Everybody knows that the majority computers have the OS on the C: drive and most people are used to this configuration.  Although, in most situations, it really shouldn't matter on what logical drive your OS resides, it might be annoying or confusing to some users to not find Windows in the "usual" place.  Most of the time when you install windows, it will correctly resolve to the C: drive. However, if the computer comes with removable media drives for memory cards, depending on many factors, Windows might install to a logical drive letter that comes after the removable media drives.  If this configuration is undesired, then simply disconnect the removable media drives from the motherboard and redo the Windows installation.

If you decide to stay with your OS on a logical drive other than C:, then you shouldn't experience problems as most programs use environment variables to install. An environment variable is a special DOS level variable used to store useful system information.  You can see your systems environment variables by getting to a Command / DOS prompt (start/run/cmd) and typing "Set".  As you can see there are variables like "System Drive" that point new programs to the correct logical drive for default installation. 

Should you ever run into any suspicious problem during install as I did recently while installing the Flash Player for internet browsing, there is a simple workaround.  You'll recognize a problem with the unorthodox drive letter assignment, because programs will pop up error messages that sound like they are talking about your removable media drives.  Messages like "not enough free disk space" or "disk not found" or "cannot read from disk" or "insert media / disk now" or "disk not ready" are typical.  If you get messages like these during application installation, upgrades, or operation, try the following "trick":  share the root of your primary drive and then map the c: to this share. 

To do this procedure, take the following steps:

1. under my computer right click on your primary drive and choose "sharing and security"... choose to share the drive at the root... windows will contest, but stay the course and get the drive shared with full write rights.. make sure to note the share name as you'll need this info for step 4

2. under control panel>administrative tools>computer management>storage>disk management,  right click on the "C:" drive and change the drive letter assignment to something else..

3. reboot your computer...

4. open any folder and go to tools>map network drive and map the C: drive to //computer name/share name where "computer name" is the name of your computer as displayed when you right click on "my computer" and go to properties>computer name tab  AND where "share name" is the name you noted in step 1...

 5. retry the offending operation and it should work if the non C: drive letter assignment was the issue

Amazing what can go wrong with a computer, here's another couple of memory issues.

Laptop number one was infested with viruses, and we needed to reformat it and install a fresh copy of windows on it. However, once Windows setup had loaded the necessary files onto the computer, we constantly got an error message stating "process1_initialization_failed" and would then shut down the installation. We tried several fixes, and then went back to the old memory drawing board! On a hunch I checked the specs of the computer, a Compaq Presario 2200, and it turned out that the memory upgrade that had been installed was one grade faster than the motherboard was designed for (runs on DDR2-400 PC3200 RAM, and had been upgraded with two 512MB sticks of DDR2-533 PC4200. DDR2 RAM in general is backwards compatible, meaning that faster RAM can be used in a computer with a chipset designed for slower RAM, it just runs at the slower clockspeed. However, when it came to actually installing and setting up Windows for that particular laptop's configuration, it couldn't handle it and was bombing out. So I reached into the memory drawer, got out a 256MB stick (the minimum to run Windows XP) of DDR2-400 PC3200 RAM, installed Windows XP with no problems, and then reinstalled the faster upgraded RAM, and the computer worked like a charm!

Laptop number two (an ASUS) was only a few months old, but had no guarantee here in Hungary. It had suddenly developed the habit of displaying the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), and once again after checking the drivers/software and any recent installations/updates, the only thing remaining to troubleshoot was hardware. At this stage it wasn't looking good for the laptop, as the Blue Screen of Death can often be an issue on the motherboard, particularly with a new computer. Just to check, I removed the 1GB memory stick from the expansion slot (this model supports 2x1GB stick and had been fully upgraded), and checked that it was the correct RAM for this model. It was indeed the correct specification RAM, and so I tried to boot the laptop with just the 1GB remaining in the system slot, and hey presto, it booted up and continued to run without major issues. I installed another stcik of RAM in the slot in place of the old one, and this didn't work either - not only was the RAM fried, but the slot itself was dead, and had probably caused the issue. Another one solved, even if the laptop was a bit downgraded now, it works fine.

You have been served by:

El Presidente

There is an easy way to add a new element to Start Menu in Windows:

Use your favourite file manager and search for the program or file you want to add. Grab the file (click and hold mouse) and pull it over the Start Menu. Wait until it's opened and release the mouse button to add it to the desired location.

Now, would you call that a DOWNGRADE? Popular opinion says no, as it seems a majority of computer users prefer the XP platform to Microsoft's latest version of Windows, Vista. The reason is that to date XP has been the most stable of all the Windows OS releases, having the greatest amount of compatibility with a wide variety of software. And it also afforded you a modicum of control over the settings and operation of your computer, unlike Vista that hides everything behind it's "user-friendly interface" and flashy buttons.

So it's no wonder that a lot of people who have purchased new computers and been "force-fed" Vista as their operating system are choosing to switch back to the familiar and relatively easy to use Windows XP.

Depending on your particular model of computer, and in particular laptop, this may not quite be as simple an operation as you may think. Getting anything running on a computer is always a complex marriage between hardware and software and various settings from the CMOS to the BIO, and this case is no exception.

It has turned out that Windows XP SP2 installation disks don't necessarily have the correct drivers for certain SATA hard drives running on certain motherboards (don't ask me which ones exactly, this is a matter of experience!). If you try installing XP on your new Vista computer and after it loads the installation files you get told that "Setup didn't find any hard disk drives installed in your computer", then you know you have this particular combination. In a nutshell your new computer has a storage controller that isn't supported natively in XP, and this is usually a SATA (Serial ATA) controller.

There are a couple of ways around this. The first is the quick and dirty, and it depends on the BIOS you have running on your computer. If you are lucky enough to have a more comprehensive BIOS allowing you to do more than just change the boot device order on your computer, you can do the following. Either disable the "Native SATA Control" or if that option is not available to you in your particular BIOS, then change your "SATA Device Operation" to ATA instead of AHCI, or try to disable the SATA SCSI setting, and then go ahead with your installation.  

Unfortunately, most "consumer PCs and laptops" sold today have idiot-proof BIOS' installed in them, and will not allow you to change settings such as this. Additionally, this has the side effect of slowing your computer down, as you don't have the benefit of running your hard drive in Serial ATA mode. The best solution is to use a process called slipstreaming to integrate the missing drivers on your XP installation CD so that these get installed when you setup XP on your computer.

That particular task is beyond the scope of this blog, happily there are a couple of great references on the web giving you detailed step by step instructions. Go to HowToGeek or Softpedia and follow their instructions carefully on how to do this using a nifty little application called NLite.

Handy Hints - make sure you get the correct SATA drivers for your chipset from either the computer or component manufacturers website, use the textmode in nLite, make sure your nLite install removes the stock xp SATA/RAID driver entirely, and burn the .iso as an image on the CD. And enjoy using XP once you're done!

You have been served by:

El Presidente

In the office, we have a LAN behind a router. On the LAN there is a fileserver which hosts personal and project files which are to be shared and/or backed up. This fileserver runs Windows XP. We have employees who live in other cities and work from there, and we also wanted to be able to access shared files from home, so we decided to set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This basically means that from the Internet we can connect to our LAN and use its resources through a private and secure channel.

I became the lucky person to be selected for this special quest. I expected it to be easy, but this was not the case.

First, I had to set up a VPN Server in Windows XP on the fileserver.  This was easy. I have set up a special user account for VPN with a very strong password and made him a member of the Users group.

Then I had to set up a VPN client on a computer which was not part of our LAN, for which I grabbed a laptop and went to the nearby pub that had WLAN. Steps are described here.

Tried to connect, error. Well, let's set up the router to forward the ports needed to the fileserver. I set it to allow VPN Passthrough for  IPSec, PPTP and L2TP. I forwarded ports 50, 51, 500 and 1723 to the fileserver's IP. I also had to set up the firewall programs (on the client, a Windows Firewall, first I turned it off for the VPN connection to check if it is the problem).

Connection established. Cool. Next problem was that on the LAN we use DHCP, but if I wanted the forwarding to work, I had to set up a fixed IP for the fileserver. I have chosen one, set up subnet mask, gateway and DNS.

Connection can be established now, and not just temporarily. Next problem was that I could ping other computers on the LAN from the client, but could not access their shares through neither \\fileserver\shares nor \\{fileserver's IP}\shares. I started to get a bit angry.

I have read that if the client computer is on a network with IPs like 192.168.10.x and I try to connect to a VPN which also has IPs like 192.168.10.x those will conflict. This was not the case.

After a lot of research I found this article. It is from the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it describes a small registry change. I applied it.

Finally, when I tried to access \\fileserver\shares, it was found! I could not open it though, I had to set up the permissions for the user I created for VPN purposes on the fileserver. After that, it worked just fine. Brilliant.

Sometimes when you purchase a new drive (sata or ide) and try to mount on an XP machine via a USB, nothing will appear under "my computer".  This absence isn't necessarily a problem, it just means that your new drive must first be initialized using Windows Disk Management.

To access Disk Management go to Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Mangement... Inside of "Computer Managment", on the right side, you'll see the Disk Management option near the bottom.  With your new drive plugged into the system, click on this option.  The drive should appear on the right half at the bottom of the screen.  Right-click on the drive and use the wizard to initialize the drive.  After this step, the drive will now appear with some unformatted unpartitioned space to the right of the drive.  Right click on this space (not the drive name) to create partitions and even a logical drive.  After finishing these steps, the drive will appear and will be accessable under "My Computer."