Remain Anonymous: Disable Your PC's PSN

Lincoln Spector

I've heard that the Pentium III chip's processor serial number can compromise my privacy. How do I disable the PSN on my Pentium III system?

Sean Callen, Kingston, Ontario

Intel's PSN is a unique identifier that theoretically allows Web sites to pinpoint your surfing habits. PSN never became the supercookie many people feared: The critics' hue and cry held PSN in check.

So what's your computer's PSN status? If it isn't a Pentium III, you don't have a PSN. If you do have a PIII, your PSN is probably turned off already, per recommendations Intel made to PC vendors because of the controversy over privacy.

You can turn your PSN on or off via the hardware setup screen, but the method differs from one PC to another. On most PIII-based systems, you get to this screen by holding down Insert or Delete at the beginning of the boot-up process. Search the options to find the PSN off switch.

An Intel program tells you whether your PSN is turned on, and turns it off or on for you as you specify. Download it at Intel's support page. If PSN is disabled in your BIOS settings, you can't enable the feature using Intel's program. Instead, you'll get a message stating that 'the processor serial number has been disabled by another user, an application, or by your computer's hardware setup'.

When PSN is enabled in the BIOS, you can use Intel's PSN program to toggle between enabling and disabling your PSN. You're warned that 'enabling the processor serial number may allow this information to be read by Web sites'. After you click OK, a dialog box shows your PSN. If you click Settings and disable the feature, the dialog box indicates that the PSN is unavailable.

Once you turn the PSN off, can a program or Web site secretly turn it back on? Much controversy surrounds this question. Doing so would involve rebooting the CPU surreptitiously--no easy trick.

But even if some hacker managed to turn on your PSN for the fun of it, all he or she would get is a number. The PSN's true potential as a spying tool was checkmated as a result of the controversy, since the number is almost universally turned off. Intel says it will not put serial numbers in its Pentium 4 processors.

Back Up or Transfer Dial-Up Networking

How can I back up the entries in my Dial-Up Networking folder without manually writing them down?

Jim Bowman, Greenwood, Indiana

Crazy, isn't it? Each dial-up networking (DUN) entry contains important information for getting onto the Internet by modem (phone number, log-in name, dialing string, and so on), yet Windows offers no obvious way to back up this information or move it to a new computer.

DUN stores its information in a particular branch of the Windows Registry--so all you need to do is back up that branch. You can do this in the Registry Editor. To launch it, select Start, Run, type regedit, and press Enter. Our standard admonition about backing up the Registry before you start doesn't apply in this case because you're not changing anything.

Once you have the Registry Editor open, navigate through the left pane's folders to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess. Then select Registry, Export Registry File. In the resulting dialog box, give the file a name and save it in an appropriate place, such as on a removable disk. Set the 'Save as type' field to Registration Files (*reg) and the Export range to Selected branch. The field at the bottom of the screen should read HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess. Click Save, and close the Registry Editor. Your DUN is backed up.

To move your DUN information to another PC, simply place the.reg file onto the target computer and double-click the file. If Windows asks whether you really want to make this change, click Yes. When you open My Computer and double-click Dial-Up Networking, your old dial-up information will be there.

Well, almost. Your password isn't saved in the Registry, so that won't be included. The first time you use a dial-up connection, you must enter the password manually. If you don't want to enter it again, check the Save password option.

If your new PC's modem is a different model from your old one, you have to tell each DUN item about it. Open Dial-Up Networking, right-click the icon for a connection, and select Properties. You'll likely get an error message that says the modem isn't installed. Click OK. Under the General tab in the Properties dialog box, select the modem you want to use in the 'Connect using' box, and then click OK.

Home Network Intercom

Can my wife and I use our home network as an intercom between two PCs? Each of the computers has its own microphone and speakers.

Mark Gallagher, Point Lookout, New York

Yes, you can. The right tool for the job is NetMeeting, which comes with Internet Explorer and therefore with Windows.

To get started, select Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, NetMeeting (depending on your version of Windows, NetMeeting may be in the Internet Tools folder, or even on the Programs menu, instead of in Communications). The first time you run NetMeeting, a wizard helps you set it up. When asked to specify a connection speed, select Local Area Network.

To communicate over the network, you and your wife must be running NetMeeting. To place a call, click the icon of a phone or select Call, New Call. In the To field, enter the name of your wife's PC (if you don't know the name, open Network Neighborhood on your desktop to see a list of the network's computers). In the Using field, select Network, and click Call.

Your wife will hear the sound of a phone ringing, and a pop-up window will announce that there's a call. If she accepts the call, you'll soon be talking.

Put a Big File on Little Disks

My files are getting too big to fit on one floppy disk. How can I copy a large file onto multiple floppies?

Edward Wong, via the Internet

No matter how hard we try, we can't completely dispense with floppies--even though their 1.44MB capacity is often too small for a single file.

The best solution is a.zip archive program, such as WinZip Computing's $29 WinZip 8 shareware. It's available from our Downloads library. Virtually all.zip programs let you span an archive across multiple disks. Besides, copying an archive (instead of an uncompressed file) will reduce the number of disks you need.

If you have WinZip, right-click the file you want to copy and select Add to Zip. In the 'Add to archive' field in WinZip's Add dialog box, preface the file name with a:, as in a:bigfile (assuming that you need to span your floppy drive).

As soon as you type a: into that field, WinZip's 'Multiple disk spanning' option will become available. You can leave it on the default Automatic setting. Click OK to start the compression and spanning; the program will prompt you to insert other blank formatted disks as needed.

If you don't want to compress your files or pay $29, you can download Marc Bjorklund's File Splitter freeware, a program that splits large files into multiple smaller files of a specified maximum size (the default is 1.44MB). It also creates a batch file for restoring the original, now-divided file to its united state. You can download File Splitter from our Downloads library.

Just Open My Windows Folder

I'm irritated by the warning text that appears when I try to open the Windows folder in Windows Explorer--the one that forces me to click Show Files before I can do anything. How can I make Windows just show me the files?

Ian Reece, Toronto

When you select the Windows or Windows\System folder in Windows 98's Explorer, you expect to see a list of the folder's files and subfolders, but instead Explorer may warn you that you shouldn't be there. (I'll discuss Windows Me below.) You then have to click Show Files to get where you want to go.

Worse yet, even after you've clicked Show Files, you continue to get the same stupid warning every single time you return to the folder.

Luckily, this warning comes up only if you view the folder as a Web page. So the next time you get the warning, instead of clicking Show Files, select View and uncheck as Web Page. Thenceforth, Explorer won't display that particular folder as a Web page, and you won't get the warning.

But what if you want to see the folder as a Web page? Go to the folder in question (either C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System), and select View, Customize this Folder. On the first page of the resulting wizard, select Remove customization, click Next twice, and then click Finish. From now on, that folder will display as a Web page without problems.

In one sense, Windows Me is worse. Besides getting warnings when you go to C:\Windows and C:\Windows\System, you can't select C:\ or C:\Program Files without being warned.

Luckily, Windows Me is a lot smarter about shutting up. Once you've clicked Show Me for a particular folder, Windows Me will remember that you consider yourself mature enough to handle its contents.

Windows 98 System File Checker

The System File Checker checks that original Windows 98 files--the ones on your hard disk that came from the Win 98 CD-ROM--are in good condition. To launch it, select Start, Run, type sfc, and press Enter. The program looks at Windows files and restores bad ones. But reader Drew Schaffner notes that System File Checker can't tell a corrupt file from an updated one, so run the program after you update Windows, and select Update verification information for any file that System Fact Checker complains about.

Send your questions and tips to answer@pcworld.com. Answer Line pays $50 for published items. Find Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector's humorous writing at The Link Inspector.