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Brian's Buzz on Windows has changed its name to the Windows
Secrets Newsletter. Get the latest high-tech tricks with a free
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DECEMBER 4, 2003 - Issue 19
Avoid holiday media headaches
By Brian Livingston
As the holiday season rises to a fever pitch, you may be thinking
about buying someone - or buying for yourself - some cool new digital media
geegaw. If so, you need to know about Bruce Kratofil's BugBlog and its December
Entertainment Special.
Kratofil (a co-author with me of
Windows 2000 Secrets) has put together a jolly Web page chock-full
of the problems and incompatibilities you'll run into when using the latest
video and audio goodies. Some of these glitches are hilarious, if you happen
to be reading about them before you've bought the product.
Let's take a peek at a few examples:
• XP SP1 chokes on USB devices.
If you stream media from a
high-speed, USB 2.0 device - such as a video camera - to a PC with XP
Service Pack 1 installed, the PC may slow to a crawl. For example,
USB speakers may stop playing, or a USB mouse may become useless.
This is because XP SP1 is devoting 80% or so of your CPU time to the
streaming device. Not very friendly behavior, eh?
SP1 also has several
other nasty habits if your system includes USB devices. It may crash or
restart the system instead of coming gracefully out of hibernation. It also
may fail to recognize USB devices after coming out of suspend modes.
Fortunately, as of Nov. 24, Microsoft has a new
patch. See Knowledge Base article
822603.
Unfortunately, even this patch has generated its own patch. (How did you know I
was going to say that?) Installing 822603 on XP SP1 can cause your PC to hang
when you try to bring it out of suspend modes by moving a USB mouse or
pressing a USB keyboard key. If so, you may be able to avoid this
by coming out of standby or hibernation by pressing the power button, if your
system supports this. Or you can install the extra patch -
826959 - on top of 822603.
• iPod doesn't update if Windows is not on drive C.
You'd think that
Apple would know by now that we can install Windows onto any partition
we like. But no-o-o-o. If you use Apple's iPod Software Updater for
Windows, you get a "Can't Mount iPod" error message if Windows is not
installed on drive C. Kratofil says there's no workaround at this time.
(I guess you could re-install Windows to use your iPod.)
• Media Center Edition video black-out.
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, a digital-media version of XP that's
available
only on some new desktops and laptops, has a few quirks when it's playing
videos. Say you'd been playing a video, and you then put the machine into
a suspend mode. After you resume the computer, restart the video, and
double-click it to maximize the window, you may see nothing but a completely
black screen.
Microsoft says there's no fix, but you can work around the situation by
clicking the Play button on the remote control that's included with
MCE.
Kratofil has collected dozens more of these kinds of alerts for every kind of
digital media maker. The lists includes Creative Labs, Dell, Linux, Musicmatch,
Nvidia, Real Networks, and Winamp. Visit BugBlog's December Entertainment
Special at
www.bjkresearch.com/bugblog/entertain.cfm.
To send me more information about these kinds of media gotchas,
or to send me a tip on any other subject, visit
WindowsSecrets.com/contact/.
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THIS WEEK'S HOT TIPS - news of the world of Windows
Recover those missing Outlook and Outlook Express messages
In the
Nov. 20 issue of Brians' Buzz,
reader Joe Lazzara described a disaster that he needed help to recover from.
His original plea went like this:
-
"Right after installing the update
(KB
824145) from security bulletin
MS03-048 on Windows XP Professional, I lost all of my e-mails in Outlook
Express. The address book was intact, but all the e-mail files were completely
empty. I have found no help on the Microsoft knowledge base on this issue.
Any help or ideas?"
My loyal readers came to the rescue with even more feedback than usual.
Anyone who deals with Microsoft Outlook (an e-mail program that ships with
Microsoft Office) or Outlook Express (a distinct program that comes with
Internet Explorer) will learn something new by reading the following
strategies.
Edit the Registry to recover OE files
What had happened to Lazzara's messages is that installing MS03-048
(a cumulative update for IE)
made Outlook Express set up a new default "identity." That identity,
being new, had no e-mail messages in its fresh, startlingly empty folders.
One of the best explanations for this, plus a detailed fix, comes from
Kent England, a winner of the Microsoft
MVP
(Most Valuable Professional) award:
-
"My conclusion is that the update is erroneously restoring default values
for some or all user shell folder variables.
"I would suggest that if Joe moved his Outlook Express message store
prior to the update in question, then the cumulative update may have
changed the message store location back to the default value.
"Joe can look in the Maintenance tab of OE Tools, Options to see where his
message store is currently located. If this is incorrect, he can change it
back to where it should be. But he MUST NOT use that OE screen to
change his message store, because OE will erase all his messages by
overwriting with his current (empty) message store.
"He will have to edit the Registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0
where the hex values within the curly braces correspond to his OE Identity.
"Change the value to the correct full local path to the message store
(e.g., C:\Documents and Settings\user\Mail). Be sure that Outlook Express
is NOT running when you change the key. Then start OE and the
messages should magically re-appear.
Copy the missing files using any file manager
The above strategy is an excellent prescription. But perhaps you're not
comfortable using Regedit.exe or RegEdt32.exe to edit the values in the
Registry. In that case, Brian's Buzz reader Michael Kennedy has written a
step-by-step document that explains how
to recover a missing storehouse of Outlook Express messages, using
nothing more complicated than Windows Explorer (or any other file manager
you like). Some excerpts:
-
"If (big if) the OE files are not destroyed internally, then it's
normally quite easy to recover the contents. ...
"Locate the directory in which all the OE e-mail files are held:
- In W95, it might be
C:\Windows\Application Data\ Microsoft\ Outlook Express
- In W98, it might be
C:\Windows\ Application Data\ Identities\ ????\ Microsoft\ Outlook Express
- In XP, it might be something like C:\Documents & Settings\
Administrator\ Local Settings\ Application Data\ Identities\
{????}\ Microsoft\ Outlook Express (allowing for user names, etc.)
- Or maybe just 'search' for directories named 'Outlook Express'
"In there, you'll see a file named Folders.dbx, and probably many other e-mail
(.dbx) files, including Inbox.dbx, etc. Hopefully, you'll recognize the
names of the 'missing' files and, hopefully, those files still have
'proper' sizes - indicating that the old contents are still intact."
If you get that far, and your messages are still safely stored, Kennedy
shows you how to back up the files for safety's sake, then copy your old
messages into a location where OE will find them the next time it starts up.
Success!
Kennedy's document is an online .rtf (Rich Text Format) file. To download it,
visit the following Web address in your Web
browser and save the file to disk when prompted. You can then open the
document in Microsoft Word or almost any modern word processor:
www.kennedysoftware.ie/download/oe-rebld.rtf
Use a free or low-cost recovery utility
Those who want the convenience of using an automated tool should
know about
DBXtract and
DBXpress.
-
DBXtract is a freeware program that extracts all the individual mail and
news messages from an Outlook Express 5 or 6 message store. Once this has
been accomplished, you can move them around with a file manager, archive
just the ones you wish to save, and so forth. DBXtract is designed for
recovering corrupted OE files, and (in its Recover Mode) it can even extract
messages that have been deleted.
- DBXpress is a more advanced program that currently costs $29.95.
It has its own search capabilities, enabling you to find even hidden
files that OE has written. It runs on Windows 2000, XP, or 2003, but
not Windows 9x or Me. (You can temporarily install a hard disk from the
older operating systems as a second drive into a system that can run
DBXpress.) The program is powerful enough to recover messages
from hard drives that won't boot, from damaged partitions, and even from
drives that have been formatted.
My thanks to reader Bart Smith for his recommendation of the above
software programs.
Recover deleted Outlook messages
Most corporations, of course, use Microsoft Outlook, not Outlook Express,
for e-mail. Reader Bob Clifton turned me on to a way
that corporate IT pros can get back any messages that anyone has recently
deleted from his or her Outlook folders.
I'll paraphrase, below, an outline of the procedure. Don't try this
without reading the complete list of steps at
techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-5054599.html.
-
Back up the Outlook .pst file, which contains the message store.
- Use a hex editor to insert blanks into 13 specific character positions
near the beginning of the file.
- Run Microsoft's Inbox Repair Tool on the .pst file. This utility is
included with Windows 9x, NT, 2000, and XP, as well as Outlook 98 and Office
2000. More information on the tool is available in Knowledge Base article
287497.
- Run Outlook, and the repaired .pst file will be opened, with the
Deleted Items folder containing all of the recently deleted messages.
My thanks to everyone who submitted suggestions. Those whose comments
I printed will receive a gift certificate for a free book, CD, or DVD
of their choice. To send me more information on e-mail fixes such as these,
or to send me a tip on any other subject, visit
WindowsSecrets.com/contact.
RECOMMENDED READING - my book reviews of tech topics
PC Magazine Technology Almanac 2004
Here's a book I can recommend whole-heartedly. For about 15 bucks (street),
you get a paperback crammed with the past 52 weeks of the best tips from
PC Magazine, plus an offer inside the book to get the next 52 weeks
of the print version of the mag delivered free to your home - a $19.95
value (U.S. addresses only). There's so much good stuff in a typical issue
of PC Mag that I somehow never actually finish reading every page
of it. Now I can keep beside my desk a collection of all the
meatiest bits.
More info
FORWARDING INSTRUCTIONS - news gains value when it's shared
Please share this information with your colleagues
You're encouraged to refer your friends and colleagues to this free
newsletter. Because most e-mail programs don't correctly display a formatted
message that's been forwarded, simply call people's attention to
the permanent Web address of this issue:
BriansBuzz.com/w/031204.
HERE'S A TIP - you'll get a better newsletter if you choose the paid version
You're reading the free version of Brian's Buzz on Windows
The best tips are always in the paid version of this newsletter.
Some of the extras you'll find this week are:
- IE 6 is wide open to hackers, but you can
fix it. A security researcher shows how easy it is for users to
silently become infected with a Trojan horse merely by visiting a single
Web page with Internet Explorer. But there's also a 1-minute workaround
you can use to make IE immune to the script kiddies who surely will attack
in the coming days.
- Exchange Server can be taken over by spammers - on your dime.
A new report shows how easily Microsoft's e-mail server can be
exploited by evil junk mailers, with your company showing up as the
spamming IP address.
- XP makes disk-write errors in even more cases. The data-loss scandal
continues, but I show you how to guard yourself against these problems.
- SharePoint Services won't install after Nov. 24, 2003.
This component of Small Business Server 2003 (the "economy pack" of
Server 2003 and many other programs) has a bug that you can easily work
around, if you know the secret.
- MS03-045 messes up text input. Yes, there's a trick
to fix it up.
- Outlook 2003 soaks up memory, then crashes. If you know how
to clear OE's memory usage, you'll be fine.
- How to work around MS03-048's double-scroll problem. It's simple,
but I hadn't originally realized how Windows itself could be used to handle
this task properly.
If you make a contribution before December 17, 2003,
you'll be sent the full, paid version of this week's newsletter within minutes.
To upgrade to the paid version, please visit
WindowsSecrets.com/upgrade.
Thanks in advance.
BRIAN'S BOOKSHELF - new e-books from the author
Spam-Proof Your E-Mail Address
This 27-page e-book in PDF format gives you step-by-step instructions
that can eliminate 97% of the spam that would otherwise clog your e-mail
account. You could call it "Brian Livingston's Spam Secrets." The book
is the result of months of experiments and tests I conducted, and I now
receive little or no spam to the addresses I used as guinea pigs. These tests
show that you can actually reduce your volume of spam to practically nothing,
not just battle an unstoppable and ever-growing flood. The methods I describe
work with Windows, Apple, and Linux and don't require any filters or block
lists - but you can use those in addition to the book's techniques, if you wish.
More info
WACKY WEB WEEK - playing for you the Internet's greatest bits
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
It may not be freezing in your part of the world this month - but, if not,
you can create some big flakes with a terrific Flash movie called
The Little Snow Globe.
After a few seconds while the animation loads, you see a group of children
playing as the white stuff falls gently around them. Simply hold down your
mouse button as you "shake" the globe. The snow flies, as well as the
children, who perhaps should have put on their seat belts before you
rocked their little world.
I don't know which is more sickly: the whole concept, or the Christmas tune
that plays in the background while you do this. If you watch for a minute or so,
the kids build a snowman, which then gobbles one of them up. It's funny as heck,
if you're in the mood for offbeat humor. It's a production of E-tractions,
a group of more than a dozen online technology specialists in Bedford, Mass.
See the movie
CLOSING REMARKS - the best is yet to come
My latest columns appearing in other publications are:
eWeek: A firewall hole for VOIP
Everything from Microsoft's Windows XP to its Live Communications Server 2003
to IBM's Lotus Instant Messenger supports SIP, the Session Initiation Protocol,
which allows the integration of VOIP (Internet calling) with Web services,
digital video, instant messaging, and e-mail. This harmonious bubble was
burst 13 weeks ago by a new, free, peer-to-peer Internet calling program called
Skype.
More info
Datamation: Who's walking around with your files?
At this very moment, one of your employees may be walking out of your
building with a complete set of word-processing documents, e-mail messages,
even Windows desktop settings. This could actually be good. It probably
means that your employees have the benefit of new, little devices you've
given them, called keychain drives, that allow them to work away from the
office without having to carry a laptop computer.
More info
The next Brian's Buzz on Dec. 18 will be a special End-of-Year Tip-O-Rama
issue. Look for it then, and please enjoy yourself and drive safely in this
holiday season.
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