In Mac OS Leopard the mount point for network drives is not displayed on the desktop by default. This means if you connect to a network drive, an icon will not appear on the desktop allowing you to double-click and open the network drive, but instead you can only access the network drive through a Finder window. This can be quite a nuisance. However, there is a somewhat hard to find setting which can be enabled to display the network drive mount point on the desktop. In the Finder, go to the “Finder” menu > “Preferences”. In the window that appears, select the “General” tab. Tick “Connected Services” and close the window. All connected servers will now appear on the desktop. (more…)

My computer constantly freezes when surfing the internet, and upon restarting the computer (which can take 10 minutes or longer) a message appears on screen saying ?Error loading C:WINDOWSsystem32j261130.dll. The specified module could not be found?. Some days I need to restart the computer 4 or 5 times due to these freezes. As part of the weekly computer maintenance I run the Disk Defragmenter and Scan Disk, along with Norton Internet Security scans. However, this does not help fix the issue. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

As Windows starts the following message appears: ?Windows Defender. Application failed to initialize: 0×800106ba. A problem caused Windows Defender Service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help and Support on how to start a service manually”. How can I prevent this message from appearing on startup” The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

When Windows starts a message appears on screen saying that ?Setup.ins. Cannot find the file setup.ins (or one of its components)? which is followed by ?Desktop. Could not load or run setup.ins specified in the registry. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference to it in the registry?. I need to manually click OK to close these messages, otherwise the Windows startup process will not complete. This is quite an inconvenience, and significantly slows down the Windows startup process. How can I stop these messages from appearing on startup? I looked in the SK archive and found an answer to this question from a few years ago, but I cannot find any reference to ?setup.ins? within the HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun registry keys. The computer is running Windows 2000. (more…)

Those not familiar with using an Apple MacBook may find the presence of a single button under the Trackpad a bit disconcerting, especially if you intend to right-click on something. However, there is an ingenious way Apple has integrated right-click functionality. Placing two fingers on the Trackpad and then pressing the button will simulate a right-click. This works by default in Windows XP (through Boot Camp) but to enable this feature in Mac OS you need to go to the Apple menu > “System Preferences” > “Keyboard & Mouse”. In the Keyboard & Mouse Preferences window, click the “Trackpad” tab and tick “Place two fingers on trackpad and click button for secondary click”. (more…)