Every now and then when I am sitting at my Windows XP system, an annoying error message just pops up out of nowhere. The title bar is a seemingly random four-digit hexadecimal value followed by “qttask.exe – No Disk”. The text of the message says “There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive XX:.” At the bottom is the typical Cancel, Try Again, and Continue buttons.

The most annoying thing is that none of the button choices do anything to actual remove the error. The error message cycles back and forth showing an error message first for drive XX:, then for drive YY:, back and forth, over and over, at least 16 times.

Yes, that’s right — 16 times!!

That’s when I decided to do something about it.

But before I destroyed it, I had to find out more about it.

The qttask.exe program is a simple program that lets Apple’s QuickTime software (often bundled with iTunes) show up in the Windows taskbar. To me, the taskbar only needs to store the system’s volume control and be a place where I get a visual indication when I get mail. To hëll with everything else!

You’ll find solutions all over the ‘net that tell you (1) which registry entry to edit to stop qttask; (2) what option in the Control Panel to set; (3) to deselect the checkbox within the QuickTime software that says to display the control in the toolbar; (4) to remove and reinstall. None of that advice really matters or works. You think simply deselecting the checkbox will actually stop it from running in stealth mode?! Ha! Sooner or later, just like that bad apple MSN Messenger (that uses Microsoft’s own questionable sticky tactics), qttask will also eventually pop back.

The solution: Use the Task Manager to end the qttask process. Rename the qttask.exe file in your QuickTime directory to something else; you can even delete it as it is not used to play or view any QuickTime-associated data. Reboot. Simple!

The Problem

It seems that I am forever deleting those THUMBS.DB files that Windows XP creates automatically, whether I want the file created or not. I delete the file, look in the directory some time later, and — POW! — there it is again! If you’re like me, you’re probably mumbling to yourself, “I never want to see another one of thsose dåmn THUMBS.DB files again!”

The Solution

Well, the solution is surprisingly simple, but not completely intuitive. In your My Document folder or Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), click the Tools menu, then choose Folder Options. Click the View tab and, under the Advanced Settings, put a checkmark in the box that reads “Do not cache thumbnails”. Click the OK button.

It’s really that easy!

Many Samba servers do not support authenticating with encrypted passwords. Windows, on the other hand, defaults to transmitting encrypted passwords. In order to connect Windows to a Samba server, either the Samba server must accept encrypted passwords (the configuration of which can range from mildly painful to near impossible), or Windows must send passwords as plain text (which poses a higher security risk).

For my home network and my Samba-based networked file shares, it’s frankly easier to just configure Windows to transmit plain text passwords.

Windows Vista and Windows 7:
Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options and enable “Microsoft Network Client: Send unencrypted password to third-party SMB servers.” While you’re there, also change “Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level” setting to “Send LM and NTLM – use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated.” This works on the Business edition. These instructions should also work on the Enterprise and Ultimate versions, but the Home editions of Vista do not allow UI access to Local Security Policy and you’ll have to edit the registry manually.

If you have to configure the registry manually, start regedit.exe, and browse to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkStation\parameters], and set “EnablePlainTextPassword” with a DWORD value of 1.

Windows XP:
Mostly the same as for Vista. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options and enable “Microsoft Network Client: Send unencrypted password to third-party SMB servers.” If you must configure the registry manually, follow the instructions for Windows Vista above. Some machines running XP SP3 with certain security patches (such as KB2536276 from June 2011) may be unable to connect with plain-text passwords to some Samba servers.

Windows 98:
Start regedit.exe, and add the following key with a DWORD value of 1 to [My Computer\HKEY Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VNETSUP\EnablePlainTextPassword].

You should reboot Windows after following any of the instructions above.

Author’s Note: No, I was not clairvoyant in 2002 — I added new notes for WinXP SP3 and added mention of Windows 7 during a 2012 revision.

I frequently find myself writing small How-To snippets like this one, not necessarily because I have a compelling desire to inform the public in general on some esoteric technology topic — more often than not, I simply can’t remember all the nitty-gritty details myself, so I write the instructions down here for me to remember.

We all benefit from my holey memory.