Things you dont know about Windows XP | Secrets of Window XP

Found some of Windows XP's secrets on my research...just want to share it with you. Hope this will help, enjoy!

1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type 'systeminfo'. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type 'systeminfo > info.txt'. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).

2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run... and type 'gpedit.msc'; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care -- some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only).

3. You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation' in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That's it -- just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that's not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

4. XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word 'hide' and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

5. For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include 'eventcreate' and 'eventtriggers' for creating and watching system events, 'typeperf' for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and 'schtasks' for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options -- they're all far too baroque to go into here.

6. XP has IP version 6 support -- the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type 'ipv6 install' into Run... (it's OK, it won't ruin your existing network setup) and then 'ipv6 /?' at the command line to find out more. If you don't know what IPv6 is, don't worry and don't bother.

7. You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using 'taskkill /pid' and the task number, or just 'tskill' and the process number. Find that out by typing 'tasklist', which will also tell you a lot about what's going on in your system.

8. XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you've got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll'.

9. XP has ClearType -- Microsoft's anti-aliasing font display technology -- but doesn't have it enabled by default. It's well worth trying, especially if you were there for DOS and all those years of staring at a screen have given you the eyes of an astigmatic bat. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

10. You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who's using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum's real IP address -- they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com -- and get them to make sure that they've got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

11. You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As... and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

12. Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

13. You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run... from the start menu and type 'control userpasswords2', which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

14. Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options... and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

15. XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can't see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You'll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

16. The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

17. You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By... Show In Groups.

18. Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks -- if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn't, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

19. Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

Xbox360 Issues and Reports

The first time i heard about the news that microsoft and nvidia will team-up for the xbox360, i was shocked. I knew that this console will definitely hit the top chart knowing that nvidia came a long way when it comes to graphics. But after a year, I was starting to change my mind because of the technical & stability issues buzzing around the internet on the said console. I did some research and considered the ff issues...


THE RING OF DEATH

Lets start with what they call THE RING OF DEATH. This tittle refers to a "general hardware" failure or "core digital" failure, 3-flashing red lights appear (known as the "Red Ring of Death" or the "Three Red Lights of Death") around the power button. In normal operation, there are four green lights around the power button. Warning signs of it are freeze-ups, where screen has strange and spontaneous graphical problems in the middle of gameplay such as checkerboard or pinstripe patterns on the display, sound is frozen then changed to a strange, static-like sound, and the console only responds to power-off.

These may happen once or several times before general hardware failure occurs, or not at all. Does'nt mean that the error will occur just because your Xbox freezes once in a while. But when the error occur, the three red lights will appear and your console will not function.

As a response to high rate of failure... last July-5-07, the VP of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division published a letter recognizing the console's problems and announcing a three-year warranty extension for every Xbox 360 console that experiences the "general hardware failure" indicated by three flashing red LEDs on the console.

As per research, a source that has been identified as a team leader and key architect in the creation of the Xbox/Xbox 360 and a founding member of the Xbox team provided insight on the high rate of failures. Interviews shows that Xbox 360 units that fail early in their life was because of problems in the system design, parts supply, material reliability, and manufacturing issues as well as a system not tolerant to faults. These are the end results of the decisions of management in Microsoft's Xbox team with inadequate testing resources prior to the console's release. A second source stated that, at one time...there was just a 32% yield of one of the test production runs. 68 on every 100 units were found defective.

Cold solder joints and insufficient Cooling system are just some of the few things that caused many console to fail. As the temperature inside the console rises, the more the peripherals/parts inside becomes brittle as time goes by...which may lead to thin cracks that are almost irreparable.


SCRATCHED DISCS
Next issue will be SCRATCHED DISCS. Consumers began reporting rounded scratches found on discs used in their Xbox 360 consoles late 2005. "The Llamma's Adventures" investigated this and saw that some Xbox 360 drives lack a mechanism securing the disc solidly in place. Tilting or moving consoles with these drives when operating with a disc spinning inside can potentially cause damage to the disc, sometimes permanently. Disc can also be scratched by a xbox drive tray not functioning in the right way, the tray will close the disc in an odd position and scratch up the disc which can result in the laser being obliterated. Although this problem is not covered by the warranty, Microsoft's Xbox Disc Replacement Program will replace a limited range of scratched discs that are published in countries where the Xbox was originally sold for a $20 fee and a list of games that qualify for replacement were released.

Here are the reports courtesy of "BBC Watchdog Investigation of Xbox 360 disc scratches (2009)"
On March 23 2009, BBC's Watchdog TV show took an investigation into how the console scratches its own discs. One person featured in the investigation was 13-year-old boy Michael Mowatt, who saves up for his games by collecting pigeon droppings from his neighbor's pigeon coop. It usually takes him around a month to save up for new games for his console. When he tried out one of his newly-bought games, the game suddenly stopped reading and when he took the disc out, he found a carved circle around the inside of the disc. His mother (Rachel Mowatt) thought that Michael had been misusing the console and told him off for damaging the disc. But the same problem happened again with another of his discs a few days later, and this time Rachel knew that something was wrong. The console was still in warranty, so he sent it off to Microsoft for it to get looked at - but the scientists at Microsoft found nothing.

Same thing happened with Robert Monaghan and his family. They bought an Xbox 360 and a copy of Rock band (with all of the instruments) so that there was something for the family to do, but after a while playing the game, the game disc also was subjected to the carved inner ring problem on the disc. Robert thought that the children in his family were misusing the console as well, so he punished them. After a while, the same family bought Guitar Hero World Tour for the console instead, so that they still had something to do. Same thing happened, but this time dad Robert knew there was something wrong with the console. So, like Michael, he also sent his console away to be looked at - but again, no problems.

I felt so bad for this kid who worked so hard just to save up for his games by collecting pigeon droppings from his neighbor's pigeon coop... i just hope Microsoft will do someting about it :(

Below are the additional issues I found on the web involving XBOX console...


VIDEO FAILURE
In mid 2007, technology and gaming blogs began reporting about new problems with the Xbox 360 losing video output. The problems are characterized by a blank or staticky video output with a proper functioning audio output and no flashing red lights on the console. The complete video failure is sometimes preceded by other graphical glitches such as an irregular saturation of green and/or red colors.


E74 ERROR
An E74 error is when the lower-right quadrant of the ring-piece indicator flashes red and displays an error message in multiple languages: "E74 System Error. Contact Xbox Customer Support". The error is caused when there's a video problem, either because the audio/video cable is broken or when the Xbox 360 hardware scaler chip is damaged. As of April 14, 2009, the E74 error is now covered by the three-year extended warranty, and customers who previously paid Microsoft for out-of-warranty service to correct the E74 error will receive a refund.

Conflicker eye chart / Conficker eye chart, how it works?

I found a report about Conflicker eye chart and how it works. Conflicker eye chart is the easiest way to determine if your computer is infected with Conflicker worm. Basically, Conflicker eye chart consist of 2-parts... the upper portion are images from various antivirus websites while the images on the lower part are feed from various open source operating system distributions. These images are drawn directly from the six different websites to which each logo belongs. If your computer is infected with Conflicker worm or other type of malware (which are set to block access on different antivirus sites)... one of these images will not show.

The only other reasons that these images will not show is either you're image loading turned off in browser, poor internet connection OR the source of the images are currently down. Here are some websites hosting the exact same Eye Chart and which will work exactly the same way just incase you want to double check... joestewart, talkbiz, and confickerworkinggroup. Want to learn more about Conflicker Worm or widely known as April Fool's Day Virus? Click HERE.