By default Windows displays folders in Icon view. However, I find it much more efficient to default all folders to Details view, as this shows much more useful information about files and folders. In Windows XP, to change the default view to Details for all folders, open My Computer (or any folder) and go to the “View” menu > “Details”. This will change the current folder to Details view. We now need to set each folder to display in the same way. Go to the “Tools” menu > “Folder Options”. Select the “View” tab and click the “Apply to All Folders” button. This will apply that same Details view across all folders on the computer. To do the same in Windows Vista and Windows 7, open a folder and click the “Views” button > “Details”. Then, click the “Organize” button > “Folder and Search Options”. In the window that appears, click the “View” tab and “Apply to Folders” button. Be aware, in Windows 7 the settings will only be applied to folders which are optimised (i.e. set to primarily display) for the same content as the folder which you used when making the settings change. For example, if you change the view setting for a folder optimised to display pictures (e.g. My Pictures) then all folders optimised for pictures will use the new setting, whereas other folders will not. For more information on this Windows 7 specific behaviour, look at the bottom of the article on the following Microsoft web page: windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows7/Change-folder-options .

I recently purchased a new Toshiba L300 laptop computer running Windows Vista. Since I prefer Windows XP, and have a spare copy of the software, I attempted to replace Windows Vista with Windows XP. I proceeded through the standard steps to install Windows XP – booting from the Windows XP CD into the setup. However, when the screen appeared asking on which partition Windows should be installed all that it said was “Unknown Disk” and it was not possible to proceed beyond this point. My research into the problem indicates that Windows XP does not have the drivers for the new types of hard disk. The disk properties are: “Intel(R) 82801 HEM/HBM SATA AHCI controller” and “Intel(R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers – 2850”. As far as I am aware, I will need to install the drivers for the drive (f6flpy3289.zip) at the F6 prompt during the installation loading sequence, which allows for the installation of third party drivers. Are you able to advise whether I am on the correct track and whether I could expect any other problems installing Windows XP on this laptop? (more…)

If you have accidentally deleted a file from your computer, USB thumb drive, camera memory card or any other kind of storage device then it may be recoverable. When a file is deleted, the space that file occupied is marked to be overwritten, but is not actually overwritten until new data requires that space. Therefore, if the space has not been overwritten you may be able to recover the file. A very good free utility providing file recovery functionality is Recuva (www.piriform.com/recuva).

My Windows XP computer is currently experiencing three problems. First, during Windows logon the computer spontaneously generates an error with the message: “Windows - No Disk. Exception Processing Message c0000013 Parameters 75b67c”. The floppy disk drive usually lights up at this point and if I insert a disk and click “Retry” the message usually disappears. However, occasionally this has no effect and no amount of clicking on “Retry”, “Cancel”, or “Continue” will make the message disappear, and I have to drag it to a corner of the screen to get it out of the way as it will usually persist in whatever application I am working. Second, I have an external USB hard drive of 1 TB capacity which I use to archive various files. Recently I started receiving error messages to the effect that “Windows was unable to save all the data for the file E:\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connections. Please try to save the file elsewhere” when accessing files in that drive. This happens after I have been accessing files in the drive for some, but varying, time already. When it occurs I am unable to access files on the drive and the files sometimes even disappear from their folders! At its worst, if I back out and try to re-enter the hard drive I can get a message like “E:\My Music is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”. However, if I restart the computer the problem fixes itself although sometimes this is only temporary and I have to do it one or more additional times to clear the problem. Now when the computer first starts the Windows Check Disk application runs. It has been directed two or three times at the external hard drive and once so far at the C:\ drive. Lastly, I was having a problem due to a loose wire in the “master” of a pair of satellite speakers. At some point when trying to re-establish the connection the sound from the “slave” of the pair was lost. Rather than have them repaired I purchased an identical replacement speaker set and, although the “master” now works as it should, I get no sound out of the new “slave”. The LED indicating power on the “slave” does not light on either the original or the replacement “slave”. I have also replaced the sub-woofer and the connections. Does this indicate a problem with the sound-card or some other part of the computer’s sound functionality? (more…)

If you frequently use a particular program in Windows XP it could be worthwhile pinning that program to the Start menu to make it easier and quicker to access. To pin a program to the Windows XP start menu, simply right-click on the shortcut for the program and click “Pin to Start menu”. It will now appear below the default web browser and email client in the Start menu.