1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your computer’s CD drive or DVD drive. Press and hold the SHIFT key as you insert the CD to prevent it from starting automatically.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. Copy and paste or type the following command in the Open box, and then click OK:
   cmd

   The command prompt opens.

4. Type the drive letter of the CD drive or DVD drive, type a colon, and then press ENTER. For example, if your computer’s CD drive is drive E, type the following, and then press ENTER:
   e:
5. Copy and paste or type the following, and then press ENTER:
   cd i386
6. Copy and paste or type the following, and then press ENTER:
   expand sndvol32.ex_ system_root\system32\sndvol32.exe

   Note system_root is the path and folder name where the Windows system files are located on your computer. This is usually C:\Windows. If the folder that contains the Windows system files on your computer is C:\Windows, type the following, and then press ENTER:

   expand sndvol32.ex_ c:\windows\system32\sndvol32.exe

   Note There is a space between “ex_” and “c:\windows” in this command.

7. Type exit to exit the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
8. Verify that you can start Volume Control and that the Volume icon is displayed in the notification area

Folks ,

Today we shall talk a little bit about Windows Updates. We get stuck often with Updates not working fine , failed and sometimes not working at all. We get those cryptic OX errors as well at times. There are 2 easy ways to fix most of the Windows update issues without the OS Disc. How ? Well that is why i have put this post. One thing for sure that Windows Updates start to fail after you start using your system and do various other stuff on and off the internet that inserts error / invalid entries in your Windows Registry. What we do is basically if disable the Windows Update Service , Rename the folder that contains the Windows Update info and finally re run the updates that gives everything a brand new start.

Step 1: Goto Services (Start -> Run -> services.msc) or just type services in the Start -> Search bar. Once in services , stop the service that says Windows Update.

Step2 : Navigate C:\Windows  , rename the folder that says “Software Distribution” to something like “Software Distribution.old”

Step 3: Goto Services again and start the Windows Update service

Step 4: This is my personal choice. Other techs might think this to be waste of time but i still prefer the old Windows XP way. I reboot my system

Step 5: Start the Windows Update process.

All these steps have been summarized and automated in a Fix It tool from Microsoft.  Download and run this tool. I have not tested this tool yet so can not claim that it works 100%.

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9748992

and then run

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9665683

Microsoft office starter is not working. Upon opening Microsoft Office Word Starter or Excel Starter the following popup gets displayed (See Figure Below)

This is a basic file corruption because of which the application launcher crashes and hence none of the products (i.e: Word or Excel ) seem to work.

The workaround for this is simple . Just open Add Remove Programs and repair the Microsoft Office Starter 2010 . There might be 3 entries , so always select the one that says “Microsoft Office Starter 2010”. ( See Screen Shot Below)

Upon clicking on Change you will get the Click to Run Application manager Window (See Screenshot below) . Leave the checkbox unchecked and just hit Yes.

Next time you open Office Word or Excel , the program would be downloaded once again and would get updated and fixed automatically.

Limewire Pro 5.5.8 update did not work for me. Installed it today which took pretty longer than the old 5.2. Well the interface looked good , they have added 2 new components:

1. Limewire toolbar (in close association with ASK.com)

Limewire toolbar looks good but as i said it never worked for me so could not test the power of the toolbar

2. AVG Antivirus scanner

An annoying AVG antivirus scanner is on yoru way to get downloaded every time you open Limewire.  You can bypass by cancelling the download however next time you open Limewire , AVG shows up again. Come on Limewire !!!! , are you guys desperate to force legitimity on your file sharing program. AVG scanner I doubt can be trusted to scan for rootkits/trojans/ other malware items.  I still prefer to check the file size before downloading.

Finally i took off the irritating LImewire Pro 5.5.8 and went back to my trusted friend 5.2.

Overall i can say do not download this update . Stick with your old limewire . It pays and it pays good.

The best part about growing old is that you keep on learning new things. Right now , i have got my hands on what is being called the “Window Slayer” .. yes , it is none other than LINUX. I am into RED HAT LINUX SERVER EDITION and i am loving it . However , since i am too new to this i tried to find out handy stuff confined to my work-sphere .. I FAILED .. miserably. Since LINUX is open source , more and more distribution are being created and hence it gives you quite a heck to find what you are looking for. I tried to search for free video tuts , articles and stuff ( free of course) , I failed once again. Searched all over youtube , did not get what i was exactly looking for.

I have henceforth decided to convert GRDEAD into a RED HAT LINUX oriented platform where my fellow men will not face issues but can get a one stop point for learning red Hat LINUX server edition. To kick start i will discuss about the challenge i had to face while i tried installing Internet on my system loaded with RED HAT LINUX 5. That will be covered next.

I personally therefore believe that if you are looking to upgrade/install Office , please arrange a small budget for some memory modules to be put inside your system.

After sometime installation started , with frequent hiccups finally it came up with an error :

I did not want to upgrade my system to SP3 or MSXML hence i as a good child started the installation on my wife’s Sony Vaio portable running on VISTA SP1.  And man !!!! , it was quick.  She had a copy of Office 2007 already in her system , so all i had to do was an upgrade.

Before you Read : Please make sure that the above fix has been tried on a Windows XP 32 Bit Operating System. Before you follow the steps please make sure that you read the disclaimer statement which can be found here.

Hey Guys , wanted to share this with you all. After a little research i have found the way to successfully install the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (ver.10) for your Browser (Firefox and Internet Explorer). Be the first to read this article and leave your comments behind. Please let me know if the above workaround did not work for you.

The Story:
—————

( i am quite good at writing stories). Here it comes. Adobe Flash Player uses a download manager to install the plugin on your browser. I have tried this number of times. Everytime it : a) takes long b)restarts my firefox browser c)additional download manager payload which i do not want d)Finally the worst part is that once you visit websites where you find flash content with flash 10 version it says ” You do not have latest version of flash player”.

The fix :
———–

1.) Open Control Panel -> Add remove programs -> Uninstall the flash active x plugin . If you do not see that jump to Step 2.  If you have done that still jump to Step 2

2.) Go here to download the Flash Player Standalone UNINSTALLER.  Download and Run the application.
NOTE: Please close all Firefox/Google Chrome/Internet Explorer browser windows prior performing this operation.

3.) Go here to download the latest Windows Security Patch for ADOBE FLASH PLAYER  SECURITY UPDATE.
NOTE: This has got nothing to do with the issue. This is just an update from the “Godfather” to ensure that you do not get a nasty trojan on your system through some flash animation/application.

4.) Go here to download the latest version of standalone flash player and run it. Once again do not leave any open firefox/IE/Chrome windows.

5.) Say Hallelujah !!!!.

Allright , it all started after a wellwisher visited our house and inserted his pen drive into my systems USB port. Guess what … that stick was carrying a deadly trojan horse .. I as always , prefer to stay away from antivirus. I think they slow down your system… not my cuppa tea .. hence … u can guess

i was in office performing my boring chores when wife called up informing that the system had stopped boting up in windows … As usual , i gave that good old chuckle ..”Relax honey its ok .. have you tried this , have you tried that?” .. well my wife tried everything .. she has good knowledge about the OS than me. I came back home to find that my baby was infected by a boot sector virus!. (Read this ) I still managed to show my wife that i am cool ..”Don’t worry , just a virus .. well , a format and installation will fix it .” I was doubtful about  the idea because :

1.) We did not have an external HDD

2) We had our work stuff on the system

3) I had my priceless 2GB collection of music and around 4GB collection of software.

Inserted the good old trusted friend , windows xp cdrom and booted the system , just when it finished loading the drivers and was about to check for widnows installation … it crashed with a blue screen saying “unknown hard error” followed by a weird error code which i don wanna see again. I said to my wife ” You know wat , we need to arrange for another windows xp cd.. this one is trash.”  “Are you sure?” , asked my wife (She loves her hubby just toooo much!). (Again that usual chuckle , breath of confidence) Sure , its gonna fix this.

So next morning we got a windows xp installation cd from a friend. I now decided to move the above data from c:\my documents to the D: ( we had this partition on the HDD). This was the worst thing i did even when i knew that boot sector virus is a nasty little b****. Anyways , after that i formatted the C: and loaded windows . All went well. Installed drivers , then came Mcafee 2010. After 5 minutes i got a popup from mcafee that it has detected some trojans … it removed those … i installed printer … and left for office.

19th march ,2010 (05:41 am)

came back from office .. had a hard day.. will talk about that later though .. started the system to install the rest of the software. SURPRISE… SURPRISE….. BIG BLACK screen after i get the BIOS splash .. HDD light looking at me with constant orange . Well , this was what i did not want…. tried to push the windows cd back again to check the scene …Jesus !!!! i get the same blue unknown hard error after the driver load. Now i am lost , battered and bruised … took me some time to recollect myself ..

Ran windows in safe mode … got stuck at a point while loading a certain system file under drivers … made a note of the file .. now my friends my life saver came in the form of “BART LIVE CD” … i had this live cd … understood its importance for the first time in my life .. perhaps that was the best thing i did so far ( if you are reading it from the top). booted system with the live cd and got access to file explorer .. went all the way to the creepy c:\windows\system32\drivers and took off the file where safe mode got stuck. restarted the system …. AHA … things looked a bit ok , error : coudl nto load that specific driver and windows asked me to repair the OS.

With a half hearted approach tried booting the system once again from OSCD .. this time it worked !!! … formatted the C: once again.. you might be guessing why ??… well , because i still had our stuff back in the enemy territory!!!… installed windows on c:. i had a little 20 GB internal HDD. plugged that in and started recovering as much as data possible..

March 19. Around 8 PM IST:
———————————–

I am now in office. Feeling pretty numb … could not get proper sleep for the past 2-3 days. Still not pretty sure as whether i am heading towards teh right direction to remove the virus . We managed to grab an external 320 GB HDD and today connected that to the system and dumping all the files.  Once it is done ,  tomorrow i shall break the partitions on the HDD and reformat the HDD . I shall make 2 partitions and install widnwos xp on the primary partition. Then the first thing i will do would be to install MCafee 2010 and running a complete scan on the system. Once that is carried out i shall connect the external HDD… however there is a catch. My external HDD by then would be a homecomer coming back from the warfront… preety much like “John Rambo” from Vietnam ( Stallone was my idol during my school days) or like that astronaut who came back from outer space( Movie: Alien) or pretty much like Pierce Brosnon from the bond movie which i can not remember now.

I can not trust my external HDD. It might be carrying foreign goods ready to get me back to square one. Here is what i have planned :

I shall boot system from BART PE LIVE CD. Then …..

1.) I shall disconnect the LAN cable

2.) Use the “A43 File Management Utility” plugin from Bart PE to access explorer. I was not sure as whether this can help me to access my external HDD or not. Lemme check .. hold on. Yes , it does . Thanks to the scholar at http://optimisingpc.com/miscellaneous/manual_bartpe.html
So this is what we shall do.

3) Now we need to get the hidden files visible and then remove any suspecious files from the External HDD. Well , i think i also need to format the 20 GB HDD.. remember .. ok lets talk about that later. First let us understand what shall we remove from the external HDD and how to do that…. (to be continued)…

19th March around11:32 pm
————————————-

STUB from google …

“In the Command Window, type in your flash drive’s drive letter (if your pen drive is detected as G, then type G: and so on). Once you have gone in to your pen drive, now type dir/w/o/a/p and hit Enter. You will then see a list of files. Search whether any of these files appear or exist:
1. Autorun.inf
2. New Folder.exe
3. Bha.vbs
4. Iexplore.vbs
5. Info.exe
6. New_Folder.exe
7. Ravmon.exe
8. RVHost.exe or any other files with “.exe” extension.

type and run the command attrib -h -r -s -a *.*

delete files using del filename. “……….

——————————————————————————

Ok , here we are back again. Now just came to know that if we follow the above procedure we would be able to delete those files from the external HDD.  Something very interesting striked my mind…what if i still can not see the files.. some more research yeilded this stub :

————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Click “run” at the start menu, type regedit

the Registry editor will open.

Go to HKEY_CurrentUser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\Advanced

on the left side look for the key ShowSuperHidden and set it to 0 (ZERO).
——————————————————————————————–

March 22nd , Monday
—————————–

As i type this out i thank heaven almighty that my issue has been resolved successfully. As type this out my system is fully loaded and ready to deliver what it does best. But yes , i goofed up with few things. While i was in Bart PE LIve CD mode i had deleted the “System Volume Information” folder along with “Recycler” and then my External HDD became completely useless , unreadable by windows.  My lifesaver was a data recovery software ( i will not give you the name , its a secret) that helped me to restore every single file from the RAW partition of my external HDD.

CHAPTER CLOSED.

One again please read the disclaimer statement before you try out any of this steps . I was able to get my data , you might not. So please seek professional guidance if you do not know what you are doing.

Once customers upgrade their OS from Win Vista to Win 7, their system restore will not work due to PBR corruption.

Refer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975321/

As a workaround we could try the following steps:

For 32-bit installs:

 Hit F8 on startup, select ‘Repair’

1. Start a command prompt.
2. Change to the D: drive.
3. Set the path to ‘Path=d:\windows\system32
4. Go to the d:\tools directory
5. Run PCRestore
6. Follow the prompts to restore the image.

 Same steps could be performed by WinRE by booting to OS media. If booting to the OS media doesn’t fix this issue, in addition to above commands you could also try ‘bootrec /RebuildBCD’ command.

 NOTE: Above steps have had some results in 32-Bit OS. Not quite sure if this would work on 64.Bit OS.

I had this question in mind for quite some time. How can we back up the data from a Laptop Hard Drive. Here is the answer: — More videos to come soon on backup.