Help me with those annoying things in Windows XP 12

[raygg]

A. You know how sometimes a program gives you that annoying 'not responding' message when you check out why a pgm seems to be running too slow using Windows Task Manager - and then you get that even more annoying message asking you if you want the error information sent to Microsoft?

How do you kill the message to MS from ever popping up? Is it a service you can turn off?

B. Those incessant windows updates.... A few years ago you hardly ever got a msg that there are windows updates available. Personally I would like to get this msg only on months with an R on the 30th. But I knoiw it's a security thing. So now when I look in C:\Windows and see a ton of hidden folders with names like $NtUninstallKB887472$ that occupy 733mb and 4214 files in hundreds of folders. These have accumulated since I bought my laptop 24 months ago. When can I get rid of these deadbeat folders that MS puts on my box and never sends me a friendly love note to tell me "we have placed 733 mb of crap on your harddrive sucker - how's your drive holding up? Fragmented or what?". Is there some sort of rule - get rid of everything older than 3 months? etc

C. Why isn't there some kind of utility to review all your folders and tell you there are all these temporary files (*.TMP) and TMP folders sprinkled throughout your system folders occupying dead space. Look at C:\WINDOWS\system32\*.tmp, C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\temp

D. What are these folders that keep appearing with gobbledygook folder names like C:\ebfe45403e30599050946ae4 or C:\fa06f703033785a2a0a8b8\update? If these are files that do an update and then have no future purpose why don't they get placed in some appropriately named folder like c:\windows\somemorecrapwedumpedonyou?

E. Those REALLY annoying Bing Vibrant popups - especially prevalent on this website - how to premanently stop them? (I know this is not XP stuff but it really fills the bill as ANNOYING.

 

[linney]

A.

How to: Disable Error Reporting on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ar...e-Error-Reporting-Windows-XP-Server-2003.html

B

What are the $NTUninstall folders? Can they be deleted?

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Hotfix_backup.htm

Removes Hotfix Backup files and the Add/Remove Programs Registry entries.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

C

You have the Disk Cleanup tool, or a manual way to do what Disk Cleanup misses. Many people create simple batch files to do the job too.

D

Folders name with random characters appear after installing a Service Pack or hotfix?

http://www.winxptutor.com/randomfolders.htm

Windows Drops Folders all over my System
thread779-1535096

Very long folder names in root
thread779-1363793

E

I suppose the site has to get some income otherwise we wouldn't have this resource. You can see what is around for removing Mouse Over Ads.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=...0CAUQBSgA&q=pass+over+mouse+click+ads&spell=1

You could stop moving your Mouse all over the web page and use the Keyboard Arrows for scrolling on the page. When the Mouse Cursor and Ad link collide you would still get an advertisement.

 

[goombawaho]

Mouse over ads are EXTREMELY ANNOYING though, you must admit.

 

[r0gerc]

Firefox with Adblock Plus subscription seems to remove those mouse-over ads.

 

[BadBigBen]

B & C

CCleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/

E

FireFox and NoScript addon

the rest I'm with Linney...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[flyboytim]

If using an adblocker is immoral because it deprives a website of revenue then so is the following. Please do not read further if you feel that way.

"Mouseover ads" are usually linked with intellitxt.com javascripts.
They will disappear completely if you modify your %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (hosts file is an editable text file) so that the intellitxt server is redirected to your local loopback IP address 127.0.0.1

127.0.0.1       localhost

127.0.0.1       websitename.intellitxt.us.com

where "websitename" is the name that appears in front of the intellitxt site in the source of the webpage you are having problems with.

When your browser is directed to the site to look for some javascript to run, it finds nothing on your loopback address, and the script redirection fails. No highlight, no ad.

see here:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

You can edit the file to make sure that the phrase "tek-tips" does not appear in your hosts file, thus ensuring that this site continues to receive revenues from mouseover ads hosted by intellitxt.

 

[goombawaho]

You know, the other item on that page - the hosts file with a million entries in it - is a great idea in THEORY until you want to go to one of those sites and then you can't remember that you have it blocked via the hosts file. That's the kind of thing that burns you later.

 

[strongm]

You could alsways try following the quation mark on an IntelliTXT popup ...

 

[guitarzan]

strongm

VERY cool... never knew about that. Have a star...

 

[Sympology]

Ok, there is a similar thing to adblock for i.e. called Simple Adblock.

Easy to turn on and off.

http://simple-adblock.com/

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[goombawaho]

That (editing the hosts file) is not working for me (just testing) after a reboot even.

127.0.0.1 intellitxt.us.com
127.0.0.1 intellitxt.com
127.0.0.1 vibrantmedia.com

 

[raygg]

I found another annoying problem that maybe I have an idea to cure but I do not know how to code it. When you look at task manager there are all those tasks running that make you scratch your head and say how can I get those suckersw stopped automatically after they start? Tasks like those that always look for updates for firefox, adobe, itunes, etc etc and just keep running in the background all the time.

What about this?

issue a command line
NET STOP "whateveritis.exe"
about 10 minutes after startup.

I say 10 minutes because by the time the virus software does its thing etc, it may take a little time for all those other little nasties to start running. So the wuestion is - how do you time set a time for 10 minutes after startup to kick of the commands to kill those buggers?

 

[guitarzan]

While it's possible to have a script launch at bootup, and immediately pause for 10 minutes before continuing, I wouldn't go that route.

Updating for all the things you named (firefox, adobe, itunes) can be turned off within the applications themselves. For example, in Firefox go to Tools, Options, Advanced, Update tab.

For much better control over what is started automatically on bootup, have a look at "Autoruns":

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

 

[goombawaho]

yep - Autoruns IF you know what you're doing. If not and you turn the wrong thing off, your system may not boot. Be careful.

 

[raygg]

You know how every so often you really want to add an icon to that group of big icons of your apps and soft5ware that appear just over the start button? But you are an noyed bercause you don't know how to do it and can't figure out what the ms windows xp help calls this when you search help?

Question - how do you put an icon there if it is a simple exe or bat file script?

Do you ever get one of those annoying messages that the older laptop you are using does not have the fast usb port you need but you are using a thumb drive that uses usb2 the faster model and yhour data download to the old laptop reaqlly crawls?

Is there something yuou can do in xp to speed up the old usb 1 port?

 

[stduc]

Is there something yuou can do in xp to speed up the old usb 1 port?

If it's a desktop you could add a USB2 card.

Otherwise you could by a new machine

Or much cheaper - use that machine to download and burn a CD of Ubuntu, OpenSuse or whichever Linux O/S takes your fancy and install it. They won't bore you with that message.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[raygg]

THis is the backup Dell inspiron - about 6 or 7 yo - which never needed to be repaired. My newer T61 Lenovo is in for a new motherboard and another keybd - after replacing the keyboard once and the ac adapter twice - the network card went bad and it's part of the m-bd so says Lenovo support. The full system test also indicated I'm missing a few pixels in the display. Oh well what do u expect from Chinese goods? Reliability? Good thing it's under warranty.

Are u saying with Linux the usb port will run faster or it will still crawl but I don't get the warning msg?


How do I get an icon shortcut onto that list above start?

 

[stduc]

Are u saying with Linux the usb port will run faster or it will still crawl but I don't get the warning msg?

The latter. Although Linux generally runs faster on any given hardware - less baggage! You can download a bootable iso to burn a CD and try it out without touching the hard drive.

How do I get an icon shortcut onto that list above start?

Right click Icon -> Pin to Start menu

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[linney]

Have you tried dragging a Shortcut and holding it over the Start Button and then dropping it on the Start Button?

If you search Help and Support, try searching for "Start menu overview", see that article and the related links there from.

 

[raygg]

A star for limney!