A Mind @ Play

random thoughts to oil the mind

Category: Windows

Fixing a broken network printer

Tip for fixing an issue with networked printers in Windows XP causing the CPU to run at 100% until the job is stopped.

Deleting the undeletable

It’s a fairly common problem with Windows. Somehow a program manages to create a file with a name containing illegal characters or otherwise outside the file system’s parameters. No matter what you try, you just can’t rid yourself of it. The file certainly isn’t in use and being locked up by another program. Trying to [...]

Juice on Vista

Whilst installing the latest version of Juice, a crossplatform podcast receiver on Windows Vista, I came across a rather simple error that prevented the program from functioning correctly on the first load, and then from loading thereafter. The error log generated the following output (where xxx indicates the username): Traceback (most recent call last): File [...]

Mapped drives in Windows XP

Having recently set up some network storage, I came across a rather irritating problem mapping network drives in Windows XP. The basic setup procedure, as outlined here, worked perfectly on some systems, but failed to retain the stored username/password for network attached drives requiring alternative login details. The solution found, courtesy of this blog, is [...]

Strange mouse cursor issues

A friend of mine was having a strange problem with her Dell XPS system, whereby the active area of the mouse cursor would move with apparent randomness, occasionally being located as it should be at the arrow’s point, sometimes at its middle, other times half an inch below. This post led us to the solution [...]

Problem installing Altiris SVS

After reading a review over at freewaregenius.com, I thought I’d check out this neat little program, free for personal use. It offers a way to install programs as a ‘layer’ on your system, transparently noting all changes and additions made in the installation, and enabling you to turn this layer on or off, or seamlessly [...]