Windows XP FAQsFrom the Windows 2000 and .Net Magazine mailing list Rename Multiple Files in One Fell Swoop What's a "Fell Swoop" anyhow? I think it has something to do with birds of prey. Have you ever wanted to rename a bunch of files at the same time? Maybe you've collected a bunch of pictures under different names and you want to give them a common name related to a project you're working on. Check this out:
All the files are renamed. The first one has the name you typed, and subsequent files have (1), (2), etc. after the name.
Q. How can I close Windows Messenger without the program reminding me that it's still running? A. The Windows Messenger component typically runs as a background process, but it runs as a foreground process while you're communicating with a contact. After you close the foreground application, Windows Messenger continues to run as a background process (so people can initiate contact with you), an icon remains in the notification area, and an information balloon informs you that the program is still running. If you select the "Click here to not show this reminder again" check box, Windows Messenger won't display the information balloon the next time you close the foreground application. You might want to make this setting the default action (or create a custom policy to do so), in which case you need to know how the registry stores the setting. To modify the registry subkey so that Windows Messenger doesn't notify you that the program is still running, perform the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MessengerService subkey. 3. Double-click the DSBkgndMode binary value. 4. To turn off the Windows Messenger information-balloon notification, set the value to 00 00 00 00 To turn on the Windows Messenger information-balloon notification, set the value to 01 00 00 00 5. Click OK. 6. Close the registry editor. The change takes effect immediately. Q. How can I use Windows XP's standard Help and Support to get information about my computer? A. XP's Help and Support module, which you can access at the root of the Start menu, provides basic information about your machine, including - machine model and BIOS version - OS build and service pack - memory - processor - disk - system name and domain - proxy and network To access this information, perform the following steps: 1. Start the Help and Support module (go to Start and click "Help and Support", or type helpctr.exe from the Run dialog box or command prompt). 2. Under the "Pick a task" section, click the "Use Tools to view your computer information and diagnose problems" link. 3. From the left-hand pane under the Tools section, select "My Computer Information." 4. From the right-hand pane, select "View general information about this computer." XP will display a progress bar that shows the system information the OS is collecting and will then display the system information. Q. How can I copy disk quotas from one volume to another? A. The NTFS version that Microsoft supplies with Windows 2000 and later OSs lets you assign user quotas so that an administrator can restrict the amount of space users can access on a per-volume basis. Although you can set global quotas for all users, you can also drill down and assign individual user quotas. Because these per-user quotas can take a long time to configure, you might prefer to export the quotas from one disk to a different volume (e.g., if your system has multiple disks, you might want to configure the same quotas on many disks). To export quotas from a volume, perform the following steps: 1. Start Windows Explorer. 2. Right-click the volume containing the user quotas that you want to copy to another volume, then select Properties from the context menu. 3. Select the Quota tab. 4. Click Quota Entries. 5. From the Quota menu, select Export. 6. Enter a filename for the export file, then click Save. 7. Close the Quota dialog box. To import the quota information, perform the following steps: 1. Start Windows Explorer. 2. Right-click the volume to which you want to import the user quotas, then select Properties from the context menu. 3. Select the Quota tab. 4. Click Quota Entries. 5. From the Quota menu, select Import. 6. Select the exported file and click Open. 7. For any quotas that already exist, the OS will ask you whether you want to replace the existing file and whether you want to perform this action on all conflicts. 8. Close the Quota dialog box. Q. Why can't I administer my Windows .NET Server (Win.NET Server) and Windows 2000 domain from a Windows 9x client? A. Both Win.NET Server and Win2K provide an adminpak.msi Windows Installer file that contains the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins for administering Win.NET Server and Win2K servers for deployment on a Windows XP or Win2K client machine. Although you can download the MMC framework from http://support.microsoft.com/support/mmc/mmcdown.asp for execution on Win9x clients, the adminpak.msi file won't run on Win9x systems and Microsoft has no plans to enable this support. The only option is to enable Win2K Server Terminal Services on the server and create a client session to the server.Q: How can I force Windows XP to re-apply a custom policy every time a user logons on? A. Custom policies (also known as preferences) consist of custom .adm files. You typically apply these custom policies when you first create them and when you modify them. As a result of modification, the cached list of Group Policy Objects (GPOs) eventually doesn't match the current list. Therefore, if a user succeeds in changing the settings that the custom policy invokes (e.g., using Desktop settings, Control Panel), XP won't reapply that custom policy the next time the user logs on. However, you can configure the OS to reapply the custom policy every time a user logs on or a machine starts by performing the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\GPExtensions\<GUID of the policy> subkey. 3. Double-click the NoGPOListChanges value (or create this value of type DWORD if it's missing), set the value to 0, and click OK. 4. Close the registry editor. Setting the value back to 1 tells the OS that it doesn't need to call the callback function to reload the policy when no change occurs (the default behavior). This registry change has the same effect as setting the "Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed" option in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Computer Configuration snap-in under the Administrative Templates, System, Group Policy section.
Q. How can I activate the Filmstrip view for my Windows XP folder? A. XP includes a new type of view for folders that contain graphics files (e.g., .gif, .jpeg, .tif). This Filmstrip view displays a large version of the selected picture in the top right-hand pane of Windows Explorer and a smaller version of all pictures in the folder in the bottom right-hand pane. To activate this view, you must configure the folder as either a Pictures type or Photo Album type by performing the following steps: 1. Right-click the folder and select Properties from the context menu. 2. Select the Customize tab. 3. Under "Use this folder type as a template", select either Photo Album or Pictures and click OK. 4. From the Windows Explorer View menu, select Filmstrip to view the pictures from within the selected folder. Q. How can I use Windows XP's Fast User Switching to switch among users? A. When you enable XP's Fast User Switching, you can switch among users without having to close any users' open programs. To switch users, you can - press the Windows key and L simultaneously - press Ctrl+Alt+Del, click Shut Down, then select Switch User - select "Log off" from the Start menu, then select Switch User from the displayed dialog box All of the above options will take you back to the Welcome screen, where you can log on as another user. Q. How can I display the local Administrator account on the Windows XP Welcome screen? A. XP doesn't display the Administrator account on the Welcome screen by default. However, you can add this account by performing the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList subkey. 3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value. 4. Enter Administrator as the subkey name, then press Enter. 5. Double-click the new value, set it to 1, and click OK. 6. Close the registry editor. The Administrator account will now appear on the Welcome screen. You can use these same steps to control which other accounts appear on the Welcome screen. Set the registry account value to 1 to display an account or 0 to hide an account. For example, to hide the account for user John, add a value named "john" to the registry subkey identified in Step 2 and set the value to 0. Q. How can I start the System Restore Tool from the Windows XP command prompt? A. The System Restore Tool is useful for restoring your system to an earlier state. However, you can't start the System Restore Tool from the Recovery Console, and you might be unable to boot your machine as usual or access the System Restore Tool in Safe mode. To access the System Restore Tool in these situations, perform the following steps to modify the Windows Explorer shell to use the old Program Manager (progman.exe) shell from Windows NT 3.51: 1. Start the computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt. 2. Log on as an administrator. 3. At the command prompt, type regedit to open a registry editor. 4. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon subkey. 5. Modify the Shell entry to "progman.exe" (don't type the quotes), then press Enter. 6. Close the registry editor. 7. At the command prompt, type shutdown -r to reboot the machine. 8. After the system reboots, log on as an administrator; the Program Manager shell will start. 9. From the File menu, select Run and enter c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe to start the System Restore Tool. 10. Restore the system as usual. You won't need to set the shell back to Windows Explorer because the act of restoring the system state to an earlier point will accomplish this task. Q. How can I force Windows XP to reapply a custom policy every time a user logs on? A. Custom policies (also known as preferences) consist of custom .adm files. You typically apply these custom policies when you first create them and when you modify them. As a result of modification, the cached list of Group Policy Objects--GPOs--doesn't match the current list. Therefore, if a user succeeds in changing the settings that the custom policy invokes (e.g., using Desktop settings, Control Panel), XP won't reapply that custom policy the next time the user logs on. However, you can configure the OS to reapply the custom policy every time a user logs on or a machine starts by performing the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\GPExtensions\<GUID of the policy> subkey. 3. Double-click the NoGPOListChanges value (or create this value of type DWORD if it's missing), set the value to 0, and click OK. 4. Close the registry editor. Setting the value back to 1 tells the OS that it doesn't need to call the callback function to reload the policy when no change occurs (the default behavior). This registry change has the same effect as setting the "Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed" option in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Computer Configuration snap-in under the Administrative Templates, System, Group Policy section. Q. How can I ensure that Microsoft Outlook 2002 or Outlook 2000 will overwrite information I've deleted from my personal folder store (PST) and offline folder store (OST) when I close my mailbox? A. Outlook usually removes deleted data from the PST and OST when you close the application. To ensure that Outlook overwrites all deleted data when you close your mailbox, perform the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\PST subkey for Outlook 2002 or to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\PST subkey for Outlook 2000 (you might need to create the PST subkey if it doesn't exist). 3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value. 4. Enter a name of PSTNullFreeOnClose, then press Enter. 5. Double-click the new entry, set the value to 1 (0 is the default setting) to instruct Outlook to remove the deleted data every time you close the application, then click OK. 6. Close the registry editor. Q. How can I ascertain which machine a user is using? A. To identify which machine a particular user is using, you can run a series of commands (and even create a script to automate this process) by performing the following steps: 1. Open a command prompt--go to Start, Run, and type cmd.exe 2. Type nbtstat -R to purge and reload the remote cache name table. 3. Type net send <username> . to send the user a period (.) for a message. 4. Type nbtstat -c to list the cache of recently used names and IP addresses, so you can identify the entry for the user you're communicating with. 5. Type nbtstat -A <IP address identified in step 4> to equate the user's IP address to the machine name. For example, to locate a user named Kevin, I performed the following series of commands and received the indicated responses: C:\>nbtstat -R Successful purge and preload of the NBT Remote Cache Name Table. C:\>net send kevin . The message was successfully sent to KEVIN. C:\>nbtstat -c Local Area Connection: Node IpAddress: [200.200.200.5] Scope Id: [] NetBIOS Remote Cache Name Table Name Type Host Address Life [sec] ------------------------------------------------------------ KEVIN <03> UNIQUE 200.200.200.3 597 C:\>nbtstat -A 200.200.200.3 Local Area Connection: Node IpAddress: [200.200.200.5] Scope Id: [] NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table Name Type Status WORKST2 <00> UNIQUE Registered SAVILLTECH <00> GROUP Registered WORKST2 <03> UNIQUE Registered WORKST2 <20> UNIQUE Registered SAVILLTECH <1E> GROUP Registered WORKST2 <6A> UNIQUE Registered WORKST2 <87> UNIQUE Registered KEVIN <03> UNIQUE Registered MAC Address = 00-08-C3-8F-0D-83 From this information, I discovered that Kevin is using machine WORKST2 at IP address 200.200.200.3. Q. How can I recover a deleted dynamic NTFS or FAT32 volume in Windows XP or Windows 2000? A. When you delete a dynamic volume, the OS erases the volume's file-system boot sector (sector 0) and removes the volume entry from the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in private region database. However, as part of this process, the OS leaves the rest of the drive intact, including the data. Both FAT32 and NTFS store a backup copy of the boot sector. You can copy this boot sector back to sector 0 and restore the volume as long as you know the original volume size. To recover an NTFS volume, perform the following steps: 1. Open the Disk Management snap-in (go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and select Storage). 2. Recreate the original volume by right-clicking the unpartitioned space and selecting New Partition from the context menu; specify the exact size of the original volume in the process, but don't format the volume (you must know the original volume size to recreate the volume because the Disk Management snap-in rounds partition sizes). 3. Use dskprobe.exe to recover the backup boot sector for the NTFS volume from the end of the deleted dynamic volume (because you're restoring a dynamic volume, you might need to use dmdiag.exe to find the backup boot sector). See the Microsoft article "Recovering NTFS boot sector on NTFS partitions" ( http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?id=kb;en-us;q153973 ) for an explanation of how to copy the boot sector. 4. After you rewrite the NTFS boot sector, quit Dskprobe. 5. Go to the MMC Computer Management console Action menu and click Rescan Disks to mount the volume for immediate use. To recover a FAT32 volume, perform the following steps: 1. Open the Disk Management snap-in (go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and select Storage). 2. Recreate the original volume by right-clicking the unpartitioned space and selecting New Partition from the context menu; specify the exact size of the original volume in the process, but don't format the volume (you must know the original volume size to recreate the volume because the Disk Management snap-in rounds partition sizes). 3. Use dskprobe.exe to recover the backup boot sector for the deleted dynamic FAT32 volume from sector 6 of the logical volume and write it to sector 0 of the logical volume. See the Microsoft article "Chkdsk Does Not Use Backup Boot Sector to Fix Corrupted FAT32 Boot Sector" ( http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?id=kb;en-us;q247575 ) for an explanation of how to copy the boot sector. 4. After you rewrite the FAT32 boot sector, quit Dskprobe. 5. Go to the Computer Management console Action menu and click Rescan Disks to mount the volume for immediate use. Q. Why can't the Windows 2000 version of Windows Explorer display files or folders that have a path longer than 259 characters? A. A bug in the Win2K version of Windows Explorer and the search feature prevent the OS from displaying files or folders in paths longer than 259 characters. This bug affects only searches you perform on your local system; it doesn't affect users who connect over a network. To work around this problem, you can take any of the following steps: - From a command prompt session, use the 8.3 file-naming convention to access files or folders. - Use the Net Use command to create a network path to your local drive. - Use the Subst command to create a new drive letter to a point in the path. For example, subst g: d:\path\path2\path3 Q. How can I improve the video-viewing performance on my laptop? A. Video playback performance is very CPU intensive. As a result, if you run other applications while attempting to view video on your laptop, you might significantly degrade the playback performance. Although this concern isn't specific to laptops, other components, such as power management, also affect laptop video playback performance. For example, some power-management technologies, such as Intel's Intel SpeedStep technology and AMD's AMD PowerNow! Technology, can affect the processor speed. For Windows 2000, use the applet or configuration utility that the system vendor provided to select a setting that doesn't permit the processor speed to change during video playback. Likewise, if running the laptop CPU at a low speed compromises video playback performance, select a higher CPU speed. For Windows XP, ensure that you've set the power scheme to Always On by performing the following steps: 1. Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click Power Options). 2. Select the Power Schemes tab. 3. Select Always On from the drop-down list. 4. Click OK. After you finish viewing your video, I suggest that you adjust the power mode or processor mode to a lower setting to preserve battery life. Q. How can I create a TaskPad in a Windows XP Microsoft Management Console (MMC) console? A. You can add snap-ins to an MMC console and even create a TaskPad to the console so that you can add commonly used actions and commands to a bar in the console. To create a TaskPad, perform the following steps: 1. Start the MMC console (go to Start, Run, and type MMC to open a blank console). 2. From the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in to add the snap-ins you want to use (if you've already created an .msc file, right-click the file and select Author from the context menu to open the file in Author mode). 3. From the Action menu, select New TaskPad View. 4. Click Next to bypass the welcome wizard introduction screen. 5. Select the style you want to use for the TaskPad display, then click Next to display a preview of the TaskPad. 6. Decide whether the TaskPad will apply to just the tree structure or to all instances of the tree structure, then click Next. 7. Name the TaskPad, then click Next. A Finished dialog box will appear at the end of the wizard. The dialog box gives you the option of running the new task wizard and adding tasks to your new blank TaskPad. 8. Ensure that you've selected the "Run new task wizard" check box, then click Finish. 9. When the new task wizard opens, click Next to bypass the introduction page. 10. Select the type of task you want to add (you can add a link to a context menu option, a command execution, a Web site, or quick navigation to a Favorite), then click Next. 11. Enter the options for your choice, then click Next. 12. Click Finish (you can optionally select the "Another task" check box to add another task). 13. Save your console. Q. How can I use Windows XP's schtasks.exe tool under Windows
2000?
Q. How can I disable multiuser editing in Microsoft Office XP's
word Q. How can I disable the search assistant in Microsoft Internet
Q. How can I disable the Windows Explorer search assistant in
Windows XP? Q. How can I enter an OEMPnPDriversPath value longer than 256
characters in the Windows 2000 unattend.txt file? Q. How can I uninstall then reinstall Microsoft NetMeeting under
Windows 2000? Q. How can I modify the installation credential settings in
Windows 2000? Q. Why does my machine shut down slowly after I enable the "Clear
Virtual Memory Pagefile When System Shuts Down" setting? Q. How can I replace the Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) logo
in the upper left corner of OWA in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server? Q. What is the Windows XP Automatic Update? Q. How can I configure which icons Windows XP displays in the
notification area at the bottom of the screen? Q. How can I resume a Microsoft Transfer Manager session?
Q. How can I determine which version of NTFS I'm using? Q. How can I check and set a volume's dirty status in Windows XP? Q. I have licenses available on the Windows 2000 Server Terminal
Services License server, but when I try to connect, I receive an error
message stating my 90-day trial period has ended. What can I do? Q. Why does an Active Directory (AD)-integrated DNS server take longer to start than a typical zone-based DNS server? A. Windows 2000 and later OSs can store DNS information in AD if the DNS server is a domain controller (DC). Alternatively, the OS can store DNS information on a standard primary zone-based DNS server, which is file based. When the DNS service starts, it loads all zone information into a memory cache, regardless of whether the OS maintains the DNS information in AD or in a file. DNS information stored in a standard primary zone (i.e., read from a zone file) will load faster than information stored in an AD-integrated zone because the integrated zone must read all its records from AD. This difference in performance is simply an effect of reading information from different media (file versus AD). Q. Why do I receive the error message "You may not remove the local logon right from the Administrators local group" when I edit user rights? A. Before Microsoft developed the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, administrators used the User Manager for Domains tool to manage user accounts. You might still have a need to administer a Windows NT 4.0 domain from Windows 2000 or NT 4.0 clients, which can lead to problems when you try to add or remove user accounts from the "Grant To" list in the User Rights Policy dialog box and result in the following error message: You may not remove the local logon right from the Administrators local group. Doing so will disable all local administration of this computer. This error can result from the following conditions: - A Win2K Professional installation is running the NT 4.0 Administration Tools. Win2K machines must run the Win2K Administration Tools (i.e., adminpak.msi) that come with Win2K Server. - The "Grant To" list you're attempting to modify contains a deleted user or group. To resolve this problem, you must log on to the PDC of the NT 4.0 domain and use the local User Manager for Domains tool to remove the deleted account or group from the "Grant To" list. Q. Why does my Windows XP client receive an error message when it connects to a Windows 2000 Server Terminal Services server? A. The Microsoft Clearinghouse, which authorizes Terminal Services License servers, has made a change to the certificates that the Clearinghouse provides to terminal servers that can result in the following error message when an XP client attempts to connect to the Win2K Terminal Services server: Because of a security error, the client could not connect to the terminal server. After making sure that you are logged on to the network, try connecting to the server again. XP clients have a built-in Client Access License (CAL) for accessing Win2K Terminal Services servers. To resolve the error, you need to delete the XP Terminal Services License information from the registry and modify the Certificate types on the Win2K Terminal Services server. On the Win2K Terminal Services server, perform the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters subkey. 3. Delete the Certificate, X 509 Certificate, and X 509 Certificate ID values. 4. Close the registry editor, then restart the server. On the XP client, perform the following steps: 1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe). 2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft subkey. 3. Delete the MSLicensing subkey. 4. Close the registry editor. 5. Connect to the terminal server. If performing these steps doesn't resolve your problem, you need to contact the Microsoft Clearinghouse to deactivate and reactivate your Win2K Terminal Services License server. Q. Why does the Windows boot process hang on a blank screen when I press the Esc key? A. During the Windows boot process, you can press the F5 key to specify Safe mode or the F8 key to specify boot options. Both keys have 3-byte key-codes, of which the first byte is the same as the Esc key. As a result, if you press Esc, Windows detects this byte and waits for another 2 bytes (but the key buffer is now empty because Esc is only 1 byte). To remedy this situation, press another key to fill the buffer with extra bytes and let Windows continue to boot. Q. How can I install specific applications from the Windows .NET Server (Win.NET Server) and Windows 2000 Administration Tools pack? A. Microsoft supplies the Win.NET Server and Win2K Administration Tools pack as one Windows Installer file (i.e., adminpak.msi). Executing the Windows Installer file installs the whole toolset to your machine. To install individual tools, perform the following steps: 1. Open the command prompt by going to Start, Run and typing cmd.exe 2. Navigate to the folder that contains adminpak.msi. 3. Type msiexec /i adminpak.msi ADDLOCAL=<Short code for the tool> /qb For example, type msiexec /i adminpak.msi ADDLOCAL=FeADTools /qb for the Active Directory (AD) tools. 4. Close the command-prompt session. The full list of short codes is Abbreviation Tool ************ ********************** FeADTools Active Directory Tools FeCERTConsole Certification Authority FeClusterConsole Cluster Administrator FeCMAKConsole Connection Manager Administration Kit FeDHCPConsole DHCP FeDFSConsole Distributed File System FeDNSConsole DNS FeIASConsole Internet Authentication Service FeIISConsole Internet Services Manager FeACSConsole QoS Admission Control FeRSConsole Remote Storage FeRRASConsole RRAS FeTAPIConsole Telephony FeTSClientConsole Terminal Services Client FeTSMgrConsole Terminal Services Tools FeWINSConsole WINS Q. How can I link my Windows XP user account to my Microsoft .NET Passport? A. You can now save information about your .NET Passport within your XP user account. Many Microsoft and third-party Web sites use .NET Passport to confirm user credentials and enable extra services (you can find information and apply at <http://www.passport.com> ).If your computer is part of a domain, you can integrate your .NET Passport with your XP account by performing the following steps: 1. Start the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) User Accounts Control Panel snap-in (go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click User Accounts). 2. Select the Advanced tab. 3. Under the "Passwords and .NET Passports" section, click the .NET Passport Wizard button. 4. When the .NET Passport Wizard starts, follow the onscreen prompts to enter your .NET Passport details. If your computer isn't part of a domain but is part of a workgroup, perform the following steps: 1. Start the User Accounts Control Panel snap-in (go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, and click User Accounts). 2. If you're an administrator, select your user account from the list (you can't change other users' .NET Passport options); otherwise, XP will select your account automatically and you can skip this step. 3. Under the "What do you want to change about your account?" section, select "Set up my account to use a .NET Passport." 4. When the .NET Passport Wizard starts, follow the onscreen prompts to enter your .NET Passport details.
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