THE

LIST

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 50,000 people per month 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

1. NEWS & VIEWS
2. TIPS
3. WINDOWS SUPPORT SITES
4. WINDOWS 95/98/ME SUPPORT ARTICLES & FAQ FILES
   
   MS KNOWLEDGE BASE Articles:
5. Commands, Utilities & Files
6. Error Messages
7. Internet Explorer & Outlook Express
   
   Other Microsoft Articles:
8. Windows XP

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NEWS & VIEWS

Cartoon reproduced courtesy of Computer Gear and Peter S. Conrad.

SERVER FOIBLES Last Thursday night, my web host moved us to a new server. This is a very good thing. They’re still working on some of the fine points. This is a bad thing. I apologize to all of you who may have been inconvenienced by this. These problems aren’t much of a surprise. I have a very wonderful web host. Site visitors compliment me on my site’s speed and, while this is partly due to efficient page coding, a lot of it also is due to the hosting server and its management. But servers go down, servers misbehave, and load balancing is an art as much as a science. In my experience, it is rare for a server migration to go flawlessly, though they commonly go well. I’m being patient. I’m sorry if it has made life difficult for any of you, my visitors. (PS – Check out the Computer Gear site, including the work of Peter S. Conrad. They have some hilarious T-shirts, and also were gracious enough to permit me to include one of Peter’s cartoons.)

READER RESPONSE ON PENTIUM 4 & RDRAM

Last issue, I advised people against buying a Pentium 4 at this time. There is every indication that Intel will be replacing it before Christmas, leaving the current P4s as technological dead-ends. Considering that the P3 is really a superb CPU, and AMD has a set of excellent products, I suggested that most people should steer clear if possible.

I still believe this is the best advice for the typical visitor to my site, and therefore the typical reader of The E-List. However, it might not be such good advice for the typical computer owner. E-List reader, friend, and fellow MS-MVP Gary Woodruff wrote to express a different angle on the question. (Visitors to www.aumha.org may know Gary as author of the two excellent articles on upgrading Win98 to Win98 SE and upgrading to Windows ME.) Gary supports a large number of people in the “Joe & Jo Average” category. I think his views were worth sharing:

The average computer user never adds anything to their systems. I have seen the number put at between 80 and 90% in a large number of articles. To someone in this category, the Pentium 4 at present slightly outperforms the PIIIs. Its RDRAM also slightly outperforms even DDR SDRAM particularly on video applications, which is one of the prime interests of Joe Average. When the next generation of software comes out, the P4, even if it is in a “crippled” state, will still outperform the PIIIs at least a little and probably a lot.

Would I suggest a computer builder put a bunch of these chips and boards for them in stock? No. Would I suggest one to the 3-5% of those out there that always upgrade their processors, RAM etc.? No. But would I suggest the P4 to one of those people who use their systems until they are hopelessly outdated — knowing the potential for it to perform well 3 to 5 years from now on the next generation software, and given that a 1.3 GHz P4 with 128 Meg of DDR RDRAM costs only $80 more then a 1 GHz PIII with non DDR SDRAM? Absolutely. I know your audience, for the most part, is the 3-5%, but I still have no problems recommending the P4 and RDRAM. Considering that I have only once upgraded a processor of mine, I would probably buy one myself. Particularly a 1.3 GHz, as it out-performs all the PIIIs and will at least have an upgrade path to 1.7 to 2 GHz at this point.

Oh well, I don’t really expect you to agree with any of this, but it keeps getting left out in the paranoia about the P4. The negative press may be true, but it does not mean a computer purchased with a P4 and RDRAM will go poof and turn into a pumpkin when a new version appears.

Thanks, Gary.

MICROSOFT’S APPELLATE (partial) VICTORY

I’m not going to comment on the U.S. Court of Appeals decision this last week vacating in full Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s final judgment in the U.S. Government’s antitrust suit against Microsoft — other than to say that their removal of Judge Jackson from the case was long overdue. Regardless of how any part of the case turns out in the end, I’m totally clear about one thing: Judge Jackson’s behavior in this case was the most injudicious behavior I’ve witnessed by any high-ranking juror in memory. And now he’s gone. Good!

I’ve downloaded the entire 125-page formal appellate decision, but have not yet read all of it. In fact, I might not read it. I stopped practicing law on January 1, 1998 — to reinvent myself professionally to do something fun and worthwhile, like helping people with computer problems. So I have no legal view on the decision itself in terms of current law.

However, for this Independence Day issue of The E-List, I do have a very strong opinion on this issue as a citizen. It’s the same opinion I stated on this matter two years ago: While the lower courts must base their decisions on existing law, my fundamental view is that existing law on monopoly issues has little or no relevance in modern Internet-based technological industries. Microsoft probably did break the law (at least, that’s what the courts have decided). But it’s bad law. We need to change the law. Those protections that were required to protect the American people from the monopolistic control of all or most petroleum resources and rail travel a century ago have no applicability to issues of operating systems, web browsers, and the like in today’s world. Even the creators and owners of the dominant Internet technologies will never control the Internet.

All of Microsoft’s actions would have been perfectly legal were they not technically a monopoly. Personally, I think those actions should be deemed legal anyway (even the actions that disturbed me) because I believe the law under which they are deemed illegal is unjust, off-point, and — okay, I’ll use the incendiary word — un-American.

Meanwhile, the circus has begun again. It may be a short show this time, but it always promises to have at least one or two entertaining acts. Enjoy the performance.

JUST HOW SLOW IS THE INTERNET TODAY?

Sometimes the Internet is slower than a slug. The rest of the time, of course, it isn’t. The last week or so, it’s been pretty bad. Critical parts of the Internet’s structure have been under attack this last week and, though it hasn’t made the news (those DDoS attacks are so common these days, y’know), the results have been terribly obvious to anyone who lives a significant part of life online.

This week, I added something new to my Site Search page. It’s an Internet speedometer (on a 0 to 100 scale) based on the Internet Traffic Report at Opnix. It’s a pretty cool quick-reference. (Sometimes it’s helpful to know whether the slows are on your own system, or on the Internet overall; and not everyone wants to, or knows how to, sit and run a bunch of pings and traceroutes.) Click the report box and it will take you to their page, where you can see dynamic graphs — either for the world in general, or for a particular continent — of Internet speeds for the last 24 hours, the last week, and the last 30 days. Check out the last week and last month to see just how many serious service dropouts there have been. It may surprise you!

YOUR “TOP 10” FAVORITES FROM JUNE

Here are the 10 most visited pages on this site, www.aumha.org, during the month of June, and a comparison of how their ranking is changing from month to month. The most significant trends: MSKB articles on Error Messages continue to rise rapidly in popularity. Windows 98 SE shutdown troubleshooting has dropped from No. 2 to No. 5 in the last two months (though other shutdown troubleshooting pages retain their popularity). KERNEL32 errors are drawing more attention once again. The E-List entered the charts at No. 10 (and we thank you for your support and interest!).

Rank (May)	Rank (June)	% of Hits	Page Visited
1	1	29%	Windows Shutdown Troubleshooting: 15 Steps
3	2	13%	KB Articles on ERROR MESSAGES
2	3	11%	Windows Millennium Shutdown Troubleshooting
5	4	9%	My Favorite Freeware
4	5	9%	Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Troubleshooting
6	6	7%	Windows 98/ME Memory Management
9	7	6%	Suggested Fix for KERNEL32.DLL Errors
8	8	6%	Registry Patches
7	9	5%	Windows Support Sites
**	10	5%	The E-List

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TIPS

Have a SAFE, FUN 4th of July. (Even if you aren’t American — you have my personal invitation to lift a glass of your favorite to toast liberty, however you understand it.)

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WINDOWS SUPPORT SITES

Chris Pirillo’s LockerGnome newsletter has had my endorsement for a long time. I read it daily (well, every day it shows up). I know many of you read it, too. What fewer people know, though, is that there are several LockerGnome versions. In particular, and in addition to Chris’ “Windows Daily,” there is a “LockerGnome Tech Specialist” edition written by Randy Nieland. The Tech Specialist edition includes “Information Technology reviews for Windows users, sysadmin advice, troubleshooting resources, IT job assistance, and other stuff for the tech professional.” I read this one regularly, too, and recommend it if you are interested in these subjects.

I mention Randy Nieland’s newsletter at the moment because all four of the links I give below — all of which were added recently to my Windows Support Sites page — originally came from tips in the LockerGnome Tech Specialist newsletter. They are tutorial and information sites on web technologies that most people learn only after they have HTML under their belt, and which go beyond HTML capabilities. Randy seems to have a real nose for tracking these down, and I happily add some of them as permanent links to the HTML Tutorials & Resources section of my site as I learn of them. If this subject interests you, consider subscribing to the Tech Specialist newsletter. (Tell Chris I sent you. It’s been a couple of years since he reviewed my site in his newsletter — hint, hint!)

By the way, I’m teaching myself XML at the moment, mostly to broaden my skill set. That means, of course, that I’m looking for someplace to use it on my site. Before I get too carried away, there’s a question to which I cannot find the answer, and which will make a big difference in whether I use it here or not: Does anyone know which browser versions support XML? None of the references at hand tell me this, and I’d hate to screw up the 14% of you that don’t use IE 5.0 or later. TIA.

CSS Pointers Group
A page of links — lots of information links! — on Cascading Style Sheets, Dynamic HTML, and the eXtensible Markup Language, XML.

CGI & PERL Tutorials
Not everything you’ll ever want to know — but more than enough to get your started.

How to Build Your First ASP Application
This is a Microsoft Knowledge Base article on the subject. It covers the essentials, and gives useful educational links for when you want to go further.

JavaScript Source
Hundreds of basic scripts to download and use. (Please don’t use hundreds of them on your web page!)

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WINDOWS 95/98/ME SUPPORT ARTICLES & FAQ FILES

NEW! WINDOWS XP SHUTDOWN TROUBLESHOOTING PAGE

In the last issue of The E-List, I included a summary of what is known thus far about shutdown problems in Windows XP. (Remember, Win XP isn’t finished yet — these problems only exist in the current Beta version.) That information has now been incorporated into a permanent, evolving Windows XP (Beta 2) Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting page.

I especially invite reader contributions to the information on this page. It is by strong user community involvement that the shutdown issue has been most effectively tackled in the past. Here is a list of the various shutdown and restart troubleshooting resources on the www.aumha.org site:

• Windows Shutdown Troubleshooting: 15 Steps for all versions of Windows 9x
• Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting
• Windows Millennium Edition Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting
• Windows XP (Beta 2) Shutdown & Restart Troubleshooting
• Knowledge Base Links: Shutdown & Restart Problems

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KB ARTICLES: Specific Commands

Disk Defragmenter Causes General Protection Fault in USER.EXE Win95, Win98
If this occurs when you try to run the Disk Defragmenter from System Agent or Windows Task Scheduler, it probably means that the task definition is damaged. Delete the entry in System Agent or Task Scheduler, and make a new one.

Error Defragmenting Drive <X>. Windows Could Not Access... Win95, Win98
I added this one to the page primarily because it addresses Defrag errors numbered DEFRAG005 and DEFRAG006. I wish Microsoft would give us a comprehensive list of these — the partial list currently available from MS is seriously incomplete. (Fortunately, MS-MVP Mike Burgess made a gift this week of a list of these codes, from which I’ve built a new page on Disk Defragmenter Error Codes.) The error condition described in the above article occurs when Defrag can’t read from (DEFRAG006 error) or write to (DEFRAG005 error) one or more bad sectors on the hard disk. To resolve this problem, run ScanDisk. (The article gives layers of running a successively more sophisticated ScanReg check.)

Registry Editor (REGEDIT) or System Configuration Editor (SYSEDIT) Does Not Start As Expected Win98, Win98 SE
If either of these programs will start in Safe Mode but not in normal mode, you may have the PWSteal.Trojan (also known as the APStrojan.QA Trojan) on your computer. Get rid of it!

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KB ARTICLES: Error Messages

EXPLORER caused in Invalid Page Fault in EXPLORER.EXE Win98, Win98 SE
Juno anyone? Here’s one thing to watch out for: When you upgrade the Juno software, or download and install Juno Web, it may automatically install an earlier version of Internet Explorer than is already on your computer. Or (as sometimes happens during downloads and installs), Juno’s IE install may be corrupt. If either of these occurs, you receive the error message above, or a similar one.

EXPLORER caused an Invalid Page Fault in module <unknown> Win98
The COMCTL32.DLL file cannot start. Win98
After you upgrade the version of Internet Explorer that is native to Windows 98, you may get either of the above error messages — and discover that you can’t successfully load Windows. Even Safe Mode may not work. The cause? During the upgrade process, something happened to the COMCTL32.DLL file. The version on your computer is damaged, or is from a wrong version of IE. The solution? Install and register the correct version of the file. This article gives step-by-step procedures.

RUNDLL or RUNDLL32 caused a General Protection Fault in MMSYSTEM.DLL Win95, Win98, Win ME
If the “drivers=mmsystem.dll” line is missing from the [boot] section of the SYSTEM.INI file, you may get either of the error messages mentioned above; or a message that RUNDLL or RUNDLL32 has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down; or other random general protection fault error messages referring to MMSYSTEM.DLL.

Windows Protection Error After Upgrading to Windows ME Win98, Win98 SE
If you have McAfee VirusScan or Panda Antivirus installed on your computer when you upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows ME, you may get all sorts of problems. Most likely you will get Windows protection errors, or Windows will freeze on you during computer startup (or, for that matter, any time at all), or you may experience other forms of general instability (in your computer, that is). The reason is that Panda Antivirus (before version 6.20) and some versions of McAfee VirusScan simply are not compatible with Windows ME.

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KB ARTICLES: Internet Explorer & Outlook Express

Cannot Print Web Pages IE 5.5 for Win ME
Several Knowledge Base articles address various printing problems in Internet Explorer. Over time, I’ve gathered many of these for the page titled Knowledge Base Links: Internet Explorer & Outlook Express, which was restructured this week to collect the printing-related articles under their own subheading.

This new article addresses a specific situation involving Internet Explorer version 5.5 on Windows Millennium Edition. The printing problem occurs if the Unicode option isn’t selected as the default encoding language. (Click View | Encoding in IE.)

Cannot Print from Internet Explorer IE5 or 5.5 For Win95/98
If the IEPEERS.DLL file is corrrupted or is the incorrect version, then when trying to print or use print preview you will get the following error message:

Line: 539
Char: 2
Error: Invalid argument.
Code: 0 URL: res://C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SHDOCLC.DLL/preview.dlg

The solution is to extract and register a good copy of IEPEERS.DLL. See the article for detailed instructions.

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MICROSOFT ARTICLES: Windows XP

Questions & Answers About Microsoft Product Activation
Product Activation is the most controversial Windows XP element. One segment of the potential Win XP user pool has been quite loud in objecting to it. However, from reading a few hundred newsgroup posts in this vein, it seems to me that most people reacting against Product Activation don’t have accurate information about the subject. At least for the most part, they are responding to fears founded only on incomplete information and inflammatory rumor.

Sure, there are still questions unanswered about Product Activation. But Microsoft already has answered most of the practical issues complained about. The above article, in particular, clears up a lot of misinformation. Unfortunately, it’s from January. I wish it were more recent. It’s the most recent formal discussion of the subject from Microsoft that I’ve found.

What’s my view on the subject? I’ve adopted an optimistic “wait and see” attitude. At present, I think the following are true:

1. Most people using Windows XP (90%) won’t blink an eye about Product Activation. As Gary Woodruff mentioned in his correspondence quoted above, 80-90% of consumers buy a computer, use it until it dies or they’re ready for a new one, and never significantly upgrade it. Therefore, Product Activation will be a two-minute part of their installation process (which may, in fact, have been done by their dealer), and they’ll never give significant thought to it again.
   
   
2. People who pass around their Windows copies to friends, or who buy one copy and install it (against the EULA) on multiple computers, won’t like Product Activation. This makes sense, because it was designed to stop them, and people don’t like to be stopped. Most of these people (about 70%) will take this in stride philosophically, realizing that they have, in fact, been getting away with violating their license agreement for a lot of years, and the free lunch has stopped. The other 30% will complain, some of them loudly.
   
   
3. The other group most likely to complain before actually installing and using Windows XP are people who make frequent upgrades to their computer hardware and believe Product Activation will make their lives hell. This comes from an incorrect belief that every new video card (for example) will force them to call Microsoft on the telephone and, as one correspondent phrased it this morning, “beg them to let me keep using my computer.” This scenario is so far from how Product Activation works as to amount to campy surrealism. It is especially for these people that I provide the article linked above. Read how Product Activation works — it will set many of your fears to rest. Information has wonderful curative power at times!
   
   
4. Not all fears will be allayed, however. It was completely predictable that Microsoft’s introduction of Product Activation would raise a ferociously loud, adverse reaction. This is simply human nature. Russian citizens endured tyranny, cruelty, and hardship for decades, but it was in the week following the prohibition of vodka that the Russian Revolution broke out! (Poor Anastasia!) Restrict people and they will react against the restriction — independent of any consideration of the legitimacy of the restriction.
   
   
5. If Product Activation does not work with reasonable sanity and efficiency — if doubts of Microsoft’s ability to handle this feature are proven valid once things get going — then it will fail miserably. I believe, however, that they will provide sufficient staffing for this, since they want the program to succeed.
   
   
6. I’ve only been addressing practical realities. There are also philosophical realities. I leave these to the respective philosophers to ponder and expostulate, as they will.
   
   
7. In the end, as in the beginning: Most people using Windows XP (90%) won’t blink an eye about Product Activation. It will be around as long as Microsoft finds it to be a good return on the dollar, then they’ll stop using it. That’s just common sense.
   
   

What do you think about all of this?

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Happy computing, everyone!

Jim Eshelman

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.

The E-List. Copyright © 2001 by James A. Eshelman. All Rights Reserved.

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