Answer Line: Move All of Your Valuable Data to a New Partition

Separating your data isn't as easy as relocating My Documents. By default, Windows XP or 2000 put your files in the Documents and Settings folder, but some files in this folder should not be moved.

First back up your Registry; for instructions on how to proceed, review April's "Windows Hacks" feature. Next, if you haven't already, use a program such as Symantec's $70 PartitionMagic or Acronis's $50 Disk Director Suite to adjust your hard-drive partitions. When the drive is repartitioned and you're ready to make the move, close all apps except Windows Explorer. Confirm that your PC shows hidden files and folders: In Windows Explorer, select Tools, Folder Options, View. Verify that Show hidden files and folders is checked, and click OK. You can change this back when you're done, if you wish.

Navigate in Windows Explorer to the data partition you just created (I'll refer to it as 'X:'). Make folders for each user with a log-on: Select File, New, Folder and enter the user name. Repeat the steps below for every user on the machine.

Your C:\Documents and Settings\log-on folder (where log-on is your log-on name) has four folders that likely hold important data: My Documents, Application Data, Local Settings\Application Data, and--if you use Internet Explorer--Favorites.

If you haven't moved My Documents yet, right-click the My Documents folder in Windows Explorer and select Properties. Enter X:\log-on\My Documents as the new path (where 'X' is your new partition's drive letter, and log-on is your user name). After asking permission, Windows will change the location of My Documents and move the actual files.

Moving Application Data is trickier. Log in to each account and drag its Application Data folder in Explorer from C:\Documents and Settings\log-on to X:\log-on (again, where 'X' is the partition's drive letter and log-on is the user name). Now select Start, Run, type regedit, and press <Enter>. In the left pane, navigate to and select HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders. Double-click the AppData value, change the 'Value data' field to X:\log-on\Application Data, and press <Enter> (see FIGURE 1Figure 1: Move your data folder by copying the folder in Windows Explorer and changing a Registry setting.). Log off and then log in to the same account again. Now delete the Application Data folder in the old location.

Next, change the Favorites value in the Registry Editor just as you did the AppData value. If you have Microsoft's Tweak UI (part of the free PowerToys for Windows XP), use that program's My Computer, Special Folders option, which makes changing various folder locations a breeze. You still have to move the files and subfolders.

The one folder that's difficult to relocate is Local Settings\Application Data. You shouldn't try to move this folder, but at least two applications keep vital data here: Outlook and Outlook Express. Here's how to move that data:

Outlook: In Windows Explorer, navigate to and select C:\Documents and Settings\logon\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft. Inside this folder you'll find a subfolder named 'Outlook'. Move it to X:\logon\Application Data.

Select Start,Control Panel. Double-click the Mail icon (if you don't see this icon, click Switch to Classic View). Choose Data Files,Settings. At the error message, click OK. Browse the resulting dialog box to X:\logon\Application Data\Outlook, double-click the displayed file, and close the various dialog boxes.

Outlook Express: This program stores its mailboxes in a subfolder of Local Settings\Application Data that has a very long and confusing path. A faster way to relocate these mailboxes is to open Outlook Express, select Tools,Options, and click first the Maintenance tab and then the Store Folder button. You can change the data folder's location here before or after moving the actual files.

Finally, move the shared data. In Windows Explorer, create a folder named X:\All Users. Use the technique above for Application Data to move both Shared Documents and Application Data (they are inside C:\Documents and Settings\All Users) to this new location. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders. Add the new location in the 'Value data' field of Common AppData and Common Documents.

You can avoid some potential problems that might otherwise result from the change by performing some find and replace oerations in the Registry. The Registry Editor lacks a find-and-replace tool, but you can use Edit,Find to bring up the entries in the Find dialog box, manually replace each item, and then press <F3> to repeat the process. This can be long and tedious; I recommend using a more powerful Registry tool such as ChemTable's $30 Reg Organizer, which you can download from PC World's Downloads.

Search for the following strings: c:\documents and settings\logon\application data, c:\documents and settings\logon\my documents, c:\documents and settings\all users\documents, and c:\documents and settings\application data. When you find one of these strings, replace 'C:\Documents and Settings' with X:.

Microsoft stopped patching Windows 98 and Me as of June 30, 2006. Other security companies, such as Symantec and Trend Micro, will continue to support these versions of Windows for the foreseeable future, so you won't be left completely out in the cold.

While some security experts, such as Trend Micro's David Perry, argue that "We've still got enormous vulnerabilities in 98," I have to go along with ShieldsUp guru Steve Gibson, who argues that "An old, well-tested, and stable platform is arguably more secure than any newer system that is continually changing." Gibson points out, and Perry agrees, that today's hackers aren't bothering to target older versions of Windows. "The Sony rootkit fiasco didn't touch Windows 98/Me," says Gibson.

Mea culpa--with qualifications. After receiving your letter, I talked at length with two LCD experts--Ken Werner of Insight Media and Chris Connery of DisplaySearch.

Generally called "image retention," LCD burn-in is rare in computer monitors and TVs, but more common in large commercial displays, like those found in airports. It's also almost always reversible if the pixels involved are sufficiently exercised.

If your LCD suffers from image retention, treat it to a few hours with a screen saver; preferably one that writes to every pixel of the screen with white or gray. According to Werner, Windows' Starfield is a good choice: Right-click the desktop, choose Properties,Screen Saver, and select Starfield from the drop-down menu under 'Screen saver'.

You can use a Registry trick to prevent this display from updating. Since the screen shows this information only when unread messages are present, be sure to read all of your messages before making this change.

Once you've read them all, click Start,All Programs,Accessories,System Tools,System Restore,Create a new restore point, and step through the wizard.

With your restore point in place, select Start,Run, type regedit, and press <Enter>. In the left pane, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail. Right-click the UnreadMail key in the left pane and select Permissions. Choose your log-on name and check the Deny option across from 'Full Control'. Click OK,Yes, and close the Registry Editor.

Plenty of programs will find and delete duplicate files. My favorite is Big Bang Enterprises' DoubleKiller. It's free, easy to use, and versatile. But the biggest reason I like it is that it doesn't require installation: You simply decompress the .zip file you download, and then run the .exe file.

DoubleKiller can search for files with identical names, sizes, dates, CRC32-checksums, or any combination of those four options; and it lets you exclude files with certain attributes, names, and extensions. The program displays file matches against alternating white and gray backgrounds that highlight the groupings. You can check the files that you want to move or delete, either one at a time or in groups (including all but the first or last item in each group of dupes). DoubleKiller even lets you launch the file, open the folder it's stored in (the program uses the old term, "Directory"), and export all or part of the list to a tab-delimited text file. The more powerful DoubleKiller Pro costs $20, but the free version works just fine for me.

The short answer is no. For one thing, it may be illegal--though no one is really sure, as no case has been tried in court at this writing. You don't want to be the one to unintentionally launch a test case.

Apart from the legal questions around hitching a ride on your neighbor's Wi-Fi, do you really want to rely on such a tenuous Internet connection? If your neighbors move, or if they wise up and secure their Wi-Fi link (browse to Andrew Brandt's March Wireless Tips column for more on wireless security), you'll quickly find yourself offline.

Also, using someone else's "property" without permission is just not nice. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you. If you merely download your e-mail via a nearby wireless network on occasion, your neighbor may never notice, but if you're watching videos online, your neighbor's Internet experience could suffer.

In fact, you might want to warn them that they're leaving their Internet door unlocked. You may be stealing only bandwidth, but someone else could be using that connection for more nefarious purposes.

If you have an iPod or other portable player, or a notebook PC, the solution is downright cheap.

You need a Y-adaptor audio cable with a one-eighth-inch stereo mini plug (like the one used by your headphones or earbuds) on one end, and two standard RCA audio connectors on the other. The same type of plugs connect your CD player to your living room amplifier. Your local electronics store should have the cable for about $7.

Plug the RCA adapters into any available inputs on the back of the amplifier. These are usually color-coded red and white to help you get the right and left channel connections correct. Then plug the other end of the cable to your MP3 player, turn everything on, and enjoy the music. You many also want to tweak the volume level on your MP3 player for proper output to a stereo. Since you're using a headphone-level output instead of a line-level output, you'll likely want to use a volume level around 75 percent of what the device can put out, although your mileage may vary.

This setup works with any player. If a friend comes over and wants to play you a song, just unplug your audio player and plug the other one in.

If you don't have a portable music player, but you do have a Wi-Fi router, consider Linksys' Wireless-G Music Bridge. The software that comes with the product transmits your PC's sound over your wireless network to the Bridge, which sends it to your stereo via the RCA connectors. However, you can't pause the music without running back into your home office (or wherever you keep the computer). The Wireless-G Music Bridge costs about $85. Full-fledged streaming and control devices are expensive, but they usually provide you with more playback options.

CD-RW, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW are erasable variations on what is basically a read-only format. Windows reads that original format, and treats the discs as read-only.

What's worse, it sees the files on the discs as read-only, as well. Copy a file from a CD-RW to your hard drive, and the resulting file is read-only.

Most disc-authoring programs see RW discs as recordable discs that you can erase and reuse. It's like being able to reformat a drive, but not erase a file. If you're annoyed by the read-only attribute on files you copy from a CD or DVD, create a transition folder for them: Right-click the desktop, select New,Folder, name the folder fromcd, and press <Enter>. When you copy files from a CD or DVD to your hard drive, save them in that folder. Then open the fromcd folder, press <Ctrl>-A to select everything inside, right-click one file, and choose Properties (in Windows XP you can simply right-click the folder itself and select Properties). Uncheck the a??Read-only' option, click OK, select Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files, and click OK again. Now you can drag the files to your preferred location and edit them as well as read them.

Another solution is to use packet-writing software, such as Easy Media Creator's Drag-to-Disc or Nero Burning's InCD (InCD isn't part of Nero's default installation; you'll probably have to install it from the Nero CD). These programs work in the background, tricking Windows into thinking that the CD or DVD in the drive is another hard drive. With this software running, your rewritable optical discs won't be read-only.

Controlling the order isn't good enough. Windows starts all of the autoloading programs almost simultaneously. The autostart app that appears to load last is probably the one that takes the longest time.

You need something that lets you control the order and insert pauses between programs. That way, you can eliminate conflicts caused by multiple programs loading simultaneously, and you can choose which program welcomes you when you start your day. You can't do this with Windows alone. I recommend the free StartRight utility from Jackass JoeJoe's (sincere apologies for the company's silly name). StartRight lets you reorder Windows' autoloading programs and set delays for each. The utility lacks a help file, but it's not too difficult to figure out how to use it. Rather than run an installation program, you save the StartRight.exe file in a convenient location on your system, double-click the file to launch the program, and click the Install button. StartRight then takes control of your autoloading apps. Click the Edit button to bring up a dialog box where you can change the order in which the programs load, and set the pause (in nanoseconds) between program loads. (If you want to modify this order later, click the Edit button again.)