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rlohmann
February 8th, 2006, 06:34 PM
XP crashed on Monday evening, sort of. (I think I know why it happened, but that's another issue.)

Anyway, according to GRUB, the ugly but invulnerable Linux boot manager, everything on the C drive was still there, so after several tries, including a password problem, I got XP up and running again.

Sort of.

The crash had apparently fried my user account. I was logged on as "Administrator," but with the XP default desktop and no applications. Since I had created a virtual D drive for all of my apps and backed up all my data to a fare-thee-well, I didn't lose anything, but since the registry was trashed I'm having to reinstall everything.

The point of all this is that in rebuilding Firefox (all of my bookmarks are gone) I found an extension called "No Script," a "whitelist" application. It offers, in substance, to block everything unless and until the user tells it to admit a specific site.

This forum was behaving strangely until I realized I wasn't seeing nine-tenths of the threads and disabled the entire module.

Has anyone else dealt with this?

earler
February 8th, 2006, 06:37 PM
A bit late, but you should have kept a backup of your firefox profile, which includes the bookmarks.

-er

Judy G. Russell
February 8th, 2006, 09:32 PM
Er... if everything was still there, then your Firefox profile should have been there too. (And no, I don't have that extension.)

Mike
February 8th, 2006, 11:34 PM
I use NoScript, and I love it. By default, it blocks Javascript on every site, but simply clicking on the icon in the status bar allows me to temporarily or permanently permit Javascript for the site (or sites) from which the content is being pulled. Changing the setting also automatically causes a refresh.

rlohmann
February 9th, 2006, 11:27 AM
I did, but I had to copy each URL in because merely moving the copy into the "profile" subdirectory didn't work. The bookmarks didn't appear on the Firefox toolbar. :(

rlohmann
February 9th, 2006, 11:30 AM
Everything was on the hard drive, but in destroying--however and for whatever reason--my account, XP destroyed the "documents and settings" subdirectory inside it. That, of course, held all the registry settings.

Strangely, most (but not all) of my applications still work without having to be reinstalled (although MS Money is behaving very strangely).

rlohmann
February 9th, 2006, 11:32 AM
I guess it just takes some getting used to. I'm beginning now to remember to click on the icon when I get a "404-file not found" message.

Mike
February 9th, 2006, 11:54 AM
Yeah, I just click on the link when a page doesn't work the way I think it should.

Sometimes I discover the problem isn't that scripts are blocked, but that the page is broken.

fhaber
February 9th, 2006, 02:32 PM
Now that the horse is gone - here are my gem-like barn-door hinge repair tips:

Some people just set up a second admin-privilege account (and a peon one, too, if you use that for additional security), and copy all settings over. I think there's an MSKB tips page on this, but it's mostly a matter of drag and drop for the files, avoiding desktop.ini et. al.

I see user accounts in XP trashed fairly frequently these days. Spyware is usually the culprit.

earler
February 9th, 2006, 02:32 PM
The bookmarks are located in a file called, suitably, bookmarks.html. That file is located in the profile folder you use, not the default one. It's easy to back up. You just copy it to another location.

From now on, copy the profile folders to a safe location once you've exited firefox. You can't copy all the files in there unless firefox is closed.

-er

rlohmann
February 10th, 2006, 06:39 PM
The bookmarks are located in a file called, suitably, bookmarks.html. That file is located in the profile folder you use, not the default one. It's easy to back up. You just copy it to another location.I'm not as dumb as I look.

The bookmarks I recovered were the bookmarks I had been using.

When XP trashes an account, it demolishes the Documents and Settings folder, whereat are maintained, inter alia, certain registry settings, including, apparently, those pointing to the Firefox bookmarks. Consequently, even though my bookmarks were still sitting in the profile folder, Firefox wasn't recognising them, and just gave me the bookmarks toolbar that comes with a new Firefox download.

In any event, the links themselves were still live, so I just opened every site and put it on the toolbar. Some I decided I didn't need anymore, others were in what I now think of as the wrong places, and some were no longer in existence.

So on balance, it was a useful exercise in housecleaning.

rlohmann
February 10th, 2006, 06:43 PM
Now that the horse is gone - here are my gem-like barn-door hinge repair tips:

Some people just set up a second admin-privilege account (and a peon one, too, if you use that for additional security), and copy all settings over.Good idea. Thanks.

I see user accounts in XP trashed fairly frequently these days. Spyware is usually the culprit. Possibly, but I have a lot of security stuff on my machine, and I run regular scans for the various kinds of malware. My own gut feeling is that it's just the #@&*($#!! Windows registry.

rlohmann
February 10th, 2006, 06:45 PM
If Frank's theory about spyware is correct, NoScript should be one more level of protection.

Dan in Saint Louis
February 10th, 2006, 07:55 PM
it demolishes the Documents and Settings folder, whereat are maintained, inter alia, certain registry settings, including, apparently, those pointing to the Firefox bookmarks.
As best I can figure out, the registry doesn't get involved here. The "open source" authors seem to shy away from it -- can't imagine why<G>!

What DOES happen is that a new Firefox install generates a new profile, and that will be the default profile unless you 1) Build a shortcut that starts FF and points to a different profile, 2) Edit "profiles.ini" to point to the old one, 3) Rename the old one to the same as the new one (better rename the new one first or WinDoze won't let that happen!), or 4) Start FF with a command-line switch that opens the profile editor and lets you choose which one to use each time.

earler
February 11th, 2006, 07:16 AM
I never found what the command-line switches for firefox are? Where can one find them?

-er

earler
February 11th, 2006, 07:19 AM
I don't think firefox uses the registry for this purpose. I've been copying my profile from my desktop to my laptop, thence to a desktop in the country without any problems. As I already said, I do backup my profile every few days...........just in case.

Dan has some good advice in his message.

-er

Judy G. Russell
February 11th, 2006, 09:44 AM
Try here (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_Line_Arguments).

earler
February 11th, 2006, 09:49 AM
Thank you very much!

-er

Mike
February 12th, 2006, 04:25 PM
That's precisely why I use NoScript. That way, if I click on a link after forgetting to confirm the destination, the site can't do any harm by running scripts.