Mar 16th, 2010
by Soumik.
Sometimes Windows gives the error message :
Windows Help and Support has stopped working – A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.
The Help and Support center stops to function after this. Here’s how to resolve it.
Open up the command prompt by going to Start>Run>cmd. Type the following commands one by one :
net stop helpsvc
cd /d %windir%\pchealth\helpctr
rd packagestore /s /q
cd binaries
start /w helpsvc /svchost
netsvcs /regserver /install
After doing this, open the Task Manager by pressing [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del]. Go to the Processes tab, select the following process and stop them by pressing the [Del] key.
helpsvc.exe
helphost.exe
helpctr.exe
Start the command prompt again, and type in :
net start helpsvc
Windows Help and Support should be back to it’s previous self again.
Posted in: Windows.
Mar 14th, 2010
by Soumik.
Last night, I cleaned up a virus infection in one of my friends’ portable hard drive. After cleansing the drive of all malware, I found that I couldn’t open the drive by double-clicking on it, or even by right-clicking on it and selecting “Open” or “Explore”.
Here’s what to do if such a thing happens :
(We will assume that the drive which is malfunctioning is denoted by L:)
- We need to delete the autorun.inf file(if any) in the root of the drive and replace it with an empty one.
To do this start command prompt by going to Start-> Run-> cmd.
Type in the lines of code one by one.
L:
attrib -S -H -R autorun.inf
del /F autorun.inf
We have now successfully deleted autorun.inf from the root of the drive.We now need to create an empty autorun.inf in the root.
copy con autorun.inf
Press “Ctrl+Z” and then “Enter” key.
Now try to open the drive. If this method doesn’t work, don’t worry, we have more where that came from.
-
We will now re-register the .DLL files in hopes of fixing this issue. Go to Start >Run. Type in regsvr32 /i shell32.dll. You should get a dialog box as shown below.
Now try to open the drive. If it opens, you are in luck. If it doesn’t, don’t fret. We have some more tricks up our sleeve.
- Start the registry editor by going to
Start >Run >regedit. When the registry editor opens, press Ctrl+F, and search for MountPoints2. Delete all MountPoints2 keys you find. After you are done, close the registry editor. Now your drives should open normally.
If you have any queries, or you know of another way to fix this issue, feel free to leave a comment.
Posted in: Windows.
To close many Windows at once in Windows 7/Vista/XP, keep the [Ctrl] key pressed and select all the windows you want to close in the taskbar. Then leave the [Ctrl] key, and right-click on the last selected taskbar entry. Select “Close group” from the context menu that appears.
Posted in: Quick Tips, Windows.
After plugging in external drives or after adding optical drives and hard drives, Windows automatically assigns a drive letter to them. Usually, the system drive is assigned the letter C: and other drives are assigned subsequent incremented letters.
It is possible to change this auto-assigned drive letter in Windows 7/ Vista/XP. Right-click on My Computer and select “Manage”. Under Computer Management, select “Disk Management”. The right pane will contain the list of drives with the “CD-ROM” drives listed at the bottom.
Now, right-click on the drive whose letter needs to be changed and select “Change drive letters and paths…”. Click on “Change”, select “Assign the following drive letter” and select the required drive letter.
Note that the system drive letter cannot be changed.
Posted in: Windows.
