Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 March 13

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March 13

after burning a dvd-r

May the disc then be too hot for the drive to read? I think this is happening now...--Open24HrsMotorwayStop (talk) 00:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

According to DVD recorder the write laser is no more powerful that 400 mW (some google searches I've done suggest that 200 to 250 mW is more normal). That's about 1/1000 th of the total power expenditure in your entire system. That seems much too low to raise the temperature to anything worth worrying about. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I'll try it again.--Open24HrsMotorwayStop (talk) 00:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I do find that freshly burned dvd's are pretty warm. That's probably from the general amount of heat in the drive when it's burning, rather than directly from the laser. I haven't noticed unusual problems reading the discs immediately after burning. I do notice a significant rate of failed burns (whether caused by defective discs or what, I don't know) no matter what I do, both with cheap discs and expensive name-brand ones. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What's really happening here?

My home computer system has a middle-aged Dell flatscreen monitor. Of late, it has been "color-shifting", for lack of a better or proper term; what I mean is the entire screen, not just areas or lines or pixels, shifts to a bluish tint, or pinkish, or something else. Usually this is sudden, not gradual; also, usually it is not permanent -- although it doesn't always revert to correct colors, sometimes it just changes tint. It is also not a flicker in the electrical sense.

Apart from telling me that my monitor has mere days (if not hours) to live, what's really happening here at the hardware level? Alternatively, since slapping the side of the computer case also causes this color shift (sometimes back to normal, sometimes not), perhaps the monitor is fine and it's a graphics card issue?

Thanks in advance to hardware gurus, --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you jiggled the video cable? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Definitely sounds like a loose connection at one end of the cable or the other. The fact that it changes when you whack the computer case suggests it's at that end...but maybe not. If not - then try to borrow a video cable from someone and try swapping out the cable...if that fixes it then buy a new cable. If THAT doesn't fix it then I'd want to try the monitor on another computer - again, it helps if you either have another PC or a friend who doesn't mind you trying it. If you find the monitor works OK on another computer then it pretty much must be the graphics card...but this is not the usual symptoms bad graphics gives you. So first suspect the cable - that's by far the most likely thing. SteveBaker (talk) 02:49, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It isn't necessarily the cable itself, but just it's connection to the computer and/or monitor. Is it loose ? Does it have screws to tighten it down ? Are they tightened fully ? StuRat (talk) 04:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd give it 90% odds that it's a bad/loose VGA cable. I've had that pink-tint thing happen before and it's always that. What's likely happening is that the signal on a particular RGB channel (or whatever color scheme the output uses) is dying, while the rest come through, hence, the tint to the screen. Another option might be something faulty in the monitor, and that'd also seem more likely with a CRT monitor rather than an LCD. I'd seriously doubt it was a software issue or an issue with the video card internals. Shadowjams (talk) 19:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Gmail offline

Hello Wikipedia,

I've just downloaded Gmail offline but it doesn't seem to be doing what i thought it could. Whilst its great for when i lose my internet connection mid-session, when I'm just no connected, it doesn't load up (so i can't read old emails for example). Have i mis-understood what Gmail offline is supposed to do or is there a bug in the system somewhere? Thanks, 81.140.37.58 (talk) 10:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about Gmail offline but as Gmail supports IMAP you can easily set up any IMAP client, e.g. Thunderbird so that you can read your mail while offline Nil Einne (talk) 11:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

To expand on that answer a little: With 'normal' email (using the IMAP protocol, for example - as Nil Einne explains) you can choose whether you'd like your mail to be downloaded onto your own computer, stored there and deleted from the server - or to have it remain on the server. If you choose the latter (as you evidently have) then when you disconnect from the web, you obviously can't read your email anymore because it's not stored on your computer! The trouble with going the other route is twofold:

• If you have more than one computer - you can't read mail that you downloaded onto computer A while you're using computer B!
• If you get a lot of junk mail, it all has to be downloaded onto your computer before you have a chance to delete it. If you have a slow connection, that's a bad thing...but I suppose it might also expose you to more risk from malware...I use Linux, so that's not something I know much about!

Anyway - if you are using a web-based email client, then you don't have a choice. Because the email software is running on the server and displaying your email as a web page - then obviously, your mail remains on the server. But if you use an email client such as Thunderbird - you can set it up either way.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you haven't misunderstood; you should be able to do what you describe. The last message in this thread may help. If not - what browser are you using? When you activated offline Gmail it will have asked you if you want to place a shortcut to it in the start menu or desktop - if they're there, do they work? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 13:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

question

if a softwares works is there any real reason to get newer version if you'res works ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.80.240.66 (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It's always wise to keep up to date with security patches and revisions. For a whole new version (costing more money) then you only need to update when the new version has features you want (that the old one doesn't). But software vendors want you to update, and by means of Planned obsolescence (e.g. no more support, no support for modern platforms) will try to persuade you to upgrade. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 13:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I go with the old standby: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Thus, I don't update working software unless absolutely necessary, as it's more likely to introduce new problems than help in any way. This is especially true of companies I just don't trust, like Microsoft. They are likely to sneak something in like a digital rights management system which makes it impossible to do what you could with the old version, or a bomb which disables the software if they think it isn't registered. Even if they don't do any of this, new software is often bloated with silly, useless features which makes it run slowly and lock up my computer. StuRat (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You should be very careful saying things like that. Sure, if you like your version of Minesweeper, sure, go with that, but if we're talking things like web-browsers, servers, operating systems, Acrobat Reader, security software or anything that connects to the internet, it is imperative that you at least get the security updates. I'd say this especially applies to Microsoft, you have to have Windows Update running, you're a fool if you don't. When in doubt, update. Belisarius (talk) 23:50, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say my same logic would apply to those programs, as well. Sure, they may patch some security holes, but they probably create just as many with each new patch. Otherwise, Windows has had so many patches that it would be completely impenetrable by now, wouldn't it ? And is it ? Heck no. StuRat (talk) 06:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It will have security holes ofcourse, but they are ones yet to be discovered, while continuing to use, say unpatched browsers or an operating system online is probably asking for trouble. I also don't think security updates to software necessarily creates new holes the same time it patches others; if it's an entirely new version of the software that includes new features, that's very possible. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 00:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No piece of software ever be 100% secure - what developers do is try to stay far enough ahead of potential attackers that its not worth their effort to mount the attack. As new exploits and attack technologies are developed, so 'secure' software has to be moved forward to take account of them. Once an exploit or attack mode is identified that needs a patch, there is a short grace period during which the mechanism of that attack is kept relatively secret until countermeasures are put in place in all affected products. Once the fixes and patches are published, usually so are details of the exploit that they prevent. Therefore it is important to apply all published updates as soon as possible - once they're out there, so are details of what they fix, and an unpatched machine can be a 'sitting duck'. A lot of the risk is related to the phrase 'not worth their effort' above - it is potentially much more useful to attack the software you use for internet banking or for collecting your work emails, than what you use to play Minesweeper. If the software publisher takes the opportunity of security patching to add less-than-wanted features such as the DRM or licence-validity checking mentioned above, it might be time to move over to a different supplier, such as FLOSS software, for example. --Nigelj (talk) 14:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I need a boot disk

Can anyone recommend a free downloadable boot disk that will allow me to restore the master boot record for Windows XP? My MBR is currently trying to load from a boot loader that no longer exists (I forgot it was still being used and deleted it...), I need to get it to load from the standard XP boot loader (which I'm 99% sure is still where it should be and in working order!). Thanks. --Tango (talk) 13:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If you won't have a Windows CD already (fixmbr in the recovery console), you can do it with this Ubuntu recipe. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 13:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately I left my Windows CD at home (I'm at uni at the moment). I don't have access to a CD burner (the only one I have is on the computer that doesn't work!) so it needs to be a bootable floppy. I've found shareware boot disks online that would do it, but it seems to need to pay about $20 to unlock the part of the program that actually writes the new boot record to disk. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a free one. --Tango (talk) 13:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Is a Pendrive Linux an option for you? 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not - my computer doesn't seem to have an option to boot from USB. --Tango (talk) 14:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Then try FreeDOS: fdisk /mbr FreeDOS doesn't support NTFS volumes, but I guess its fdisk command is smart enough to recognise one and fix the mbr accordingly. But you're into data-loss territory if I'm wrong. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Or TomsRTBT (same caveats as freedos) 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

UBCD 4 Windows ? — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 14:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a working CD burner, so I need a floppy disk version. --129.234.4.76 (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Which UBCD doesn't seem to have - http://www.ubcd4win.com/faq.htm#floppy 87.115.143.223 (talk) 14:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Missed that part: bootdisk.com would probably be your best hope then — Ched ~ ^(yes?) 15:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

A FreeDOS boot disk fixed the MBR, so thanks all of you for you help! However, it turns out the XP install isn't in working order after all, so I guess I'm now on a quest to find someone with a repair CD... --Tango (talk) 15:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Linux and Torvalds original source code

I've been using Linux exclusively as a desktop OS since November 08. I was just wondering, what, if any, code is still in the kernel from Linus Torvalds original version that he started spitting out on a keyboard attached to a 386 in a cold apartment in Helsinki back in 1991? Not really a useful question, but I'm curious. I think it'd be neat if there were still tiny bits of code from all those years ago still surging through my CPU right now...63.245.144.68 (talk) 15:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure many of the POSIX standard header files are the same, since they have usually no reason to change. --Sean 16:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The POSIX standard headers are part of glibc, not part of the linux kernel (and so were mostly authored by Roland McGrath, and none by Linus). The kernel does contain a very minimal version of some of the C standard library for use by kernel code only (which bears only a passing resemblance to POSIX). We have some pretty good evidence that even that has been overhauled - witness modern Linus slagging off 1991 Linus's coding of the (apparently simple) ctypes.h here. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how much survives from his university days (I do know that the very first version he posted has been lost in time, the earliest version of the code is 0.02 I believe), but our article on Linus states that about 2% of the code in the current kernel was written by the man himself. That's pretty staggering, considering that the entire kernel is a little over 10 million lines. That's 200,000 lines of code. Isn't that cool! Belisarius (talk) 23:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

200kloc isn't that much - I write about 100kloc/year. What's somewhat remarkable is that he reads and checks every line of code that everyone else writes too. Pretty much nothing gets into the kernel without Linus checking it out first. SteveBaker (talk) 01:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Google toolbar and Firefox 3.0.7

Resolved

 – ukexpat (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Folks, this has been annoying me for days and I just cannot figure it out. I recently upgraded to Firefox 3.0.7 from version 2.something. In v2 the Google toolbar was below the Yahoo toolbar, but in v3 the positions are swapped and I have been completely unable to figure out how to put them where I want them, Google on the bottom. Anyone know the magic for this, or is it an issues with v3 itself? Thanks in advance. – ukexpat (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

An issue with v3? Heresy! ;) Right click near the awesome bar (the address bar) and click "Customise". Then just drag and drop. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:27, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't work for me. I can move individual buttons but not the whole toolbar. Your suggestion works for IE but not for FF, at least for me. – ukexpat (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Fudge. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! That worked and all is good in my Firefox world! – ukexpat (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Xlib fullscreen window sample

Can you give me a link to a minimal program that creates a fullscreen x window? Something along the lines found here but complete (the code there doesn't work for me or I miserably fail copy-paste). --194.197.235.29 (talk) 16:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I've fused a nice Xlib tutorial with the code you describe, making the following (which works on my Ubuntu machine):

// code a fusion of:
// http://fixunix.com/xwindows/91585-how-make-xlib-based-window-full-screen.html
// and Ch. Tronche (http://tronche.lri.fr:8000/)'s xlib tutorial
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
#include <assert.h>  
#include <unistd.h>  
#include <string.h>
#define NIL (0)     

// compile with:
//   gcc -o foo foo.c -lX11 
int main (){
  Display *dpy = XOpenDisplay(NIL);
  assert(dpy);
  XEvent xev;
  Atom wm_state = XInternAtom(dpy, "_NET_WM_STATE", False);
  Atom fullscreen = XInternAtom(dpy, "_NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN", False);

  int blackColor = BlackPixel(dpy, DefaultScreen(dpy));
  int whiteColor = WhitePixel(dpy, DefaultScreen(dpy));
  
  Window w = XCreateSimpleWindow(dpy, DefaultRootWindow(dpy), 0, 0, 
				 200, 100, 0, blackColor, blackColor);
  memset(&xev, 0, sizeof(xev));
  xev.type = ClientMessage;
  xev.xclient.window = w;
  xev.xclient.message_type = wm_state;
  xev.xclient.format = 32;
  xev.xclient.data.l[0] = 1;
  xev.xclient.data.l[1] = fullscreen;
  xev.xclient.data.l[2] = 0;

  XSendEvent(dpy, DefaultRootWindow(dpy), False,
	     SubstructureNotifyMask, &xev);

  XSelectInput(dpy, w, StructureNotifyMask);
  XMapWindow(dpy, w);
  GC gc = XCreateGC(dpy, w, 0, NIL);
  XSetForeground(dpy, gc, whiteColor);

  for(;;) { // wait for MapNotify
    XEvent e;
    XNextEvent(dpy, &e);
    if (e.type == MapNotify)
      break;
  }

  XDrawLine(dpy, w, gc, 10, 60, 180, 20);
  XFlush(dpy);
  sleep(10);
  return 0;
}

87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, works very well on my ubuntu machine too. --194.197.235.29 (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How backwards compatible is Windows 7?

What's the earliest software I can run on Windows 7? Can I run software originally written for Windows 95? 3.1? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that almost all applications that could run on Windows Vista will also work with Windows 7. Simple applications for Windows 95 did work on Vista. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're installing the 32 bit version, you can theoretically run anything back to DOS (Although you may want to use DOSbox or similar). If you're running the 64 bit version, nothing earlier than Windows 95: NTVDM was suppressed in the 64 bit versions of Windows. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 00:26, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Are stored procedures considered part of the data layer or data access layer?

In reference to business applications where you have data, data access, business and UI layers, are stored procedures considered part of the data layer or the data access layer? I used to think the data layer, but now that I think about it, stored procedures do access data. OTOH, stored procedures are physically located on the database server whereas a data acess layer can (and often is) located on separate machine. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How games use CPU cycles

In a typical video game, assuming the computer or console has video acceleration with a separate GPU, how do the CPU cycles break down between graphics, sound, AI and mechanics? NeonMerlin 20:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That is impossible to answer because you aren't providing any reasonable construct of a "typical game" by saying "typical". Do you mean a typical shooter? Do you mean a typical real-time wargame? Do you mean a typical platformer? Do you mean a typical puzzle game? Do you mean a typical computer chess game? There are far too many choices of "typical" to begin to narrow down an answer. -- kainaw™ 20:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. A game like Half Life 2 will spend relatively little effort on AI, because it only has to move a few actors over a pre-computed graph toward a single target. For something like Starcraft 2 they have to move hundreds of actors against a range of targets, and they have to rely more on dynamic pathing because all those actors get in one another's way and (ideally) are supposed to behave in concert and move in formation. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 21:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Everything really varies intensely, ESPECIALLY over genres. shooters and sports games are much more likely to have large complex physics engines, whereas RPGs (a la Final Fantasy, that is, not MMOs) will have a limited physics at best. An RPG like FF would probably use most of it's CPU cycles for graphics, mostly because i can't imagine it really uses many CPU cycles at all. Evan ¤ Seeds 21:22, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is pretty widely variable - and what with multiple cores - sharing RAM bandwidth, GPU's doing things other than graphics using CUDA...it's difficult to ask what it even MEANS to express these things as percentages. On the whole, we try to push the graphics off onto a separate thread - and hope that on a modern PC, it'll get its' own CPU Core. (The project I'm working on right now will do exactly that - and coincidentally, separating the graphics thread from the rest is my job for the next week or two!) On Xbox360 and Playstation-3, the graphics will almost certainly be off on its own processor. So in a sense, graphics takes 100% of one CPU core. For the rest - it's much more variable from game to game. On the last game I worked on at Midway (which was essentially a 3rd person shooter), we were aiming for a 30Hz update rate - and seeing perhaps 30% of our 33 msec going on collision detection and physics, 20% on AI...then lots of teeny tiny hard-to-catagorize things taking up the rest. There is a big overhead when you split things up into separate threads where the separate processes have to interlock their access to various resources - and that can easily blow 20% of your time if you aren't super-careful. The time consumed by actual "Game mechanics" is usually completely negligable - and I guess audio might eat a few percent. If we can push physics and audio off onto their own threads - sharing another CPU, then we will. On Playstation-3, it's a lot more complicated because they have the "SPU" processors that are somewhere between the CPU and GPU of a 'classic' computer. Generally, they are such a pain in the ass to deal with (because they aren't like PC's and XBoxes and Wii's and anything else) that we'd use them for audio mixing and to offload graphics processing from the GPU - which is comparatively wimpy compared to the Xbox360 and modern PC's). I haven't worked on Wii. SteveBaker (talk) 00:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Tim Sweeney wrote an article about programming languages that has a breakdown of cpu usage in Gears of War.[1] (see slide 17). It is interesting. 75.62.6.87 (talk) 09:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Partition problems lead to extremely slow computer

Ok, follow on from my question above: With your help, I got the MBR sorted out. I initially thought that something was wrong with the Windows XP installation and it wasn't loading, it turns out it was actually loading almost imperceptibly slowly, and continues to run at that speed once it has loaded. It takes 5 to 10 minutes from clicking on an icon to it becoming selected - that slowly! I am currently using it in Safe Mode (with networking), and it is running reasonably well. For some reason unknown to me, my C: drive reports a gigabyte extra free space is Safe Mode than in normal mode (That is, it reports 1GB rather than 10MB).

In case it helps, allow me to explain how I broke it in the first place: Some time ago I tried to set it up to dual boot with Linux, this failed due to hardware incompatibilities and I gave up on it. A partition for Linux was then left dormant on my hard drive (well, several actually). Recently my main Windows partition has been filling up and it got to the point where there was less than 10meg free and nothing more I could delete or move to a different drive/partition. I realised there was still this Linux partition there so tried to use Partition Magic to delete it and redistribute the free space between the other. It got half way through moving one of the other windows partitions up the drive when it failed due to an apparent bad sector and said no change had been made. This wasn't actually the case, it had already deleted the Linux partition(s). It was only when I rebooted that I realised the MBR was set to use GRUB on the Linux partition, which was now gone, but with your help I fixed that problem. I am now left with a slower computer than I have ever encountered and have no idea why. It may be to do with the drastic lack of hard drive space, but it got down to 500k just before I decided to try rearranging the partitions (I got it up to about 10meg first, but then ran out things to delete - most of the space it taken up by Windows itself). I could try and free up some more space while in Safe Mode, but it won't be easy... Is there a way to move programs from one drive to another without breaking everything (other than uninstalling and reinstalling - I don't have most of the install media with me)?

Any ideas what is wrong with my computer? Is it just the free space issue, or is there something else? Please help!!

--Tango (talk) 21:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps your swap file got damaged in all that process (it should just tell you and/or fix it itself)? 87.115.143.223 (talk) 21:38, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

It hasn't told me any such thing. It can't have been doing much swapping before hand, anyway - I've had a gig of RAM and a few hundred meg of hard drive space for a while now (unless the swap file is somehow on a different partition than the one windows is on - is that possible? How would I find out?). --Tango (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The swap file is controlled in the system control panel plugin (I think there might be a "performance" or similar tab to go through). The control panel (or is it the administrative tools thing? I'm afraid I don't have windows to hand...) also has the system even log, which might have a slew of errors in it (from when things were running slow). 87.115.143.223 (talk) 21:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything useful about swapping, but I found a system log that is full of errors about bad blocks - I will run scandisk (or whatever it is called in XP) and see if that helps. Thanks! --Tango (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

God, Windows is annoying! It said it was "unable to complete the scan" but didn't think I might want to know what had gone wrong... So I've downloaded "Ariolic Disk Scanner" (it appeared about 6 times on the first page of a google search for "Windows XP disk scanner", so I thought it must be good!) and am running that now. No errors so far... --Tango (talk) 23:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You said most of the remaining space is taken up by Windows. Since Windows has many optional components, you may want to delete some of the fluff until this problem is resolved. If you still have the install disks, it should be easy to add those Windows components back in later. Once you get some free space, try a defrag, as fragmentation is a problem when disk space is low. If you have a way to run Windows directly off a boot disk, that will allow you to do all these things at a reasonable speed, since you won't rely on Windows on the incredibly slow hard disk. StuRat (talk) 23:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. I'm currently typing this in Safe Mode, which is running at a decent speed, so I should be able to uninstall some windows components that I don't use from here. --Tango (talk) 23:14, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

So much for that plan - the total size of all the optional components I have installed is 56MB, and only 20MB of that looked like something I could remove, and it wasn't entirely clear what was included with that component so I decided it wasn't worth removing it. I'm still baffled by why I seem to have a gigabyte extra free space in Safe Mode than normally... any ideas? --Tango (talk) 23:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The extra gigabyte could be swap space perhaps? Anyway, two ideas (if I recall correctly from above you say your disk now has some unpartitioned space): 1) If Partition Manager works in safe mode, run Partition Manager and increase the size of the partition. 2) If your CD burning software works in safe mode, download GParted, boot from CD and repartition from there. If this doesn't work and you still want to free up disk space, you can remove any free software you have installed, such as Firefox (if you use that) - you can just re-download these things after everything is fixed. Jørgen (talk) 02:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It was trying to do just that with the partitions that caused this mess in the first place! Unfortunately the partition with windows on it is at the beginning of the drive and the now unallocated space is at the end, which means I can't get more space in the main partition without moving the other partitions and that was what failed - apparently due to a bad sector in the unallocated space. I've managed to free up about 200meg (which has been enough for the last few weeks - I've been gradually deleting/moving more and more things as it fills up trying to keep it above 200meg, which is the point where Windows starts complaining), but it doesn't seem to have helped. If the extra gig is swap space then a) why doesn't Safe Mode need a swap file? and b) is there any way to tell it to use less swap space? I think the answer to my space problems is to buy a new hard drive, but I'm not convinced it is lack of space causing the problems (not directly, anyway). Thanks for your idea, though - any more? --Tango (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Though I've never used XPLite, I suspect that it would be useful for junk removal. -- Hoary (talk) 05:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Your windows swapfile is called pagefile.sys, and is a hidden file in the root directory of your main drive. Instructions to delete it are here. In my experience bad things happen when you mix linux and windows partition managers. The fact that your computer's speed is ok in safe mode, makes me suspect that there may be a second problem, but I'd try to solve the disk problem first. Here's what I would do: (1) download and install the seagate disk wizard, (2) check that it runs properly in safe mode (it may give an error message if your current disk is not a seagate disk), (3) buy a Seagate disk, and boot the PC in safe mode with both disks connected. I'm not affiliated with Seagate in any way, but cloning disks with their program is really easy, I've used it a lot. (4) Clone your current windows partition and MBR to the new disk (letting it use all available space), and finally (5) remove the old disk and boot with the new one. If your current disk is not a Seagate disk, I'm not sure that this will work (I haven't tried), but I think the requirement for it to work is that you've got one Seagate disk connected. If, for some reason, this approach fails, I would use partimage (you'll need to download and burn a boot disk), make an image of the current windows partition on a usb disk, insert the new disk and restore the disk image to the new disk, making use of the entire disk. You will probably have to restore the MBR, but you know how to do that.

If your computer still is slow when you've moved to a new disk, the reason has to be that one of the programs or drivers that are loaded in normal mode and not in safe mode, is causing the slowdown. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've freed up a couple of gig on C: by compressing old files (which I've always been reluctant to do since it feels rather like buying things on a credit card with no way of paying it off, but I saw little choice). I've also followed the instructions linked to above to move the pagefile from C: onto a completely different drive which has plenty of space. None of this seems to have solved the problem. If it helps, the computer only slows down after I try and log on - the welcome screen loads fine and it accepts my password fine, but then I get the "loading your personal settings" message which stays there for ages and then the desktop starts to load a bit at a time over the course of about 15-30 minutes, and then does virtually nothing - if I double-click and then wait another 30 minutes it might just about load My Computer. Any ideas? --Tango (talk) 16:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I seem to have things working now. I went through msconfig's selective startup options and gradually narrowed done which services were causing a problem. This took longer than expected because it seems there are two services independently causing everything to run really slow - KService (something to do with BBC iPlayer, I think) and MySQL. I can't work out why either of those would suddenly break just as I'm fiddling around with partitions, but I can do with them. Thanks everyone for your help! --Tango (talk) 21:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Program

I couldn't think of a better title for this question: what I want is something where I would type in several words, for example, Fred, Cooper, and Smith, and it would spit out something like: FredCooperSmith, FredSmith, CooperSmith, FSmith, FCSmith, FCS, and so on. I was recently regestering some .tk websites, and was thinking that this would make things a lot easier. Thanks, Genius101^Guestbook 21:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I just made you an application for this purpose: try FSCCalc.exe --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Genius101^Guestbook 13:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

VNC client

Hi

Can someone suggest a good vnc client for windows, specifically one the may have a LAN browser, and tabs like Vinagre in ubuntu?

TIA PrinzPH (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Check out TightVNC and RealVNC. They are two of the more common varieties. Shadowjams (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)