NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, June 2007
Meeting Recap
By David Hinds, Past President
dlhinds@cox.net
(click to email author)


Questions at the Q & A on May 19 that I made note of:

E-mail being blocked: There are probably many reasons that I will not be able to recall from the discussion, but some blockage may occur from the ISP (|Internet Service Provider), antivirus security level settings, firewall settings, and some e-mail software settings will automatically reject anyone who is not in your address book.

XP crashes (suspected reason too many programs initialized on startup): Discussion centered mainly around how to stop programs from loading on startup by using Msconfig. Select “Start”, “Run”, type “msconfig” (no quotation marks) in the dialog box that opens, then click OK. The msconfig utility will open. Select the Startup tab and uncheck the box in front of any program that you do not want to open on bootup. Be careful about unchecking explorer and certain others that are vital for XP to run. Next to the Startup tab is the Services tab. Some software that runs in the background runs as a service instead of a program, i.e. automatic updates, and these can also be unchecked to prevent autoloading. Should you want to run a program that you have unchecked, it will still be available from the start menu or desktop icons. Most software also has provisions for running services manually (such as checking for updates). If you later decide you want a program or service you unchecked to load on startup you can recheck any of the unchecked boxes.

Another discussion about getting error messages relating to corrupted or missing XP system files led to a discussion on how to use the system file checker utility. This utility will scan the system files and compare them against the originals and repair/replace any that are missing or corrupted. To run system file checker go to “Start”, select “Run”, type in “cmd” (no quotation marks) and click “OK” to open the command line utility. (This is a DOS level utility) At the DOS prompt (the flashing cursor) type “sfc/scannow” (no quotation marks) then press “Enter”. If the system restore files are not on your hard drive you will be asked to insert your Windows XP CD so have it handy just in case. This operation will take awhile to complete, so you may want to go out for lunch while it is running. Once it has found the original files (either on the hard drive or CD) it will not require any input until it has finished. This utility also works for Windows 98se, but not for ME.

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