Troubleshooting Windows XP
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This manual is designed to help you resolve problems you may encounter with Windows XP, ranging from simple to arcane. Please remember-- if you can't find your answer here, but you do find an answer somehow, please come back and add it! Systems administrators, programmers, and power users may want to skim through the entire manual, just so they're familiar with where to find the solutions to a class of problem, should they ever encounter one. Technical support personnel, as well as university lab managers, in particular, are strongly encouraged to read the entire text-- it may save them a lot of time later.
Enjoy, good luck, and happy troubleshooting!
--Matt "Breakpoint" Heck, 27OCT2004
[edit] Recovering Lost Passwords
See Removing Windows Passwords
[edit] Installation Problems
[edit] Installing to a Third-Party RAID Array
One problem that comes up from time to time when installing Windows, particularily for performance enthusiasts, is the need to install Windows on a machine that implements a RAID array-- typically either RAID-0, RAID-1, or RAID-0+1. Often, the RAID controller is simply a chip on the motherboard; it may even be embedded in the chipset. If you need to do this, you should follow these steps:
- Hunt for discussions on the web, and in newsgroups, for other people trying to do this with your exact configuration, particularly your exact RAID controller and your firmware version. See what their results have been. Pay close attention to whether or not firmware updates, if available, have been praised or cursed.
- Download the latest firmware for your RAID controller, even if you don't plan to upgrade to it.
- Download the latest XP driver for your RAID controller, unless the discussions you found recommended another version and you agree. If a separate driver is available for use during installation of Windows XP, you want both, on separate floppy disks. Often there is only one.
- If it sounds like you need to, install the firmware update for your controller. Procedures for this vary; you will probably need to be able to boot into DOS. Since you can't easily do this anymore under Windows XP, you may need to make a FreeDOS boot disk; see http://www.freedos.org.
- Shut off the machine and physically attach the drives to the controller, if you haven't already. For RAID-0 or RAID-1, put the drives on master and run only one drive per IDE port-- using slave drives will significantly degrade your performance.
- Power-on the system and initialize the RAID controller's settings to match what you want (see your controller's documentation).
- Reboot with the Windows XP installation CD in the drive, and the BIOS set to boot from the CD-ROM drive.
- Watch the process carefully; when prompted, press F8 to install a third-party RAID or SCSI driver.
- Put in the driver disk you made above.
- Proceed normally through the rest of installation.
- Run burn-in tests on the array.
- Run benchmarks on the array and write down the results for possible future use (such as to compare firmware versions).
[edit] Basic Operation
[edit] Managing Multiple Users
[edit] Mass Storage Systems
[edit] Recognizing the Signs of Impending Doom
A hard drive with important data on it should be treated like a firearm, a helicopter, or a race car engine: if it starts doing anything out of the ordinary, you should find out what's going on, and why-- quickly. Hard drives have gotten quieter, which is pleasant, but not necessarily helpful. "Odd noises" from a hard drive, particularily noises the drive has "never made before" when things haven't changed much, are usually bad signs; so are a few other things, listed below.
Three caveats, however. First, some of these symptoms can be signs of virus or other malicious code. Run virus scanners frequently! Second, poor performance that follows a software or hardware change may be related to that change-- though hard drives have occasionally been known to fail after being banged around during a case change, or after a power supply change. Finally, while users of normal IDE, SATA, and SCSI drives generally don't have to worry about this, RAID users need to watch out for possible driver bugs (and if you think you find one, check the discussion groups for your RAID card/motherboard before upgrading). Those said, here is the list.
Failure is imminent for drives which:
- Take a very long time to spin up on power-on, or frequently do not spin up at all. This is particularily common with 2.5" (laptop) hard drives, which have comparatively weaker spindle motors.
- Take a very long time to access certain areas of the disk; this is particularily worrisome if that area is the file allocation table (FAT) on FAT32 drives.
- Otherwise have periods of inaccessability exceeding several seconds, even when the machine is largely idle.
- Never turn off their drive activity LEDs-- but used to, and nothing else has changed.
- A hard to track down random computer freeze for up to several minutes at a time, often ending with a pop-up message saying it was unable to write to $MSFT.
Be extremely wary of drives which:
- Change noticeably in audible pitch while running (excluding spindown for suspend, power off, etc.); you are hearing the spindle motor rate change, which is not good. If this corresponds with a period of drive inaccessability, back up and replace the drive immediately.
- Develop bad sectors. Modern hard drives do not have this problem; the media may be oxidizing or otherwise degrading.
Additionally, be wary of drives which:
- Have ever been physically dropped onto a hard surface at any point, in any orientation-- running or not.
- Have ever overheated (failed to operate properly, and then you realized the cooling fans were off, etc.)-- even once.
- Have ever experienced a significant brownout.
- Have ever experienced a significant power spike.
- Seem to be running very hot.
Be somewhat wary of drives which:
- Have had their physical mounting orientation changed (flat to side-mount, for example) well into their run life (say, after a year or so).
- Have been rough-handled in shipping (but were properly packed in foam, etc.).
- Have exceeded 50% of their warranty period and are being used in a RAID-0 stripe set under high demand.
- Are operating or have operated continuously in a high humidity or marine environment.
- Are exposed to strong vibration, such as automotive, marine, and aircraft applications.
Drives which seem to be heading for doorstop duty should be backed up and replaced as soon as possible. Drives in a RAID-5 array can usually be left in service until they actually get disqualified by the controller or operating system, assuming you have a hot spare. However, if you have no choice but to live with a drive that is on its way out for a while, and cannot back it up immediately, following these guidelines:
- Do not use the drive any more than absolutely necessary.
- If at all possible, do not use the drive to host the swapfile.
- Try to avoid writing to the drive more than necessary.
- Do not defragment the drive. This will stress the actuator or voice coil assembly. Additionally, if the drive is having write problems, this will effectively destroy otherwise readable data.
- Do not power-cycle (turn off and on) the drive any more than absolutely necessary-- doing so places a lot of stress on the spindle motor. This usually means leaving the computer on all the time. Note that modern drives are designed to be power-cycled all the time; this is only a concern for drives which are already failing, or suspected of starting to fail.
- Shut off automatic spin-down in Power Saving options, for the same reason.
These are just tips to help you limp home. Treat the drive as a spare tire. Hard drives never "kind of" work-- if one is starting to fail, you must replace it, or it is not a question of if you will lose the data on it, just when.
[edit] Testing a Questionable Hard Drive
test
[edit] Adding a Third-Party RAID Array
[edit] Networking
[edit] Workgroup Networking
[edit] Domain Networking
[edit] Interoperating With Unix
[edit] Graphics and Video
All versions of Windows from 95 and up come with default graphics drivers that are compatible with almost all graphics cards, while Windows 95,98 and Me default to 16 colours and 640x480, Windows Xp defaults to 800x600 and 16 bit colour although these drivers run very slowly. They are intended to be used only in the interim until proper graphics drivers are installed as they have no advanced capability.
[edit] Display Problems
It is possible that the monitor or videocard is incompatible with the frequency or resolution that is attempted to be used. In this instance the image on the screen will either be black in case of resoultion or garbled in the case of incorrect frequency. There is nothing that can be done to fix this beyond changing the used resolution or frequency as it is a hardware issue. If the program in question simply returns an error, the problem can be from an incorrect DirectX version or a graphics card that does not support the attempted algorithms (eg, Deux Ex 2 requires a video card with pixel shader 2.0 or higher).
[edit] Problems With NTSC/PAL Video Output
[edit] Problems With Multiple Monitors
One of the larger problems with setting up and troubleshooting multiple monitors is the fact that not every PCI video adapter is supported for use as a second video adapter.
Vist Microsoft KB Article 30397 to viiew the list of supported video cards with Windows XP. [1]
If your computer has an integrated video card you will need to enter your CMOS Setup and configure which video adapter you would like to initialize as your primary one. Most of the time you will see a menu giving you AGP or PCI choices. If you select AGP then the integrated video adapter will initialize as the primary adapter. Obviously if you select PCI then the PCI video adapter will initialize as the primary.
If your computer already has an AGP video card (and no integrated video) most BIOS setups will initialize AGP first without further setup. Occassionally this isn't true and you will have to perform the procedures identically to that of the integrated video.
[edit] Problems With Legacy Applications
If you have a very old Windows application-- something intended for Windows 3.1, let's say-- you may need to change to 256-color mode to get the application to work. The reason is that while modern display modes use 16, 24, or even 32 bits of data to represent the exact color of each pixel on the screen, older displays simply represented each pixel with an index into a color table, called a palette. In certain cases, converting from one to the other doesn't work very well, and you may have better results by placing the system into an 8-bit color mode. You may further want to try running the application full-screen (try pressing ALT-ENTER after it starts, or see the Legacy Applications section).
[edit] Printing
If dealing with a USB printer, Windows XP should be able to print without specialized drivers. Printers utilizing the serial ports will almost certainly require vendor drivers, however, once they are installed properly the printer should work.
[edit] General Applications
[edit] Troubleshooting Missing DLLs
You'll probably get a nasty error if something like this happens. Copying a file from another computer with Windows Xp is likely to work and if the dll file belongs to a non core program simply reinstalling the program will fix the problem.
[edit] Legacy Applications
There are two basic ways to deal with this problem. There is the method involving the core Windows compatibility system although this often results in more interesting errors.
If you can afford the software or have a copy then a more effective method is to get a emulator that is capable of emulating a Pc and installing the required operating system on the emulated computer.
Emulation Software
- VmWare - A reliable system that works with many different operatins systems and rather quickly.
- BOCHS - Opensource emulator that can run windows 95
[edit] So All You Have is an .EXE file....
[edit] Creating a Compatibility Profile
[edit] Viruses and Other Threats
Currently most new viruses and other malicious software are targeted at Windows systems. Often these programs are targeted at published security flaws after Microsoft has released patches to Windows. Since it often takes several weeks or months for most users to get fully up-to-date the writers of malicious software have a large window to take advantage of those who have not performed the recent system updates. The best remedy for this is to upgrade your system with the lastest patches, particularly those marked critical by Microsoft.
[edit] Viruses
Viruses that infect files are becoming less common (although there are still 1000's out there), the current general implementation of viruses infect by transmitting themselves to other ip addresses and exploting the security holes in the target system (called internet worms). If you have a high speed internet connection in your home it is hightly recommended that you have a hardware firewall in your home network. Hardware firewalls are available from companys like Linksys, dLink, and Netgear relatively cheaply in most locations. These firewalls will prevent worms from entering your home network remotely. Having a software firewall will help but is not fool proof as Windows XP naturally has ports open that these viruses will exploit and as they are all linked to one application "svchost.exe" that if blocked will wipe out networking (service pack 2 greatly improved this situation, but a seperate firewall is still very helpful). As always keeping Windows service packs, and other critical patches up-to-date is very important.
Useful free virus programs are:
- AVG Issue's free updates for home users
- ClamWin A Free Antivirus For Windows (opensource)
- Avast A free Antivirus and updates for home users
[edit] Spyware
Odds are that you will have spyware on your system. Anyone who browses the internet for any length of time generally does. There are several programs to deal with the infestation. Try Ad-aware personal for free. Spybot Search and Destroyis also highly recommended and free.
To reduce the chances of acquiring spyware users should be very cautious about the software they download and install. Frequently spyware is loaded into the installers of screensavers and other simple programs.
Another step to help reduce the quantity and effectivness is to change web browser. Most spyware and adware are designed to exploit weaknesses in Internet Explorer, using an alternate browser like Mozilla Firefox or Opera will reduce the effectivness of these techniques.
[edit] Hackers
If you are a home computer user then the odds of being hacked are roughly equal to the odds of being struck by lightning, this is not to say that a handy firewall is out of place but simply that the odds of you needing it to prevent hackers are very low (internet worms are another problem). Of course it does happen and some people have had their data erased by hackers so being patched is again a good idea, there are many flaws in Windows XP that are simply begging for a buffer overflow attack.
[edit] What to Do When Paranoia Kicks In
If you are working on a Windows XP system that is misbehaving-- crashing a lot, losing files, going to web sites other than the ones you specify, or constantly hitting the hard drive when nothing is running-- you may eventually feel the bottom of your stomach drop out, as you suddenly realize you have probably been hit with a virus. How should you react?
Ideally, you already have antivirus software available. If so:
- Disconnect the computer from the network IMMEDIATELY.
- If more than one computer is suspected, isolate all machines from each other, especially servers. Killing power to all hubs and switches is usually adequate.
- Run the anti-virus software you've already installed to scan the machine.
What's that? Forgot to install anti-virus software, eh? Or maybe you just don't trust that it hasn't been corrupted. Well, in either case, you have a few options:
- Run a web-based virus scanner and see if that does the job. They're slow, but they do work, assuming you can run ActiveX controls. By the way, take note that this is a web-based control scanning every file on your hard drive, just so you know that really can happen. Housecall is the most popular online scan (created by TrendMicro)
or
- Run a bootable virus scanner from CD; this prevents the virus from causing any more damage. A good choice is Knoppix Security Tools Distribution which is a bootable linux variant that comes packaged with several tools useful for diagnosing and fixing problems. Will boot on just about any hardware.
or
- Pull the suspected hard drive(s) out and connect them to a sacrifice rig (a machine you don't care if you have to reformat and reinstall) which is not connected to the network but does have recent antivirus software installed. Scan the drives.
[edit] Managing Drivers
[edit] Removing All Traces of a Device
Even today, there are still times when it is easier to repair (or retry) a device installation if the system thinks it has never even seen the hardware before, much less the device driver. This is particularily true for USB devices, whose unique Vendor ID/Product ID combinations are stored in the registry-- normally permanently-- after the first time they're plugged in.
(explain how to remedy this situation)
[edit] Installing and Removing Software
[edit] Security and Permissions Problems
(SYSTEM account may need full control privileges, etc; some of this may be more for Windows 2003 Server)
[edit] Troubleshooting MSI Installers
[edit] Forcing Reinstallation
[edit] Forcing Uninstallation
[edit] Sound, Multimedia, and Game Controllers
[edit] Audio Problems
[edit] Playback
[edit] Configuring the Mixer
The most common source of problems with audio playback is not having the device's mixer set correctly. Most normal Windows "wave" audio devices can be set using SndVol32, as follows:
- Click the Start button.
Then, either
- Go to All Programs->Accessories->Entertainment->Volume Control.
or
- Go to Run; then enter
sndvol32.exeand press Enter.
Next,
- From the Options menu, select Properties.
- Set the Mixer device to the device you're trying to use (there may only be one).
- In the Adjust volume for box, select Playback.
- In the Show the following volume controls box, check everything you might want to use. If you are experiencing noise, static, or crosstalk during playback (or even when not playing), check everything, so that you'll be able to shut extra (unused) lines off; this is a problem for some devices.
- Press OK.
- If you can't hear anything, ensure nothing is muted, all volume levels are at 50% or higher, and try again.
- Once working, mute any inputs you don't expect to use. Note that inputs with "mix" in the name may not be what you expect.
- You almost never want to mute "Wave" output.
- If you hate MIDI audio (for example, on web pages), mute "SW Synth" and be done with it.
- Inputs with names like "3D Depth", etc., modify phase information to try and expand the stereo field, or pull some similar trick. These can almost always be disabled, but sometimes weird settings combinations will either cause them to shriek, or cause the entire card to go quiet.
[edit] Recording
[edit] Configuring the Mixer for Recording
Like playback, the most common source of recording problems is an improperly configured mixer. Start SndVol32 as described in the playback section, and then:
- From the Options menu, select Properties.
- Set the Mixer device to the device you're trying to use (there may only be one).
- In the Adjust volume for box, select Recording.
- In the Show the following volume controls box, check everything you might want to use. If you are experiencing noise, static, or crosstalk during recording, check everything, so that you'll be able to shut extra (unused) lines off; this is a problem for some devices.
[edit] Minimizing Noise
The simple fact is that an 1/8" jack dynamic microphone with no preamplifier on it, running into an often-noisy sound card, with nothing shielding it from all the bus noise in the PC, is not going to yield studio-quality results for most people. However, if you are recording from a line-input jack, or are otherwise sure something else is wrong, check out these tips:
- First, check the mixer again-- both playback and recording. Ensure any unused inputs are muted on the playback side, and not selected on the recording side. Even if muted/not selected, ensure volume sliders for those channels, on both playback and recording screens, are shut off (all the way at the bottom).
- When recording line-input, if the microphone has a "boost" option, you will want to shut it off. This is often an internal pre-amplifier (generally not a very good one), and it can bleed right past the mute circuit. This problem typically sounds like faint static if you blow into the microphone, even if it's muted and not selected for recording. This is a common problem for a number of motherboard audio solutions.
[edit] Noise on Powerup and Shutdown
Unfortunately, this is a common problem with PC audio devices-- even fairly high-end ones. Unless the device implements some sort of a shunt to ground when the card is powering up or shutting down, you can get anything from a pop, to a boom, to a horrible, shrieking squeal. Muting the outputs first usually does not prevent the problem, as this is typically done in the mixer, not the DAC or line-level preamplifier (if the DAC does not have line-level output itself). The problem can also occur when bringing a machine in or out of a suspend state.
The only thing that can really be done about this, if you are unfortunate enough to have such a device, is to follow good audio practices:
- Shut down devices in reverse wiring order:
- Power off amplifiers first
- Power off MUX units, equalizers, etc., second
- Power off sources (including the computer) last.
If you are designing a PC audio device, you should definitely keep this problem in mind, and try to avoid it.
[edit] Latency
(mention ASIO; ASIO4ALL)
[edit] MIDI
[edit] Digital Cameras
Drivers are the key. Do not assume that because the manufacturer has not provided them they do not exist. Use Google and the name of the camera.
[edit] Gamepads and Joysticks
[edit] Calibrating Analog Joysticks
Go to the Control Panel and select Game Controllers. This will bring you to a list of joysticks or gamepads that are currently connected to your PC. Select the game controller you wish to calibrate, and click on Properties. You can now calibrate your joystick. Be warned that not all joysticks come with calibration settings. With certain models, such as the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, you cannot adjust the calibration at all.
[edit] Webcams and Video Capture Devices
[edit] VFW vs. WDM drivers
VFW is the "classic" Video for Windows specification for Windows 3.1. While it represented a good approach to the problem at the time, it is horribly dated, and problematic to support. However, it's far easier to implement (from a programmer's point of view) than the new Windows Driver Model (WDM) equivilants, so many applications still require VfW drivers. If your webcam or video capture device didn't come with a VFW driver, and you can't find one, you may not be totally out of luck, because Microsoft provides a WDM to VFW wrapper, as well as a VFW to WDM wrapper.
(add details about where and how to obtain/install/configure these)
Added by www.teldon.it ---> http://www.virtualdub.org/docs_vfwwdm
