Windows Watcher

Icons giving you the runaround? ... by Tom Bair

The fellow living down the street dragged me over to his house one day last week.

"Watch this," he says as he boots up his Windows ME computer. When his desktop appears, he points to an icon only to have it dance around and run away from his mouse pointer.

"Gremlins?" he asks me.

"Nah, more like worms," I tell him.

The fact that his icons were dancing on the screen told me he had been infected with one of the variants of the Magistr worm. Having the icons run away from his mouse cursor as it came near to them informed me he had been infected for a couple of months.

I sat down at his PC and went online, navigating to www.sarc.com and clicked on the "Removal Tools" link to download the fix. After applying the downloaded fix and rebooting his computer, I strongly advised him to install an anti-virus program.

My reward came a few days later when the fellow's wife dragged my wife and me over to their house for homemade tacos. Those tacos were so mouth-watering good, I'm now hoping his PC crashes again sometime. Soon.

Restore Share Tab in Folder Properties

[XP] Ever wondered what happened to the Share Tab in Windows XP's Folder Properties box? To share files and folders in Windows 2000 was a simple matter of right-clicking on a folder and setting the 'Share Properties' from the context menu. Yet XP makes the share option invisible by default. Microsoft claims this is a tactic to provide users with a bit more system security straight out of the box.

If you would like to restore this function in XP, do the following:

1. Click on the 'Start' button.
2. Click on 'My Computer.'
3. Click on 'Tools' in the Menu bar at the top of the Window.
4. Click on 'Folder Options.'
5. Click on the 'View' tab in the "Folder Options Property" Window.
6. In the "Advanced Settings" section of the "View" window, scroll down to the "Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)" listing.
7. Click on the checkbox next to it to remove the checkmark.
8. Click on the 'Apply' button.
9. Click the 'OK' button.
10. Exit 'My Computer.'

Disable XP Startup Screen

[XP] Garrett Bredall is curious about what goes on behind the Windows Startup Screen when his computer is booting. He wants to disable the Startup Screen so he can see what's happening during the bootup process. For Garrett and others, here's how:

1. Click on the 'Start' button.
2. Right-click on 'My Computer.'
3. Click on 'Properties' in the pop-up command window.
4. Click on the 'Advanced' tab in the "System Properties" window.
5. Click on the 'Settings' button in the "Startup and Recovery" section at the bottom of the window.
6. Click the 'Edit' button located in the "System Startup" section of the window. The boot.ini file will open up in Notepad.
7. You should see a line at the bottom of the window which looks like:

   XP Home Edition -
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
   XP Professional Edition -
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

   You will want to click on the end of /fastdetect and add the command "/sos." Make sure you put a space between 'fastdetect' and '/sos.'

8. Close Notepad, clicking on 'Yes' when asked if you want to save your changes.
9. Click on the 'OK' button.
10. Click on the 'Apply' button.
11. Click on the 'OK' button to exit "System Properties."
12. Reboot your PC and the Startup Screen will be gone with the wind.

Norton LiveUpdate Fix

[ME/XP] I've heard from a few readers lately of how their Norton Anti-Virus software can no longer update its virus definition file via online access. In all cases, this started right after the reader added a software firewall program.

Not all software firewall programs are the same, so you will want to check your firewall's documentation on how to configure your settings to allow LiveUpdate access to the Internet. In most cases, you will need to give permission for a program to have unlimited access. The name and location of the program in LiveUpdate is: C:\Program Files\Symantec\LiveUpdate

Also note that LiveUpdate requires access to ports 80 (HTTP), 21 (FTP), and 443 (HTTPS). The protocol used by LiveUpdate is TCP.

If this is a bit more than you can understand, contact your firewall's manufacturer and ask them for a solution to allow your anti-virus software to have full online access. You will need to remember to include your brand and version of AV software.

Modify XP's DIR Command

[XP] Are you one of the few who like to get a directory listing of your hard drive via XP's Command Prompt? Are you sad because the listing doesn't take on the format of older versions of the DOS DIR command? Would you like to change it for the better? If you answered 'yes' to the above questions, then do the following:

1. Click on the 'Start' button.
2. Right-click on 'My Computer.'
3. Click on 'Properties' in the pop-up command window.
4. Click on the "Advanced" tab.
5. Click on the "Environment Variables" button at the bottom of the window.
6. Click on the 'New' button in the "System variables" section.
7. In the text entry box next to "Variable name", type dircmd
8. In the text entry box next to "Variable value", type /-n/o/p
9. Click the 'OK' button.
10. Again, click the 'OK' button.
11. One last time, click the 'OK' button. This puts you back to your desktop.

Now let's test it. Click on 'Start,' then highlight 'All Programs,' 'Accessories,' and click on 'Command Prompt.' Type the command "DIR" and you should see a normal file listing in alphabetical order, one page at a time. If you find it not to your taste, you can remove it by following the above first five steps, highlighting "dircmd" and clicking on the 'Delete' key.

Lock Your Desktop

[XP] The easy way to lock your desktop is to hold down the Windows Key (that key with the flag on it) and press the L key. If you have other users assigned to your computer, they will still have access to the computer by selecting their Username and entering their password. If you don't have a password assigned to your account, then anyone can access your work by clicking on your Username on the Welcome screen.

For those who prefer to click on a shortcut to lock their desktop, do the following:

1. Right-click on an empty area of your desktop.
2. Highlight 'New' and click on 'Shortcut.'
3. A "Create Shortcut" Wizard will pop up. There will be a text entry box under "Type the location of the item." Type in rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation. Note that the only space is between rundll32.exe and user32.dll.
4. Click on the 'Next' button.
5. In the text entry box under "Type a name for this shortcut," enter something along the lines of 'Lock Desktop' or 'Log Off.'
6. Click on the 'Finish' button.

Now try out your new shortcut by clicking on it. If all goes well, you should be placed at the Welcome Screen, where you only need to click on your Username and enter your password (if any) to log back on where you left off. The Welcome Screen will even tell you if you have any active programs running under your account.

About the Author

Please feel free to email the author with your comments about this article: Tom Bair