Alpaca Portrait

I see that it goes on sale today, 6/26/09, the 'upgrade' versions of Home Premium for $50 and Professional for $100. I don't have Vista but according to what I've read all versions of XP and Vista qualify you to upgrade. I've never had an upgrade version of any OS so I'm a little unsure. Will you still be able to do a clean install of 7 as long as you have a valid version of Vista or XP? And slipstream service packs into a 7 source in the future as they're released?

Thanks for the replies guys.

Where do you see the 2004 reference on your maps? I see the 2009 copyright in the corner on everything I look at but don't see anything else.

I don't know how many of you have ever typed your home address (or any address) into Google Maps and then selected the "street view" option where you can see images of homes, office buildings, parks, etc., but what I'd like to know is, how old are those images? I realize they don't all have the same creation date, but I'd like to know how old the oldest images could be. Kind of an odd question, so here's the situation: someone I know who lives out of state had to sell his customized car back in 2000-01 for financial reasons, but always said he hoped to get it back one day. I was messing around with Google Maps this weekend and typed in that guy's address, and when I looked at the street view image of his house the car was in the driveway, so I'm curious to know if the image I saw was taken before he sold the car 9 years ago, or if it's a more recent pic and his luck has changed and he was able to buy the car back. Any ideas?

Yes. On a separate partition on my HDD I've always had a folder that holds all the drivers I need after a fresh XP install - LAN, audio, graphics, chipset, etc. That's where I directed nLite to (to each specific subfolder) when I tried to integrate the drivers. It found everything just fine. I can't post screen shots b/c the copy errors happen during the text mode part of the OS install. I always start with a fresh source when I nLite. On second thought I'm not going to pursue a solution to this issue. Integrating the drivers isn't that big of a deal to me, and if newer versions of any of my drivers become available or if I changed my graphics card in the future the current nLite install would be useless anyway. I've decided that I prefer the way I've been doing it all along - that is, using nLite's other features to make my install the way I want it and then adding the hardware drivers after the OS install is complete. A moderator can feel free to delete this thread if so desired.

I'm not new to nLite but this most recent time I used it was my first time trying to integrate drivers and I've run into a problem. I tried integrating PnP drivers for my video card and onboard LAN. Everything appeared to work ok with nLite, no errors, but during the early stages of installing XP I got a "could not copy" message followed by the names of 4-5 ATI files and 2-3 files for the LAN. I skipped those files and let the overall install complete. Upon first boot I got a "found new hardware" message for both pieces of hardware, but I had to direct the install routine to the specific folders on my HDD to find the files that weren't copied during initial setup. I install Windows to d:, and there is a d:\windows\nldrv\001\ and a \002 folder with the majority of the files needed for the video card & LAN, but missing the few that didn't get copied. Just wondering what might have gone wrong. Thanks.

I've never used nLite for slipstreaming so I can't comment on the problem you're having in that regard, but give this slipstreaming link a look. This is how I've slipstreamed SP3 and I've never had a problem with it: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xpsp3_slipstream.asp I just checked the link and there's apparently a newer version of the article here: http://www.winsupersite.com/xp/sp3_slipstream.asp

A friend of mine has a Toshiba laptop (w/Vista) she got at Best Buy or somewhere and was complaining to me about what she thought was an excess of useless stuff installled on it, like trial offers, online service stuff, etc., and also that it seemed to have too much running automatically at startup. I made a few suggestions, but since I have yet to sit down in front of a Vista PC I didn't want to be too aggressive in what I told her to do. I don't know what her processor specs are, but I know her HDD is formatted as one big partition. She's seen how I set up my PCs with multiple partitions and keeping the data separate from the OS and would like to do the same. She said she didn't think it came with any recovery CDs, so does that mean it has a hidden recovery partition that would be accessed with a key sequence during the POST? If that's the case then it would only be good for returning the PC to the bloated state she wants to get away from in the first place. What would be the best way to do a clean install on her PC? Find someone who has a Vista installation CD but then use the product key that came with her laptop?

Thanks for the reply. I have no idea what the interest rate is but I'm sure it's high. I don't carry a balance month to month so it's not really an issue. Someone e-mailed me and said they thought it was an interesting question, and since there weren't any replies here they posted it on a forum they go to. The people who replied there said it was a legit deal so I already applied and got my card yesterday. If someone offers me $30 in free purchases I'm gonna take it!

Haven't made any buying decisions yet, but I thought I'd mention some CPU price drops since I started the thread. The 4800 Brisbane dropped $6 from $115 to $109, but the 5000 Brisbane dropped $46, from $165 to $119, so it's only $10 more than the 4800 now instead of $50 more. Probably just go with the 5000 now.

Wow, all of that was sure over this girl's head!

Interesting. Thanks.

It's not about that, I just want to know if there's a difference between the two.

Thanks for the link Mr. Punto, I'll definitely read up on them. I don't have a chipset preference. I don't know, maybe it's just my own paranoia but I really don't think I want to use a board with onboard video. Do you have any links that could pursuade me to consider it vs. getting a separate low-end PCIe video card?

I was wondering what differences there were (if any) between formatting a partition/drive with NTFS vs. formatting it with FAT32 and then later converting it to NTFS. Thanks.

Thanks for the help. As far as the case goes, when I said 'small' I meant something more like a cube with a handle on top, but I know those tiny cases have to use smaller mobos, so if that restricts my choices too much I'll just stick with the case I already have. Ideally what I'd like ot be able to do is pick up the case in one hand and the LCD in the other and walk to another room and plug in (and no, I don't want a laptop). You mentioned using onboard video. I've never done that, so I have some questions: 1. Doesn't it automatically use your system memory? 2. How do you control how much it uses? 3. If you decide at some point to get a video card, do you just disable the onboard video in the BIOS like anything else you don't use? I also have another question about RAM. I saw this posted elsewhere but never saw an answer to it: How do you find out what chip density a particular mobo is designed to work with? Those kinds of details seem like the kind of thing that would be left out of most mobo specs. So how do you know or find out?

Price range: Hopefully under $110. I just checked Newegg and it looks like most are under $125 Onboard: 2-channel sound. I don't use any standard PCI devices. I'll get a separate low-end PCIe video card (I don't really game much). Don't care about RAID, firewire, infrared, all that stuff. Connectivity: Not sure what you mean exactly, but my HDDs are all SATA. If I get a board without any PATA connectors can I use an IDE-to-SATA adapter for my DVD? LAN for my DSL. Whatever USB it comes with is fine. It's just going to be a basic computer used for internet/e-mail/newgroups. It'll also have about 200GB of music on it. I'll be doing music editing, and short (less than 15 minute) video editing of videos I put on Youtube. Ideally I'd like to put it in the smallest case possible, like one of those LANboy/gamecube ones or whatever they're called, but if that's going to severely limit my motherboard choices then I'll just go with an unused mid-tower I already have.

Yes, I'll most likely be ordering from Newegg. I think I've ordered all my PC stuff there except one time.

Thanks for the quick replies. I kinda thought he was talking smack, but I thought there might have been some truth to it. Maybe if he had worded his statements a little better. I did a little research and it seems like that CPU is the current "best bang for the buck" model. To jump from the 4800 to the 5000 is an extra $50 and doesn't seem worth it.Mr. Punto, aren't you in the PC business in some capacity? Could you recommend some AM2 motherboards I could take a look at? I'm just interested in a stable system, not really interested in hardcore gaming or overclocking. I know I'll need DDR2 memory. I'd like a gig to start with (512x2). DDR2 prices have dropped a lot since I last looked at memory prices 6 months ago. I don't know much about DDR2.... doesn't it have higher latency than 'regular' DDR but it makes up for it with higher bus speeds? The DDR in my current PC has 2,2,5,2 timing. If you could make some mobo and DDR2 recommendations I think I could do the rest.

I thought matching a CPU to a mobo was as simple as matching the socket type, but something I read in a CPU review on Newegg prompted me to post this question to all of you. I'm interested in buying an Athlon 64 X2 4800 CPU, Brisbane core, socket AM2. If you look at the review from 'Phill' dated 7/2/07 and read his 'Other Thoughts' you'll see why I'm asking: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRevie...N82E16819103778 He states: "The Brisbane is the 65 watt version of the 4800+ which runs at 2.5Ghz, the previous two 4800+, the Toledo and Windsor, run at 2.4Ghz and are at a tad slower and use a higher wattage. This processor has a greater watt-to-speed ratio giving you the best performance for your money. This processor is not on Tom’s Hardware, they only show the two slower versions of the 4800+. Make sure your motherboard supports the 65nm, 65watt Brisbane AM2 processor. I am using the Abit AM52 with no problem." I know many of the Newegg reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, but in this specific case I'm not informed enough to know what's true and what's not so I need some help from those of you who know this stuff much better than I do. Do I need to be concerned about which specific AM2 motherboard I choose to go with this CPU? Or by 'support' does he mean just make sure the mobo has an updated BIOS that'll recognize the CPU?

I generally think Amazon.com has a pretty good reputation, but I'm always wary of credit card offers. Any time I go to their site I see their VISA promotion with a $30 instant credit. I'd like to know if anyone's ever applied and successfully used the $30 credit and if it was a hassle or not. Thanks.

I don't have one but I don't think it would work. I'm looking for something where everything has its specific place inside the case. In the briefcase example the tools would be inside the lid all held in place, and the bottom would be sectioned off into different compartments.The rubbermaid toolbox... you mean something like this? http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Rubbermaid-Toolbox_...VQQcmdZViewItem

I'm looking for a source for a nice quality "computer toolbox." Something that would hold tools, and also have room for disks and a few drives. Not something like the one in the link below. That's just a soft case for tools only, I'm looking for something bigger. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0...p;s=electronics If anyone can provide a link to a good source for what I'm looking for I'd greatly appreciate it.