Solutions

Low memory or resources may be slowing program startup

By JOHN TORRO
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 14, 2003

Q. I have a problem when trying to view winipcfg. After clicking on the program, the programs' menu does not display on the screen. After clicking Ctrl-Alt-Del, the list of programs running comes up and shows winipcfg running. Several times I thought the program did not start and went to the Start/Run menu again and again clicked on the program to open. When I click Ctrl-Alt-Del, I will see the program listed as running several times. After canceling the programs, I have been able eventually to open the program. I recently have experienced this with another program. Using Ctrl-Alt-Del, I canceled the program and then was able to open the program properly. Most often when I experience this problem I am using a desktop shortcut to execute the program. When a program is running but not visible on the screen, such as I have described, is there a way to force the program to display itself?

A. In short, no. Each program decides when to make itself visible upon initializing. It also has the option to check to see if there already is an instance of itself running, then terminate, if that is the desired action. Again, this is out of your control.

In general, when programs seem to take longer than expected to initialize, it may be due to a lack of available memory -- is the disk working nonstop when you launch these programs? -- or low Windows resources. The low resources can be helped by eliminating unnecessary programs from starting automatically at bootup.

Removing ISP branding

Q. There is a name of a previous Internet service provider in my title bar. I can't delete it.

A. The practice of ISPs putting their name on the browser window title is called branding and will require a registry edit. Make sure you understand how to backup and restore the registry in the case of a problem. This will vary depending upon which Windows version you have, use the Help system to find out more.

To get into the registry, click Start, Run, type REGEDIT, then click OK. The specific key location will vary according to the Windows version, so it is best to search for "Provided by" by clicking the Edit, Find on the menu bar. When found, the key will end with \Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.

At each location, double-click the Window Title item on Registry Editor's right pane. Edit the Value data field to the text you prefer. If you delete everything in the field, you should get Internet Explorer's original title bar text, which is Microsoft Internet Explorer. You may also find one for Outlook Express where you can make the same change.

If the ISP branding is still not removed, a file ending in .INS may be controlling the title bar text on your computer. Search your drive for .INS files using the Start, Search function to see if this is your problem. If you find such a file, open it with WordPad and look for a line similar to "Window_Title=". If the words match with what you see in your browser's title bar, make your changes and save the file.

Content Advisor password

Q. Internet Explorer has a feature called Content Advisor that is password protected. I do not remember my password and cannot access any Web site without first typing in a password. How can I reset this password?

A. For obvious reasons, Microsoft does not publish how to reset or undo a Content Advisor password. Several versions ago, Internet Explorer kept the password in the registry in plain text under the amusing key name of "Please Mom." Resetting the password was as simple as blanking out this registry key. Now it appears Microsoft has increased the level of sophistication for Content Advisor password storage. It's still in the registry and it's encrypted, but still easy to find and defeat. For obvious reasons, I can't publish the exact details. Microsoft's recommendation is to contact it directly at support.microsoft.com/support/contact/default.asp. It states that if all it involves is a password reset, there should be no charge.

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