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Windows XP mystery solved
The generosity of bloggers never fails to astound me, and God knows, I often need your help.
Such was the case again this week. On Saturday I posted an entry noting that I was unable to do a slide show of almost any of my hundreds of digital photos in various folders sprinkled throughout my PC. When I clicked through to the folder, the Picture Tasks pane disappeared, and with it, the option to "View as a slide show."
Ryan Westendorf in Ames, Iowa, took pity on me and asked to be invited into my office virtually. After ten minutes of noodling around through XP's Remote Assistance, he hit on the solution:
For each folder (alas, this can't be done on the top-level Pictures folder), if you right-click the folder, go to Properties, and select the Customize tab, you need to change the folder type from the default (Documents) to Pictures. You'll probably want to check the box to apply that choice to all subfolders as well.
Thanks, Ryan. Enjoyed the company. I'll have to check my sked to see the next time I plan to be in Iowa ...
Now, if I can just figure out why my popup dialogue box (with an option to launch Microsoft Scanner and Camera Wizard) has gone away whenever I connect a compact flash card, I'll make my peace with Windows XP. (Still can't network it with my wireless Macs, but I've given up that battle for now.)
July 9, 2003 at 12:43 AM in Computing | Permalink
Comments
You mean, you're not coming to Gnomedex? ;)
Posted by: Chris Pirillo at Jul 8, 2003 11:56:13 PM
Ah, forgot that Gnomedex is in the fair city of Des Moines. As are the first Democratic caucuses next spring. Iowa's happnin'!
Posted by: JD at Jul 9, 2003 12:29:18 AM
Re: your compact flash card problem, this is a result of Windows XP's AutoPlay.
When you connect a USB device (e.g. compact flash card, digital camera, etc.) or insert a blank media disc into a CDRW or DVDRW, Windows XP pops up a dialog box with choices of how you want to act on that disc or device.
There's an option on that dialog window that says "Always do the selected action." Clicking that option's checkbox banishes the dialog and just passes you through to whatever option you selected to always happen. I would guess that you clicked that checkbox without thinking at one point, unintentionally banishing the dialog.
To get back the dialog box, do this:
1. Connect your device.
2. Open My Computer. You should see your connected device listed there (or if its a CDRW or DVDRW drive, it's already there)
3. Right-click on your device and select Properties.
4. Click on the AutoPlay tab.
5. Change the option from "Select an action to perform" to "Prompt me each time to choose an action" (or leave it as "Select an action," and select the action you actually want to happen every time).
That should do it. :-)
Posted by: Greg at Jul 9, 2003 5:00:03 AM
Hi Greg, thanks. Unhappily, that didn't do it, and it's pretty frustrated. I've right-clicked the device, gone into Properties | Autoplay, and the check is indeed next to Prompt me each time to choose an action. I've unchecked it, rechecked it, and rebooted -- and still, when I connect a device, the dialogue box fails to come up.
Looks like something's wrong with XP. Maybe I should do a clean reinstall, although that always worries me.
Posted by: JD at Jul 9, 2003 12:26:34 PM
JD, I found another trick to try with your Compact Flash card. It's not the exact same thing, but Microsoft at least admits a problem with Sony Memory Sticks. The suggestion is to leave the card in the computer, and then restart the computer. For some reason the registry forgets how to handle certain media types. It's probably just another dead end, but at least it is something to try.
Source: AutoPlay May Not Work After You Insert a "Memory Stick"
Posted by: Ryan Westendorf at Jul 9, 2003 8:47:15 PM
I'm a total dork for waiting this long to see whether the dazzle driver reinstall worked...
I'm thinking instead of reinstalling the driver for the device try deleting and letting XP reinstall the driver for the actual USB port that's giving you grief (have you tried and/or had success plugging other devices into the USB port?). Also... I think scanreg system restore would have been a better idea if you could have restored the system to a time when the drive worked. This has been a problem for at least 2 weeks, no? Good luck!
Posted by: Madperc at Jul 10, 2003 8:17:19 PM
Ryan: Tried your trick with rebooting and leaving it attached. No luck. Thanks for the idea.
Madperc: Yep, it's been messed up for a few weeks now. Actually, I re-read the Dazzle instructions, and they said that for Windows XP, I don't need to install ANY drivers, so I removed the drivers I had installed, to no effect.
Other devices work on the USB port, I just don't know of any other devices that are supposed to summon up a dialogue box, as a flash card does.
How do you do a scanreg system restore? Different from just a System Restore? Appreciate all the help on this sucker.
Posted by: JD at Jul 10, 2003 11:41:17 PM
Scanreg is the same thing as a system restore.
Seems to be pretty narrowed down the the device, anyhow, so scanreg probably won't make the dialogue box appear. Next step is to make the Dazzle people send you a free replacement, looks like! Good luck. I'll snoop around and ask people about it. You may want to try and google out any FAQ forums for Dazzle to see if yours isn't the only computer with this probbie.
Posted by: Madperc at Jul 12, 2003 9:12:50 AM
Actually, I'm convinced the problem lies with XP, not Dazzle. The SimpleScan FlashLink flash card reader I had been using up until April still works, but it no longer gets me a dialogue box when I attach it to the PC's USB port and insert a flash card. I just get a window displaying the contents of Drive G (the card). Dazzle's off the hook, so I'll have to keep playing to see if I can find a solution.
Posted by: JD at Jul 13, 2003 4:18:24 PM
Hi Guys,
If you are having problems with Windows XP's autoplay try this link to Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c680a7b6-e8fa-45c4-a171-b389cfacdad&displaylang=en
If the problem is with a removable drive (i.e. digital cam, card reader etc.) first power up the device so that it can be recognized when you run the program. It corrected my issue with a Fujifilm digital cam.
Bob
Posted by: Bob at Dec 6, 2003 12:58:31 PM
I ran into the same problem on my XP machine, and was driven to the brink of insanity, with everyone saying "It's got to be in the autoplay settings on the device."
Anyway, here is what I found after a 3 hour tour of MSDN, Google and any other search engine I thought would help. The following comes from this link:
http://www.pcbuyersguide.com/software/system/WinXP-tips.html
----
You can disable autorun features under Windows XP with the option to easily re-enable them again later on, using the "Turn Off Autoplay" function in the Group Policy Editor, gpedit.msc. You'll find it under Administrative Templates > System. An even easier (and more basic) way of controlling Autoplay is found simply by right-clicking the CD icon, choosing Properties and then selecting various options in the Autoplay tab. You can disable or enable autoplay for individual file types, or restore default settings easily.
---
I tooled around in here a bit, and found that there are 2 settings, one in the computer configuration, and one in the user configuration trees of the policy editor. I noticed that they were both set to 'Not Configured'. So, I did a famous Microsoft tech support response, I reset them both. Set them to disabled, and then back to 'Not Configured' and wha-la.
I don't know if this is the same problem you are experiencing, but I hope it helps fix it (if you haven't done so by now). Good luck!
Posted by: Rob at Dec 20, 2003 4:52:51 PM
See the article
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/11/autoplay/default.aspx
At the top there is a download which includes an autoplay post-mortem diagnostic tool (APPMDiag.exe). Enter the name of your removable drive (e.g., "g:\" -- note that the slash is important) and it will tell you the sequence of things Windows considered before it took the action it did for the last autoplay action on the drive.
I used this to locate my problem, which turns out to be caused by windows having incorrect information on the drive name when I was using the drive properties autoconfiguration tool. For some reason, Windows was thinking my G: drive was actually the H: drive (my SanDisk ImageMate has two devices, G: and H:) and apparently the properties were being set for H: and not G:.
I fixed this using the registry editor. Probably not your problem but the post-mortem tool was **really** handy.
Posted by: Steve at Dec 30, 2003 11:06:16 AM
I downloaded the APPMDiag.exe software and nothing happens. A window opens that allows me to type anything I want into a field called drive, but the run button is greyed out. The main window is blank. Any hints on how to run this software.
Posted by: Jim T at Jan 3, 2004 9:12:02 PM
I am also having problems with my autoplay. I have a rather new computer I built myself, but I highly doubt that's the problem. For a long while the autoplay worked fine, but one day it just stopped... I have no real idea as to why.
But not only am I have problems with my Dazzle 6in1 Reader, I also have the same exact problem when I put in a CD or DVD in either one of my drives! I have gone through so many online help areas and none of them have restored my computer to a working scenario. If anyone can help, I would GREATLY appreciate it.
Posted by: Nick S at Jan 23, 2004 5:43:40 PM
Download Powertoys for Windows from Microsoft www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/ pro/downloads/powertoys.asp - install TweakUI and then enable autoplay for removable drives (in the "my computer" section
Posted by: tim at Jan 24, 2004 9:08:59 AM
Have you tried Rob's "gpedit.msc" fix? Try it, it works! I searched, and tried, all other fixes, but this one worked. I set the "Turn Autoplay Off" function to disabled(it was "Not Configured")in both the user and Computer configs, AND IT WORKED!!!! Thanks Rob and go luck to others finding this post.
Nick
Posted by: Nick at Mar 12, 2004 11:09:02 PM
Having the same problem, I stumbled across your site. Tried all of the suggestions without success. Then came across http://www.xpforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61698. Removed realsched.exe from the processes running for the user in XP, and immediately the Autoplay functions correctly.
I hope this helps.
Posted by: Roy at Mar 30, 2005 9:36:28 PM
I also searched for an answer and unfortunately didn't find it here. But after looking a little further (about 2 hours) I found this MS tool (Autoplay Repair Tool) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C680A7B6-E8FA-45C4-A171-1B389CFACDAD&displaylang=en
Posted by: Maurice at Jul 5, 2007 4:43:05 AM
