Trivial XP question

Posted by: tanstaafl.

Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 03:17

The chief engineer at the radio stations where I work just built me a new computer. I guess it is adequate to the task of running a primarily text-based suite of applications.

3 GHz processor
2 GB striped high speed RAM
400 MHz front side bus
80 GB hard drive for programs
Dual 300 GB hard drives in a Raid-0 array for data
330 GB USB external hard drive for system backups
256 MB video card with digital and HDTV output
52x CD/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD/DVD-R player

Like I said, a minimal system, but adequate to my needs.

It has Windows XP with the latest updates, and this particular version of XP does something I find annoying. Every time I send a job to the printer, a little dialog balloon pops up out of the task bar describing in great detail the fact that I have just sent that job to the printer. It hangs around for at least 10-15 seconds or until I stop what I am doing and X out of it. Now, my printer sits about 30 inches from my keyboard. Since I just sent the damn print job to the printer, and the printer is noisily printing away, there is a better than even chance that I already know that I am printing that document.

Is there a way to turn this obnoxious message off?

tanstaafl.
Posted by: pedrohoon

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 05:09

Try:

TweakUI > Taskbar and Start Menu > untick "Enable Balloon Tips"

HTH
Posted by: Schido

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 05:12

Quote:

Dual 300 GB hard drives in a Raid-0 array for data


Is raid-0 really a good idea for data?
Posted by: pedrohoon

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 05:16

BTW, while you are in TweakUI, disable Autoplay on CD drives (under My Computer > Autoplay) to prevent copy protected CD's from installing a rootkit
Posted by: drakino

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 06:57

Keep in mind using the TweakUI method will disable all balloon tips, not just the printer one. This may be what you want though.
Posted by: Robotic

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 07:06

Quote:
Quote:

Dual 300 GB hard drives in a Raid-0 array for data


Is raid-0 really a good idea for data?

I am thinking the same thing but had to double check the definition.
Sure enough, RAID 0 is striped, not mirrored.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 11:26

Quote:

Sure enough, RAID 0 is striped, not mirrored.


So, it's not redundant. But neither is just a single drive, like most systems have. The RAID0 will be very fast, though, needed for those text apps!

And yes, it doubles the chance of losing data, but drives today are more than double the reliability of those of just a few years ago, so no big deal there.

I love RAID0 for the speed

Cheers
Posted by: Roger

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 11:59

Quote:
So, it's not redundant.


And, as Tony keeps saying, the "R-for-redundant" doesn't remove the need to perform regular backups, anyway...
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 16:00

Quote:
drives today are more than double the reliability of those of just a few years ago

Really? I find the opposite to be true. I've got ancient drives still running (including a 202MB drive I got with my 486SX25 back in about 1991) whereas every new one I buy seems to die within a couple of years.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Trivial XP question - 25/01/2006 18:07

Is raid-0 really a good idea for data?


I don't think so, and told the engineer as much when he told me what he was doing.

My preferred method is to have a C: and D: drive, and a batch file that copies my C: drive to the D: drive using XCOPY with a lot of parameters (xcopy /d/s/e/v/c/h/r/k/y/exclude:C:\Batch\exclude2 c:\*.* d:\) and use Windows task scheduler to run that process every morning at 5:01 am. The advantage to this arrangement is that if I make a mistake (for instance, save changes to a file and then realize I didn't want to save those changes) I always have the original version of the file readily available.

Update: I just talked to my engineer about the Raid-0 situation, and he was mistaken in calling it Raid-0; it is actually a Raid-1 (mirrored) setup without striping.

Speaking of Windows Task Scheduler... I had 35 different jobs in the old computer's task scheduler. Is there a way to transfer them to the new one, or do I have to re-create them one at a time from scratch? (It wouldn't be that difficult -- each task just calls a batch file on the first, second, third etc. monday, tuesday, wednesday etc. of the month.) I was able to copy the job files to the new computer (they're just sitting in a folder on the desktop) but of course they are not "registered" with Windows and are disabled (little red Xs in the icons).

tanstaafl.

Edit: fixed a tag -wfaulk
Posted by: lectric

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 04:07

MUCH better, Raid 1 makes a LOT more sense. I hope it's hardware based.
Posted by: adavidw

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 08:11

Quote:
Keep in mind using the TweakUI method will disable all balloon tips, not just the printer one. This may be what you want though.


To disable just the printer one, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Settings in the registry and change "EnableBalloonNotificationsRemote" to 0. Then, either stop and restart the spooler service or reboot. I seem to remember this was buried in the UI somewhere as well (maybe in some spooler options?) but I can't seem to find it now.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 16:58

I hope it's hardware based.


I think it is.

There are two physical hard drives, each one 300 GB, but the system displays them as a single drive (E:).

The two drives are mirror images of each other, not striped.

tanstafl.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 17:34

go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Settings in the registry and change "EnableBalloonNotificationsRemote" to 0.

Unfortunately that didn't work for me.

I don't seem to have that setting available (see attachment)

tanstaafl.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 20:11

You can try creating it. It shouldn't hurt anything.
Posted by: Taym

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 21:06

No, it won't hurt, and it will work
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 21:10

You can try creating it. It shouldn't hurt anything.


Can you offer some pretty detailed and explicit instructions on how to do that? I am not skilled at registry editing, and don't know exactly where or how to insert this.

Edit: OK, I tried this (see attached) and it didn't work, so no doubt I did something wrong.

tanstaafl.
Posted by: ricin

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 21:36

It needs to be a DWORD.

If you can't get it to work, unzip and run the attached file.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Trivial XP question - 26/01/2006 23:51

If you can't get it to work, unzip and run the attached file.


That did the trick! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Didn't even have to reboot.

tanstaafl.