Tech Tip Daily

Amongst all of the things that Vista does incredibly well, there are still a few fundamentally basic things that, in my experience, have vast problems.  One “bug”, will you, has to do with the Recycle Bin’s ability to refresh and display its correct state.  Take this example: you’ve just deleted a file, sending it to the recycle bin.  Looking at the icon, it shows the “full” trash bin.  When you empty the recycle bin, it still shows the “full” bin.  If you right click on the desktop and select “refresh”, the icon changes and displays the correct, empty bin.  However, to show the correct state, you must refresh the desktop each time.  Of course, this isn’t realistic.

I’ve found numerous suggested solutions throughout the internet, none of which worked for me.  I’ll list some of them, and then the 1 solution that did work.  The first three tips were found at winvistaclub.  A special thanks to them for the solutions.

To correct the recycle bin state:

1. Try removing the recycle bin icon from the desktop and then adding it again.  Right click on the desktop and click Personalize.  In the left column, select “change desktop icons”.  Uncheck the box next to “Recycle Bin”.  Click “Restore Defaults”, then hit apply.  Restart the computer.  Go back to the same window, check the box next to “Recycle Bin”, click “Restore Defaults”, hit apply.  Then refresh the desktop.
2. Re-set the icons.  Go to the same window from step 1, except select the icon that says “Recycle Bin (full)”.  Click the button for “Change Icon” and in the window that appears, select the full recycle bin icon.  Hit Ok.  Do the same for the empty recycle bin.
3. Re-build the icon cache.  The best way to do this is to do this is through third party software such as TuneUp utilities or Stardocks Icon Packager.
4. Run the registry fix found at winhelponline.  Credit for the registry fix goes to Ramesh Srinivasan (This method worked for me.  Thanks Ramesh!).

Through one of these methods, hopefully the icon will be fixed.  And with any luck, Microsoft will find what’s causing this and fix it in the near future.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

So today’s there’s a bit of a bonus post…You know, I learned something this afternoon.  When using liquid detergent in the dishwasher, don’t fill the [dish-liquid-receptacle-thingy] all of the way up.  You’d think common sense would have told me this but it seems that years of radiation from the computer monitor has impaired my better judgement.  For those of you who haven’t had this pleasant experience, the kitchen turns into a foam pit.

So how do you get rid of the suds?  Well, like everything, I turned to the internet (google) first.  If you simply manage the suds, the next few cycles (at least) are guaranteed to make a mess as well.  You could scoop the suds out but this makes things messy and takes a lot of time.  Here are a few tips that I found.

To dissipate suds:

1. Place half of a bar of regular soap at the bottom of the dishwasher.  Watch things periodically to make sure there’s no more catastrophic leaks and let the dishwasher finish its cycle.  This method worked great for me and the next cycle I ran was sud-free (although my house smells like irish-spring now).
2. Pour a cup of vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher.
3. Pour a cup of vegetable oil into the bottom of the dishwasher.  Although this seems counter-intuitive, according to those who have tried it, the vegetable oil will mix with the detergent quite well.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy…dishwashing…

Some time ago, I was installing XP on a new machine at the office and as a standard procedure, I ran the plethora of Windows updates.  After installing one particular batch of updates, I restarted the machine and went to open Internet Explorer to run more updates; Except when I double clicked the IE icon, the browser didn’t open.  I tried a few more times, noticing that each time I double clicked, a shortcut to IE was being created on the desktop.

On a few occassions, I’ve noticed that right-click and left-click get confused and left-clicking anything brings up the right-click menu.  I thought this might have been the case and perhaps my second click in the double click sequence had chosen create shortcut.  I tried again, being careful of what I clicked, but yielded the same result.

I went searching on Google and it was only after an hour that I began to turn up some answers.  Apparently, a hotfix was released late last year (KB943460) to fix a flaw in URI Handling.  Apparently, amongst other undesired effects, installing this update caused double-clicking on the Internet Explorer icon to create a shortcut instead of opening the browser.  Removing this hotfix solved the problem for me.

To remove the hotfix:

1. Go to the control panel (Start Menu->Control Panel) and go to Add/Remove programs.
2. Check the “Show Updates” (”Show hotfixes” in some versions) check boxes to show all installed patches.
3. Scroll down until you see “Security Update for Windows XP (KB943460)”
4. Click the remove button, and follow the prompts.

In some instances, XP will not allow you to remove particular hotfixes.  There is a manual workaround for this.  Do this at your own risk. Removing Hotfixes in the wrong order has been known to cause problems. While I had no problems doing this on a few machines, it was a few months ago and many updates have been released since.  While I don’t expect anyone to have any issues, I can’t promise anything.

To manually remove a hotfix:

1. Open ‘My Computer’ and in the address bar, type (minus the quotes) “%windir%\$NtUninstallKB943460$\spuninst” and hit enter
2. You should see an installation file called “spuninst”.  Run this file and follow the prompts.
3. Restart your machine.

It should be noted that you can use this method to remove any hotfix on your machine.  Just type:

%windir%\$NtUninstallKBXXXXXX$\spuninst

And replace the ‘XXXXXX’ with the “KB” number of the hotfix.

Months after coming across this problem, I found an alternative solution that has been known to work.  Again, try this at your own risk, as I haven’t tested it and can’t verify its results.

Alternative Fix (For advanced users only):

This particular solution involves modifying the registry.  ANYTIME you modify the registry, you should create a backup.  Follow this Microsoft Knowledgebase article for instructions on backing up your registry.

1. Open a ‘run’ window (Start Menu->Run)
2. Type ‘regedit’ and hit enter
3. Go to the following registry keys and delete the ‘LegacyDisable’ subkey within each.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\Shellex]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Computer_User_Name\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\shell\OpenHome

I’ve ran updates on quite a few machines since service pack 3 came out and I have yet to come across this problem.  It has likely been fixed, but for those of you who aren’t quite ready to update yet, hopefully it will help.

That’s all! Thanks and happy computing!

Where graphics performance was once determined solely by processing power, it’s recently become a matter of numbers. With technologies like Nvidia’s SLI and ATI’s Crossfire, it’s not a matter of necessarily how big your video card is, but how many you have that counts. There’s no doubt about it that SLI has been a huge success. Benchmarks are now higher than ever.

However, there’s a caveat to consider. What isn’t advertised on the front of that 9800 GTX box is that two or more video cards running in SLI don’t officially support dual monitors – At least not from the manufacturer. I found this out when building my latest PC and I was crushed. I’ve used dual screens for 4 years now and I couldn’t imagine life without it. The “official” solution is to disable SLI when using dual monitors. Who has that kind of time?

A simple search on the SLI Zone forums shows a number of people who share the same frustration. Thanks to member FredrikMH, Dual monitors while in SLI are possible through a simple list of steps – And a few requirements.

To accomplish this, you’ll need:

• 2 Nvidia SLI-supported graphics cards (for a list of cards that support sli, click here)
• 1 PCI (Not express) graphics card.  I used an 8600GT.  A quick note, while you shouldn’t spend $250 on a card that solely supports a second monitor, if you ever plan on running visualizers or playing video on this screen, you’ll need a halfway-decent card.  Don’t go shopping in the bargain bin at tiger direct (this also means you’ll need a spare PCI slot on your motherboard – This might work on a 3 slot PCI-E motherboard, where only two cards are running in SLI).
• Vista (some people report problems doing this in XP – try at your own risk)

I’ll remind you again, this isn’t officially sanctioned by Nvidia.  So try this at your own risk (I don’t take responsibility if you fry your brand new video card – or any part of your computer for that matter).

Note: While I refer to the “third” card (PCI) throughout this article, this should work with any SLI configuration, including tri or quad setups.

How does it work?  The SLI-enabled cards power the main screen (as intended).  The third card powers the secondary monitor.  The problem is that when you enable dual monitors on cards running in SLI, the SLI is disabled.  SLI works (essentially) by dividing the processing requirements of the main display among the graphics cards.  For example, if you have two SLI cards, each only has to work on half of the main screen.  This means one card can display half of the content much faster than if it had to power the entire display on its own.  If dual monitors were allowed on cards running SLI, the concept would bust as each card would be taxed by 1 monitor.  The trick is to bring a third card into the equation after the fact.  By letting the third card power the second monitor, the SLI-enabled cards can wok on the main display (the one running the games).

The steps:

1. Start by installing all cards into the computer (including drivers).  Drivers can be downloaded here.  Connect your main display to the first header of your top SLI card (typically will be the top-left most DVI port on the back of your machine.  Connect your second (and third, if you want) monitors to your PCI card.
2. Disable the third (PCI) card in device manager.  Right click on ‘My Computer’ (or ‘Computer’ in Vista) and click ‘Manage’.  Select ‘device manager’ and expand display adapters.  Right click on the PCI card and choose ‘Disable’.  Select yes if a confirmation box appears.
3. Restart your machine
4. After the machine restarts, go into your Nvidia control panel (Start Menu->Programs->Nvidia Corporation->Nvidia Control Panel->Control Panel) and enable SLI.
5. Restart your machine
6. Some people report that at this point their PCI card that they disabled in step 2 was automatically enabled.  Mine wasn’t.  If yours isn’t, do so now by following the steps from #2 (and selecting enable).
7. Right click on your desktop and select ‘Personalize’.  Choose ‘display settings’ from the window that appears.  You’ll see a visual representation of your screen capacity.  Select the display labled ‘2′ and check the box ‘Extend the desktop onto this monitor’ below (follow the same steps for a third monitor – display ‘3′).  Hit OK at the bottom of the window.  Your screens will flicker and you’ll be good to go.  Make sure to select ‘OK’ in the confirmation box that appears or else your settings will revert.

After doing this, you’ll be unable to make any changes to your SLI configuration without first disabling the PCI video card in device manager.  In addition, you won’t be able to really “know” if SLI is in fact enabled – As far as Vista is concerned, it isn’t.  However, have faith, as it really is working.  If you “have to know”, download GPU-Z to find out (it will say enabled or disabled at the bottom of the window).

For the original post at SLI Zone (with pictures and helpful posts), click here.

That’s all!  Thanks, and happy computing!

Ever since I got my first computer (an IBM 286 with a 60MB hard drive and 2 megabytes of RAM), I’ve been nothing short of fascinated. I was about 10 at the time and I marveled at the capability of Windows 3.1 I’d often stay up all night long playing Castle Wolfenstein. But I didn’t always have such a good clue about what I was doing. For instance, there was one sunny Saturday morning that I was experimenting with the ‘del’ command and it’s usage with wildcards. $200 and 1 angry father later, I realized its true potential.

It’s only been by breaking and then repairing these machines that I’ve come to the place that I am. I’m 22 now, recently graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science, and work for a local converged technologies provider. And by the way, my name is Greg. with nearly 3 years in the telecommunications industry and 12 in IT, I’ve come to learn many things about all aspects of life (and a bit about technology too).

Not a day goes by that I don’t get a question about computers. But I don’t mind, I just remember all of the things in life I don’t know about (Women) and how fortunate I am to have people in my own life who help me out (Thank you Kim). Even without the questions I get, nearly every day I run into at least one technology-related problem myself that I’m forced to solve. Aside from its usefulness to me, I decided it would be great help to many people to create a well organized, cataloged place for “daily tech tips” to be placed.

And thus we have Tech Tip Daily. This is my first venture into the blogosphere and I exist solely for your benefit. So please, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!