DVD drive not working

A laptop's DVD drive stopped working - the device manager showed it as not working. Uninstalling and rebooting led back to the same situation.

A Microsoft "FixIt" failed - but creating a new registry subkey got it working:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Controller0\EnumDevice1 with value 1.
 
Contact NickWorks IT support for any problem - it can usually be fixed!!

WIndows activation

When a machine is reinstalled (see NickWorks Services), re-entering the product key should allow Windows to be activated. It requires that you install the right version of Windows to match the key - so before starting to reinstall, it is important to have these two pieces of information.

Every Windows PC should have a sticker on the case with this information on it - but it is sometimes missing or too faded to read (this happens a lot on laptops).

Luckily there are a few utilities that allow recovery of this information from the Windows registry. It's encrypted, so it can't be read directly.

I used ProduKey, which makes it quite easy. It can access the information on an external disk or USB key, so if Windows won't boot, you can still get the code, as long as the disk still functions.

If the code is barred by Microsoft, it could indicate that the installed version of Windows was from a suspect source.

Corrupted profile issues

I have seen this problem a couple of times: the user can't log in and gets a "The User Profile Service failed the logon" message. The cure is to swap the registry entries relating to the profile and its backup. 

But if the locked-out user is the only administrator there is a problem. On this laptop I had to

(1) Boot from the built in Windows repair (equivalent to booting from the Windows DVD) and start a command prompt.

(2) Run regedit to edit the registry to enable the built-in administrator account  (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/102552-built-administrator-enable-winre.html)

 (3) Log in with this account and fix the profile (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215)

Keyboard problems

An HP Mini 200 netbook is displaying problems - intermittently, none of the keys work except the vowels, which are displayed with accents. This behaviour continues when using the on-screen keyboard or an external USB keyboard. Conclusion - the Alt-Gr key is sticking down. Returning to HP under warranty did not get the repair done, as they claimed it had been subjected to liquid spillage (the owner insists it hadn't). The "liquid intrusion sensor" is alleged to be a white paper label inside the case.

A quote to replace the keyboard amounted to £70 - but simply removing the useless Alt-Gr key fixed the problem.

Cutting your losses

Today's laptop has strange problems that I have failed to explain. The Windows firewall service is missing. All downloads and attachments are falsely reported as infected and are deleted - though the machine is free of malware. I would love to spend the time to get to the bottom of this and find out why - but realistically, it is quicker to just reinstall!

Overheating

I have had two recent repair jobs which have been debilitating but easy to fix!

A Dell Dimension 5000 was shutting down a few minutes after starting up - and this was caused by complete blockage of the air intake holes. This model has a large slow-moving fan which draws air in through a large recessed vent in the front panel. The intake was totally blocked with dust, and on cleaning this out normal service was resumed.

Another desktop was shutting down seconds after powering up - and this was caused by the CPU heatsink and fan being dislodged.

Windows Update

Windows Update can be a frustrating thing - this PC was failing to update - I had to do  

Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > and then uncheck the “Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks” option.