98 dinosaur finally extinct!

[Cameronian]

I was asked to sort out some business for a chap who had just died and part of the deal was that I could keep his computer once I had finished.
It was just as well! Just as I always seem to find a golf ball immediately before I lose my own, my 98 beast started to emit a death rattle just as I put the final full stop to the task I had been left.

However, a couple of things have come up with the new(er) machine and I would be glad to receive help with them, please.

Every now and then the magnifier pops up when I don't think I've done anything to cause it. I'd love to know how to stop it from doing this and how to switch it off once it appears. I expect that it would be "a good thing" to know how to turn it on intentionally - don't misunderstand that! - as well. At the moment I'm stopping the magnifier by restarting the machine, which is a bit of a drag.

I'm pretty sure that the chap who owned it will have done everything legally and that the XP onboard is OEM but I've been getting pop-ups of Windows Genuine Advantage (yes, I too think it would be a "first" for Microsoft to offer something which was to my advantage rather than theirs!) asking me to let them report back on the XP on the machine. I can see that WGA, in one form or another, has been on the machine since 2007 and it seems odd that the issue of the validity of my XP hasn't been sorted out by now. Can I check if my XP is kosher before allowing WGA to call home?

The machine has XP with service pack 3 and with security updates duly received more or less every month up until last week. It appears to have a dual core Pentium of 3.2 GHz and 2 GB of RAM. It's a little bit quicker than my extinct 98 too....

[P.Pilcher]

I would suggest that with a machine with a spec you have described you have no problems! Such a machine should be able to cope with all modern software except, possibly, the most complex games which will need a more sophisicated graphics card, a 64 it system and a quad core processor. You are not subjected to the curse of Vista and if your copy of XP has been updated to the extent you describe, it is vey unlikely not to be "Kosher". Somewhere on the machine's case you should find the Microsoft label bearing the unique serial number of your copy of XP with whch you can, should you want to, re-format your hard drive and then reinstall XP from any copy and use that serial number to validate it.
If you click on start, then hover over all programmes, then "accessories" then "accessibility" you will get to "magnifier". Click on this and hopefully, you will be able to change the settings which are causing the problem you describe.

P.P.

[Cameronian]

Thank you for that, P.Pilcher! I've had a look at the dialogue box for the magnifier and have unchecked all of the little boxes even though none of them seemed to have anything to do with the actual calling up of the service. Come to think of it, none of them seemed to be related to the switching off of the magnifier once it has appeared.... How to do that would be useful to know too because there is no "cancel" box apparent when the magnifier is present.

Thanks also for the tip about the XP code sticker - my 98 machine didn't rise to that sort of sophistication and I hadn't read what was written on the little label. Its presence would seem to support my confidence that the late owner of the machine would have done everything by the book. Should I tell ZoneAlarm to let WGA call home and give the "all clear" to Microsoft or will that allow Big Brother to set still more traps and to interfere further? I could always ban it from all future communication.... Perhaps I'm paranoid but my suspicions about these things seem to be supported by the fact that I'm not permitted to uninstall anything to do with WGA. I'd love to know where the "genuine advantage" lies for me in all of this!

Going back to the XP question, I was in fact left two more or less identical computers. This one has XP Home installed while the other has XP professional. I wonder why the switch would have been made.

[Cameronian]

Thank you Paris Dakar. That looks like a good side step to avoid the tackle! As you may have seen above, I do have the code. Should I let WGA report that? Will that make them happy long term or will WGA continue its spying in other areas? If I eliminate WGA, as per your instructions, will MS just put it back on machine once again in the future? I know, I know - I'm a paranoid wreck!

[green granite]

Just switch of the "auto update" feature that will stop the WGA problem. It's in the control panel.

[Cameronian]

Ah, P.Pilcher, What I did to stop the magnifier didn't work. It's back. I don't know why it came on but at least I know how to switch it off now. Oh no I don't! I opened the box from "accessories" and the bottom little box was inexplicably ticked again. I unticked it but the magnified square is still there. I'll have to turn my computer off and go for dinner but will sign in again later in the hope of discovering pearls of wisdom here! Thank you all in advance!

Thank you also Green Granite. I'll look at that after dinner too.

[green granite]

It's a long time since I used XP but I think there was a magnifier thing in the screen properties, try right clicking on the desk top and trawl through the menus there.

[P.Pilcher]

That's a new one on me, and I can only recommend Green Granite's suggestion. It may be a property of your video driver. I certainly don't have any magnification when I go into screen properties on my M/C, however as G.G. suggests, right click with the cursor on a blank part of your screen and then click on properties - have a look around there.

P.P.

[Saab Dastard]

It sounds to me like the PO had configured a keyboard shortcut, that you are occasionally (and inadvertently) invoking.

Control Panel > Accessibility Options is worth a rummage.

Otherwise look for an item in the Startup folder, or an application set to run at startup via registry - might even run as a service!

Also look to see if a 3rd party application for the magnifier is running - check the installed programs, and inside C:\program files.

SD

[vapilot2004]

Cam, there is a WGA diagnostic program that is free, from Microsoft and will not change any of your settings or phone anything home without your express approval. This is a direct link to the M$ certified exe file:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52012

This will tell you the reasons why the WGA notification tool is reporting a problem with your copy of Windows.

Good Luck!

[Cameronian]

Thanks once more, P.Pand GG. I have tried everything that you have suggested but with no obvious indications of success so far. I've only been back on for about fifteen minutes and, although I've not had the dreaded magnifier thrust upon me so far, I found nothing which seemed obviously related to it in the various checks which you each suggested. I unchecked just about every box I saw which related to the display but none of them really seemed that likely.

Thank you for your suggestion about startup, Saab Dastard, but I'm not really up to messing with that yet - especially at this time of night and after a Spanish dinner to boot! What worried me is that I can see no obvious way to turn the thing off when it happens. I'd have thought that if it appeared as a result of a legitimate process then I'd be offered a simple way to get back to normal ops. Perhaps I just need to know something new to me but obvious to everyone else......Ctrl*Alt*something else, perhaps.....

You can see that I took onboard all you had to say about the WGA business but am still a bit concerned about the big brother aspect of it in the future and about other related issues. Do I expose my breast to the MS dagger and allow WGA to offer me up on a slab for all eternity, do I ignore its request to 'phone home or do I subvert the whole process as suggested and hope that it goes away?

[Cameronian]

Just to edit my last post (because PPRuNe doesn't appear to want to allow me to edit my posts. I have to sign in anew and then can only make a new post but not edit an earlier one. Perhaps it's because I don't allow cookies.... I've told you all several times how paranoid I am), I meant to write "Ctrl+Alt+something else" near the end and I missed out a space earlier on.

[Jofm5]

Why dont you add the selective sites you trust (maybe even pprune) to allow cookies.

The rest will be dropped but those will be trusted?

[Cameronian]

Aha, that magnifier is back and, this time, I'm certain that I did absolutely nothing obvious. I noticed this time that, as well as the little magnifying box "on top" of the page, the whole page appeared to be magnified behind the standard page. I went to "Start" to see that "Magnifier" appeared in the left column. Right clicking on "Magnifier" opened a dialogue box and clicking on the offered "Exit" closed the whole magnified page which had appeared behind the main version of the page but left the smaller superimposed magnifying box (which follows the cursor) unaffected.

I have found that, apparently, pressing Ctrl+Esc+R should turn the magnifier on but I can't find anything, apart from the process described in my first paragraph, to turn it off. And even that process doesn't close the little superimposed magnifying box, only the almost hidden full page version.

Help!

[LeandroSecundo]

Hi,

This infamous magnifier must be a third party proggy.
Can you go in the control panel and in the add // remove programs option and check there if any program name seem's to be obviously linked to the "magnifier" ?

Bye.

[Cameronian]

Thanks, LeandroSecundo, I've had a look around for anything which might legitimately be starting the magnifier but can see nothing. It seems to start at random so probably is not linked to a properly established process. I don't think that it's some shortcut which I've tripped over because it sometimes appears while the computer is unattended and, also, a legitimate appearance of the magnifier would surely provide a means to cancel it. Funnily enough, not only is there no advice of how to cancel it and no little box with an "X" in it but my research into the nooks and crannies of all the information available makes no mention of how to turn the thing off once it has been selected intentionally. Once it has appeared unwantedly, I have even gone to the "accessibility" section and selected it "on" in the hope that this action will then make appear a means to turn it off - no such luck!

I ran the WGA diagnostic (thank you) which showed that everything is completely legal on the computer. I still didn't let it 'phone home to say so, though. Should I or should I just turn WGA off using one of the methods given to me above by fellow conspiracy theorists?

Life used to be so simple....

[Cameronian]

Thanks, LeandroSecundo, I've had a look around for anything which might legitimately be starting the magnifier but can see nothing. It seems to start at random so probably is not linked to a properly established process. I don't think that it's some shortcut which I've tripped over because it sometimes appears while the computer is unattended and, also, a legitimate appearance of the magnifier would surely provide a means to cancel it. Funnily enough, not only is there no advice of how to cancel it and no little box with an "X" in it but my research into the nooks and crannies of all the information available makes no mention of how to turn the thing off once it has been selected intentionally. Once it has appeared unwantedly, I have even gone to the "accessibility" section and selected it "on" in the hope that this action will then make appear a means to turn it off - no such luck! As I said above, I can click on "Exit" but it only closes the magnified version of the entire page which is behind the unmagnified original. It doesn't have any effect upon the small magnified window which follows the cursor around.

I ran the WGA diagnostic (thank you) which showed that everything is completely legal on the computer. I still didn't let it 'phone home to say so, though. Should I or should I just turn WGA off using one of the methods given to me above by fellow conspiracy theorists?

Life used to be so simple....