Having problems with certain hardware crashing your PC? Perhaps your PC crashes and you’re not even sure what it is?
A system crash is typically cased by:
- Incompatible software (rare)
- Viruses, malware, etc. (common)
- Faulty hardware (rare)
- Incompatible / faulty hardware drivers (common)
The second of these can be eliminated by following the directions available via this page.
The forth issue is hardware driver related and there is a great guide on how to ensure you have the latest drivers over at:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/DriverXP.html
Let me know if it helps.
Here’s a web page with great information on how to make sure your PC is secure against viruses, malware, adware, and other nasties. If you want step-by-step instructions on how to secure your PC this page is what you’re looking for.
Check it out at: Secure XP
Sometimes it is necessary to change the key you have used to install Window XP. It can be done, and the following site explains how to go about it and what free tools you need to get the job done. Links to the tools are provided also.
Let me know how you get on.
http://www.mike-devlin.com/windows/key.htm
There are a lot Windows Desktop tips and tricks explained on this page… http://www.onecomputerguy.com/desktop.htm
Such as:
Desktop
Restoring a Lost Desktop - Added 3/15/00
Making Desktop Changes Permanent - Added 10/16/98
Easy Shortcuts on the Desktop - Submitted 8/14/98
Unable to Create Shortcuts on the Desktop - Added 1/3/98
Repositioning a Background Bitmap - Added 4/6/97
Adding Shortcuts to Desktop Without “Shortcut To” text - Submitted 1/24/97
Removing Items from NEW on the Desktop - Added 7/28/96
Adding the Device Manager to your Desktop - Added 5/27/96
Changing Desktop Folders - With No Registry Changes - Submitted 12/14/95
Updating the Desktop - 11/28/95
Minimizing all windows - 9/24/95/95
Turning on AutoArrange - 9/13/95
Quick access to your Desktop - 9/3/95
Turning off Desktop Icons
Removing the Network Neighborhood icon
Changing the Startup and Logoff Bitmap screens
Icons
Creating Shutdown, Restart and Logoff Icons - Added 1/8/00
Increasing the Icon Cache - Submitted 10/30/99
Make Icons 256 Color 16-Bit - Submitted 7/19/99
Removing Shortcut Arrows - Submitted 3/28/99
Changing a Folder’s Icon - Submitted 8/14/98
Fixing Corrupted Desktop Icons - Updated 5/25/98
Removing the InBox from the Desktop - Submitted 12/29/97
Customizing Individual Folder Icons - Submitted 11/22/97
Removing the Recycle Bin - Submitted 11/16/97
Having Icons with No Name - Updated 9/28/97
Changing Drive Icons - Added 4/6/97
Removing the InBox and Recycle Bin Icons from the Desktop - Added 9/8/96
Modifying Default Desktop Icons - Added 7/27/96
More Removing Shortcut Arrows - Submitted 3/12/96
Changing Application Icons - Submitted 1/21/96
Removing the shortcut arrows (potential problem) - 11/5/95
Removing the shortcut icon arrows - 9/18/95
Restoring corrupted icons
Renaming the Recycle Bin
Start Menu
Organizing the Start / Programs Listing - Added 5/29/01
Having your Favorites and Start Menus Sort Alphabetically - Added 11/9/99
Adding the Control Panel to the Start Menu - Added 10/17/98
Moving the Start Button - Submitted 7/4/97
Aligning Drop-Down Menus to the Right - Submitted 4/25/97
Removing the Start Button - Submitted 11/24/96
Customizing the Start Button’s Name and Icon - Added 5/28/96
Adding Options to the Right-Click of the Start Menu - Submitted 5/20/96
Adding the Desktop to your Start Menu - 11/17/95
Getting rid of Click here to continue - 11/4/95
Changing or Removing the Start Menu Icons - Submitted 6/29/96
Adding the Control Panel icons to the Desktop - 10/2/95
Adding the Control Panel to the Start Menu - 10/2/95
Speeding up the Start Menu
Misc
Easy Access to Folders from the Toolbar - Added 9/9/01
Creating a New E-Mail Shortcut - Added 1/31/00
Creating 3D Window Effect - Added 1/8/00
Full Window Drag ( Without Plus! ) - Submitted 5/25/98
Getting Screen Shots - Submitted 4/12/98
Increasing the Size of the Scroll Bar - Submitted 1/11/98
Adding Send To the Recycle Bin - Submitted 10/11/97
Adding AnyFolder and Mail to SendTo - Submitted 3/7/97
Easier User Interface - Submitted 1/24/97
Changing the clock to 24-Hour Time - Added 10/20/96
Adding Drives to the SendTo List - Submitted 6/29/96
Adding a Protected Briefcase - Submitted 6/23/96
How to make the task bar autohide - Added 5/15/96
Closing Nested Folders - Added 2/28/96
Moving and Resizing the Taskbar - Submitted 1/21/96
Correcting Corrupted Fonts - 1/11/96
Creating document scraps - 9/13/95
Turing off Windows Animation
Using old Window’s Groups
Changing the My Computer or Recycle Bin icons
Removing the Tildes in filenames
It took me some time to figure this one out. I found many sites / blogs / wikis / forums giving very elaborate instructions on how to do this, but they all seemed much to complicated. What I wanted to do seemed like a simple “want” to me. How do I access my Ubuntu linux box remotely (over the LAN) from a windows xp machine? My linux machine runs Ubuntu. If you are trying to RD into another distro you will have to modify these instructions accordingly. So here is what I did:
- Activate XDMCP on Ubuntu - SYSTEM >> Preferences >> Remote Desktop - “Allow other users to view your desktop” - “Allow other users to control your desktop”
- Install Cygwin/X onto the Windows XP machine. - Download and run setup.exe from http://www.cygwin.com/ - Install the standard packages on Cycwin/X along with :
- X11 –> X-Startup-scripts - X11 –> xorg-x11-base (this will set a lot of x11 dependencies to install also — you want to install these)
- Run Cycgwin
- In the Cgywim terminal enter the following command: $ XWin.exe :1.0 -unixkill -scrollbars -screen 0 1280 1024 -emulate3buttons -once -query (NAME / IP) & Put the name of the linux computer or its IP address
- You should then see the Ubuntu login page. Voila.
It’s possible I installed one or two other things on the Ubuntu system. I don’t recall just now as I tried so many other ways to get this functionality working I now forget exactly what was done for what. If you try the above and it does not work, let me know and I’ll figure out what else has to go onto the Ubuntu system. I know I installed freeNX although I am not sure if this was for the Cygwin connection or not. If you want to use SSH to Ubuntu via Cygwin there are some instructions here. I tried various SSH related ways of going about this. SSH from Windows directly and SSH via the Cygwin terminal. I kept getting the error that the port was not open. I tried port 177 (which XDCMP users) and 5901 and others, all to no avail. I am not sure how to make these ports available from Ubuntu. But the Xwin route works great.
A little extra info on this tip can be found here, along with links for further research
For those who don’t wish to take part in Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage program (for whatever reason), the following page(s) provide useful information. If you are not familiar with what the WGA program is you can read about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/
Sites with tools, tips, and information of circumventing Microsoft WGA:
Over the last few months Microsoft have been rolling out their Genuine Advantage validation tools. In essence, (if you allow it) Windows will install an update which is a tool that validates whether your copy of MS Windows is “genuine” or “pirated”. If it is determined that your system is not running a genuine licensed copy of Windows you will be prevented from installing updates, security patches, and the like. Apparently recent versions of the WGA Notification tool call home to MS servers every time the computer is started (every time Windows XP is started). Like many other Windows users, this seems unnecessary to me. I have a genuine copy of Windows that came preinstalled on my Acer laptop. I have not, however, allowed the WGA Notification tool to be installed. If you have, you might wish to remove it.
Visit the following site to learn how: http://www.firewallleaktester.com/removewga.htm
I quote the following from that site…
RemoveWGA enables you to remove the Microsoft “Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications” tool, which is calling home and connect to Microsoft servers every time you boot. Futures updates of this notification tool will (officialy) setup the connection rate to once every two weeks.
Once the WGA Notification tool has checked your OS and has confirmed you had a legit copy, there is no decent point or reason to check it again and again every boot. Moreover, connecting to Microsoft brings security issue for corporate networks, and privacy issues for everyone. It is also unclear which information are transmitted (Microsoft published an official answer, but an individual study brought some questions). All of that, along the fact that Microsoft used deceptive ways to make you install this tool (it was told you it was an urgent security update, whereas it is a new installation giving you no extra security) makes me calling this tool a spyware.
For those wishing to customise the way TCP/IP is handled on Windows XP the follow MS Knowledge Base article(s) may be of assistance…
There are many great applications for free video and audio functionality on the windows PC. I’ll be listing some of the ones I have come across here on this page:
Free Audio Related Software
- AUDACITY
Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:
- Record live audio.
- Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
- Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
- Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
- Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
- And more! See the complete list of features.
- AUDIOGRABBER
Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd’s. It copies the audio digitally-not through the sound card-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. It can even perform a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also automatically normalise the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3’s. Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from freedb, an Internet compact disc database. You can even record your vinyl LP’s or cassette tapes with Audiograbber and make wav’s or MP3’s of them. There are a lot more functions in Audiograbber, but to put it simply: Audiograbber has the most features one can wish from such a program!
Free Video Related Software
- VLC MEDIA PLAYER
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
This page will continue to be updated as I come across new software that falls into the above categories
There’s a great site over at http://www.opensourcelist.org that will eventually have a database of opensource applications for Windows. It is the evolution of the site at http://www.jairlie.com/oss/suggestedapplications.html, which currently has more applications listed on it. This will be ported over to the opensourcelist.org site when the developer is finished with coding the site.
So the existing link is: http://www.jairlie.com/oss/suggestedapplications.html
The future link is: http://www.opensourcelist.org
The existing site has the following categories listed on it:
Major categories
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