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The option “Show in Groups” can be used to group files based on details such as the file type or date modified. It’s not very useful for shortcuts, which is presumably why the option is not available for the desktop.

See How To Arrange Files Using Folder Views in Windows XP for details.

Virus Bulletin has just published the results of their test of 43 antivirus products for Windows 7. Registration (free) is required to see the test results’ summary, complete information is only available to paid subscribers.

In my experience, this is one of the very few sources of reliable information on antivirus software.

I’m not running volume shadowing

The file volsnap.sys is related to the Volume Shadow Copy Service. Are you sure this service isn’t running? I’m not familiar with Syncplicity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the program relies on this service. “DRIVER_FAULT” seems to indicate that the file has become corrupt, possibly during the installation of Syncplicity.

If your hard drive contains a backup for volsnap.sys (on a system running XP SP3 you may find it in C:WINDOWSServicePackFilesi386), compare the size and ‘date modified’ for the backup file with the file in C:WINDOWSsystem32drivers. If they’re different, you’ve probably located the problem. The next step would be to stop the Volume Shadow Copy Service, rename the C:WINDOWSsystem32driversvolsnap.sys file to something like volsnap.sys.old (I wouldn’t recommend deleting the file until you are absolutely certain the problem has been solved), copy the backup file to the C:WINDOWSsystem32drivers folder and restart the Volume Shadow Copy Service.

If there’s no backup for volsnap.sys on your system you may be able to obtain it from another machine running XP SP3.

Be aware that although this – hopefully – prevents your computer from displaying blue screens, Syncplicity will probably have to be reinstalled before you can use it again.

Did you install Adobe Acrobat 7 after the installation of Adobe Reader 9? In that case the Adobe Reader plug-in for Internet Explorer may have become corrupt. I would recommend uninstalling Adobe Reader, rebooting the system and then reinstalling Adobe Reader. Make sure you use the latest version (9.2.0), earlier versions have some serious security issues.

Although the problem fixed itself after I rebooted, I was not able to perform any task with the Ctrl key combinations within Windows Explorer… the window simply froze when I highlighted a file, pressed Ctrl or Shft + any key. Nothing worked, but when I rebooted, everything returned to normal. I have no idea what caused the problem. Doug

That sounds like the kind of behaviour caused by a stuck or key. If that’s the case, the problem will probably appear again sooner or later. Tapping those keys repeatedly may solve the problem momentarily, but when this happens regularly replacing the keyboard is the only real cure.

Some of my favourite tools:

7-Zip http://www.7-zip.org/
Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
PDF995 http://www.pdf995.com/download.html
Unlocker http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Network administrators should really take a look at Lansweeper (http://www.lansweeper.com/default.aspx). This free network inventory program keeps getting better and better. Initial installation may take some time, but it is certainly worth the effort. The next version will offer even more features, take a look at this screencast for a preview: http://www.screencast.com/users/Lansweeper/folders/Default/media/958d0e49-ed73-429b-a32d-1e8f61ca3195#

This site offers a free and simple way to save YouTube videos (without the need to install any software): http://u2download.com/index.php

Everything is a marvellous tool, very fast, very intuitive and unobtrusive. It’s a shame the program only works with local drives, not network drives. One small bug I’ve come across: when you right-click a drive letter (instead of a folder on that partition) to search the entire partition, the program will show “C:”” in the address bar and no search results will be shown. Replacing the quotation marks after the colon with a backslash (“C:”) fixes the issue instantly, but you will need to do that each and every time you want to search an entire partition. But that’s a small prize to pay…