Two little irritants that I would like to correct

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

I was not sure if these were worthy of a post but they have been annoying me for a while so......

Forcing delete of files
I try to help friends out with their PC probs. Quite often I will connect their hard drive to my daughters PC (She has the largest hard drive) creat a folder called eg 'Freds Hard Drive' and copy the whole contents of their hard drive into it using dos xcopy.
The problem is when I have finished the job, some files will not delete so I can't delete the folder. I now have several nearly empty folders due to this. I have been into the attributes to make sure they are not system or read only (attrib *.* -r etc) but they still will not delete. I suspect they have the same name as some vital system file and so windows refuses to delete them
How do I force the delete?

Number lock goes out when entering logon screen
This may be a Dell specific prob but the number lock on a number of PC's is set to come on in the BIOS. When entering the logon screen it goes out. If you are in Windows and log out (enter the logon screen) it goes out. I find this annoying because I don't notice and then my password fails to work (it contains numbers)

If there is a couple of easy fixes of these could you please point me in the right direction

Many Thanks

Kev :)

[fishybawb]

Forcing delete of files
I try to help friends out with their PC probs. Quite often I will connect their hard drive to my daughters PC (She has the largest hard drive) creat a folder called eg 'Freds Hard Drive' and copy the whole contents of their hard drive into it using dos xcopy.
The problem is when I have finished the job, some files will not delete so I can't delete the folder. I now have several nearly empty folders due to this. I have been into the attributes to make sure they are not system or read only (attrib *.* -r etc) but they still will not delete. I suspect they have the same name as some vital system file and so windows refuses to delete them
How do I force the delete?


Try this:

http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/howto-delete-xp.html


Number lock goes out when entering logon screen
This may be a Dell specific prob but the number lock on a number of PC's is set to come on in the BIOS. When entering the logon screen it goes out. If you are in Windows and log out (enter the logon screen) it goes out. I find this annoying because I don't notice and then my password fails to work (it contains numbers)


I might be missing something here, but can't you use the numbers above the letters ie. not the numpad to enter your password instead? They don't care about the numlock status.

[fancyf]

The article from fishybawb's link has a good suggestion: MoveOnBoot (http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html).

I found this about the Num Lock key (so here comes the quote)

Switching Num Lock On

The Num Lock status on startup can be set in the systems BIOS.
Consult your system or motherboard manual for details about this.

Windows XP will however switch off the Num Lock key when it boots.
In some cases it's enough to make sure that the Num Lock key is enabled when you shut down;
Windows will remember the status of Num Lock, and enable it on the next boot.
In other cases this may not work, and Windows will always default to switching Num Lock off when booting.

To fix this:

- Start the Registry Editor
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Keyboard \
- Double-click the value InitialKeyboardIndicators, and enter 2 as its Value data
- Close the registry editor
- Log off, or restart Windows for the changes to take effect.
- ƒ -

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

THanks for the answers I'll definately try them tonight when I get home

:D

[Baddog]

Cut and paste the file to the recycle bin. :t
PS: Really Not Joking.

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

Have tried all the suggestions

The file I am trying to delete is a folder C:\Amys Temp Backup it contains another folder called WUTemp both folders are empty (The system shows hidden files).
With the 'Move On Boot' it would not let me point to a folder but would allow me to drag to the program. But when I rebooted it was still there!!
I tried cut & paste to recycle bin but got a cannot delete system file message. Incidentally, at one time this folder was shared on my home network, I don;t know wheither that makes any difference.

Have now tried the 'Move On Boot' on the 'WU Temp' sub directory and it worked but it still would not delete 'Amys Temp Backup'. When I try to right click delete I get the message 'cannot delete system volume information - Access is Denied'


With regard to the number lock. I looked at all 3 of the PC's here and the 2 that are working correctly have the value set at '2' but the one with the problem has it at '0'. I changed it to '2' exited regedit, went back into regedit to check it had kept the change and it had. I then rebooted and no number lock came on. When I looked at the value it had changed back to '0'. I repeated the process and checked that num lock was on in the BIOS but it just changes tyhe value back


Any idea's

Many thanks

Kev

[fancyf]

You're on XP?

Have you also cleared "Hide protected operating system files" since you copied the whole drive there might be other files you're not seeing.

You could try deleting it in a command line window:

- Win Key + R (or Run)
- Type: cmd
- In the command line window type:

cd..
cd..
rmdir "nameoffolder" /s

*you could also do the above by killing explorer.exe .. once done, type EXPLORER to restart it.


About your num lock problem, another thing you could try:

Right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > Environment Variables button > New button in the System Variables section > In the Variable name field enter "NUMLOCK" and enter "ON" in the Variable Value field.

G'luck
- ƒ -

[jarauta4]

Hi Kev !

when i have a file or a folder with files that can´t be deleted on the fly i rename

the file or folder instead ... like " Temporary Internet Files " renamed to " junk "

... win98 lets you do this ... after reboot win98 leaves this or any other renamed

folder alone so you can easily delete it

- might work on your win xp,too