You’ve got Windows XP questions, I’ve got answers

A few weeks ago, I asked readers to send along their Windows XP questions. Here are some answers.

Jim Konzak had a tech support question:

My question is how to fix what seems to be a corrupted Windows XP (driver?) file related to USB devices. If I plug in a USB drive, it is recognized and functions fine. But when it is removed, an immediate BSOD results with the message

NO_MORE_IRP_STACK_LOCATIONS

I have Googled this and posted to several sites, including Dell’s forum (the PC is a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop) to no avail. Thoughts?

I exchanged a bit of e-mail with Jim over this one. I’ve seen similar issues before and my first suspicion was that it was caused by a third-party firewall product. Sure enough, the culprit was the latest release of ZoneAlarm. Disabling ZoneAlarm made the error message go away. Apparently other ZoneAlarm users are experiencing similar problems.

Ken asks a performance-related question:

You have made me a big fan of task manager. But what do you think about the Performance console? Do you use it to monitor performance on a workstation, and if so what performance counters do you recommend tracking? It seems to yield more detailed information than task manager, but that can be a good thing or a bad thing. [Related question: does Vista have a Performance console as well, and how [if at all] is it new and improved from the XP version?]

The Performance console includes two snap-ins to the Microsoft Management Console. System Monitor tracks data from different counters, and Performance Logs and Alerts allows you to set up log files for those counters. You can open the Performance console by typing Perfmon in the Run box and pressing Enter, or use it from the Administrative Tools menu. We have written extensively about Perfmon in Windows XP Inside Out, but I rarely use it in day-to-day operation. It’s a great troubleshooting tool for those times when you’re trying to figure out why something that was working well is suddenly slower. It’s also good for benchmarking new hardware. System Monitor is still around in Windows Vista (although it’s been renamed Performance Monitor). Its interface is cleaned up, but its functionality is essentially the same. But it’s just one part of the new Reliability and Performance Monitor, which you access by typing Perfmon. The new tools include a resource overview that’s like Task Manager on steroids, and there’s also a Reliability Monitor (I’ve written about this new tool here and at ZDNet). If you liked playing with the XP version, you’ll love the new toys in Vista, which provide much more accessible information for easy scanning as well as many more logging options.

Kishore is looking for a Windows utility:

Is there an easy way to backup the device-drivers used by the system. The manufacturer supplies only exe files to install the drivers (along with all those “helpful programs”). I need those when I reinstall my machine.

I ran across something like that years ago, but haven’t seen anything like it lately. Because of the way drivers are installed, I’m a little leery of the concept. (My preference is to save drivers to a known good location and keep them backed up.) But if anyone can point me to something that does this I’ll be happy to take a look.

Sanza reports an annoyance:

Can this be ‘fixed/changed’?

When I’m in a folder (let’s call it MUSIC) that contains 400 other folders and I go into one of those other folders (let’s call it PINK FLOYD – THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON) and then go back out into the MUSIC folder, I want to be where I was when I left that MUSIC folder. That is, looking at the PINK FLOYD – THE WALL folder, not back at top of the folder list looking at AC/DC – BACK IN BLACK where I have to scroll all the way down to to the PINK FLOYD folder again.

Does this happen in Vista also? It bothers me all the time when I’m seraching through folders I have arranged by date and such.

How are you getting back to the original folder? If you use the Up button, this is the normal behavior. You end up at the default folder in the parent directory. To fix this annoyance, change your habvits. Use the Back button in Windows Explorer (or press the Backspace key) to return to the previous folder. That option remembers your previous settings.

I just tried this on two computers running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and one running Windows XP Home Edition and can reproduce the behavior.

And that’s all for today!  If I didn’t get to your question, sorry. Maybe next time.