www.mydfz.com > Valerie's Interests > Installing Windows XP

Installing Windows XP

Some people are never satisfied and unfortunately, I am sometimes one of them. On another page, (Here) I've described the process I went through to install Windows 2000 on my Pentium 4 1.8Ghz system. That worked fine for about six months or so but then I made the mistake(?) of upgrading the hardware and found myself in another protracted bout of installations. While this may not be a complete blow-by-blow report of everything that happened, it does raise some issues new to XP and should provide a lot of help to anyone who has not done this kind of job before. It's also handy for me to have a place to look when I'm trying to remember what I did.

On my Windows 2000 installation writeup I made a point of mentioning every time I had to reboot. I'm not going to do that this time for two reasons. 1) Windows XP did not require nearly as many reboots and 2) I didn't take as good of notes of exactly when each reboot occurred. On the other hand, I do have a whole bunch of new utility programs to tell you about.

If you don't find the information you need here (or just want more, More, MORE!), check out http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/yournewpc.mspx which has links to lots of pages of information of interest to those setting up a new computer.

Enjoy!

Valerie Kramer
June 3, 2004

I've had my Pentium 4 1.8Ghz up and running for a couple of years now and started to feel that urge to upgrade. My hope was to speed up the system some since it was getting a bit sluggish despite my efforts to weed out unnecessary active programs, files, etc. I was also experiencing some operational weirdness, probably due to some software that I'd installed and other software I'd installed then removed. I needed a good excuse to build the system up from scratch again. I wound up with the following:

Getting the hardware together wasn't a problem but my first challenge was getting the SATA hard drive to be recognized. This motherboard is pretty fancy. It has two IDE channels, Some kind of IDE RAID channel and the SATA channels. Apparently some of them somehow "overlap" one another. The documentation, as usual, is less then one might wish even though a full book comes with the motherboard. One of these days tech writers will figure out we don't need to be told how to use a menu and instead tell us what the options MEAN! Anyway I finally got the drive running by changing the entry in the BIOS from "Auto" to "Combined".

Next I had a problem with the CD drive. In the lowest bay, the back corner was just touching a torroid inductor on the motherboard and that was somehow interfering with operation. I don't know if it was an actual short or if it was just upsetting the inductance but moving the drive to a higher bay solved the problem. I later put a 5.25" floppy drive in the lower bay and it worked ok, but it was 1/4" or 1/8" shorter than the CD drive. (Yes, I still have a ton of software on those old floppies. One of these days I'll get it all converted. Right after I win the lottery and have time to work on it.)

My next problem was that the motherboard temperature alarm started going off. I had a difficult time finding out what temperature it should be set to. I changed the alarm setting in the BIOS from 50°C to 53°C and later to 56°, 63° and I think it's now at 66°C. Eventaully I was given to understand that the CPU has thermal protection built in so that if it gets hotter, it just slows down to generate less heat and that if it gets over 70°C it will shut down altogether to protect itself. I never did get a really good answer to how high to set the temperature sensor. As I write this the CPU is running at 42°C (107°F). I gather that when I start working it hard, it gets hotter. On more than a few occasions it has gotten hot enough to set off the alarm. Maybe I've finally got the alarm set high enough. Maybe. But it makes me nervous. I'm not a real happy camper with this CPU. It's nice that it protects itself but I am not comfortable with the fact that it sporadically runs a temperature. The case has a fan in the power supply, a fan on the back of the case and a fan on the CPU that vents thru a tube out the side of the case and still it set off the alarm. I have finally just left the side of the case off. Of course that's nothing new. Most of my systems are operated with at least one side open. I seem to be in them twiddling with something too often to bother putting the case back together each time.

When I first set this new system up, I installed Windows 2000 but I ran into some goofy problems which I, unfortunately, didn't document. Windows 2000 doesn't support the new Hyperthreading in the CPU and XP does. Besides I wanted to get some experience with Windows XP so I'll spare the story of Windows 2000 which is still available on the other page (www.mydfz.com/HDblues.htm) from my previous installation. Here then is the story of installing Windows XP Pro.

1. Enable Hyperthreading in the BIOS

2. Boot from the WinXP CD - ERROR: Failed to find un-fdisk'ed HD. OK, I'd had Win2k on their and the disk was still partitioned. Sheesh! Why should WinXP complain if you want to re-cycle an old hard drive? Another example of Microsoft making life "easier" for their customers. Yeah, right.

3. Boot from a Win98 floppy (Another joy - you can't make a boot floppy from Windows 2000 or if you can, I've never been able to find out how. Windows XP Pro does allow you to make a "DOS boot disk" but I've been unable to find the Fdisk and Format programs to put on it to make it worth anything.)

4. Fdisk - Having booted from a Win98 floppy I ran FDISK. It said there was no Hard Drive present!?

5. I checked the BIOS settings and changed some (but didn't write down which ones). I also checked the cables. Something I did must have helped. Another change that I made somewhere in these first steps is that I elected to boot from the old IDE 120Gb drive instead of from the SATA drive. I don't think SATA is quite ready for prime time and would probably not recommend such a drive to others at present but I think they will be the future and are going to be way cool when all the bugs are out and all the support software/hardware is in place.

6. Boot from WinXP CD. Disk found by BIOS. C: = 29447Kb, FAT32. - 32Mb is as large as one can make a partition under Fat32. Under NTFS it can be much, much larger but few, if any, of my disk utilities, including Spinrite 5, will work on NTFS drives. Spinrite 6 should be out soon and is supposed to be OS and format independent so this should no longer be a problem before long. Meanwhile, I'll stick to FAT32. Windows can convert a FAT drive to NTFS but won't convert it back. Partition Magic 8 can convert in either direction.

Having booted successfully, I let the CD install Windows XP Pro on the 120Gb IDE hard drive.

7. Install GeForce FX520 drivers from the AOpen VGA CD. I set it to 1024x768 resolution and 32bit color.

8. Install Viewsonic E95 monitor CD - I'm not really sure how necessary or desirable it was to do this but I did it anyway.

9. Install Motherboard Drivers - The motherboard comes with an "AOpen Bonus Pack" CD with lots of drivers and toys on it. Here's what I installed in this order:

10. Install Samsung ML-1650 printer driver PCL 6 - I Didn't have to do anything. This was automagically set up by Windows XP.

11. Set up Task Bars

Windows has three different things all named, "Explorer"!

12. Configure Windows Explorer -

First I like to make some cosmetic changes on the VIEW menu. I select Details and turn on the Status bar. On the Toolbars submenu, I select the Standard Buttons and Address Bar then Lock the toolbars. On the Explorer Bar submenu I select Folders.

Some of Windows Explorer's default options may be good for a newbie user but some of them can lead to real trouble for anyone. I go into the Tools menu, Folder Options and select the View tab. I then make the choices as follows:

13. Install 6-in-1 USB card reader. - In Windows XP this is just a matter of plugging it in. No additional driver is needed. This is already old news. That particular unit has since been replaced with an 8-in-1 USB 2.0 unit.

14. Install Casio KB-C10 Label Printer Driver. - After a reboot I had to update KLSMSEP from the copy stored in one of the Windows directories (use the Search feature on the Start menu to find the file.) I suppose I could also have reloaded it from the driver CD but I know from experience that it's already on the hard drive. I don't know why the system keeps thinking that it's missing. More Windows Weirdness.

15. Kodak DC-325 USB camera - With great reluctance I had to box this unit up and put it out for sale (used). This was the best USB webcam type camera I've ever had and I hated to part with it but it just doesn't work under Windows XP. *sigh*

16. Partition Hard drive - Up to this point, the only partition on the hard drive was the C: partition. Now I went to Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management and set up the rest of the hard drive. First I created an extended partition covering all the unused space on the drive. I then created logical drives in that area, keeping them each below 32Gb so they could be formatted as FAT32. Once the drive was partitioned, I also had to format each newly created drive which can also be done from the Disk Management panel. Hint: Don't forget you can RIGHT-CLICK on things to get a context menu!

17. Set DNS Addresses - The next step was to get the network working. I get an IP address from a DHCP server but I like to put in specific DNS addresses. It makes the Internet work a little faster because it's one less thing that my computer has to query for and wait to have returned.

18. Windows Critical Updates - I had to do this the hard way but now you can go to http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp and order a free (they don't even charge for shipping!) security update CD from Microsoft. It contains all the critical updates for the various Windows versions up to about November 2003. A very handy thing to have around! After applying this CD (if you have it), you need to use the Windows Update feature (Start menu / All Programs / Windows Update) to go to the Windows web site and download and install all available critical updates. The CD simply saves you downloading time and reduces the chance of someone invading your computer while you are downloading the updates. Computers have been known to be discovered and taken over by hostile software in as little as 15 minutes after being connected to the Internet and the average is only about 3 hours so getting these critical updates applied is very, very important! Note that your system can be invaded just by being connected... you don't have to run anything, visit any web site, or do ANYTHING... just be connected! Also note that if your system is compromised, not only is it a problem for you, but it will probably be used to attack other systems so it becomes a problem for all of us! Keep current on Critical Updates! You should then plan to check the Windows Update for new patches at least once a month. I believe Microsoft currently releases new patches on the second Tuesday of the month but that doesn't mean they might not post some at other times too.

The Windows Update site breaks the updates into "Critical Updates and Service Packs", "Windows", and "Driver Updates". You should always apply any available items in the first category. The ones under "Windows" are optional. You will probably want most of them but you may decide against some and there is no urgency to apply any of them. I recommend against applying anything from the Driver Updates. I've seen too many computers messed up by applying them. If the site says there is a driver update available, look to see what it is, then go to the manufacturer's site and get the driver from there if you want to install it. This seems to be much safer than using the ones found on the Windows Update site.

19. Register and Activate Windows - One of the reasons I didn't want to migrate to Windows XP is Microsoft's new activation policy. You can only install XP two times. If you want to install it again, you have to phone Microsoft and get some kind of code. Also, if you make many changes to your hardware, Windows may think it's a new installation even if it isn't. You can see how this might be an issue for someone who changes their computers around as much as I do! I'm still not happy about it but so far, it hasn't been a real problem. Of course it's only been a few months as I write this.

20. Windows Updates - This time I went back and got the optional updates that I wanted.

21. SATA-IDE box - I bought an external SATA box thinking I could put the SATA drive in it and plug it into a USB port. That way I could use the SATA drive with any of my computers (right now only one has a SATA interface). Turns out the box isn't what I thought I was buying. I thought there was a USB connection from the computer to the box and a SATA connection inside the box. Instead there is a IDE connection inside the box and a SATA connection from the box to the computer. So far, I have two weird boxes and neither is what I wanted. *sigh* On the good side, the SATA drive works fine inside my computer. Of course, between the IDE boot drive, the SATA drive, and another external USB - IDE drive I now have 400Gb of hard disk space readily available. I think that will hold me for a few more months. :)

22. Windows Update - Yet again. This time to get DirectX 9.0b

23. Install Microtek Scanmaker 5 for my Microtek Scanmaker 4900 scanner. For some reason, it shows as "USB2400 Scanner" but it seems to work ok.

24. Install Fastrack 378 RAID driver - I don't remember why I did this. I'm not using RAID. I guess it was just there and I got carried away or else I clicked on the wrong thing by mistake. Oh well. No harm done.

25. Copy WinXP CD to C:

In the "good ol' days" one could copy the Windows CD to the hard disk first, then install it from there. That was faster and it also meant that if any later installation needed some uninstalled file from the CD, it would look to the hard drive and I wouldn't have to go find the CD. I tried doing that with XP but it didn't seem to work (at least not with my OEM copy of XP) so I installed from the CD and copied it at this time so that at least the files would be conveniently on the hard drive even if I have to keep redirecting Windows to find them when they are needed.

26. Install Office 2000 and Office Service Pack 2

27. Copy E: drive - from my old computer's hard drive to the new one. D: & E: contain data, downloaded files, and other such stuff.

28. Copy D: drive- from my old computer's hard drive to the new one. D: & E: contain data, downloaded files, and other such stuff.

29. Transfer files & settings

I try to take good notes. I really do. Somehow, I never succeed completely. There's always something that made sense at the time but doesn't ring any bells later. My notes say "Transfer files & settings w/ NWIZ from XP. Log off (not reboot!)" I know what "transfer files & settings" means but I don't remember anything about "NWIZ" nor could I find such a file on my computer nor any information about it on the web. Well, actually I did find an NWIZ program but it was associated with my Nvidia video card and had nothing to do with transferring files or settings. Microsoft does have a web page, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/crawford/november12.asp, titled "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" and I think this is what I meant. I probably meant to write "Winwiz from XP" since it is a new utility in Windows XP. Anyway it's a really cool way to transfer stuf from one machine to another or just to backup your settings to disk. I won't go over all the details since Microsoft has so kindly provided the information on their site. I'll just say that you'll find an icon for the wizard at Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools then look for "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard." As I recall I was very pleased with it. (I was probably too excited to write it all down at the time.)

30. Install Netbeui

Hoo Boy! Someone could write a book on this one! It has to do with networking computers in a LAN. There are a number of communication protocol standards that can be used. The three that I see most often are TCP/IP, NetBEUI, and Novell's IPX/SPX for Netware. I don't do Novell so I don't mess with that one. Everybody uses TCP/IP these days since it's the backbone of the Internet and it gets installed automagically if your system has a network port or modem. NetBEUI is Microsoft's contribution to network confusion. You don't really need it, I'm told, if you have TCP/IP running anyway. It's kind of a "chatty" protocol and, on large, busy networks, it's blathering can significantly slow down the network.I have a small network so that's not a problem for me. It has been my experience that NetBEUI was better at quickly finding the other computers on the network. In other versions of Windows, I could tie file and printer sharing to just the NetBEUI protocol and thus provide additional security from the Internet. Now Microsoft is phasing out NetBeui. In order to install it, you have to know about it and know that it is hidden on the Windows XP CD under several levels of subdirectories of their "value added" stuff. Use the "Start \ Search" feature to locate it.

In the good old days we installed it like this: Go to the control panel, network connections and right click on your local area connection and choose properties. From there click the "Install" button, choose protocol and "have disk" then point to the NetBeui file. There are no configuration options for NetBEUI so once it's installed just reboot. I did that and couldn't access the other computers on my network. There is an old rule.

"If it doesn't work, try reading the instructions
If it still doesn't work, try following them!"

I went back to the NetBEUI directory on the CD and read the readme file. You really do need to follow those instructions about copying files. It works much better that way.

Addendum July 6, 2004: I'm setting up my second Windows XP Pro computer and darned if I didn't do the same thing wrong and have to spend about 8 hours trying things before thinking to look here for the solution. This is a really NASTY problem. You CANNOT install the NetBEUI driver the same way you would any other driver I've ever seen by merely clicking on "have disk" and pointing to the files. If you do so, it gives no error messages but it will not work correctly. Oddly, it works enough that you don't figure it's the problem so you waste time looking elsewhere. I can't help but wonder if this is some kind of sneaky trick by Microsoft to either make money on service calls or to sell their certification products. Maybe it is, but one of my pet sayings is, "Never attribute to evil that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Either way it makes Microsoft look bad. Just so I can find this the next time I need it (and so you can find this fix if you have the same problem) here are the symptoms I was getting:

1) I could not see all the computers on my network. I found two solutions to this. Proper NetBeui installation is the best, but I was also able to see it if I turned on "use NetBIOS over TCP/IP" on the "invisible" computer. Of course "seeing it" and using it are two different things...

2) I could log onto some of the computers on my network but attempting to do so on others gave the following error message:

\\<servername> is not accessable. You might not have permission to use this 
network resource. Contact the administrator to find out if you have access 
permissions. The network path was not found.

Maybe someone can compare just what difference the two different ways of installing NetBEUI cause but I'm afraid I don't have time for that just now. Suffice it to say that after uninstalling NetBEUI and re-installing it properly, everything works just fine.

31. ??? - I have a note here that says, "Email rules don't work - folder names gone" but no explanation of why or what I did to fix it. Sorry 'bout that. It was probably something trivial and I just didn't think to write the solution down. I guess I'll take my cue from my math professor and leave this to the reader as an exercise.

32. Install Norton Internet Security 2003 - I had to rebott at least 3 times! And you thought Microsoft was bad!

There are a LOT of different threats on the Internet. Just as you had to learn how to safely cross the street when you were a kid, you need to learn how to be safe from those threats now. Please bear in mind that causing trouble seems to be a growth industry so new threats may arise or the definitions may change with the times. For now here are a few of the types of threats you will encounter:

Virus - A virus is a computer program that, when run, will try to make copies of itself to infect other computers and will usually take steps to protect its own existence. This may include emailing files infected with the virus to addresses gleaned from your email address book or from your hard drive, modifying programs on your computer so that they will run the virus when they are run (so in case you get rid of it, it can come back), disabling any anti-virus protection software, or other actions. In addition to replication and self-preservation, most virus programs have a "payload" which they may deliver immediately but more often deliver at some fixed date or when triggered by some condition. The payload may be to display some message, it could be to erase your hard drive, or it could be anything else the computer is capable of doing. Anti-Virus programs maintain a list of "signatures" (unique parts of the virus programs) that they can look for to tell whether a suspect file is infected or not. The anti-virus program runs at all times checking any files you download, any programs you run, etc to try to keep you safe. It is important to update the anti-virus signature data frequently or you may get infected by some new virus your program doesn't "know" about yet. Virii are most likely to be found in files having the extensions .EXE, .COM, .PIF, .BAT, .SCR, .ZIP, .VBS, .ASP, .XLS, or .DOC though many other file types may also harbor a virus. It is also possible to get a virus simply by previewing an email you have received so be sure to get an antivirus program that checks all of your incoming email!

Worm - A worm is another type of program that infects computers. The difference between a worm and a virus is that for a virus to become active, you must acquire and run some program containing the virus code. The worm comes to you without any action on your part. While you are connected to a network (usually the Internet) a worm, running on some other connected computer can test your computer's defenses. Windows has many features which can be abused in ways that allow an external program to gain control of the computer. Microsoft has issued patch code to fix many of these holes but there is no telling how many are not yet discovered. Computers have been observed to be infected by a worm in as little as 15 minutes of the time they were first connected to the Internet. The average time till infection is a mere 3 hours! That's why it is vitally important to get all the Windows Critical Updates applied quickly and to check for new ones fairly often. Additional protection from worms may be had by installing a firewall program which only allows Internet traffic with your computer to those programs you have authorized.

Trojan Horse - A Trojan Horse is a program that appears to be useful and safe but which actually provides a "back door" - a secret way of accessing and taking control of the computer without the owner's knowledge or consent. This is really a kind of virus in a way, where the payload is the act of giving access to your computer. Anti-virus software should detect most Trojan horse programs.

Phishing - This is a bit off topic as far as anti-virus software goes but it's a very signifigant threat and more people need to know about it. Phishing is when some perpetrator contacts you, usually by email, and attempts to get you to give them your personal information such as credit card numbers, social security number, birth date, passwords, or whatever. In the case of email phishing, the email may look completely genuine unless you look at the underlying code. If you do that, you may find that the web link in the message doesn't send you to www.hereiam.com but to www.thereyouare.com instead. The phisher may even have constructed a web site that looks very much like the genuine one (they probably copied most of the files from the original.) The difference is that they can get your data and then use it for their own purposes. I know of no technical solution to this problem at present. It pays to be paranoid.

Adware or Spyware - I'll say more about this later (see step 58) but I'll define it now. Adware or Spyware is software that invades your system and allows someone to see what websites you've visited or which provides other similar information about your activities. It is intentionally included in some programs and it is also possible to contract it by visiting some web sites and possibly by reading some emails.

Now that we've defined some of the problems, let's talk about solutions. As you see, I use Norton Internet Security 2003 on this computer. It consists of an anti-virus program and a firewall program so I get both in one package. I do NOT use the 2004 edition because I've read that it's new registration features have caused a lot of people's computers to crash and because it sounded like the 2004 edition didn't have any new features that I really needed.

Another popular commercial anti-virus program is McAffee Anti-Virus. I've used it in the past and it seemed equally acceptable. I'm not as familiar with their product line or the goodness/badness of their various versions so you'll have to look elsewhere for that information.

Grisoft (www.grisoft.com) makes AVG antivirus. If you are installing it at home, they have a home version which you can use for free! Commercial users must pay.

Panda Software (www.pandasoftware.com) makes yet another anti-virus program which is supposed to be very good.

Zone Labs (www.zonelabs.com) makes the ZoneAlarm firewall software. At least one version of it is free for home users. Several people whose opinions I respect claim Zone Alarm is the best firewall and a great deal. I've tried to work with it several times and it always screws up my computer so I've given up on it. Caveat emptor.

Note that Windows XP has some firewall features built in but they are turned OFF by default. You can learn how to turn it on or off at Microsoft's web page at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=283673.

Whatever anti-virus and firewall you select, be sure that you update the threat definitions frequently! It's a fast-paced world on the Internet.

33. Office Update SP3 - These updates are often overlooked. if you go to office.microsoft.com you will find (currently near the upper right corner of the page) an icon for "Office Updates. Check for updates.". You will have to click on "Check for updates" another time on the next page. After applying any updates it's usually a good idea to check again since sometimes one update depends on another update having been already applied. After installing Office updates, it's a good idea to check for any Windows updates too. Yes, it's all a royal pain, particularly if you only have a 56k modem connection. But it's necessary to avoid even more pain from a compromised system which you may soon have if you leave a hole open for some malware to use!

34. Install Savin 3210 printer drivers - You probably don't have a Savin 3210 copier on your network but if you do, install the drivers.

35. Install Savin 3210 Twain Scanner Drivers - You probably don't have a Savin 3210 copier on your network but if you do, install the drivers.

36. Install Quickbooks 2002 - As I write this, Intuit (makers of Quicken and Quickbooks products) are #4 on Ed Foster's "Gripelog Hall of Shame". The full list is #1 Dell, #2 Microsoft, #3 Verisign, #4 Intuit, #5 Symantec (makers of Norton Antivirus, etc. Now you know why I don't want their 2004 product!), #6 Network Associates, #7 Hewlett Packard, #8 Cisco. See his site for a current list and to learn why people are complaining. His email newsletter is well worth subscribing to while you are there.

37. Install more Office Updates - No, I don't know why I didn't do this all at once. I probably got interrupted and lost my place.

38. Install Windows Critical Update - They keep releasing new ones. *sigh*

39. Deal with File Sharing

Under prior versions of Windows this was pretty simple but XP makes it a little more complicated. See http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm for a brief tutorial. You have a choice of simple file sharing (default) which provides no security. Anyone on your network can access anything. Or you can set up accounts and require a username and password to log in to access files that have been designated as accessable to that person. I won't repeat the entire tutorial here but I will give a brief synopsis:

1) In Windows Explorer, go to Tools/ Folder Options/ View and uncheck "Use simple file sharing" (the box is near the bottom of the list on my system.) Note the tutorial says to start at "My Computer" but "My Computer" is just another configuration of Windows Explorer. Same program, different display options.

2) In Control Panel / Users (or in Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Managment / Local users & Groups if you want more control) create the user accounts that you will need.

3) For each drive, folder, file, device or whatever you want to share, locate it in Windows Explorer and right click on it. and select "sharing and security" then create a new share (don't monkey with the one that's there by default) and specify who is to have access to it and any other details you need to give. Normally giving access to a drive or folder gives access to anything under that level as well unless you explicitly set it otherwise. After turning on sharing, you should check your work from another computer on the network to be sure that you haven't opened up more than you intended!

40. Install Paint Shop Pro version 8

I love this program!!! I've been using Paint Shop Pro (PsP for short) for many years and it just keeps getting better (mostly. There have been a few gotchas from time to time. Version 8 seems pretty solid.) It currently sells for only $94 and has most of the power of Adobe Photoshop which sells for far more. It also loads faster, runs faster, and is a LOT easier to use. Highly recommended. It's easily one of my top ten most-used programs.

41. Install Pagemaker 7.0

After installing the program, I ran the update(s) available from the www.adobe.com web site and copied the plug-ins and filters from my old drive's Pagemaker folders. Note that Adobe has announced there will be no more development on Pagemaker. They want us all to convert to their newer InDesign product. InDesign is more powerful and has a lot of new features but it isn't quite as easy to use and there is definitely a learning curve to the conversion. I've started using it for some new projects but I'm far from comfortable with it yet.

42. Install Adobe Acrobat 6 Pro

43. Install Adobe Pagemill 3

Pagemill is a discontinued product but it's still my favorite program for working on web pages. It's what I'm using to create this document.

Once Pagemill was canned by Adobe, I looked around for a replacement. I tried a commercial program called HomeSite and was pretty happy with it though there were a few annoyances. I then found out that Evrsoft (http://www.evrsoft.com/) had a free program called First Page that was very similar to HomeSite. I tried it and it is now my second favorite web page construction tool. It's a bit more "techy" than Pagemill but it produces cleaner code. It was hard to find for a while but it is now back on the Evrsoft web site.

If your anti-virus gives an alarm when you try to download or install it, don't panic. Included with some JavaScript code samples in it was a "practical joke" called "Six Buttons From Hell". I understand that if run, it causes Internet Explorer to open many windows until it crashes but no other harm is caused. This code sample is a separate file and is not needed for First Page to be fully functional so it can easily be deleted. It's possible that they've removed it by now. I don't know. (of course, you could get "lucky" and get a copy that DOES have an actual virus so always be careful!) When I installed First Page, my anti-virus software detected the file and deleted it automagically for me. Because many people got worried about virus warnings on the package a lot of download sites stopped offering First Page, hence its former scarcity.

44. Install icons for some games.

Some programs have to be installed before they can be run. Others can just be plopped down in a directory and run. I have a number of games in the latter category so I needed to put icons on the desktop or in the Start / All Programs menu for them to make access to them more convenient. This is just a matter of drag and drop. Locate the executable file in Windows Explorer (and be sure Explorer isn't running full-screen. You want to be able to see some free space on the desktop.) Point to the executable file and press the left mouse button. Keep it pressed down and drag the item to a blank space on the desktop (NOT on top of some other icon!!!) Keeping the left mouse button pressed, press the CTRL and ALT keys and hold both of them down. You should see a shortcut indicator (bent arrow) beside the thing being dragged (where there should have previously been a plus sign.) Finally let up on the left mouse button and you can then also let up on the CTRL and ALT keys.

The CTRL and ALT keys modify the action of a drag. Windows tries to second guess whether you want a copy or a move which can be frustrating and/or disasterous, so here's a brief cheat sheet about dragging things.

45. Install Corel Graphics Suite 11

46. Install Omnipage Pro 14 - They've really done a beautiful job with this version. It's become actually useful compared to a few years ago! Maybe someday I'll say the same thing about voice recognition but for now, forget it!

47. Install Nero 6

I installed all the options except INCD and Media Player. I already have Winamp (www.winamp.com) and the Microsoft media player. I didn't figure I needed yet another media player on my system. I don't use any of them that often that I get excited by them. According to my notes the install hung on installing Nero Express 6. I must have tried it again or done something because it's working now.

Seems like a lot of people don't know how to burn a CD so let's talk about that for a minute. There are two kinds of CD's - CD-R and CD-RW.

CD-RW is a bit easier to use. You can write to the disk, erase what you've written and re-use the space on the disk. It acts just like a big floppy disk. You can drag files to the drive with Windows Explorer or save files from any program to a CD-RW disk. Sounds good. So why do I recommend most people stay away from CD-RW? It could be because the disks are more expensive, hold less data (500Mb vs 650Mb), have to be formatted before they are used the first time and are slower than CD-R - often by about a factor of 4. (When you buy a CDRW drive you will see three numbers like "52x24x52" or "48x12x48". The first number is how fast it writes a CD-R, the second how fast it writes a CD-RW, and the third is how fast it reads a CD-R. A "1x" drive would take 74 minutes to write a standard CD. A "2x" drive would take 1/2 that time or about 37 minutes. A 48x drive takes 1/48 of 74 minutes or about a minute and a half. In theory. In practice it always takes a little longer.At speeds above 52x the chance of the CD shattering in the drive become too great so they don't sell drives faster than that. Note also that DVD+/-R/RW drive speeds are not directly comparable to CD speeds, but that's another story.) Any of those might be a good reason, but the real reasons are 1) in order to use CD-RW you have to install a CDRW driver (in this case INCD) and I've too often had that kind of driver have a major negative impact on my computer's performance and 2) CD-RW disks cannot be read in a normal CD-ROM drive and may not even be compatible between different CD-RW drives. Also you can't burn music files on them and play them in your car or home stereo.

CD-R disks are cheaper, read and write faster, require no preformatting, hold more data, don't require a special driver, and the disks can be read on any CD-Rom or CD-RW dirve (and on your stereo if you burn an audio disk.) You can even make Video CD's and play them on some DVD players. The one "bad" thing about CD-R disks is that you have to use a special program to copy files to them. You can't just save your file from your word processor or whatever to the CD. (Note: More and more programs are appearing that include code to burn to CD-R but these programs are still mostly multimedia creation programs.) Two main programs compete for this task - Nero and Easy CD Creator (now Easy Media Creator). Both programs are pretty good. I loved Nero 4 and Nero 5 was ok. Nero 6 seems to be a bit flaky. On the other hand Easy CD Creator 4 was good, 5 was a little flaky, 6 was hopeless and the new Easy Media Creator seems to be pretty good again. Go figure! Whatever program you use, it will give you some means of exploring your hard drive(s) and selecting the files to be burned. Details of how this is done vary.

A CD is just a thick plastic disk. On the top side of the disk, they plate an extremely thin coat of metal which holds your data. Over that goes a thin layer of laquer and then whatever text or logo they want to print on the disk. If you write anything on the CD never use anything but a felt tip pen and don't press hard. If you deform that metal layer, you may lose your data. The bottom, plastic side is fairly rugged. Scratches may cause the light to reflect, refract, or be blocked so they can cause trouble but they can also be buffed out. Damage to the top side of the disk can occur more easily and is usually unrepairable.

Another question that comes up often about CD-R disks is, "Can I put some data on it, then come back later and add more?" Yes and no. Yes, it is technicaly possible to do so. No you shouldn't do that. This is called a "multi-session CD" and Windows has no good way to access anything other than the default session so getting your data back can be a real nightmare.

48. Install InDesign 2.0 - (now up to InDesign CS) see comments above under step 41.

49. Download and install updates to InDesign 2.0

I've started doing something new when I download software. Used to be I'd download something neat and a year later I'd find the file on my drive and wonder what it was. Now I save the web page (whichever page is most relevant) when I download the file. It's easy enough to do - just go to the page to be saved and use the menu option File / Save As. However, if you just give it a name and click "Save" it will often save an .HTM file AND a directory containing the cascading style sheet and possibly other files used by the page. Sometimes that may be what you want, but usually I find it's better to give the file a name and tell the SaveAs command where I want to put it then change the "Save as Type" box to "Web Archive, Single File (mht)". This creates a single .MHT file which means less clutter and less chance of deleting part of the saved page while leaving junk behind or less chance of giving someone a copy only to find out I only gave them part of the files needed. It's a neat trick and the MHT file can be displayed with a browser just like any HTM file.

50. Install Acrobat 6.01 updater

51. Install Microsoft Picture-It Publisher - Well, attempt to install it anyway

The install hung on disk 2. I thought it might have been caused by Acrobat 6 so I uninstalled that but it still froze on disk 2. I did find the solution later. See just after step 56.

52. Install Dimage Scan Dual III drivers

53. Install MS Works 7 with Word 2002 - I picked this package up very inexpensively and it's a GREAT way to get Microsoft Word cheap!!

54. Install Yahoo Messenger - But I made sure not to let it install all the other crud it wants to give me nor to change my home page to Yahoo.

55. Re-install Acrobat 6 Pro and 6.01 updater.

56. Attempt to install Family Tree Maker 11

The system locked when the CD was up to speed. I re-booted with the CD still in the drive (but didn't boot from the CD) and it ran ok that time. This helped give me a clue (and motivation) to solve the problem from step 51.

Interlude

I did a bunch of stuff here but didn't give it step numbers so here goes.

At this point the system was hanging when a CD was inserted. I'm betting it was caused by that first hang when I installed Nero 6. Fortunately I was able to solve the problem. I installed new ASPI drivers from Adaptec. After that my notes say, "IDCheck still shows errors but I believe they are on two files not used by XP." and that must be true because I don't seem to have any further problems with the CD drive. See http://aspi.radified.com/ for more information on this topic. It took quite a bit of playing with which versions of which files I should use. It was not fun! According to my notes I also turned off the write-behind Disk Caching and removed the INCD reader. (Say what? I thought I hadn't installed INCD in the first place! Looks like something slipped thru my notes somewhere.)

I don't know if the problem was solved at this point or not but there don't appear to be any further references to the system hanging on CD's so I guess it was.

57. Install Sonic DVD software (came with Pioneer DVD +/- R/RW drive)

58. Install Street Atlas USA 2004

I first saw this program demonstrated at a COMDEX convention several years ago. They were inviting the audience to give a street and they'd show it on the map. People were calling out streets in big cities like New York or Los Angeles but I figured those cities had large planning departments and probably had their maps in computer form already so it was no surprise if they were on this disk. I decided to give it a real test and asked to see Port Orford, Oregon (population about 1200). I expected to see just a dot on Highway 101 and sure enough that's what came up. Then the demonstrator zoomed in and darned if they didn't have the city's streets! I was impressed but thought I noticed something and asked him to move the display north a bit. He did and they had my flipping DRIVEWAY! It's a private drive that serves 3 house in our very rural area. Ok, they won. I'm really impressed! Of course after that, I had to buy the software. The program is pretty good and the maps are very complete. The only thing that is annoying is that they are pretty tight with their publication rights. I published a genealogy book (http://www.mydfz.com/valancst/capnjohn.htm) and I would have liked to have included some maps with it. I could generate them easily with Street Atlas USA but when I contacted the company for permission, I was firmly denied. They won't even consider permitting it for pay. So much for customer service!

59. Install Spybot Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/)

I defined Adware or Spyware in step 32 above.Spybot Search and Destroy is one of the tools I use to kick it off my computer. Spybot S&D searches the computer for known spyware and gives the user a chance to remove it. Pretty straightforward. Just remember to get the updated definitions each time before you run it.

Another competitor program is Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/).

While both of the above programs are good and available free for home users, I found another free program that is even more impressive: Spyware Blaster (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html). This program somehow prevents many spyware type programs from infecting your system. You can think of this as an innoculation against the disease whereas Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware are cures if you already have the disease.

I'd recommend running Spyware Blaster periodically (you need to update it and re-run it to get protection from new threats.) AND also run Spybot S&D and/or Ad-Aware periodically. Each program covers a slightly different list of threats so each one may catch something the others missed.

60. Install Winamp 5.01 (http://www.winamp.com/) - A great little player for MP3 music files, and now, for most multimedia files! And it's free!

61. Install Big Box of Art 615,000 - I use a lot of clip art in our newspaper. This is just one of many sources for it. I can't draw for fiddlesticks.

62. Install The Font Thing (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html)

I wish I could just install all my fonts, but unfortunately Windows is not happy if you install more than a few hundred. I even had one program refuse to work if I had more than 500 fonts installed. For a while I was up over 700 installed but I had to weed it back down. I'm currently running a bit fat at 584 fonts and should probably weed out some of them ASAP. I have nearly 10,000 fonts on my hard disk to choose from so you can imagine I need a good tool to find the one I want.

The font thing allows you to browse and see samples of not only the installed fonts but any other TTF fonts you may have on your hard disk! For a free program it's really great and I've tried a LOT of font utility programs! (It can also do a lot of other things but I don't usually use most of those features.)

If you are a programmer, the ultimate font utility has not yet been created. There is a lot of room for someone to write more tools for working with fonts. Still, The Font Thing meets most of my normal day-to-day needs and I recommend it to those who need a font location tool.

63. Install Zinio Reader (http://www.zinio.com/)

Zinio is a method of downloading magazines and viewing them on the computer screen. I'd rather they just send them out in PDF format but unfortunately that isn't an option. Another thing I don't like about Zinio is that they want to let the "Check for magazines" module run all the time. I get about 3-4 issues a month. I really don't need their check program taking up memory and CPU cycles for that! Besides they send out an email alert when a new issue is available. You just have to be firm with software these days or every program will try to take over your computer!

64. Uninstall Zinio

Well, that was short and sour! :) I found that I had problems downloading files and the reader wasn't working properly. Eventually I did re-install it much later and found that it would work if I disabled the Norton firewall software.

65. Install J2RE 1.4.1.07 (http://java.sun.com/)

The biggest problem with Java is that it's so darn confusing to newcomers. Its not as if there is one Java. No. There is J2SE (Java version 2 Standard Edition), J2RE (Java version 2 Runtime Edition), Java VM (Virtual Machine), J2EE, J2ME, Java SDK's, Java Beans, Net Beans, and it seems like a whole long list of other Java tools, implementations, versions or whatevers. I needed to install the runtime in preparation for the next program to be installed. Looks like they've renamed the J2RE to J2SE just to add to the confusion. Just what they needed. Java is a powerful tool but they need to do some serious work to organize their web site and to explain better to visitors just what each piece is and how it all fits together.

66. Install Open Office 1_1_0 (http://www.openoffice.org/)

Open Office is a free, open source, set of programs including a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tool among others. The really cool thing about it is that these programs can READ AND WRITE files in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point format! That means you can work with others and share your files without having to purchase Microsoft's products. The Open Office programs are not quite as polished as the Microsoft products but for most users they are more than good enough. If you don't already own the Microsoft programs, this is a great place to start. When or if you ever feel you need to buy the Microsoft versions, you can always buy them. With luck, you won't need them and you'll save perhaps $300.00 which can buy a lot of pizzas!

67. Uninstall Scan Wizard 5, download and install updated version. (from http://www.microtekusa.com/, of course)

68. Disabled picture & Fax viewer

Windows XP wanted to display certain graphics files with it's own viewer instead of with Paint Shop Pro despite my every effort. I found instructions at http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-201 which told how to use the registry editor to delete a specific key and that solved the problem.

Today in checking on the web address, I found a different set of instructions at (http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak148.aspx) which are much simpler. Their instructions are just to go to a command prompt (what we used to call a DOS prompt.) Start / Run and enter the command, "CMD" (without the quotes, of course. nor are capital letters needed though they won't hurt.) and click "OK". Once you are at the prompt, give the command, regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll NOTE: this site does warn that this method may have some side effects which I have not seen with the method I used.

This is a good time to talk about web addresses too. Many people when presented with a web address like "http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article03-201" may go to that page but don't realize that there is more to the web site than just that one page. Here's how the address breaks down:

Now, having defined that and found the page interesting, you might want to edit the address in the address box of Internet Explorer and see what you find at these locations:

Sometimes you get an error message, but sometimes you find useful information. In particular, the last one on the list, http://www.annoyances.org, takes you to the main entry for that web site and that's often a good place to visit to find out what else the site may offer. You may find more information at http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/16addrss.htm or http://www.webnovice.com/webaddress.htm or from a similar site.

69.Install Labels Unlimited 2

If anyone knows of a better, more modern program I'd like to hear about it. I've also got the Avery program and neither of them is what I'd call really great software.

70. Install Quickbooks 2004 update

71. (omitted) This was a change in my network hardware and not really related to this job.

72. Install DVD Xcopy

This program has been banned from sale by the courts and your opinion on it may differ from mine. Congress has always upheld a "fair use" doctrine on copyrighted materials that says, among other things, that the purchaser of a copyrighted work has a right to make a backup to protect their investment. Various big companies seem determined to apply various forms of copy protection techniques to make that impossible. They are concerned about people making copies of their works and selling them or giving them to others. Such actions are theft and are already against the law. DVD Xcopy is a tool to make a copy of a copy-protected DVD. What use you make of the tool depends on whether you are law abiding or a criminal. Just as we have not found it prudent to ban guns because some people use them for evil, I don't believe we should ban this software. If you disagree, please don't bother writing me about it. You aren't going to change my mind and there's no point in us both getting upset about it. You're entitled to your own opinion. Feel free to put up your own web page with your opinion if you wish.

Anyway I bought a copy of the software before the ban went into effect. It was probably a good program but after installing it, I ran the update function and it got neutered. I guess that was more of the legal nonsense but anyway it only works so-so now though I was able to use it productively once.

One more thing you should know about copying DVD's - most commercial DVD's are on a 9.4Gb two-layer disk. Current DVD recorders only use 4.7Gb single layer disks (though that is expected to change very soon.) Thus you can't back up a normal DVD movie to a single DVD unless you reduce the quality, or eliminate some features. If you spread the copy over two DVD's, the menu functions probably won't work correctly.

That does not mean I'm unhappy with my DVD recorder! I can still record my home movies and it's great for backing up data from my hard disk. With 400Gb online, backing up to 650Mb CD's is prohibitive. Even DVD's are none too big. Of course, the numbers are misleading. Much of that 400Gb is empty space. More of it is installed programs which I don't need to back up (I can always reinstall them from the original CD's). The data that is left would probably fit on 3-4 DVD's or 21-29 Cd's Guess which is more convenient to backup to? If you said DVD, you're right!

73. Install Partition Magic 8 (from http://www.powerquest.com/) - a great program!

74. Added PERL repositories to PPM

Hoo Boy! I'm not going to try to explain that but I am thinking about writing some pages on programming in the PERL language. Don't hold your breath. :) Meanwhile here is a page full of PERL links: http://www.codebox.8m.com/Perl.htm

75. Install Office XP SP3 - I thought I already did this but it said it was needed so I guess it's a different SP3 than before. Installation went ok.

76. Get rid of XP Annoyances - This is just a start on this section. I expect to add more at a later date.

These can be done earlier (and probably should be) but I didn't learn most of them until I'd used XP for a while.

"There are unused icons on your desktop" - This message pops up from time to time. XP would like to remove icons from your desktop that you may not be using. It may be helpful for many novice users. Many programs put icons on your desktop for options or features you don't want. These icons consume computer resources and each one slows the computer however slightly. It is good to keep the number of them down to just those you really use. However, I prefer to control which ones stay and which ones go and choose when this is done rather than letting XP guess what I may want done. However, disabling this feature is a bit tricky. The whole solution can be found at http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=255. In brief, you need to go to "Display Properties" either via Start / Control Panel / Display or by right clicking on an empty spot on the desktop and choosing properties. Once there, select the Desktop tab then click on the "Customize Desktop" button. Clear the box for "run desktop cleanup wizard every 60 days". Note that you can also force it to run from this screen if you like the feature. No accounting for taste. :)

Well, there it is. I've left a LOT of information out, especially between steps 74 and 75 but it should give you a lot of food for thought. I'm not done by any means. My computer is dynamic and I'm always adding, removing, updating, or otherwise changing something.

Before I go, I promised some new utilities. Some are listed above when they were installed. Here are some more mostly free utility programs that I think are worthwhile. Enjoy!

Autoruns - Displays all the programs that run automatically when you start windows. (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml)

The Crimson Editor - Free text editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/) and more powerful than the Programmer's File Editor that I previously recommended. I've started using the shareware ($35) Ultra-Edit which I think is just a bit more powerful still. (http://www.ultraedit.com/)

Sequoiaview - (http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/) A whole new way to look at your disk drives!

2X Explorer - (http://netez.com/2xExplorer/) - Allows you to view the contents of two directories at the same time. Great for comparing or for drag & drop

Turbo Lister - A tool to list auction items on Ebay. Available free from Ebay. Look under "Services" at www.ebay.com.

Winbar - (http://www.winbar.nl/) - a nifty little bar that sits at the top of your screen and allows you to monitor your system's operations

Active Perl - (http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/) The Perl programming language

Vueslide - (http://www.hamrick.com/upg.html) Present your JPG files as an automatic slide show

Finally I would just like to advise you to remember that whenever you have a question, the answer can probably be found by searching on www.google.com (or on some other search engine if you have a different favorite.) Want to know about a specific file? search on the file's name. Want to know all about a subject? Search on the subject and add the keyword FAQ (frequently asked Questions. (Try that with "CDR FAQ" for more than you ever wanted to know about writing to CD's!) For more tips, visit http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.php.How did I find that? I went to www.google.com and searched for "using a search engine".

Enjoy!

Valerie Kramer
valerie@mydfz.com