Two on W-XP

[KARL]

First: Ever since a power cut when the machine was in use, it insists on going through a blue screen full disk check (cancellable by pressing any button) at boot-up. Is there any way to end this mild irritant, short of full re-installation of Windows ?

Second: While I was away someone thought he was being helpful by installing a trial copy of a well known software package on every computer in the office, including mine, which he supposedly cracked to get around the expiry deadline. I don't care about the others but I do object to the "my computer" now showing the package's icon rather than the usual Hard Drive icon for drive C. Although I have removed the package, when trying to view contents of C I get an invitation to install the package again. I can of course view C the longer way round but my question is similar to above: can I get back to the original drive icon without full reinstallation of Windows ?

There is too much valuable stuff on the machine for me to see reinstallation of the OS as an attractive option unless everything has collapsed and soldiering on with irritants is not an option. I need to keep going for about six more months.

[deggers316]

can't u go to system restore and go back to the date before the somebody installed all stuff on your comp

[stevie21]

If you let the disk check run without cancelling it, does it still run next time? Usually it'll keep starting until you've allowed it to complete as it is an important thing to check if your PC hasn't shutdown properly for example. Let it run through from start to finish and check it next time your computer loads (after having shut it down or restarted it properly).

Failing that I can only think that the "chkdsk" utility is set to run at every startup regardless of whether it's needed or not. Check the "startup" tab of your start > programs menu and also click
Start > Run then paste in
msconfig
and see if there's anything that looks like "chkdsk" set to run under the Startup tab..
Maybe even under "Scheduled Tasks" in the Control Panel?

For the icon, I'd go with "System Restore"

[KARL]

Thanks for answers - I can find no explanation for the diskcheck. I too initially let the check run through because in my experience it does it once then remains satisfied - but not in this case: every time the machine is booted up it starts with this.

The good news is that when I switched my machine on this morning, the icon (second point) was gone - I can only assume rebooting after the deletion would have produced this result straight away. "One out of two ain't bad".