Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 May 1

Computing desk
< April 30	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 2 >

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.

May 1

Emulating Windows Xp on my Windows Vista to make the game work? How?

Hey, I sent in a question earlier, and i ahve included my former question at the bottom here. What i am asking now is that about that "EMULATING the windowns XP" that you mentioned that might make Worms work, what you mean? HOW DO YOU EMULATE WindowsXP when you have Windows Vista? Please explain to me, so i can try that too. Its only the colors and graphics that becomes all wrong after having played the game a few seconds, but other than that it works all fine, and after what i have read lately it shud be possible to address and fix this problem somehow, although i know not at all how...

---

Are "Worms" compatible with Windows VISTA? Hey, I was thinking about bringing some of the good all days back by buying a few of the games in the computer game-series "worms".

However, some of these games are old, meant for WINDOWS 95/98 and shud probably work fine on Windows xp too, but I have windows VISTA...

Anyone have any idea if these games will work on my Windows vista computer?

the games in question, that i'm thinking of buying, are :

- Worms 2 - Worms Armageddon - Worms World party

Other system-requirements shoudlnt be a problem, im only worried about the vista and whether it is compatible with the games.

Thank you :)

Krikkert7 (talk) 13:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Last time I tried to run Worms Armageddon on Vista (with the XP patch), it crashed often and had horrible graphical errors. I ended up emulating XP just to be able to play it. I figure you might have to do the same. There was simply no other way I could do it, but maybe you'll get luckyItalic text. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 13:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You can emulate XP with an XP installation CD and either Virtual PC or VMWare. The graphical errors I described are exactly like yours - inverted colours and jagged edges. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 18:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

You could also try running the game in compatibility mode: right-click on the icon, and go to Properties > Compatibility. Check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" box and choose the appropriate operating system. I've had mixed results using this technique. --Kateshortforbob 20:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Burning images

Hello! I made an image of a DVD+RW and saved it to my hard drive. Is it possible to burn this image onto a DVD+R that will play on any standard DVD player with +R capabilities, or am I limited to burning it onto another DVD+RW? Thanks in advance!--El aprendelenguas (talk) 02:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

You should have a file ending with the extension "iso". That can be burned to any disk that has the required capacity. A DVD+R and DVD+RW both have equivalent capacity, so you can burn the iso to the +R. -- kainaw™ 02:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Changing size of a particular font

I have a unicode font for having my folder name in windows explorer in regional script. But the font size is terribly small. Can anyone please suggest me how to increase the size of this particular font under vista? Bobatnet (talk) 04:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Error Reading Thumbdrive

Whenever I plug in my thumbdrive, the computer reacts in a way that it appears to be loading something. However, when I go to my computer, the device is not displayed. This problem seems only to happen after I plug in my thumbdrive into a public computer. Does it have a virus? If yes, how do i remove it without damaging my data files? Also, is there any software that can remove the virus? Note that the computer cannot detect the thumbdrive, so anti-virus software do not work. Also, with the thumbdrive plugged in, whenever i tried to open a microsoft word document in it, a message appears saying that the file is corrupted. Format of my thumbdrive:FAT32 Date last plugged in into public computer: 30 April 2008 ~~~~

Is the pendrive even detected on some computers or not? I didn't get that... You can always try to plug the pendrive on a Linux computer, that way, IF the pendrive itself is good, the windows viruses will not infect the system and you can access the pendrive and save your documents, and you can also remove the virus that way, by simply deleting it's files... If you want to do that you have to simply download the Live CD iso of ubuntu (for example) from: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/and boot it... If the pendrive is not detected on any computer, and you didn't erased the filesystem, then there isn't much chance to recover your files... it may be a hardware problem... SF007 (talk) 20:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a drive mapping problem. Open Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer management > Disk management. Your thumbdrive may be mapping to a drive that is already in use on that particular PC. You can change it from this menu. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

lost?

i recently had to format my pc and during reinstallation my antivirus detected some viruses and deleted some files. eversince then everytime i start the pc a message box says "windows can't find C:\WINDOWS\....blabla" and on clicking OK "could not load or run C:\WINDOWS\....blabla ...make sure it exists or delete it from registry" 1) how to fix it? don't know nothing about registry so plz elaborate what to click after what. 2) i had problem that none could answer.my pc can't read a particular rar file on a cd though two other rar files on the same cd are ok and all of them are fine on other computers. everytime i click the file pc says "not responding" and then the "windows can't find" reappears after the cd is ejected. may the problems be related? please help, its very imp. sorry about the length.--scoobydoo (talk) 10:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I cannot help you here unfortuately, but it should help other voluteers if you name the exact file that Windows cannot find on startup. Adam (Manors) 13:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this description. If you formatted your PC (by which I assume you mean the hard drive), then you'd have to re-install Windows. How, then, could you be running any antivirus program? In any event, Manors is correct, without the actual file names there's not enough information to work with. --LarryMac | Talk 13:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm taking a guess here, but perhaps the OP meant that they were reinstalling everything and that during the reinstall of the anti-virus program it removed some part of the operating system. If that is the case, I suggest you go through the process again, but this time install the operating system from the original disk then immediately install the anti-virus BEFORE installing anything else or connecting to the internet; then connect to the internet and get the latest OS updates and anti-virus template file - again from the official souces. Hopefully, you will get a clean up-to-date install protected by an up-to-date anti-virus.

I suspect something you installed before was infected, so scan each disk for viruses before installing your other software and backed-up data. Hopefully this will stop the critical file from getting infected in the first place. Astronaut (talk) 22:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

One last thing: error messages that appear are usually telling you something useful. Take the time to read them and act sensibly on them, and don't just blindly click OK without considering what's going to happen. Astronaut (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

i don't click blindly but don't know how to remove from registry.(i've searched for the file but can't find it, see problem1)and yes some parts of the op was removed so probably have to reinstall again eitherway.thanks --scoobydoo (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Windows is provided with a registry editor called regedit. First a BIG WARNING:

Regedit provides no checks against deleting something critical and any changes are instantaneous and permanent (ie. there's no undo and no "Save changes" option). It is possible to break Windows by deleting stuff from the registry and you might have to reinstall Windows again. It is possible to backup parts of the registry using the Export facility in regedit and I would recommend using it if you are unsure what you are doing (registry data is saved to a .reg file which you can double-click later to reintegrate the saved data into the registry).

Anyway, the first places to look are probably HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. Failing that, search the registry for the filename of the missing file. Depending on the filename and where you find it in the registry, you will have to make a judgment on whether or not to remove some or all mention of it.

Astronaut (talk) 19:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Windows Movie Maker

I'm trying to use the "Take Picture" feature in movie maker, but when I do, the dimensions of the picture are 320x240. Previously when I took a picture with windows movie maker, the dimensions were 640x480, which is what I want them to be. Is there any way to adjust the size of the picture? Digger3000 (talk) 13:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Any Mac apps that can read .UIF files?

Are there any Mac programs that can read, burn or mount .UIF files? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be a proprietary format for MagicISO, which is windows only. My suggestion is to burn the image, using a PC and Magic ISO. You could use this terminal (command line) solution as well [1]. AtaruMoroboshi (talk) 19:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I love proprietary formats that have the word "universal" in their name! --71.158.218.130 (talk) 03:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point, especially software that is not even cross platform... SF007 (talk) 21:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

MSN Messenger

Could you put something like this as your display picture, if so, how? I have tried saving it, and changing it normally but then the number does not count up, it just stays on 0. Thanks. Tiddly-Tom 18:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

When a program supports gifs but not animated gifs, you usually only see the first frame of the image. So, it looks like MSN Messenger doesn't support animated gif pictures. Astronaut (talk) 21:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Windows Live Messenger Plus! supports them (it's just an upgraded version of MSN) try using that, it's free!...... Dendodge.Talk^Help 21:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Image snap

PC running XP Home. Word 2003. Whenever I try to reposition an image, it snaps to the top of the page. WTF? --Milkbreath (talk) 19:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the frustrating world of Word - join the club :) Using images in it is notoriously difficult. Have you tried to make sure there is enough "empty space" to work with? If the image can't find space to fit in, it just jumps back to where it came from, or even worse some other place, moving text around. Ctrl-Z is a nice key in word :) Try using tables or paragraphs to better manage images positions. You would be much better off to use something else though; notwithstanding a whole host of DTP programs out there, even Excel would be better. Sandman30s (talk) 23:26, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. What empty space? The text is supposed to wrap. And not only does it snap to the top, it ignores the margins completely wherever it is. Thanks for the hot key. I love them. --Milkbreath (talk) 02:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry don't have Word2003 running, so I can't tell you exactly where to find it. If you click on your image you should be able to get to "Format picture" and somewhere in the Layout "Advanced" settings "Picture Position" there is something about "Lock anchor" and "Move object with text" Change those and then move your picture by changing the values for Horizontal and Vertical alignment and also change to "from page" instead of column and paragraph. I agree with Sandman most of the default settings are junk and it takes a while till you find exactly where they've hidden that box that you need to uncheck. Hope this helps. P.S. also check under "Tools" "options" if it's not under "Format" --Lisa4edit (talk) 10:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The snap-to-top-of-page problem can happen when the image is forced onto a different page from its own anchor. If you can't see the image's anchor, choose 'Show hidden characters'. I think it's under the View menu. You then need to make sure that there is at least one paragraph (again, you need to show hidden characters to see the paragraph symbols) on the page where you want the image to appear. Then drag the image around until its anchor snaps to a paragraph on the correct page. Also, make sure that there aren't any other images on the target page that are crowding out your new image. It can help if you set 'Allow overlap' in the image properties, at least temporarily, to allow it to rest on top of other images without jumping out of the way, until you figure out what the problem is. --Heron (talk) 14:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Word 2007 switching language with the keyboard

Even though I'm british, live in the UK, and like UK spelling, I prefer to use a US english keyboard with the "@" above "2" and no "£" at all. I use Windows Vista and Office 2007 and the problem is that Word insists on changing the document language to US English if I try to use my US keyboard. If I switch the document language to UK English, I start getting different characters that is printed on the keyboard. How can I type UK English using a US keyboard?

Just to add to the confusion, I have the language bar IME thingy installed so I can easily switch to write Japanese, and there appears to be absolutely no problem with that functionality - I switch the language bar to Hirigana and the US keyboard types out Japanese (like this "日本語") just as I would expect.

Astronaut (talk) 21:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I have Windows XP, and don't have Word, but I suspect it's just a setting in the Control Panel that is the source of your problem. There are settings in the Control Panel that control which languages you can switch between, and which keyboard layouts each language can use. In Windows XP, you go to Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. Click on the Languages tab, then the Details button. Click Add. You need to be careful to add the language as "English (United Kingdom)" but the keyboard layout as "US".

Here's an example where I added all four possibilities: example image. In that case, Windows shows both a language icon and a keyboard icon in the taskbar to switch between the possibilities.

While playing around with it, another confusing factor I discovered is that Windows remembers the active language and keyboard separately for every open program. When you use the minimized icons next to the clock, it might not be obvious the keyboard changed on you. If you show the Language Bar, it shows the name of the active language and keyboard, and you can see how they switch between windows: Language Bar image. --Bavi H (talk) 01:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice, but it's changed a little in Vista. It was far from clear what to do but I've got it working OK now. Here is an image of my language bar settings page as it was and the "Add..." button appeared to only support one keyboard for UK english. However, as you can see here, below the UK keyboard setting is a "Show More..." which let me add a US keyboard to UK english and resulted in this (after I had deleted the unnecessary US language setting). Astronaut (talk) 02:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)