DESKTOP L1

1 What is POST & JIG Test for Hardware?

Power-on self test Abbreviated POST.

A set of diagnostic programs loaded from ROM before any attempt is made to load the operating system; designed to ensure that the major system components are present and operating. If a problem is found, the POST firmware displays an error message on the screen, sometimes with a diagnostic code number indicating the type of fault. The number of preamp channels is close to 60,000 including spare parts. It is highly desirable for each one to be tested to pass a simple "go - no go" test before being installed in the detector. There are a large number of channels so the manufacturer will be testing the preamps.

The test jig will have two functions: 1) to check that the preamp can hold voltages applied to the power rails, and that the supply currents drawn are within tolerance, and 2) to provide a fast electronic pulse that is applied to the input of the preamp and compare the output waveform to an expected shape. The tester is also designed to be operated conveniently and quickly.

Five go-no go test jigs will be built to test the upgraded Calorimeter preamplifiers. Two will be configured for Calorimeter preamp testing and three for ICD testing. Two of the test jigs will stay at Fermi lab, two will be sent to the preamp manufacturing vendor, and the ICD group will use one.

The manufacturing vendor will automate the tests during the production run so the test jig was modified to accommodate their automation needs.

To conduct the tests, the operator will be required to place a preamp into a zero insertion force (ZIF) socket, push a button, and either read a voltage measurement from an externally connected meter or view an oscilloscope measurement of the rise and fall time. To conduct the undershoot/ overshoot test, they will generate a comparison curve based on units that pass the current, rise, and fall time tests.

The test jig consists of three printed circuit boards; the digital control, ZIF, and LED display boards. Modifications are currently being implemented which allow the vendor to measure the preamp power supply current. Each jig is calibrated with the aid of a written test procedure to insure thoroughness. A preamp power supply current simulation circuit has been designed for use during the calibration process to insure caliber.

2 Hardware Troubleshooting for Restart, Hang, No Display issue.

Shutdown problems in Windows XP can be caused by many factors, just like earlier versions of Windows. These included: a damaged exit sound file; incorrectly configured, damaged, or incompatible hardware; conflicting programs, or an incompatible, damaged, or conflicting device driver. Windows XP shutdown issues mostly center around a very few issues, especially legacy hardware and software compatibility issues.

Currently, the leading cause of Windows XP shutdown problems is hardware incompatibility, including driver issues. These are detailed below where known. However, it is impossible to list every possible hardware or driver issue individually. My best advice is: Check all drivers for all hardware devices to ensure that they are the current best for Windows XP.

REBOOT INSTEAD OF SHUTDOWN

Most Win XP shutdown problems reported thus far have been that it reboots when shutdown is attempted. This may be a global symptom emerging from several distinct causes, because, by default, XP executes an automatic restart in the event of a system failure. Therefore, more or less anything compromising the operating system during the shutdown process could force this reboot.

Disabling the “restart on system failure” feature may permit the exact cause to be isolated: Right-click on My Computer, click Properties, click the Advanced tab. Under “Startup & Recovery,” click Settings. Under “System Failure,” uncheck the box in front of “Automatically restart.”

Whether or not APM is enabled makes a difference — but the effect could go two ways. Some users report that XP reboots on shutdown if APM is enabled, but shuts Windows down just fine if APM is disabled. Other users report exactly the opposite behavior. According to Jack Dunne, this is similar to a known Windows 2000 problem. The issue seems related to the computer’s specific hardware or BIOS — so, as with all NT operating systems, stick to the Hardware Compatibility List where possible.
USB Connections As can be seen from remarks in the Misc. Hardware Issues section below, several different USB-related issues can impact shutdown. One of the most concrete examples was a “reboot on shutdown” problem contributed by correspondent Rick Bross. If his several USB devices (PDA cradle, flash card reader, etc) were plugged into the motherboard’s USB ports, his computer would reboot on an attempted shutdown; but when, instead, he plugged them into an external USB 2.0 hub, shutdown went just fine. (This was with Win XP Professional SP1 on a Super micro X5DAE dual Xeon motherboard. The same devices plugged into an Asus A7M-266D dual AMD 2000MP system on the same OS worked without problem.)
“Wake on” power settings Power-management settings that have the computer “wake” on LAN, USB, modem, or (for that matter) probably anything else may also trigger a restart after shutdown. Correspondent Simon Wei provided this tip after a friend of his found an old Logitech USB mouse would trigger “wake on USB” after every Windows shutdown. Their solution was to remove that particular mouse and all worked fine. The principle is much more far-reaching than this one example.
Hidden “wake on” power settings if you have an Ethernet card integrated into your motherboard, you may have hidden “wake on” settings that are harder to find. Site visitor Jim Porter found that his Asus P5GDC-V Deluxe motherboard had a “wake on” setting in Device Manager | Properties | Advanced rather than in the BIOS or Power Management settings. (The Asus P5AD2 and P5GD2 boards have this also.)
Y-SB3 Logitech Internet Keyboard can also cause this problem. If you use it as a simple generic keyboard, there’s no problem; but, if you install the Key Commander software that drives the special Internet functions, Win XP will restart instead of shut down. Unfortunately, Logitech has decided that they will not be updating this driver for this keyboard. (Tip from Jan K. Haak.)
Logitech MouseWare 8.6. Windows reboots when shutdown is attempted. The software caused a BSOD with KBDCLASS.SYS. Removing the software solved the BSOD the problem. (Tip from Pablo Cheng.) MouseWare 9.0 and 9.1 also have been linked to reboot-instead-of-shutdown in Win XP. Removing the software resolves the problem. (Tip from Aswin Kindts, Greg Williams, and others)
Webstar DPX USB cable modem. In the one case known to me, the problem was solved by switching the modem’s connector from the USB 1.1 port on the motherboard to the USB 2.0 PCI card. (The modem was provided by Telewest Broadband, manufactured by Scientific Atlanta.) (Tip from Ann L. Goonan.)

SHUTDOWN HANGS ON “SAVING YOUR SETTINGS”

During shutdown or reboot, Win XP may hang (stop responding) at the “saving your settings” screen. During such a hang, there is no response to Ctrl+Alt+Del; the mouse may or may not work. The problem may be intermittent.

This is a known bug in Windows XP, for which Microsoft has a supported fix. To learn how to get this patch, see MSKB 307274, “Windows XP Stops Responding (Hangs) During Windows Shutdown.” The necessary patch is included in Windows XP Service Pack 1, and also is now available on the Windows Update site under “Recommended Updates” for Win XP Professional, titled “Restarting Windows XP.” However, to find it, you may need to reconfigure how Windows Update appears for you, by enabling the Windows Update Catalog as follows: At the Windows Update page, click Personalize Windows Update at the left, and then enable the Windows Update Catalog. Save your settings. This adds the Windows Update Catalog link in the left box. Click this link, and then click Find updates for Microsoft Windows systems. Pick Windows XP in the drop-down list, click Search, take Recommended Updates, and find the “Restarting Windows XP” patch which references Q307274.

As a workaround, newsgroup correspondent “Lou” resolved this problem by dismantling the Windows XP logon Welcome screen. In the Control Panel, click User Accounts, and then click “Change the way users log on or off.” Uncheck the box that says “Use the Welcome screen.” This removes the initial logon screen with individual icons for each user and, instead, pops up the classic logon prompt that requires each user to type a user name and password.

SBLive: DEVLDR32.EXE PROBLEMS

In the early days of Win ME, one of the biggest culprits for shutdown issue was the Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live. History repeated itself in the Beta phase of Win XP. SOLUTION: The SBLive drivers in the released version of Win XP solved the shutdown problem for most (but not all) SBLive users.

Here’s the commonly reported problem scenario people encountered: On attempting shutdown, nothing at all appears to happen for a prolonged period of time. Eventually, an “End Task” window appears, wanting to terminate DEVLDR32.EXE. No matter what one does, one ultimately is locked out of shutting down other than by a power switch shutoff. (NOTE: This problem exists with the SBLive in Windows 2000 also.)

You may have to do a couple of extra steps to get rid of old files so that the new drivers will install correctly (especially if you installed the final version of Win XP on top of one of the Beta versions), or to remove troublesome support software. Correspondent Sean Caldwell summarized his steps: Shutdown Windows. Remove the Creative card. Reboot in Safe Mode. In the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder, delete the DEVLDR file. Fully shutdown the computer before rebooting.

Some users report that the DEVLDR problem continues to plague them even with the new drivers. If installing the new drivers doesn’t solve your shutdown problem, try these solutions:

Correspondent Martin Sladek wrote: “I’ve run into the very same problem with SBLive Value drivers. The problem was so severe I ran without the software all together. Since then, SBLive 5.1 came out, and I had installed the 5.1 version of the software in Windows 2000 Pro. I’ve not had a single problem since.”
But updating your drivers in Win XP may not be as easy as one would hope. Some problems especially appear where multiple users are enabled on the system and one switches between users during a single Windows session. There may be numerous files with the same name (but different version numbers!) variously located in the I386, SYSTEM32, and SYSTEM32\REINSTALLBACKUPS\0000 folders. These may conflict with each other. If you rename DEVLDR32 (ver. 1.0.0.22) in SYSTEM32, another one will replace it. (First, you need to press Ctrl+Alt+Del and end DEVLDR in Task Manager). But if you use DEVLDR32 (ver. 1.0.0.17) from the I386 folder, this problem doesn’t occur. Reboot when finished to reinaugurate the disabled service. (Tip from Terence Shortt, aka tbone8200 on dellTalk.)

MISC. HARDWARE ISSUES

In addition to hardware issues mentioned under other specialized topics on this page, many users have written identifying specific hardware as at the root of the Windows XP shutdown issue. Here’s what they have reported:

CD-ROM DRIVE: Samsung 24x. Correspondent Y. Leroux has identified the culprit in his shutdown problem, but doesn’t yet have a permanent solution. If his Samsung CD-ROM drive is empty, Win XP hangs on shutdown. To work around the problem, he either leaves a CD-ROM in the drive, or leaves the drive door open. He wanted to share this tip with others (thanks, Y.). Does anyone have a permanent solution for this one?
DVD-RW DRIVE: Pioneer DVR-106 or DVR-108. Correspondent L. Frankenberg traced his shutdown problem to this hardware. Correspondent Bob Berberick found the same for the DVR-108, and reported that a firmware update for the DVR-108 now available from Pioneer resolved his problem. It would probably be worth trying the firmware update for the DVR-106 as well, though I have no reports from anyone as to whether this solves the shutdown problem.
MODEMS: Intel Ambient HaM Modem. Causes Win XP to hang at shutdown. Previously, this was only resolved by disabling the modem. SOLUTION: Intel subsequently issued updated drivers that resolve this issue. They can be downloaded here. (Tip from Mark Gillespie.) However, a new problem with the Ambient Ham was introduced in Windows XP SP1, detailed below.

NOTE: The same problem has been reported for the Creatix V.90 Ham PCI Modem. Correspondent Gert Verheyen wrote that Creatix has an updated driver and, more importantly, detailed instructions about manual removal of the old one and installation of the new one. Go to the Creatix support page and click on V.90 HAM (internal) at right. The removal of the old driver first seems to have been the critical detail.

MODEMS: Billion BIPAC PCI Passive ISDN-card. Reboot instead of shutdown issue conjoined with BSOD error message STOP 0x000000D1: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in file SERIAL.SYS. Previously, this was only resolved by disabling the Billion ISDN card. SOLUTION: Billion has now released a new driver 3.24 that solves this problem, available here. (Tip from Leo Foederer.)
MOTHERBOARDS: Asus P2B-F, P2B-VM, or P2L97. Causes a shutdown problem because Win XP Setup doesn’t enable ACPI by default. SOLUTION: Manually enable ACPI during a Win XP install or reinstall. Correspondent Bill Anderson (based on a solution by “Willy”) gave a lengthy description of how to do this, edited a little for space reasons. (Thanks also to correspondents Ward from Belgium & Tony Gray.)

Boot the computer from the Win XP CD-ROM.
Win XP Setup says it’s checking hardware. Soon after, at the bottom of the screen, it offers the opportunity to press F5. (If offered the chance to press F6, press F5 instead! – Tip from Mick Stone) Do this at once, and cross your fingers! [Various users report difficulty with this. Apparently, sometimes it works; sometimes not. It may be in the timing of exactly when you press the key. You may have to try repeatedly, or try pressing F5 and F6 repeatedly. – JAE] When successful, you’ll see a two-paragraph instruction that begins, “To specify additional SCSI or other mass storage devices.” Press <ENTER> to brings up a small window that appears to contain only two options, but, in fact, contains more (use the arrow keys to scroll up). If this windows doesn’t appear at this point, you need to start over and do more pressing of F5!
When the small window does appear, use the up-arrow to choose “Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI).” (It’s the third from the top of the list.)
Next, you may see that two-paragraph SCSI/mass storage instruction again. If so, press <ENTER>. Many drivers will load, and then you should see the Win XP installation screen. If you are running this after Win XP is already installed, choose the Repair option.

MOUSE: Logitech. If you have a Logitech mouse, and an outdated version of the MouseWare software installed, you may receive the following error message on a blue screen at shutdown: STOP 0x000000D1, (0x0000002b, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xEEEE1b01) IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Kbdclass.sys. SOLUTION: Update the Logitech MouseWare software. (Reference & more information: MSKB 810980.)
VIDEO CARDS: Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 and all other video cards based on the Kyro II video chip. Causes restart and shutdown issues (or, in some cases, only restart issues) until the video adapter is removed. SOLUTION: New XP-specific drivers are now available from Hercules. At present, they remain uncertified (PowerVR, who makes the Kyro II chip, is working on that), but they reportedly work just fine. Download the Kyro II drivers here. (Tip from MS-MVP Don Lebow.)
USB Devices. If you have one or more USB devices attached to your computer, you may receive the following error message on a blue screen at shutdown: Stop 0x000000D1 (0x00000040, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xfc96a9dc). SOLUTION: Upgrade to the latest Win XP service pack. (Reference & more information: MSKB 317326.)
USB: Keyboard or Mouse + Selective Suspend. Some USB input devices (such as a USB keyboard or mouse) do not support the Selective Suspend power management feature. When these devices are used with Selective Suspend turned on, the computer may hang during shutdown, or otherwise not shutdown correctly. WORK-AROUND: Disable power management for your USB hub: Open Device Manager (click Start, click Run, type DEVMGMT.MSC, and click OK). Double-click to expand Universal Serial Bus Controllers. Double-click USB Root Hub. Click Power Management. Uncheck the box “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.” OK your way out. NOTE: Doing this may significantly reduce laptop battery life. (Reference & more information: MSKB 315664.)
USB: Lexar Media Combo Digital Film Reader (USB). There is a problem with the SAUSB.SYS file, apparently part of the Win98 SE driver set for this device, retained during an upgrade to Win XP. Deleting the file solved the problem. The newer version 4.3 SAUSB.SYS driver from Lexar’s Web site works perfectly, and does not cause a shutdown problem. (Tip from correspondent Eric Brown.) Though one correspondent reported that the even newer version 4.5 driver (SAUSBI.SYS) also can be used in Win XP , Lexar says this driver doesn’t work on XP. One correspondent has confirmed that this matches his experience in trying (unsuccessfully) to use 4.5 on both Widows 2000 and XP.

“STOP” ERROR MESSAGES AT SHUTDOWN

Some users, when attempting either to shutdown or restart Win XP, get an error message similar to the following: STOP 0x0000009F: DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE

Stop Messages literally means that Windows has stopped. (Which isn’t the same as saying it has shutdown!) See Knowledge Base Links: STOP MESSAGES for much more information that the brief remarks below. Most Stop Messages indicate hardware issues; some are caused by troublesome software or a system service problem. The links page just mentioned provides a 10-step approach to troubleshooting STOP Messages in general, then itemized analysis on the most common of these. (STOP messages are identified by an 8-digit hexadecimal number, but also commonly written in a shorthand notation; e.g., a STOP 0x0000000A may also be written Stop 0xA.)

Here are a few that may affect Win XP shutdown and restart. Stop 0x9F and Stop 0x8E are two of the most common of these at shutdown, and generally point to a bad driver. Stop 0x7B on restarting means Win XP lost access to the system partition or boot volume during the startup process, due to a bad device driver, boot sector virus, resource conflict, boot volume corruption, or other problem listed here. Stop 0xC000021A can when on restart after a system administrator has modified permissions so that the SYSTEM account no longer has adequate permissions to access system files and folders.

MS-MVP Jim Pickering advises the following as one approach to these problems: Restart the computer. Press F8 during the restart and select “Last Known Good Configuration.” If you catch the problem when it first occurs (meaning you likely have installed only one or two drivers or new service), this will return you to a previous working condition. System Restore provides an alternate approach, especially if you need to go back further than the last known good configuration, and Device Manager provides a tool for rolling back to an earlier driver.

SHUTDOWN WORKS, BUT IT’S REAL SLOW

If it appears that Win XP is not shutting down, give it some time. Some users report a minute or longer for shutdown to visibly start. Generally, this is a consequence of software that is running when shutdown is attempted. It also may have something to do with particular hardware. If you experience this problem, be sure to close all running programs before attempting shutdown and see if this solves your problem. If so, then you can determine, by trial and error, which program(s) are involved.
Newsgroup correspondent “Sarah” provided one specific solution for this. In Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services, stop the Nvidia Driver Helper service. (You can also get this by launching SERVICES.MSC from a Run box.) Many other newsgroup participants quickly confirmed that this solved this “extremely slow shutdown” problem for them (it’s the most successful solution for this problem to date). According to correspondent Gan Ming Teik, downloading and installing the new version 23.11 Nvidia driver also solves this problem.
Correspondent Ron Spruell found that disabling the Terminal Services service reduced his shutdown time from over 2 minutes (hanging at the “Windows is shutting down” screen) to about 10 seconds. To disable Terminal Services, follow the steps in the prior paragraph for launching SERVICES.MSC. Please note that Terminal Services is required in Windows XP for running Remote Assistance, Fast User Switching, and (in XP Pro) Remote Desktop.
Correspondent Graeme J.W. Smith reported a more obscure cause of slow shutdown: In Win XP Professional, the Group Policy Editor has a security option to clear the page file at system shutdown. The same setting also forces the hibernation file to be wiped at shutdown. These processes take long enough that users may think that shutdown has hung. To change the setting, click Start | Run, type GPEDIT.MSC, click OK. Drill down to Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options. In the right pane, find “Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile.” NOTE: Since someone actually has to have set this policy, the problem will be pretty rare, but is worth mentioning. However, Forum participant “roadrunner” reported that the personal security app Privacy Eraser automatically enables “Clear virtual memory pagefile,” and, therefore, may be the cause of a slow shutdown.
The Gear Software Security Service (GEARSEC.EXE), which enables iTunes for Windows to read and burn CDs, has been reported by many users to cause Windows XP to hang at the “Windows is shutting down” screen for as long as 20-30 seconds. WORK-AROUND: Stop the service prior to shutdown. One way to this (suggested by “Thornburgh”) is to create a batch file with the one line net stop gearsecurity. You can either launch this batch file manually, or (in Win XP Professional) use GPEDIT.MSC) to specify this batch file as the shutdown script (under Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Scripts | Shutdown). Gear Software’s forum has a thread on this issue here. (Tip from correspondent “Andy”)
MS-MVP Gary Thorn discovered that the Event Log can slow down Win XP shutdown. Disabling event logging removed the slowdown. If this works for you, then the real troubleshooting begins: finding out, by trial and error, what item that is being logged is causing the actual slowdown. (In Gary’s case, the Telephony service was causing the problem.) To disable the Event Log, launch the Services console as detailed in No. 2 above, and disable Event Log (right-click on Event Log, click Properties, under Startup Type select “Disabled”).
In a domain environment, don’t forget to check any logoff scripts you are pushing. These can be a source of slow or hanging shutdown processes. Site visitor Tony Barkdull, for example, found that an enforced logoff script caused show shutdown for laptops that were off-site. He solved it be creating a logoff script on the local machines that deletes the Active Directory logoff group policy after it runs so that the logoff scripts are absent while a user is off-site, but are repopulated when they return. — A related cause of slow shutdowns is offline synchronization of data, which is increasingly common with mobile computing, but is usually much more obvious to the end-user.

POWERDOWN ISSUES

“Power down issues” is quite distinctive from “shutdown issues.” I define a shutdown problem as one wherein Windows doesn’t make it at least to the “OK to shut off your computer” screen. If Windows gets that far, or farther, then it has shut down correctly. However, the computer may not power down correctly after that. This is a different problem, and I encourage people reporting these issues to make a clear distinction in their labeling.

When Windows XP won’t power down automatically, the APM/NT Legacy Power Node may not be enabled. To enable this, right-click on the My Computer icon, click Properties | Hardware | Device Manager | View. Check the box labeled “Show Hidden Devices.” If it’s available on your computer, there will be a red X on the APM/NT Legacy Node. Try enabling it and see if this resolves the power down problem (Tip from Terri Stratton). Or, to check the other side of the APM/ACPI coin, open the Power Options applet in Control Panel. If there is an APM tab, make sure the “Enable Advanced Power Management Support” box is checked. (MSKB 313290)

This should resolve the power down issue in most cases. However, other factors can sometimes interfere with correct power down functioning. In that case, consider the following tips:

Try some of the solutions on my Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts page. If you really have hardware inability to power down, these won’t solve it; but for some other underlying causes of power down failures, they just might.
If you change the default power settings in the BIOS, it can lead to a power down problem. Restoring all BIOS power settings to default will likely fix it. (Tip from Kelly Theriot)
Sometimes, not all appropriate Registry settings are made when you enable all the right power management settings in Windows. You can force the critical Registry setting with the “ShutNTdown” Registry patch. Please follow sensible Registry editing protocol. Backup your Registry before the change (or run System Restore to create a restore point). After installing it, test Windows shutdown. If the fix doesn’t work for you, remove it by restoring the Registry to its prior state. (For those who want more background information, the fix provided by this patch is based on information contained in MS Knowledge Base article 155117 for Windows NT 4.0.)
On some hardware, power management features simply don’t work right. This is exceedingly rare on Windows XP when compared to any earlier version of Windows but, on some machines, especially if no BIOS upgrade is available, there seems no conclusion to reach except, “Yes, you’re right, it doesn’t work, so don’t use that feature.” Accordingly, several correspondents have noted that their Win XP computers will not powerdown correctly unless they have Turn Off Monitor, Turn Off Hard Disks, and System Standby all set to “Never” in Control Panel | Power Options. (Tip from Dan Mitchell & others)
How old is your power supply? Correspondent Andrew Walsh had a computer that wouldn’t power down after a Win XP shutdown until he replaced the power supply that was a few years old. Presto! His problem was gone.
Correspondent “Snake” restored powerdown functioning by disabling his CD-ROM’s AutoRun feature. The fastest way to do this is with the “Disable AutoRun” Registry patch that you can download here.
If you have Office XP installed, the culprit may be CTFMON.EXE. This module provides the Alternate Language Bar and provides text input service support for speech recognition, handwriting recognition, keyboard, translation, and other alternative user input technologies. When you close all Office programs, this module stays active. Removing it can cause serious problems with your Office XP products, but you can effectively disable it by setting the installation state to Not Available in Office XP Setup. This isn’t as easy as it sounds though — several steps are involved. For full instructions, plus more information on the file and its function, see What Is CTFMON and What Does It Do? (Tip from Jay Jones)
VIA Apollo Pro 133 motherboards have a “USB Keyboard support” BIOS setting that can interfere with proper power management function if it is enabled — especially with respect to preventing powerdown during attempted shutdown, and also preventing the computer from waking from Stand-by. SOLUTION: Disable it. This was originally reported on the Chaintech 6ATA2, and confirmed on other VIA Apollo Pro 133 boards. (Tips from “Zef,” The Netherlands, & Robert Lin)
Toshiba laptop (model not specified). Problems of Windows XP not powering off nor going into standyby were solved by uninstalling (then reinstalling) the Toshiba Power Saver software and Toshiba Hotkey for Display Devices. After doing this and a reboot, the problem was gone. (Tip from David Flitterman)

NEW PROBLEMS INTRODUCED BY SERVICE PACK 1 (SP1)

Some new shutdown and powerdown issues have arisen in Windows XP SP1. Here are the ones I know about:

HIBERNATION/STANDY PROBLEM WITH NERO SOFTWARE. If you have Nero CD-burning software (versions 5.0-5.5) installed on your computer, and invoke Standby or Hibernation modes more than once in a Windows session, the computer will hang on the “Preparing to...” screen and not go into Standby or Hibernation. SOLUTION: Uninstall Nero completely, and keep your eyes open for a new version of the program down the road. (Reference: MSKB 331506.)
WITH SP1, DON’T REMOVE SCSI ADAPTER WHILE IN STANDBY. Service Pack 1 for Windows XP introduced a new (but pleasingly rare) shutdown problem: If you remove certain kinds of SCSI adapter while the computer is in Standby, the computer may not shut down properly. There is a “hot fix” for this available from Microsoft. (Reference: MSKB 330172.)
SP1 + AMBIENT HAM MODEM + POSSIBLE IRQ ISSUE. Site visitor Mike Redman wrote that, after installing SP1, his computer would hang on the shutdown screen. Neither the mouse nor Ctrl+Alt+Del would respond. Either uninstalling SP1 or removing his Intel Ambient Ham 50.sys (unsigned driver) internal modem would solve the problem. FINAL SOLUTION: Moving the modem from PCI slot 4 to slot 5 and reinstalling the drivers. He wrote, ”This may be an IRQ problem which SP1 was supposed to fix.”

NEW PROBLEMS INTRODUCED BY SERVICE PACK 2 (SP2)

Some new issues have arisen in Windows XP SP2. Here are the ones I know about:

AUTOMATIC WINDOWS UPDATE INSTALLATION. Windows XP SP2 checks at shutdown for any Windows Updates have been downloaded and not installed, then offers to install them as part of the shutdown process. Understandably, this can cause a very slow shutdown on that one occassion and, if something goes wrong, can even hang shutdown completely. To see if your shutdown problem is caused by this issue, look for error 0x80248011 in any of the Windows Update log files, particularly %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log. If present, this indicates a corrupt local metadata store for Windows Update. SOLUTION: Click Start, click Run, type SERVICES.MSC, click OK. Stop the Automatic Updates service. Rename the c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder to c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution.old. Restart the Automatic Updates service. (Tip from MS-MVP Bill Castner.)
REBOOT ON SHUTDOWN WITH HARDWARE-ENFORCE DATA EXECUTION PREVENTION. If your computer uses hardware-enforced DEP, as the 64-bit AMD processors do, and you installed hardware that requires the MPEGPORT.SYS driver, there is a conflict. At shutdown, the driver tries to run from the same memory space DEP monitors. A 0xFC Stop message occurs. If your computer is set to automatically reboot on a system failure, it will simply reboot instead. The solution is a new driver. Microsoft provides a work-around in MSKB 878474.

OTHER KNOWN ISSUES & HINTS...

BIOS UPGRADE. As with every new operating system that comes along — especially one that is as much of a “step up” as Windows XP is from Windows 9x — the recommendation is made to be sure your BIOS is updated. Many people have reported that this has solved their shutdown problems (and had other advantages) with Win XP, just as it has in earlier versions of Windows.
“ShutNTdown” REGISTRY PATCH. Download the “ShutNTdown” Registry patch mentioned above under powerdown issues. Please follow sensible Registry editing protocol. Backup your Registry before the change (e.g., run System Restore to create a restore point). After installing, test Windows shutdown. If the fix doesn’t work for you, remove it by restoring the Registry to its prior state. This is not the appropriate shutdown fix for most machines, but does help some users with Windows shutdown problems and not just with powerdown issues as one might suspect.
UNSIGNED DEVICE DRIVERS. Some users have found that Windows XP won’t shutdown properly if unsigned device drivers are used. This is simply a variation of the broader device driver issue: Hardware manufactures have not yet released all necessary device drivers for Win XP. This will continue to be a problem for the next few months; it already has been reduced to a very minor cause of Win XP shutdown problems.
SIGNED DEVICE DRIVERS ON TOP OF UNSIGNED ONES. Good advice on a variation of the above comes from correspondent Attila Szabadkai. For his SBLive 1024 sound card he had originally installed non-XP drivers, and then updated these with digitally signed XP drivers downloaded from Creative Labs. Result: He got a 0x0A Stop Message at shutdown. SOLUTION: He removed all drivers, and put back only the digitally signed one.
PROGRAMS HANG / BECOME UNRESPONSIVE. Sometimes programs don’t close down correctly, or hang for some other reason during the Windows shutdown process. This freezes up, or at least significantly delays, Windows shutdown. For example, a few people have reported an error message that EXPLORER.EXE has become unresponsive during shutdown when they have used Win XP’s native CD-burning capabilities during that Windows session. If Windows is hanging because it can’t force a program to terminate, one solution is to disable the automatic end task logic (AutoEndTask). Use this registry patch to force that setting change. (Be sure to back up the Registry first.)
PACE INTERLOK ANTI-PIRACY SOFTWARE. According to the MS Knowledge Base article Computer Hangs during Shutdown Because of Resource Conflict, PACE InterLok anti-piracy software installs a driver (TPKD.SYS) that uses the same IRQ as the Standard Floppy Disk Controller device. This can cause Win XP to hang at a blank screen (with mouse and keyboard nonresponsive) when you try to shutdown or restart. Additional symptoms may be that the floppy drive doesn’t show in My Computer; the Standard Floppy Disk Controller device in Device Manager may display the error status “This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)”; and/or when trying to shutdown from Safe Mode you get the error message, STOP 0x0000009F Driver_Power_State_Failure. The solution is to get the updated TPKD.SYS file from PACE.
QUICK-SWITCHING USER ACCOUNTS. One reported quirk affecting shutdown is the three-account shuffle. Windows XP gives the ability to rapidly bounce between user accounts, with Win+L. If at least three user accounts exist, and you quick-switch through all three, and then log off all three in reverse order — “backing out” in an orderly way — then the machine may hang on shutdown. There may be other variations of account shuffling that cause this, but this one, clear example was provided by newsgroup correspondent John Ward. Microsoft has now identified something similar as a bug, in MSKB 320008, “You May Not Be Able to Shut down Your Windows XP Computer.” The situation they describe is that only one user is logged on, quick-switching is used, and “Windows is under heavy stress.” A supported patch is available; see the article for details.
USING SHUTDOWN SCRIPTS & 802.1x AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOL. This combination can cause Win XP to take in excess of 10 minutes to shutdown normally. (IEEE 802.1x is an authentication standard for both wireless networks and wired Ethernet networks.) Here’s how the dominoes fall: The 802.1x authentication protocol stops after the user logs off. Shutdown scripts run after the user logs off. If the script is on a network share and the connection is no longer available (since authentication has terminated), the script can’t run. The default time-out for shutdown scripts is 10 minutes. So the computer sits there 10 minutes before continuing with its shutdown. (Reference: MSKB 311787.)
MISMATCHED RAM. Correspondent Morten Bech reported that a combination of PC-100 and PC-133 RAM was the source of his shutdown problem. When he resolved the mismatch (by removing the PC-100 RAM), he also resolved the shutdown problem. A general reminder of a great general tip: You will get the best results if all RAM in a particular computer matches in all respects!
CHANGE NTFS TO FAT32? MOVE THE PAGEFILE? Correspondent “Curiefleas” wrote that his reboot-on-shutdown problem was solved when he used a third party partitioning program to convert his NTFS partition to FAT32. It isn’t clear why this would be the case, but the tip was worth passing along. In a possibly related vein, other correspondents have reported a shutdown problem in XP either being caused by, or resolved by, relocating the pagefile! Is there some common issue involving substantial moving of the hard drive’s contents? These two hints intrigued me in light of a seemingly dissociated shutdown problem reportedly occurring in Win ME only immediately after a defrag. These all may be unrelated to each other — or not. I list them here as part of the ongoing data collection.
SHUTDOWN PROBLEMS IN WINDOWS NT/2000. In researching known causes of shutdown problems in earlier versions of NT-family operating systems, most of what I found referred to problems that were resolved in later versions. There is no reason to suspect their recurrence. For example, there were quite a few shutdown issues identified in NT 3.x that didn’t survive to NT 4.0. Very predictable causes were involved most often, especially difficulty with some 16-bit applications or specific hardware incompatibilities. Very few shutdown failure scenarios are documented for Windows 2000. All that I found were conflicts with specific software, specific hardware, or drivers. While these three frames a wide set of possibilities, they are sufficiently narrow to be very encouraging when joined with what we are seeing with Win XP. If approved compatible hardware and software are used, including XP-specific drivers, we see almost no shutdown problems at all. If other hardware or software is used... well, that gives us a starting place to focus our investigations.
SHUTDOWN PROBLEMS IN WINDOWS 9x. As stated at the beginning, I recommend that, if nothing above resolves your Win XP shutdown problem, try those troubleshooting steps that have worked for Windows 9x operating systems to help us establish a track record of exactly what does and does not apply, from that protocol, to the emergent scenarios in Windows XP.

3 What is the difference between workgroup & domain?

Computers on a network can be part of a workgroup or a domain. The main difference between workgroups and domains is how resources on the network are managed. Computers on home networks are usually part of a workgroup, and computers on workplace networks are usually part of a domain.

In a workgroup:

· All computers are peers; no computer has control over another computer.

· Each computer has a set of user accounts. To use any computer in the workgroup, you must have an account on that computer.

· There are typically no more than ten to twenty computers.

· All computers must be on the same local network or subnet.

In a domain:

· One or more computers are servers. Network administrators use servers to control the security and permissions for all computers on the domain. This makes it easy to make changes because the changes are automatically made to all computers.

· If you have a user account on the domain, you can log on to any computer on the domain without needing an account on that computer.

· There can be hundreds or thousands of computers.

· The computers can be on different local networks.

4 What is difference between windows XP home edition & professional edition?

Windows XP is based on Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 technology. Microsoft is positioning the Windows XP Professional Edition to replace Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 Professional. In addition, the Windows XP Home edition will be replacing Windows 95/98/ME.

But do NOT expect to receive full Window NT4/2000 functionality when using the XP Home Edition: There is a substantial difference in price, and that is reflected in some reduced functionality in the XP Home edition compared to the XP Professional Edition : features turned off !

Windows XP Editions

Professional x64 Edition

5 What is the difference between cross cable & straight cable? Where it is used

An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices together directly where they would normally be connected via a network switch, hub or router, such as directly connecting two personal computers via their network adapters. Straight Cable

You usually use straight cable to connect different type of devices. This type of cable will be used most of the time and can be used to:
1) Connect a computer to a switch/hub's normal port.
2) Connect a computer to a cable/DSL modem's LAN port.
3) Connect a router's WAN port to a cable/DSL modem's LAN port.
4) Connect a router's LAN port to a switch/hub's uplink port. (Normally used for expanding network)
5) Connect 2 switches/hubs with one of the switch/hub using an uplink port and the other one using normal port.
If you need to check how straight cable looks like, it's easy. Both sides (side A and side B) of cable have wire arrangement with same color. Check out different types of straight cable that are available in the market here.

Crossover Cable

Sometimes you will use crossover cable, it's usually used to connect same type of devices. A crossover cable can be used to:

1) Connect 2 computers directly.
2) Connect a router's LAN port to a switch/hub's normal port. (Normally used for expanding network)
3) Connect 2 switches/hubs by using normal port in both switches/hubs.
In you need to check how crossover cable looks like, both side (side A and side B) of cable have wire arrangement with following different color. Have a look on these crossover cables if you plan to buy one. You can also find more network cable choices and information from Comrade Cables.

In case you need to make a crossover cable yourself! You can use this crimper to do it.
Lastly, if you still not sure which type of cable to be used sometimes, try both cables and see which works.
Note: If there is auto MDI/MDI-X feature support on the switch, hub, network card or other network devices, you don't have to use crossover cable in the situation which I mentioned above. This is because crossover function would be enabled automatically when it's needed.
Return to top!!

6 Steps to add client system in domain.

After restart pc:-

admin

pdl@vnath

7 What are the different file systems of windows & what is the difference between them In computing, a file system (often also written as file system) is a method of storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files, they might provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (e.g., NFS, SMB, or 9P clients), or they may be virtual and exist only as an access method for virtual data (e.g., procfs). It is distinguished from a directory service and registry.

More formally, a file system is a special-purpose database for the storage, organization, manipulation, and retrieval of data.

Disk file systems

A disk file system is a file system designed for the storage of files on a data storage device, most commonly a disk drive, which might be directly or indirectly connected to the computer. Examples of disk file systems include FAT (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT), NTFS, HFS and HFS+, HPFS, UFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, ISO 9660, ODS-5, Veritas File System, ZFS and UDF. Some disk file systems are journaling file systems or versioning file systems.

ISO 9660 and Universal Disk Format are the two most common formats that target Compact Discs and DVDs. Mount Rainier is a newer extension to UDF supported by Linux 2.6 series and Windows Vista that facilitates rewriting to DVDs in the same fashion as has been possible with floppy disks.

Network file systems

Main article: Network file system

A network file system is a file system that acts as a client for a remote file access protocol, providing access to files on a server. Examples of network file systems include clients for the NFS, AFS, SMB protocols, and file-system-like clients for FTP and WebDAV.

8 What is south bridge & North Bridge in MBD?

The Northbridge, also known as a memory controller hub (MCH) or an integrated memory controller (IMC) in Intel systems (AMD, VIA, SiS and others usually use 'Northbridge'), is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the Southbridge.

Separating the chipset into the Northbridge and Southbridge is common, although there are rare instances where these two chips have been combined onto one die when design complexity and fabrication processes permit it.

Overview

The Northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU, RAM, BIOS ROM, and PCI Express (or AGP) video cards, and the Southbridge.^{[1] [2]} Some north bridges also contain integrated video controllers, also known as a Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) in Intel systems. Because different processors and RAM require different signaling, a Northbridge will typically work with only one or two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM.

There are a few chipsets that support two types of RAM (generally these are available when there is a shift to a new standard). For example, the Northbridge from the Nvidia nForce2 chipset will only work with Socket A processors combined with DDR SDRAM, the Intel i875 chipset will only work with systems using Pentium 4 processors or Celeron processors that have a clock speed greater than 1.3 GHz and utilize DDR SDRAM, and the Intel i915g chipset only works with the Intel Pentium 4 and the Celeron, but it can use DDR or DDR2 memory

The Southbridge, also known as an I/O Controller Hub (ICH) in Intel systems (AMD, VIA, SiS and others usually use 'Southbridge'), is a chip that implements the "slower" capabilities of the motherboard in a Northbridge/Southbridge chipset computer architecture.

The Southbridge can usually be distinguished from the Northbridge by not being directly connected to the CPU. Rather, the Northbridge ties the Southbridge to the CPU. Through the use of controller integrated channel circuitry, the Northbridge can directly link signals from the I/O units to the CPU for data control and access. Because the Southbridge is further removed from the CPU, it is given responsibility for the slower devices on a typical microcomputer. A particular Southbridge will usually work with several different Northbridge’s, but these two chips must be designed to work together; there is no industry-wide standard for interoperability between different core logic chipset designs. Traditionally this interface between Northbridge and Southbridge was simply the PCI bus, but since this created a performance bottleneck, most current chipsets use a different (often proprietary) interface with higher performance

9 What are the different types of RAM & HDD?

1. Types of HDDs: ATA is the current standard; it uses regular Molex power connectors and IDE cables.

SATA is a newer product (also SATA2 is already in development) - it is faster than ATA and uses different cables - much thinner and neater.

Also take into consideration the RPM of the drive, 5400 is a bit slow, 7200 is good, 10,000 is fast but can be quite noisy.

Servers generally use 10k rpm SCSI hard drives, but SCSI is unusual in home computers.

Most motherboards only have IDE connections and so can only take ATA; you would need a new-ish motherboard for SATA hard drives.

The capacity that you need is simply dependant on how much you plan on saving to your hard-drive

. Usually from 40GB upwards

PATA-Parallel ATA, a hard disk interface also known as IDE, ATA, ATAPI, UDMA and PATA.

2. Types of hard drive partitions: Primary Partition is a partition that is needed to store and boot an operating system, though applications and user data can reside there as well, and what’s more, you can have a primary partition without any operating system on it. There can be up to a maximum of four primary partitions on a single hard disk, with only one of them set as active (see “Active partition”).
Active (boot) partition is a primary partition that has an operating system installed on it. It is used for booting your machine. If you have a single primary partition, it is regarded as active. If you have more than one primary partition, only one of them is marked active (in a given PC session).
Extended partition can be sub-divided into logical drives and is viewed as a container for logical drives, where data proper is located. An extended partition is not formatted or assigned a drive letter. The extended partition is used only for creating a desired number of logical partitions.
Logical drive is created within an extended partition. A logical partition is a way to extend the initial limitation of four partitions. An extended partition can contain up to 24 logical partitions (you’re limited by the number of drive letters and the amount of hard drive space available for creating drives; of course, it’s senseless to use 24 partitions on a system in most cases, because it will be a data organization nightmare). Logical partitions are used for storing data mainly, they can be formatted and assigned drive letters; their details are listed in the extended partition’s table - EMBR (Extended Master Boot Record).

Swap Partitions

Every process running on your computer is allocated a number of blocks of RAM. These blocks are called pages. The set of in-memory pages which will be referenced by the processor in the very near future is called a "working set." Linux tries to predict these memory accesses (assuming that recently used pages will be used again in the near future) and keeps these pages in RAM if possible.

DDR1

DDR1

DDR1

The primary difference between DDR and DDR2 memory is the ability of DDR2 memory to operate the data bus at 2x the speed (compared to DDR). However, DDR2 runs the internal modules’ speeds at 1/2 the clock rate. This means that if you take 2 similar DDR and DDR2 modules, and run them at the same external speed, you'd get the same data rate, but DDR2 would have twice the latency. Likewise, if you run DDR2 at 2x the data rate of DDR, you'd get 2x the data throughput, with the same latency at the DDR modules.

When you are installing or upgrading DDR/DDR2 memory, make sure you get memory modules that are supported by the motherboard by type (DDR/DDR2), speed (MHz rating), and latency (most motherboard don't care about this last one), and also that ALL modules of memory on the motherboard are exactly the same speed, and latency. Ideally, they'd be the same brand too, but that can be relaxed a bit, so long as everything else is the same. Modules do not need to be the same size, but some motherboards may exhibit slightly reduced performance in DDR2 Dual-Channel mode if the modules are different sizes. Check your documentation of the Motherboard to see what your manufacture recommends for speed, max size, and latency.

DDR1 Specifications

DDR-DIM (Double Data Rate DIMM or DDR DIMM), or most popularly just plain DDR. Double Data Rate interfaces provide two data transfers per differential clock. The data becomes registered when the CK goes high [the + side], and /CK goes low [the - side]. DDR1 utilizes the JEDEC standard for Double Date Rate [DDR I] SDRAM. Like all DDR RAM it is available as registered or un-buffered. Registered DIMMs are generally known as FB-DIMMs and have their address and control lines buffered in order to reduce signal loading. FB-DIMMs are considerably more expensive than un-buffered DIMMs and are generally reserved for server use. There are very few enthusiast/prosumer/gamers utilizing FB-DIMMs in their CPU’s. Un-buffered DIMMs don’t feature address lines and control line buffering, so they cost quite a bit less. However, they may be system-loading limited and are thus generally restricted in the number that can be fitted onto one system. You’ll find that most un-buffered DIMMs these days can only be installed on one motherboard to a maximum of 4 x 1GB. Buffered or registered DIMMs don’t have these limitations and server boards can accommodate 8 x 1GB, 16 x 1GB or more. An interesting and largely unknown aspect of un-buffered DDR DIMMs is that they are able to operate one clock cycle faster than FB-DIMMs.

DDR2 Specifications

DDR2 memory is the second generation in DDR memory. DDR2 begins with a speed level of 400MHz as the lowest available while the 400MHz speed is actually the highest speed for DDR1. Therefore, DDR2 picks up where DDR1 leaves off. It’s a bit strange but due to different latencies a 400MHz DDR1 will outperform a 400MHz DDR2, but the advantage returns to DDR2 as soon as the speed reaches the next step 532MHz, which DDR1 cannot reach.

DDR3 Specifications

DDR3 is the third generation in DDR memory. DDR3 begins with a lowest capacity level of 800Mbps and goes up to 1600Mbps with bus speed as high as 2000MHz. Higher performance with lower power consumption is the major benefit, since operating voltage is only 1.5V for DDR3 compared to 1.8V for DDR2. Lower heat is generated, which means that systems will run cooler. Ultimately the new technology will result in higher capacity modules: Up to 8GB modules (Using 4Gb Chips) to help lower server/workstation system costs.

Transfer Rates

Confusion is that RAM is mostly referred in PC-number, so here are the Transfer Rates for the various DDRs:

DDR1 Transfer Rate

DDR SDRAM: Double Data Rate SDRAM (DDR200, DDR266, DDR333 are standard)
PC1600 (DDR-200 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 100MHz, Data Rate: 200MHz, Throughput 1600MB/s
PC2100 (DDR-266 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 133MHz, Data Rate: 266MHz, Throughput 2100MB/s
PC2400 (DDR-300 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 150MHz, Data Rate: 300MHz, Throughput 2400MB/s
PC2700 (DDR-333 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 166MHz, Data Rate: 333MHz, Throughput 2600MB/s
PC3000 (DDR-366 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 183MHz, Data Rate: 366MHz, Throughput 2900MB/s
PC3200 (DDR-400 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 200MHz, Data Rate: 400MHz, Throughput 3200MB/s

DDR2 Transfer Rate

DDR2 SDRAM: Double Data Rate SDRAM II (Quad Edge Clock Rate, 1.8v signaling), Second Generation
PC2-3200 (DDR2-400 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 100MHz, Data Rate: 400MHz, Throughput 3200MB/s
PC2-4300 (DDR2-533 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 133MHz, Data Rate: 532MHz, Throughput 4300MB/s
PC2-5300 (DDR2-667 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 167MHz, Data Rate: 667MHz, Throughput 5300MB/s
PC2-5400 (DDR2-675 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 167MHz, Data Rate: 667MHz, Throughput 5400MB/s
PC2-6400 (DDR2-800 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 200MHz, Data Rate: 800MHz, Throughput 6400MB/s

DDR3 Transfer Rate

DDR3 SDRAM: Double Data Rate SDRAM III (Quad Edge Clock Rate, 1.5v signaling), Third Generation
PC3-6400 (DDR3-800 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 100MHz, Data Rate: 800MHz, Throughput 6.40GB/s
PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 133MHz, Data Rate: 1066MHz, Throughput 8.53GB/s
PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 166MHz, Data Rate: 1333MHz, Throughput 10.67GB/s
PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600 SDRAM); Clock Speed: 200MHz, Data Rate: 1600MHz, Throughput 12.80GB/s

10 What is the difference between Microsoft outlook & outlook express? The Microsoft Outlook family of messaging and collaboration clients is based on the recognition that home and business users have different needs. The Outlook family of clients is optimized for these two distinct market segments:

Home users who need easy and reliable Internet, e-mail, and newsgroup functionality.
Business users who require reliability and ease of use, but who also need more e-mail functionality and tight integration between e-mail and tools for information management and collaboration.

Most users find that their needs are best met by the client that is optimized for their usage patterns. The following sections provide more information about how Outlook Express meets the needs of home users and how Outlook meets the needs of business users.

Back to the top

Outlook Express

Outlook Express is the e-mail client that is included with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, the Microsoft Windows 98 operating system, the Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) operating system, the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating systems, and Microsoft Office 98 for the Macintosh. Outlook Express is designed for home users who gain access to their e-mail messages by dialing in to an Internet service provider (ISP).

Built on open Internet standards, Outlook Express is designed for use with any Internet standard system, for example, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3), and Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP). It provides full support for today's most important e-mail, news, and directory standards such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension Hypertext Markup Language (MHTML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME), and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP). Full support ensures that you can take advantage of new technologies as well as seamlessly send and receive e-mail.

New migration tools that automatically import your existing mail settings, address book entries, and e-mail messages from Eudora, Netscape, Microsoft Exchange Server, the Windows Inbox, and Outlook make it easy for you to quickly take advantage of all that Outlook Express has to offer. The ability to receive mail from multiple e-mail accounts, as well as the ability to create Inbox rules, helps you manage and organize your e-mail.

In addition, full support for HTML mail enables you to personalize your messages with custom backgrounds and graphics. This makes it easy to create unique, visually powerful messages.

For special occasions, such as birthdays or holidays, Outlook Express includes stationery designed by Greetings Workshop and Hallmark.

Back to the top

Outlook

Outlook is Microsoft's premier messaging and collaboration client. It is a stand-alone application that is integrated into Microsoft Office and Exchange Server. Outlook also provides performance and integration with Internet Explorer 5.5. Complete integration of e-mail, calendaring, and contact management, makes Outlook the perfect client for many business users.

Outlook helps you find and organize information so that you can work seamlessly with Office applications. This helps you communicate and share information more effectively.

Powerful Inbox rules enable you to filter and organize e-mail messages. With Outlook, you can integrate and manage e-mail from multiple e-mail accounts, personal and group calendars, contacts, and tasks.

When you use Outlook with Exchange Server, you can use workgroup information sharing and workflow communications, group scheduling, public folders, forms, and enhanced Internet connectivity.

Outlook is designed for use with the Internet (SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4), Exchange Server, or any other standards-based communication system that supports Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI), including voice mail. Outlook is based on Internet standards and supports today's most important e-mail, news, and directory standards, including LDAP, MHTML, NNTP, MIME, and S/MIME, vCalendar, vCard, iCalendar, and full support for HTML mail.

Outlook also offers the same import tools that are offered with Outlook Express. This enables easy migration from other e-mail clients, and offers further migration from Microsoft Mail, Microsoft Schedule+ 1.0, Microsoft Schedule+ 7.0, Lotus Organizer, NetManage ECCO, Starfish SideKick, Symantec ACT, as well as synchronization with leading Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), such as the 3Com Palm Pilot.

11 Steps to configure Microsoft outlook.

Methods to Configure the Outlook Profile:

We can configure the Outlook using two ways.

MAPI Profile
RPC/HTTPS Profile

Method1 : MAPI Profile

Click on start à Point to control Panel.

Click on Mail

On the Mail Setup page click on Show profiles...

On the following Screen click on Add to add to configure new profile.

Type the name for the new Profile. Click OK.

On the E-mail Accounts page select “Add a new e-mail account”

On the server Type choose Microsoft Exchange Server.

On the Exchange Server Settings page Type the name of Exchange Server on which the user’s mailbox resides.

Mailboxs.parsvnath.com

Type the name of user in User Name field. Click Next.

Click Finish.

Click Apply and OK.

Note: If more than one user is using the machine, select the checkbox “Prompt for a profile to be used”, as shown above.

Method 2: RPC/HTTPS Profile

Note: Install Root Certificate, if machine is not part of the domain and operating system is XP-Home Edition.

Click on start à Point to control Panel.

Click on Mail

On the Mail Setup page click on Show profiles...

On the following Screen click on Add to add to configure new profile.

Type the name for the new Profile. Click OK.

On the E-mail Accounts page select “Add a new e-mail account”

On the server Type choose Microsoft Exchange Server.

On the Exchange Server Settings page Type the name of Exchange Server on which the user’s mailbox resides.

Mailboxs.parsvnath.com

Type the name of user in User Name field. Click More Settings to configure it to use RPC over HTTPS.

Click on Connection Tab. Under Exchange over the Internet click the check box next to “Connect to my Exchange mailbox using HTTP” and then click Exchange Proxy Settings.

In connection settings type “mail.parsv.com” in Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange.

Click the check box next to Connect using SSL only. Type “msstd: mail.parsv.com” in Principle name for Proxy Server.

Also select the check boxes next to on fast networks... and on slow networks.

Click OK.

Click Finish.

Click Apply and OK.

Note: If more than one user is using the machine, select the checkbox “Prompt for a profile to be used”, as shown above.

First of al you have to log in with the related user account :

Like this process is concerned to user ‘mstest1’ which password is ‘mstest’

Then do the as follows :-

After it login in outlook with the given username and proper password.

12 What is delegation in outlook?

What is a Delegate?

A delegate is someone granted permission to open another person's folders, create items, and respond to

Requests for that person. The person granting delegate permission determines the folders the delegate

may access and the changes the delegate may make.

About Delegate Access

This feature requires you to be using a Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail account.

Just as you might have an assistant who helps you manage your incoming paper mail, Microsoft Outlook

provides similar functionality by making it possible for you to give another person access to your Inbox

and any other Outlook folder you want. The process of granting someone permission to open your

Folders, read and create items, and respond to requests for you are called delegate access.

As the person granting permission, you determine the level of access the delegate has. You may give a

Delegate permission to read items in your folders, or to read, create, modify, and delete items. You can

give a delegate permission to send mail and to respond to mail on your behalf. The delegate can also

organize meetings on your behalf and respond to meeting requests and task requests sent to you. By

default, if you grant someone access to your folders, that delegate has access to the items in the folders,

Except items marked private. You must grant additional permissions to allow access to private items.

Note: If you want to use the Delegate Access feature, your mail must be delivered to your mailbox

(mailbox: Location on a Microsoft Exchange server where your e-mail is delivered. Your administrator

sets up a mailbox for each user. If you designate a personal folder file as your e-mail delivery location,

messages are routed to it from your mailbox) on the server, not to a personal folders file on your hard

Disk.

How to Delegate in Outlook:

If a user would like for another user to be able to access or view certain areas of their

Exchange mailbox, there is a way to allow that action. For example, if a doctor wants

their secretary to be able to make appointments in his calendar, he can delegate them to

add those appointments so he can see them. This can be done with any part of the

mailbox, like the inbox, journal, and notes. Here is how to delegate:

1. Go to the “Tools” menu, and click on “Options”.

2. Click on the “Delegates” tab and you will see a screen like this:

3. Click on “Add” and you will see a screen like below. Type in the last name of the

person in the university you would like to delegate to. Once you locate the

person, click on their name and click “Add”.

4. Click “OK” and you will get a screen like below. Here you will be able to set

what the delegate will be able to see of your mailbox, as well as what they can do

with each folder.

• Giving someone “editor” rights gives them full access to all options in your

mailbox.

• Giving someone “author” rights gives them the ability to read and create items in

the mailbox, but they cannot undo any changes you have made.

• Giving someone “reviewer” rights only allows the delegate to read your mail.

They cannot make any changes to the mailbox.

5. Click “OK” once you have selected the delegate mailboxes and rights. The

delegate name will show up in the mailbox like below.

6. From here, you can change the permissions to your mailbox at any time. To fully save

the new delegation, click “Apply” and then click “OK”.

13 What is default path of mails to be archive in system while using outlook?

C:\Documents and Settings\sunilastin\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

14 What is default path for signature in outlook to be store? How to create a signature?

C:\Documents and Settings\sunilastin\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures.

If Microsoft Word is your e-mail editor, see Word Help. Word offers the most customization options for signatures.

1. From the main Microsoft Outlook window, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.

2. In the Compose in this message format list, click the message format that you want to use the signature with.

3. Under Signature, click Signatures, and then click New.

4. In the Enter a name for your new signature box, enter a name.

5. Under Choose how to create your signature, select the option you want.

6. Click Next.

7. In the Signature text box, type the text you want to include in the signature.

You can also paste text to this box from another document.

8. To change the paragraph or font format, select the text, click Font or Paragraph, and then select the options you want. These options are not available if you use plain text as your message format.

9. To add an electronic business card — vCard — to the signature, under vCard options, select a vCard from the list, or click New vCard from Contact.

10. Click Finish when you are done editing the new signature.

Once you've created a signature, you can insert a signature in a message

15 Steps to create .pst in client system.

If you connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server computer, your e-mail messages, Calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored on the Exchange Server computer. If you do not connect to an Exchange Server computer, your e-mail messages, Calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored on your local computer in a .pst file.

This article describes how to create a .pst file in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, and it provides additional information about .pst files.

Outlook 2003 introduces a new .pst format that offers greater storage capacity for items and for folders, and that supports multilingual Unicode data. The new .pst file format that is introduced in Outlook 2003 is named the Microsoft Office Personal Folders file format, and it is not compatible with earlier versions of Microsoft Outlook. When you create a new .pst file in Outlook 2003, you can choose to create the .pst file in a format that is compatible with the following versions of Outlook:

Microsoft Outlook 2002
Microsoft Outlook 2000
Microsoft Outlook 98
Microsoft Outlook 97

Create a .pst file while Outlook is running

To create a .pst file while Outlook is running, follow these steps:

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Outlook Data File.

2. In the Types of storage area, click Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook 2003 .pst file. Click Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook .pst file that is compatible with earlier versions of Outlook.

3. Click OK.

4. Use the default Outlook folder location, or you can locate a different folder location.

5. In the File name box, type a name for the new .pst file, or you can use the default name. Click OK.

6. In the Name box, type a title for the .pst file, or you can use the default title of Personal Folders. The title that you enter in the Name box is the name that is used on the Outlook 2003 All Mail Folders list, and it is applied to any shortcuts that are made for the .pst file on the Outlook Bar. You can also select an encryption setting and a password for the .pst file. After you select the settings that you want, click OK.

Note You cannot change the encryption setting after you create the .pst file. For more information about the encryption settings, see the "Security settings for .pst files" section in this article.

7. The new .pst file is added to the Outlook 2003 All Mail Folders list. To view the Folder List, click Folder List on the Go menu.

Create a new .pst file with the Tools menu

To create a new .pst file with the Tools menu, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click E-Mail Accounts.

2. Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.

3. In the E-Mail Accounts dialog box, click New Outlook Data File.

4. In the Types of storage area, click Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook 2003 .pst file. Click Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook .pst file that is compatible with earlier versions of Outlook.

5. Click OK.

6. Use the default Outlook folder location, you can locate a different folder location.

7. In the File name box, type a name for the new .pst file, or you can use the default name. Click OK.

8. In the Name box, type a title for the .pst file, or you can use the default title of Personal Folders. The title that you enter in the Name box is the name that is used on the Outlook 2003 All Mail Folders list, and it is applied to any shortcuts that are made for the .pst file on the Outlook Bar. You can also select an encryption setting and a password for the .pst file. After you select the settings that you want, click OK.

Note You cannot change the encryption setting after you create the .pst file. For more information about the encryption settings, see the "Security settings for .pst files" section in this article.

9. In the Deliver new e-mail to the following location: area, click the name of the new .pst file, and then clicks Finish.

The new .pst file is added to your Folder List.

Create a .pst file when Outlook is not running

You can create a new .pst file for a single e-mail profile or for multiple e-mail profiles while Outlook 2003 is not running.

To add a .pst file when you use a single e-mail profile

To add a .pst file when you use a single e-mail profile, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click Mail.

2. Click Data Files.

3. Click the Add button.

5. Click OK.

6. Use the default Outlook folder location, or you can locate a different folder location.

7. In the File name box, type a name for the new .pst file, or you can use the default name. Click OK.

8. In the Name box, type a title for the .pst file, or use the default title of Personal Folders. The title that you enter in the Name box is the name that is used on the Outlook 2003 All Mail Folders list, and it is applied to any shortcuts that are made for the .pst file on the Outlook Bar. You can also select an encryption setting and a password for the .pst file. After you select the settings that you want, click OK.

Note You cannot change the encryption setting after you create the .pst file. For more information about the encryption settings, see the "Security settings for the Personal Folders (.pst) file" section in this article.

9. The new .pst file appears in the Data File area. Click Close two times.

To add a .pst file when you use multiple e-mail profiles

To add a .pst file when you use multiple e-mail profiles, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click Mail.

2. Click the Show Profiles button.

3. Click the name of the profile that you want to add the new .pst file to, and then click Properties.

4. Click the Data Files button.

5. Click the Add button.

6. In the Types of storage area, click Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook 2003 .pst file. Click Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) to create a new Outlook .pst file that is compatible with earlier versions of Microsoft Outlook.

7. Click OK.

8. Use the default Outlook folder location, or you can explore to locate a different folder location.

9. In the File name box, type a name for the new .pst file, or you can use the default name. Click OK.

10. In the Name box, type a title for the .pst file, or you can use the default title of Personal Folders. The name in this box is the name that is used on the Outlook 2003 All Mail Folders list, and it is applied to any shortcuts that are made for the .pst file on the Outlook Bar. You can also select an encryption setting and a password for the .pst file. After you select the settings you that want, click OK.

Note You cannot change the encryption setting after you create the .pst file. For more information about the encryption settings, see the "Security settings for .pst files" section in this article.

11. The new .pst file appears in the Data File area. Click Close two times.

Additional information about .pst files

Microsoft does not support opening .pst files over a network share.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

297019 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297019/ ) Why Outlook .pst files are unsupported over a LAN or WAN link

You can save, copy, and move a .pst file to another location on your hard disk drive, or to a floppy disk or removable disk, or to a share on the network. However, you cannot move the .pst file that is open as your default information store. You must quit Outlook if you want to move your default .pst file.

When you copy a .pst file from a CD-ROM, from a CD-R, or from a CD-RW, make sure that the file attributes for the .pst file are changed from Read Only to Archive before you start Outlook. When you delete items from your Personal Folders in Outlook, the .pst file size does not decrease automatically. The file must be compacted to reduce the file size. Outlook will compact the .pst file in the background during idle time.

When you copy a .pst file from a CD-ROM, from a CD-R, or from a CD-RW, make sure that the file attributes for the .pst file are changed from Read Only to Archive before you start Outlook.

When you delete items from your Personal Folders in Outlook, the .pst file size does not decrease automatically. You must compact the file to reduce the file size. To manually compact your Personal Folders, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Mail.

3. Click Data Files.

4. Click the .pst file that you want to compress, and then click Settings.

5. Click Compact Now.

Compacting your Personal Folders may take several minutes, depending on the size of your .pst file. Outlook 2003 supports the following two types of .pst file formats:

ANSI
Unicode

For additional information about the .pst file format in Outlook 2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

830336 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336/ ) The .pst file has a different format and folder size limit in Outlook 2003

For more information about how to configure Unicode options for Outlook 2003, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/three/ch7/OutB06.htm (http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2003/three/ch7/OutB06.htm)

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Security settings for .pst files

Encryption settings

You can select one of three options for encoding the information in your .pst file. You cannot change this setting after the .pst file is created. Encryption encodes the .pst file so that it cannot be read by other programs.

Note We recommend that you use Encrypting File System (EFS) or Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption to help secure the data in a .pst file. The Compressible Encryption and High Encryption options provide only a basic level of security.

No Encryption - This option does not encode your .pst file. A user may be able to read the .pst file with a text editor program or with a hexidecimal editor program.
Compressible Encryption - This option encodes your .pst file in a format that allows compression, but the .pst file is compressed only if you have a compression program on your computer. The .pst file cannot be read with a text editor or with a hexidecimal editor.
High Encryption - This option encodes your .pst file in a format that offers increased protection. If you have a disk-compression program, the .pst file can be compressed, but to a lesser degree than if you were using the Compressible Encryption option. The .pst file cannot be read with a text editor or with a hexidecimal editor.

The default security setting is the Compressible Encryption option. Use the Compressible Encryption option if disk space is more important than security. If security is more important that disk space, use the High Encryption option, and then select a password for your .pst file.

Passwords

When you create a .pst file, you can add a password of up to 15 characters. If you click to select the Save this password in your password list check box, note the password in case you must open the .pst file on another computer.

16 What will be the troubleshooting steps if user is not able to send/receive mails? This article describes how to troubleshoot Microsoft Outlook when you cannot send or receive e-mails. The article outlines troubleshooting steps for Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2002. If you use an earlier version of Outlook, refer to the "Similar problems and solutions" section for an article that pertains to your version. This article is intended for a beginning to intermediate computer user.
You may find it easier to follow the steps if you print this article first.

Step 1: Open the Mail Setup dialog box

1. Click Start, click Run, type Control in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. Depending on the version of Windows running on your computer, do one of the following:

o Windows XP:

If you are in the Category View, click User Accounts, and then click Mail.
If you are not in the Category View, double-click Mail.

o Windows Vista:

Click User accounts, and then click Mail.

3. The Mail Setup dialog box opens.

Step 2: Start the New Profile wizard

1. Click Show Profiles.

2. Click Add to start the New Profile wizard.

Step 3: Create a profile

1. In the Profile Name box, type Test, and then click OK to name the new e-mail profile.

2. Follow the steps appropriate for your version of Outlook:

o Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

a. Click to select the Manually configure server settings check box.

b. Click Next.

c. On the Choose E-mail service page, click Internet E-mail.

d. Click Next.

e. Fill in the boxes in the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box. Make sure that the Account Type setting is set to POP3.

Note Enter the information from your ISP or from your e-mail administrator in the Incoming mail server box and in the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) box.

f. Click Next, follow the prompts to finish setting up your account, and then click Finish.

g. Your new profile is created. Go to step 4.

o Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and earlier versions of Outlook

. Click Add a new e-mail account.

a. Click Next.

b. Click POP3.

c. Click Next.

d. Fill in the boxes in the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box. Make sure that the Account Type setting is set to POP3.

Note Enter the information from your ISP or from your e-mail administrator in the Incoming mail server and Outgoing mail server (SMTP) boxes.

e. Click Next.

f. Click Finish.

g. Your new profile is created. Go to step 4.

Step 4: Set the default profile

1. On the Mail dialog box, under the When Starting Microsoft Outlook, use this profile box, click to select the new profile that you created in step 3.

2. Click OK.

3. Use Outlook to send yourself an e-mail.

If you successfully receive the e-mail, you have completed troubleshooting the problem.

If you do not receive the e-mail, creating a new profile did not resolve your problem. Try method 2.

Note If you use Dial-Up Networking to connect to the Internet, unfortunately, this article will not be able to help you further. Refer to the "Next steps" section for additional options.

Method 2: Set TCP/IP as the default protocol

If creating a new profile did not resolve your problem, TCP/IP might not be set as your default Internet protocol. Follow these steps to set TCP/IP as your default protocol to connect to the Internet.

Step 1: Open the Network Connection Properties dialog box

1. Depending on the version of Windows running on your computer, do one of the following:

o Windows XP or Windows 2000: Click Start, and then click Run.

o Windows Vista: Click Start

Collapse this imageExpand this image

2. Type ncpa.cpl and then press Enter to open the Network Connections window.

3. Right-click your connection to the Internet, and then click Properties.

Note If more than one connection is displayed in the Network Connections window, the connection that you use to connect to the Internet should say Connected or something similar.

Step 2: Verify that the connection uses TCP/IP

1. On the General tab, make sure that the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) check box is selected. If it is not, click to select the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) check box.

2. Click OK.

3. Click Yes if you are prompted to restart your computer.

4. Use Outlook to send yourself an e-mail.

If you successfully receive the e-mail, you have completed troubleshooting the problem.

If you do not receive the e-mail, unfortunately, this article did not help you. Refer to the "Next steps" section for additional options.

Other Internet connection issues

The following list describes other possible causes of Internet connection problems:

Most Internet addresses and connection settings are case-sensitive. Check for correct capitalization.
Establish the Internet connection, and then start Outlook. If you receive an error message when you try to send or to receive e-mail, confirm all Internet Mail settings with your ISP. You may have typed a DNS address or a news server address instead of the mail server address.
Remote mail configurations may cause unexpected results. If you configure a service for remote mail, you may lose connections. Alternatively, e-mail may not be sent or received as expected.

17 What is the difference between Microsoft exchange & lotus notes?

Microsoft Exchange Server A client/ server message-management system from Microsoft. Exchange Server provides enterprise-wide message exchange by integrating e-mail, scheduling, document sharing, and electronic forms and also connects to the Internet and other networks outside the enterprise allowing global messaging. Exchange uses Microsoft Outlook as the client. Exchange Server is a component of Microsoft BackOffice.

Lotus Notes A popular groupware product originally developed by Lotus Development Corporation and now supported by IBM. Lotus Notes is the defining force behind the entire groupware market and is the target toward which all other developers aim. Notes includes a flexible database that can contain a variety of data types with none of the restrictions that normally apply, such as fixed field lengths. A Notes field can contain text, scanned mages, OLE embedded objects, and even hypertext links to other Notes documents. This database is closely linked with an e-mail system that allows users to onward any document in any Notes database to any other Notes database; a user can send email to the database, and an application can even send e-mail to an individual user. Notes can also maintain multiple copies of the database, perhaps on the LAN or on remote workstations, and can synchronize these copies using background dial-up modem connections, IPX/SPX, or TCP/IP. Notes is supported by a large number of networks, including AppleTalk, anyan VINES, IBM APPC, Novell NetWare, TCP/IP, and X.25.

18 What is ghosting? What are the different ways to do it? What is the requirement of ghosting?

Ghosting

Term used to describe a shadowing effect on any moving images on a screen. This type of issue can occur if you are using an older monitor, have a software setting enabled that causes this effect, or system resources are low.
A description of a person who has gone offline yet is still appearing as though they are still logged in.
A term used to describe a type of cheating in online games where players that have died tell other players that are still alive where other players in the game are.
Another method of describing a LCD or flat-panel display with a slow response time.
Using Norton's Ghost program, the act of ghosting is the method of copying the complete hard disk drive contents to another media such as a CD or network drive. Once ghosted, this image can quickly be distributed over several computers.

This is commonly done in a corporate environment where the same operating system and corporate software needs to be installed on several computers quickly.

Additional information about this product can be found on our Norton Ghost page.
Additional information about the Symantec company can be found on our Symantec company information page.

Computer Software

Quick links

About Norton Ghost
Technical support
Hard disk drive help

ABOUT NORTON GHOST

Advanced utility used to clone hard disk drives, creating backup images of a hard disk drive. Using this utility, network administrators can easily distribute software across a broad range of computers with all the same configurations.
Norton Ghost allows for a hard disk drive image to be created to a second hard disk drive, CD-R, CD-RW or directly to another PC using USB or TCP/IP.
Norton Ghost also supports FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, and EXT3.
Overall, Norton Ghost is an excellent piece of software; however, it is meant more for advanced users and works best with small configurations or small sets of installed software. For example, the operating system and all drivers. Large configurations that are several gigs can take a great length of time to create.

19 Steps to troubleshoot on blue dump error

This article contains troubleshooting information to help you resolve STOP error messages (these error messages are displayed on a blue screen).

When you receive a STOP message (a fatal system error message) in Microsoft Windows NT or BackOffice Small Business Server (SBS), the computer enters debug mode for troubleshooting purposes. The error message appears on a blue screen, and the first few lines are similar to the following sample error message:

Stop 0x0000001e (c000009a 80123f36 02000000 00000246)
Unhandled Kernel exception c000009a from 8123f26
Address has base at 80100000 ntoskrnl.exe

NOTE: Be sure to write down the text of the error message. It is important information and is one of the first things a Microsoft Support Professional may ask you.

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MORE INFORMATION

Check the Microsoft Knowledge Base

The Microsoft Knowledge Base contains many articles that explain specific STOP error messages, and resolutions or ways to work around problems. Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base for at least the first hexadecimal number contained in the error message. Using the example above, search for 0x0000001e. It also may be helpful to search for the identified file name and other hexadecimal numbers.

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Preparation to Create a Memory.dmp File

1. Verify that your computer is set to write a Memory.dmp file (in Control Panel, double-click System, and then click the Startup/Shutdown tab).

2. Click to select the Write an event to the system log and Write Debugging information to check boxes.

The box below these two check boxes should read "%SystemRoot%\Memory.dmp."

NOTES:

Clicking to select the Overwrite any existing file check box overwrites the Memory.dmp file if you receive more than one error message on a blue screen.
You can rename the Memory.dmp file and have two different dump files if the problem cannot be resolved by simple troubleshooting steps, and the dump has to be read.
Clicking to select the Automatically reboot check box causes the server to automatically reboot after the error message is displayed on a blue screen. This is useful if the server restarts after hours and users dial in remotely to the server. However, it may also cause the server to be in an indefinite loop at startup if there is a serious problem.
You need to have at least as much free space as there is RAM on the drive on which the Winnt.sbs folder is located. Also, the paging file must be on the same partition on which SBS is installed, and the size must be at least equivalent to the amount of RAM in the computer. A Memory.dmp file is a file to which memory is written, so it is the same size as the computer's RAM. You may need to compress this file and send it to Microsoft using File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

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Diagnostic Reports

To run a Windows NT Diagnostics (Winmsd.exe) report, click Start, click Run, type winmsd, and then click OK.
To save the report as a text file that you can e-mail to Microsoft or to a consultant, click Save Report on the File menu. Click File, click Complete, and then click OK.

This report provides valuable information about your computer, including services that are running, hard disk and RAM availability, drivers in use, and networking information.

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Event Logs

Event logs are another important troubleshooting aid. To save event logs:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, click Administrative Tools, and then click Event Viewer.

2. Click Log, click the log type (the options are System, Security, or Application), click Log, and then click Save As.

3. Click the location to which you want to save the file, and give the file a name with an .evt extension.

Save all three log files for future reference.

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Before You Call Microsoft Support

This is additional information that a Microsoft Support Professional may request of you. Please gather as much of this information as possible before you call a Microsoft Support Professional.

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Software Configuration

What version of SBS is installed on the computer?
Are any additional service packs installed?
Are any Compaq Support Software Diskettes (SSDs) installed?
Are any hotfixes installed?
Is SBS installed on an NTFS partition?
How are the hard disks partitioned?
What programs are installed?

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Network

What protocols are installed? (For example, TCP/IP or NetBEUI.)
Are there any routers on your network?

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Hardware

What is the brand and model of your computer?
Is the computer listed on the Windows NT Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)?
What are the brands, types, and sizes of the hard disks?
What types of controllers are in the computer?
How many and what types of processors are in the computer?
How much memory (RAM) is in the computer?
What types and models of tape drives are in the computer?
What is the type and model of the CD-ROM drive?
What types and models of network adapters are installed in the computer?
Is this first occurrence of the problem?

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REFERENCES

123750 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/123750/EN-US/ ) Debugging Windows NT Setup STOP Screens

174630 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174630/EN-US/ ) Windows NT Restarts Continuously with Blue Screen

130536 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/130536/EN-US/ ) Windows NT Does Not Save Memory Dump File After a Crash

173277 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/173277/EN-US/ ) No Memory.dmp File Created with RAM Above 1.7 GB

192463 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192463/EN-US/ ) Gathering Blue Screen Information After Memory Dump

192250 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192250/EN-US/ ) 3Com 3c905b Prevents Write of Memory.dmp

156280 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156280/EN-US/ ) How to Use Dumpchk.exe to Check a Memory Dump File

119490 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119490/EN-US/ ) Checking Crashdump File for Corruption

163874 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/163874/EN-US/ ) Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL When Logging On Can Cause Blue Screen

175204 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175204/EN-US/ ) SBS Client Setup Fails With a Blue 'L2' Screen

166874 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/166874/EN-US/ ) No Crashdump and Compaq Systems with Smart-2/P (PCI) Controller

150734 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/150734/EN-US/ ) List of Bugs Fixed in Windows NT 4.0 Service Packs (Part 1)

147225 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/147225/EN-US/ ) SMC 8216 EtherCard Elite 16 Ultra May Cause Error Message

132475 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/132475/EN-US/ ) Determining If a Service Pack Has Been Installed

20 What are the different types of SMPS & what is the difference between them? What is power good signal in SMPS? Why it is require?

A switched-mode power supply (switching-mode power supply/SMPS, or simply switcher) is an electronic power supply unit (PSU) that incorporates a switching regulator in order to provide the required output voltage. An SMPS is actually a power converter that transmits power from a source (e.g., a battery or the electrical power grid) to a load (e.g., a personal computer) with ideally no loss. The function of the converter is to provide a reliable output voltage often at a different level than the input voltage.

When mechanical shafts are rotating, a simple gear train can deliver power to a shaft at one speed from a shaft at a different speed. However, fluid power can be converted from a source with one pressure–flow ratio to another pressure–flow level without rotation by using the switching action of a hydraulic ram. Similarly, when AC power is being delivered from an AC source, a simple transformer can be used to convert power at one voltage level to power at another voltage level with low losses. Likewise, the switched action of an SMPS can convert DC power with low losses.

Classification

SMPS can be classified into four types according to the input and output waveforms:

AC in, DC out: rectifier, off-line converter input stage
DC in, DC out: voltage converter, or current converter, or DC to DC converter
AC in, AC out: frequency changer, cycloconverter, transformer
DC in, AC out: inverter

Theory of operation

Types

Switched-mode power supplies can be classified according to the circuit topology. The most important distinction is between isolated converters and non-isolated ones.

[edit] Non-isolated topologies

Non-isolated converters are simplest, with the three basic types using a single inductor for energy storage. In the voltage relation column, D is the duty cycle of the converter, and can vary from 0 to 1. V_in is assumed to be greater than zero; if it is negative, negate V_out to match.

Type^[5]	Power [Ws]	Typical efficiency^{[citation needed]}	Relative cost^{[citation needed]}	Energy storage	Voltage relation	Features
Buck	0–1000	80–90%	1.0	Single inductor	0 ≤ Out ≤ In, Out = In×D	Continuous output
Boost	0–150	70%	1.0	Single inductor	Out ≥ In, Out = In/(1−D)	Continuous input
Buck-boost	0–150	78%	1.0	Single inductor	Out ≤ 0, Out = −In×D/(1−D)	Inverted output voltage.
Split-Pi (or, boost-buck)	0–2000	78%	>2.0	Two inductors + three capacitors	Up or down	Bidirectional power control; in or out
Ćuk				Capacitor and two inductors	Any inverted, Out = −In×D/(1−D)	Continuous input and output
SEPIC				Capacitor + two inductors	Any, Out = In×D/(1−D)	Continuous input
Zeta				Capacitor + two inductors	Any, Out = In×D/(1−D)	Continuous output
Charge pump				Capacitors only		Low performance. Can be weakly isolated without a transformer.

When equipment is human-accessible, voltage and power limits of < 42.5 V and 8.0 A limit apply for UL, CSA, VDE approval.

The buck, boost, and buck-boost topologies are all strongly related. Input, output and ground come together at one point. One of the three passes through an inductor on the way, while the other two pass through switches. One of the two switches must be active (e.g., a transistor), while the other can be a diode. Sometimes, the topology can be changed simply by re-labeling the connections. A 12 V input, 5 V output buck converter can be converted to a 7 V input, −5 V output buck-boost by grounding the output and taking the output from the ground pin.

Likewise, SEPIC and Zeta converters are both minor rearrangements of the Cuk converter.

Switchers become less efficient as duty cycles become extremely short. For large voltage changes, a transformer (isolated) topology may be better.

Isolated topologies

All isolated topologies include a transformer, and thus can produce an output of higher or lower voltage than the input by adjusting the turns ratio.^{[6] [7]} For some topologies, multiple windings can be placed on the transformer to produce multiple output voltages. ^[8] Some converters use the transformer for energy storage, while others use a separate inductor.

Type^[5]	Power (W)	Typical efficiency^{[citation needed]}	Relative cost^{[citation needed]}	Input range [Vs]	Energy storage	Features
Flyback	0–250	78%	1.0	5–600	Transformer	Isolated form of the buck-boost converter.
Ringing choke converter (RCC)	0–150	78%	1.0	5–600	Transformer	Low-cost self-oscillating flyback variant^[9]
Half-forward	0–250	75%	1.2	5–500	Inductor
Forward		78%		60–200	Inductor	Isolated form of buck converter
Resonant forward	0–60	87%	1.0	60–400	Inductor + capacitor	Single rail input, unregulated output, high efficiency, low EMI^[10]
Push-pull	100–1000	72%	1.75	50–1000	Inductor
Half-bridge	0–2,000	72%	1.9	50–1000	Inductor
Full-bridge	400–5,000	69%	>2.0	50–1000	Inductor	Very efficient use of transformer, used for highest powers.
Resonant, zero voltage switched	>1000		>2.0
Isolated Ćuk					Two capacitors + two inductors

The forward converter has several variants, varying in how the transformer is "reset" to zero magnetic flux every cycle.

21 What are the different types of formatting (HDD)?

1. Low-Level Formatting
This type of formatting writes normally zeros on the hard disk thus over-writing everything on the HDD and it also destroys any partitions. You should get a low-level formatting utility or a zero-fill utility from the HDD manufacturers' web site.

Low-level formatting is the process of outlining the positions of the tracks and sectors on the hard disk, and writing the control structures that define where the tracks and sectors are. This is often called a "true" formatting operation, because it really creates the physical format that defines where the data is stored on the disk. The first time that a low-level format ("LLF") is performed on a hard disk, the disk's platters start out empty. That's the last time the platters will be empty for the life of the drive. If an LLF is done on a disk with data on it already, the data is permanently erased and lost.

2. High-Level Formatting
This type of formatting prepares the HDD for an Operating System.

After low-level formatting is completed, the disk is only with tracks and sectors and nothing written on them. High-level formatting is the process of writing the file system structures on the disk that let the disk been used for storing programs and data. If you are using DOS, for example, the DOS FORMAT command performs this work, writing such structures as the master boot record and file allocation tables to the disk. High-level formatting is done after the hard disk has been partitioned, even if only one partition is to be used.

Disk formatting is the initial part of the process for preparing a hard disk or other storage medium for its first use. The disk formatting includes setting up an empty file system. A disk formatting may set up multiple file systems by formatting partitions for each file system. Disk formatting is also part of a process involving rebuilding an entire disk from scratch. A variety of utilities and programs exist for this task; pictured to the right is the iconic FORMAT.COM of DOS.

Low-level formatting (LLF) of hard disks

Low-level format of a 10-megabyte IBM PC XT hard drive.

User instigated low-level formatting (LLF) of hard disks was common in the 1980s. Typically this involved setting up the MFM pattern on the disk, so that sectors of bytes could be successfully written to it. With the advent of RLL encoding, low-level formatting grew increasingly uncommon, and most modern hard disks are embedded systems, which are low-level formatted at the factory with the physical geometry dimensions and thus not subject to user intervention.

Early hard disks were quite similar to floppies, but low-level formatting was generally done by the BIOS rather than by the operating system. This process involved using the MS-DOS debug program to transfer control to a routine hidden at different addresses in different BIOSs.

High-level formatting

High-level formatting is the process of setting up an empty file system on the disk and installing a boot sector. This alone takes little time, and is sometimes referred to as a "quick format".

In addition, the entire disk may optionally be scanned for defects, which takes considerably longer, up to several hours on larger hard disks.

In the case of floppy disks, both high- and low-level formatting are customarily done in one pass by the software. In recent years, most floppies have shipped pre-formatted from the factory as DOS FAT12 floppies. It is possible to format them again to other formats, if necessary.

Formatting in DOS, OS/2 and Windows

MS-DOS 6.22a FORMAT /U switch failing to overwrite content of partition.

Under MS-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows, disk formatting can be performed by the format command. The format program usually asks for confirmation beforehand to prevent accidental removal of data, but some versions of DOS have an undocumented /AUTOTEST option; if used, the usual confirmation is skipped and the format begins right away. The WM/FormatC macro virus uses this command to format the C: drive as soon as a document is opened.

There is also the undocumented /U parameter that performs an unconditional format which under most circumstances overwrites the entire partition,^[5] preventing the recovery of data through software. Note however that the /U switch only works reliably with floppy diskettes (technically because unless /Q is used, floppies are always low-level formatted in addition to high-level formatted). Under certain circumstances with hard drive partitions, however, the /U switch merely prevents the creation of unformat information in the partition to be formatted while otherwise leaving the partition's contents entirely intact (still on disk but marked deleted). In such cases, the user's data remains ripe for recovery with specialist tools such as EnCase or disk editors. Reliance upon /U for secure overwriting of hard drive partitions is therefore inadvisable, and purpose-built tools such as DBAN should be considered instead.

Some of the most commonly used terms associated with HDD

Platter
A rigid disk that serves as an individual component of a hard disk. Hard disks usually consist of several stacked platters. The platters are coated with magnetic media, allowing them to store data as localized changes in magnetic polarity.

Cluster
The basic allocation unit of magnetic disks storage. Clusters (also known as allocation units) consist of one or more disk sectors. Because storage space is allocated based on clusters, even if a file (or part of a file) physically occupies only a portion of a cluster, that entire cluster will be allocated to the file, and will be considered used disk space. Since file sizes are only rarely exact multiples of the cluster size, the last cluster storing the file's data usually includes some empty space called "slack space" at the end. Clusters make it possible for the operating system to manage the files on a disk more effectively than it could if it had to work at the sector level.

Sector
An arc-shaped portion of the data storage area of a disk that is the smallest physical storage unit of the disk. Disk storage area is organized into:

Sides of the disk surface (top and bottom) A hard disk may have more than two sides if it consists of more than one platter.
Tracks, which are arranged as concentric rings on the surface of magnetic disks. CD-ROMs have a single track, spiraling from the disk edge towards the center.
Sectors, which occupy arc-shaped portions of the tracks.

One sector of data storage occupies an arc-shaped portion of one of the disk tracks.
The operating system determines the size of each sector, which is 512 bytes (Microsoft has decided in making 4K the default cluster size for FAT32) for magnetic disks formatted for US versions of Windows.

Inside The Hard Disk

SOME OF THE COMPONENT HEADERS HAVE CLICKABLE LINKS FOR MORE DETAILS !

Image Map Links:
| + Actuator Arm | + Head Slider - Arms - Actuator | + Platters |

back to contents

HARD DISK

HARD DISK - PARTS !

Terminology as used in CONFIGURING a drive in CMOS Setup

CYLINDERS
Like tracks, the number of concentric cylinders upon which data is recorded, typically 300 to 3000.

SECTORS
Number of pie shaped wedges each track is divided into typically 8 to 64.

HEADS
Number of sides of magnetic material available to record on and hence number of read/write heads in the disk drive typically 2 to 256.

1.Types of HDDs: ATA is the current standard, it uses regular molex power connectors and IDE cables.

SATA is a newer product (also SATA2 is already in development) - it is faster than ATA and uses different cables - much thinner and neater.

Also take into consideration the RPM of the drive, 5400 is a bit slow, 7200 is good, 10,000 is fast but can be quite noisy.

Servers generally use 10k rpm SCSI hard drives, but SCSI is unusual in home computers.

Most motherboards only have IDE connections and so can only take ATA, you would need a new-ish motherboard for SATA hard drives.

The capacity that you need is simply dependant on how much you plan on saving to your hard-drive

. Usually from 40GB upwards

PATA-Parallel ATA, a hard disk interface also known as IDE, ATA, ATAPI, UDMA and PATA .

Swap Partitions

22 What is difference between zero filling & low level format

Newer disks use many complex internal structures, including zoned bit recording to put more sectors on the outer tracks than the inner ones, and embedded servo data to control the head actuator. They also transparently map out bad sectors. Due to this complexity, all modern hard disks are low-level formatted at the factory for the life of the drive. There's no way for the PC to do an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and there's no reason to try to do so. but if you still want to do it [2]
Operating System: MS Windows 2000SP4/2003/XP
HDD Low Level Format Tool is a freeware utility for low-level hard disk drive formatting.

Supported interfaces: S-ATA (SATA), IDE (E-IDE), SCSI, USB, FIREWIRE. Big drives (LBA-48) are supported.

Supported Manufacturers: Maxtor, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, Western Digital

23 How to configured new network printer

If you’re planning on buying a printer soon, you should consider buying a network printer. Prices have come down in recent years and now that most people have wireless networks, you can setup your network so that you can print from anywhere in the house! It’s also great for guests because they can connect to your wireless network and print easily, so you’ll get lots of kudos as a host!
Here’s what you’ll need to do in order to setup the printer on your network:
1. First, connect the printer to your network by connecting one end of a Cat 5 cable (which should have come with your printer) to your router:

And the other end into the network port of your printer. Turn your printer on and wait for it to become ready.
2. Next you’ll need to get the IP address of your printer. The IP address is what will tell your computer where to find your printer on the network. All network printers allow you to print a configuration sheet which will list basic information about the printer along with the current network configuration.
For most printers, this involves pressing the Menu button on the printer, going to the Information option and choosing Print Configuration. You will be looking for the TCP/IP section:

The IP Address is what you’ll need for the next steps.
3. The last step is to add the printer to your computer. Click on Start, then Printers and Faxes.

If you don’t see this in your Start Menu, you can go to Start, Control Panel and then click on Printers and Faxes there. Click Add Printer from the task pane on the left.

The Add Printer wizard will begin, so click Next to get started. On the next screen you’ll be asked whether your printer is a local printer or a network printer. These options are confusing because a network printer is actually referring either a printer connected to another computer or a printer on a print server. Our printer is a stand-alone printer and so you must select Local printer attached to this computer and make sure that you uncheck the box for automatically detecting the printer.

Click Next and you’ll be asked to select the printer port. Since our printer is a network printer with an IP address, we need to select the Create a new port option and choose Standard TCP/IP Port.

Click Next and you’ll get another wizard to add a TCP/IP printer port. On the main wizard screen click Next. In the first text box, Printer Name or IP Address, enter the IP address from the printer configuration sheet you printer earlier.

Click Next and depending on the printer you have, you may get one more dialog before the end of the wizard. If the network card for the printer cannot be identified, the wizard will ask you to choose the card type. You can leave the default of “Generic Network Card” and click Next.

Click Next and click Finish. You will then continue on with the Add Printer wizard and you’ll need to either choose the printer from the list of manufacturers or click Have Disk and insert your printer driver cd in the computer.

Click Next and enter a name for your printer and click the Yes radio button if you would like the printer to be your default printer.

Click Next and you’ll be asked whether you want to share the printer or not. Click No because anyone else who wants to connect will be able to do so following the same steps.

Click Next and click Yes to print a test page and make sure that the computer and printer can communicate!

Click Next and then click Finish! The new printer will appear in your Printers and Faxes screen and you’re ready to print

24 What is the command used to renew the IP

ipconfig ... Show information.

ipconfig /all ... Show detailed information

ipconfig /renew ... renew all adapters

ipconfig /renew EL* ... renew any connection that has its name starting with EL

ipconfig /release *Con* ... release all matching connections,eg. "Local Area Connection 1" or

"Local Area Connection 2"

DESKTOP L2

1 What is domain controller, what it does?

2 What are DNS & its function?

4 What is DHCP, what it does?

5 What is the default encryption key used in Microsoft windows

6 What are the default profiles are available in Win XP.

7 What are the different types of backup method in windows?

8 What is host file & lmhost file? Why it is require?

9 What is the different access (e.g. read, modify, and full control)? How is the priority in between? 10 Steps to troubleshoot virus affected systems.

11 How to updated McAfee antivirus an anti Virus.

12 How to do windows update

SERVER L1

1 What is Hardware Difference between Desktop & Server?

2 What is RAID & different types?

3 How to Create RAID & Troubleshoot RAID related issue.

4 How to Repair & recover Operating System

5 Recovery Console options for Operating System

6 What is the file systems used in Linux?

7 What are the different classes of network? What are their ranges?

8 What are the different layers of OSI MODEL?

9 What are the protocols working on transport layer/network layer/ application layer?

10 What is the difference between router & hub? On which layer it works.

11 What is the difference between gateway & firewall?

12 What is the default subnet mask of all classes?

13 What is the FTP? Where it is used

14 Different Types of Backup in Windows & restore Process.

15 Should be able to manage Team of Engineer's & should have good People Management Skills.

16 Should have SLA Adherence

WINDOWS L1

Orderly system startup and shutdown

- Monitoring CPU utilization, disk space usage etc on daily basis

- Creating / modifying / deleting users and groups

- Apply Naming Convention, Home Directory, Group Creation as per Policy

- Providing Access rights to users

- Basic Installation of OS

- Performing periodic backup of system files / volumes of defined servers limited to OS

- Installing system software

- Any incidents would be escalated, coordinated with vendor for ensuring resolution

- Restoration upon user request

- Should be responsible to handle complete L1 administration of servers.

Ost Pst Outlook express, linux file system partition type, default swap partition size.

How to troubleshoot IT issues related to your Computer?

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Desktop L1 preparation guide, Interview help book.

In a workgroup:

In a domain:

An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices together directly where they would normally be connected via a network switch, hub or router, such as directly connecting two personal computers via their network adapters. Straight Cable

Crossover Cable

Disk file systems

Network file systems

Overview

DDR1 Specifications

DDR2 Specifications

DDR3 Specifications

Transfer Rates

DDR1 Transfer Rate

DDR2 Transfer Rate

DDR3 Transfer Rate

18 What is ghosting? What are the different ways to do it? What is the requirement of ghosting?

Ghosting

Classification

Theory of operation

Types

[edit] Non-isolated topologies

Isolated topologies

Low-level formatting (LLF) of hard disks

High-level formatting

Formatting in DOS, OS/2 and Windows

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