Move Your Old Drivers to a New Computer

Lincoln Spector

I want to upgrade my computer but keep my old monitor, modem, and sound card. I don't have the disks that came with these. Where I can find the drivers for these peripherals?

Wilber Hernandez, West New York, New Jersey

You'll find the files you need in your C:\Windows\System, C:\Windows\Inf, and C:\Windows\Help folders. Unfortunately, separating these files from the rest of those folders' content is a long, boring, and near-impossible procedure.

So don't do it. Instead, copy the complete contents of these folders (probably about 100MB) from your old computer to a single folder on your new computer. Call the new folder C:\drivers. And don't worry about wasting space--you won't have to keep that folder for long.

Once you've transferred the old files and hooked up the old peripherals to your new computer, get your system running, right-click My Computer and select Properties. Click the Device Manager tab. Now examine the listing for each type of device you've retained from the old computer. If the device does not have the correct name--for instance, if your display adapter is identified as 'VGA Monitor'--or if it has a yellow question mark/exclamation point icon, then you will need to install the old driver.

Double-click the device's listing to bring up the device's properties. Then click the Driver tab, followed by the Update Driver button. The resulting wizard will ask, 'What do you want Windows to do?' Select Search for a better driver. When the wizard asks where to search, check Specify a location, then uncheck any other checked options, and enter c:\drivers in the location field. Follow the rest of the wizard, answering each question according to your best judgment.

Once you have the drivers for your old devices in place, you can delete the C:\drivers folder.

Remove Uninstalled Apps From Windows' Registry

My Windows Registry contains several references to programs that were uninstalled long ago. How do I clean the Registry of this leftover garbage?

William G. Ingersoll, Shalimar, Florida

When uninstall routines remove a program, they leave a lot of junk behind--much of it in Windows' Registry. The programs appear to be written by programmers who believe that no one would really want to remove their program.

Several utilities--some commercial, some shareware, and some free--purport to clean the Registry, but I have yet to find one that is able to remove every reference to an uninstalled program.

Before you remove anything from your Registry, back it up. See my May 2000 column, " Protect Yourself Against Catastrophic Installs," for step-by-step instructions.

In my experience, no third-party Registry cleaner gets out as many references to uninstalled programs as Microsoft's own free RegClean does. You can get RegClean from our Downloads library. The program is simple, but it does the job. Launch it, and it checks the Registry; click a button, and it fixes any errors it finds.

Of course, you could always choose to clean the Registry manually. This is a lot of work, however, and it could also be very dangerous--which is all the more reason to back up your Registry. If you'd like to try the manual approach, select Start, Run, type regedit, and press Enter. With the Registry Editor open, press F3; enter the name of an uninstalled program; and be sure that Keys, Values, and Data are all checked. Next, press Enter, and when the search stops at a listing, press Delete. You'll have to select Yes to verify that deleting the entry is okay. Then press F3 again to find the next listing.

Once you've completed your spring cleaning, you may be surprised to discover that the two files that make up the Registry, system.dat and user.dat, are exactly the same size they were before. To shrink the files, you have to optimize the Registry. The best way to accomplish this varies depending on the version of Windows that's running on your machine.

Windows 95: Begin by launching Notepad (or your default text editor) and creating a file with only these two lines:

regedit /e temp.reg

regedit /c temp.reg

Don't forget the single spaces before the slash and before 'temp'. Save the file as c:\smallreg.bat, and at the end of each workday, click Start, Shut Down, Restart in MS-DOS mode. Type c:\smallreg at the DOS prompt, press Enter, turn off your monitor, and go to bed. This process can take hours.

Windows 98: Select Start, Shut Down, Restart in MS-DOS mode, and press OK. At the DOS prompt, type scanreg /opt. (And don't forget to include the single space before that slash.)

Windows Me: You'll need a start-up disk, which you can create through Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs applet. Once you've placed your start-up disk in the floppy drive, select Start, Shut Down, Restart, and when you're prompted, select Minimal boot. At the DOS prompt, type scanreg /opt (remember the space!).

Make a Hub-Free Network

I have two computers, each equipped with a network interface card. I frequently need to transfer large files between them. Can I set up a direct cable connection using the NICs?

Chan Chek Yuen, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Windows' direct cable connection doesn't support NICs, but you can set up a network between your two computers--and you don't even need to buy a hub to do it.

What you do need is a crossover ethernet cable. In the standard ethernet cables that you use for connecting a computer to a hub or broadband modem, the wire on the left at one end is also on the left at the other end. In a crossover cable, the wires cross over (get it?), so that the wire on the left at one end is on the right at the other end. Crossover ethernet cables are readily available and cost as little as $8.

Once you've plugged the cable into both of your computers, all you need to do is set up a simple network: Right-click Network Neighborhood and select Properties. If you're using Windows Me, the icon is called My Network Places, and if you double-click it, you'll find a Home Networking Wizard that will walk you through the process of implementing a network.

On the Network dialog box's Configuration tab, select network protocols for the two computers: Click the Add button, double-click Protocols, and select Microsoft from the left column. I recommend that you install NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, and TCP/IP. Once you're back on the Configuration tab, select the primary network log-on as Client for Microsoft Windows. Then click File and Print Sharing and select whatever is appropriate: The first option lets you share files, and the second lets you share printers. Be aware, however, that enabling file sharing can compromise your system's security.

On the Identification tab, make sure that each computer has a unique name but that both are in the same workgroup. Don't use spaces in either of these fields. Click OK, and reboot your system when you're prompted to do so.

To make a folder available to the other computer, right-click it in Windows Explorer and select Sharing. Make the appropriate selections and click OK.

Hide Control Panel Applets

I recently installed QuickTime version 4 over version 2. Now I have two QuickTime icons in Control Panel. How do I remove one of them?

Ron Reggev, Jamesburg, New Jersey

The easiest way to remove an unwanted Control Panel icon is with Microsoft's free Tweak UI utility, which is available from our Downloads library.

Once you've downloaded and installed Tweak UI, launch it through the Control Panel and click the Control Panel tab. Uncheck unwanted entries and click OK.

Print File Associations

Is there a way to print a listing of my PC's file associations? I can see them individually in Windows Explorer by selecting View, Folder Options and clicking the File Types tab, but I'd like a printout of file types, extensions, and so on.

Doug Richardson, Morristown, New Jersey

Try Association Manager, a free program by Alexander Peckover that you can download from our Downloads library or from the author's Web site.

When you open Association Manager, you see an empty, spreadsheetlike grid. To load your current associations into that grid, select Settings, Get Current Settings.

Oddly, despite being intended for editing associations, Association Manager doesn't offer a way to print them. But have no fear. Select File, Export HTML. This step creates an HTML file with the information you need in a table. You can print this table from your browser, or copy and paste it into Excel or another program to get more control over how the printed version will look.

Easier Multiple Associations

After reading " One File Type, Two Associations" ( Answer Line, December 2000), Jonathan Schwartz of Burlington, Connecticut, sent us another way to launch one type of file with more than one application: the SendTo folder. Put shortcuts to alternate programs into your C:\Windows\SendTo folder (copy them from the Start menu). The file will still load with the application associated with its file type when you double-click it, but now you can right-click it and select Send To to open it with some other program.

Send your questions to answer@pcworld.com. Answer Line pays $50 for published items. You can find PC World contributing editor Lincoln Spector's humorous writing at The Link Inspector.