Using Windows 7’s XP Mode — step by step

Working with images and text in Office 2010

Microsoft Office 2010: plain & simple, by Windows Secrets contributor Katherine Murray, can make that task considerably less intimidating. This thorough reference guide breaks down Office into easily digested sections filled with tips and illustrations. This month, all subscribers can download an excerpt: Chapter 3, Common Tasks in Office. You’ll learn how to work with images, clip art, and shapes; stylize text; and do other useful tasks that will give your documents a professional look. If you want to download this free excerpt, simply visit your preferences page and save any changes; a download link will appear. All subscribers: Set your preferences and download your bonus Info on the printed book: United States / Elsewhere

Using Windows 7's XP Mode — step by step

By Fred Langa Looking for a sure-fire way to keep your oldest Windows applications alive while living in a Windows 7 world? You’ll find it with Win7’s XP Mode, a free and fully functional version of XP Professional SP3 that runs entirely inside Windows 7. And even if you don’t have ancient apps to support, you gotta admit: keeping XP around for those times you want to indulge in a bit of nostalgia is pretty cool.

XP Mode is a free add-on for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise — Win7 Home Premium and Starter don’t qualify. For those versions, or in any case where Microsoft’s XP Mode doesn’t work, there are other alternatives I’ll discuss at the end of this article.

Windows 7’s XP Mode runs within a virtual PC (VPC). It’s not a dual-boot setup, which lets you run only one OS at a time; a VPC lets you run a second operating system within your current OS, giving you access to both simultaneously.

In a VPC, all the hardware (video boards, hard-drive controllers, etc.) an OS needs is emulated or moderated by the VPC’s software. In Win7’s XP Mode, the virtual hardware boots and runs XP Pro SP3 within a Win7 window (see Figures 1 and 2). It’s sort of like having a second monitor, but on your Win7 desktop.

Figure 1. In this example, the large black area is the Win7 desktop. (Note the Win7 Properties dialog in the background.) The blue foreground area is XP — with its own start button, taskbar, and other standard XP features.

Figure 2. An enlarged view of the XP Mode System Properties window (seen in Figure 1) shows the emulated hardware under Computer.

Let’s walk through the download, installation, and first use of XP Mode so you can see what it is and how it works. I strongly recommend reading through the entire article before starting.

Setting up XP Mode for the first time

Follow these four steps to get XP Mode up and running:

• Step 1: Download and run XP Mode’s core files.
  
  To start, go to Microsoft’s Windows Virtual PC Help & How-to download page. There, you can select the files for Windows XP Mode with Virtual PC — or download what you need for a Virtual PC only (useful if you want to run some other OS within Windows 7). Use the page’s pull-down menus to pick your version of Win7 and your preferred language. You’ll see a window pop up, similar to the one in Figure 3.

  
  Figure 3. Although it does not provide much information, this page downloads all the necessary files.

  (You can skip Step 1 on that page; I’ll cover everything you need to know.)

  Moving on to Microsoft’s Step 2, click the Windows XP Mode Download button. Choose either Run or Save (the download file): it’s up to you. Select Run, and the XP Mode setup will start automatically after the download finishes; click Save, and you’ll have to manually double-click the downloaded file to start setup.

  The Microsoft site runs a validation check to ensure you’re running a legit copy of Windows 7, before it allows the download. Just follow the prompts. When the download starts, you might as well take a few minutes to stretch your legs — XP Mode is about a 500MB-file.

  When the download is finished, you’ll see the usual Win7 permissions dialog boxes (yes, you do want to run the file you just downloaded) before XP Mode will install its core files.

  When this initial setup ends, XP Mode is on your system. But before you can use it, you have to install the Virtual PC software.

• Step 2: Set up a virtual PC.
  
  Go back to the Microsoft download page and click the Windows Virtual PC Download button under Microsoft’s Step 3.

  The download process might revalidate your PC yet again, and you’ll have to accept another round of download permissions — just follow the prompts — before the VPC software (a relatively small 15.3MB file) downloads and installs.

  After VPC is installed, you’ll need to reboot your PC. You should see several “Configuring updates …” screens, because Microsoft’s Virtual PC software is packaged as a Windows Update (KB 958559).

• Optional Step 3: There’s one more download for non-SP1 Win7 systems.
  
  If you’ve already installed Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 (info/download), skip this step and go on to my Step 4, below.

  If you’re not running SP1, you’ll need to return to the download page and run the Windows XP Mode Update listed under Microsoft’s Step 4.

• Step 4: Set up XP Mode for first use.
  
  Although you now have all the XP Mode pieces in place, it’s not ready to run just yet. Navigate to Win7’s Start / All Programs / Windows Virtual PC and then select Windows XP Mode, as shown in Figure 4.

  
  Figure 4. Launch the final XP Mode setup by drilling down to Windows XP Mode in the Win7 Start menu.

  When XP Mode first launches, you’ll see an abbreviated series of setup screens, very similar to what you see when you first turn on a preconfigured, store-bought PC. There’ll be dialogs to accept the licensing, establish a user password, permit Automatic Updates, and so on. The setup also shows a brief tutorial (see Figure 5).

  
  Figure 5. The information in XP Mode’s short tutorial slide show isn’t deep, but it’s worth reading for general background.

  It’s all very straightforward — just follow the prompts. I usually just accept all the offered defaults.

  When setup’s done, you’re ready to run XP on your Win7 system.

  But wait! It’s not required, but I strongly suggest you now shut everything down. Close the XP Mode Window (it’ll say it’s hibernating) and restart your main system to make sure no loose ends are left hanging.

  When your system restarts, click back to the Win7 All Programs menu and relaunch Windows XP Mode — you’ll hear the familiar XP startup sound, and your virtual XP PC will open in a window on your Win7 desktop.

Congratulations! Your Windows 7 is now running a virtual PC with a complete copy of XP. You’re running two OSes at the same time! How cool is that?

Important first steps with your new XP Mode

Running one operating system inside another obviously creates new opportunities for confusion, so read through this section carefully before trying any of the described actions or commands.

First, take note of the extra toolbar across the top of your XP Mode virtual PC window (shown in Figure 6).

Figure 6. An XP Mode window adds a special toolbar across the top to help manage the VPC and its operating system.

Here’s what these new tools do:

• The toolbar’s Action item offers options to switch to full-screen mode (don’t click it yet!) or to restart, sleep, or close (exit) the XP Mode virtual PC.
• The USB item lets the virtual XP Mode PC connect to USB devices that are, in reality, connected to your real Win7 computer.
• The Tools item offers advanced control over the VPC features. You won’t normally have to do anything with this.
• The Ctrl+Alt+Del item sends that keystroke combination to the XP Mode virtual PC, bringing up XP’s Task Manager — not Windows 7’s.

You can resize, drag, maximize and minimize the XP Mode window — all that works normally, with one exception: when you maximize the XP window, you can’t see any part of your Win7 desktop. So how do you get back to Win7? When in full-screen, XP Mode places a small, fly-out toolbar at the top center of the screen (see Figure 7). It lets you control the VPC or minimize the VPC window and return the Win7 desktop.

If or when the fly-out toolbar retracts, you can always make it reappear by placing your mouse cursor anywhere on the top-center edge of the screen.

Figure 7. When set to full-screen, XP Mode puts a small, fly-out toolbar at the top of the screen.

The fly-out toolbar offers the same Action, USB, and Ctrl+Alt+Del options described earlier, and it adds a pushpin icon to pin the toolbar in place so it’s always visible. I recommend you pin the toolbar in place; it helps avoid any “which OS am I using now?” or “how can I get back to Win7?” confusion.

If you’re an avid XP user, just now switching to Win7, you may be tempted to load up XP Mode with all your old apps and leave it set to full-screen. But that’s not the best use of XP Mode or your apps — if you let it, Windows 7 will give you seamless integration with all applications running in XP Mode.

This is easiest to understand when you see it in action.

Installing and using software in XP Mode

You install software onto an XP virtual machine just as you did on your XP-based PC. For this example, I dug out the oldest mainstream software I could find — a decade-old copy of Microsoft Office XP. That software doesn’t actually need XP Mode (it runs fine inside Win7 natively), but let’s pretend that it runs only on XP.

Win7 lets XP Mode have controlled, but easy, access to the system hardware. I put the Office XP setup CD in my Win7’s optical drive and then, inside the XP Mode window, clicked on XP’s Start button, opening XP’s My Computer. The Office XP setup disc was displayed there, ready for use on the virtual PC.

Still inside XP Mode, I clicked the CD to launch the Office XP setup — and it ran to completion just as it should. (See Figure 8.) As far as Office XP knew, it was running on a completely standard XP box. (Software on an XP Mode PC doesn’t see the Win7 environment that’s really running the show.)

Figure 8. I had no difficulty installing Office XP on the XP Mode virtual machine.

With Office installed, I now have two ways to run it — or any other XP Mode app. In XP Mode, I can launch it the same way I would on any standalone XP PC (click on XP’s Start button, click to All Programs, and select Microsoft Word). That works fine, but it’s a lot of clicks.

Windows 7’s seamless integration reduces that all to one click! As Figure 9 shows, Win7 adds your installed XP Mode apps to its own Start menu. This gives you one-click access to your XP Mode apps instead of having to first launch XP Mode and then manually launch the app.

Figure 9. XP Mode apps are automatically placed in Win7’s All Programs directory under the heading “Windows XP Mode Applications.”

Launching XP Mode applications directly opens them on your Windows 7 desktop — just like any Win7-based app (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Win7’s seamless XP Mode integration hides the VPC’s underpinnings.

Not only does this integration allow quicker access to XP Mode apps, it helps reduce any potential confusion arising from multiple desktops (one for Win7, one for XP) open at the same time.

And when you do want access to the full XP virtual machine, it’s no problem — just click Win7’s Windows XP Mode menu item, and XP Mode launches normally in its own window.

Gotchas? Of course there are gotchas!

Running a complete OS inside another OS isn’t a trivial task. It takes a lot of CPU effort and other machine resources.

For example, XP Mode’s virtual hard drive lives as a .vhd file in the Appdata folder on your for-real drive. A basic XP Mode installation will occupy between 8–10GB of drive space. Install XP Mode apps, and the .vhd file grows accordingly. And, of course, all XP Mode disk activity is really carried out by Win7 on your real drive. There’s an inevitable performance hit.

For these reasons, XP Mode shouldn’t be your first choice in running older software.

Instead, try to install your older software normally in Windows 7. (Most programs run fine.) If you do have trouble, try Win7’s compatibility mode to see whether you can get the software working directly, without the overhead of launching an entirely separate operating system. (See the Microsoft Help & How-To, “Make older programs run in this version of Windows.”)

XP Mode is best reserved for those few programs that simply can’t be made to work in Win7 by other, simpler means. (Note: XP Mode won’t help keep older, Win7-incompatible hardware working.)

Another gotcha: XP Mode isn’t set and forget — it’s a whole separate operating system, and it needs to be kept up-to-date and otherwise maintained just as if it were installed on a standalone system. For example, it should have its own malware protection. (I installed Microsoft’s free Security Essentials [info/download].)

Your well-developed XP skills should make setting up and maintaining your XP VPC a breeze. But if you run into snags or find your XP know-how getting rusty, you can search the Windows Secrets archives for a wealth of information on almost any XP-related question you might have.

It’s not every day you get a free, 100-percent legitimate copy of Windows to use. Enjoy your new XP virtual PC! These additional sites can help with other questions that might come up:

• Windows 7 Help & How-to , “Install and use Windows XP Mode”
• Windows 7 features page, “Windows XP Mode”
• Windows Help & How-to, “Windows Virtual PC”

Third-party, virtual-PC software that works on all Windows versions:

• Oracle’s free VirtualBox
• VMware’s free and commercial VPC products

Considering Windows Vista in context

By Kathleen Atkins

When a new Lounger asks whether Windows Vista is better than Windows XP Professional, a lengthy discussion ensues.

The conversation is every bit as analytical as you might think but also calmer than you might expect, given Vista’s denigrated history. The participants in the discussion are all experts, and it’s worthwhile catching their opinions. More»

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions to which you might be able to provide responses:

☼ starred posts — particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

The Lounge Life column is a digest of the best of the WS Lounge discussion board. Kathleen Atkins is associate editor of Windows Secrets.

Learning that life can be a bit sour

By Tracey Capen One of the joys of interacting with babies is their complete lack of guile. Whatever they experience and feel — hunger, happiness, fear — is immediately and honestly reflected in their facial expressions. Sometimes, their reactions to something new can be quite entertaining — to us. Take, for example, an infant’s first encounter with a lemon; it could be the first time she discovers that everything is not so sweet. Play the video

1.8TB external drive goes down hard

By Fred Langa It can be a disaster when a large Network Attached Storage (NAS) device fails. Because NAS drives and similar network devices (routers, network printers, set-top boxes, etc.) often base their internal OSes on Linux, sometimes you can repair them with standard Linux recovery tools.

Using a bootable Linux CD to rescue NAS drives

Reader Les Chadwick experienced a nightmare problem: the failure of his large Network Attached Storage drive, on which his Windows systems had saved — well, everything.

• “Can you please help? My worst fears have just been realized. I run a small Windows network at home, consisting of three computers and a LaCie 1.8TB Network Space 2 NAS Drive. As a photographer, I take a great many images and eventually archive them to the NAS. I also use the network drive to hold backups of each computer and to store many of my documents and software.

  “This morning I was copying a folder of images across to said NAS drive when, about halfway through, the system suddenly crashed. I rebooted the computer, only to find to my horror that I can no longer access the main partition on the NAS drive, where all my information is stored. I have tried to access it from each of the other two computers, but to no avail.

  “I can, however, access the drive through the LaCie Dashboard and see all the normal configuration data. I can even change the setup if required. What I can’t see or access is the ‘openshare’ partition, which is grayed out.

  “The Dashboard is telling me that there is 1.4TB used on the disk, which is about correct.

  “Obviously, something has become corrupted on the disk, but I have no idea how I can repair the damage done. If I were to lose the information stored on the NAS drive, I’d have to go away and do something drastic!”

Step away from the ledge, Les; I think I can help.

LaCie is a little tightlipped regarding its products’ internals, but it appears that its NAS is controlled by a small, internal, dedicated Linux PC. It’s one of many network devices and peripherals that use this open-source OS. In addition to NAS drives, many routers, network-enabled printers, VoIP boxes, streaming video set-top boxes (Roku, for example), and even Android smart phones and tablets are essentially low-power, special-purpose Linux systems. However, unlike the general-purpose, desktop Linux, most of these embedded versions of Linux are constrained to a very specific task.

But because they all are Linux under the covers, you sometimes can use generic Linux troubleshooting tools and techniques to help correct problems.

Les, your immediate problem is with a Linux hard-drive partition. If you don’t know Linux, you might want to start by reading the lissot.net “Linux partition HOWTO” page. Section nine deals with Linux partition recovery and will help you understand how the LaCie hard disk is set up. The concepts are very similar to those of Windows, but the terminology and tools are different.

A cyberciti.biz article on Linux partition recovery may also help.

Then, pick a Linux partition-recovery tool. You can use the maintenance tools available with the many free Linux distributions (or versions) — including bootable Linux CDs specifically designed for repair and recovery work. One of the most popular Linux repair tools is the free SystemRescueCd (info/download) offered by sysresccd.org.

Boot from your Linux disc and try accessing the LaCie via the network. If you can see the disk, the Linux recovery tools should then be able to do their thing.

If you can’t access the LaCie drives via the network connection, I suggest you open the LaCie housing and physically remove the bad drive. You may choose not to do this, of course; opening the case will almost surely void your warranty with LaCie. But pulling the bad drive also will remove the variables of the network interface and LaCie’s customized software as well.

With the drive pulled from the LaCie housing, you then can install the drive temporarily in a regular PC — ideally, as a non-boot secondary or slave drive. (Need help with installation? See ComputerShopper’s step-by-step, Help & How-To article.)

Boot your PC with a SystemRescueCd disc or USB stick, or a similar Linux tool, and access the system’s hard drives that way. With the LaCie drive directly connected inside the PC, and with the LaCie software dormant, I think you’ll have your best shot at mounting, accessing, and — with luck — repairing it.

Also, if you are successful, having the damaged drive already inside a PC will simplify transferring its contents to a healthy drive.

I noted that the LaCie support page lists two recent updates for the NAS2. Once the dust has settled, make sure your NAS device is fully current.

In fact, it’s a good idea for us all to take a moment and make sure all our Linux mini-PCs — routers, NAS, printers, phones, Nooks, Kindles, etc. — are fully up to date.

How do ‘protected’ systems become infected?

Bob Sanborn is wondering about back doors for malware:

• “One question that keeps coming back to me from lots of friends and associates is ‘How in the world did my PC get infected?’ Their computers almost always have an antivirus program running, and most of the time it’s up-to-date. But often I see older copies of Adobe Acrobat on the system, and it is often hard to tell whether their Java or Flash players are current or not. It doesn’t seem to matter what they are running, though most of the infected machines are either XP or Vista.”

How do protected systems become infected? Sometimes, it’s a PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair) error. Any security system can be compromised by a user’s actions. Those actions may be deliberate, accidental, or generated via malware trickery. See, for example, the April 7 Top Story, “Liza Moon infection: a blow-by-blow account.”

The only solution to PEBKAC errors is user education and vigilance.

The other main infection route is, as you imply, via outdated software. In many cases, new software versions are released specifically to counter newly discovered security flaws or exploits. If you skip an update, you’re leaving a known, exploitable flaw on your system — and you’re no longer protected.

The easiest way I know to keep most software fully current is with the free Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI; site). Follow the installation prompts, set the app to scan your system every week, and have it automatically update any noncurrent software it finds. PSI will auto-update everything it can — and for the rest, offer preconfigured links to manual-upgrade sites.

If you’re still getting regular infections once all the software is current and stays current, it’s time to find a different antivirus/anti-malware tool. Uninstall the current one and try another. Repeat until you’ve found a tool that works.

I’ve gotten good results with Microsoft’s free Security Essentials (MSE), but no AV software works perfectly for everyone. You can find links to MSE and 29 other vendors of free and commercial security tools on the Microsoft page, “Windows 7 consumer security software providers.”

With 30 brands of tools to pick from, one will surely do the job.

A clever product escapes the Microsoft Garage

Here’s an oddball item I ran across while researching a reader’s question: Mouse without Borders.

Microsoft runs a kind of Skunkworks project on its campus. Called The Garage (MS info), it’s intended as a place where good — but maybe a bit off-the-wall — ideas can be explored and developed. Ideas that pan out are often added to future Microsoft products. But this one got released as a free, standalone product.

Mouse without Borders lets you control up to four PCs simultaneously with one keyboard and one mouse. It’s sort of like a KVM switch (definition) but done entirely in software.

It’s easier to understand once you see it in action. Microsoft posted a YouTube video that shows how it works. (The demo starts about one minute into the 2:16-minute video.)

You can read more about it — and find the download link — in the TechNet blog, “Microsoft download from The Garage: Mouse without Borders.”

Another free anonymizer for private browsing

After reading about the SecurityKISS anonymizer software in the July 28 item, “Easy anonymity makes for better online buying,” Karan Marie Cross found a similar product.

• “Just wondering if you’ve reviewed a program called CyberGhost VPN Free. I found this mention of it recently: ‘… a program that temporarily replaces your normal IP address with a ghost address, so that you work online anonymously. It’s perfect if you worry, when connected to the Internet at a public hot spot, that a hacker could intercept passwords and other personal information.'”

CyberGhost VPN (site) appears to be much like the aforementioned SecurityKISS Tunnel (site). Both have free and paid versions, and both can let your Web browsing and online communication “fly under the radar” of many forms of snooping and site-blocking.

Nice find, Karan!

Getting the most from Windows Search — Part 1

By Woody Leonhard Searching in Windows used to be a frustrating, error-prone exercise in which you depended on slow, space-hog programs to bring you dubious results. In Windows 7, search has improved enormously. But there are tricks that make it work even better — some of which are applicable to earlier versions of Windows, too.

Simple settings changes improve searches

Windows XP performs searches but often misses things that should be found. Vista’s a little bit better but still suffers from a faltering memory. You can try one of the old, stalwart alternatives to get decent searches in XP or Vista — Copernic Desktop Search (info page), for example — as a stopgap, but your choices for reliable searching in XP and Vista have dwindled as both OSes fade into the sunset. Google Desktop (page), long one of my favorites, was discontinued two weeks ago.

(XP fading, he says? Yes, indeed. As of last week, according to Microsoft, more consumers now use Windows 7 than XP. MS hasn’t published numbers, so it’s hard to say exactly how it came to that conclusion. But the evidence of Win7’s ascendancy is everywhere — including among Windows Secrets subscribers.)

So, better search capabilities are one of the more compelling reasons for upgrading to Windows 7.

Whatever version of Windows you’re on, improve your search results with one simple change in settings: have Windows always show you filename extensions — the short, typically three-letter suffix on every filename that identifies its type (such as .doc, .xls, .jpg, and so on). If you let Windows hide filename extensions from you, it’s impossible to figure out how and why some searches go wrong.

Force Windows to show filename extensions by clicking Start and Documents (or My Documents). If you can’t see the toolbar (File, Edit, View, Tools, Help), tap the Alt key and it will appear. Click Tools/Folder Options and then select the View tab. Uncheck the box that says Hide extensions for known file types.

While you’re here, you might also want to have Windows show you hidden files. Simply click the radio button that says Show hidden files, folders and drives. Click OK.

Now you’re ready to search.

Indexing significantly speeds up searching

There are two different ways to look for things on a computer.

First, Windows can do a simple scan — the dumb, sequential, brute-force approach. When Windows Search scans a folder or a drive, it looks at every file, one a time, searching for whatever you seek. There are no sign posts, no indices, no shortcuts; the scan runs file by file. Think of leafing through the Encyclopedia Britannica, one sentence at a time. It’s a tough, slow way to look.

If you’re smart, you’ll let Windows index your files first. Windows 7 creates an index of the most common file types, in the most commonly searched locations, then keeps the index updated on the fly. (It doesn’t index all files in all places.) That way, when you’re looking for a specific term, Windows needs only to look in the index. Bang!

If you frequently search for items outside of Windows’ preordained locations, it’ll make searches much faster if you tell Windows to index those other locations, too. More about that in my next column.

Indexing has long been the Achilles’ heel of search technology. Earlier add-on programs took forever to compile and update the indices. The indexing software would also take over the machine from time to time, slowing everything else you were trying to do to a crawl or a stall. In Windows 7, indexing takes place reasonably effectively while the machine’s idling. Although you may have to wait for initial indices to be built, once they’re in place the updates go through with a minimum of fuss and bother.

The way to search — wisely and sparingly

Windows 7 puts search boxes everywhere, most noticeably at the bottom of the Start menu and in the upper-right corner of every Windows Explorer window. There are also search boxes in many major applications’ File/Open dialog boxes. Microsoft’s Office applications use the Windows search engine.

If you type a word or phrase into a search box, Windows 7 checks against the index, looking for matches in the current folder and in all the folders underneath the current folder. It searches for all kinds of files — documents and text files, naturally, but also the metadata tags in pictures and music, e-mail messages (if you use one of the Microsoft mail programs), and even the contents of webpages.

So the trick is to go to the right folder — one likely to contain the information you want — and start the search there. If you search from the Start menu, Windows looks in all indexed locations, and that can take much longer than a search of a specific folder.

For example, if you’re looking for an e-mail message, fire up your e-mail program and start your search there. If you’re looking for a song, use Windows Media Player. (Some other media players have search capabilities, but many of them — including iTunes — don’t use the Windows search routines.) Looking for a tag on a picture? Try going into the Pictures Library (click Start/Pictures) and search from there.

Know Windows Search’s idiosyncrasies

Most people who can’t find what they’re looking for get tripped up by one of Windows’ idiosyncrasies. Its search engine simply doesn’t work like searches in the dinosaur DOS days. So it’s important that you understand exactly what the search tool looks for — and what it skips.

Unfortunately, Windows Search doesn’t use the same search criteria you’re probably accustomed to — it’s quite different from searching in DOS, say, or searching inside Word, or searching with just about any search engine you’ve ever used. Windows Search will find a match in only two cases:

• When looking at the text inside a file, Windows Search will get a match if the text you’ve entered appears at the beginning of a word inside a file. Unlike any search engine you’ve ever used, it doesn’t even try to match text inside the words. For example, if you search for the word Secrets, Windows will come up with a match on a file that contains the text My secrets, but it won’t find files that contain the text WindowsSecrets.
• When looking at file names, Windows Search will trigger a match if the text you’re looking for appears at the beginning of a file name — just as with text searches. It will also match a filename when the text appears immediately after a space or a period. For example, searching for Secrets won’t match WindowsSecrets.doc, but it will match SecretSummary.xls (beginning of filename), Windows Secrets.doc (follows the space in the filename) and Windows.Secrets (follows the period).

Those two gotchas, which are more or less undocumented, account for about 90 percent of the confusion I see with Windows searches.

Extended indexing, wildcards, Boolean operators

In “Getting the most from Windows Search — Part 2,” I’ll explain how to index unusual folders outside of the normal places — how, for example, to index files that aren’t in My Documents or the Windows libraries. I’ll also talk about using wildcards such as * and ? (which don’t work like DOS or Word, either), and Boolean operators such as OR and NOT (which don’t … well, you get the idea).

Getting the most out of Windows searches requires understanding the rules.

Leaving long cookie trails throughout the Web

By Susan Bradley Web-browsing leaves behind lots of history about what you’ve done and where you’ve been online. Have you looked at your browser’s cookie files lately? You can — here’s how.

Taking a look at what’s inside your cookies

The subject of browser cookies is a two-sided tale. Their good side makes it easier to visit websites and set browsing preferences; their bad side compromises our privacy. Last year, the Wall Street Journal featured a multipart series on the dark side of cookies — how they’re used to track who we are and how we browse the Web. Reading it could almost knock you off your Internet habit.

To give you examples of what you might find in browser cookies, I took a look at mine. There are two ways to see what they know about me: using a browser’s own tools or via third-party utilities.

Some of the third-party tools I discuss below might be flagged by your antivirus software as suspect. If you don’t feel comfortable trying them, you’ll have to stick to the basic information easily viewed on your system.

Browser cookies are specific to the browser they’re created on. But you’ll also run into another type of cookie — Flash cookies, which work across multiple browsers. In your zeal to clear out browser cookies, you’ll probably forget all about Flash cookies. Woody Leonhard covered them in his Aug. 5, 2010, Top Story, “Eliminate Flash-spawned ‘zombie’ cookies.”

In Windows 7, Flash cookies are typically found in this hidden folder:

UsersUserprofileAppData RoamingMacromedia FlashPlayer#SharedObjects

In Windows XP they are stored in the user profile under:S

MacromediaFlashPlayer #Shared Objects

You can easily find your Flash-cookie settings in Win7 by clicking Start/Control Panel/Flash Player. Click Local Storage Setting by Site, and you can review the sites that have been tracking you via Flash-based sites. (See Figure 1.)

In my case, I had cookies from websites that I don’t even recognize. If you’d like to know when Flash sites are collecting new information, you can click Ask me before allowing new sites to save information on this computer. This ensures you’re notified when any new site adds tracking information.

Figure 1. Adobe Flash Player settings

Digging deeper into the list of tracking sites

To find out more about these sites, I downloaded NirSoft’s FlashCookiesView app (info). Your AV software might flag this utility because it’s not digitally signed, but it’s safe to install.

Once I had FlashCookiesView running, I clicked Options, Display Mode, and then Automatic to see the details — mixed in with hexadecimal code — tracked by the vendors. Sort by file size, and you’ll find that some Flash cookies are quite large and keep a history of the latest page or site you were on. (I don’t remember viewing a video about the Jersey Shore star Snooki, but apparently I did so at one time.)

Figure 2. NirSoft view of cookies

Flash cookies are usually larger than browser cookies, and they stay in your system longer because they do not expire and are not as easily cleared. They typically store the last website visited, the user profile used to visit the site, and the dates when the cookie was created and most recently accessed.

Because Flash cookies don’t expire (unlike browser cookies), vendors are using them more and more. I found that I had more Flash cookies than IE or Firefox cookie files.

Two points to keep in mind: Deleting Flash cookies inside the Flash-settings dialog box removes them from all browsers; deleting cookies from within a browser doesn’t delete flash cookies.

In-depth views of IE and Mozilla browser cookies

To continue my exploration of cookies, I downloaded NirSoft’s IECookiesView (page) and MozillaCookiesView (info) tools. Both tools show active cookies and those that have been deleted but which have left remnants behind. (See Figure 3.) You can click View and then select a deleted-cookie file for details about the sites that placed it on your machine.

Figure 3. Comparing cookie files in IE and Mozilla browsers

What about Google’s Chrome? It, too, keeps track of websites with cookies. Its settings can be adjusted by clicking the wrench icon and then Options/Under the hood. Click Content settings and All Cookies and site data in order to view which websites have left tracking beacons behind.

In Opera, right-click the Opera tab and then Settings/Preferences/Advanced/Cookies. Review your options as noted in Opera’s privacy settings page.

If you haven’t reviewed your cookies in a while, I urge you to take a look at them. Delete ones that are questionable. Above all else, check out those Flash cookies you may not have known were there.