HM2K

An ISO image usually refers to an archived copy of an optical disc such as a CD or DVD.

You would usually experience such files if you downloaded a full CD copy of an application or a bootable CD.

Other circumstances are if you would like to use a CD without having it physically in the drive, you can do this by creating a virtual drive, using an emulator.

The general term for software that can do this is called a “disk image emulator”, and there are a few out there to choose from.

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First of all for those that don’t know, Windows Genuine Advantage or WGA is a peice of software released by Microsoft to validate your copy of windows when using services such as Windows Update or Download Center.

Due to the fact that these days you are required to keep windows up-to-date it is a good idea to satify the WGA notification.

However, because of the concerns over whether this application is infact a form of spyware due to the data it collects and sends back to Microsoft, also due to the fact that once you have established that you have a (il)legal version of Windows there is no longer any requirement to have the software installed.

Therefore Windows Genuine Advantage Remover software was created.

Once you have run RemoveWGA.exe and rebooted, before long you will be asked to install new Windows Updates. At this point you can simply choose custom on Windows Update, and de-select the Windows Genuine Advantage update, Windows Update will then ask you if you do not want to install this again in the future, you simply select no. This will be the end of WGA, and your windows updates will continue to function as before.
There are many other ways to remove the WGA however this is the most effective.

If you still have questions the Wikipedia has more information about the Windows Genuine Advantage.

Possibly one of the most annoying and confusing issues on windows is dealing with and understanding which codecs you need to do what.

There are a number of solutions to ensure all of your music, videos and other media will play on your version of windows.

I’ve recently experienced a problem where Windows Media Center returns a decoder error.

This was stopping me from setting up the audio within the wizard, so the plan of action was to locate an all in one codec pack which then meant I didn’t have to worry about which codecs I need to do what, it just includes them all, or so I thought.

Okay, so the codec pack got the sound working, great. However when I come to play DVD’s there’s a decoder error yet again, which means I require DVD decoder software.

There are a few options with this…

• Purchase the software Microsoft recommend
  
• Purchase or download and try for 30 days the nVidia PureVideo Decoder – it would match the chipset
• Purchase InterVideo DVD XPack for $14.95
• Purchase or download and try for 30 days CyberLink PowerDVD SE or v7.0 – i’ve used this in the past
• Purchase the Roxio solution which is CinePlayer for $14.95 – never used it, don’t like roxio
• Download a free or open source DVD decoder – near impossible or does not exist

Not to worry though I can use the Microsoft Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility to make sure any I do choose is compatible.

To be fair although it should be a crime to have to pay to watch DVDs on your computer considering you have purchased a piece of hardware that is essentially a DVD reader, you do still need a DVD player, and $14.95 (just over £8) is not a bad price for a legit piece of DVD playing software, and its a damn sight cheaper than purchasing a separate DVD player unit to do the same job.

However, more often than not, if you purchase your PC from a large retailer, or you purchase a retail optical drive, you will receive a copy of one of the Microsoft approved DVD decoders listed above, so it might be worth considering that before you make your next purchase.

Yet with all that in mind, I’m still looking for that free or open source DVD decoder that will work with Windows Media Center or approved by Microsoft. We can all dream can’t we?

You may ALSO require DivX, QuickTime and Real Player (or their alternatives) to name a few to play certain types of videos, and I would also suggest taking a look at Winamp if you haven’t got it already as its a brilliant piece of software for playing music and video clips.

Additional Notes: Recently I have been looking at both VideoLan’s VLC and Media Player Classic which are either free or open source alternatives. I’ve yet to test their ability to play DVDs, how compatible they are with different video types or how other software (such as browsers and other media players) utilise their codecs.

What should I do? Reinstall? NO!

So how do you recover it? You can’t, BUT you can reset it…

There’s a nifty utility called Offline NT Password & Registry Editor (aka ntpasswd) that will reset Windows NT/2K/XP passwords. It runs from self-booting diskette or CD. Please note that it will not recover AD passwords, and may render EFS encrypted files permanently unreadable.

To save wasting CD’s with small applications you can actually find this utility and a whole range of other useful recovery tools together on the Ultimate Boot CD (aka UBCD).

As if that isn’t enough Winternals (the same people who make Sysinternals Freeware) offer a peice of software called Administrator’s Pak which you can purchase from them. This software creates a bootable CD called ERD Commander which contains a utility called Locksmith which allows you to reset lost passwords.

After many years of using Nero, I’m finally fed up with it.

I have been using Nero 6 for some time now, and refuse to upgrade to Nero 7 because when I did use it, I did not like it and I felt it used up far too much hard disk space for such a simple task.

Over 200mb of space is used by a standard installation of Nero 7, there must be another option.

I looked back, and remembered changing from Easy CD Creator to Nero because of this very issue, Easy CD Creator was simply excessive for what I required, Nero was very simple and straight forward.

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