If you are running Windows XP, there is no standard support for ISO files. These files however are quite common as an alternative to installation CDs or DVDs. An ISO file is basically an image of a CD or DVD. You can use CD Burning software to create a CD from the ISO file.
But in many cases you might not want to write a CD-ROM or DVD from the ISO file, you simply want to access the contents while the ISO file resides on your hard disk. There are software solutions available for this, which create a virtual CD or DVD drive. You can then mount the ISO file as a drive and access the contents of the ISO file.
Most of these software solutions however are commercial software, which means you need to pay for them. If you do not need the fancy user interface, you can also use a virtual cd-rom tool created by Microsoft. It is called the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel, and can be downloaded from the Microsoft website.
The downloaded file (60KB) is an installer, which you need to execute to extract the actual software. It will simply ask for a location to extract to, so select a path and click the Unzip button. Once done, click Close.
In the folder you selected for the extracted files, you will find 3 new files, a TXT file, a SYS file and an EXE file. Basically you now follow the instructions in the TXT file. We have outlined them here with some screenshots.
1. Copy the VCdRom.sys file to your C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder (change the C: to the drive where Windows XP is installed).
2. Next, double-click the VCdControlTool.exe file. This will bring up the control panel window.
3. Click the Driver Control button.
4. Click the Install Driver button. Now browse to the C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder and select the VCdRom.sys file.
5. Click the Open button.
6. Next, click the Start button, and then click the OK button.
7. Click the Add Drive button to create a virtual CD-Rom drive.
8. Next, click the new drive so it is selected, and then click the Mount button. This will bring up a file selection dialog box.
9. Locate and select the ISO file you want to access, and then click the Open button.
The ISO file is mounted and you can access the content through the selected drive letter using the Windows explorer.
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Written by Jason on July 24th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1340 and 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and CD-ROM and Contributors and Driver and Firefox and ISO and Linux and Software and Windows XP and folder and how to and iso file and microsoft and system32 and windows.
Although most Windows software comes with an installation program, there can still be problems if you install or uninstall software. A failed installation can cause the installation not to be redone without clearing the failed installation. Unfortunately a failed installation can often not be undone, which means you are stuck with a chicken and egg situation.
Another common situation is when you installed a trial of a software product and after expiration you need to uninstall it before you can install a registered version. In case the uninstall process is not complete, chances are the software will keep on indicating the expired status.
If the standard uninstaller for the program does not work, you can try to manually remove the software. This means that the related files need to be removed from disk and all related configuration data needs to be removed. Some (older) software uses local configuration files that reside with the program in the installation directory, but most software will use the Windows registry to store configuration information.
So the first thing to do is to browse to the folder where the program was attempted to be installed. In general that will be the Program Files directory on the same disk as the Windows directory. Look up the new software folder and delete it. If some files cannot be deleted, you might need to restart the computer since the files can be in use by the system. If after a restart you still cannot delete the files, try to boot in Safe Mode (press F8 during PC boot) and then delete the files.
The next problem is that there might be more files that are installed with the software, but which are residing in the system folders (typically the Windows\System and the Windows\System32 folders). If files were copied there, the only way to find out about them and delete them is to use the installation log file. On the other hand, leaving those files might not be a problem. When you reinstall the software, the installer can check for existing installations of that software by looking at the Program Files or Windows registry. Rarely do they also check for the common folders for the simple reason that most of the system folders contain shared files.
That leaves you with the configuration data in the Windows registry. The first thing to do there is to use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility. This free program from Microsoft enables you to clear the registry information from the Windows registry. You select an application from the list and the cleanup utility will remove the registry entries related to the software. Make sure you make a backup of the registry before you run the installer cleanup and be careful to select the correct software.
In cases where the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility does not remove all registry entries related to the program, you can use a registry cleaner to try and clean any obsolete or corrupted entries from the registry. You will know if this is required when you try to reinstall the software. If that fails, running the registry cleaner is a good idea.
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Written by Jason on July 23rd, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 1340 and 1354 and 1426 and 1429 and 1673 and 169 and 2065 and 2157 and 401 and 544 and Cleanup and Contributors and Software and Uninstall and Utility and Windows Vista and Windows XP and application and cleanup utility and computer and how to and microsoft and problem and program and registry and reinstall and restart and system folders and system32 and windows and windows directory and windows registry.
I was searching a way on how can we convert any screensaver of windows vista to make it work in win xp and I found some vista screensavers prorated for xp.
Windows vista offers some very cool screensavers like.. Aurora, Bubbles, Mystify, Ribbons.
Out of all these I like the bubble screensaver the most, all these screensavers looks awesome but the bubble screensaver is the best as it does not change the desktop background when it’s running.
How to Install these screensavers?
Unzip the downloaded .zip file and copy the .scr files of the corresponding screensavers in C:\Windows\System32 ( assuming C: is the directory where you have installed windows ).
After copying them you can easily locate them under the drop down of the existing screensavers in win xp.
Download Vista Screensavers for XP
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Written by Jason on June 3rd, 2008 with no comments.
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There are hundreds if not thousands of software programs that are available to block unwanted sites on your PC. some straightforward commands and a text editing program like notepad ( on every windows PC since windows3.1) and you not simply stop someone one(kids, husbands, brother in-laws) from visiting sites that might put computer at risk, or expose them to thing you don’t want them to know about.
1. Know the list of sites you want to block make sure your computer has an internet connection.
2. Standard look of DOS Window Open a command window (DOS), and type in nslookup
3. Jot down this IP address for future reference type in the name of the site you want to send them to when they visit one of the sites you don’t want them to go to. Ie. www.google.com etc…
4. Found on XP Find the “HOSTS” file on your PC. HINT: on Windows(Pre XP ) it will be located under C:\WINNT\System32\Drivers\etc On WindowXP machines it will be located under C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\etc
5. Double Click on the file named “HOSTS”, there is no extension for this file.
6. Select NOTEPAD to open and edit this file with Your PC should ask what program you want to open this file with. Select “Browse” and the select Notepad as the program you want to use.
7. Basic HOST file setup there is some basic instructions on how to enter things in here. 127.0.0.1 is the universal IP address for the “loop back address” on every windows PC in the world. By using this entry, any request to a certain address will send the request back to your PC.
8. Don’t just block them, send them somewhere useful Start by entering the IP address you jotted down earlier. Followed by the name of the site you want to block
9. One drawback to this is that you will need to enter the domain name twice Once as the domain name, and once with WWW in it.
10. Save the file.
11. Open browser and try to visit the site, you should be redirected back to where you wanted them to go. if you use 127.0.0.1 and are not running a web server on your computer then your browser should return the standard ( 404 page not found error )
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Written by Jason on May 10th, 2008 with no comments.
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Ever have the need to open more than one program or application at the same time?
Say it’s the beginning of the month and time to pay those dreaded bills. You know you need Excel, Windows calculator and Firefox or Internet Explorer open. Instead of opening them up one by one, you can easily create a batch file that will open all three programs at once.
And while your at it, why not have Excel open the spreadsheet file you use for tracking your budget and the browser open to your Bank’s home page. Here’s how to do it…
First let’s take a look at a batch file I created that will just open Excel, Calculator and Firefox:
NOTE: Examples and file paths are from Windows Vista. XP paths will probably be different for some programs as well as for MS Office (Office 2007 is used in the example).
start /d C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe
start /d “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox” firefox.exe
start /d “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12″ EXCEL.EXE
Pretty simple.
The above command, start tells Windows to open a separate window to run the specified program.
The /d switch tells start command the path of the program. For starting Excel and Firefox, notice that the paths are in quotes, which is needed when there is a space in the file path.
Now it’s great that all three programs open, but since it’s time to pay your bills, you need to have Excel open that budget spreadsheet and Firefox open to your Bank home page so you can log on and access you checking account.
Here’s how the commands look in the batch file to do this:
start /d C:\Windows\System32\ calc.exe
start /d “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox” firefox.exe https://www.bankofamerica.com
start /d C:\finance\spreadsheets budget.xls
To open Bank Of America home page with Firefox, just add the URL to end of the command as shown above using https://www.bankofamerica.com.
To open the Excel spreadsheet, budget.xls you don’t need to first open Excel. budget.xls can be opened directly using the start command, as long as the extension or file type is associated to the program.
If you need Firefox to open more than one URL, say to Google, just add the URL like this (make sure you use a space in between URL’s):
start /d “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox” firefox.exe https://www.bankofamerica.com www.google.com
Now you’re probably saying “that’s great, but how do I create a batch file?”.
That’s the easy part.
* Just open up Notepad or your favorite text editor.
* Copy the commands from above and modify them to use which ever program or Office files you want open. Make sure when you copy file and folder paths that have spaces, to use quotes.
* Then save the file with any name and a .bat extension (make sure it’s not saved using .txt as the file type extension)
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Written by Jason on May 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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We have been receiving many mails from our readers these days with a problem that when ever they start up windows they see the error messages like as follows:
* Windows cannot find ‘C:\windows\svchost.exe.’
* Could not load or run ‘C:\windows\svchost.exe.’ specified in the registry
* Windows cannot find ‘C:\Windows\System32\amvo.exe’
* “Windows cannot find ‘copy.exe’
These type of messages appear at windows startup, when windows tries to load the virus files like amvo.exe, copy.exe etc. These error messages appear, because these files were removed by your anti-virus programs but still the registry entries for them exist.
Different types of viruses create some files which got executed at the windows startup so that they can come in action as windows load itself. In order to run the primary virus files required, they create run entries in windows registry.
Let’s see how can you remove these entries.
In order to fix it you would have to remove all the startup entries created by the virus.
Manual Removal
1. Open Start >> Run. This will open run window.
2. Type “regedit” (without quotes) and press enter. This will launch registry editor.
( If you are not able to launch Registry by the command above, you can refer to this post to know how can you enable regedit again.)
3. Navigate to the following registry path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
4. Search for the keys here who have the data field set to any of the path specified above:
For Example: A Virus related entry will have
Name: Amvo
Type:
Data: C:\Windows\System32\amvo.exe
5.Delete these type of entries.
Note: Make sure you delete the virus related keys only
Automatic Removal
1. Download a program called CCleaner from here.
2. Install and Run it and Scan the registry scan
3. Once the scan is complete it will show you the Fix Selected Issues button, click it to removes all the incorrect entries including the virus files registry keys.
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Written by Jason on April 14th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Contributors and Install and SVCHOST and Software and Windows Vista and Windows XP and command and computer and download and error and fix and microsoft and problem and program and registry editor and run and system and system32 and windows and windows registry.
We have been receiving mails from several readers that they are not able to login to Windows. As soon as they login, the windows show applying your settings, saving your settings and logs off automatically without logging in. This situation is really very troublesome and gets onto the nerves of a person who needs his computer badly for some important work.
The main reasons behind this problem is a corruption in the registry key which holds the value of the files which are executed while login to windows. This registry key can get either replaced with some incorrect value or it might get corrupt due to some virus / trojan activity. Lets see how to fix this issue.
We need to remotely access the infected computer from another computer on same network. Then we need to correct the registry key for userinit under winlogon. (more…)
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Written by Jason on March 22nd, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Contributors and HKEY and Network and Windows Vista and Windows XP and auto and automatically and computer and ip address and microsoft and regedit and registry and registry editor and registry key and system32 and windows.
Windows Vista introduces a new tool on top of what its predecessor Windows XP had to offer in terms of dealing with licensing resources, from the product key to information related to the activation status of a machine. The Windows Software Licensing Management Tool can be accessed via the “slmg.vbs” command and will offer users the possibility to activate, rearm and display the activation status of Vista, but also to install and uninstall product keys. In this context, the “slmgr.vbs –upk” command, designed to uninstall a Windows Vista product key, may result on the Business and Enterprise SKUs of the operating system into the scraping of all the licensing information, synonymous with a lost activation status, and the transition of the platform into reduced functionality mode.
“After you run the slmgr.vbs –upk command on a Windows Vista-based computer, you cannot see the licensing information as expected. Additionally, the Windows Vista activation status is lost. (more…)
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