Rhelic

I agree, your boot screen looks much cleaner than the one that SP 2.x ships with, which is so colorfull it only exaggerates the limitations of 256 colors.

I would insist you install any USB drivers last, while I'm probably talking out my arse here's my take: IIRC SP 2.x contains USB drivers so installing anything before it will simply get overwritten by SP 2.x, unless the SP 2.x installer is smart enough to check versions and/or dates.

Nothing to see here people, move along. Everything you could possibly want is already available, here are some quickies/popular ones: LiteStep - a shell alternative OpenOffice / Star Office - word processing & spreadsheets A ton of open source media player like apps. A ton of open source text editors FireFox - web browsing Of course now it's time for monkey wrench throwing... Using open source just for the sake of it being open source is mindless! I could also add that while there's nothing wrong with using open source apps, I do, but isn't it an oxymoron to become a open source zealot but yet still use Windows. If you're going to be a zealot, then go to Linux while you're at it.

If it's a MSgina.dll problem then you need to register MSummerEve.dll and clean it out.

Everything MS releases is just a tease in my eyes until RC1. I like to be an early adopter and when an OS hits RC1 it's safe enough to run as my primary OS. I'm not sure if I will upgrade my XP to Vista at RC1 but I'm considering it.Although I won't be tempted to run Vista until I can get ahold of a 1600x1200 LCD screen or better because I just can't wait to use the high fidelity UI and imho you need at least 1600x1200 before it really starts to pay off. FYI: I'm eyeing the Dell 20", and on another tangent I just read more wide screen LCDs factories are going to open in early 2006 that will equate to approx a 30% price drop in theater screens at Q2 2006. I'm willing to wait then (Vista probably won't be RC1 until mid 2006 anyways)

Vid0, thanks for the work and quick job in updating to the new 7.0.5 version but considering that msvcr71.dll is only 175k after you zip it, and your whole pack is already 6megs, perhaps you're drawing the line in the sand too early.If a 56K dial up user can wait 20minutes to download your 6meg pack, he can wait the extra 35secs to get (iow 3% more time) to get a file that might be vital. You'll definitely spend more than 35secs trying to track down the file if you need it. I'd rather you shoot for "lite & complete" rather than "lite & cross your fingers". PS for Vid0: you should update your original post (if allowed) and point to the new 7.0.5 release so people don't grab an outdated & insecure Acrobat.

We don't need to wait, the current betas give us a preview of what we're going to see. Albeit with many speed problems (it is beta people) and many features missing.MS privately released a beta last week that has the majority of the cosmetic features enabled again (ex: the Vista Sidebar) and I can't wait to see this new version. Visually, it's going to be the closet to the final look of Vista. Of course expect a ton of 'under the hood' improvements, and Microsoft hasn't even begun their optimization phase where they get rid of all the bottle necks.

I've never had any problems with the Royale theme, and I've used both the pre-release version and the final version. For those who actually like the XP theme, royale is the same thing but better. IMHO they should have included it with XP SP2.

Knowing Apple, if you wait until OS10 x86 is mature & stable they'll switch to an ARM architecture or perhaps RISC I have to play devil's advocate now. SP3 will bring the required stuff for next gen Windows programs, but what about the bells and whistles:- What 3rd party app brings a SQL based file system into NTFS? (ok this won't be available until 2007 as an addon) - What 3rd party app makes my UI a vector so I can get high fidelity with the newer LCDs we'll see in 2007 and beyond? - What 3rd party app lets me run IE in a sandbox totally preventing hacks/spyware/virus? (ok the guide I recently published comes VERY close to doing this) Apple's OS10 already has DRM via iTunes music & video. Linux is adding it too. Get use to it, DRM has many good uses, MS Office documents and email is a great example.

To make changes to the right click menu, you need to look at the keys in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT It's going to look confusing and I can't give you any details, but to edit what shows when you right click a folder I think you have to add a new key to the "*" collection of keys. I know this affects the right click of all files but I can't recall if this affects folders too. You'll probably notice MS keeps track of the right click on a per file extension basis, so if you want to apply this to specific files just dupe your effort.

Love it or hate it, the public likes eye candy, and the public accounts for 99% of the users. That's a faulty HD, not a faulty OS at work. A horror story indeed, I just hope you don't blame XP for this as it would be no difference than saying you had custom leather seats installed in your car and on a hot Florida day they caught fire and burnt your entire car so BMW is a horrible company Remove your profile? There's no way XP did this on it's own, in fact there's no option for it anywhere. Sounds like spyware/virus or a 3rd party app of some kind. Perhaps the same faulty HD? I've read people talk about un-installing drivers before installing new versions but from personal experience and from driver experts I've insist you DO NOT un-install older drivers. I'd say this is even more true for system critical things such as your motherboard drivers.---------- I do have 1 horror story but it's from Win2k but I think we can all agree that Win2k was great for it's time but it wasn't as feature rich as it could have been (MS does have deadlines). I love XP because it's basically all the things they wanted to put "under the hood" into 2000 but didn't have the time to finish. Anyways, I wanted to upgrade my PC so I swapped out my motherboard/CPU/ram and when I put the new board in I was unable to boot up, BSOD every time. I had to re-install the OS (the partition was fine, just the OS was fubar). That's when I learned how system critical motherboard chip set drivers were as I had switched from a board that was using an Intel chip set to one that used a VIA chip set. Obviously this wouldn't have been a problem if my new board had a similar chip set but I have heard this issue has been remedied in XP but I haven't tested it yet. Ultimately it was a learning experience, it helped me get to where I am now in understanding Windows. BTW: has anybody noticed there's more Win2k horror stories than XP, and the only XP stories weren't even XP's fault (as I stated in a previous quote).

Yes, I recall the days when DOS games started to require 600k or more of base ram. Which is a lot after you had a multimedia PC (mouse, sound card and CD ROM) all of which ate huge chunks of base ram. Then DOG4GW came along and suddenly games got rid of strict base ram requirements as DOS4GW handled memory for the game. Doom 1 was one of the first major games to use this. IMHO Doom 1 would have never been possible without it. Update: A minor historical note I wanted to add, I recall once using up lots of base ram to see how low I could go and still let Doom 1 run and I was able to get the system as low as 412k or so of base ram and Doom 1 still ran. Please keep in mind this is all from memory 12-13yrs ago, but still goes to show that solutions like DOS4GW really saved the world of PC gaming until Windows was formally adopted.

The only reasons I can think of that would cause this slowndown (which have been said above): 1. Many apps that have added themself to your right click menu 2. Spyware 3. Something else that is using your HD heavily (this excludes Google or Microsoft desktop search as they only use the HD when it PC is idle) Of course if it's 2 or 3 then you should get slowdowns in other places.

You are providing misinformation, sounds like you had VNC (or similar) software installed on the destination PC which would allow you to watch or hijack a PC. Of course since this guy's admin hasn't & can't install such software on HIS home PC, obviously there's no way to watch or hijack his session. Also there is no way to hijack the Remote Desktop connection itself, MS sure as funk wouldn't want man in the middle attacks. If you have "magic software" that defies the very spec of remote desktop and somehow can break impossible to break in real-time encryption then post a link to it. Otherwise don't post your mindless propaganda here, but please, prove me wrong, back up what you're trying to say. If you can't, please don't say anything at all, you're just trolling. --------------------- You can't hijack a Remote Desktop session per se. The only way to monitor a Remote Desktop session is if something was install on the destination PC (ex: VNC). Considering you nor his admins have access to this guy's home PC, what you are implying does not apply to him. Despite, being able to watch a Remote Desktop session via PCAnywhere or VNC is by design, you aren't defying Remote Desktop or breaking it's encryption.

The ONLY thing the admins can see is that you remote desktop to a certain computer. Everything you type, paste or copy across the remote desktop is encrypted by default, I have researched this in the past, it's all explained in some MS whitepapers.

Never had one, XP has been the best OS Microsoft has ever released. If I had anything to complain about it's the ignorant myths that XP is slower than 2000, or uses more RAM than 2000 when these people merely hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and took the ram used at face value (every heard of caching and precaching people?) The same thing happened all over again with SP2, people were quick to claim they'd never install it and it proved itself to be the best thing to ever happen to XP. My point is, I'm sick of the users with their head up their arse, not the OS.

The Whole "XP" name is just as dumb, the only difference is your use to XP. I thought the "XP" name was equally as dumb when I found out about it. Somehow I doubt you first heard of XP and thought "oh that's the best name ever". I just prefer naming the OS after the year, it really hammers into your head how new or old your OS is.

While I'm quick to blow the legacy horn (I'm quite known for it actually) I have to disagree. #1. XP lacked USB 2.0 support because the spec wasn't finalized in time to make it in XP. #2. It's been universally agreed (by MS and the users) that XP SP2 was half a step to a whole new OS under the hood. #3 Yes 4 years is a long time in software, and we won't get a new OS until we hit the 5yr mark. Imagine if we were stuck with Win95 Revision B and didn't see another OS until Win2000 was out. Of course that's assuming anything you make will be inferior 3-5yrs later and while that can often be true, the whole NT5 kernel (created for Win 2000) has proven itself to be a rock solid foundation that all future MS technologies can run on. Despite, there's nothing old about XP /w SP2 and considering that SP3 (being released at the end of 2006) will add all the major features of Vista (except the new vector GUI) only goes to show that XP is truly a rock solid foundation and there's nothing old about it. Now without XP SP2, I could definetly agree that XP would be "old", especially when you want to think about security.

In order to get updates as seperate .EXEs do the following: Go here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/current.aspx OR (what I use to do before MS started keeping their security page up to date) 1. Go to a PC that is on the net & doesn't have the updates installed. 2. On each update there will be a "details" link which opens a small window 3. Click on the KB or Tech article and it will lead you to a separate download page of the update I've been doing this for over 2 years as I always keep all the post SP updates in a folder for company use. If you are going to do this I recommend you rename the updates otherwise the folder will be a mess. I've found the best way is to rename the file to: Year-Month-Day-KB#-Description.exe This means a patch could be called: 2005-10-10-KB896688-IE_Cumulative_Update.exe This way the files will sort by release date (you really want to install them in order, oldest 1st) Plus you still have the KB number to go look up details if you ever need to, and a description so you can quickly tell what the patch does. Another good reason to use a desc is that you only need the newest 'IE Cumulative Update', so when you download this patch, you know to go delete any past cumulative updates as they are now outdated.

Google is a powerfull tool, maybe this will help: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/videothumb.htm

As discussed in another post, I'd have to agree that the Win2k icons should be linked to the "Win 2000 Color Scheme" option. In fact why not just rename it to "Win 2000 Style" and if chosen, it applies the Win 2000 color and icons (and any other cosmetic things from Win 2000). I do realize that the people who don't want the Win 2000 are a niche group (Win 2000 looks better, who doesn't want that?) but this still falls under the "patch" vs "feature" argument. As proven in previous discussions some people need a purist install where they only apply Win98 patches and can't apply non Win98 stuff for work or end user reasons.

DosBox gives me 637k free of base memory (without me even doing any tweaking) with 15megs XMS and 15megs EMS. That's more base memory than was ever possible compared with Dos 5 or Dos 6 IIRC. I believe back then I was impressed when I could tweak the system to hit as much as 620k free. If DosBox doesn't give you enough memory, then you have another problem. If you use DosBox and something complains about not enough base memory, either the app is corrupt or there's a very bizarre bug that you need to take up with the DosBox community. So technically yes, DosBox gives you more ram than what was previously "possible". If you think you need more than 637k then perhaps you need to take Prozac, no classic multimedia DOS system could get this much memory free, so you now have more base ram free than any game/app expects you too.

#1 Hmm, I get an error near the end of installation that it can't read file "flashplayer.xpt" which is located in c:\Documents And Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp\sw010101\ I can see the file is there, although it's only 856 bytes (which might be perfectly normal). #2 Yes I found this surprising too, plus 8.0 was a huge upgrade over 7.x I think Macromedia is just goofing around with their version numbers, there's no way there are enough changes to deem this update from .0 to .5, which usually implies something significant. #3 It looks like Macromedia no longer allows you to download a full install package (aka network or offline install). It seems you have to get a "license" to get a copy of the full installer. They use to let you freely get the full install for Flash 7, shame.

If you want IE6 to be secure (probably more secure than FireFox and Opera) then do the following: I originally posted this tutorial here: http://thespoke.net/blogs/travisowens/arch.../05/476899.aspx ------------------ Summary: This allows you to be administrator but run any program (ex: IE) in non Admin mode, protecting you from spyware & viruses properly. Keep in mind we're using ONLY tools created by Microsoft, no 3rd party here. On a personal note, if you have elevated access on the domain or any server, I would highly recommend you follow these steps. This only works for Win2000 or newer. Step 1. Install the MS Tool "Drop My Rights" from: http://snipurl.com/i6ol [1] Step 2. Choose to install it to your WinDir folder (often C:\Windows\ ), do not create a special folder for it! Step 3. When you want to run a program you can't trust (ex: IE) simply set your icon's Target (found in the icon properties) to something like this %windir%\DropMyRights.exe "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" n The "n" is the privilege mode, you can choose from: * "n" is normal non-admin user mode (best choice) You still are yourself minus the admin privileges. Keep in mind that "n" mode still gives IE (spyware, virus) power over your personal files (read, delete), but prevents the spyware/virus from installing or infecting anything. You should always surf this way 24/7 * "c" is for paranoid mode Most things work, there is no read/write access to your files (this includes favorites) so you are protected from most anything. * "u" is for super paranoid mode but most things won't work correctly. if you want to access a truly dangerous site then you want this setting Step 4. (Optional) If you want to add a (MS created) toolbar to IE that shows your current privileges check http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archi.../24/195350.aspx Side Notes: - If you want to install an app you get from the web, save it to your PC first, you won't be able to install it from within IE in protected mode (this is a good thing) - If you want to install a new ActiveX component, you'll have to run IE in traditional unsecure mode. - Any application that the 1st application launches will use the same restrictive rights (ex: while in IE you click a PDF or Media Player, they will run in the same restricted mode). - Windows Vista 2006 will have official support for this natively and will run IE in reduced mode by default [1] http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/2...ropMyRights.msi

Interesting, I'll have to test this out myself when I get a chance. I should stress test our 98 boxes on the network's 100mbit connection VS XP.