Having problems adjusting to XP

[P D Sterling]

Giving you a brief bit of background, I have worked with computers and data
processing since Mc Bee Keysort, if any of you know what that is.

Starting, I think, with Windows 98, we started having Desktop, which I
gather is a kind of über root directory. OK, now I am XP, and with my
directories collapsed as much as they can, I have

My Computer - which I understand
My Documents - which I understand, but disagree with
My Network Places - which I don't understand (see below*)
Recycle - which I understand but don't use

*Let me be perfectly clear: I am one little computer, lost in the cosmos,
with only one operator. I am the administrator, I am all users, I am the
default user. I am not connected to a network, except being connected to my
ISP, if that counts. There is no wi-fi, high-five, or any other
state-of-the-art enhancements.

I am very jealous of the amount of disk space given over to keeping things
which I do not need, and keep an incredibly small amount of data on the C:\
drive, and I like simplicity. As an example, I have one icon on my desktop.

Question 1: How can I learn about Network Places, and possibly get rid of
them?
**********
My Computer contains My Documents and *MyName*Documents.

Question 2: Why?
***************
In My Computer, C:\ contains
1)Administrator 1,
2) Administrator 2,
3) Administrator 3,
4) All Users,
5) Default User,
6) *MyName*

All of these folders contain
1) Application Data
2) Cookies
3) Local Settings
4) Templates

Question 3: Why?
**************************
According to my calculations, there are five instances of My Documents of
one flavor or another. If I am keeping five copies of a document, I want to
stop.

I know this is a very long message, but this is a very complicated
situation, and one which aggravates me. Any advice would be gratefully
appreciated.
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[Guest]

I'll suggest an answer to
"Question 1: How can I learn about Network Places, and possibly get rid of
them?". Go to "Start/Help ad Support" and type "Network Places" in the
"Search" box. I believe that you'll find the answers to most of your other
questions there too.

Milt

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

PD

Desktop is not the root of all.. it just appears at the top of the list for
simplicity..

#1.. Network places exists because you have a NIC (Network Interface Card,
maybe integrated) in your system.. Tweakui for XP allows you to remove the
icon from your desktop..

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

#2.. For info on user accounts and what the different ones do, see here..

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/usercpl_overview.mspx

#3.. No, you are not keeping five copies of anything.. there is one physical
storage area, the others just being links..

None of the above take up any appreciable space other than the ONE location
where documents are stored, and that depends upon your own personal
productivity..

Messing with XP's system files is one of the best ways to bring the OS to
it's knees.. use applications, but do not go into the system unless you have
a problem which compromises your system.. as things stand, the only problem
is in your head..

These newsgroups are full of people who just don't know when to stop.. much
of what is asked in these groups is USER ERROR.. oh, I know some will jump
on me for that, but when I visit users who have problems, in over 50% of
them, I can give a detailed road map of what they did to terminate normal
operation.. then they start to listen to me and quit trying to defend what
they originally said that they didn't do anyway..

 

[Gene K]

Mr. Sterling,
If you do not like such items as My Documents, My Computer, My Network
Places, displayed on your Desktop; you can make some changes by right
clicking a blank spot on the Desktop then clicking Properties then the
Desktop tab.

 

[DanS]

PD

Desktop is not the root of all.. it just appears at the top of the
list for simplicity..

#1.. Network places exists because you have a NIC (Network Interface
Card, maybe integrated) in your system.. Tweakui for XP allows you to
remove the icon from your desktop..

You can also remove desktop 'system' icons form the Display Properties ->
'Desktop' tab -> 'Customize Desktop' button.

 

[P D Sterling]

Milt - many thanx for writing. I did as you suggested, and it showed me all
the wonderful ways I can use Network Places, but did not suggest how to get
rid of them. When I get to the point of needing this functionality, I will
hire an IT specialist to maintain it, but right now it bugs me. Tell me
straight if I just have to put up with it. Thanks again for posting!
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[P D Sterling]

Mike - many thanx for posting, and I have read you pretty carefully.
Regarding question 1) I have already removed the desk top icon as
unnecessary. Will the system die if I remove the folder from the computer?

2) I pulled up and book marked the documentation about user accounts, which
was voluminous, and I will have to read it closer when I am not so tired.
However, I remind you that I am 1 unitary user, and while a little schizo,
do not have three administrative personalities, as well as all users,
current users, default users, and lastly ME. It would appeal to my sense of
order to cut the number of users down.

3) Why do I need shortcuts to things? I know where they are; they come up
automatically when I open Excel or Word, which I have customized.

I appreciate that there are many repetitive, newbie questions on these
boards, but I find that having read this closely for nearly a month, many of
them are ignorant questions, and ignorance can be fixed. Only stupidity is
forever. Many thanks for being a resource to those more novice than you, but
please remember you were a novice once, too, and unlike me, you have had
training. Everything I learned was done by the Mobil Method: figure it out
yourself.
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[P D Sterling]

Gene, it was great of you to reply to my angst, but you aren't hearing some
of it properly. On a given day, I never see my desk top unless I have to put
on a less risqué screen saver preparatory to a client visit.

There is nothing on my desk top except My Computer, because whenever the
tech comes to work on the computer, he goes nuts when he sees a vacant desk
top. When I want to do a task, I click Start, Programs, *Program Name* and
go wild.

My complaints lie in the fact that I don't want a zillion functionalities
which I don't like, don't want, and can't use.
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[Malke]

Gene, it was great of you to reply to my angst, but you aren't hearing
some of it properly. On a given day, I never see my desk top unless I
have to put on a less risqué screen saver preparatory to a client
visit.

There is nothing on my desk top except My Computer, because whenever
the tech comes to work on the computer, he goes nuts when he sees a
vacant desk top. When I want to do a task, I click Start, Programs,
*Program Name* and go wild.

My complaints lie in the fact that I don't want a zillion
functionalities which I don't like, don't want, and can't use.

Take the time to learn about your new computer. It doesn't matter if you
were expert in older operating systems; this is a different one. Much
of what you want to remove is part of the operating system. Leave it
alone. The days of having to scrimp for each MB of hard drive space are
long (in computer time) over. Buy a book about XP. Use XP's Help &
Support. Search on Google.

After working with XP for a while, if you really can't stand it, switch
operating systems to something you'll like better. Roll your own Linux
and compile your kernel for only what you want. Don't bother with a gui
and run everything from commandline. The operating system will still
have all the power and complexity it should, but you won't have to see
it. Or buy a Mac.

Malke

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 06:57:36 GMT from P D Sterling

Milt - many thanx for writing. I did as you suggested,

("Help and Support")

and it showed me all the wonderful ways I can use Network Places,
but did not suggest how to get rid of them. When I get to the point
of needing this functionality, I will hire an IT specialist to
maintain it, but right now it bugs me. Tell me straight if I just
have to put up with it

Straight out: Yes, you do.

Aggravating, isn't it? Microsoft knows better than we do what we want
to have on our computers.

That said, if your concern is disk space, I can perhaps set your mind
at rest a bit. Network Places, like some other special folders in
Explorer, is just a bunch of small shortcuts. It's taking up screen
real estate in your folders list, but it's not taking up significant
disk space.

Recycle Bin _does_ take real space, but presumably you know how to
limit or eliminate that.

 

[Stan Brown]

Wed, 8 Feb 2006 19:54:43 -0500 from Mike Hall (MS-MVP)

#1.. Network places exists because you have a NIC (Network Interface Card,
maybe integrated) in your system.. Tweakui for XP allows you to remove the
icon from your desktop..

Any way to remove it from the left-hand pane of Explorer? Since I
don't use it, I'd prefer not to see it there.

 

[Stan Brown]

Wed, 8 Feb 2006 19:54:43 -0500 from Mike Hall (MS-MVP)

These newsgroups are full of people who just don't know when to stop.. much
of what is asked in these groups is USER ERROR.. oh, I know some will jump
on me for that, but when I visit users who have problems, in over 50% of
them, I can give a detailed road map of what they did to terminate normal
operation.

I agree with you, though I might emphasize it differently. Those of
us who grew up with DOS (or UNIX, or any other operating system but
Windows) got used to knowing what was going on. We could make a
change and have reasonable confidence that the results would be
related to the change we made. This was the result of 40+ years of
improvement in our knowledge of how to program. The most important
lesson of those 40+ years was "modularize". All OSes did this to a
greater or lesser extent, UNIX-based systems being perhaps the best
known.

Windows isn't that way. A change in one place will ripple to
apparently unrelated things. It's a consequence of the architecture
of Windows, which gave up those 40+ years of progress in favor of a
big monolithic ball of wax. If we work exactly the way that Microsoft
expects, things are generally okay or at least acceptable; as soon as
we try to treat Windows like a real opearting system and eliminate
useless stuff, it comes cxrashing to its knees.

Rather than "user error" I would call it really bad design of
Windows. But the consequence is the same, and your advice is good:
don't mess with Windows.

 

[Gordon]

Wed, 8 Feb 2006 19:54:43 -0500 from Mike Hall (MS-MVP)


Any way to remove it from the left-hand pane of Explorer? Since I
don't use it, I'd prefer not to see it there.

Right-click, delete.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

PD

When driving your car, you must have a helluva time.. worrying about the
uneven spacing of spot welds along the underneath of the body, seemingly
random wiring across the internals under the hood.. or do you just drive
it?..

When you watch TV, does it bother you that there is not a 'domestic vacuum'
access point in the back someplace where you can easily remove the dust from
under the circuit boards, and why can't they neaten the wiring in there?..
you must have looked through the air vents on the casing at some time with
the help of a flashlight..

It is one thing to like order in one's life, but there are extremes.. look
behind your computer.. all those cables are still in place.. you haven't cut
them off to neaten it all up because you know that if you do, it won't work
anymore..

OK.. the same applies to Windows.. remove some of it, cut it off, delete it
and guess what?.. no more computer, just a collection of parts, loosely
assembled, sporting the most gross wiring mess inside..

Under normal operation, you should not know what is under the Windows hood..
the only way you can know is to go looking.. so apply that to everything in
your house and see how far you get..

Just use the programs on the computer.. get enjoyment from them without
worrying about the space they take up or the fact that there are repetitive
lines within the programs code.. should I have told you that, about the
repeating lines?..

XP is a great OS.. it needs far less user input than ever it's Win 9x
cousins did.. my wife loved the old ones, tinkering around with this and
that.. hell she had to tinker with it because it would not remain stable
long enough to do shit with it.. since XP, she just uses the computer.. no
more 'edit config.sys' or booting to DOS and running mem /c.. I asked her if
she would like to go back to the old ways.. guess what her answer was?

 

[Stan Brown]

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:52:04 GMT from P D Sterling

Giving you a brief bit of background, I have worked with computers and data
processing since Mc Bee Keysort, if any of you know what that is.

In a nutshell: that's all good knowledge, but it won't serve you with
Windows. (As a programmer since 1967, I had to learn this hard lesson
myself.)

One good XP book is WINDOWS XP ANNOYANCES FOR GEEKS from O'Reilly. It
will tell you what you can tweak and, often, what you cannot.

But if you're expecting Windows to act like any real operating
system, you're going to have immense frustration. I mean this in a
good way, not as a put-down: you ought to think seriously about
switching to Linux. It requires a learning curve, but it can actually
be understood by humans, and it doesn't do stuff you don't want done.
If you live in any decent-sized city you'll find a Linux users group
eager to help you. (Dryden, where I live, has a population of under
10,000; but the local community college has a small group, and
there's a bigger group 20 miles away in Ithaca.)

P.S. Yes, I intend to take my own advice, as soon as I have money for
a second computer so I can run in parallel while transferring
applications and files.

 

[P D Sterling]

I swear I tried that before, but it worked this morning. Many thanx!
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[P D Sterling]

Many thanks for posting; I admit I am somewhat stuck in the past when they
GAVE you a book, and I could take it in the bathroom with me and have a good
ruminate. I am doing pretty well, except for the inability to have the
default directory be exactly where I expect it to be - XP is admittedly
better than 98. Thanks again for your advice.
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 14:49:08 GMT from P D Sterling

I am doing pretty well, except for the inability to have the
default directory be exactly where I expect it to be - XP is admittedly
better than 98.

What do you mean by "the default directory"? For many programs
(including the command prompt), you set the default directory in the
"Start in" box on the Shortcut panel of the Properties dialog for the
shortcut file.

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 9 Feb 2006 14:37:40 -0000 from Gordon

Right-click, delete.

That's so simple I didn't think to try it on my own. Thanks!

 

[P D Sterling]

thanks, and I hate to be a nuisance, but in what way can I eliminate
recycle? I have minimized the amount of storage allocated, eliminated the
icon, but still have one on each drive. I know that some cautious people
say, some day you'll be sorry, but I am backed up, and although I deleted a
folder accidentally just the other day, the last time I did that was over 10
years ago.
--
Regards,

P D Sterling
www.pdsterling.com
214/520-6655 voice
214/550-2618 FAX