top

Home   |   Tips   |   Forum  |   Links   |   Site map

  Computer Hardware 

  Computer History
  Hardware Listing
  Questions & Answers
  Buying Tips
  Help Installing Hardware
 
  Computer Software

  Software Listing
  Virus Information
  Security Tips
  Operating Systems
  MS-DOS
 
  Tips & Tricks

  Networking Tips
  Database Tips
  Registry Tips
  Internet Tips
  Printing Tips
 

 
  Tools

  Print this page

 

  Search The Web

 
   

This Site The Web

            
  NAVIGATION
 

Tips & Tricks
Windows Tips
MS Office Tips
Internet Troubleshooting

Forums
Linux Tips
Security Tips
Glossaries
 
  Miscellaneous Tips

 

How to restart remotely

How to remove all hyperlinks at once

How to make an undeletable folder

How to delete undeletable folder?

Microsoft Notepad

Quickly open system properties window

MS-DOS auto complete in Microsoft Windows 2000 and above

Clear CMOS

Testing Ports

Check Bios Date

Video Card type

Help Tips

NTOSKRNL Missing or Corrupt

HAL.DLL Missing or Corrupt

Corrupted or Missing \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG

NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found

Increasing the Folder Cache

Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks

WindowsXP Command Line Utilities

Renaming the Start Button

Using the System File Checker

Speeding Up the Display of Start Menu Items

Increasing System Performance

CMD Commands

Quickly get to the Windows Desktop

 

How to restart remotely

  1. Open a computer management console for the machine you want to restart. I usually right-click the My Computer desktop icon and select Manage, then right-click Computer Management and select Connect to another computer. From the list, select the remote system you want to restart. Click OK.
  2. In the new window, right-click Computer Management and select Properties.
  3. In the dialog box that opens, select the Advanced tab.
  4. Click the Startup and recovery Settings button.
  5. Click Shut Down. The dialog box that opens will give you some shutdown options (e.g., Restart, Power down). Select the option you want and click OK.

How to remove all hyperlinks at once

Highlight the entire document by pressing CONTROL + A. Once the document is selected, press CONTROL + SHIFT + F9. 
The document will be converted to text, and the hyperlinks will be removed.

How to make an undeletable folder

1)Open cmd ( Type in Run option cmd or navigate to All Programs->Accessories-> Command Prompt)
2)In cmd change to the directory that you want,I change to E.Just type E: and enter.If you donīt
know how change directories with Cmd, here is post where I wrote about it

3)Type md \lpt1\\ and press enter, the folder will now in your E:

4)If you try to delete or rename it, it will appear error message

How to delete undeletable folder?

Just go to cmd Navigate to the directory and type in rd \lpt1\\

Microsoft Notepad

Keep a log easily using Microsoft Notepad by opening a new text file in Microsoft Notepad or an existing text file in Notepad and adding ".LOG" (without the quotes) at the beginning of the file. Now each time the file is opened in Notepad a time and date stamp will be automatically added.

Quickly open system properties window

Quickly open the system properties window by holding down the ALT key and double-clicking My Computer.

MS-DOS auto complete in Microsoft Windows 2000 and above

  1. Open the Microsoft Windows registry editor by clicking Start / Run / type Regedit and click ok.
  2. In the Microsoft Windows registry editor open the below folders.

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
    Software
    Microsoft
    Command Processor
  3. In the command processor open the below two registry keys and change their value to 9.

    CompletionChar
    PathCompleteChar
  4. Once the above steps have been completed close out of the registry editor and open the command window by typing cmd in the Start / Run window. To use the auto complete feature press the tab key any type you wish to complete a directory. For example, if the directory you are currently in contains the "Program files" directory you could type "cd pr" and press tab, to have the auto completion option  automatically type "cd "program files"".

Clear CMOS:

The below debug routine will clear CMOS, BIOS, Passwords, Settings, Viruses, and other items residing in the CMOS. During this process you may get returned characters which are an indication that the string has gone in, if you by chance get ERROR ensure that you have typed the line in correctly, if not retype. Ensure that you do not skip any lines, that it is ALL typed in correctly to help prevent problems. Before running this Debug routine also ensure that you have read the above disclaimer.

After typing debug you will get "-" which is were you can begin by typing A and pressing enter.

A <ENTER>
MOV AX,0 <ENTER>
MOV AX,CX <ENTER>
OUT 70,AL <ENTER>
MOV AX,0 <ENTER>
OUT 71,AL <ENTER>
INC CX <ENTER>
CMP CX,100 <ENTER>
JB 103 <ENTER>
INT 20 <ENTER>
<ENTER> Note: Nothing is typed on this line
G <ENTER> By pressing G this will execute the above script, ensure you have read and agree to the above disclaimer.
Q <ENTER>

Then reboot and you will get a Setup Checksum Error. Go into setup, correct all the incorrect values, time, date...

Testing Ports:

The below debug routine will check the ports of the computer to allow you to know if ports are being detected or not.

Type debug to get to the "-"

Type D40:0

You should get several lines; however, the first line is the only important line, which should read the following:

0040:0000 F8 03 F8 02 E8 03 E8 02 - 78 03 78 02 BC 03

F8 03

F8 02

E8 03

E8 02

 

78 03

78 02

BC 03

COM1

COM2

COM3

COM4

 

LPT1

LPT2

LPT3

The above graph shows you what the feed back means as far as port, so if you see F8 03, this would be an indication that COM1 is being detected; if you see 00 00, this is an indication that it is not being detected, which could mean that hardware is bad or that it is disabled in CMOS.

Once you have finished looking at the information, type Q and press enter to get out of Debug.

Check Bios Date:

The below debug routine is to check the date of your BIOS. All BIOS dates on PC compatible computers is stored at memory address FFFF5h. To display the date of your BIOS do the following:

At the C:\> type debug

- d FFFF:5 L 8

After typing the above command you should receive a string similar to:

FFFF:0000       30 34 2F-33 30 2F 39 38        4/30/98

The 4/30/98 would be the date of your computer BIOS.

Video Card type:

 

The below debug routine will list the type of video card within your computer. This is an excellent way of determining the chipset on the card or the card within your computer without opening the computer.

At the C:\> type debug

-d c000:0040

After typing the above command you should receive several lines of text similar to:

C000:0040

  

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

-

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

00

  

................

C000:0050

 

E9

63

7B

00

B4

10

49

27

-

E9

FE

2B

E9

F7

2B

50

4D

 

.c{...I'..+..+PM

C000:0060

 

49

44

58

00

5B

00

00

00

-

00

A0

00

B0

00

B8

00

C0

 

IDX.[...........

C000:0070

 

00

5B

53

54

42

20

6E

56

-

49

44

49

41

20

54

4E

54

 

.[STB nVIDIA TNT

C000:0080

 

20

76

65

72

2E

20

31

2E

-

31

30

20

0D

0A

00

1B

43

 

ver. 1.10 ....C

C000:0090

 

6F

70

79

72

69

67

68

74

-

28

43

29

31

39

39

38

20

 

opyright(C)1998

C000:00A0

 

53

54

42

20

53

79

73

74

-

65

6D

73

20

49

6E

63

0D

 

STB Systems Inc.

C000:00B0

 

0A

00

22

6C

2C

0A

01

00

-

C3

50

24

7F

E8

60

36

58

 

.."1,....P$..'6X

As you can pick out in the above dump, this gives you enough information to determine the make and the year made on the video card. On line 4 you can see the make of this video card, which in this case is a N VIDIA TNT which would be the Riva TNT chipset. The next line you notice the version of the card and finally the line thereafter is the copyright or the year manufactured, generally.

If you are unable to capture any information which sounds like the video card, you can also type

-d c000:0090

The above line will give you a dump similar to the above example; however, it may have additional information about the video card.

Help tips (10/2005)

Below are some basic tips as well as some secrets that can be used on Google to help improve your search results and find things you may have never thought of. 

1.    Group your search query to find better results. For example, if you're searching for computer help, you'll find better results if you search for an exact phrase by surrounding it in quotes: "computer help".

2.    If a lot of your results have keywords you're not search for use a minus sign. For example, if you're looking for computer help but don't want pages containing Windows type: "computer help" -windows

3.    Google supports number ranges, for example, if you're searching for computer help between the year 2000 to 2005 you can type: "Computer help" 2000..2005 

4.    See the Google operators page, which lists dozens of the available operators Google allows. For example, the below search would search for URL that contains the word computer: allinurl: computer

5.    Visit the Google Features page, which lists hundreds of different examples of the type of things you can find through Google and how to find them.

6.    See our Google dictionary definition for a listing of dozens of other Google services.

NTOSKRNL Missing or Corrupt

If you get an error that NTOSKRNL not found:

  1. Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
  2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
  3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
    Typically this will be #1
  4. Change to the drive that has the CD ROM.
  5. CD i386
  6. expand ntkrnlmp.ex_ C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
  7. If WindowsXP is installed in a different location, just make the necessary change to C:\Windows
  8. Take out the CD ROM and type exit

HAL.DLL Missing or Corrupt

If you get an error regarding a missing or corrupt hal.dll file, it might simply be the BOOT.INI file on the root of the C: drive that is misconfigured

  1. Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
  2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
  3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
    Typically this will be #1
  4. Type bootcfg /list to show the current entries in the BOOT.INI file
  5. Type bootcfg /rebuild to repair it
  6. Take out the CD ROM and type exit

Corrupted or Missing \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG

If you get the error:
Windows could not start because the following files is missing or corrupt
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM or \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE

  1. Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
  2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
  3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
    Typically this will be #1
  4. Enter in the administrator password when requested
  5. cd \windows\system32\config
  6. Depending on which section was corrupted:
    ren software software.bad or ren system system.bad
  7. Depending on which section was corrupted
    copy \windows\repair\system
    copy \windows\repair\software
  8. Take out the CD ROM and type exit

NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found

If you get an error that NTLDR is not found during bootup,

If you have FAT32 partitions, it is much simpler than with NTFS.
Just boot with a Win98 floppy and copy the NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files
from the i386 directory to the root of the C:\ drive.

For NTFS:

  1. Insert and boot from your WindowsXP CD.
  2. At the first R=Repair option, press the R key
  3. Press the number that corresponds to the correct location for the installation of Windows you want to repair.
    Typically this will be #1
  4. Enter in the administrator password when requested
  5. Enter in the following commands (X: is replaced by the actual drive letter that is assigned to the CD ROM drive.
    COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C\:
    COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:\
  6. Take out the CD ROM and type exit

Increasing the Folder Cache

The default setting for WindowsXP is to cache the Explorer settings for 400 folders.
To increase it:

  1. Start Regedit
  2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam
  3. Change the vaule of BagMRU  to whatever size you want (hex)

1000 - 3e8
2000 - 7d0
3000 - bb8
4000 - fa0
5000 - 1388

Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks

  1. Start Regedit
  2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks
  3. Set the value to be 1
  4. In the same section, change the WaitToKillAppTimeout to the number of milliseconds you want.

WindowsXP Command Line Utilities

While there are a lot of command line utilities in WindowsXP, here are some that I have been using lately.

bootcfg - Configures, queries, or changes Boot.ini file settings.

driverquery - Displays a list of all installed device drivers and their properties.

getmac - Returns the media access control (MAC) address and list of network protocols associated with each address for all network cards in each computer

gpresult - Displays Group Policy settings and Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) for a user or a computer

netsh - You can use commands in the Netsh Interface IP context to configure the TCP/IP protocol

schtasks - Schedules commands and programs to run periodically or at a specific time

systeminfo - Displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system

 

Renaming the Start Button

To rename the start button, you will need a hex editor.
My preference is UltraEdit

  1. Copy the \windows\explore.exe file to a new name (e.g. explorer_1.exe)
  2. With the hex editor, open that file and go to offset 412b6
  3. You will see the word start with blanks between each letter
  4. Edit it be any 5 characters or less
  5. Save the file
  6. Boot to DOS
  7. Copy the existing c:\windows\explorer.exe to explorer.org
  8. Copy explorer_1.exe to explorer.exe
  9. You will also need to replace the explorer.exe in the c:\windows\system32\dllcache file as well with the new one.

Note: If the partition is NTFS and you can't access the files from DOS:

  1. Start Regedit
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon.
  3. Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to explorer_1.exe

 

Using the System File Checker

You can run the System File Checker to verify protected system files.

Command line switches are:

sfc [/scannow] [/scanonce] [/scanboot] [/revert] [/purgecache] [/cachesize=x]

  • /scannow  - Scans all protected system files immediately.
  • /scanonce - Scans all protected system files once.
  • /scanboot - Scans all protected system files every time the computer is restarted.
  • /revert - Returns the scan to its default operation.
  • /purgecache - Purges the Windows File Protection file cache and scans all protected system files immediately.
  • /cachesize=x - Sets the size, in MB, of the Windows File Protection file cache.

Speeding Up the Display of Start Menu Items

An easy way to speed up the display of the Start Menu Items is to turn off the menu shadow.

1.      Right click on an open area of the Desktop

2.      Select Properties

3.      Click on the Appearance tab

4.      Click on the Effects button

5.      Uncheck Show shadows under menus

Increasing System Performance

If you have 512 megs or more of memory, you can increase system performance
by having the core system kept in memory.

  1. Start Regedit
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive
  3. Set the value to be 1
  4. Reboot the computer

CMD Commands: 

  1. systeminfo: The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

Quickly get to the Windows Desktop

Quickly get to the Microsoft Windows Desktop by pressing the Windows key and D at the same time on the keyboard

Bookmark and Share


  Related Links

Computer hardware tips

 

 

 

 
 User's Favourite Stuff

  Batch File Help
  Keyboard Shortcuts
  Missing NTLDR
  Boot Disk Creation
  Beep Codes
 
  Informative Links

  Safe Mode
  Windows Help
  Linux Help
  HTML Color Codes
  Email Tips
 
  Tips & Tricks Cont.

  Backup Tips
  Wireless Tips
  Cisco Router Tips
  PC Cleaning Tips
  Miscellaneous Tips


 

 


Main Site Navigation:
Home   |   Back   |   Site map   | Glossaries |   Forum