Having just installed some new Bluetooth software, I was left with a “My Bluetooth Places” icon on my desktop. And you can’t delete it as you would with other icons.

But there are two methods of getting rid of it (these apply to Windows XP)…

1. Use Tweak UI – under the “Desktop” you can untick the “My Bluetooth Places” icon.
2. Use the “Clean Desktop” option…

• Right click on your desktop and select “Properties”.
• Select the “Desktop” tab and click on the “Customise Desktop” button.
• Click the “Clean Desktop” button at the bottom, click “Next” and select “My Bluetooth Places” in the list that appears.
• Click “Next” again and then “Finish”.
• The icon will be moved to it’s own “unused icons” folder on the desktop which can now be deleted.

On my home desktop PC, I’m running Windows Media Player 11 under Windows XP. Last night, when attempting to sync some music with my phone, I realised that a couple of recent albums were missing from WMP. However, they were in the My Music folder, along with everything else. Clearing down the library and getting WMP to rebuild it didn’t work.

However, after a bit of searching I found that rebuilding the media library is the usual solution. Here’s what you do…

1. Close Windows Media Player
2. Ensure that service “Window Media Player Network Sharing Service” isn’t runnong
3. Find the directory %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\ and rename or delete it.

At this point, WMP usually then works. But not in my case. Instead I found a lesser known solution – basically, the system flags have been set for these files. Unfortunately, Windows file dialogue doesn’t tell you this so you have to resort to the Command Window.

Navigate (in a command window) to your music folder and then run…

dir /ads /s

This will list any folders that have the system flag set. In my case my missing albums were listed. To reset the system flag run the following…
attrib -s *.* /d /s

Some errors will occur – these are related to the system files that are in each album folder. However, this command doesn’t affect them due to them being hidden.

When I then re-added my music folder to WMP the missing music appeared!

The BIOS on my Acer was horribly out of date and the change logs showed that a lot of useful fixes had been implemented since. As much as I hate doing BIOS updates, due to the possibility of catastrophic problems, I decided to give it a go.

I couldn’t find anything on the Acer site on how to do it, although they offer the BIOS updates, but I did find various forums and blogs¹ where it’s been discussed. In the end I found a combination of advice was the best solution.

In a nutshell, the BIOS has to be upgraded via DOS. And not the Command Prompt DOS-a-like that Windows offers. That means putting DOS on a USB stick and booting from it.

Bear in mind that I have a Windows XP A150 Aspire One. And that when I say USB memory, I also mean USB drive. And vice versa.² So, what you’ll need…

1. A USB memory stick. I read somewhere that recommended a 4GB one. No idea why as the files took up 3.2MB in total. Now, and this is where I went wrong initially, the USB memory has to be formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS.
2. A download of UNetbootin – this is a free program that will create a bootable USB device with one of a number of downloadable operating systems, including any your own. Simply click on the option to download the latest Windows version.
3. A download of the latest BIOS from Acer. Make sure you unzip it.

And here’s the process..

1. Ensure your memory stick is plugged in and run UNetbootin.
2. It will prompt for a “Distribution” – change this to “FreeDOS”.
3. At the bottom of the window ensure the “Type” is “USB Drive” and the “Drive” is the drive letter of your USB memory stick.
4. Click on “OK” and FreeDOS will be installed onto the USB drive.
5. Now copy the BIOS files onto the USB drive as well.
6. Reboot the Acer and press F2 at the “splash screen” to go into the BIOS settings.
7. Once in the BIOS select the Boot Menu and move the USB HDD to the top of the list (using F5 and F6 to move them up and down).
8. Press F10 to save and exit.
9. Your Acer should now boot from the USB stick.
10. The FreeDOS screen will appear with an option to select a default option. Do this.
11. You will now be presented with a list of boot options – select option 5 (FreeDOS Live CD).
12. I should have maybe said earlier that if you’re not literate with DOS, then you may struggle at this point FreeDOS will now have started and you’ll have a standard DOS screen. Go into C:\ (which is actually your USB memory stick) and find the BIOS files you saved earlier. In particular, find the .BAT file and run it.
13. The BIOS should now install and reboot your Acer. Make sure to change the BIOS back to boot from your hard drive in future (and, whilst you’re there, check the BIOS front screen to ensure the BIOS version number is correct!).

1. particularly this one [↩]
2. it’s confusing isn’t it? Different names for the same thing [↩]