudhveer Singh acting nasty. Hence, I reinstalled them, Accessibility > System Tools > System Restore
but to no avail. I then restored the and select ‘Undo my last restoration’. If
Such drives can be so irritating! The system to an earlier time, and lost the restore point is not present then you
problem lies with the CD-ROM lens valuable software that I installed might have disabled the system restore
that is functioning erratically. Clean after the restoration point. There was functionality. If so, then, pal, you have
the CD-ROM lens using a lens-cleaner no point available for the restoration our condolences! You won’t be able to
disc. Get it serviced at the nearest repair when I tried to undo the changes. go back to the said state.
centre if the problem persists. I don’t have the CDs of the aforemen- Try using recovery software such as R-
tioned software, so I can’t reinstall Fat, but it’s doubtful whether you will ever
Boot out the choice them either. Is there any way to get back retrieve the files since recovery is possible
I have Windows XP Professional that software? only until the physical location where the
loaded on my C: drive. Some time back, Shailesh files are stored remains unused.
I installed Windows 98SE on the D: drive.
This gave me a dual boot option. How-
ever, recently I formatted the D: drive
and created a new partition after remov-
ing all traces of Windows 98SE. In spite
of that, I still get a dual-boot screen
asking me to choose between Windows
XP and Windows 98. How do I get rid
of that?
Tehseen Ali

Open the boot.ini file using

Notepad, delete the following line:
C:\=“windows 98” and then save the
file. The option will not appear the As the name suggests, ‘Undo my last restoration’ helps you recover data that is lost due to a
next time you boot your PC. prior restoration

processor, modem, monitor, or the TV In the case of such cards as TV-tuners, the Looks like driver corruption is at
tuner card? manufacturer may release an update to sup- play here. Here’s what you do: Hold
Lastly, I intend buying a PC, primarily port a new motherboard. Motherboards down the Windows key and [Pause] to
to play games. Which OS should I opt often require firmware updates for sup- access the Properties of My Computer.
for—Windows XP Professional or Windows porting newer features and hardware. Flip over to the Device Manager. Here,
XP Home Edition? Finally, load Windows XP Home on right-click Sound, select Properties and
Akhil Bahri your PC if gaming is your main need. It choose Update drivers. If this does
shores up to the needs of most games and not even allow you to overwrite the
Firmware is software that’s embedded is easy on the pocket too. newer drivers, then restart your PC,
in the hardware. It’s accessible through go to the BIOS, disable Sound and
specially written applications that can Dreadfully blue then uninstall the old drivers. Restart
write or read from the ROM chip, where I have an Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz again, enable sound in the BIOS and
the firmware resides. For instance, the with a VIA P4M266-8233 motherboard, then reinstall the drivers.
BIOS on the motherboard is the an S-Media GFX 5200 128 MB DDR
firmware. As and when manufacturers graphics card, a 40 GB hard disk with dual
discover bugs in the hardware, they put operating systems—Windows 98 and [email protected]
up specific updates to overcome them. Windows XP—and 256 MB SDRAM. I get the E-mail us your
Firmware updates can also help overcom- following blue-screen error message when computing prob-
lems, and we may
ing hardware limitations. uninstalling Realtek AC ‘97 for VIA audio driv-
answer them here!
Assume that your current AMD board ers in Windows 98 to update them: “A fatal Since we get more
supports a 166 FSB processor. Later, if AMD error has occurred at 0028:ff066a7b in vxd mails per day than we can handle, it may
releases a 200 FSB CPU, then the mother- portcls(05) + 00003afb, the current applica- take some time for your query to be
board manufacturer may release a firmware tion will be terminated.” What do I do? answered. Rest assured, we are listening!
update so that your board also supports it. Neelonjon Goon

114 MARCH 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

PCs lying about their disk space?

Refusing to talk sans a password? Here’s how you get them to behave!

Auto-p
power does not work For your first problem, open the file program is needed for opening files of
c:\boot.ini using Notepad. You will type ‘Application’. Location of SirC32
I have a few problems. Recently, I observe that it has two rows with .exe.C://’. The error message box has
installed Windows XP Professional alongside Windows XP Professional mentioned. three buttons: OK, Cancel and Locate.
Windows 98. Now, I see three options in the Keep the following line: What should I do?
boot menu: Windows XP Professional, Win- multi(w)disk(x)rdisk(y) partition(z)\win- Ashwin Doshi
dows XP Professional and WINDOWS 98. dows. 000="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
How do I remove that extra Windows XP Delete the other row, save the file and The filename is that of a virus that
option? By the way, XP is loaded in C:\Win- restart your PC. infected your PC. Norton scanned the
dows.000 and 98 in D:\Windows. As for your second problem, you need machine and deleted it. However, its
Also, the machine doesn’t power off to enable Advanced Power Management residue effect is still present and that is
automatically when using Windows XP. (APM) for your system. To do so, go to the cause of the error message. The sim-
This is not so with Windows 98. As I have Control Panel > Power Options. Here, click on plest way out is to download and exe-
an ATX power supply, I guess by default it the APM tab and select ‘Enable Advanced cute the virus fix. Norton has one such
should turn off automatically. Please help Power Management support’. Once done, fix available at http://www.sarc.com/avcen-
me solve these problems. your PC should shutdown automatically. ter/ FixSirc.com.
Tapas Kumar Mahata
Files deleted Connecting computers in the
by anti-virus same locality
software
I have a Pentium 4 2.6 GHz, 512 MB
I have a Windows RAM and a GeForce4 128 MB video card.
98 PC that uses a Cyrix My friend also has the same configuration.
Media GX processor, We would like to play multiplayer games,
64 MB RAM and runs but our Internet connection is too slow. Is
Norton AntiVirus Soft- there any hardware upgrade possible that
ware. It deleted certain will connect our PCs directly? We would
files while scanning for prefer something that does not need a tele-
viruses. Soon after that, phone line. My friend’s house is just a five-
several programs failed minute walk away from mine. Also, do let
to open and I get the us know the costs involved.
following error: Rahul
‘Program not found.
Check the ‘Enable Advanced Power Management support’ option to Windows can not You will get a better performance if
take advantage of APM and at the same time save on electricity bills! find SirC32.exe. This you connect to your friend’s computer ➜

111 APRIL 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

directly using a telephone line. In this the VGA card, but I don’t know which one a 5 GB, another 5 GB and a 10 GB. On the
case, instead of you and your friend to opt for? My friend also has a VIA moth- first I have Windows 98, the second one is
dialling out using two different tele- erboard and a GeForce4, but it causes a lot for Red Hat Linux 9, and the last is for XP.
phone lines to connect to each other via of problems while playing games. My deal- Without Linux, the other OSes used to run
the Internet, you use just one telephone er recommends the Max Force GeForce4; fine, but after installing Linux, when I try to
line to dial straight to your friend. This should I buy that? boot into XP I get this message: "HAL.DLL
cuts down phone bills by half. Rohit Singh is missing or corrupted." I tried the SFC on
Alternatively, if you and your friend Windows 98, found the HAL.dll file, and
stay within 150 metres from each other, Yes, there are a lot of issues with the extracted it from my XP CD to put it in the
consider using a cross-over cable. VIA motherboard and the GeForce4, so proper location, but it didn’t work.
Beyond that you will have to make use of before buying beware. To counter the Any answers?
repeaters and you need to find a feasible problems that arise, you need to con- Mayukh Chowdhruy
intermediate location to attach the stantly look out for BIOS and mother-
same. You will have to spend around board updates and install them as soon If you are able to copy the .DAT
Rs 900 for two LAN cards, about Rs 800 as they are released. If possible, get the movie file from a VCD to your hard disk
per repeater and Rs 10 per metre of motherboard replaced and then think of and play it, the problem is clearly hard-
cables used. buying a new VGA card. ware related. Older CD-ROM drives may
Opt for an ‘Always On’ service have problems reading non-original CDs
provider if your locality has one. These DAT, .INI and .DLL properly. The drive must retry reading
connect PCs to a small network and multiple times before it picks up error-
thereby provide Internet access to the Of late, I’ve been facing several prob- free data. This means that the data flow
PCs. In this way you could get connected lems. My configuration is a Celeron 466, is slowed, and the drive may get very
on a LAN and then play games. 128 MB of RAM, an 8.4 GB hard disk, and hot. To play back a movie smoothly, data
Another alternative is to set up a Wi- Windows 2000 Professional. Here’s what’s flow should not be interrupted in this
Fi network but this is possible if you and been happening: manner. You may try a "Lens Cleaner"
your friend stay in line of sight. This solu- I can’t play .DAT files off my CD-ROM. CD, but in all probability this problem
tion also depends on a lot of environ- They run from disk, though. I tried re- will only be fixed by a new CD Drive.
mental factors. Typically, you will need a installing Windows but it didn’t work. There’s no doubt that your boot.ini file
wireless LAN card plus a couple of high- Ican’t find the boot.ini file on my hard is in C:\. You can’t find it because it’s hid-
gain antennas. You could buy a high gain disk. I’m able to open it in Notepad, but den, and you can’t save it because it’s
antenna or make one yourself. You will after I’m not able to save it after modifying read-only. To view hidden files,
find lot of stuff on the Internet in this it’it says that I "need to change the Read- start Windows Explorer, and go to Tools >
regard. The total cost of this solution only Attribute." In order to do this, I do a Folder Options > View. Select ‘Show hidden
should be around Rs 15,000. search for the file, but it doesn’t show up in files and folders.’ Now you’ll be able to
the results. see the boot.ini file. Select the file, right-
A VGA compatibility issue On a system with a VIA chipset Trident click it, and choose Properties. Here, uns-
motherboard, 128 MB of RAM, a 20 GB elect ‘Read-only’ and click OK. Now you’ll
I have a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz CPU and a hard disk, and a P-III 1 GHz, I’m not able to be able to modify the file as well.
VIA motherboard. Now, I wish to upgrade install three OSes. I have three partitions’ To recover the HAL.dll file, boot from
your Windows CD and choose the
‘Repair’ option. This will prompt you for
Negotiations between 98 2000 computers and specify a pass- the Windows installation to use. Supply
and 2000 word for each. To do so, go to Control the Administrator password, and you’ll be
Panel and click on ‘Users and able to restore any file you want to. Now,
I have set up two Windows 2000 Passwords’, to add new users. Use these execute the following command at
Professional PCs and two Windows 98 accounts to connect from the the prompt:
PCs on a LAN. I am asked for a user- Windows 98 system. expand x:\i386\hal.dl_ y:\windows\sys-
name and password while connecting tem32\hall.dll. Replace ‘x’ with the drive
from a 98 machine to a 2000 system. letter of your CD-ROM, and ‘y’ with the
This does not happen when letter of your Windows XP partition.
accessing the Windows 98 Restart the machine, and you’ll be able
PCs from a Windows 2000 to boot into XP.
PC. How do I get the Win-
dows 98 computers to Norton error
access the Windows 2000
computers? Whenever I install Norton AntiVirus
Ashutosh Chatterjee 2004 Professional on either Windows Me
or Windows XP, I get an error message say-
Create a user ing "Norton antivirus has encountered an
account on both the Illustrations: Mahesh Benkar internal program error (4002,517)". I
downloaded the 15-day trial program from

112 APRIL 2004

Symantec’s Web site and activated it as well
as updated the virus definitions. Now, what Why am I cheated on the There are a couple of reasons as to
should I do? size? why the hard drive loses some space.
Kabir The manufacturers themselves specify
I have a Celeron 1.1GHz with 128 the size in decimal notation instead of
This is a known issue and its MB SDRAM, an 810BU Tomato Intel the binary notation used by PCs. In
solution was provided in one of chipset motherboard and an binary notation, 1 KB stands for 1,024
the updates. To install the update, 7,200-rpm 80 GB Seagate bytes and not
start Norton AntiVirus, run Live- Barracuda hard drive. While
Update, download all available creating a partition
updates, and then restart the computer through Windows XP
when prompted. Professional, the drive
If the error still persists in Windows capacity was shown as
XP, go to Start > Run, type ‘msconfig’ and 80 GB. However, after
click OK. The System Configuration Util- the partition, it shows
ity appears. Here, click the Startup tab. its space reduced to
Now look for the ccApp entry and ensure 74.5 GB. I am
that it’s checked. Next, click the Services quite surprised at
tab and under the Service heading, locate the loss of 5.5 GB. 1,000 bytes, as is the case
Symantec Event Manager and Symantec Where did it go? What is the real prob- in decimal notation. Hence,
Settings Manager and click the checkbox lem? Is it possible to recover this lost the computer perceives the size to be
in front of these entries. Finally, click space? lesser than the specified value.
Apply and then OK. Restart the machine Tsering Ngodup Another factor that brings down the
if prompted to do so. size of the hard disk is the file system
For Windows 98/Me, go to Start > Run, The problem is not with your hard overhead. As a result of both these
type ‘msconfig’ and click OK. Click the drive. By default, it will report the disk factors you get approximately 95 per
Startup tab, look for the entries for capacity to be approximately 74.5 GB cent of the size specified by the manu-
ccSetMgr, ccApp and ccEvtMgr and for an 80 GB hard drive, just as it facturer, which is the same in your case.
ensure that they are checked. Click shows 18.64 GB for a 20 GB and 37.26 Thus, you can’t do anything to recover
Apply, and then click OK and restart for a 40 GB drive. this space.
the machine.
If the above process also fails to solve
the problem, then download the 98 after XP plete. So, use the rescue disk to get back
Symevent installer file Sevinst.exe to Windows XP, open the boot.ini file
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_cana I have Windows XP Professional cur- residing in the C: drive using Notepad
da/symevnt/sevinst.exe) onto your computer rently installed on my PC and I wish to and add the following line under ‘[oper-
and execute the following command at install Windows 98 on it as well. How do I ating system]’:
the MS-DOS prompt: do that? My hard drive has two partitions. c:\="Windows 98"
C:\sevinst.exe /r Deepinder Singh Mann Save and close the file, and that’s it!
Finally, restart the computer. Get in You’re done.
touch with Symantec support if the prob- Ideally, you should be installing
lem still persists. Windows 98 first, on one partition, and Data’s encrypted
then Windows XP on
the other partition. I had some encrypted data on my sys-
However, as you have tem running Windows XP, and I’m not able
already installed to use that data now. Please help!
Windows XP, create a Praveen Tanwar
rescue disk for
Windows XP by going If you have used the encryption built
to Start > All Programs > into Windows XP, then there is hope,
Accessories > System Tools provided that you have backed up the
> Backup > Tools Menu > private key used to encrypt the file. Visit
ASR Wizard. Once the http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid
disk is ready, verify it by =kb;EN-US;223316 for information on the
booting the computer encryption process as well as steps to
with the floppy. Now, decrypt the file. However, if you do not
install Windows 98 on have a backup of the key, then all we can
the other partition. You do is give you our condolences for your
will not be able to boot data loss! When you lock something
The ASR wizard helps you create a rescue disk in Windows XP to Windows XP once away and lose the key, you are just as
the installation is com- locked out as any potential thief!

113 APRIL 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Machine auto-shuts down The final step is to download the and vendor to vendor.
in a minute! latest virus definitions, located at Also, do use the VGA card drivers
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen provided by the vendor for better hard-
I run Windows XP Professional, and ter/download/us-files/20040311-033- ware acceleration in the display, making
I’ve recently gotten a broadband con- i32.exe. If the shutdown error message it scroll faster. You may also reduce the
nection. I didn’t have anti-virus software occurs while downloading any of the number of colours your display is set to
when I got the connection. Now, all of a fixes mentioned above, go to Start > in the Settings tab.
sudden, I’ve started receiving a message Run, type ‘shutdown -a’ and press [Enter]
that says, "NT Authority/system call, to get rid of it temporarily. Works in one, but not in the
Remote Procedure Call service terminat- other
ed. The system will shut down within one Reducing flicker
minute." I installed Norton AntiVirus Somehow my Riva TNT128 AGP card
2003, but it isn’t working at all. I then Ever since I upgraded to Windows XP, does not install properly in Windows 98.
tried to run navdx.exe in DOS mode, but the refresh rate of my monitor has The display goes blank once I reboot it
it doesn’t detect a virus. What might the become exceptionally slow. It refreshes after the driver installation. I have a dual-
problem be? slowly when I try to scroll down the boot PC that runs Windows XP and Win-
Saptarshi screen. Can you help me resolve this? dows 98 on a BXv98-AT board with 128
Milan MB RAM. The card works fine with Win-
The solution to your problem dows XP, though. I am using the drivers
involves three steps. First, download All you need to do is increase the CD that was bundled with the card.
the virus removal tool for the Blaster refresh rate. Right-click anywhere on Pradip Srivastav
virus—this the virus that has infected the desktop and select Properties. Go to
your machine—available at http://secu- the Settings tab, click Advanced and Ensure that the appropriate driver
rityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/FixBlas switch to the Monitor tab. Here, set the files are selected while installing the
t.exe. Second, the virus may return if ‘Screen refresh rate’ to the highest pos- driver in Windows 98. If there is no
you do not patch your Windows, so sible value. For a 17-inch monitor at wrong being done in the driver file
install the Windows patch available at 1024 x 768, the maximum refresh rate selection, then probably the drivers
http://download.microsoft.com/dowload/9/ is around 85 Hz while it is 70 Hz for a themselves are corrupt. Download and
8/b/98bcfad8-afbc-458faaeeb7a52a983f01 15-inch monitor at 800 x 600. These install the detonator from http://www.
/WindowsXP-KB823980-x86-ENU.exe. settings do vary from model to model nvidia.com/object/LO_20010606_3499.html.

Opening ISO files However, if the speaker does beep

First, verify if the monitor is working then insert the RAM back into the slot
I have a Pentium III 866 MHz, properly. Remove the display cable from and remove the display card. Now the
Windows 98 SE, 256 MB of RAM, Award the VGA port at the back of the cabinet. speaker should beep again. If it doesn’t,
BIOS, and a 20 GB hard disk. I often save The monitor should then display a mes- then there is a problem with the
images of CDs on my hard disk using sage that reads something like this:”No motherboard. If the speaker beeps then
Nero 5.5. What software should I use for connection, Check signal cable”. Older the display card is at fault; get it replaced
opening these image files, which are in monitors may not display anything. or repaired, insert the new or repaired
the .iso format? Connect them to another working com- display card and the monitor should
Abhinav puter to test their functionality. work fine.
The next step would be to check The last step would be to check if
There are many applications that whether the SMPS is working. If its fan the CPU fan is working. If it isn’t,
open ISO files. Some of them are is not working then the problem is then again the motherboard is at fault.
WinISO, available from www.winiso.com, with the SMPS. You will have to get Verify the working of the fan using an
UltraISO from www.ultraiso.com and it repaired. alternate computer.
WinRAR available at www.rarlab.com. If all’s well with the SMPS, then
check the internal speaker. To do that,
[email protected]
No display remove the RAM chips from the mother- E-mail us your
board and boot up the PC. The speaker computing prob-
I have a Pentium III 800 MHz with Win- should generate some sound, if not then lems, and we
dows 98 SE and a Mercury 810 mother- get a proper working speaker, as it’s an may answer
them here! Since
board. My problem is that there is no important component in the trou- we get more
display on my monitor. As I boot up my PC, bleshooting process. If the speaker works, mails per day than we can handle, it
the monitor goes into standby and there is and yet you hear no beeps indicating the may take some time for your query
no activity at all. Please help me. removal of the RAM, then the motherboard to be answered. Rest assured, we are
listening!
Tejas or processor is at fault. Get them serviced.

114 APRIL 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

A screen screaming blue, a partition giving you the blues. Resolve them, and with
your work, get glued!

Recover registry in XP If System Restore is enabled on your hard drive—80 GB or more, a 9600 Pro
One fine day, as I started up my com- system, you can get back to the last graphics card, an Audigy2 sound card, a
puter, I got a message that said, “Win- restore point. 19-inch monitor, a floppy disk drive, a
dows XP could not start because the To do this, boot into Safe Mode with keyboard, an optical mouse, etc. If you
following file is missing or corrupt: \WIN- administrator privileges, go to the drive want a better graphics card, opt for a
DOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM”. What where Windows XP is installed, and look 9800 Pro XT, 5900 or 5950—which will
do I do? for the ‘System Volume Information’ cost about Rs 35,000.
Badri Narayan folder. Look for a snapshot folder—for
example, C:\System Volume 8X on 4X
To start up your machine without re- Information\restore{C0B08955-BE89-4849- I have an Intel D845GBV motherboard
installing, you need to execute some ABC0-715FCDE6CE4A}\RP3. Copy the _REG- with Intel Extreme Graphics and a 4X AGP
commands at the recovery console. To ISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM file to the ‘tmp’ slot with the 1.5 V specification. Will an
get to the recovery console, boot with folder by typing in ‘copy _REGISTRY_ 8X AGP card fit and work properly in my
the help of a bootable Windows XP CD, MACHINE_SYSTEM c:\windows\tmp\_REG- 4X AGP slot? I want to buy the latest
and press [R] when prompted to enter ISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM’. GeForce FX series card. Can you suggest
the recovery console. Select your Win- Go to the recovery console again, which one?
dows folder, and enter the adminis- using the Windows XP boot disk, My 40 GB hard disk is split into four
trator password. and copy this file over the existing one partitions, with C allocated 11 GB, while
Once at the console prompt, the first by typing ‘copy c:\windows\tmp\_reg- D, E and F have 9 GB each. Earlier, I had
thing to do is back up the existing file; istry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\ Windows Me on the C drive and Windows
you do so by executing the following config\system’. XP on D. The D drive is in NTFS format,
commands at the prompt: Restart Windows normally, start and I have now loaded Windows 98 on
md tmp System Restore and restore your C. How do I access my D drive when
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system machine to any point you wish. working in windows 98? I have the Win-
c:\windows\tmp\system.bak dows XP Pro CD.
Now you need to replace these files Project home studio Jimmy Varghese
with the proper, non-corrupt files, I want to set up my own home
which are in the repair folder in the studio. Can you tell me the best PC con- Yes, you can use an AGP 8X card
Windows directory: figuration to do so? in an AGP 4X slot. AGP 8X supports
copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\win - Rajieve Tanck 1.5 volts, but you won’t be able to
dows\system32\config\system experience the full power of the card.
Now you can boot into Windows XP, For a home studio PC, we suggest you The GeForce FX from Compro is a
but, as this file was backed up when buy a Pentium 3.2c, an Intel 875PBZ good choice in the GeForce series,
Windows was originally installed, any motherboard, 512 MB or more of 400 and has won the Digit Best Value
changes and settings after that are lost. MHz DDR RAM, a 7,200-rpm Samsung award in 2003.

139 MAY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

You can’t access your D drive from You can’t have abc.com pointing to two your cabinet’s fans. Make sure all of
Windows 98. There are a few third- different IP addresses. If your external them are running.
party utilities that will allow you to do server is abc.com, you need to have a The next suspect is RAM. Try and get
this, but these are not recommended. sub-domain such as internal.abc.com a friend’s RAM chip (make sure it’s com-
You will either have to boot into for your internal server. patible with your system), and check
Windows XP to view your data on the stability using that. It could just as well
D drive, or convert your D drive to Kabhi on kabhi off be a bad hard drive or motherboard
the FAT32 format. I have an AMD K6 processor, 64 MB chip, so check these in turn.
of SD RAM, a SiS 530 motherboard and a
Internal and external 10.2 GB Seagate hard disk. Recently, my Startup woes
conflict PC started giving me error messages Often, when I boot up my computer,
I download e-mail from my server saying, “Fatal exception error in vxd... it hangs. If I press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del], I
using a pop puller, and forward it press any key to continue.” When I press find a few additional entries that are not
to the respective mailbox on my local a key, the system comes back to normal, present when the computer is running.
exchange server. but only for a few seconds, and then I get These are: scanregw, rnaap, smc and
Some users access their mailbox the same message again. dbhelp. I can’t see them in msconfig
directly from the external mail server. Say I think it might be due to a virus, but either. I want to disable these programs
my external mail server has the domain I can’t do anything, as my system only permanently. How do I do it?
name abc.com, and the internal domain works for two to five minutes at a time. Shirish
name is xyz.com. If I create a new I formatted, and tried re-installing
internal domain abc.com, and host my Windows 98 SE, but the problem per- rnaap is notorious for causing your
exchange server on it, would I be able to sisted. Finally, I installed Me, to no effect. type of problem. Uninstall and re-
forward e-mail of non-existing e-mail I need to leave the system off for over five install Dial-up Networking, and if the
accounts from the internal server to the minutes to be able to use it. problem persists, get your modem
external server? V Shankar Iyer checked.
Sanket Shah If the modem hangs when rnaap is
Since the problem exists even after initialising it, your system is likely to
You can’t have the same name re-installing the OS, it looks like you hang as well.
assigned to an internal as well as have a hardware issue. You say that
external mail server. There is an MX leaving the system off for a while seems What’s my voltage?
record associated with each domain to temporarily solve the problem. This How do I check the voltages of an ATX
name, which points to an IP address. indicates a cooling problem. Check power supply. My power supply outputs
about 4.5 volts at PS_ON, 5.2 at SB and
0.8 at PG. Please help me check the cor-
Password hacking account, he or she can do everything rect voltages of a power supply before
Recently, one of my friends changed that you can—check your mails, change connecting it to my motherboard.
my Yahoo! password. When I tried to your preferences, etc. Nasiruddin
make my profile, I saw his ID in the alter- To remove the alternate ID, go to
nate ID location. Now, each time I Mail Options > Account Information, and The SB (purple wire) voltage should be
change my password, a message is sent click Edit. This is located beside the 5 V. In the PS_ON state, red and white
to his account as well. Is he spying Member Information option. Change should read +5 V and -5 V respectively.
on me? How did he change the pass- the alternate e-mail ID to one of your Yellow and blue should have +12 V and -
word? Tell me how to remove his ID from own and press Finished to save the set- 12 V respectively. Finally, orange should
my profile. tings. Now he won’t get any of your read +3.3 V, and black is the common wire.
Rahul Sarma mails, and you’re free to change your
password to something he’ll never XP tyranny
Quite often, we inadvertently give guess. I have a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz PC running
out our passwords. You may have men- Windows 2000 and Fedora core Linux.
tioned it in a chat to someone, and the Recently, I installed Windows XP Profes-
chat was logged. Even more sional. Ever since then, I can’t boot into
common is using a pass- Linux. When I start my PC, it gives me an
word that is easy to guess option between Windows 2000 or Win-
in less than 10 attempts. dows XP, but no Linux or DOS option. How
If you keep your moth- do I get it back?
er’s name as your pass- Amit.
word, you can be sure
that almost all your Boot your PC with the Linux CD.
friends can guess it! Type ‘linux rescue’ at the boot prompt,
Once a hacker and press [Enter]. Once you reach the
logs into your command prompt, type ‘chroot
Mahesh Benkar
/mnt/sysimage’, and press [Enter]. Here

140 MAY 2004

type ‘lilo’ if your boot loader is lilo, or
‘grub-install’ if the boot loader used is Choosy CD-ROM
grub, and press [Enter]. I have a Compaq Presario computer Most packaged CDs are pressed, not
with Windows XP Home Edition and a burnt. These pressed CDs are made so
Dial-up hackers 48x CD-ROM drive. The problem is that that they work on all CD drives.
I’m worried about my dial-up Internet the CD-ROM drive only reads the CDs Certain CD-Rs may not be compatible
connection. What happens if someone that came with the computer—the OS with your drive. Check your drive by
knows my username, and tries to guess CD, drivers CD, etc. It completely attempting to use CD-Rs from other
my password over and over again? Will ignores other CDs, even when there’s a manufacturers. If this fails, send your
this lock my password? If so, how do I CD in the drive, it asks to insert one. drive to a service center, as the prob-
prevent this? I have tried about eight CDs, all lem is a faulty lens.
Binod unscratched. I also installed Nero Burning Nero is CD-writing software, and
ROM 5 and Image you have a CD-ROM drive not a CD-
When someone tries to hack your Drive. The help Writer, so its normal to get
password using the brute force tech- and support errors when using Nero.
nique—trying each possible combina- says that there
tion—the account is suspended for a is a SCSI
preset time period. After 10 or 15 min- problem,
utes, you should be able to use your while proper-
account again. ties in device
Some ISPs, such as VSNL, offer a fea- manager
ture where you can lock your account reports the
usage from a specific phone number. device to be working perfectly.
This is good, because unless the hacker is I’ve tried reinstalling XP
sitting in your house, or hacking your without format-
phone line, he or she cannot access your ting. Please help.
account. Siddharth

Blue screen advertisements

I have a dual-boot PC running Win- test to get the best write throughout the
dows Me and Windows XP. Recently, I I can’t write whole CD—this is called Running
started getting an error message during My Sony CD-RW CRX175A1 Optimum Power Calibration (ROPC).
bootup. I took a screenshot of the error. 24x/10x/40x shows the ‘Power calibra- This whole process is controlled by the
What is the problem? tion‘ error when writing, and stops. What recorder, but is initiated by programs
Agk Nair is the problem? Do I have to change the such as Nero. There is an area on the
CD-RW? inner part of the CD for the test and test
The application specified in the error Ravi S data information to be stored. You can
message—CD_LOAD.EXE—has been use this area up to 999 times.
installed by Cydoor’s adware applica- Power Calibration is controlled by So, when you receive the ‘Power Cal-
tion. It downloads advertisements to the recorder. Before any write operation, ibration Error’ or ‘Power Calibration Area
your computer as soon as you go online. all recorders must do a 15-step power test full’ error message, it’s because of poor
Search for the application, and delete it. to determine the optimum power for media, poor power, or a defective
Also, load an anti-spyware application to writing to the CD—this is called recorder. Most often, it’s due to bad
keep your computer from facing this Optimum Power Calibration (OPC). media, so try using better CD-Rs.
problem again. During a write, it continues to do this
Break the partition
I have a 20 GB Seagate hard drive,
which has two partitions of 10 GB each.
Since I wanted one single partition
of 20 GB, I went through fdisk and
deleted the primary and the extended
partition. However, the partitions still
exist. I also tried deleting them with the
help of the disk manager provided by
Seagate, but they are stubborn. What
should I do?
Y S Samyal

Yes, parting with partitions can be

very frustrating. To delete the partition,
Use anti-spyware to protect your PC from nasty errors such as this one by Cydoor adware first go to the BIOS, select the hard disk

141 MAY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Crawling computer which is inaudible. As far as the hard- nelversion’ command in a terminal
I recently installed Windows 2000 Pro- ware is concerned, all you need is an window. Now verify that the folder with
fessional and Office XP on one partition, ADSL modem, which your ISP will the version exists in /lib/modules. If you
and Windows XP and Office XP on rent to you. find that the folder name in /lib/modules
another. I have a Pentium 4 processor, is bigger than that specified by the ‘ker-
850 motherboard and 128 MB RD RAM. Monitoring the Internet nelversion’ command, use the ‘fullname’
When I open Windows 2000, the response I work as a network assistant in a com- switch instead.
becomes slow, and after clicking the pany, and we have provided everyone with To create the ISO image, issue the
toolbar and opening Task Manager, I Internet access. The problem is that some ‘mkbootdisk --device boot.iso --verbose --iso
found Rscmpt.exe consuming 99 per cent, of the staff misuses this facility. They down- <full kernel version>’ command. Once the
or more CPU time. Please tell me how to load at will, and also visit indecent sites. ISO image is ready, burn it with the help
get rid of Rscmpt.exe. How can I keep a check on them? of CD-recording software, and voila, you
GK Chakraborty Zahir Ahmed have a bootable CD!

This is a known problem for nVidia Since you haven’t specified the soft- Bad sectors
display cards, but all you have to do to ware you’re using to share the Internet When I try to install Windows XP, I
remedy it, is install the latest nVidia connection, we’ll have to solve your get an error that says, “Setup has deter-
drivers. You can download them from problem by assumption. If your Internet mined that drive C: is corrupted and
www.nvidia.com. server is Windows-based, you should cannot be repaired”. The hard disk does
use proxy software such as WinProxy or contain some bad sectors. I have a Pen-
Broadband on landline Sygate. If your server is Linux-based, you tium 4 1.6 GHz, VIA VT8751 (P4M266)
Recently, I have seen many advertise- can try qmail, which can give you mon- and Windows 98 SE. I have a Samsung
ments about broadband on landlines itoring capabilities after a few patches. hard disk with four partitions—C(37.2
(ADSL) from MTNL. What is the major GB), D(9.19 GB), E(9.19GB), and F(9.45
advantage of this over others, and what is Create boot CD? GB). What do I do?
the minimum hardware requirement. Is it How do I create a Red Hat Linux-9 Jarnail Singh
true that we can achieve speeds as fast as bootable CD?
256 Kbps on our landlines? Sumeet Saha You need to ensure that the hard disk
Siddharth Menon has bad sectors. Download and run the
There’s a command in Red Hat called disk utility for this purpose by Samsung
Yes; you can achieve 256 Kbps, or mkbootdisk that does this. Use it to cre- from www.samsung.com/Products/HardDisk
even more on your phone line. The ate an ISO image of the bootable disk, Drive/utilities/hutil.htm. Execute the pro-
biggest advantage of ADSL is that you and use cdrecord, Nero, etc, to create the gram, and let the utility test the hard
can even receive telephone calls while bootable CD. drive. The program will tell you if the
surfing the Internet, as the data is To create the ISO image, you’ll need to drive is usable or not. If not, then you
transferred on a different frequency, know the kernel version—issue the ‘ker- have to get a new one.

and change its mode from LBA to Increase the power be of the 66 or 100 MHz variety, which is
normal. Now, let the PC boot up, run I have a Pentium II 333 MHz, a 440 ZX very difficult to procure. These memory
fdisk and delete the partitions. This done, motherboard, 64 MB of RAM and a sticks are available in capacities of 64,
go back to the BIOS, and change the 6.4 GB hard drive. I want to upgrade 128, 256, and 512 MB.
mode back to LBA. the processor and memory. Can I do As for your last query, the mother-
that on the same motherboard? In all, board can support a 40 GB hard drive.
The notorious SM56 modem there are two memory slots, so how
I have run Linux for over two years, much memory can I add? Also, if I [email protected]
from Red Hat 7.3 to Fedora Core 1. change my hard disk, what drive capacity E-mail us your
I can’t install drivers for my modem— will be supported? computing
D-Link with a Motorola SM-56 chipset. Arvind problems, and
I use kppp to dial my connection. What is we may answer
the solution? You are in a difficult position, to say them here!
Naimish J. Makwana the least. Since we get more mails per day
First, the maximum processor upgrade than we can handle, it may take
Motorola provides universal modem that the 440 ZX motherboard will sup- some time for your query to
drivers for all versions of Windows and port is limited to one with a speed of 450 be answered. Rest assured, we
Linux. They are available at www.motorola. MHz. That is hardly an upgrade. are listening!
com/softmodem/sm56_download.htm Secondly, the RAM you need should

142 MAY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

NTFS and FAT blues, hyperthreading hype, vanishing displays—it’s all in the game.
Everything has an answer—seek, and ye shall find!

The first seven steps [C]. Enter the size of the partition. For Goldwave, but found that the recorded
Some time after installing Windows example, a 20 GB drive can have a 8 GB volume was the same as before. Changing
XP, there was a problem and some files and a 12 GB partition. You can permute the Line-In volume in the volume panel
went missing. I was asked to load the and combine as you wish. However, as a did not have any effect on the recording.
missing files from the original CD. While general rule, leasing too much space for Please help.
doing so, somehow, I loaded the entire OS the C drive is not advisable; the C drive Deepmoni
again. Thus, there were two operating sys- should only be used for the operating
tems on my C drive. system and program files. For Live TV, as well as recording,
Now, when I scanned my drive for Once the partitions are created, select your input source should be configured
viruses, a series of events took place, and I C: and press [Enter]. to Line-In. Also, check that the Audio
got a message that said I couldn’t have Here, you can select between FAT and Out settings have your sound card
the same OS, on the same drive, twice. I NTFS. Whichever you select, make sure as default.
had to re-format the C drive. you don’t select the ‘Quick’ option. Now, to control the recording vol-
Even after this, I was unable to load Hereafter, the installation should be sim- ume, start Volume Control from
the OS. So I choose the D drive to install ple to complete. Accessories. Go to the Options menu,
it. I did not get a boot disk with the OS then to Properties, select ‘Recording’
CD. Can you to tell me how to partition TV tuner settings and press [Enter]. Now, move the vol-
my hard disk, and format it with the NTFS I have a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, an Asus ume bar for the Line-In to change the
file system, step by step. P4B533-VM motherboard and 128
Dr K P M Prabhu MB of DDR RAM, running
Windows 98 SE; I have Goldwave
Follow these guidelines for the first installed. I recently installed a
seven steps after booting from the Mercury TV-tuner card. When I ran
Windows XP CD: the program, there was sound, but
First, press [Enter] for a new installa- it disappeared when I recorded a
tion. Next, press [F8] for agreement sample video!
acceptance. You can choose [R] for When I changed the source in
repair, and [ESC] for a new installation; Goldwave to Line-In, the recording
select New. had sound. Also, I found that
If you already have partitions on your changing the Line-In volume in Click on recording,
disk and want to re-create those, delete Goldwave had the same effect on then OK, and
each by selecting and pressing [D]. Press the recorded video, whereas the then modify the
[L] to re-confirm your selection. Line-In volume in the volume panel recording volume
Start creating a partition by pressing had no effect. I uninstalled ➜

172 JUNE 2004

recording volume level. Check your Security Settings Prohibit Running ActiveX Right-click on My Computer and
recording and adjust this accordingly. Controls on this page, so the page may click Manage. Now, click on Disk
not display correctly.” What do I do? Management, and then verify that the
Pages that do not open Abhijit Mukherjee 13 GB partition is formatted—that is, it
I have an Athlon XP 2.4 GHz PC con- should show the status as ‘healthy’. If
nected to a LAN, running Windows 98 SE To get over the problem, open up not, then right-click on the partition
and Internet Explorer 6 with SP1. The Internet Options in the Control Panel, and select format. Now, you should be
problem is that when I visit any of the and change the settings bar in the able to see the partition.
Web sites such as Indiatimes, Yahoo! India, Privacy tab to Medium. If you wish to
Rediff, MSN India, or others that contain customise the settings, you can do so in Spyware in file system
ActiveX control (.ocx) files, I get a security the Security tab by clicking ‘custom How can I convert an NTFS partition
alert message saying, “Your Current level’ and defining your own settings. into a FAT32 partition?
Every time I shut down my PC, I get
an error message saying, “Ending
Program - wupdater.exe.” What is the use
of this exe file? How can I get rid of this
message permanently?
When I open Internet Explorer, every
time a Web site with the address
http://searchcentral.cc is opened. I tried the
‘Use Blank’ option in Internet Options, but
it isn’t working.
The Disk Management window shows you the Sumit Goel
disk status
Use Partition magic (www.pow-
erquest.com) to convert NTFS to FAT32.
Vanishing act As far as wupdater.exe is concerned,
I have a 40 GB hard disk, split into it is spyware. Go to Start > Run, type
three partitions. One of the partitions is ‘msconfig’ and press [Enter] and de-select
13 GB. the file. It shouldn’t auto-start the next
Last week, I reinstalled Windows XP time Windows boots up. Delete the file if
on my system. After installation I seem to you want to, but that might crash the
have lost the 13 GB drive—only two drives software that installed it.
Moving the bar up and down controls the appear. What do I do? Finally, the IE problem is also due to
security Girish Cariappa the spyware in your system. There are
spyware removal tools such as Spybot
(included in this month’s 101 Freeware
A virus despite anti-virus You are infected with the blaster CD), which reduce the trouble involved
I have a PC with Windows XP. I worm. Download the fix from in manually searching and removing
recently bought an Internet connection http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcen each one of them.
pack, but before installing the pack, I ter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.to
installed McAfee Virus Scan Professional ol.html. You need to frequently update Is /boot necessary?
Edition. Now, whenever I connect to the your virus definitions. Also keep Can I install Linux without creating
Internet, I get the message that Windows updated with the security partitions for /boot and swap? If so, where
says,”This system is shutting down. patches that are released by Microsoft will the boot loader install?
Please save all work in progress and log from time to time. If you do so, you’re S. Mohammed Riyazudeen
off. Any unsaved changes will be lost. less likely to get caught up in the Web
This shutdown was initiated by NT of viruses and worms. No, you can’t install Linux without a
AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Time before shut- swap partition, but you can skip the cre-
down: 1 minute. Message: ation of a separate /boot partition. In this
Windows must now case, the boot files will be stored in the
restart because the /root partition.
Remote Procedure
Call(RPC) service termi- Windows is not ready to
nated unexpectedly”. I install
have tried to detect a virus, I have a Celeron 1.2 GHz, an Intel i810
but to no avail. What might motherboard and a 40 GB Seagate hard
be the problem? disk. Earlier, my PC was running Windows
V Madhav Rao Illustrations: 98; while installing ELX Linux, I corrupted
Mahesh Benkar my FAT partition. So I removed all the par-
titions and re-created them, but now even

173 JUNE 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

after many attempts I am unable to install

Windows 98. Where is my display? mode, change the resolution to a
After a couple of reboots, it starts exe- I have a Pentium 4 system with dual- lower one such as 640 x 480, and
cuting scanreg and then hangs. When I boot, i.e., Windows 98 SE and Windows then restart the computer. As far as
boot the system with a bootable floppy, XP. In Windows 98, I right-clicked on the information about Windows files is
scandisk gives an error saying, “Some of desktop and changed the resolution. concerned, visit www.support.microsoft.
Windows files have been allocated to Now my computer does not show up the com, and search for the specific file
invalid partitions/locations,” and a display in Windows, and instead shows details you need.
prompt such as ‘Fix it’ or ‘Don’t Fix It’. up the message ‘Out of frequen-
Even after I choose ‘Fix It’, the problem cy’. What’s the problem?
isn’t resolved. What do I do? Where I can find details
Amit Gupta about files such as boot.ini,
io.sys, config.sys and autoex-
There are only two possibilities— ec.bat?
either the RAM or the hard disk is faulty. Bikrant Rana
As a first step, get a working RAM mod-
ule from a friend’s PC and try the instal- To set the display
lation. If it works, just get new RAM. If it right, boot into
doesn’t, then get the hard disk checked Windows 98’s Safe
thoroughly at a service centre. Mode, by pressing [F8]
while Windows is just
Can’t find root about to start. In safe
I am totally new to Linux. Whenever I
try to install PCQ Linux 2004, I get an
error saying the root partition is not Hangs at power on lems. If ‘fdisk’ does not give an error,
defined. What is a root partition? I have an My PC just doesn’t boot. What I mean call an engineer.
80 GB Samsung hard disk with four FAT32 is that the PC starts normally, I can hear
partitions: The C: drive is 10.7 GB, and has a single beep, then the PC shows the sys- Is CD NTFS or FAT?
Windows XP installed. The D: drive is 11 tem configuration, then, ‘updating I downloaded data from the Internet
GB, E: is 28 GB and F: is 26 GB. ESCD’, and that’s it—nothing on the on a machine running Windows
I want to install PCQ Linux 2004 on screen after that. A cursor blinks but the 2000/NTFS, and burned it on a CD. My
the D: drive with the dual-boot option. OS doesn’t start. I had Windows 98 on home PC runs Windows 98/FAT, so natu-
Ashish Jha my machine. rally it’s unable to see the CD files, and
Afiya hangs. Is there any software available to
While installing Linux, you need to view or extract the files from the CD and
create the ‘ext3’ and swap partitions. If you are well versed in PC hard- convert them to FAT?
At this point of time, specify the ware, open the cabinet and tighten the Some Niyogi
mount point for the ext3 partition as connections: the hard disk and CD-
‘/’, without the quotes. You won’t get ROM connectors, etc. Press the RAM CDs have a file system of their
the error message. module gently. Also, verify the boot own—CDFS. It does not matter if the
sequence in the BIOS; the first in the list host file system is NTFS or FAT. If the
should be the hard disk. Finally, use a CD was created successfully without
boot floppy and check the partition any errors, it should be read in
table using ‘fdisk’ for irregularities; a Windows 98 too. A weak lens might be
bad partition table can cause such prob- the culprit, but to verify this, just read-
ing the CD in another drive using
Windows 98. If the CD works, then the
drive is faulty.

What is HyperThreading?
I would like to know what
HyperThreading is. I have heard a lot
about this new product from Intel. I
have an assembled PC that comprises an
Intel D845GEBV2 motherboard (which
has an external AGP slot and Extreme
Graphics onboard as well), an Intel
1.7 GHz, 512 MB RAM and a 80 GB
Seagate Barracuda hard disk.
Make sure all connections and I would like to exchange my current
modules are tightly fitted motherboard for Intel’s new Hyper-

174 JUNE 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
Msvcrt.dll revisited Unwanted visitors Summer heat
I am unable to set up some soft- I have a Windows 98 SE machine. I I have a system with an AMD
ware on my computer. The error mes- use Internet Explorer 6. One day after Athlon 1800 MHz, an ASUS mother-
sage I get is, “The MSVCRT.DLL file is browsing a few Web sites, my home- board, and 256 MB of DDR RAM. The
linked to missing export NTDLL.DLL page became ‘www.4-counter.com’. I problem is that the CPU fan overheats.
rtGetNtVersionNumbers.” replaced it with ‘about:blank’, and also How can I rectify this?
Sudhanshu Bhasin reset all Web settings to their defaults. S Palani
But after rebooting, the default home-
The problem is simple, the soft- page again became www.4-counter.com. Only use the original fan and
ware you've installed isn't meant for What is the problem? How can I reset heatsink that was provided with the
Windows 98. Certain software were my homepage to a blank page? CPU. If need be, you can purchase
designed for Windows 2000 and later, Raj better cooling solutions from third-
and won't run on windows 98. party vendors.
However, it's also possible that the To solve the problem, you’ll need As a precautionary measure, veri-
program you're trying to install now to modify the registry. This is a risky fy that excessive amounts of dirt
isn't the culprit. If you tried to install affair, so be careful. Open the Registry haven’t accumulated on the fan
software earlier that was meant for Editor by executing ‘regedit’ at the blades. You may need to clean the fan
the NT platform, it could have cor- Run prompt. Now search and delete carefully with a paint brush. If you
rupted your MSVCRT.DLL file, or each key that has a value of have to remove the fan to clean it, be
installed the wrong version. ‘http://www.4-counter.com’. careful and snap it out carefully.
To fix this, you need to extract the Alternatively, you can search and Use thermal paste to increase heat
MSVCRT.DLL file from the CD, and remove spyware applications using dissipation—remember, too thick a layer
overwrite the one in the spyware removal tools such as Spybot of thermal paste can act as an insulator
‘\Windows\System\’ folder. This should (included in this month’s 101 and make matters worse. Sometimes,
solve the problem. Freeware CD). keeping the cabinet open may help.

Threaded one. Do you recommend the the Pentium 4 platform support it. copy all files to the backup location.
exchange, or should I make do with my As far as performance goes, there will Restoring is simple: copy the files
present configuration? I intend switching be a marginal gain, and that, only with back to the original folder.
to a HyperThreaded motherboard since it’s applications optimised for
relatively faster, and supports multitasking. HyperThreading. Unfortunately, as of Monitor starts!
Can you recommend motherboards today, there are very few such applica- We switch off the monitor when lis-
that are better than the one I have in tions. Another good point to note is tening to music or running anti-virus soft-
mind. If so, please suggest some that that, some applications actually see a ware. However, to our surprise, the system
have an external AGP slot, as I have a performance drop when used with automatically shuts down when we switch
graphics card. Also, please let me know HyperThreaded processors. it back on. How do we solve this problem?
the cost involved. However, you have a pretty decent Arnab and Smita
Siddharth machine and there is absolutely no reason
to shift to a newer configuration as of now. Get your power supply checked at a
Intel’s HyperThreading technology good service centre, as it’s faulty. It’s
pertains to processors and not to Back up Outlook Express files unable to take the load when you start
motherboards. I have Window 98 SE and Outlook the monitor, thus triggering off a
Intel’s latest CPUs have this feature, Express 6. I need to know how to save, or restart. You may even need to replace
and nearly all new motherboards for copy my e-mails from Outlook to a CD. the SMPS with another with a higher
Neeraj Mishra power rating.

To back up files,
[email protected]
first start Outlook E-mail us your
Express, then go to computing prob-
Tools > Options, and lems, and we
click on Mainten- may answer
them here! Since
ance. Next, click on we get more
Store Folder, copy mails per day than we can handle, it
the path, and paste it may take some time for your query
into Windows to be answered. Rest assured, we are
listening!
Open the store location in explorer and copy the files Explorer. Finally,

176 JUNE 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

Lost all MS Office data. Windows doesn’t load. Deleted the only XP user account...
Hang on, don’t press the panic button. Here’s your way out

Files will be back hard drive itself—instead, recover the *.fon /l c:\ windows \ fonts extract /a
I have a Celeron 1.7 GHz with a 40 GB data to the other PC you’re connecting d:\win98\win98_22.cab *.ttf /l
hard disk. After I ran disk defragmenter, I your hard drive to. Once that is done, c:\windows\fonts
lost all my MS Office documents (Word, copy all the recovered data back. Now, reboot the computer. If your Fonts
Excel, PowerPoint, etc). I even lost data on folder exists, then the problem is caused
my D and E drives. How do I retrieve Error loading Gdi.exe by corrupt fonts, namely Vgasys.fon,
all my lost data? I recently installed Windows 98 Second Vgaoem.fon and Vga850.fon. All you
Pankaj Singhai Edition. My computer is an Intel Pentium need to do is extract these files from the
III, 256 MB SD RAM, and a 20 GB Seagate Windows CD-ROM, using the following
Use R-Studio (www.r-tt.com)—it’s one hard drive. Whenever I switch on my commands:
of the best data recovery software avail- machine, it automatically boots into Safe extract /a d:\win98\win98_22.cab vgasys.fon
able. Ideally, load R-Studio onto another Mode. Then I get a message that says, /l c:\windows\fonts
PC, connect your hard drive to it (pre- “Error Loading Gdi.exe. You Must Reinstall extract /a d:\win98\win98_22.cab
ferrably as a slave) and then restore data. Windows” and the computer shuts off vgaoem.fon /l c:\windows\fonts
Note that once you detect the data automatically. How do I fix this? extract /a d:\win98\win98_22.cab
loss, do not install, copy or move soft- Abhijit Mukherjee vga850.fon /l c:\windows\fonts
ware or data on the drives in question,
and keep disk activity at a minimum, so The error appears as a result of either USB ports to transfer files over
that lost files don’t get overwritten. improperly moving the Fonts folder of telephone lines
Also, be very careful when recovering Windows or by corruption of some font I have an old computer: a Pentium 233
data; don’t recover any data onto your files. The simplest option is to re-install MMX, 32 MB of RAM and Windows 98SE,
Windows again. but without a USB port. The Device
If you don’t want to re-install Manager shows two devices of the device
Windows, be prepared to execute type USB Controllers—SIS 7001 PCI to
some commands at the DOS USB Open Host Controller and USB Root
prompt. First boot the computer Hub. First, what are these? Second, using
via the Windows 98 CD-ROM, and these can I install a USB port? If yes, how?
select ‘Windows 98 Startup disk And finally, is it possible to create a network
with CD-ROM support’. Now exe- between two computers using their
cute the following commands one modems and a telephone cable?
after another: Arun Das
md c:\windows\fonts
Right-click on the additional drive and click scan to attrib +s c:\windows \fonts The two devices you mention are
start the process extract/a d: \win98\ win98_22.cab USB controllers. This means your moth-

114 JULY 2004

erboard supports USB. You’re probably such as Sygate Manager. Install Sygate
just missing the cable that connects from I have a Pentium 4 1.4 GHz machine, Manager, and set it up to manage both
the motherboard to the back of the PC, running both Windows 98 and Windows connections. Enable the ‘Auto dial
to give you USB headers where you con- XP professional. The display card is SiS630 additional line’ option. It will now
nect USB devices. on a Vintron motherboard. When I play connect both connections when you
Buy one, and attach it to your moth- Back Alley Brawl, I get an error that says I tell it to. If you download two files
erboard. Of course if you don’t know don’t have the latest version of OpenGL. simultaneously, Sygate forwards the
how to, we suggest you get an engineer Where do I get this? request of one file on one connection
to do so. Also remember that once you Jayharsh Krishnakumar and the other on the other connection.
do this, you’ll still need to install USB If you add a third download, it is
drivers for any device you attach in SiS630 is a PCI-based display card, sent to the connection with more
Windows 98. which lacks hardware support for available resources. So, individual files
Yes, you can connect with the help of OpenGL. The minimum requirements aren’t really downloaded faster, but
Hyper Terminal. It comes bundled with are an AGP card for the game to run in multiple files will be.
Windows. Keep Hyper Terminal in wait- OpenGL. One of the cheapest solutions
ing mode on one computer by going to is the GeForce MX 440, which costs Random IP addresses
Call > Wait for a Call, and the other com- about Rs 1,700. Whenever I connect to the Internet,
puter makes the call. After the connection Internet Explorer opens some random IP
is complete you can transfer files as Combine the powers of two address. Even after deleting the addresses
required. dial-up connections from the registry under ‘HKEY_LOCAL_
Alternatively, you should set up I have a computer with two modems, MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/INTER
connectivity using serial or parallel cables each with a separate telephone connec- NET_EXPLORER/MAIN’ and ‘HKEY_CUR-
and get a much higher rate than other- tion. I want to combine the speed of both RENT_USER’, the problem remains. Fur-
wise. Refer to this month’s QuickStart connections to surf the Internet. Whenev- thermore, an unknown toolbar tries to
(30 Minutes Expert) on Page 105 to set up er I try to dial the second line, the first gets install itself. What do I do?
such a connection. disconnected. How do I solve this? Deep Kamal Gohain
Saurabh
Fails minimum system You seem to have a problem with
requirements You need to use gateway software spyware or adware. The best way to get

Invalid page fault in Paint

When I start MS Paint, my computer shows an error
message: “MS PAINT caused an invalid page fault in module
MFC42.DLL…”. What do I do?
Bharat Shah

This error message is caused by corrupted registry

entries for MS Paint. To resolve this problem, you have to
first uninstall Paint, then delete the registry keys and
finally reinstall Paint.
To do this, go to Start > Settings > Control Panel, and then
double-click on ‘Add/Remove Programs’. Click on the
Windows Setup tab, click on Accessories, and then click on
Details. Uncheck the Paint checkbox, and click OK twice.
Now, go to Start > Run, type ‘regedit’ and press [Enter].
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Win-
dows\Current Version\Applets\Paint, and delete all the
keys there.
1/4th AD
To reinstall Paint, go back to the Windows Setup tab,
and check the Paint option we asked you to uncheck in the
first step, and click
OK twice.
Warning: Be very
careful when editing
the registry, and
remember to back up
your registry before
making changes to it.

Illustrations: Mahesh Benkar

115 JULY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

rid of these programs is to install

an anti-spyware tool such as Spybot Deleted the only user account Boot your computer in Safe
to clean your system. Get it from I run Windows XP, and recently Mode, then log on using administra-
www.download.com. deleted the only user account. I have tor credentials. After that, enable
disabled the Guest account, so I can’t log a guest account and/or create a
Trial vs Full on to Windows XP. I didn’t provide any new account.
I purchased a CD with Norton Antivirus password for ‘Adminis-
on it from a local contact. When I installed trator’, but I am unable
it, it worked fine for a few days, and then to logon using adminis-
began displaying the message ‘Trial ver- trator credentials. It says
sion,’ and expired. I had to buy another ‘Could not log on. Make
pack which is working fine. I want to know sure the domain name
how to distinguish between the two so that and password are in cor-
one is not taken for a ride. rect case’. Is there any
Rakesh K way to retrieve the
password or account
If the version of Norton you bought that I had deleted?
is 2004, you shouldn’t forget to activate Prakruti V. Vora
the product using its activation process;
if you don’t, it will expire. If the problem
occurs even after activation, you should machines? settings as the local IP address of the
contact Symantec. By default, you get a Sukanta Hui Linux machine and the port as 3128,
year’s free subscription with the pack. unless it’s been changed. Refer to the
But if you bought a pirated pack there’s First, you can’t attach a phone line to Squid workshop in the Linux Works sec-
nothing much you can do about it. eth0; only an RJ45 connector can con- tion of this issue for the exact steps.
nect to the LAN card. Next, the cable
Errors in opening Web page connection would have an RJ45 connec- Virtual memory is full
When I run a Java applet in IE6 it says tor, and not an RJ11, which is what you I have Windows 98 on my C: drive. The
“alt=”Your browser understands the have connected to the eth0, and that is C: drive is 4 GB, and it has 1.5 GB of free
<APPLET> tag but is not running the applet right. Now, to share the Internet connec- space. But whenever I start using any pro-
for some reason.” Your browser is com- tion, install Squid, and configure the grams, the swap file consumes all the free
pletely ignoring the <APPLET> tag!" How proxy port. By default, the port is 3128. space, i.e., 1.5 GB. At the same time, Win-
can I can run my Java file, applet.htm, dows says the C: drive is full. I cannot use
through IE6? any programs because it shows a message
Jayantadeep saying something like "Virtual Memory is full.
Try after closing any opened programs."
As a first step, download the Java Unnikrishnan Bhaskaran
Runtime from www.sun.com and install it.
This should solve the problem. Also, Keep in mind that the swap file size
you should install the latest service pack changes dynamically because Windows
for IE (www.microsoft.com/downloads). is auto-managing the file. The first thing
Alternatively, it could be a problem with you can do is set an upper limit to the
the Java applet code in the .htm file, size of the file by going to My Computer >
which you will have to debug for it to Properties > Performance > Virtual Memory.
run properly. Here, select ‘Let me specify my own vir-
Go to the Control Panel, then to Internet tual memory settings,’ and set the maxi-
Internet sharing Options, then to Connections, and finally, to mum file size.
I have five PCs connected in a LAN with ‘LAN settings’ Windows starts using virtual memory
one running Red Hat 9 and the others run- when there’s a shortage of physical RAM.
ning Windows XP. I have two LAN cards on You can change this if you want to. As If you use too many applications or mem-
the Linux machine. I’d like to connect to one LAN card is connected to the cable ory-heavy applications, virtual memory
the Internet through DIAS (cable connec- from your Internet service provider, comes into play. The more the RAM you
tion). The phone line is attached to eth0 specify the IP, subnet mask, gateway, and have, the less dependent Windows would
on the Linux machine, and the second LAN DNS of the LAN card as specified by the be virtual memory.
card is used for the local network. The operator 10.70.0.1. For the other LAN One point of caution here is that one
address for DIAS line is: IP: 10.70.0.1; Sub- card, specify the IP address of your local of the applications you’re running might
net Mask: 255.255.255.0; Gateway: LAN. Typical local LAN IP address range be causing a memory leak. If this is the
61.3.129.194; Primary DNS: 61.0.128.65; from 192.168.0.1 to 254; use an IP from case, then you won’t be able to get rid of
Secondary DNS: 61.0.0.5. How can I con- amongst these for each of the five PCs the problem even by increasing RAM and
figure my Internet connection and how can you have. Finally, in the Internet options virtual memory. You’ll have to first find
I share the connection with the other on the Windows machines, set the proxy the application causing the problem, and ➜

116 JULY 2004

insight ■
■ troubleshooting

FAQs
More the RAM, better the Most free e-mail service providers “Explorer has performed an illegal opera-
performance do not provide POP3 mail access. Some tion and will be shut down”. If I format
I am in the process of finalising the providers such as Spymac.com, and re-install Windows 98 SE, will my
configuration of my new PC, and want to Myrealbox.com, etc, offer POP3 access. Of Windows XP install be affected?
know whether 512 MB of RAM is suffi- course, they charge a premium for this, Soummya Seal
cient to run Maya, or should I opt for 1 GB for example, Rediffmail.com. You can also
of RAM? try Yahoo! Pops (http://yahoopops.source- It all depends on how the OSes are
Kumaresh forge.net), which lets you download e- installed. If both Windows 98 and
mail via POP3 from the popular and Windows XP exist on the same parti-
Minimum memory requirements free e-mail provider, Yahoo!. Download tion, you’ll have to delete the Windows
depend on the applications you use. For the free tool and install it on your 98 ‘Windows’ folder. Next, you’ll have
office applications 256 MB is enough; for machine. Now configure your to modify the boot.ini file, and remove
2D image editing tools 512 MB should be POP3/SMTP server address in your e- the line corresponding to Windows 98.
sufficient, while for AV and 3D, a mini- mail client to 127.0.0.1. Also you need Your safest bet is to reinstall Win-
mum of 1 GB is necessary. Basically, as to change the timeout in the advanced dows 98 with the Upgrade option. After
much RAM as you can afford and cram settings to three minutes or more, oth- this you need to boot via the XP
into your system is recommended. Maya erwise the e-mail client will keeping bootable CD, select the Recovery Con-
will definitely run with 512 MB of RAM, getting disconnected and no mails will sole option, login via administrator priv-
but will be sluggish. download. ileges and execute the fixboot.exe and
fixmbr.exe commands. However, If both
Free e-mail via POP3 One OS in dual boot failed OSes reside on different partitions, all
I wanted to know if there are any free I have both Windows 98 and Win- you need to do is format the partition
POP3 e-mail Web sites. I am sick of using dows XP installed on my system. For that contains Windows 98, reinstall it to
Hotmail and the like, as they are too some time now I’ve been having prob- the same partition and modify the
slow. lems with Windows Explorer whenever I boot.ini file as mentioned earlier.
Nikhil start Windows 98, I get an error that says,

graphic designer, and uses Photoshop most a very costly affair, and also a tedious
then either get a patch if available or get a
often, working with files of sizes in excess of and complicated process. You’ll need a
newer version of the software.
500 MB. What system would be ideal here? LAN card with optical fibre cable con-
Protection error I downloaded Microsoft XP, the 64-bit nectors, an optical fibre switch, an opti-
I have a Motorola SM56 PCI speaker- edition. Does it give good performance cal fibre patch cable and connectors.
phone modem. Whenever I connect to the with the Athlon 64? Also, how should I con- You will also need equipment to con-
Internet, the connection gets disconnected figure the system for best performance? nect the cables to the connector, etc,
and the system display reads, “Windows basically, lots of costly equipment.
Krishna Prasad
protection error. Press any key to continue” Fibre-optic connectivity is used to set up
and then it shuts down. The only advice I’ve a high-speed backbone, while WiFi is
You should opt for an Athlon 64. It
received is to format my hard disk. Also, can used for connecting people on the
gives better performance than the Intel
you let me know where I can find the driv- fly. WiFi is simpler and also compara-
Prescott. Also, in memory-intensive
ers for Windows XP for the modem? tively less expensive, but definitely
applications like Photoshop, an Athlon
more expensive then a wired LAN.
Karthik 64 will give much better performance, as
You will need a WiFi access point,
the memory controller is within the CPU,
which would cost around Rs 10,000,
The drivers for the Motorola as against the Prescott, where the memo-
and five WiFi cards costing around Rs
SM56 PCI card are available at ry controller resides on the Northbridge.
3,000 each. The software needed to set
http://www.motorola.com/softmodem/sm56_d The second factor is memory. The RAM
up the access point comes bundled
ownload.htm. Depending upon the needs to be high enough, say 768 i.e. 512 +
with the hardware.
modem, for example, if the modem is 256 MB.
Data/Fax/Voice, Data/Fax, etc, choose the [email protected]
file to download. Actually, the Web page Fibre optic vs WiFi LAN E-mail us your
offers drivers for all operating systems I have a five-PC network on a CAT 5 computing
cable and a hub. What do I need to set up problems, and we
and for both ISA and PCI modems. may answer them
Choose the proper file. a fibre optic cable network. I’d also like to here! Since we
know what’s needed to set up a WiFi net- get more mails
Designers’ choice work, and the approximate costs involved. per day than we can handle, it may take
One of our clients wants to purchase an some time for your query to be
Anil Gupta answered. Rest assured, we are listening!
AMD Athlon 64-based system. He is a Setting up a fibre-optic LAN would be

118 JULY 2004