Newbie
My wife's sister brought along her Toshiba laptop with WinXP Starter Edition from Malaysia so I can help her install some utils and configure it.
There is no context menu on the Taskbar nor on the Start Button - right click doesn't work there, only works on the Desktop. Edited the registry to enable context menu but the setting would not stick - as soon as I moved off the entry, the value reverted to its old setting. Using X-Setup didn't help.
I'm stuck as context menus are required to even begin to configure/customise Windows stuff. Some may be got at from the Control Panel, but I'm more used to right-clicking to, for example, enable Quick Launch toolbar. And how would you change the appearance of Start Menu and Control Panel (e.g. to classic view)?
FYI, WinXP Starter Ed limits concurrently running progs and windows per prog to 3. No PC-to-PC home networking or sharing printers across a network. It automatically logs on the user as "Owner". No log out option and can't change to Admin.
Is there any registry hack to fix these problems? For example - enable logon, change "Owner" privilege, add user, let registry edit stick etc?
Newbie
Perhaps you should look here to learn about the XP Starter Edition: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/n...StarterFS.mspx .
Gene
Newbie
Done that as the first thing when problems cropped up. Nothing there of any help.Originally Posted by ncgenek
Valued Member
If you want to change to Classic view.
Right click your start button and scroll down to properties
Check the box > Classic Start Menu
Click apply and Ok, you should have classic view now.
When you open your control panel it should be in classic view.
You have to be in safe mode to run as the admin.
Check accounts in Xp, Start > Run box type: control userpasswords2
Their should be a button that says Reset Password... you will have to know the old password or this will not work.
Newbie
But the whole problem started with not being able to right click start button and taskbar. Please read my first post this thread.If you want to change to Classic view.
Right click your start button and scroll down to properties
Check the box > Classic Start Menu
Click apply and Ok, you should have classic view now.
When you open your control panel it should be in classic view.
How to start in safe mode? There's no boot menu. Probably XP StEd would also stop me editing the boot.ini or it's going to ignore it. Will try to do it this weekend. Please remind me what to add to show the boot menu.
Running that command line shows up two entries, Administrator and Owner, both have admin rights.
Reset Password on Admin does not ask for old p/w and let me type in new p/w and the confirm p/w, but fails with error box when OK button clicked. For Owner, the RP button is greyed out.
Ticking option to require login doesn't work. After restarting, it logs straight into Owner. Pressing ctrl-alt-del has the logoff and change password buttons greyed out.
Valued Member
Hi TGT;
I guess I read your first post to quickly(sorry) Ok I know you can't right click start menu.
DO This > Ctrl + Esc, that will bring up your start menu, when start menu is on screen hold down shift key and press F10, that will bring up properties at the top of the start menu, click properties that brings up your Taskbar and Start Menu properties.... You should be able to select.... Classic.
When you run your system as the Administrator, you have to be in safe mode.
Reboot Windows when you see the DOS screen press the F8 key.
Use the arrow keys to highlight Safe Mode.
If the "Reset password" button is grayed out, check the entry at the top "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.") Click OK, then Apply.
Go To Run box type: sysdm.cpl
Click the "Advanced" tab in System properties, scroll down click "Settings in Startup & Recovery, In startup and recovery their should be a button that says "Edit" click the edit button this should open up Note pad which contains your boot file.
WARNING: Be real careful with this file!!!
Example: This boot file is for a system running only Windows Xp Home.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
Go To Run box type: msconfig
Opens System Configuration Utility, click tab BOOT.INI, that should show you your boot file, for your machine....... Only make changes to this file, if you know what your doing.
Go To Run box type: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
Pick the option > Create a restore point > Name restore point
I usually just type > SysOk, Windows will put in date and time.
If something goes wrong now, just open System Restore
Click on the restore point you made and Windows will take you back to before you made any changes on your computer.
If you change the "BOOT FILE" and Windows can't "BOOT" you won't be able to use System Restore.
Newbie
Pressing Shift+F10 on Start Menu - nothing happens, no "properties".
No DOS screen.
I know. That's how I enabled the RP button for Admin. But still can't change Admin's password - see my previous post for details. And Owner's RP button is still greyed out.
My boot.ini looks very similar, difference is timeout=20, and the last line says "XP Starter Edition" of course, with extra switch "/maxmem=256".
No point doing msconfig, as I still don't know what to change/add in boot.ini. And no point creating restore point as nothing has been tweaked.Go To Run box type: msconfig
Opens System Configuration Utility, click tab BOOT.INI, that should show you your boot file, for your machine....... Only make changes to this file, if you know what your doing.
Go To Run box type: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
Pick the option > Create a restore point > Name restore point
I usually just type > SysOk, Windows will put in date and time.
If something goes wrong now, just open System Restore
Click on the restore point you made and Windows will take you back to before you made any changes on your computer.
If you change the "BOOT FILE" and Windows can't "BOOT" you won't be able to use System Restore.
In summary then: I need help to let me boot into safe mode, in order to login as Admin, in order to customise Windows!
Newbie
Good news: got into safe mode by just pressing F8 during boot.
Bad news: still logs straight into Owner, and still can't log in as Administrator, and ctrl-alt-del has the logoff and change password buttons greyed out.
I've delved a bit deeper into the My Support help on the desktop (only offered by Starter Edition?). It says no Quick Launch toolbar, no multiple user accounts and no fast user-switching. So I guess there's no point trying any further, unless someone comes up with a hack
Valued Member
Hi TGT;
The keyboard shortcut I outlined in my post to open taskbar and start menu properties works on my machine, the only reasonI can think of why it doesn't work on yours(WinXP Starter Edition from Malaysia) maybe someone on the forum has a answer to why it doesn't work.
How are you doing this, are you pressing(ctrl+esc) at the same time or or do you hold down ctrl and then press the esc key. On my machine I hold down
ctrl and then press esc which brings up the start menu, I don't know what kind of keyboard you have, but if you have one with a Windows key pressing that key will also bring up the start menu.
You say in your previous post you looked into the password issue and the
reason you give why it doesn't work(no multiple user accounts and no fast user-switching). When you open up services, Run box type: services.msc are both ofthese services disabled.
Your wife's sister did she have xp installed on the laptop at the time or was their another os on their and she upgraded to xp, this kb article might explain password problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318026/en-us
First let me say I edit my boot file using the available switches in xp and so far
have never had a problem(but that's me). When it comes to telling someone to do this, I don't like doing that(I would feel responsible if something happened and windows couldn't boot) so I would leave this up to the moderators of this forum.
With that said I will say [Boot loader] timeout = 30, specifies how long the system should wait for user input while the boot menu is being displayed.
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
default identifies which selection from the Windows recognizable operating systems (identified in the [operating systems] section) will be booted if the user makes no selection in the boot menu. The [operating systems] section identifies all Windows recognizable operating systems that can be booted by the boot menu.
multi denotes that this system has an IDE or ESDI drive, and is almost always 0. If you are using a SCSI drive with no BIOS support, this is scsi(0) instead of multi(0). (Note: Windows NT systems using SCSI drives have multi). The disk designator is 0 if multi is listed as the adapter. If scsi is the adapter in use, you would indicate the scsi bus number. rdisk identifies what controller is the disk is on, such as rdisk(1) for the secondary disk, rdisk(0) for the primary. If you are using scsi, this option is always 0.
partition indicates what partition the file to boot resides on. If you are on the second primary partition, you would write partition(2). This should never be 0 because there is no partition 0. The last portion identifies the directory in which Windows resides (in this case \WINDOWS (this could be anything depending on the version of Windows and how the system was installed). Everything after the equal sign and in quotes shows what is displayed in the boot menu to the user regarding booting.
disk(0) refers to the 1st physical hard drive, if it said disk(1) would refer to the second hard drive on that channel.
rdisk(0) is specific to SCSI drives, and is usually fine at 0. partition(1) means the actual 1st partition on the drive.
NoExecute=OptIn(the security updates in service pack 2 for Windows XP include the addition of capability for DEP Data Execution Prevention, DEP configuration for the system is controlled through switches in the boot.ini file.
Some features of DEP are turned on by default with a boot.ini switch "/NoExecute=OptIn".
OptIn.. This setting is the default configuration. On systems with processors that can implement hardware-enforced DEP, DEP is enabled by default for limited system binaries and programs that "opt-in." With this option, only Windows system binaries are covered by DEP by default.
My boot.ini looks very similar, difference is timeout=20, and the last line says "XP Starter Edition" of course, with extra switch "/maxmem=256". If your computer has more than 512 MB of RAM, add the maxmem=256 switch to the Boot.ini file.
I'm sure you know what the rest of the boot file means, if not post whatever you are unsure of.
Newbie
Hi Winnipeg,
I am an experienced user of Windows, and do know what ctrl+esc means.
Running services.msc, going through the entries one by one, can't find anything related to multiple user accounts and fast user-switching.
XP StEd came with the the laptop she bought.
I'm afraid all the discourse on the boot file is rather by-the-by, as I've already said I could get into safe mode by pressing F8 during boot. The reason for getting into safe mode, according to your suggestion, is to be able to log in as Admin. But as I said, even in safe mode, it still logs *straight* into user Owner, and then ctrl-alt-del does not offer the chance to change user.
I think we are banging our heads against a brick wall here. I suspect the various Windows things we can *usually* do are crippled by XP StEd, as the My Support help hinted at.
Thanks for your help so far.
