Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 November 9

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 9

Computer crash

How can you determine if your pc has crashed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/ 00:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Crashing is a generic term for locking up or ceasing to function. So generally you know when that happens since you can't do anything. Do you mean something more specific than that? --24.147.86.187 02:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess sometimes you'll get a Blue Screen of Death and it's obvious. But other times is may just lock up and nothing seems to work but the screen hasn't changed and still looks OK. However, if it's just working REALLY hard on some insanely difficult task, it may run so slowly that it appears to have crashed when in fact it may recover and carry on if you are patient enough. These days it's rather unusual for a computer to completely crash - but various components of the system may die and leave the machine misbehaving in some kind of bizarre way. The short answer is "if it isn't responding as fast as it should - it's probably crashed". —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveBaker (talk • contribs) 15:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Late addition. But usually by pressing the num lock button and seeing if the light turns on and off is a good way to see if you computer hung or not. If it goes on and off, usually it's OK... but this doesn't work in all situations. --GTPoompt(talk) 23:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Hard drive reformat

I have a PC running Windows XP. I have a Venus Series 60 GB hard drive which was formatted for Mac about 6 years ago. I want to wipe everything on the hard drive so I can use it as a backup drive, but when I plug it into my computer via FireWire, it doesn't show up in the list of drives. How can I reformat it for my PC? - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 06:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you see it if you run Disk Management? (See MSKB 309000.) The drive that shows up in My Computer is a Windows-readable partition, which (as you've stated) the drive doesn't contain. If your machine is seeing the disk drive itself (and interpreting it as illegible gobbledegook) you should be able to see it in Disk Management. After that, you should be able to wipe the partition table and create a new NTFS (or whatever) partition for it. grendel|khan 14:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Great. Thank you. It's running right now. I somehow thought that utility would be in the control panel. Silly me. That would make sense. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 18:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

MSN 7.5 no longer supported?

I cannot log in with MSN 7.5. It tells me I must upgrade to the new version. Is there any way I can continue to use MSN 7.5, or must I really upgrade? Are there any security/DRM issues with the new version that could discourage me from upgrading?

Can I install the new version on a thumb drive? Also, can I install 2 versions of MSN on the same computer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.57.203 (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It appears that there was a security vulnerability in old versions of messenger so there was a "forced update":

On September 12, 2007, the Windows Live Messenger blog posted an entry that reported of a security vulnerability discovered in versions of Messenger older than 8.1. The vulnerability "could allow remote code execution when a user accepts a webcam or video chat invitation from an attacker. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of the affected system." This led to an auto-update being released to all older versions. Versions running on Windows 2000 and below were required to update to a new version of MSN Messenger 7.0, and versions running on Windows XP and above were required to update to Windows Live Messenger 8.1.

There is a way of preventing the update detailed here, but it would be advisable to either upgrade to the latest version, or to use one of the many alternative IM clients e.g. Trillian, Pidgin or aMSN .

Г^edʃtǁcɭ 10:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Excel printing

At work, I frequently have to print out lots of Excel files at once. It's much easier for me to start with the files closed, select them all, right click, and choose "Print". However, after each file prints, Excel prompts me to Save Changes before it will move on to the next file, which means I need to sit there and babysit the process. (Worse, the Save Changes window pops under the main Excel window, so I have to click outside Excel and then re-activate it to be able to see the dialog, but that's not the main question here.) The question is: why does Excel consider printing the document to be a change that needs saving, and is there any shortcut so it won't ask? Thanks, jeffjon 14:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Knowing Microsoft, they probably store the date-last-printed somewhere inside the file or something equally stupid. I have no clue how to deal with it in Excel - but other programs will print Excel spreadsheets for you. You could try (for example) downloading a copy of OpenOffice which can load and print Excel documents...maybe it'll be a little more friendly. Sadly, I don't use spreadsheets much - so take this advice with a grain of salt! SteveBaker 15:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Excel help recommends opening Excel (with a blank workbook), going to "Open", selecting all the files you want to print off, and then going to "Tools > Print" in the top right of the "Open" dialogue. A quick test with 2 workbooks didn't ask for any save prompts, so it may work (my guess as to why it asked you to save was that your method resulted in the default print settings for the files changing, so it had to save to keep these). Laïka 15:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, never knew that was there. Now at least I can tell it "No to ALL" instead of answering once every 10 seconds. Thanks. jeffjon 16:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Control-Alt-Delete

When logging on to some Windows OSs, it asks you press Ctrl-Alt-Del before entering your password. When you click on the "help" option, it says "only Windows recognises this key combination. By entering this key combination, you ensure that you are only giving your password to Windows". Isn't this very weak - what stops a malicious user from creating a trojan or keylogger which does recognise Ctrl-Alt-Del? What's the point in asking for this key combination? Laïka 15:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This is discussed in the "Windows NT" section of Control-Alt-Delete. --LarryMac | Talk 15:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Also see Secure attention key. The Ctrl and Alt keys can be detected separately though.. I'm sure if someone experimentally tested how long on average people take to hit Del after Ctrl and Alt, a fake login could be simulated fairly realistically without actually depending on the Ctrl+Alt+Del sequence. I always wait 3-4 seconds to hit Del on a public terminal just to be sure *shrug* --ffroth 21:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

So I couldn't just write a program which said "IF ctrl is pressed & alt is pressed & delete is pressed THEN request password"? Laïka 03:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not how keyboard hooks work --ffroth 05:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You could catch any other key combination with a keyboard hook, but NT deliberately prevents applications from seeing this one. The 3-4 second wait is unnecessary, by the way. Pressing the secure attention key while a user is logged in brings up a secure desktop which displays the user's name and obscures any fake login screen that unprivileged software might try to display. -- BenRG 23:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Not if you broke the delete key, physically or by somehow messing with keyboard drivers. Come to think of it, it would certainly be possible to hardcode a ctrl+alt+del hook in the driver, though ordinary users would presumably not have local admisistrator permissions.. --ffroth 04:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

mpeg to avi

hey i was just wondering in order to put videos on windows movie maker for xp, i hav to convert them to avi from mpeg. anyone know how to do this?Jwking 16:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Try using this this free tool[1] - Г^edʃtǁcɭ 16:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Or ffmpeg. --24.147.86.187 19:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

mencoder! --ffroth 21:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

^ in C++

What the heck does ^ in a C++ type description mean? For example:

public:
List<Foo^>^ listOfFoos;

Besides looking like a cute Japanese smiley, it is a what of a list of whats to Foos? JIP | Talk 21:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to avoid C++, but this guy says they are "handles". --LarryMac | Talk 21:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I ran into that article too- it pretty much glosses over what handles are to talk about their role in garbage collection. Arcane CLR stuff. --ffroth 21:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a handle- looks like it's declaring a List handle with a Foo handle template mixed in the data type. The handle operator is presumably elsewhere overloaded, probably to act like a pointer --ffroth 21:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this use of "^" a recent addition to the C++ standard, or is it Microsoft-specific? Does gcc support this? The C++ faq entry that ffroth linked to only mentions overloading of the "->" and "*" operators, nothing about a unary "^" operator! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

see C++/CLI#Handles --Spoon! 10:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It appears that this is indeed a horrible Microsoftism relating to .NET - the resulting language should not properly be considered to be C++ at all - hance C++/CLI. I would be surprised if gcc supported it. SteveBaker 13:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Limited hard drive space with Windows Vista

I have a friend whose laptop is running Windows Vista, and she had all of her 48.5 GB of the hard drive apparently filled up. Since I am not familiar with Windows Vista (still holding onto XP), I wanted to check about any specific measures that need to be taken to free up some hard drive space. I checked the folders in her C drive, and the folder sizes only add up to approximately 17 GB. Is there a reason for this discrepancy? I believe she had Windows XP on her laptop before, so I'm thinking that the installation of Vista might have been done poorly. I was able to free up a gig of space for her by emptying the Recycle Bin, so she'll be OK for the time being. Any advice on how to address this issue? 75.60.171.158 21:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's possible that the disk has been partitioned. You didn't give much info tho- how do you know the disk is 48 Gb? Does the OS report this size, or some smaller size? If the OS is only using one partition, it might not be seeing the other partition(s) at all. Friday (talk) 21:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I only got the 48.5 GB from what the OS reported. The XP theory is just speculation on my part because I'm not clear about what's taking up so much of the hard drive space. I don't have much information since I only dropped by my friend's for 15 minutes, but if there's anything else you need to know for clarification, I'll do my best to answer any questions. 75.60.171.158 21:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Album Art

I am trying to print the album art for some CDs that I have that I have lost the jewel case for. How can I access the album art downloaded for WMP? --Omnipotence407 22:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about extracting it from WMP, but you may want to check out Cdcovers.cc which is pretty useful for those like you. 75.60.171.158 23:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Doesnt have the CD covers I need. --Omnipotence407 02:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

WMP stores downloaded cover art in the same folder as the music. It is stored with a filename starting with AlbumArt; there is a large and a small version. The large is only 200 x 200 pixels, so it may not be that useful for your purposes. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Those album art files are hidden. You will need to change the settings in Windows Explorer to be able to see them. Astronaut 14:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)