A PRN file is a type of file that can be read by printers. It’s basically a generic output file that printers can understand. Sometimes you will end up with one of these files and you will need to print it.

You used to be able to print these files to your local printer by using the command COPY /B C:\FILENAME.PRN LPT1:. These days, printers are not attached to LPT1 anymore. USB cables are used instead. So you have to use the network method in order to print the file. Here’s how to do this in Windows.

1. Share the printer on the network. If the printer you are using is already on a network such as your company network, skip this step.

2. Now we have to find the network path to your printer. If the printer you wish to print to is a company shared network printer that is not attached to your computer, it should have the server name and printer name under your list of Printers. It will say something like printername on serverp or LaserJet on printserver. So the path to these printers would be \\serverp\printername and \\printserver\LaserJet respectively.

If the printer is attached to your PC, the path will be the computer name and then the name of the printer. You can find your computer name by right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties under the Computer Name tab. The name of the printer can be found under Printers in Windows by right clicking on the printer and selecting Properties. The printername is in the top field. So if my computer name is TP123 and the printer name is LaserJet, the path would be \\TP123\LaserJet.

3. Armed with this information, we can then go to Start > Run and use this command to copy the file to the printer. This command assumes the PRN file is located on the root of the C drive:

COPY /B C:\FILENAME.PRN \\TP123\LaserJet

The printer should then print out the contents of the PRN file.

When you boot up your computer, you get the following error:

The instruction at 0×745f2780 referenced memory at 0×00000000. The memory could not be read.

To try to solve this issue, try the following steps:

1. Hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard and press R.

2. Type regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s and click OK.

3. Repeat step 2, but substitute wuapi.dll with the following filenames instead:

atl.dll
wuaueng.dll
wuaueng1.dll
wucltui.dll
wups.dll
wups2.dll
wuweb.dll

4. Hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard and press R.

5. Type net stop WuAuServ and click OK.

6. Hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard and press R.

7. Type %windir% and click OK.

8. Right-click the folder SoftwareDistribution and select Rename. Rename it to SDold.

9. Hold down the Windows Key on your keyboard and press R.

10. Type net start WuAuServ and click OK.

You’re done! Hopefully this error doesn’t bother you anymore when you start your computer.

When you open a file in Windows XP that has a corrupted video, image files, HTML pages, or MP3 file, Windows Explorer crashes.

You will need to somehow access this folder so that you can delete the offensive file. You will need to unregister 2 DLL’s to prevent the Windows from previewing the file, which is what is actually causing Windows Explorer to crash.

1. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll and click OK.

2. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll and click OK.

3. Delete the file that is corrupted.

4. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 shimgvw.dll and click OK.

5. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 shmedia.dll and click OK.

Do you delete the My Music, My Documents or My Pictures folders only to find they have returned to Windows later? Delete them forever with these steps.

1. Hold down the Windows Key and press R.

2. Type regsvr32 /u mydocs.dll and click OK.

3. Now try deleting the folders. They should stay gone as long as that DLL isn’t registered again.

Please be aware that many applications may use these folders. Removing them may cause problems.

To undo this change, use the command regsvr32 mydocs.dll.

Ending a process in Windows using a command can be handy if you’re writing a batch file. You can accomplish this by using the TSKILL command. Let’s try this command out by ending the Notepad process.

1. Open Notepad by clicking Start > Run or hold down the Windows Key and press R.

2. Type notepad and click OK.

3. Click Start > Run or Hold down the Windows Key and press R.

4. Type CMD and click OK to bring up a DOS command box.

5. At the command prompt, type TSKILL notepad.

6. The Notepad application should close.

You can also use wildcards:

Typing TSKILL note* will close all processes that start with note.

You can also kill the process by the ID:

Type TSKILL 15203

See also:

Tskill Usage

HOW TO: Use the TSKILL Command to End Processes in Windows 2000 Terminal Services

In Windows XP and Windows 2000, you may have a problem opening the Computer icon in Component Services (Dcomcnfg). When trying to open it, instead nothing happens and it automatically closes the entire window and disappears.

Try the following things to solve this issue.

1. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 ole32.dll and click OK.

Try it now. If it doesn’t work, go to step 2.

2. Click Start > Run and type regedit and click OK.

3. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\COM3

4. Delete the COM3 folder. Close the registry editor.

5. Open Start > Settings > Control Panel.

6. Open Add/Remove Programs.

7. Click Add/Remove Windows Components.

8. Click Next through the wizard. No need to check anything first. You may be prompted for a Windows Installation CD.

9. Restart the computer and try Component Services again.

If that doesn’t work, you may want to explore certain programs that may have corrupted this option. Some have reported that uninstalling McAfee or Nero products have fixed the issue.

See Also:

PRB: Cannot Expand “My Computer” in Component Services MMC Snap-In

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i Update Problems

Try these steps if you are unable to open Add/Remove Programs in the Windows 2000 Control Panel.

1. Click Start > Run and type regsvr32 mshtml.dll

2. When you receive the message that the DLL has been registered, click OK and perform the same steps for each of the following commands one by one under Start > Run:

regsvr32 shdocvw.dll -i
regsvr32 shell32.dll -i

Are you getting “Error Deleting File or Folder” when deleting a file or a folder?

The best solution is a free download called Unlocker. It works even better than Sysinternals tool available from Microsoft.

When installing a program, you may get the following error:

Error 2739. Could not access Javascript runtime action

This error is usually appears because the jscript.dll is not registered in Windows. To register it, perform the following steps:

1. Click Start > Run or hold down the Windows Key and press R.

2. Type regsvr32 jscript.dll.

3. Click OK when the message appears about the registration succeeding. If you receive an error instead, ensure you are logged into Windows as an Administrator.

I used the old registry tweaks for speeding up your Internet connection on my Windows 2000 and Windows 98 machines. By default, the registry wasn’t optimized for high speed Internet connections. These old tweaks worked very well in speeding up my connection back then. These days under Windows XP, I was getting decent speed with my cable modem, but nothing mind-blowing. I used to think that Windows XP didn’t need any tweaking at all and was already optimized for high speed connections. It turns out that I was wrong. I came across TCP Optimizer and thought I would give it a try. To my amazement, it tripled my Internet download speed.

Greedy for more speed, I began playing with the advanced settings in the program, trying to squeeze every last byte out of my connection. It eventually got to the point where my download speeds were 5 times faster, but my computer started losing connection randomly, forcing me to restart my computer often. Luckily there was an option in the software that backed up my previous settings, so I was able to revert back to them.

Give the software a try and see what it does for you. Click here for TCP Optimizer.
There is also a guide available on how to use it if you need help.

Recently I discovered a bunch of .SQM files all over my hard drive and wondered what they were. After further research, I found that these files are created by the Customer Service Improvement Program feature in MSN Messenger. They are used to track bugs and errors with the system.

This feature can be disabled by selecting the Help menu in MSN Messenger and selecting Customer Service Improvement Program. Simply select I don’t want to participate right now and click OK.

Source: File Extension .SQM 

Disable the annoying message that appears that prompts you to Send Error Report to Microsoft when there is an error with a program:

“program name has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience… Please tell Microsoft about this problem.”

1. Right-click My Computer.

2. Select Properties > Advanced.

3. Click on the Error Reporting tab.

4. Check Disable error reporting.

Microsoft has released a patch for a problem with their hotfix KB918899 that crashes Internet Explorer.

If you have already installed the KB9118899 patch, you will need to download and install the new release from Microsoft at http://www.windowsupdate.com. This newer version was released August 22, 2006.

Are you a System Administrator that likes to lock up the systems you administer so users don’t jack up the computers? Well the Control Panel is where a lot of things can be changed. You might want to lock them out. Here’s how to hide the Control Panel.

Now the users of this computer will not be able to run the Control Panel or anything that resides

How to set Windows Firewall to block or unblock certain applications.

3. Check the applications that you wish to unblock.
Uncheck the applications that you wish to block.