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© St. Petersburg Times, published July 15, 2002
Q. You mentioned that you can read Windows 98 files on XP. How about Windows 95? I have hooked up my two PCs (Win95B and XP) through a network card and am able to read and transfer my 95 files onto my XP. However, I cannot see or access my XP files on my 95 PC. Suggestions? Is this possible? I have set them up manually with an IP address.
A. There should be no difference between reading files from Windows 95 and Windows 98. Make sure you have file sharing enabled on your XP box (right-click the C drive or whichever folder you want to share) and select sharing. The XP Sharing Wizard will start and take you down a long convoluted path to network setup and file sharing. Just click the button that says "I know what I'm doing, just share the resource" if you want to bypass the Wizard interface. One last thing: Make sure you disable the Windows XP built-in firewall (accessed through your network settings properties). The Windows XP firewall disables file sharing.
There is often confusion regarding the inability of one version of Windows or file system being able to read files from or created using another version of Windows. What this usually refers to is when both file systems reside on the same PC in different partitions or physical drives. In these cases there could be problems when mixing file systems such as FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS. When accessing other file systems through a network interface, the network redirector does the conversion to make this transparent.
Q. I installed Apple QuickTime to view a file. During the installation it decided that it would be the default program for other types of files, such as MPEG and AVI. I tried opening an MPEG file using the Open With command and specifying Windows Media Player, but it did not work. I tried add/remove programs and it told me that the program was successfully uninstalled but it was still there. I also went to file associations and it says Windows Media Player will open MPEGs but QuickTime still does.
A. I'm not sure what's going on with the QuickTime removal. It seems some programs such as QuickTime and Real Player do their best to take over all your relevant associations. I've said it before: There should be a special punishment for writers of software that do this. Try this: Open Windows Media Player, select Tools, then Options. Click the Format tab and make sure the file associations you want Windows Media Player to handle are checked. Next, within Windows File Explorer, click the Tools menu, then Folder Options and the File Types tab. Find the file associations you need changed and manually change their associated program by clicking the Change button, then selecting Windows Media Player from the list of programs. If for some reason Windows Media Player does not show, click the Other button and browse to the C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\ folder and select the WMPLAYER.EXE file.
Q. Is there any way to print my Favorites list?
A. Probably the best way to do this is to get to a command prompt (DOS prompt). Change the directory to the C:\Windows\Favorites folder. Type: dir /s >myfavorites.txt This will create a directory listing of the Favorites folder and subfolders and put it in a file named myfavorites.txt. Any file name could be substituted for myfavorites.txt; this was just used as an example. You will not see anything listed on your display because the output is "piped," or redirected, to the specified file. Now you can just edit the myfavorites.txt file using NotePad, Wordpad, Word and any other text editing program, optionally modify the format, and print the list. My compulsive neatness-obsessive nature says to remember to delete the myfavorites.txt file after printing and you no longer need it.