Newton-Willbanks Engineering, Inc.

.NET Framework Problems

I recently had a problem where .NET 2.0 somehow got corrupted and several programs stopped working (RSView ME, QuickBooks 2008) or gave error messages (AutoCAD LT 2006). Microsoft automatice update kept downloading a .NET 2.0 update file, but it would never install. When I went to XP's uninstall program, it saw .NET 2.0, but had errors when I either tried to repair it or uninstall it.

I used the .NET Cleanup tool at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/05/30/611355.aspx to uninstall .NET 2.0.

Then I went to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=79bc3b77-e02c-4ad3-aacf-a7633f706ba5&DisplayLang=en and dowmloaded and reinstalled NET 2.0.

Problem solved.

Breathe New Life into Old Gadgets

http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/breathe-new-life-into-your-old-gadgets-333274.php

What Version of .NET is Installed on My Computer

To determine what version of .NET is installed on your computer, cut and paste the following url into your browser and the folders containing the various versions will be listed.

%systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework

The full Microsoft article on this can be found at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318785

Is Your Computer Connecting to Websites Without Your Knowledge?

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-your-computer-connecting-to-websites.html

DeviceNet Troubleshooting Tips

My favorite guide is by Robert Law and can be found at ODVA: http://www.odva.org/Portals/0/Library/Publications_NotNumbered/DeviceNet_Troubleshooting_by_Robert_D_Law.pdf

Turck has some info on DeviceNet and other networks at: http://www.turck-usa.com/Support/White_Papers_~_Tutorials/

If you're using Allen-Bradley's RSNetworx for Devicenet, there is a good guide at: http://www.theautomationbookstore.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/gr/dnet-gr001_-en-e.pdf

Woodhead has a quick guide to design, installation, and testing at: http://www.woodhead.com/data/current4701/Woodhead_Building%20a%20Functional%20DeviceNet%20Network.pdf

Mitsubishi PLC for Dummies

Links to Manuals

Mitsubishi Home Page

GX Developer Version 8 Startup Manual

GX Developer Version 8 Operating Manual

CPU A2A Programming Fundamentals Manual

Termininlogy

1) Devices are memory locations. Devices include:

X - Inputs

Y - Outputs

T - Timers

D - Integers

M - Bits

2) Constants and Presets:

Preceded by "K" when decimal

Preceded by "H" when hexadecimal

3) Timers:

Compared to Allen-Bradley PLC5, Mitubishi timers are all time delay-on and don't have "DN", "PRE", or "ACC".

4) Instruction Comparison to PLC5:

AB Mitsubishi

XIC LD (or AND)

XIO ANI

MOV MOV

OTE OUT

OTL SET

OTU RST

FLL FMOV

COP BMOV

AND WAND

OR WOR

XOR WXOR

EQU LD=

LES LD<

LEQ LD<=

GRT LD>

GEQ LD>=

NEQ LD<>

Windows Speed-up Tips

Speed up file browsing.

When you open a folder or run Windows Explorer, Windows will automatically search your network for folders and printers. That takes time, and is especially annoying if you don’t need to access one at the time. So tell Windows not to search for them unless you ask:

* Open My Computer.

* Click the Tools menu.

* Choose Folder Options.

* Click the View tab.

* Uncheck “Automatically search for network folders and printers.”

* Click OK.

Clean your disk.

* From My Computer, right-click on your hard drive.

* Choose Properties.

* Click “Disk Cleanup.”

Clean the Registry

Defrag

Get rid of unnecessary start-up programs in your Startup folder.

* Click Start, then choose All Programs or Programs (depending on your setup).

* Find the Startup folder on the list and hover your mouse over it.

* The list of programs that automatically start will appear. Check this list, and if you see something you don’t want or need to start automatically--such as some Microsoft Office task--right-click it and choose Delete.

Use EasyCleaner

* Start the program and click the Startup button.

* You’ll see a list of all the programs that start automatically with Windows. Most of these should start: your anti-virus program, a Windows program called HDAShCut, maybe a driver or two. But some things just waste resources.

* Most notorious for loading themselves are media players such as Quicktime and RealPlayer. There’s no need for them to be loaded until you need them. If you see things like that which don’t belong, select them and click the Delete button. When you’re done, click Close and close EasyCleaner.

Deep cleaning

Windows also launches services, internal software that does important things, such as making your network run, managing users, and a host of other things. But there are some services you just don’t need; running them is a waste of resources.

* To get to the list of services, click Start, then Run.

* Enter services.msc in the box. The screen that pops up is a bit intimidating at first, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. It lists every service on your machine and tells you whether it starts automatically or manually, among other things.

* Click the Extended tab on the bottom, which will create a space that will give you a description of each service.

* Now click on the words “Startup Type” at the top of that column, which will sort the services. The ones that say “Automatic” are--obviously--the ones that start when Windows does. They’re the only ones you care about.

The following lists services you can probably do without. Of course, if you recognize one that you use such as Windows Messenger or

Telnet, don’t turn it off.

Alerter

Clipbook

Computer Browser

Distributed Link Tracking Client

Error Reporting Service (if you don’t want to be asked to send error reports to Microsoft anymore)

Fast User Switching

Human Interface Access Devices

IPSEC Services

Messenger

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing

Portable Media Serial Number

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager

Remote Procedure Call Locator

Remote Registry

Routing & Remote Access

Secondary Logon

Server

SSDP Discovery Service

Telnet

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper

Upload Manager

Universal Plug and Play Device Host

Workstation

Pick one from the list and double-click it. You’ll see a drop-down menu next to “Startup type” that is currently set to Automatic. Change it to Manual and click OK. This way the service will start only if it’s needed, not all the time.

Special services

Two services deserve special mention: the indexing service and Windows themes. The indexing service’s job is to keep track of every file on your computer, so if you use Windows’ search function you’ll be able to find things faster. But if you don’t use search that often, the indexing service is a waste of resources and will slow you down. That’s why disabling the indexing service is high on the list of many speed tweakers. To do that, go back to your list of services (Start, Run, enter services.msc -- see above), scroll down to Indexing Service, and set the Startup type to “Disabled.” Finally, if you’re using the Windows Classic theme, you can free up some memory. Scroll down the list of services to Themes and set it to “Disabled.”

Tweak the Registry

You get into the Registry by clicking Start, choosing Run, and entering regedit in the box that appears. Then welcome to the Registry, perhaps the most intimidating part of Windows. Here you can make all sorts of internal changes to the way Windows operates. Before you do anything else, set up a System Restore Point. That tells Windows to save everything about your current configuration, so if something goes awry you can tell it to revert back to that point—kind of like a big “undo” button.

The first things you’ll see are the five main sections of the Registry’s entries. They have cryptic names: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and so on.

Next to each of those five sections is a small plus sign. Click that to view that section’s subsections. Note that you can end up going several levels deep before getting to the key you want to change. The standard way to point to a key is to list the various levels separated by slashes. For example, if you see:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Control Panel / Desktop

it means you should click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, then the plus sign next to Control Panel, then look for Desktop.

Make your menus load faster

For your first trip to the Registry, we’ll do something simple: Make your menus work faster.

* Start regedit (see above).

* Navigate to the following key by clicking the plus signs next to the name of each level:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Control Panel

* Click “Desktop.” A list of entries will appear on the right side.

* Double-click “MenuShowDelay” and change the Value data to 0.

* Click OK.

Free up memory from closed programs. When you shut down a program, Windows will often keep part of it in memory even if it’s not being used. Called dynamic link

libraries (DLLs), they take up memory and sometimes cause other problems. You can change a Registry key to prevent Windows from doing this.

* Start regedit, following the instructions in this lesson.

* Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion

* Under CurrentVersion, right-click on Explorer, then choose New->Key.

* In the box that appears (”New Key #1″), change the name to AlwaysUnloadDLL.

* Hit Enter. On the right side, double-click the word (Default).

* For the value data, enter 1.

* Click OK.

* Close regedit (unless you want to tweak some more).

Speed program startup

Windows can be set to load information about some applications to make them start up faster by changing how much work a program called the Prefetcher does.

* Using regedit (instructions above), navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlSet / Control / Session Manager / Memory Management / PrefetchParameters

* When you click PrefetchParameters, the right side of the editor will display a list of entries.

* Double-click “Enable Prefetcher” and change the value data to 5 (in decimal, not hexadecimal).

* Click OK.

* Close regedit.

Reduce Windows’ workload

If you have many folders and subfolders, every time you access one, Windows will spend a lot of time updating the “last accessed” time for that folder and all its sub-folders. Stopping that process will buy you some time.

* Using regedit (see instructions above), navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / System / CurrentControlSet / Control

* Under Control, right-click on FileSystem, then choose New, then DWORD Value.

* Replace “New Value #1″ with NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and hit Enter.

* Double-click NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and change the Value data to 1.

* Click OK.

Improve Swapfile performance

Many programs use a lot of memory, and if you run more than one or two at once, Windows might run out of RAM. In that case, it will

start using a section of your hard disk called the “swapfile” to store information. It’s a lot slower than RAM, but it beats not

being able to run a program.

But sometimes Windows uses the swapfile before it has to. This tweak will tell it to wait ‘till the last moment before doing that.

* Click Start, then Run.

* Enter msconfig in the box.

* Click on the System.ini tab.

* Click the plus sign next to 386enh.

* Click New, then type “ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1″ in the box that appears.

* Click OK.

Stop QoS

Get rid of a system that’s supposed to make sure your network is working, but in reality isn’t helpful and can eat up to 20 percent of your bandwidth. It’s called QoS, for Quality of Service, and here’s how you stop it.

If you have Windows XP Professional, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start, then Run.

* Enter gpedit.msc in the box.

* Under “Local Computer Policy,” click the plus sign next to “Computer Configuration,” then the one next to “Administrative Templates.”

* Click the plus sign next to “Network” and select “QoS Packet Scheduler.”

* In the right-hand box, double-click on “Limit Reservable Bandwidth.”

* On the Settings tab, choose Enabled.

* In the “Bandwidth Limit %” box, set it to 0%. (Do not leave it blank.)

* Click OK.

If you have Windows Home Edition, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start and then the “Settings” option.

* Select the Control Panel, and open up “Network Connections”

* Right-click “Local Area Connection”and choose Properties.

* On the General tab, uncheck QoS.

Network settings

Out of the box, Windows networking comes configured for a generic user with a generic connection. It has no idea what kind of

Internet connection you have--whether you’re using dialup or DSL or a cable modem. Because of that, its network settings are also generic.

It’s helpful to tailor these settings to your connection. The easiest way to do this is to use Stop QoS

First, let’s get rid of a system that’s supposed to make sure your network is working, but in reality isn’t helpful and can eat up

to 20 percent of your bandwidth. It’s called QoS, for Quality of Service, and here’s how you stop it.

If you have Windows XP Professional, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start, then Run.

* Enter gpedit.msc in the box.

* Under “Local Computer Policy,” click the plus sign next to “Computer Configuration,” then the one next to “Administrative

Templates.”

* Click the plus sign next to “Network” and select “QoS Packet Scheduler.”

* In the right-hand box, double-click on “Limit Reservable Bandwidth.”

* On the Settings tab, choose Enabled.

* In the “Bandwidth Limit %” box, set it to 0%. (Do not leave it blank.)

* Click OK.

If you have Windows Home Edition, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start and then the “Settings” option.

* Select the Control Panel, and open up “Network Connections”

* Right-click “Local Area Connection”and choose Properties.

* On the General tab, uncheck QoS.

Network settings

Now let’s change some other networking settings.

Out of the box, Windows networking comes configured for a generic user with a generic connection. It has no idea what kind of

Internet connection you have--whether you’re using dialup or DSL or a cable modem. Because of that, its network settings are

also generic.

It’s helpful to tailor these settings to your connection. The easiest way to do this is to use a (free) software program that will

do it for you.Stop QoS

First, let’s get rid of a system that’s supposed to make sure your network is working, but in reality isn’t helpful and can eat up

to 20 percent of your bandwidth. It’s called QoS, for Quality of Service, and here’s how you stop it.

If you have Windows XP Professional, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start, then Run.

* Enter gpedit.msc in the box.

* Under “Local Computer Policy,” click the plus sign next to “Computer Configuration,” then the one next to “Administrative

Templates.”

* Click the plus sign next to “Network” and select “QoS Packet Scheduler.”

* In the right-hand box, double-click on “Limit Reservable Bandwidth.”

* On the Settings tab, choose Enabled.

* In the “Bandwidth Limit %” box, set it to 0%. (Do not leave it blank.)

* Click OK.

If you have Windows Home Edition, follow these instructions to disable QoS:

* Click Start and then the “Settings” option.

* Select the Control Panel, and open up “Network Connections”

* Right-click “Local Area Connection”and choose Properties.

* On the General tab, uncheck QoS.

Network settings

Use TCP Optimizer to tweak your network settings.

101 Freebies from PC World Magazine

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130045-page,8-c,freeware/article.html

Problems with Windows Defender Update Process

For the last week or so, I have been getting a reminder that Windows Defender needs to update its signature file. I've tried to update it countless times, but it never works. After some research I discovered that this is a fairly common problem. The current signature file needs to be removed.

Use the following steps to remedy the problem:

1. Click Start, click Run, type: Msiexec /x {A5CC2A09-E9D3-49EC-923D-03874BBD4C2C}

2. Click OK when it asks if you want to uninstall..

3. Open Windows Defender and check for new definitions:

Click the Help options arrow next to the Help icon.

Click About Windows Defender.

Click Check for Updates.

That should do the job.

Windows XP Speedup Tip

To edit your autoloaded programs, select Start, Run, type msconfig, press Enter, and click Startup. In the list that appears, click to clear the check boxes from any items that you don't want to launch upon startup. When you're done, click OK and choose the option to reboot. When Windows restarts, a System Configuration Utility dialog box will appear; check "Don't show this message or launch the System Configuration Utility when Windows starts" and click OK.