Windows XP help

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Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:03 pm

My SO works for her dad. He has a PC running XP Pro which he uses for his business. The PC has been getting slower and slower and i reckon it needs the OS re-installing. I have backed up all the client files to DVD. Is there any way i can save all the settings/passwords for applications/etc as well?

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:08 pm

Most Windows settings will be in the registry, and if you copy a complete dump of that over you'll get a bunch of broken paths and stuff and carry over many of the same problems.

The Firefox profile directory (if he's a Fx user) can be copied, that will contain all the Firefox extensions/settings/passwords. Other apps may use the registry or flat files, depends on the program.

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:35 pm

Swallow the pain of having to remember passwords etc, then format and rebuild the entire OS, reinstall just the things he needs, etc - it's all the leftover crap that slows you down and a complete rebuild will set you free...

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

music man wrote:

Is there any way i can save all the settings/passwords for applications/etc as well?

If you are using Firefox you can save all of your Firefox settings with THIS.

Quote:

FEBE backs up your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies and just about everything else Firefox offers (it can even backup/restore your entire profile). You can selectively restore only the items you need. For instance, you may just want your bookmarks restored and leave everything else as it was.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

What I did recently, and it was well worth it, was to print out all the Firefox passwords.

For this sort of mission-critical PC, I would strongly suggest a new PC. Failing that, back up the contents of every folder on the machine no matter how many DVDs it takes. That way, when he comes back in a couple of days and tells you about a vital file that has disappeared, you'll be able to recover it.

Be warned; there is no up-side to providing free tech-support for family. You get the blame whatever goes wrong, and very little credit if it doesn't.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

thud419 wrote:

Be warned; there is no up-side to providing free tech-support for family. You get the blame whatever goes wrong, and very little credit if it doesn't.

Amen!

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:06 pm

Thanks guys. You have confirmed what I suspected. Driver hell awaits!!!

What really hurts is my total antipathy to anything that emanates from Redmond!!!!

Give me linux and a separate partition for /home any day!!

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:06 pm

If you want to save/restore the entire user profile, try the Migration Wizard (Start-->Run-->migwiz). Select a network drive or USB stick as the target. That should take care of everything from documents/pics and program settings to the wallpaper.
Individual app settings can be exported by directing Explorer (Windows Explorer, not the abomination MS call a web browser) to %AppData% (usually C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data). The Firefox profile is in a subdirectory called Mozilla. The corresponding part in the registry should be in HKCU\Software\Company\Product; Registry Editor will let you export the entire tree to a .reg file.

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:41 pm

@Bankster

Nice suggestion- I'll definitely give that a go. After all, what have I to lose! ( apart from my remaining hair and (remaining) sanity!!) Very Happy

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:02 pm

Quote:

After all, what have I to lose!

That's the spirit Very Happy

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:35 pm

Bankster wrote:

Individual app settings can be exported by directing Explorer (Windows Explorer, not the abomination MS call a web browser) to %AppData% (usually C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data).

For those few programs that still follow that convention. I'm noticing a disturbing trend in apps spamming My Documents with their settings instead. Confused

thud419 wrote:

Be warned; there is no up-side to providing free tech-support for family. You get the blame whatever goes wrong, and very little credit if it doesn't.

QFT.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 04 Feb 2010 Posts: 13

You can all so use a program called ping it is a linux based program

http://ping.windowsdream.com/

It creates a ghost image on your hard drive.

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:40 am

Every time I am asked to do free speed up the very slow computer work I throw CCleaner at it.

http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/?tag=mncol

Its free and does the job. Run the cleaner and then the registry fix utility. I hit the fix all button but back up the registry just in case. I then show the owner how to run the program on a regular basis so that I do not have to return.
Cheers. Laughing

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 8:52 pm

The latest wisdom is that registry cleaning is mostly pointless.

Mark Russinovich wrote:

[E]ven if the registry was massively bloated there would be little impact on the performance of anything other than exhaustive searches (ed. of the registry itself).

I haven't and never will implement a Registry cleaner since it's of little practical use on anything other than Win2K terminal servers and developing one that's both safe and effective requires a huge amount of application-specific knowledge.

In music man's case I would definitely go for the reinstall. It will give better results in the long run, anyway.

[Edit: Forgot the worst-case scenario]

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2010 5:34 am

Our IT people have locked out registry cleaning and it is true that I have never found an improvement but cleaning out all the junk files kicks butt. It reduces boot up times from 20 minutes to 30 seconds on computers with a boat load of crap in them. Removes traces of baiting too. Running a low level reformat and reinstall of all programs works also. That's what our IT people do every time. Works for them but it drives me crazy.