Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 April 14

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April 14

preventing windows from changing folder names

Windows exhibits some strange behavior when copying "My Videos" (or "My Music" and "My Pictures" for that matter) to an external hard drive, for example.

1. When I Ctrl+C and Ctrl+P, the folder is moved, its video icon remains intact, and the DeleteOnCopy stuff in the desktop.ini file is deleted.
2. When copy with a mirror backup program, its video icon disappears, but the desktop.ini is unchanged.
3. When I try to remedy this by setting the icon through folder properties, "My Videos"'s name changes to "Administrator's Videos" (where "Administrator" is my name).

Does anybody know how to undo this automatic name change? That is, I don't want the name of the folder to change, but I also want to keep the video icon. Where is the setting for the name change stored, anyway? Obviously, desktop.ini does not fully determine the state of the folder, and there appears to be some hysteresis.

Thank you, --VectorField (talk) 00:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't the folder's name is actually being changed, it's just being displayed differently - it goes a bit like this:

Having joyfully scattered the word "My" around our filesystems, the Windows developers realised that this made things jolly confusing on multi-user systems because looking in another user's profile you can see their "My Documents" etc ["But they're not mine, they're my sister/mum/colleague/cat's!"] So, in a typical case of Windows trying almost too hard to be user-friendly, they put special code in the OS somewhere that means that if you look at someone else's "My Documents" folder, it replaces the word "My" with their name.

So, something in that folder's magic properties (in desktop.ini or elsewhere) is triggering this name translation. And since the folder is no longer in its normal place, it sees it as not "your" folder but the folder of someone else - in this case, someone with your username! - IMSoP (talk) 12:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Video Editor

Kay, me and my amateur filmmaking group need an equivalent of Windows Movie Maker, but able to use .mov files. we need something either freeware or preferably under $30. i cant find anything, does anyone know of one? 71.35.25.93 (talk) 02:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the options for freeware non-linear editors are pretty slim—there are a few in Category:Free_video_software but none of them are production-level to my knowledge. Of things that are unfree but pretty cheap, I think maybe iMovie is the only thing that comes to mind as immediately fitting the bill, but even it is pretty weak. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 11:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You could convert the .mov files to .avi or .wmv with SUPER, which would then allow you to open and work with them in Windows Movie Maker. Once you'd completed editing you could then convert back .mov if need be. SN0WKITT3N 13:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

My home wireless network has DHCP disabled.

My laptop is set to use DHCP by default, and an Alternate Configuration (WinXP) if DHCP is unavailable. Whenever I turn it on it takes a couple of minutes to use the static IP settings from Alternate Configuration. Why? Thanks in advance. Imagine Reason (talk) 03:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm unclear to what your question actually is? Why does it take a few minutes to realise there's no DHCP server? or why is DHCP turned off? I'm not sure whether you can actually reduce the DHCP timeout value (there's possibly a registry setting), but to turn DHCP, assume you use a router, you would need to login to that router (usually via a special webpage) and turn on DHCP and configure as needed. I hope this helps, but if you can give us more information we can try and assist further. ZX81 ^talk 14:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Basically, it takes the laptop a long time to realize that it's not going to get a response from using DHCP. As you can tell from reading the DHCP article, the laptop client sends out a broadcast packet to the network asking for any dhcp server to respond. Then it waits a few seconds for a response. If it doesn't get one, it tries again. It does this several times, so it can take quite a long time if it doesn't get a response. I don't know why you have DHCP turned off on your home wireless network (it doesn't actually improve security or anything). If I were you, I'd turn DHCP back on but only use static assignment for the computers you wanted to use it. Indeterminate (talk) 20:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

So my problem is a "feature" then? I disabled DHCP on my router because the two wireless devices that connect to it require special ports to be opened, and that's easy to do with static addresses--DHCP is not used. I want my laptop to use DHCP by default, though, because away from home it mostly connects to free wi-fi. Imagine Reason (talk) 16:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

XBox 360 to LCD Monitor

I'm thinking of buying [1] this monitor. I'd like to use it for both my XBox 360 and my PC. It has a DVI, VGA and HDMI input. My XBox is the older one, with the regular composite HD out (no HDMI).

This monitor should accept 1080p, and is a 16:9 (TV and gaming, vs. the usual 16:10) ratio.

What method of connecting the XBox to the PC will yield me the best picture? I'd like to be able to use the DVI input for the PC, but that's not necessary. Is there an XBox 360 direct to VGA/DVI converter that works well? A component HD to HDMI converter?NByz (talk) 04:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

(edited after re-reading) You are thinking that you want to pipe your Xbox video into your PC somehow, and output the PC's video signal to this monitor? I would never choose to do that; I would choose an HD monitor with 2 sets of inputs, one for the PC (presumably a DVI connector) and one for the Xbox (in your case, component HD connectors). There is an Xbox AV pack that has an analog VGA connector on it, but that AV pack outputs 480p video, not the 16:9 HD video you want, so whether you pipe it through the PC is immaterial. There is no converter box I know of that inputs component HD and outputs an HDMI cable. I think your best bet is to not purchase this monitor, and instead purchase a monitor that has two sets of connectors, one of them being a set of component HD connectors for your Xbox. It's not going to cost much (or any) more money, and will be far, far less technical hassle to use. Tempshill (talk) 05:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The Xbox 360 VGA cable will output HD. And there are devices to go from Component to HDMI, such as [2]. I own one of those suckers, and it works fine on anything except for 1080p, where it flickers horribly; there is flicker on lower resolutions however, even through unconverted component, so it may very well be that my console's GPU is wigging out. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Hah, that first sentence of the last paragraph should be "...connecting the XBox to the MONITOR..." whoops. Can anyone suggest a monitor that actually has composite HD inputs? Or a HD composite -> HDMI converter that looks good @ 1080p? NByz (talk) 14:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

If Consumed Crustacean is correct, then I was mistaken about the Xbox VGA AV pack outputting 480p. I did it myself but only remember getting 480p output. If you can confirm that he's correct that the VGA AV pack outputs HD video, then a good solution might be, indeed, to get a monitor that has one DVI input (for your PC) and one VGA input (for your Xbox), and then hit the 'video' button on the monitor to switch back and forth. This link at xbox.com does claim that he's right. (I think you can get them for cheaper than US$39.99 if you shop around.) It will be much easier to find a monitor with this configuration than to find one that has composite HD inputs. Tempshill (talk) 15:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know exactly which resolutions it'll output, but I know it certainly goes past 480p. There are Google results suggesting that, with the latest patches, it'll do 1080p. And ya'll are thinking of component video, not composite video. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

[3] Hmmmmmm! Well thanks guys. VGA AV pack it is!NByz (talk) 03:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I just confirmed what Confirmed Crustacean said; my initial claim above about 480p was wrong - the VGA adapter supports lots of video modes. I had not gone to the "System Settings" tab of the Xbox to configure what resolution I wanted. Tempshill (talk) 18:57, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Mozilla Thunderbird: Putting downloaded mail back into online mailbox

I like Thunderbird but when I installed it on a new computer it downloaded my mail into a local folder. Apparently in doing a download of mail, it erases the mail that's on the server. This is bad, because I deleted everything in the local folder and restarted the new account set up process because I only wanted to use Thunderbird to manage an online mailbox. Now what's in that online mailbox is gone. How can I get my mal back INTO my online mail server after it downloaded it onto a local folder if I've permanently deleted what's in the local folder? Is there an undo? -- Guroadrunner (talk) 04:52, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, if you didn't make a backup, it's as gone as any other deleted data on your system - that is, you might be able to use data recovery techniques to find old versions of your profile on the disk, but I doubt Thunderbird will have retained the data after you hit delete. (The hint is in your own question "I've permanently deleted ... is there an undo?")

I could be wrong, though, so check your profile; assuming you are on Windows:

1. Click Start->Run... and type "shell:appdata\Thunderbird\Profiles"
2. There will probably be one folder, with a randomly generated name ending ".default"; this is your profile
3. Look inside that folder for a folder named "Mail", and then "Local Folders"
4. This is where your mail was stored - try opening some of the files in a text editor and see if any of your lost mail is in there.

The only other possibility is that your ISP (or whoever provides your mailbox) has a backup from before you deleted the mail from there. Worth asking, I guess...

As for why it happened, this is how POP3 mailboxes were designed to work - the remote server is just a holding pen for new mail, with the "real" inbox on a single local machine. Of course, this is no longer appropriate for many people's needs, which is why IMAP has grown in popularity. - IMSoP (talk) 12:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Deleting Account from PC

I have just given my mother a small netbook computer, as I will not be using it any more. She has made an account for herself, and I will be using it periodically when I go to visit, so I have left my own account on it. However, in a number of weeks, I shall be moving away to a new area, and won't be using the PC at all. If I deleted my own account from the PC, would that get rid of all the files that were in that account? I have already backed them up, and this would be a good way to get rid of some files which have personal information in them (National Insurance No., etc.) I would like to do this in case sometime in the future she decides to sell it or something, and I don't want my personal data getting into the wrong hands. --KageTora (talk) 08:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Windows will ask you if you want to delete the files or move them. --wj32 ^t/c 08:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Simply deleting files from the operating system will not physically remove those files from disk. See data erasure. With enough effort, the data can be recovered. The question is what kind of adversary you want to protect yourself against; Some random person snooping around, or a federal agency. If you are running Windows XP, the Cipher utility should provide security against casual attackers. After deleting your account, go to start->run and type

"cipher /w:"C:\Documents and Settings" (this is the default path of the user accounts, could be different on your computer) 

This also assumes that the files you want to wipe were all stored in your account folder, like on the desktop or in "My Documents". Disclaimer: I am not taking responsibility for any damage caused to your computer by doing this, but it works like a charm for me. decltype (talk) 10:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

.lit files in Windows Vista without Microsoft Office

How do you read them? I have OpenOffice, but nothing else.--Over2u (talk) 14:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Our Microsoft Reader article says that it's, well, Microsoft Reader, which is apparently a free download. Tempshill (talk) 15:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You could also just try and open them from Notepad, That will show any clear text at least. VectorEng. Inc.19:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

.lit#Converting .LIT files into an open format says "Tools exist (calibre, Convert LIT, ABC Amber LIT Converter) to convert .LIT files into other formats for use with software or devices not directly compatible with Microsoft Reader." However, this may not work if your .lit file suffers from DRM. Certes (talk) 21:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Delphi Absolute Address

In Delphi, you can declare a variable that points to an absolute memory address, given by the address of a previously declared variable.

var
  MyStr: ShortString;
  MyStrLen: byte absolute MyStr;

(Because the first byte of a short string is its length, MyStrLen will always equal the actual length of MyStr.)

What I want to do, is to declare a variable pointing not to the address of a certain variable, but to this address plus a few bytes. In theory, it could have been possible to write it like this:

var
  MyVar: cardinal;
  MyVarLowWord: word absolute MyVar;
  MyVarHiWord: word absolute MyVar + $2;

Is there any way of achieving this? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I've never written a single line of code in Delphi, but what you want to do is called pointer arithmetic. A Google search for "pointer arithmetic delphi" gets some hits that are probably useful. Unfortunately, I am too confused by the many dialects of Delphi, or Object Pascal, or whatever it's called to provide a definite code example. But from what I can see, you can use Inc and Dec to achieve what you want. But note that the increment scales by the number of bytes in the base type of the pointee. Hope that helps. decltype (talk) 10:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to use inc or dec, but the scaling can be helpful. I think you'll find what you need in the third answer here. BTW, StackOverflow is a great resource for programming questions/answers (I searched for "[delphi] pointer math"). Also, this looks good. --Scray (talk) 11:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Now I can't see why I didn't think of pointers myself! Thank you very much, both of you! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

Problem network copying a >10GB file

I am trying to copy a 10.6GB file called "source.tar.gz" from a Windows XP machine to a Windows Vista machine on the same LAN. When I copy the file in the usual way with Explorer (just dragging the file from one window to the other), it sits and copies for a while, counting down from 81 minutes remaining … and after a few minutes, the XP machine displays an error message saying the path is too deep. This is nonsense, however; the source directory is L:\public_shared and the destination directory is \\COMP\public-shared. The path isn’t too deep. Unless Windows is somehow digging into the TAR file! Googling "The path is too deep" brings up a lot of forums with useless suggestions about shortening the path name length.

• I've also tried renaming the file to "source.g" just to make sure that it didn't have to do with Windows trying to parse the .tar.gz file. Same error.
• I've also tried mapping \\COMP\public-shared to Z: and dragging the file to the Z: window. Same error.
• After mapping the destination directory to Z:, I've also tried copying the file with xcopy from the command line. I didn't get that error dialog, but after a while Explorer did stop responding.

Any help is appreciated! Tempshill (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Make sure the file system is NTFS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Both filesystems are NTFS. I'm pretty sure the error message actually being displayed is spurious. Tempshill (talk) 22:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Although it shouldn't make a difference as you're only copying a single file, what's the real directory for \\COMP\public-shared ? Is that multiple levels deep? ZX81 ^talk 21:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not; it's 1 or 2 levels deep from C:\. Tempshill (talk) 22:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest that you sit down at the computer that the file is going to be copied to, go though the network and grab the file that needs to be copied. 64.172.159.131 (talk) 21:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Just tried this, thanks for the suggestion - the network connection fails at about the same point, and this is again fatal to the XP machine (see below). Tempshill (talk) 01:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

OP here. Here's an awesome symptom that I am seeing in addition. This has happened 3 or 4 times, twice when trying to copy my big file by using the command line. The source machine, running Windows XP, connects to the LAN via a Netgear 802.11g WiFi PCI adapter that claims it's got a "Very Good" signal at 54.0Mbps. When the copying of my big file stops (the Task Manager network activity graph shows network activity going to 0), Windows reports via the wireless networking icon in the tray that my "Very Good" signal is running at 1.0Mbps! In fact there is no more network activity; Firefox is never able to see or reload another website. (Additional info since last posted: This seems to be fatal to the OS. Explorer stops functioning, and the OS gets a forever-hang.) This has happened four times. I have never seen it happen before yesterday when I started these shenanigans. Tempshill (talk) 22:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

On wireless this happens all the time with mine, I have to unplug the card to get it back, no idea why. But if you have no luck copying the file, you could try RARing it into a split volume file (ie multiple smaller files) that should be easier to transfer to the target machine, maybe 2gb per volume, and you can join them together once transfer is complete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

As another option, you could try alternative copying methods, like Xcopy or Teracopy. They both work much better than the default Windows copy mechanism. Indeterminate (talk) 10:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Site that tell what terms people use to find a site

Hello there -

I was wondering if there was a website (or websites) that can tell you what terms people use to find particular websites, in which you can type an address and be informed of the words people are using in search engines to find certain pages.

All the best, --Ae Fond Kiss (talk) 22:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of a public way you can see search terms used to find any website. But if you are the maintainer of a website, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to see searches where your own website appears in the results and those that people actually clicked on. --Bavi H (talk) 02:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

[4] has a list of links for various search engines.
Sleigh (talk) 08:51, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Paradox

Suppose you had an actual drive named Z:. Since DosBox uses an imaginary Z: drive as its "default" drive, what would happen if you loaded it up and you had an actual Z: drive? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 23:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Dosbox's default drive is virtual. I don't think it would matter at all if you had the same name for the drive. Dosbox wouldn't notice. Not a paradox. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to confirm the above is correct and it wouldn't matter. All mapping is performed via the dosbox.conf file and if you wanted you could even map Z: to the real Z: ZX81 ^talk 12:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Program error

In XP and Vista, under what conditions does the sound marked as "Program Error" play? I know that it plays in Windows 9x if you get a general protection fault, but in XP and Vista, the sound doesn't play in their GPS's. So under what conditions does it play in those two? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 23:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's there's just for backwards compatibility so that if a program has a problem and specifically requests that Windows plays the "program error" sound then it won't cause an error of its own. I could be wrong though! ZX81 ^talk 19:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)