Computer Support
FQA for BAE Computing Windows
Answers to some commonly asked questions about BAE computing resources for Microsoft Windows.
If you have any questions about BAE computing not answered in this faq, please contact bae-help@lists.ncsu.edu.
Windows Tricks
- Advanced cut and paste operations
- Setup Windows XP built in wirewall
- Multiple Network Configurations with Windows XP
NCSU Windows Client
1. Why is the Windows client asking for my password again?
3. Where did all of my Netscape bookmarks go under Windows client?
4. Where did my email address book go under Windows client?
5. I get an error message when trying to map my K: drive.
6. Where should I save my files?
7. My K; drive is full, what files can I remove?
8. How can I check to see how much space I have left in my account?
Email Problems
1. Netscape email says that I have new messages but I can't see them in my inbox.
2. I am out of account space but I cannot clean my 'Trash' folder in order to fix the problem.
3. I would like to free space in my Unity/IMAP account by archiving my email. How do I do this?
Windows TricksAdvanced cut & paste operations
When you are cutting and pasting files in Windows you are not restricted to selecting a single file at a time or to using the drop-down menus off of the window toolbars.
Keyboard Shortcuts
There are several stock keyboard shortcuts built into windows and many applications which adhere to the windows standard. When a file or range of files is selected you can use these shortcuts to speed work:
Control-X =Cut
Control-V =Paste
Control-C =Copy
Selecting Multiple Files Simultaneously
There are 2 methods by which you can select multiple files simultaneously: Selecting a range of files and selecting single files then adding them to a list of selected files.
Selecting a Range of Files
If you are going to select a sequence of files from a folder, select the first file in the range normally, left-(single) clicking it. Then move the pointer to the last file in the desired range. Hold the shift button down and then single-(left) click on the desired end file. The range in between should also become selected.
Note: The way in which the contents of a folder are displayed have a profound impact on how Windows determines what range of files you intended to select. A folder viewed with large/small icons will have it's range calculated very differently from a folder dsiplayed as a list or details.
Adding or Removing Individual Files to/from a List of Selected Files
The Control button will serve as a modifier for this operation. Hold down the Control button and left-click on files you want to select. This also works as a toggle -- you can unselect files from a list of selected files by using the Control key and a left-click.
NCSU Windows Client - Answers
1. Why is the Windows client asking for my password again?
The window asking for your password, named Wolfcall is the program that adds the K: and J: drives.
It is not necessary to map the K: and J: drives for some things, but for most situations it is. You will not be able to save any files to your personal account unless you enter your password into Wolfcall. Some applications, such as Pro Engineer and Netscape mail, need access to your J: and K: drives.
It is to be used as storage for preference files for applications and Windows . M: drive DOES NOT EXIST IN AFS SPACE, so you will not be able to access it from UNIX. M: drive IS NOT FOR STORING YOUR PERSONAL FILES. The behavior of an application that cannot store it's configuration is unpredicatable and usually bad.
3. Where did all of my Netscape bookmarks go under Windows client?
The cleint stores all of your application preference files on the M: drive. The full path to your bookmarks is: M: drive --> Settings --> Netscape --> bookmark.htm
4. Where did my email address book go under Windows cleint?
The full path to your address book is:
M: drive --> Settings --> Netscape --> abook.nab You then copy that file to:
K: drive --> .netscape --> abook.nab
5. I get an error message when trying to map my K: drive.
On occasion you will receive an error when trying to map your K: drive when logging in. This error occurs after you have entered your password the second time. To clear this error, start the Novell Application Launcher and then open Help folder. In the Help folder double-click the icon named Clear AFS Cache. The program will run for a few seconds but will not produce any noticable output. After it has stopped running, go to the Unity Applications folder and start the Mount my Unity/EOS Home (K:) icon (it should be the first one on the upper-left corner.) Reenter your password -- you should now have mapped your K: drive.
If you are still unable to access your home directory you have two options after you have already logged in and logged back off:
- Find a professor that has the administrator password for that computer->Have them log on as the administrator and then use this procedure: Right click on "My Network Places" icon on the desktop and select "Netware Login"-> now enter your username and password->then double click on the "My computer" icon on the desktop->Double click on "M drive" -> and erase the "Windows NT 4.0" and "Windows NT 5.0" folders-> log off the computer->when you log back on, your K drive should be mapped.
- Have another student log on the computer you are trying to use-> after they have logged on, follow the procedure listed above, EXCEPT when you have erased the NT 4.0 and 5.0 files, then again right click on 'My Network Places"-> select "Netware Login" -> and have the other student log BACK IN BEFORE you log off the computer and log back in as yourself.
6. Where should I save my files?
The ONLY place that you should save your files and work is to the 'K drive'. This is your personal account space and the only location that is backed up. Do NOT save work to other locations, such as the 'C drive' or the 'Desktop'. Places like the 'Desktop' are NOT backed up and you store anything
7. My account space is full, what files can I remove?
Which files are safe to remove varies for each user. Several users can clean up their account space by following one or more of these suggestions. However, these do not always hold true for all users.
- Clean out the 'Trash' folder for your email. Often your deleted email is copied into another folder called 'Trash'. Periodically check this folder and erase unneeded messages for once and for all.
- Clean out the 'Sent' folder for your email. You might be saving copies of all outgoing email to a folder called 'Sent'. This file can grow to be rather large if you do not keep in in check. Like the 'Trash' folder, periodically go through this folder and erase the messages that no longer need to keep copies of. Note that erasing messages in your 'Sent' folder probably puts them in your 'Trash' folder. You will now need to clean the same message from your 'Trash' folder again.
If you still need more space in your account, you will have to go through your files and see which ones you can do without. When selecting files to delete, you do not want to delete the following files or directories since they tend to be used to configure your account.- Any file that begins with "." (dot) such as .history
- Any directory that begins with "." (dot) such as .netscape or .el
8. How can I check to see how much space I have left in my account?
- Click on the start button ->Run->type: telnet login.ncsu.edu->enter username and password->At prompt enter: fs lp->the response below will be shown:
Volume Name Quota Used % Used Partition
users.bdgoff 40000 20077 50% 70% - The column "% Used" lists the percentage of disk space that you have already used. It is ideal to keep this number below 75%.
Email Problems - Answered
1. Netscape email says that I have new messages but I can't see them in my inbox.
This happens when the index file becomes corrupted and no longer recognizes the new messages in the inbox. If this happens, you need to first close Netscape. After you remove the following file, you can restart Netscape and your new messages will appear.
K:/.elm/Folders/inbox.snm
2. I am out of account space but I cannot clean my 'Trash' folder in order to fix the problem.
There are two methods you can use to manually clean up your 'Trash' folder. The first is from your NT desktop.
First method:
Double-click on 'My Computer'
Double-click on K: drive
Double-click on the folder named '.elm'
Double-click on the folder named 'Folders'
On the Folders window, pull down the menu at the top labeled 'View'
Change the view-type to 'Details'
Pull down the 'View' menu again and click on 'Options'
Click on the 'View' tab
For 'Hidden Files' select 'Show All Files'
Hit 'Apply' and 'OK', in that orderIn the Folders window you should see two files, named 'Trash' and 'Trash.snm'
Select each of these 2 files and hit the 'delete' button (or you can
right-click on the selected file and choose 'delete' from the menu)Second Method:
You also can manually erase the 'Trash' folder by accessing your account through a UNIX machine. UNIX machines are located in Weaver 122 and Weaver 144. You can also telnet to a UNIX machine directly from your NT machine by clicking on 'Run' in the 'Start' menu and typing:
telnet bae01du.bae.ncsu.eduOnce you are logged in with your Eos/Unity username and password, issue the following commands to change directories and manually erase the files that make up the 'Trash' folder.
bae% cd ~/.elm/inbox/Folders/
bae% rm Trash
bae% rm Trash.snm
3. I would like to free space in my Unity/IMAP account by archiving my email. How do I do this?
Note: this procedure applies to both IMAP and POP3 mailboxes.
The first thing you must do is decide where you want to store your archived email. In general you have 4 options:
- ZIP disk
This is your best option: high capacity and portability - Local harddrive (on your office machine)
This provides easiest access to your archives but with the possibility that you may lose your archives if your harddrive crashes. Again, BAE Support cannot provide any assurances that your mail archives will be recoverable if something happens to your desktop computer. Please note: if you store your mail on your harddrive then other users who log on to your machine may have full access to your mail. - Research locker
This is a safe, bullet-proof storage method. The only caveat is that you must be aware that others may have access to your locker and hence your email. If you do not know how to set file and directory permissions for your locker use one of the other methods. - Floppy Disk
Low storage capacity limits floppy usefulness but try to find a computer that doesn't have a floppy drive...
Now that you've decided where to put your mail archive it's time to create it.
1. Start Netscape mail
2. Pull down the File menu and select the New Folder option
3. Enter a unique name for the archive in the pop-up window.
For IMAP users: In the second field make sure that it specifies Local Mail and not the server.
------Choose your archive name carefully. After a while you may possibly have many archive files so good planning now will help avoid confusion later. Putting the current date somewhere in the archive name is never a bad idea, for example: myJob_092100
4. Move messages from your Inbox or other folders to the folder you just created
--------To move messages between folders single-click the left mouse button on the message in the window that contains the listing of subjects. Single-(right) click to bring up a menu. On Windows platforms you can release the right mouse button but on UNIX you will have to hold it down. Go to the Move Message and select the folder name in which you'd like to store the message. This method works for a single selected message or multiple selected messages.
5. Open your UNITY account and access the folder Netscape uses to store mail files. This is done through your K: drive. If you are unsure how to do this, read the question above and follow the first 4 steps.
6. The next step depends on where you are going to store your archived mail...
-------Double click on My Computer again to open another instance of the window. Access the location in which you would like to store you mail. In the window containing your mail file, single-(right) click on the file, to bring up the options menu. On this menu select Cut. Go to the window with the folder you plan on using for storage an in the Edit pulldown (on the toolbar at the top of the window) menu select Paste. Now the mail file should appear in the directory listing. You have archived your mail.
Now that your mail is archived, Netscape NO LONGER HAS ACCESS to it.
---------To be able to access your archived mail you will need to copy the archive file back to your K: drive. This means that you will need sufficient space in your UNITY account to temporarily store the file.
The procedure for accessing archived mail is the opposite of storing it:- Using My Computer, open the location in which you stored your archive.
- Open another instance of My Computer and access your Email folder (i.e. K:/.elm/Folders)
- Click-and-drag the archive folder to the Folders window
- Start Netscape mail... you should see the archive folder in the left window
4. I use both UNIX and NT machines and I need to access all of my email from both platforms, but I only can get to some of my email from either. How do I access all of my email from both?
This problem is the very reason that the IMAP mail protocol exists. The ideal solution for this is to switch from POP3 to IMAP.
There is a work-around for this (but strictly as a stop-gap measure.) Perform this procedure when logged on to an NT machine and a UNIX box. (Changes made to the preferences on one platform DO NOT carry over to the other platform so you will need to do it twice).
- Open Netscape Mail
- Pull down the Edit menu
- Select the Preferences option
- Open the Mail&Newsgroups and Mail Servers group in the left window
- In the Incoming Mail Servers box, click on the entry for pop-in.ncsu.edu and then cingle-click the "Edit" button
- Click on the "POP" tab
- Check the box that says "Leave messages on server"
From this point on, messages you receive will be available on either platform. Messages you have previously received will still be inaccessible however.