Windows Howtos

These Windows howtos are provided from our experience of working with windows software and hardware. Please note that we generally only posta HOWTO here if we struggle with something and have to do vast amountsof work to find out howto do it, hence why we share it with you.

The List

Windows XP rebooting constantly on startup, BSOD displays too fast to read
WinXP Zone Alarm Free Edition - Howto run Internet Connection Sharing on WinXP computer as gateway

Problem: Windows XP rebooting constantly on startup, blue screen of death (BSOD) with codepage info too fast to read.

Other symptoms: When backing up the files to a server by booting into adisk based copy of linux (eg Ubuntu Breezy, Knoppix 3.8) pagfile.sys came up with io errors. This indicated that there were physical problems with the hard disk, specifically as the os was about to allocate pages out to virtual memory.

Computer: Compaq Presario 2100 2146AP New Zealand model. Athlon XP processor

OS: Windows XP Home SP2 (added)

Remedy: chkdsk /f /r

Reason: but how to mark off the bad sectors in a protected system? chkdsk appears to repair the problem, but some days later itreappears. The switches /r (and possibly /f, although theknowledgebase says /f is presumed with /r) cause chkdsk to repair the file system - ie mark the bad sectors off. This does not repair the disk surface, that is impossible, but the file system sits over the disk and controls how the os accesses it.

Submitted by: Barry Cleawater [17 Febraury 2006]

WinXP Zone Alarm Free Edition - Howto run Internet Connection Sharing on WinXP computer as gateway

After being fed up with Windows Firewall not allowing certain ports and some webpages (even though port 80 & 443 was allowed) I decided to go back to using Zone Alarm but couldn't get it to work either with my ICS - I run Windows XP as my dialup computer gateway and Ubuntu as my slave computer on the network.

1. First I installed Zone Alarm

2. Next I added the subnet 192.168.*.* to the trusted zones

3. Next I changed the Firewall Zone security for the Internet Zone to Medium (this changes the computer from stealthed to blocked - ie it blocks connections not authorised as apposed to hiding from connections) and changed the trusted zone to low. Bingo it works

Submitted by: Tim Wiel [13 March 2006]