2 WinXP questions about WPA/Windows Explorer

[Alan Frederiksen]

Greetings.

1. The copy of XP I am running on a laptop came with it
when I purchased it from the original owner. I
upgraded the hard-drive for more storage space and it
has run OK since then. However, the previous user's
identity remains active so it would seem the thing to
do might be to re-register the copy of XP on it in
my own name. For instance, when I try to renew the
copy of anti-virus s/w on the system, the previous
owner's name comes up automatically. Looking at the
MS website just now I did not see a lot about 2nd-
hand product. Fat chance that I would be able to
find a BIOS upgrade for the laptop to enable some
sort of IEEE1394 boot capability but I will check for
this anyway. Apart from that and maybe a memory
upgrade at some point, there is probably nothing else
h/w-wise that I will change/modify. I don't believe
I will exceed the allowable modifications without
WPA violation given all that though I could be wrong.
I only want to have to redo the WPA once, so how
should one go about all this?

2. When using Windows Explorer, should one be able to
highlight several path lines up and down then right-
click with the mouse to get a snapshot of properties
such as the qty/size of only those files selected? Or
is this officially only supported for individual path
lines? It did not always seem to be working this
way when I tried it recently.

It seemed to work OK when just a few lines were
highlighted but give incorrect results for many
lines. This is something I could make use of if it
worked consistently.

Is this a bug, a non-feature, or just something that
only works in limited situations I haven't figured
out yet?

-thanks,
Alan
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Alex Nichol]

1. The copy of XP I am running on a laptop came with it
when I purchased it from the original owner. I
upgraded the hard-drive for more storage space and it
has run OK since then. However, the previous user's
identity remains active so it would seem the thing to
do might be to re-register the copy of XP on it in
my own name. For instance, when I try to renew the
copy of anti-virus s/w on the system, the previous
owner's name comes up automatically.

Go to Doug Knox's site www.dougknox.com
take the Windows XP utilities, and fifth down is 'Change Registered
User'

This will make the changes in your registry so that renewals and
software installs pick up your name.

Registration at Microsoft is only for such free product support as you
might want on a new machine, and is voluntary. I would leave it. What
matters there is the Product ID number (find this at Control Panel -
System) and remember the original owners name should you phone their
support and be asked.

The thing that matters is activation, which is of the hardware, and
takes no interest in the name of the owner

 

[Guest]

----- Alan Frederiksen wrote: ----

Greetings
..
2. When using Windows Explorer, should one be able to
highlight several path lines up and down then right
click with the mouse to get a snapshot of properties
such as the qty/size of only those files selected? Or
is this officially only supported for individual path
lines? It did not always seem to be working this
way when I tried it recently

It seemed to work OK when just a few lines were
highlighted but give incorrect results for many
lines. This is something I could make use of if it
worked consistently.

Is this a bug, a non-feature, or just something that
only works in limited situations I haven't figured
out yet

-thanks
Ala
(e-mail address removed)



In particular

"It seemed to work OK when just a few lines were
highlighted but give incorrect results for many
lines.

I believe this behavior is due to a bug in the win32 API. See Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 819499: "BUG: Using Windows Classic Mode in Windows Explorer Returns Incorrect Value for SelectedItems". A Keyword (for searching) is "KB819499"

I have a similar problem when trying to delete, copy, or move more than about three files in a directory with a single operation. Usually, Windows Explorer will do a "graceful crash" -- that is, notify me that it has a problem -- and then close __all__ Windows Explorer windows I have open. Usually, this crash occurs as soon as I highlight more than about three file names. Occasionally, it happens even if I highlight only three file names. And sometimes the crash seems not to occur until I take the next step after highlighting, although this variation is so rare that I don't remember the details

This sort of bug hobbles my efforts at manageing files and directories, and I am very puzzled as to why Microsoft has not fixed this bug. When I first started using W.E. on win XP in the early part of this year (2003), W.E. would ask me if I wanted to send an automatic report of the problem to Microsoft, and I consented at least once while connected to the Internet. I have now changed the default behavior for handling such problems, so that W.E. now just tells me it has a problem and then crashes (when I click "OK" on the message screen). I would suppose that there are lots and lots of people who are facing this same problem

The problem even occurs when I try to do the same operations with PowerDesk 4.0, an alternative to Windows Explorer

I would appreciate any "work-arounds" that anyone can offer

Richard Hane