Solution for persisting "Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer" error

Solution for persisting “Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer” error

My Windows 7 laptop began displaying a notification/error every time I logged in:

Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer because of a problem that occured with your paging file configuration when you started your computer. The total paging file size for all disk drives may be somewhat larger than the size you specified

After clicking OK, it would open the virtual memory settings without any explanation of what you were supposed to check or do there.

This evidently happens because pagefile.sys, the file that Windows uses for virtual memory, has become corrupted in some way.

This Microsoft Answers article recommends running an SFC (system file check). Here’s how to run an SFC. This did not solve the problem for me, but it is something you should try first.

Here’s how I cleared it up:

1. Log in under a local Administrator account. (Do this after each restart in these instructions as well.)
2. If it’s not already open, open the virtual memory settings by rich-clicking on Computer, → Properties → Advanced System Settings → click the Advanced tab → Under Performance, click Settings, go to Advanced tab, finally under Virtual Memory section click the Change button.
3. Uncheck the Autmatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox.
4. Set a “Custom size” for the paging file on the C drive: 0MB initial, 0MB maximum.
5. Click OK, close all dialog boxes, and restart your computer.
6. After logging in again, delete the file C:\pagefile.sys
   1. To do this, you may need to change your folder settings so you can see it first. Open a window of your C: drive and click Organize at the top, then Folder and Search Options
   2. Click the View tab, and make sure Show hidden files, folders and drives is turned on, and that Hide protected system files is not checked.
   3. Click OK and go back to your C: drive, find pagefile.sys and delete it.
7. Now go back to the virtual memory settings (see step 2 above) and set the paging file for the C: drive to System managed size, and then make sure the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox is checked.
8. Click OK, close all dialog boxes, and restart your computer.

A summary of what this does: By temporarily turning off virtual memory, you allow yourself to delete the (now-corrupt) paging file. Then when you re-enable virtual memory, Windows automatically builds a new paging file from scratch, and voilà, problem solved.

I was helped by this thread at geekstogo.com although I did not find it necessary to do any editing of the Registry or any of that jazz. Try the simplest solution first, I always say.

Windows 7 updates keep installing, restarting and failing

Over the past week and a half, my Win 7 laptop has been trying to automatically install the same set of updates and failing over and over again. Sometimes the automatic install/restart cycle would happen in the middle of the night when the dumb thing was supposed to be sleeping. It would restart, say “Configuring Windows Updates”, then “Updates Failed, Reverting Changes” (or something like that).

The update history showed they mostly failed with error 80071A90. The help file on that error recommended running Windows Update manually after starting Windows in safe mode with networking, but the Windows Update service will not run in safe mode.

I found the solution in this Microsoft Answers article:

Assuming the updates-in-question include KB2515325, KB2492386, KB2506928, KB2512715 and/or KB982018 & all is well with your computer otherwise:

1. Run a manual check for updates per http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/How-can-I-tell-if-my-computer-is-up-to-date
2. Select (check) only KB2515325, KB2492386, KB2506928 and/or KB2512715 & install them; follow all prompts.
3. Now run another manual check for updates, if necessary, and install KB982018 by itself; again, follow all prompts.

Opening the Temporary Internet Files folder for Outlook attachments (OLK5A, for example)

One of our employees opened up a PowerPoint attachment (ugh, I know) from an email in Outlook. He then edited it extensively and saved it using the File → Save As menu command. Unfortunately he did not bother changing the folder he was saving it to, with the result that it was saved in whatever temporary folder Outlook uses for holding email file attachments. The problem is that this folder is hidden and very hard to find. Even typing in the path directly in Windows Explorer does not work. So when he closed out of PowerPoint he realized he was in danger of losing all the work he had done unless he could find and open that folder.

I found the solution here after some searching, but even that page only explains how to learn where this temporary folder is located; it does not make it clear how to actually open the file. I found how to do it though.

Open Registry Editor (Click Start → Run, type regedit and hit Enter). Browse to the following location in the registry structure, depending on the version of Outlook you use:

Outlook 97	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Outlook\Security
Outlook 98	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.5\Outlook\Security
Outlook 2000	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Security
Outlook 2002/XP	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security
Outlook 2003	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security
Outlook 2007	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security

Double click the OutlookSecureTempFolder value, and copy that value to the clipboard (i.e., select all the text, right-click and hit Copy on the popup menu).

Then go to Start → Run and paste the value in, and hit enter. An Explorer window will open showing the folder, containing probably every attachment you’ve ever opened.

How to protect yourself from viruses without installing anti-virus software.

You don’t really need antivirus software on your Windows computer. Over the past several years, antivirus scanning has become much more centralized. Most of what you download over email or at work has already been scanned for viruses and malware anyway — why pay Norton or McAffee to have it scanned again once it reaches your hard drive? And why have another program running on your computer, slowing it down and wasting resources?

Running antivirus software on Windows these days is almost like getting a smallpox vaccine. Your individual situation may vary (see below), but very likely you can be both free and safe without antivirus software by taking a few basic precautions and being generally security-aware. You may already be aware of these precautions, but you may not have known that following them may effectively eliminate the need for stand-alone antivirus software on your computer.

1. Use Gmail (or your corporate account) to send and receive file attachments via email. Many free email providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, scan attachments for viruses and malware for you, so you know the file is clean when it gets to your hard drive. Many businesses, both small and large, do this as well on their own internal mail servers. (If there is a good way of testing and verifying email providers’ attachment scanning claims and abilities, though, I would like to know about it.)
2. Use the Internet from behind a router. Don’t plug directly into your Cable or DSL modem. Plug a router into that thing (a wireless router if that’s how you like to roll) and then use that. Most off-the-shelf routers have built-in firewalls that prevent the most common attacks.
3. Limit the amount of software you download. Get the programs you like installed and then keep your computer the way you like it for a good long while. Don’t be constantly looking for and downloading new utilities.
   • Especially don’t download anything in response to a popup window, ever. If you ever get a popup warning you about viruses on your computer, for example, it’s a lie. Just close it.
4. Don’t use LimeWire or BitTorrent (unless you really know what you're doing out there). As Dylan Boom said in this comment at Lifehacker, “I work at Best Buy for Geek Squad, and the computers that come in with the most viruses, etc. normally have two things on them: AVG as their virus protection software, and Limewire.” It is impossible to verify the authenticity or origin of anything that passes through a torrent service (not counting md5 signatures on Linux distributions etc). Consequently people love to insert malware on stuff and send it on to unsuspecting downloaders as the real deal.
5. Use open-source whenever possible and download directly from the software’s main website.
6. Stick to mainstream, trusted websites and access them through your bookmarks or browser shortcuts whenever possible – don’t get in the habit of visiting the same website repeatedly by typing its name into Google (or any search engine) and clicking on the top result. Stay away from porn sites and any place offering something for nothing. Don’t click on ads.
7. Keep your computer updated. Windows has a provision for automatically downloading and installing security updates and fixes – make sure it’s turned on and that it’s working.
8. Use a more secure web browser such as Chrome or Firefox. Make sure it is fully up to date (instructions for how to do that on Chrome and Fireox).
   • Don’t use Internet Explorer. Even the US DoHS has advised against it. While that security advisory is a few years old by now, the fact remains that IE’s security model is too broken to trust.

Note that if you don't follow most of these practices already, no antivirus program is going to be able to keep you safe indefinitely anyway!

The main principal here is to clean and verify all the ways that you exchange information into and out of your computer: that mainly means email, web browsing, your physical internet connection, and being cautious about installing new software. Note that you may still need antivirus software installed if:

• You need to share files through shared network drives or email accounts at work that you know are not scanned by antivirus software. (this would include things like shared folders on Dropbox accounts, which, as far as I can tell are not scanned for viruses.)
• You regularly exchange files using thumb drives or external hard drives owned by other people.

Comments and proposed changes & additions welcome!

Update, Nov 11 2009 — After I submitted this post a couple of times at Lifehacker, they came up with their own variant: Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft’s Security Tools Are Good Enough [sic]. (Not suggesting there's a relationship there. Well OK maybe I am.) I still believe Microsoft’s security tools are unnecessary, however supremely adequate they may be for the job they're supposed to do, but there are a lot of good points in the article, and I highly recommend it.

Converting MOV files to AVI for use with video editing software

If your camera records in MOV format, you may find it difficult to use with Windows Movie Maker or other Windows-platform movie editors. Fortunately there is a way to convert these files to AVI format.

First, download and install Quick Media Converter. There are a lot of free/shareware programs for this purpose out there, but this one was recommended by the venerable Lifehacker, works well, and is free. The instructions in this post were written for the 3.6.5 version of the software but should work with later versions.

Here is a pic of Quick Media Converter's main screen, with some annotation:

1. Click the DivX button (1) and select the "Win Media Player Compatible" option.
2. Drag and drop your MOV movie clip file into the file list area (2)
3. Click the (i) button (3) to display information about the clip in the pane at right (5)
4. Click the folder button (4) and select a place to save the converted file (e.g., My Documents)
5. In the file information area (5) scroll down until you see Width and Height information, as shown. Ideally this should be 640x480 but if not it's not a dealbreaker :)
6. If necessary, change the output width and height numbers (6) to match the numbers in the info area (5)
7. Click the convert button (7).

The program will then convert and drop an AVI file into your selected folder, for use in the editing software of your choice!

Note that you now have two (likely rather large) copies of the same video clip. Later when you are done publishing your finished video to YouTube or Vimeo, if you feel you want to keep a copy of the original clip for archiving purposes, I recommend you keep only the original one (the MOV or "QuickTime" file) and delete the other. It is easy to convert from MOV to AVI, but hard to go the other direction.

Creating and sharing a video on Vimeo using Windows Movie Maker

These are just the bare basics. Windows Movie Maker comes free with Windows and is simple to use for creating a basic video.

Most Canon cameras record in AVI format. Although you could just upload this file directly from your camera to Vimeo, AVI files are very large, so it's better to convert them to WMV format first, using Windows Movie Maker. This creates a much smaller file that looks and sounds just as good, and also uploads much faster. Plus if you want to edit anything out, or string multiple clips together in your movie, or add music, you can do so easily in this program.

1. Copy the .AVI file off your camera's SD card to somewhere on your hard drive
2. Open Windows Movie Maker and click the Import Media button on the toolbar and import your .AVI movie clip that you just copied.
3. An icon for the imported movie clip will appear in the upper middle area of Movie Maker. Drag the clip down into the Video area of the Timeline at the bottom of the screen.
4. You can play around with adding music, editing and effects to your movie, or combining multiple clips (by simply repeating the three steps above for each movie clip). However, if your whole movie is in this one clip and you don't need to edit anything out, then you are essentially ready to save your movie!
1. Click the Publish Movie button in the toolbar.
2. In the next screen choose This Computer and click Next
3. Type a unique and super-creative name and location for the saved movie file and click Next
4. On the Choose settings for your movie screen, select the Compress to option. You will need to find the right file size for this option, which is easy. Start with a low size (in MB) and go up, keeping an eye on the "Bit Rate" option at the bottom left of the screen. When it reads 1.8 or 1.9 Mbps, you've found the optimum file size ¹.
5. Click Publish!
5. Go to the Vimeo group and upload your newly created movie.
6. Note: If this is a private movie, make sure you click the "Privacy" settings on the left while the movie is uploading, and set the appropriate privacy options! ("Who can see this video: Nobody else" is the simplest; it will still be visible to private group members.)

Vimeo may take some time before the video is ready. Mornings are the best times to upload. Sundays and Mondays are the busiest days, and uploaded videos could take much longer to finish converting on these days.

¹ — the 1.8 Mbps number comes from Vimeo’s compression guidelines for standard definition video.

Windows error: Directory or File could not be created

I once helped a guy out with a wierd problem: he was trying to save an Excel Spreadsheet to a USB flash drive, and kept coming up with this error:

The file or directory could not be created.

We tried dragging and dropping the file – same error. There was plenty of space available on the USB drive, and fragmentation was not an issue.

I finally figured out that the problem was that the flash drive’s root directory (where we were trying to save the file) had too many files with really long filenames. The FAT filesystem has a limit on the number of filename characters that can be used in the root directory. From MS TechNet :

“An interesting side effect results from the way VFAT stores its long filenames. When you create a long filename with VFAT, it uses one directory entry for the MS-DOS alias and another entry for every 13 characters of the long filename. In theory, a single long filename could occupy up to 21 directory entries. The root directory has a limit of 512 files, but if you were to use the maximum length long filenames in the root directory, you could cut this limit to a mere 24 files. Therefore, you should use long filenames very sparingly in the root directory. Other directories aren’t affected by this limit.”

This drive’s root directory had a lot of files with very long filenames, so that although there was plenty of physical space available for storage, the limitations of the filesystem itself prevented the addition of another file with more than ten or so characters in the filename.

This was confirmed when we renamed the file “test.xls” (fewer letters) and were able to copy it to the flash drive successfully.

The solution, as you might suspect, is better organization. Rather than storing all your files in the root directory, create some folders and store your files inside those.

Most USB drives are formatted as FAT for compatibility between various platforms and I suggest you leave it that way.

Laptop User Not Authenticating in an NT Domain After Changing Password

I just spent a ton of time figuring this one out, so maybe it will help someone else out there doing a Google search (which is kind of the point of everything on this blog). We had a user with an XP pro laptop who changed his password one morning (it was going to expire soon). Later he noticed that none of his drives were mapped, and that his Outlook client not connecting properly. Normally the problem in this scenario is cached logon credentials. When you change your domain password, the laptop doesn't cache your credentials until the next time you log in. So, to ensure that they get cached properly, you need to log out and log back in again using your new password while still connected to the domain network (i.e., do this before disconnecting the laptop and bringing it home). Now, we reset the password several times and it still didn't work. A capture of all network packets during the login (using Ethereal on the server) showed that the Kerberos authentication was failing but of course didn't say why. Articles and mailing lists found while googling for an answer suggested the following:

• Edit the Registry to disable caching of credentials (info found here, scroll down towards the middle): this didn't work for me, I think because it doesn't actually remove the cached credentials.
• Manually map a drive using NET USE to authenticate: This idea was found on this page (first item on the list) which seems to contain a lot of good info but it really turned out not to be helpful. In this case I was able to map drives manually using this method but this didn't trigger a re-caching of the credentials, thus in the end the windows login still was not authenticating the session into the domain. Bzzt!
• Some loser somewhere even claimed the problem for him had been a bad network cable, even though (like me) he was still able to get an IP address and browse the web. Umm, yeah.

Solution: I finally found out where the cached credentials arew actually stored: Go to Control Panel → User Accounts → Advanced tab → Manage Passwords. In this case I found that there was a saved username/password combo stored for the domain controller. I deleted it, logged out, and logged back in again, and it worked.

Secure Password Storage on XP

• You have a lot of online accounts, and
• You don't want to use the same password for each, because that is insecure — however
• It's hard to remember all those passwords, so
• You need to store the passwords off-brain somewhere.
  • Also, you don't want to store them in a text file, that is very insecure, almost worse than writing them down on paper, because a malicious program could grab that file without your knowing.
  • Therefore, you need to encrypt the data.
• You could use PGP, because that is undoubtedly the best-designed and strongest encryption software available; but
• You don't want to pay $50 just to store passwords. You could use GnuPG, which is free and just as strong, but
• You don't want to have to use the command line every time you unlock your files, use them, and lock them again.
• You also don't want to store your passwords in the browser because
• Anyone using your browser could get access to your sites.
  • Even when the browser allows you to use a master password to protect your stored passwords, reason tells you that storing sensitive information directly within the browser brings them that much closer to the reach of security exploits and malware.

So in many cases, for reasons of security/cost/convenience, you can rule out: writing them down, plain text files, PGP, GPG, and browser-saved passwords. For these reasons, I've found that the best program for password storage on XP is KeePass.

• It's free
• It is open source, and therefore open to scrutiny for backdoors or weaknesses
• It has a well-designed interface, specifically tuned to the task of securing and using passwords
• It is small in size (440k), and fast
• It doesn't require installation; just unzip and run
• It doesn't need .NET runtimes or other support files
• It uses strong encryption
• It is configurable to be as secure or as convenient as you want

Go to the KeePass website to download it, view screenshots, and read more information. More later on an end-to-end process for securing your software and customizing your KeePass installation.