There are two separate problems with my computer I was hoping you could help with. First, when running Norton Disk Doctor to scan and fix the hard drives a message appears saying the security descriptors have not been fixed. Ticking the options to fix errors within Norton Disk Doctor does not result in the issue being addressed as CHKDSK runs on the next boot and does not detect any errors. Can you explain what the security descriptors are and how they can be fixed? Second, when I use Windows Media Player 10 or 11 to download information on CDs often this information is wrong. I am unsure why this occurs, and it would be useful to obtain the correct information for the CDs. Can you also tell me where Windows Media Player stores the CD information database, so I can back this up should I need to reinstall Windows (to avoid having to re-download all the CD information)?

Security descriptors are part of the Windows operating system and attach to various Windows objects (such as files, folders, and registry entries) and allow security permissions to be assigned to these objects. For example, they contain the Access Control Lists (ACLs) for various objects in Windows which specify which users or groups are allowed to access that object. These are generally not used by home users and are more applicable to enterprise environments to specify which users and groups can access particular Windows objects. However, they are still relevant to the home user in the situation where you have multiple Windows user accounts setup on the computer and some users may not be granted access to particular resources (e.g. generally non-administrator users cannot access other users documents and files). It seems that Norton Disk Doctor has a bad habit of reporting that there are security descriptor problems with the file system, even though these may not actually exist. From your description of the problem it seems that the Windows CHKDSK utility is running when the computer reboots. One of the functions of the CHKDSK utility is to scan the hard drive and detect then fix any such security descriptor problems. If the CHKDSK utility runs and scans the computer, these problems should be fixed. So, when Norton Disk Doctor reports that the problem still exists this is unlikely to be true, and from reading other users who have experienced the same problem this appears to be the general consensus. Therefore, I would see that the security descriptors error is nothing to worry about – so long as CHKDSK is running and scanning the drive then everything should be alright.

Regarding the problem of Windows Media Player downloading the incorrect CD information, while the CD information download service is relatively good at detecting CDs it is not always completely accurate. If you have inserted some more obscure CDs into the computer then it may have difficulty detecting the CD and downloading the correct track information. However, it is possible that there is something wrong with Windows Media Player preventing it from downloading the correct information. The most effective way to test whether the problem is with Windows Media Player on your computer, or whether the issue is related to the CD, is to insert the CD into another computer running Windows Media Player and see whether the CD track information downloads correctly. If the track information does not download correctly, and is incorrect, this indicates the issue is with Windows Media Player and the online CD database not correctly recognising the CD and providing an accurate track listing. In this situation there is not much you can do, since it is a problem with Windows Media Player or the online CD database. In this situation you will need to manually enter the CD track details into Windows Media Player. However, in the situation where the CD does correctly download the track information on another computer there appears to be a problem with your computer. As the first step, I would recommend you try updating to the latest version of Windows Media Player. At the time of writing this was WMP 11, which it seems you have tried but since you also discuss WMP 10 I am unsure which version you are currently running. Once you have updated to the latest version (by visiting windowsupdate.microsoft.com) check the settings which are related to download CD track information off the internet. In WMP go to the “File” menu > “Tools” > “Options” (if the menu is not visible, press ALT to trigger the menu). In the Options window that appears, click the “Privacy” tab. Make sure the following options are enabled:

• Display media information from the internet
• Update music files by retrieving media info from the Internet
• Download usage rights automatically when I play or sync a file
• Automatically check if protected files need to be refreshed
• Set clock on device automatically

Once all these settings are enabled click OK and try again. In theory, these are the only settings which control the automatic download of CD track information. If you continue to have problems downloading the CD track information you should try closing all other programs running in the background, in case any of these are conflicting with Windows Media Player. This would be quite an odd scenario, but still possible. Should the problem cease after closing all the background programs, one of those programs is conflicting with Windows Media Player. In this situation, I suggest that you restart the computer (so that all those background processes load again) and then close each process one-by-one, each time checking whether the problem continues or stops. This should allow you to narrow down exactly which program is causing the problem. Please let me know the results of your investigation.