It's been more than twenty years since I made the conscious decision NEVER to begin a written message (e.g., an e-mail) with the word "I". Such egomania usually means that whatever thought follows the first word, that thought is missed by the reader, who has stopped reading because no one is interested in me as the lead character in this play we all act in together. (I don't think even devoted lovers tend to put the other person first, although perhaps they should.)
It's just a rule. You can adopt it, or not, as you see fit. (But maybe you'd rather not. Maybe you think I'm like Sherman's horse in the Vonnegut poem Goosing Statues After Dark--that I'm just an insensitive piece of stone. Instead, maybe you should think, If Sherman's horse can take it, why can't you?)
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Fixing Sheng Lu’s Laptop
Sheng Lu’s laptop could only boot up to the screensaver. It wouldn’t populate the desktop with shortcut icons or anything! There was nothing wrong with the hardware. But the Operating System (OS) software gave an error message on bootup that it couldn’t locate the browseui.dll file. Of course, this missing file contains a lot of information about the Graphics User Interface (GUI); no wonder the laptop finished booting up just short of booting up into the GUI. You couldn’t even boot up to the GUI in Safe Mode to troubleshoot or fix the problem. The Operating System, Windows XP, publishes no way to troubleshoot or fix this problem that I know of. This laptop contains no floppy drive, so the laptop cannot be booted from the floppy. The laptop does contain a CD drive, but I had no CD that would boot the laptop beyond the Recovery Console. I searched for help on the Internet.
Another method worked for me. I couldn’t fix a missing browseui.dll file according to the way suggested by Soumitra Sengupta in his blog, the way that uses XP’s Recovery Console. (Alex Lu—who originally bought the ailing laptop—couldn’t remember—if he ever knew—the administrator’s password, so we couldn’t use the Recovery Console to fix this ailing laptop), so I devised another way that uses a memory stick, the ailing laptop’s Safe Mode with command prompt, and some MS DOS commands.
First, I copied a good browseui.dll file from my own XP system onto a memory stick (otherwise known as a thumb drive or, generically, as a flash drive). Then I stuck the memory stick into one of the laptop’s USB ports. I guessed that the laptop’s Operating System would name the drive e: because the laptop had only the main drive (drive c:) and a CD drive (drive d:). There is no floppy drive on the laptop. So, this left an "e" as the next letter for the OS to assign to any new IDE drive—like a flash drive.
Next, I pressed and held the laptop’s F8 key while I turned on the power switch. (Ignore the frantic beep, beep, beep…the computer makes to protest the F8 key being held down.) The laptop booted into an Advanced User screen containing a number of options. I chose Safe Mode with command prompt and the laptop booted into Safe Mode with a command prompt instead of the GUI that no longer worked because the computer cannot find the browseui.dll file.
This method needs you to change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command To change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command use the following command: cd \windows\system32.
At the prompt c:\windows\system32> you need to copy the file on the memory stick to this directory with the command copy e:browseui.dll. You should get a 1 File copied return message.
Eureka! Joy! The ailing computer now boots up into it’s GUI and you’re done.
Another method worked for me. I couldn’t fix a missing browseui.dll file according to the way suggested by Soumitra Sengupta in his blog, the way that uses XP’s Recovery Console. (Alex Lu—who originally bought the ailing laptop—couldn’t remember—if he ever knew—the administrator’s password, so we couldn’t use the Recovery Console to fix this ailing laptop), so I devised another way that uses a memory stick, the ailing laptop’s Safe Mode with command prompt, and some MS DOS commands.
First, I copied a good browseui.dll file from my own XP system onto a memory stick (otherwise known as a thumb drive or, generically, as a flash drive). Then I stuck the memory stick into one of the laptop’s USB ports. I guessed that the laptop’s Operating System would name the drive e: because the laptop had only the main drive (drive c:) and a CD drive (drive d:). There is no floppy drive on the laptop. So, this left an "e" as the next letter for the OS to assign to any new IDE drive—like a flash drive.
Next, I pressed and held the laptop’s F8 key while I turned on the power switch. (Ignore the frantic beep, beep, beep…the computer makes to protest the F8 key being held down.) The laptop booted into an Advanced User screen containing a number of options. I chose Safe Mode with command prompt and the laptop booted into Safe Mode with a command prompt instead of the GUI that no longer worked because the computer cannot find the browseui.dll file.
This method needs you to change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command To change the directory to the system32 directory with the change directory command use the following command: cd \windows\system32.
At the prompt c:\windows\system32> you need to copy the file on the memory stick to this directory with the command copy e:browseui.dll. You should get a 1 File copied return message.
Eureka! Joy! The ailing computer now boots up into it’s GUI and you’re done.
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