XP Service Pack 1 hoses CD-ROM and floppy-disk access

XP Service Pack 1 hoses CD-ROM and floppy-diskaccess

By Brian Livingston

Microsoft’s launch of its new Windows Server 2003 line is just taking place as I write this, and my readers are starting to send fascinating tips about its secrets. But while I’m compiling a new batch of articles on that subject, the most interesting gotcha I’ve heard of this week involves Windows XP with Service Pack 1 installed.

Jeffery Davidson, manager of information systems for the ATP Oil & Gas Corporation, sent in the following well-documented tale. Have a listen:

• “Last week, my company purchased two new Panasonic Toughbook laptops for some of our field personnel. I configured them with Windows XP and Office XP, made sure that all of the patches and drivers were installed, including XP Service Pack 1a, added all of the third-party software they needed, and sent them out to the users.

  “The users both came back yesterday and complained that they couldn’t get the floppy drives to work. After duplicating the problem, I spoke to Panasonic’s tech support, who told me that this was a problem with the SP1 installation. He referred me to Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article 811839 — ‘An I/O Device Error May Occur When You Access the Floppy Disk Drive in Windows XP Service Pack 1.’

  “Apparently, the problem is caused by Windows dynamically changing the computer processor power state to a deeper idle state (from the C2 state to the C3 state).

  “To fix the problem. the article referred me to another KB article, 811840 — ‘How to Change the PromoteLimit Value for the Transition from C2 to C3 Power States.’ This fix involved editing two strings of four bytes in six binary keys in the registry, increasing the time that must elapse from 100 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds before Windows XP promotes the processor from a C2 to a C3 power state.

  “When I changed the registry, the two laptops were able to access their floppy drives successfully.

  “All well and good. Here’s where I started to get concerned. Late last week, one user who had a Compaq EVO D510 desktop machine suddenly started experiencing severe endless loop crashes. Unable to repair the problem, I decided to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows XP.

  Initially, I was unable to restore the system from Compaq’s restore disks. The technical support folks at Compaq decided the problem was a bad restore disk. I was able to manually install XP, and then manually install the hardware drives from the corrupt disk.

  “After the installation, I again installed ancillary programs and downloaded patches, including XP Service Pack 1a. After SP1 was installed, I began to experience problems with the CD-ROM drive intermittently not reading data from the different CD-ROMs I was trying to install from.

  “The error message I would get was ‘An I/O error has occurred while installing a file. This is usually caused by bad installation media or a corrupt installation file.’ I could either abort or retry. However, retrying did nothing but repeat the error message.

  “I decided to search the Microsoft knowledge base for ‘I/O Errors’ and promptly saw the same KB articles I used yesterday to fix the laptops. I decided to try the same thing on this desktop, even though I hadn’t experienced problems with the floppy drive.

  “Surprisingly enough, it worked. But that’s what bothers me. Why is XP SP1 causing these problems with different kinds of I/O operations? This has now occurred on three out of the 60-odd machines I’m responsible for, so it’s widespread enough to want Microsoft to come up with a better solution than manually editing several binary strings in the registry. For that matter, I’d tell them myself, but they don’t have a great feedback system, as you probably know.”

I’m sending reader Davidson a certificate for a free book, CD, or DVD of his choice for being the first to submit a comment I printed. To send me more information about this, or to send me a tip on any other subject, visit WindowsSecrets.com/contact.

Intruder can get administrative privileges

I’m now developing the capability to conduct a full review of all new Microsoft alerts and bulletins. In future issues of the paid version of this newsletter, I’ll “triage” them for you, selecting the most important and translating Redmond’s turgid prose into something comprehensible.

More important, I’ll print my findings and my readers’ conclusions on problems and workarounds that affect Microsoft patches – and even tell you which upgrades not to install. Here’s a taste of what’s to come in future issues:

• Intruder can get administrative privileges.
  A newfound hole in Windows allows an unauthorized person who logs on to a user or guest account to run code that can elevate him or her to administrator. This wouldn’t concern machines that are stored in locked rooms, but does make PCs that various people have access to throughout the day vulnerable. The problem (and the related patch) affects all versions of Windows XP, 2000, and NT 4.0. More info

Other significant bulletins:

• Critical URL flaws require upgrades to Outlook Express 5.5 and 6.0
• Critical URL flaws also found in Internet Explorer 5.01, 5.5, and 6.0
• White paper describes how to migrate applications to Windows Server 2003

EditHistory: Why re-type everything?

Type, type, type! That’s all I do every day, but I don’t have to pound my keyboard any more than necessary, thanks to EditHistory. This little utility turns ordinary Windows edit fields into drop-down lists. Click Open or Save on the File menu, for example, and your most recently used document names and folders are displayed for easy pickens. Of course, some entries could pose security headaches, so EditHistory allows you to control what gets stored. The new version 2.1, released just last week, has a resizeable main window, a configurable English/French interface, and is compatible with Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, NT, and XP. More info

New ruler of liberated nation will be determined by Fox TV reality show

There isn’t much funny about Iraq right now, but humor rag The Onion found an angle by reporting that the country’s new leader would be chosen by audience members of a new Fox series, “Appointed by America.”

“A panel of celebrity judges will help eliminate two contestants each week, leaving one lucky winner the undisputed leader of Iraq at the end of the season,” the site says. Viewers will be able to participate by casting phone-in votes, although the program’s director notes that “voting is restricted to calls originating from within the continental U.S.”

You know they couldn’t say it on the Internet if it weren’t true… More info