JayScore

Hello, Vista. Taskbar got topic; PUBLIC. Right click does not give either Remove or Delete. How can I remove this typical Vista nonsense? Why is Microsoft so controlling? Ta.

I'm with keeping both machines separate, and transfer by USB disk, at least for a while until you decide that XP isn't the nightmare you've read it is. My wife's laptop came with Vista- turn thrice and spit on a frog. At first, I hated its controlling, fascist, Dalek approach to user-unfriendly. I'm getting used to it now, though, and it's all just about experience. Familiarity brings comfort and understanding. I've only recently given up 98 and gone wholly to XP, and that's what I did for long time. (I only made the change because some of the programs I needed to use, wouldn't work with 98. I've still got the CD, though - just in case. Security blanket. See Linus in Charlie Brown.) This thing about truDOS, though. I used, and still use, DOS's utilities for many things including alphabetisation of text files as Word's was/is simply wrong - for the UK, anyway. Surely booting into DOS from a floppy is truDOS - it loads that DOS version's COMMAND.COM. Only when XP has actually booted does DOS become pretend. If this wasn't the case, then one could not reformat, fdisk, and install Windows. XP is fine. But if you, like me, want to use proper man's DOS occasionally - rather than a nagging, girly Graphical User Interface, create a boot floppy, and shove it in the slot before you hit the ON button. That's how I do it. As the floppy is disappearing, at least from laptops, you'll have to figure out how to make the machine boot from CD or USB stick. Makes me shudder.

Cat lady: "The last time the guy said it was clogged up with hair so I wrapped the new one in saran wrap." I believe this. Over the years I've messed about with lotsa stuff, and I've been asked to look at various items including a few vacuum cleaners. Two people who complained that theirs were no longer sucking up had replaced the paper filter bags with plastic bags. Another woman whose valve TV had ceased to function had vacuumed the inside, removing and cleaning all the valves, and shoving them back into any base that fit. I also believe the hairs. I was doing removals, and the owner had a couple of dogs. The larger pieces of furniture up against walls had up to a one foot high column of hair behind them.

English text reads from left to right. Unsurprisingly, much of the text or buttons and menus on webpages are to the left. So why is the scroll bar right across the other side of the screen? It's illogical. Why not on both sides? It's tedious using a full size setup sliding right across the screen, but using a fingerpad on a laptop is a nightmare. It takes about 6 slides to get the cursor to the scrollbar - six more opportunities for accidental clicktaps, and off it goes elsewhere. Do right to left languages have their scrollbar on the left? Anybody heard of a tweak which will add a scrollbar to the left of the page? Didn't know where to put this. IE does not appear in the forum group MSoft software products.

Hola, Sorry about the delay. Been offline. My mobo was a HP pull. It had everything onboard except a LAN. I was using a DLINK card. Shortly after my last post, Windows ' Found New Hardware came up. It was referring to the LAN card. Why it had suddenly lost it since last boot, I don't know, but nothing I did ever made it visible to XP again. The drivers did nothing; install with card in or out. I remembered I'd had a lot of trouble with it when I first got it. I had to seek help, MSFN and DLINK - who failed to answer any of my mails. I very quickly got another mobo with LAN onboard. That mobo died, and I reused the HP. After hours of trying to make the LAN card work, I lost my temper, yanked it out - power still on, slapped it against the case, rammed it in again, turned off, and walked away to calm down. The next day I booted, and the thing worked! No Found New Hardware, no need to install drivers. It just worked straight away. Maybe I frightened it. That was about two months ago. When it died this time, I tried the angry bit, but this time it didn't work. I've now reverted to an older PII mobo with LAN onboard. It's a bit slower, but reliable. Then, it gets worse, When I hooked everything back up, the C: drive refused to work. It had just died. So, I had to return to my previous C: 6.6G. This drive already had XP loaded on from last time. Which is handy as reinstalling XP on the other drive required reactivation. Pain. Now it gets curiouser. Despite a different hard drive, mobo, different installation of XP, the same unclickable screen requiring Ctrl/Alt/Del twice happens. I expected that problem to have gone. I 'm certain it wasn't happening when I changed the drive last time. XP Security Centre is still there. I'm still interested in following up, but I'm leaving for the UK tonight, and I won't have access to this machine for about a month. So I could not answer any questions. But if you return to this thread and you have any ideas, please do post them. While in the UK, I'm going to try to get a new mobo, and maybe a bigger hard drive. This will require a reinstall, and I'll be interested to see what happens then. Again, apologies for the gap, and thanks for the responses so far. Running cmd.exe echo username responded by giving my current username. Buuuuut... The username presented is not the same as presented everywhere else. The first letter of the surname is lower case, whereas everywhere else it is upper case. Mean anything, Poirot? If this is relevant and turning your cogs, remember I don't want any bootup screen, and installed without choosing any login inf, and no passwords, in order to go straight to the desktop. Only me and the wife use the machine, so security is irrelevant.

Hola Idontwantspam (Me neither. My mail.com gets tons from Russia. Good job they got good filters.) Anyway, thanks for responding. Running cmd.exe \ net user: Administrator (computer name) Guest HelpAssistant SUPPORT_388945a0 The command completed successfully ("Guest" just hangs alone, nothing follows it.) --------------------------------------- 1st registry entry: dontdisplaylastusername REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) --------------------------------------- 2nd registry entry: (Default) REG_SZ (value not set) (computer name) REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) HelpAssistant REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) IUSR_ REG_DWORD 0x00010000 (65536) IWAM_ REG_DWORD 0x00010000 (65536) NetShowServices REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) SQLAgentCmdExec REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) TsInternetUser REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) VUSR_ REG_DWORD 0x00000000 (0) Boot's changed again since posting. It now starts with a two-tone blue screen with just two lines of text near the top "Microsoft Windows, Build... Service pack2... 1 system processor... [memory]" (About 40 seconds) Then a black screen with a few lines of text in the middle, "Checking C:... D:" (5 seconds) Many tray icons have gone including Windows' firewall\security centre. And when the "dead" screen appears, I have to Ctrl\Alt\Del twice to get the small window. Wierd. I bet some of the above actually means something to you, doesn't it. Gibberish to me. Took me a while to find HKLM. I aint got HKLM. Oh yeah. Duh. Big fiesta here last night, so I forgive me. Got two headaches now. J.

Hola, Got a curiosity. Just booted, and the logon screen, where I know from other's machines there should be piccies and usernames, came up with all the usual, but no piccy, no name and nothing at all clickable. This is doubly curious because when I install I make sure that I do not enter any passwords, and so go directly to the desktop. Obviously this is why I got no piccy and username. I swear I made no changes to the system before I shutdown earlier. So why the sudden appearance of this "dead" screen? It was straight to desktop last boot. The only way to logon from this screen is to Ctrl/Alt/Del, which brings up a small window, with my username, and with password field empty. I don't have to enter a password, just click OK, and off we go. Anyone else met this? Is there a way to get back to my original boot up - straight to the desktop. (I don't want to have to enter any passwords, ever. I look forward to an installation button that says, "This machine has no passwords, no individual users or administrator, no "Are You Sure" messages, and no clicking thirteen OKs to install a program.") (Not urgent, I'm going to do a reinstall soon as last time I changed to NTFS - out of curiosity, and it's buggering up my access from DOS. I can see A: and C:, but all others are invisible. So back to FAT.)

XP refused to remove the files, so I booted into DOS, and deleted those files that I could find. Subsequent reboot of Windows, despite not removing Registry entries, was fine.

AHAview.

Very much alive. Couldn't live without it. Use it every time I reinstall the OS, and frequently use it to boot into DOS to delete files that Windows (XP) won't let me. Booting from CD makes the CD drive A:, and I then cannot access the CD(?) As for copying files to transfer, no, for that I use my USB flashdrive.

I call it my bluedisk, because it (my first) is blue. I even have a subdirectory on d: named bluedisk. My new black one (disk/MP3 player) I call my bluedisk, the black one.

Just discovered the Tips and Tweaks section on the home page, here. There is an article about hiding and limiting access to hard drives. Maybe it'll be useful to you. I'm interested, but I haven't tried it, yet. Also, it doesn't say how to make them accessible again without going back into the registry.

No. Not externally, presumably by the USB's own power. Just a cheap extension lead with a few electronic components, really. The device works with a straightforward, single socket extension lead, of course, there being no electronics involved.

I always leave my tobacco and papers on my bedside table, and the wine in the kitchen, so I have to keep getting up. Cheers.

Just a quickie which might help someone. I have an IDE to USB setup. It never worked. Then I removed the four-port USB hub and plugged the disk's USB cable into the USB port direct. Bingo. Can't get Windows to format the drive, though. Cheers.