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| A low-tech E-letter by Mr. E Vol. I, No. 2 - May 6, 2001 (Pruned April 11, 2004) To read previous issues of The E-List, click here. Send comments about The E-List to: elist@aumha.org Please see Legal Notice. |
This newsletter tracks new information, and improvements in existing information, on www.aumha.org, my website supporting Windows desktop systems and leading application software. I also include small, useful items that might not find a permanent place on the site, but that I would like to pass along.
Click here to subscribe. If you subscribe, you will receive email notification when there is a new edition of the newsletter. (You will not receive the newsletter itself by email. That's why I call it low-tech.) My intention is to provide a new and further way to serve the more than 50,000 people per month (and growing) who visit my site. Previous newsletters are available online, and their content searchable through this site's search engine. Enjoy! -- Jim Eshelman
CONTENTS of this Issue
NEWS & VIEWS
Welcome to the second issue of The E-List.
I have to tell you that writing this newsletter is a lot of fun! All I'm really doing is keeping track of changes I make on my wseb site, adding a few (hopefully helpful) comments, and including a few other items that pop up during the week. If you enjoy what you find here, and the information is useful to you, of course feel free to tell your friends about it.
The big news of the week, though, is that I got the automated subscription service working. You can now get automatic notices when a new version of The E-List is available online. I apologize to those early subscribers who got a few false notices while I was testing things and working out the bugs. I now have a system in place that looks like it will work well and to everyone's satisfaction. One caveat: The service that is distributing the notices for me does not warranty that it will work flawlessly (hey, it's free!), so I can't either. But they are a great service with a good track record, so I expect things to go pretty smoothly.
Saturday (May 5, the day adored by all tequila lovers), the site was down most of the day. My apologies. Blame the Chinese -- or whoever was responsible for the recent spate of "denial of services" attacks that took out the White House web page and caused general havoc on the World Wide Web yesterday. Today, everything seems to be going as smoothly as one might like.
SOFTWARE SUPPORT SITES
PHOTOSHOP TUTORIALS & RESOURCES
Despite PhotoShop's extreme popularity (and the corresponding number of problems users encounter, as with any major software!), I didn't have any PhotoShop support links on the site. Then I learned about this one:
PhotoShop Tutor by Janee Aronoff. A great collection of PhotoShop tutorials and other resource from "The Graphics Goddess."
You'll find some great tutorials, links to many helpful resources, and some striking original designs. I should, perhaps, also mention that this Graphics Goddess showed me that she was a lady of taste and refinement 25 years ago when she had the good taste to divorce me!
KB ARTICLES: Specific Commands
DEFRAG & SCANDISK PROBLEMS IN WINDOWS MILLENNIUM EDITION
"Windows Cannot Defragment This Drive Now Because It Has Been Locked by a Disk Utility" Win ME
Speaking of "computer stupidities" (the name of the joke page mentioned above, that might well be subtitled, "Things that make you go Doh!"), this new KB article is a little silly, too. Unfortunately, experience has already shown that it is necessary. The Speed Disk tool in Norton Utilities / Norton System Works is Symantec's alternative for the Windows utility Defrag. It might, therefore, never occur to you that both would be used at the same time -- by which I mean, at the same moment! But, apparently, some people do that. The above KB article says that -- sit down before you read this, please (I don't want you to hurt yourself) -- if you are running Norton Speed Disk in the background when you launch Windows Defrag, you will get an error message! (Doh!) The solution is: Stop running Speed Disk, then start running Defrag again. (Doh!!!)
By the way, the same problem happens with ScanDisk. If you are running Speed Disk in the background when you try to run ScanDisk, you will get an error message. The KB article addressing this is: "ScanDisk Cannot Check This Drive Now Because the Disk Is Not Properly Formatted".
But newsgroup correspondent Beth Huber found a different scenario, this week, for the Defrag and ScanDisk problem in Windows ME. She reported that when she disabled System Restore (in System Properties | Performance | File System | Troubleshooting | Disable System Restore), she could run ScanDisk and Defrag successfully. Then, after another reboot, she was able to reenable System Restore, and everything continued working.
USE SYSTEM FILE CHECKER CAREFULLY
SFC Extracts Incorrect File Versions Win98
This is not a new article, but it was recently updated. There are a few system files that have more than one version on the Windows CD, and SFC will extract the wrong version, if left to its own devices. USER.EXE has long been known to have this problem -- you have to be careful which one you extract. There are other files with the same problem.
KB ARTICLES: Error Messages
Links to the following Knowledge Base Articles have been added to the Error Messages page on my site. The articles also can be accessed through my site search engine or, of course, by clicking on their links below.
Exception 0E in Vredir.vxd During CoCreateInstanceEx() on Remote DCOM Server Win95, Win98, Win98 SE, Win ME
Includes specific error messages such as (among others): Fatal Exception 0E at 0028:???????? in VXD VREDIR or, in Win ME, File Name: VREDIR(06) + 00006C54 Error: 0E : 0028 : C02D2770. These Blue Screen of Death error messages can occur if your network is set up as a workgroup, you have a drive mapped to a Microsoft Windows NT-based server, and you run a DCOM program that attempts to start a remote server component on the Windows NT-based server. you may receive one of these error messages on a blue screen. The cause is that the redirector module, VREDIR.VXD, incorrectly references internal resource data for the mapped drive connection while setting up the connection that the DCOM Remote Procedure Call traffic will use. Microsoft has a supported fix for this. The article tells how to get it."Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows..." Win95, Win98, Win98 SE
If you get this error message when starting Windows, it may mean simply what it says on its face -- or it may not. Often a specific problem file is mentioned; sometimes, it is not. The problem may be either that a Windows virtual device driver (VxD) referenced in the SYSTEM.INI file or Registry is missing or damaged, or that one of the StaticVxD values in the Registry contains invalid data (for example, the value is blank or contains only spaces).WUAUCLT has caused an error in unknown Win ME
This error condition can appear after you have upgraded Win98 to Win ME, if you had Internet Connection Sharing installed in Win98."Your organization has decided to provide software updates internally..." Win98, Win ME
There have been a lot of questions about this one on the newsgroups this week. It is an error message that appears during Windows Update... but it may not be true! It could result, instead, from a missing or corrupt WUPDINFO.DLL file on your computer. The whole error message that is generated says: "Your organization has decided to provide software updates internally rather than through Windows Update. To download updates for your Windows computer, please see your Network Administrator."
KB ARTICLES: Outlook Express
How to Backup Outlook Express Address Book & Mail Folders
A helpful article, just added to the page. But, on this subject of Outlook Express backups (and other Outlook Express issues), be sure also to check out the web site of MS-MVP Tom Koch, www.tomsterdam.com.
KB ARTICLES: Windows Registry
This week, I have added quite a few new KB articles on the Registry to the Registry KB Articles page. They can also be accessed through the links below.
Description of the HKEY Registry Keys Win95, Win98, Win98 SE, Win ME
A concise summary of information stored in each of the main Registry sections.How to the Customize Registry Checker Tool (SCANREG) Settings Win98, Win98 SE, Win ME
I also have an article on my site describing the more common of these changes, here.Registry Keys Not Properly Updated When Importing .REG File Win95, Win98
This identifies and resolves a problem where data exists in the Registry, a .REG file is expected to overwrite and update it, but the .REG file adds a separate key instead, leaving the prior data not updated."An Error Occurred Writing the Registry" Win95, Win 98
While using Policy Editor.How to Remove Registry Entries Automatically Win95, Win 98, Win ME
How to create your own .INF files for Registry key removal. Not for the timid or sloppy!"The registry is corrupted. Windows must be installed to a new directory." Win98
Several reasons this error condition may occur while installing Win98.How to Obtain BIOS Information from the Registry Win95, Win 98, Win ME
Registry is Not Backed Up Automatically at Startup Win98
"You Have Restored a Good Registry..." Win98
This message is fine if it only occurs once. But if it occurs repeatedly, there is a problem, which this article addresses.
KB ARTICLES: Windows ME & 2000
ERROR MESSAGE: The Initialization of the Help Center Failed Win ME
Norton System Works 2000 Is Not Compatible with Win ME
Symantec announced some time back that Norton System Works 2000 -- which was being finalized for release months before Windows ME was available for final testing -- doesn't work well with ME. Personally, I had no problem with it -- but others did, and Symantec's warnings were strong, so I went ahead and updated to SW 2001. Microsoft is now issuing various KB articles saying the same thing, with focus on particular behaviors. This article addresses problems appearing after running LiveUpdate from SW2K on Win ME.SUBST Command Does Not Work in AUTOEXEC.BAT File in Win ME
SUBST works just fine in ME. However, it doesn't work to put it in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, because this isn't parsed by Win ME, and the SUBST command isn't understood by the environment section of the Registry. The solution: Create another batch file and put it in the Startup folder.Description of the Windows 2000 Recovery Console
There aren't a lot of articles aimed at home Win 2000 users. This is one of them, though. If you are having startup problems with Win2K, this may help.
Happy computing, everyone!
Jim Eshelman
(Comments about The E-List can be sent to: elist@aumha.org)THE NECESSARY LEGAL STUFF
DISCLAIMER: Any information given in this newsletter, or on any other part of the www.aumha.org website, is researched by me and believed to be accurate. However, I cannot guarantee, and do not guarantee, that all the information provided will work on all computer systems, for all users, all the time. Also, I sometimes make mistakes (that's life!), and it is possible I made one or more of them here. All information herein is offered as-is and without warranty of any kind. In other words, I rely on the best information sources I can, and do my best to get it to you accurately; and, thereafter, you take your life in your own hands if you trust me on it. Neither James Eshelman, this site, outside contributors to this site, people quoted on this site, nor my cat is/are responsible for any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, resulting from application of any information presented here.
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