Software & internet

The difference between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW explained

There’s DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and even DVD-ROM! So what’s the difference between all of these different names, aren’t all DVDs the same? Well, it’s not quite that simple.

Let’s first start with the most obvious difference: some have R and some have RW. The “R” stands for readable, while the “W” stands for writeable.

The main difference between DVD-R and DVD-RW, or DVD+R and DVD+RW is that the R disc formats can only be written to once, and then it is only readable and can’t be erased for the rest of its digital life. While RW discs are can be written to and erased many times, they are both readable and writeable.

“R” discs are perfect if they are only needed to be written to once, such as giving some files to a friend or transferring them between PCs. “RW” discs have their strength in the ability to be used many times over, which is great for routine system backups, etc. And naturally, the RW discs are slightly more expensive than the R discs, but you’ll have to decide if the trade offs are worth the money.

Now, onto the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. As I just described above, DVD-R & DVD-RW are sister discs, the difference being one is writeable once, while the other is writeable multiple times. The same thing is true for DVD+R & DVD+RW. So the question is, what’s the difference between the plus and minus?

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I ran across this the other day on another site and I thought that a couple people might find it helpful, so here we go:

1. First go Start/Run, and type in ‘cmd’ to bring up the Command Prompt.
2. Type ‘CD \’ and hit enter.
3. Type ‘DIR *.dll /s /b > regdll.bat’ and hit enter.
4. Type ‘Notepad regdll.bat’ and hit enter.
   Now Notepad is going to bring up a list of your .dll files, nevermind that for a moment.
5. Now type ‘Path’ and hit enter to see your current path. It will bring up something like: Path=c:\Windows;c:\windows\Command
6. (supplement your Windows Version, ex: C:\WINNT, or C:\Windows) Now type: ‘Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\Command;c:\Windows\Program~\Accessories’ and hit enter.
7. Verify again by typing ‘Path’ and hitting enter, and then type: ‘C:\WINNT\System32\Regsvr32.exe /s C:\’ and hit enter again.
8. Now, go back to Notepad and if you have Win98 use the replace feature in Wordpad (CTRL + H) or notepad to search for ‘C:\’ and replace it with this: ‘C:\Windows\System\Regsvr32.exe /s C:\’
   If you have Win2000, etc. use the replace command in note pad to search for ‘C:\’ and replace it with this: ‘C:\WINNT\System32\Regsvr32.exe /s C:\’
   *Be sure to type the replace string exactly like above or it won’t work*
9. Use “Replace All” to make the changes to the entire file.
10. When it finishes, save it, exit notepad or wordpad, and return to the Command Prompt.
11. Type ‘regdll’ and press enter. If you followed the above steps correctly it will now go through and re-register all your .dll files.

1. Start, Run, ‘Regedit’.
2. Press ‘Ctrl’+'F’ to open find box and type ‘Recycle Bin’ to search.
3. Change any value data with ‘Recycle Bin’ to whatever name you want to give it ( ie, like ‘Trash Can’ or ‘Dump’ etc).
4. Press F3 to continue searching for ‘Recycle Bin’ and change wherever you come across ‘Recycle Bin’ to new its new name.
5. Repeat step 4 until you have finished with searching and changed all values to its new name.
6. Close regedit and hit F5 on desktop to see the new name on screen.

Note: As a good practice, always backup your registry before changing anything although changing ‘Recycle Bin’ name is a simple tweak and doesnt affect anything else.

XP PRO has a lot of fun utilities. One of the most useful ones I have found to date is the ability to remotely reboot a PC. There are 2 ways of doing this. You will need to have admin access to the PC to preform these actions. That being said, here is the first way to do it:

1. Right click my computer, choose manage.
2. Highlight the Computer Management (Local) then click on Action, choose connect to another computer.
3. In the window that opens fill in the machine name of the PC you want to connect to and click ok.
4. Once connected right click on Computer Management (Remote machine name) and choose properties.
5. Go to the “Advanced” tab and click the Settings button under Start up and recovery.
6. Click on the Shutdown button.

Under action choose what you want to do (you can log off current user, shut down, restart, or power down. you can also choose if you want to force all applications to close, close hung apps, or wait for all apps to close by themselves).

The second way… Remember dos… that good old thing. Open up a command prompt and enter in the following:

%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -r -m \\Machinename.

The command prompt has more switches and options. I highly suggest using shutdown.exe /? to see all the posibilities.