Category: Questions

With the help from the TechRepublic community, we’ve compiled a list of questions from last week that had great answers and/or large appeal. If you want to submit your favorite Question of the Week, using those guidelines as criteria, please send them to trol@techrepublic.com.

Here are some highlighted questions from last week:

• Netgear Switches not communicating properly
• Does anyone have knowledge on a Delta 450 power supply
• Share MS-Word spelling dictionary with other LAN computers?
• Manage user mobile devices laptop/iPhone/BlackBerry
• Persistent Images
• Virtual Machine to Real System
• How can I/ should I view image attachments as inline in mail clients?
• DFS Data Loss
• It is possible to use wireless on a Debian “Lenny” Linux laptop?
• Server Login

With the help from the TechRepublic community, we’ve compiled a list of questions from last week that had great answers and/or large appeal. If you want to submit your favorite Question of the Week, using those guidelines as criteria, please send them to trol@techrepublic.com.

Here are some highlighted questions from last week:

• BlackBerry sync with Outlook 2003
• Access Mailing Labels form
• Windows Server 2008 folder redirection
• HP Smart Array 5i issue
• Files disappearing randomly from file server W2K
• Open port on every Exchange restart
• Bluetooth problems for voting system using J2ME
• My XP PC is infected with win32.netsky
• Steady State: updating Trend 8.0
• C compilation
• How to get data from any Com ports of PC

TechRepublic member furiouszed submitted the following question.

Hi. I need help with a dual boot problem, so I’ll try to be clear:

I wanted to try out Windows 7 without overwriting my existing (heavily customized) XP Pro, so I decided to install it on a completely separate HDD. Having installed a new OS many times, I expected to be asked for drivers (for my motherboard etc), so I wanted to install Win7 in the machine where it would be used. I therefore took the HDD from my 2nd machine. It also had XP on it (but I didn’t mind if anything happened to this). Still, the drive was half empty, so I partitioned it and installed Win7 on the empty partition.

Having skipped Vista, this is the first time I’ve dealt with the OS abandoning boot.ini (and ntldr) and using the new bootmgr instead. The install could see XP install already there, and I assumed it would deal with this. To some point it did. The install finished, and I rebooted. If the BIOS had looked at HDD 1 first (my original drive with only XP), then I would not have seen a dual boot menu and XP would have booted. So, I made sure I told the BIOS to look at HDD 2 (the partitioned drive with XP and Win7) first.

Sure enough, I got a menu asking if I wanted to use Windows 7 or the “previous version of Windows.” I selected Windows 7 and played around for a while and quite enjoyed it, to the point where I decided to remove the old XP drive and stick with ONLY the partitioned drive. I planned on changing the default OS to Windows 7, safe in the knowledge that I would be given the choice of using XP if I ever needed to.

Here’s where the problems began. Having removed HDD 1, I no longer get a dual boot menu. Instead, the machine boots straight into XP (on the first partition of HDD 2). I have no way of getting to Windows 7 on the second partition. I made the partition Active, but that resulted in the drive being completely unreadable (I had to use fdisk to change that back just to get back to XP).

I know Windows 7 makes changes to the boot manager (editing and renaming boot.ini for example), but it would appear that’s not all it did. Some vital bit of information is not being seen now; the problem is, I don’t know what it is. I’ve tried copying files from the old XP drive in case something was put there, but nothing helps.

From what I’ve read, I think there may be trouble with the MBR or some such thing, and I suspect the machine is looking in the wrong place for instructions on how to boot up. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about this to play around with it. I wish I had taken the time to check out one of the 3rd party boot managers… I read about Windows’ own being badly designed, but again, I didn’t know enough to get involved and I was more interested in installing the OS. That’ll teach me to trust Microsoft to do the right thing! Hopefully, someone here will be able to offer some advice.

I should add that yes, I could easily reinstall Windows 7 but 1) I’ve already customized it to some degree and 2) I don’t see why I should. I believe I should be able to remove a slave drive without it making my master drive unbootable.

Thanks to anyone who read all that; I hope it makes sense and someone can help.

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

TechRepublic member borysjn submitted the following question.

I was wondering if Disk2vhd could be used to upgrade a desktop machine. I have a desktop running Windows XP that I need to upgrade to Window 7, and my thinking is that I could use Disk2vhd to create a .vhd file of the existing XP on an external drive. I could then wipe the drive and install Win7 64 bit, and then import the XP vhd as a virtual machine running under Win7.

Does this seem logical? Are there any gotchas I should be aware of?

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

With the help from the TechRepublic community, we’ve compiled a list of questions from last week that had great answers and/or large appeal. If you want to submit your favorite Question of the Week, using those guidelines as criteria, please send them to trol@techrepublic.com.

Here are some highlighted questions from last week:

• How do I protect my software from illegal copying?
• Is this Outlook 2007 issue unfixable? Reward offered!
• Looking for where the string following ‘_restore{’ can be read
• Cookies with strange names
• Which Small Business Security Appliance
• How do I restore files?
• Wireless internet at home is not showing
• Vista black screen with curser
• Database of client PCs/Laptops
• Vista Loses Network Comms
• Can’t connect gateway DHCP ADSL Modem after promote Windows 2008 DC
• Tracking AD PDC Time/Date changes?

TechRepublic member alpe97 submitted the following question.

Hi. I hope this is a head-scratcher for you too. Or think of it as a fresh challenge?

My laptop has been down for nearly a month. My Dell laptop is running Windows XP Pro, and it suddenly decided that I, and all other admin IDs, do not have permission to open or run files.

At first, I chased the ‘denied’ problem as an ownership. Probably more insidious than that, when this happened, I was also not authorized to shutdown or restart the PC. The message I received was “you do not have permission to shutdown or restart” this system.

Another big red flag was that I noticed all my IE8 icons were gone — on the desktop, taskbar, start menu and even in ‘All Programs.’ When I searched for IE8 files, all I found was IE7. When I opened an HTML doc (in Safe Mode), IE6 opened it.

I tried several things in Safe Mode, including logging in to my usual ID and the hidden admin ID. I could run and read all my files there. I even created a new ID with admin rights, but it had the same problems in normal mode. I also ran CHKDISK /r in Safe Mode, and the disk is OK.

One other oddity happened just days before this. My 30GB HDD dropped to 200 MB free space. After the ‘nominal’ chkdisk ran, I had 3.7GB free, but I don’t see any files missing. Cleanup, I hope?

I’m guessing that it has a virus that got past my current AVG 8.5 and Comodo.

I can give more details, but I think the IE8 and shutdown problem are key indicators. What do you think? Where else can I look?

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

TechRepublic member Bear1Bear submitted the following question.

I recently upgraded my system from Windows XP Pro to Windows 7 Pro. After installing all my “useful” programs (Firefox, OfficeXP Pro, MBSA2, CCleaner, ZoneAlarmInternetSuite, Ad-Aware, MS SecurityEssentials, Spybot S&D, FoxitPDF Reader, Irfanview, Malwarebytes AntiMalware, SpywareGuard, Winzip, & WinPatrol), I tried to check my email (Outlook 2002 — from OfficeXP).

Outlook now has an annoying loss of focus problem. As I’m typing this email, I’ve had to click inside the mail window numerous times to continue typing! I’m wondering if one of my “security” apps is the cause, but using msconfig to turn off all and selectively restart those apps has no effect on the problem. Also, I’ve noted that my laptops fan speeds up while I’m losing focus.

I’m completely stumped. Any suggestions would be truly appreciated.

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

TechRepublic member lee_in_ftc submitted the following question.

First off, I purchased this HP about two months ago. It came with Windows Vista installed, and when I downloaded McAfee and ran it, a lot of the HP software showed up as a Trojans.

Vista was very buggy. When Microsoft mailed me my upgrade to Windows 7 CD, I went about installing it. I backed most of my files up to a USB via a IDE hard drive adapter. I also restored the system to as it was when I first got it, added McAffee, rescanned, and deleted the Trojans again. Then I upgraded to Windows 7.

Now, none of my photos are shown as thumbnails. Instead, it shows me some picture for every one of the photos I have, and that picture is not one that I have seen.

I also haven’t found a way to turn on the Quick Launch taskbar, even though I have added several things to it that I’ve installed in the last two weeks.

And yesterday, I received the Blue Screen of Death three or four times when I tried to copy a 200MB file to a USB stick. The first time, it said it was a Nvidea driver, so I went to their site and downloaded the latest driver. I crashed two more times while I was trying to do that.

So, my questions are: 1) How can I fix the thumbnail problem? and 2) How can I turn on the Quick Launch taskbar?

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

TechRepublic member kgonczy submitted the following question.

I would be very grateful if you could help me with my problem please. I use Vista Ultimate. My Office Outlook (email) has stopped receiving email, and I’m also unable to empty deleted items. I receive error message 0X80040600.

I’ve tried almost everything that I could find on the internet but nothing has worked. I could not find the inbox repair tools either. I look forward to your reply.

Please post your answer(s) in the discussion thread. If you can successfully help this member, we will send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

With the help from the TechRepublic community, we’ve compiled a list of questions from last week that had great answers and/or large appeal. If you want to submit your favorite Question of the Week, using those guidelines as criteria, please send them to trol@techrepublic.com.

Here are some highlighted questions from last week:

• XP Pro wireless connect to Server 2003
• My offline files in Windows 7 do not sync the first time I set it up
• How do I get Cached Roaming Profile to load?
• Outlook Anywhere connection
• Active Directory Group Policies problem
• How do I stop background downloads?
• Connecting office VPN (PPTP) through Dir-655
• Disk drive or network error
• SonicWall TZ170 Standard
• How do you image a SATA drive that is forced to use IDE emulation?
• Citrix ICA client on Linux Xandros