Partition filling up

[BillW50]

The problem with the default settings of SR is that in XP it defaults to
using 12% of the hard drive for Restore Points. XP's SR was developed
when drives were very small. With more recent, much larger drives, 12%
is way too much space for restore points.... so much so that it causes
SR to fail, as well as taking up large amounts of the drive.

Really? Where did you hear giving SR too much space causes SR to fail?
And how large of a hard drive do you need where 12% starts to fail?

 

[BillW50]

At Windows startup, do you see this screen:
http://www.windows-help-central.com/image-files/windows-xp-welcome-screen.jpg

or this screen:
http://www.windows-help-central.com/image-files/windows-xp-logon-screen.jpg

One of my XP machines doesn't have a logon screen. I believe it was the
Intel Wireless driver that disabled it. And I actually like it. Anyway
to disable it for my other XP, 7, and 8 machines?

I am not talking about skipping logon at boot or standby. As that one XP
also skips it when you logoff too. And it reopens your user account once
again.

 

[BillW50]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 06:13:27 -0400, "Bob Willard"


Surely you jest? As a mechanical component it is one of the *least*
reliable components in a PC. At my company we provide technical
support for thousands of computers in the field and the number one
failure mode for those computers is hard drive failure - in fact, hard
drive failures outnumber all other failure modes *combined*. It
doesn't matter if the computer is in a temperature-controlled office or
in the back room of gas station, drive failures trump all else.

Is that your experience too? I have dozens of computers here and have
since 1981. And many manufactures MTBF is about 37 years. And the
majority of mine are still running even after 20+ years of service. So I
rate most hard drives as highly reliable if not abused.

The least reliable part of a computer IMHO is the optical drive. They
fail about as often as incandescent light bulbs. Another high unreliable
thing would be the fans. Also high performance GPUs are another one to
watch out for.

Of course, I don't trust one hard drive totally anyway (and nobody
should either). I don't even trust one backup drive either. That is why
I have many. One happens to fail one day, no big deal. I have plenty more.

Google analyzed hard drive failures across their server population and
one of their findings was that there was a higher correlation of lower
temperature to hard drive failures than there was for high temperature.
To quote their study:

"The figure shows that failures
do not increase when the average temperature increases.
In fact, there is a clear trend showing that lower
temperatures are associated with higher failure rates.
Only at very high temperatures is there a slight reversal
of this trend."

"One of our key findings has been the lack of a consistent
pattern of higher failure rates for higher temperature
drives or for those drives at higher utilization levels."

http://static.googleusercontent.com...ch.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf

(Sorry for the wrapped URL - anyone who can tell me how to keep that
from happening in the Gravity newsreader, please feel free to educate
me...)

Yes I remember that study. I also remember another one like that one.
And it makes sense on the mechanical scale, since the oil is thicker at
lower temperatures. Thus causing more stress on the motor, arm, etc. And
many manufactures only rate their hard drives for about 50,000 spin ups
for their MTBF anyway.

 

[glee]

Is that your experience too? I have dozens of computers here and have
since 1981. And many manufactures MTBF is about 37 years. And the
majority of mine are still running even after 20+ years of service. So
I rate most hard drives as highly reliable if not abused.

Hard drive failure in more recent times varies, but it is fairly
frequent compared to motherboards, video cards, processors. I replace
more failed hard drives than anything other than optical drives. Now
those old drives you mention, those drives seem to last forever, unlike
today's drives. I have 286, 386, and 486 systems with the still-working
original hard drives. The majority of the newer systems I support have
needed hard drive replacement after a few years. Even if the drive
tests good with the manufacturer's diagnostic, the performance degrades
substantially after a while when benchmarking them.

The least reliable part of a computer IMHO is the optical drive. They
fail about as often as incandescent light bulbs.....
snip

Gotta agree with that! Some brands are worse than others, I have an LG
DVD writer that keeps on keeping on, as well as a Samsung.... but
frequent early failures with most brands.

 

[glee]

Really? Where did you hear giving SR too much space causes SR to fail?
And how large of a hard drive do you need where 12% starts to fail?

A lot of testing was done by a number of MVPs when a lot of reports of
System Restore failures started coming in. It was discovered that if
the number of restore points got really large (due to using excessive
disk space), Restore would fail pretty consistently and/or restore
points would get corrupted. I don't know where the line was.... IIRC it
varied a bit.... but that practice showed that using 1GB to 2GB provided
enough points while avoiding size as a cause for failure. Much of the
work was done by the late Professor Alex Nichol.... and Bert Kinney, who
created one of the definitive web sites on System Restore.

System Restore in Windows Vista and Seven do not appear to have the
problem, and a large restore area is OK there.

 

[glee]

One of my XP machines doesn't have a logon screen. I believe it was
the Intel Wireless driver that disabled it. And I actually like it.
Anyway to disable it for my other XP, 7, and 8 machines?

I am not talking about skipping logon at boot or standby. As that one
XP also skips it when you logoff too. And it reopens your user account
once again.

Not sure what you're asking. The logon screen is the screen when
Windows starts but you state " I am not talking about skipping logon at
boot or standby". Then what logon are you referring to?

If you are the only user on the machine (there are no other user
profiles but yours), you can turn off the logon screen at Windows
startup and have it boot directly into Windows automatically, with your
password remembered (if you have one).

Click Start> Run, type the following and click OK:
control userpasswords2

In the User Accounts window that comes up, remove the check from the box
for "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer"
Click OK
Another windows will open asking you to enter the current password you
use to log in to Windows.
Enter the password and confirm..... if you have none, leave it blank and
confirm.

It's the same for XP, Vista, and Seven.

 

[BillW50]

A lot of testing was done by a number of MVPs when a lot of reports of
System Restore failures started coming in. It was discovered that if
the number of restore points got really large (due to using excessive
disk space), Restore would fail pretty consistently and/or restore
points would get corrupted. I don't know where the line was.... IIRC it
varied a bit.... but that practice showed that using 1GB to 2GB provided
enough points while avoiding size as a cause for failure. Much of the
work was done by the late Professor Alex Nichol.... and Bert Kinney, who
created one of the definitive web sites on System Restore.

System Restore in Windows Vista and Seven do not appear to have the
problem, and a large restore area is OK there.

Hi Glen. Oh ok. I guess I have seen this before. As I have found SR
about 95% reliable in my experience. When it messes up about 5% of the
time, it really screws up. It might be because of this problem, which I
didn't know about.

I guess I should on all of my XP machines, turn SR off and then
re-enable them and adjust them accordingly. Although those machines with
TB drives, even a setting at 1% will break that 2GB barrier. :-(

 

[BillW50]

Not sure what you're asking. The logon screen is the screen when
Windows starts but you state " I am not talking about skipping logon at
boot or standby". Then what logon are you referring to?

If you are the only user on the machine (there are no other user
profiles but yours), you can turn off the logon screen at Windows
startup and have it boot directly into Windows automatically, with your
password remembered (if you have one).

Click Start> Run, type the following and click OK:
control userpasswords2

In the User Accounts window that comes up, remove the check from the box
for "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer"
Click OK
Another windows will open asking you to enter the current password you
use to log in to Windows.
Enter the password and confirm..... if you have none, leave it blank and
confirm.

It's the same for XP, Vista, and Seven.

Hi Glen. Yes that is the screen I am talking about. And yes I have long
known about "control userpasswords2", although TweakUI is niftier IMHO.
Although that doesn't effect logging off. As you still get the logon
screen. And yes, you still have to enter a password at this screen even
if you are the only user.

Although this one XP machine I have, since the Intel wireless software
was installed. It asked if I was the only user and I clicked yes. And
there is no logon screen ever. Not even logging off (Start - Logoff). As
logging off on that machine, closes all background tasks and
applications, exits the desktop, and reloads the desktop once again. I
actually like this and it would be nice if the rest of my 20+ machines
did this too.

 

[Stefan Patric]

Are you sure about that?

Reasonably sure. It has been a while. As I remember, after turning off
System Restore, sometime later, I was running a system search for
something or other, and files that turned out to be restore point files
were shown as part of the results. I checked and, yes, they were restore
points.

When you turn off SR in XP, Windows brings up a confirmation box which
states:
"You have chosen to turn off System Restore. If you continue, all
existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to
track or undo changes to your computer."

When I turned SR off, as I recall, the notice said nothing about
"deleting," although I have seen this on other XP systems.

I've learned since that turning off SR doesn't mean restore points aren't
created. It just stops the creation of the regularly SCHEDULED ones,
those mostly useless, take up space on my hard drive ones. System
Checkpoints are still created. I know because one just was. (Don't know
why. I did run Disk Cleanup about the time of creation.) Installing an
application will create them, too, sometimes. Of course, there's manual
creation. And I'm sure a lot of other situations I'm not familiar with
that will as well. ;-)

Stef

 

[Stefan Patric]

Wow! Where did you get your XP copy from? I have a dozen XP machines
here (some with SP2 and some with SP3) and they all zero out all of the
restore points when you turn it off.

Garage sale.

Stef

 

[glee]

Why not just use a sandbox? It is more secure and you don't have to
keep logging off and on all of the time and closing and reopening your
applications all over again.

I'm referring to the built-in LUA rather than adding a 3rd-party app.
If you want to use a 3rd-party sandbox, that's another option. I don't
know that it is necessarily easier, as some sandbox apps like sandboxie
don't work out of the box with all applications, so then configuring is
required. The LUA built into Windows might be easier for a less
tech-minded user.

 

[glee]

Hi Glen. Oh ok. I guess I have seen this before. As I have found SR
about 95% reliable in my experience. When it messes up about 5% of the
time, it really screws up. It might be because of this problem, which
I didn't know about.

I guess I should on all of my XP machines, turn SR off and then
re-enable them and adjust them accordingly. Although those machines
with TB drives, even a setting at 1% will break that 2GB barrier. :-(

1 or 2 GB was the recommended size back when the testing was done....
drives didn't approach 1TB at that time. I don't think that 2GB was a
barrier.... I don't remember at what size they saw problems begin, but
it was larger than 2GB.

Yes, I don't know of a way to adjust the size smaller than what the
slider allows, on a very large drive, e.g. 1TB. It's a bit frustrating
that only the percentage slider was included, without a GUI for actual
size in numbers. There are Registry entries for SR but most should not
be tampered with.

One option that might be a workaround specifically on very large drives
(and one of the few safe Registry changes you can make) is to adjust the
Registry setting for the restore points Time to Live (TTL), which is set
in seconds. When a restore point reaches this time and it is still on
the system, it gets deleted. The default value is (7776000), which will
be 90 days, set in seconds.

Since restore points generally aren't very useful after about 30 or 60
days, and I try not to use any older than about 2 weeks, this setting
could be adjusted to one of those amounts, measured in seconds. That
would reduce the number of points on the system regardless of the disk
size set with the slider.

The setting is at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
and the value that controls the TTL for the points is the DWORD
"RPLifeInterval"

It is set at the default of decimal 7776000 seconds, which is 90 days.
To make it 60 days, you would set it at 5184000
To make it 30 days, you would set it at 2592000
To make it 14 days, you would set it at 1209600

Only a very few of the settings in that Registry key are safe to
configure, and I would be wary of editing most of them, other than this
one, and possibly "RPGlobalInterval" ....which adjusts the amount of
elapsed time, in seconds, that System Restore waits before it creates
the automatic computer check points. The default value is 24 hours
(86400 in decimal). You could possibly change that to once a week or
every other day, but I don't know if that would be worthwhile.

Here's the info on the few Registry values that can be edited without
totally breaking things... this only applies to XP:
The Registry Keys and Values for the System Restore Utility-
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/295659

Delve at your own risk, and don't blame me if anything breaks!

 

[glee]

Hi Glen. Yes that is the screen I am talking about. And yes I have
long known about "control userpasswords2", although TweakUI is niftier
IMHO. Although that doesn't effect logging off. As you still get the
logon screen. And yes, you still have to enter a password at this
screen even if you are the only user.

Although this one XP machine I have, since the Intel wireless software
was installed. It asked if I was the only user and I clicked yes. And
there is no logon screen ever. Not even logging off (Start - Logoff).
As logging off on that machine, closes all background tasks and
applications, exits the desktop, and reloads the desktop once again. I
actually like this and it would be nice if the rest of my 20+ machines
did this too.

Wow, that's interesting. All the machines I recall that log on at
startup without the password prompt, still bring it up if you log off,
as you describe on the other machines. I wonder what that wireless
software installation did that made that one machine different. You
would probably have to monitor an installation of the software on
another XP system, particularly all Registry changes, to see what it
might have done to make this change.

 

[magineer02]

***********



That sounds to me like you have the built-in Administrator profile

active in your Windows Welcome Screen log-in, and that's the

administrative profile you are using when you say you log in as

Administrator. That's a bad idea, and I think the person who was

helping you online may have done that. Using the built-in Administrator

profile is not good for general use because if you corrupt that one, you

won't be able to use it for what it was really put there for.



You should have made a new profile with Administrator privileges to

replace the one you now call "Inactive". Then you should be allowed to

delete the "Inactive" profile. Once there is a user profile with admin

privileges (besides the system's Administrator profile), you can hide

the built-in system Administrator profile. There are instructions for

hiding it, that I can tell you if you decide to do those other steps.



To be sure what accounts you have right now, click Start> Run (OR hold

down the Windows key and press R, then release both).

In the Run box, type the following and click OK:



control userpasswords2



(the only space is after the word 'control')



In the User Account dialog box that appears, there is a list of "Users

for this computer" with 'User Name' and 'Group' listed. Please post

back with all the User Names in that box, along with what Group each is

in. If you don't want to reveal the name of the Limited User Account

you use, just tell us a different name.... we don't need to know the

exact name of that profile.

--

Glen Ventura

MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009

CompTIA A+

Hi Glen,

I just saw this post ( guess I missed it previously). I don't think its thebuilt in Admin Account (the one I see in Safe Mode) as we created it. However I'm unable to delete the older Admin Account which the person helping believed to be corrupt, so I decided to rename it and changed it from an Admin Account to a limited Account.

Robert

 

[magineer02]

Wow, that's interesting. All the machines I recall that log on at

startup without the password prompt, still bring it up if you log off,

as you describe on the other machines. I wonder what that wireless

software installation did that made that one machine different. You

would probably have to monitor an installation of the software on

another XP system, particularly all Registry changes, to see what it

might have done to make this change.

--

Glen Ventura

MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009

CompTIA A+

Glen,

Should I try and delete the original Administrator Account now renamed and reclassified Inactive/limited? I was afraid I might mess things up with my computer if I did especially since it didn't let me do it beforehand but I'm willing it try and delete it again.

Also there are some programs I found in the add/remove programs that I don't think I need any longer:


Belarc
Easeus
Yontoo
Yahoo Toolbar

Please Advise,
Thanks,
Robert

 

[BillW50]

Wow, that's interesting. All the machines I recall that log on at
startup without the password prompt, still bring it up if you log off,
as you describe on the other machines. I wonder what that wireless
software installation did that made that one machine different. You
would probably have to monitor an installation of the software on
another XP system, particularly all Registry changes, to see what it
might have done to make this change.

Hi Glen. I think I figured it all out. Intel PROSet adds (this is
optional and not a must) the following registry key:

"GinaDLL"="IWPDGINA.DLL"

Which replaces Windows msgina.dll with iwpdgina.dll. If this key is
missing (normally it is, then Windows automatically loads msgina.dll by
default. Which has something to do with the Welcome screen and Fast User
Switching I believe. What Intel's dll does is allow for "Single Sign On"
and "Pre-Logon Connect". Two nifty features.

So I uninstalled that part of Intel PROSet (it's optional). So now
Windows is using msgina.dll once again. Oddly enough, this machine still
bypasses the Welcome (logon) screen even when logging off (it just
reloads the same user again). After further investigating, I found a big
difference in the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="..."
"DefaultPassword"="..."

Replace ellipsis with user name and password. All but "ForceAutoLogon"
maybe in some registries. That "ForceAutoLogon" is the key to have it
always automatically logon no matter what. To temporary bypass this
forced autologon is to hold down the Shift key. Now you get the Welcome
(logon) screen once again. Neat, eh?

 

[glee]

Glen,

Should I try and delete the original Administrator Account now renamed
and reclassified
Inactive/limited? I was afraid I might mess things up with my computer
if I did especially
since it didn't let me do it beforehand but I'm willing it try and
delete it again.

Also there are some programs I found in the add/remove programs that I
don't think I need
any longer:


Belarc
Easeus
Yontoo
Yahoo Toolbar

Please Advise,
Thanks,
Robert

Yes, if you were able to change the Inactive account to a limited user,
you *should* be able to delete it now, while you are logged into your
admin account.

Easeus makes some partitioning software and data recovery software....
if you don't need it, uninstall it.

Belarc is an informational tool that shows info about your system and
updates. I have found it less and less useful over the years, and no
longer use it. I'd uninstall it.

Yontoo is a junky browser add-on for making new layouts for your
Facebook page.... I'd uninstall it. Sometimes it is hard to get rid
of... give it a try.

Yahoo Toolbar is just another useless toolbar... uninstall it.

 

[BillW50]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="..."
"DefaultPassword"="..."

Replace ellipsis with user name and password. All but "ForceAutoLogon"
maybe in some registries. That "ForceAutoLogon" is the key to have it
always automatically logon no matter what. To temporary bypass this
forced autologon is to hold down the Shift key. Now you get the Welcome
(logon) screen once again. Neat, eh?

Hi Glen. I just ran this reg file with my Windows 7 machine and it works
great here too. ;-)

 

[glee]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="..."
"DefaultPassword"="..."

Replace ellipsis with user name and password. All but
"ForceAutoLogon"
maybe in some registries. That "ForceAutoLogon" is the key to have it
always automatically logon no matter what. To temporary bypass this
forced autologon is to hold down the Shift key. Now you get the
Welcome
(logon) screen once again. Neat, eh?

Hi Glen. I just ran this reg file with my Windows 7 machine and it
works great here too. ;-)

Apparently it's a well-documented tweak.... I just never ran across it,
probably because I never had a need for it and didn't look for it.
Good find, Bill.

The ForceAutoLogon setting doesn't do what most people think
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/03/06/544496.aspx

How to turn on automatic logon in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231

Force Windows to Login Automatically After Logging Out with
ForceAutoLogon
http://www.mydigitallife.info/force...ically-after-logging-out-with-forceautologon/

 

[magineer02]

Yes, if you were able to change the Inactive account to a limited user,

you *should* be able to delete it now, while you are logged into your

admin account.



Easeus makes some partitioning software and data recovery software....

if you don't need it, uninstall it.



Belarc is an informational tool that shows info about your system and

updates. I have found it less and less useful over the years, and no

longer use it. I'd uninstall it.



Yontoo is a junky browser add-on for making new layouts for your

Facebook page.... I'd uninstall it. Sometimes it is hard to get rid

of... give it a try.



Yahoo Toolbar is just another useless toolbar... uninstall it.



--

Glen Ventura

MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009

CompTIA A+

Hi Glen,

I was able to successfully delete all the programs and the inactive account. Is there anything else you think I should do at this point?

Thanks,
Robert