Re: Yikes! Shortcuts from hell. The devil's in my machine!

From: gls858 (gls858_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/11/04 

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:10:17 -0500

Shooter wrote:

> XP takes a little bit of getting used to, and there are some holes in
> security.
>
> But I've found it to be incredibly stable - almost bullet proof. I run my
> online business on it and it hasn't let me down yet.
>
> New service packs give me the heebie jeebies though - I download them onto a
> copy of my main computer first to check whether they will mess anything up.
> It's not that they have caused me problems with XP, but SP2 is on its way,
> and a SP for Win98 some years ago crashed my system so badly that I lost
> some important files...
>
> Full backwards compatibility can never be assured - it might be asking a bit
> much of XP to deal with all DOS applications.
>
> (I don't attempt to stick compact cassettes in my CD player :-)
>
> <FlitchGlitch@NOSpamISP.net> wrote in message
> news:cvjjc05a2268rjftfppgkdsvnfg3gk3gsk@4ax.com...
>
>>See comments at end.
>>
>>Tom Porterfield <tpporter@mvps.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>FlitchGlitch@NOSpamISP.net wrote:
>>>
>>>>1) can I crush (delete) everything in C:Documents and
>>>>Settings\User\Recent? Now and often in the future?
>>>
>>>Yes, clear it whenever you want. It just contains shortcuts to files
>>>you recently accessed. Having those shortcuts there will in no way
>>>effect anything else you do on the computer. A shortcut to an old
>>>version of WinZip in your recent folder will not impact an installation
>>>of the latest version of WinZip.
>>>
>>>
>>>>2) How do I stop XP from noticing these things and creating shortcuts
>>>>other than when I explicitly tell it to?
>>>
>>>TweakUI has a setting to turn this off (so that means it's probably in
>>>the registry somewhere). You can download Tweak UI (one of the Windows
>>>XP PowerToys) from
>>>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp. After
>>>installing, run Tweak UI. On the left select Explorer and on the right
>>>find the setting called "Maintain document history". Remove the check
>>
>>>from that setting and apply your change.
>>
>>>>And while we're at it: What are these little files "thumbnails.db" I
>>>>find all over the place? How do I stop THEM breeding?
>>>
>>>Those contain a database of the thumbnail images of the files in that
>>>folder. If you switch your folder view to thumbnail you will see those
>>>images. By creating and storing them in a db file Windows doesn't have
>>>to regenerate those images every time you browse into a folder. Windows
>>>creates the thumbnails.db file the first time you view a folder in
>>>thumbnail view, updating that file when a refresh occurs. If you never
>>>switch to thumbnail view then the file won't be generated. You can
>>>safely delete existing ones, the only impact will be the need for
>>>Windows to regenerate if you want to see thumbnails.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Are there any other little nasties that I haven't yet found?
>>>
>>>Who knows? So far the things you have listed I don't consider to be
>>>nasty at all.
>>
>>Now there we are. Thanks to you and to Shooter.
>>
>>I apologize if I sounded testy before. I've had a hell of a job trying
>>to get my old DOS programs working in XP (they're still not 100%) and
>>I simply wasn't in a mood to put up with this sort of hand holding
>>that XP seems to go on with. Now if they'd handhold when trying to run
>>programs that conform to VESA 3.0 that'd be useful... <g>
>>
>>I think I'd also be happier with Win2K (actually I'd be happiest with
>>a 32 bit version of DOS 6.2 <g>) where there's far less emphasis (so
>>I'm told) on the game playing, video watching, and other non-serious
>>uses of the PC. I'm considering junking XP and installing it instead.
>>
>>
>
>
>
Microsoft has said that SP2 WILL break some things. Any program
that uses DCOM or RPC could have difficulties. Here's a link to some
info.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/securityinxpsp2.asp
If that wraps here the ssme link tinyized :-)
http://tinyurl.com/upuv

gls858

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