Francesco

win98, like win95 is a dead operating system ms will stop even releasing security patches for it very soon (if this didn't already happen). Supporting it would be only a waste of time. Why don't you just upgrade from such an old an boring operating system? Xp works fine even on a p 200 with at least 128mb of ram if well configured (yeah it will take a while but you will be surprised by the result).

Oh well it's just once a year. Usually with commercial antiviruses you have to renew the subscription each year. Wasting 2-3 minutes to request a new key on the website is not all that awful If you use avast! you can just enable email and web/p2p scan so you won't need the bootup and resident scan anymore (you can scan manually floppies and cds that you want to use with the explorer shell extension). This will save you from all those nasty and boring slowdowns.

I don't know I suppose you can like with every other patch

Well i suppose that the os that has more features wins. win2003 does most things than any of those that's why I suppose it's better Well the only thing it lacks are xp games and mce but they can be easily installed (themes etc can just be enabled by starting services etc there's a post that I did on the win2003 forum with some scripts. If the user wants to spend some time configuring its os well, win2003 is the best choice (except for its price). Windows xp pro doesn't offer such interesting things that justify the price diference from xp home, you can use vnc isntead of remote desktop and apache instead of iis and save some money. Also there are freeware alternatives to media center that look decent. If one wants to save money xp home is the right one

It does read your mind infact, microsoft has added an user brain's microcode update in his new visual studio. The important thing is that you must not having it knowing if you downloaded the beta from a p2p program

I've just tried vs .net 2005 beta 2 and guess what? Now intellisense seems to work decently. I'm so happy that I wanted to tell everyone Even when you press F1 on a method or an attribute it displays the right page! Isn't that great? It took them more than 4 years but who cares, now it seem works, I hope that the final version won't break the working intellisense It comes with .net framework, a new pocket device emulator (with 2003se), an almost redesigned interface (finally it doesn't look anymore like a win 3.11 program), a new toolbars docking system that is very useful and a new msdn version with tabbed browsing (well I never seen tabs on the 200 version maybe they was there too). Strangely even if it's a beta i've never got a single crash for now it looks very stable. If you use visual studio I really suggest you to try the new beta BTW It looks that the next visual studio, the one that will come after 2005 will have a completely redesigned interface. I wonder what they will change

It's strange, it works fine, probably your radeon ve doesn't have enough video ram to have it running. You should consider upgrading.

Read my post before! diskeeper is very fast but doesn't sort programs. If you want to speed up your system use a defragger that sorts the files by access time or by name (o&o, perfectdisk and EXPECIALLY speed disk). Yeah speed disk, you can criticize it because it takes years to defragment since it starts from the beginning each time, but hey... it defrags really everything without rebooting (except some system files I think). Now O&o and perfectdisk latest versions use the layout.ini file to sort system files on the hd and this lowers windows startup time. If you stay at your pc while defragmenting I suggest you diskeeper and o&o. Speed Disk and sometimes Perfect Disk slows down your system in a too much noticeable way, I suggest you to use them when you're not at your pc. If you want a good suggestion however, try to use more partitions, if you don't like to have more drive letters you can mount them as folders by using ntfs. And, if you use acronis partition expert or disk director, you can often resize them without rebooting (it even resizes windows partition (only if you want to set it bigger) while you're using windows without rebooting). Using more partitions will definitively almost solve your fragmentation problems.

Avast! Rocks! That's the most nice free antivirus i've found. Try it and you'll use nothing else! Expecially when you can just enable network, outlook and p2p scans (yeah it recognizes A LOT of p2p software but really a lot! the supported p2p clients list is so huge it scared me) without having your pc to slow down a lot. It's definitely the best easy to use and lighter av around. One bad thing is the interface, it remembers me of a wmp skin however it's skinnable so you can chose a decent skin that will make it appear semi-professional (that kde-zeppelin skin is the nicest around expecially if you enable alpha blending in the options). If you're unsure on which av you want to install, try that av before anything else, it feature scheduling, automatic updates (yeah they're really automatic and they are downloaded whenever you connect to the internet and a nice box appears to informs you of the update completition), boot up scan, it fixes a lot more files because it creates a file checksum db when your pc is inactive. Another nice thing is that when it can't remove a virus it will let you set a boot-up scan to remove it. Even if you need to install an av on an unexpert friend pc you should really consider avast!: even a goat placed in front of a computer would be able to use that program, it will save you lots of desperate calls from friends where you installed an antivirus. Another defect of avast!, despite the interface, is that you have to reregister each year on avast! website for a free license. However that price is minimum for such a good, really automatic, very easy to use and very often updated antivirus. Unfortunately most antivirus comparisons don't give that program the merit it deserves. In fact, most of those comparisons are made with old viruses and since alwil software was a small company probably their defs about old viruses were not all that updated like other antiviruses's ones. However I can tell you that I've never seen computers with viruses that it couldn't detect: probably because now viruses's lifes are come to and end and a new generation of nasty worms is taking it places, and those worms spread very quickly so it's almost impossible to find an antivirus that doesn't detect them sooner or later. A thing is sure however, it detects even all those nasty trojans packed with utilities like exestealth that norton doesn't even care to detect. Wanna try if your av detects them? get exestealth (search on google you'll find it) or any other executable encryption utility and pack a virus with it: if your av detects it then it's a good av, if it doesn't then it's probably norton Big antiviruses suffer of something that I would call, the "windows xp" or "ie" syndrome: norton and mcafee are the most used antiviruses, so when virus coders write their nasty viruses they try in a lot of manners (disabling the av, uninstalling the av etc) to get rid of those avs in order to prevent them to remove them. Avast! is not all that diffused, so this guarantees you that virus writers won't even care about it while avast! instead will take care of their nasty viruses. If you want a commercial antivirus however, I really really really suggest you kaspersky av: it has the best virus detection, it's very fast and also very efficient. Just watch at av tests, most of the times it's the winner. So, what are you waiting for? get it at http://www.alwil.com ! Give that av at least a possibility, i'm sure it won't fail you (oh well if it will fail you remember, you have never seen this post anywhere, it was only a bad dream ) Have a nice day, and, if you can, try avast! right now: don't wait for those pesky virus to come knocking to your door! oh ****! they knocked again ... now i'll go to take my gun and... -- end of transmission -- P.S. sorry if i'm a bit aggressive with norton, I've been finding for years computers filled with viruses that norton didn't even care to detect. For those of you that didn't know, even symantec corporate av use the same detection routines so you could be at risk, change to something else while you can. P.P.S. It's not all that hard to slipstream, just get the avast! pro executable, install it, use the create unattended or something like that from the professional version menu and then use place the file it created in the install dir. Then use the avast! pro executable (yes the avast! pro executable works with free home license, it installs as a home version! naturally if you give it a avast! home serial) P.P.P.S. Alwil software doesn't pay me for publicizing their products, I just got angry at norton and a lot of other avs that are difficult to use and have lot of my friends calling me whenever they need help to use them: it's so frustrating... P.P.P.P.S. -- real end of transmission --

Why are you insisting in do all that long process for nothing? You can just change those 2 registry entries and have media center working! If you gave a better look at the .net disassembly you could see that it checks those registry keys in those 2 points and if you change them everything will work without touching the sources so your source changes are useless, really useless. Just use the registry keys and everything will go fine without dirtying up your windows installation with .net sdks. If somebody is interested in the registry keys just give a look at the previous posts.

When an xp installation doesn't boot on a new machine 90% of the times it's because of the old ide drivers. Who uses norton ghost to deploy windows images on a lot of pcs knows such problems very well You'd better resize that partition and install windows on another you'll just lose a lot of time trying to find out which driver has your windows crashing. BTW Via 4in1 drivers are the most naughy drivers around! Never install them unless an evil monkey who lives in your closet forces you to! Oh my! It heard me!! Gotta run

Do you see a great difference between xp pro and home? The only things that I noticed are that homes lacks iis remote desktop and some network utilities but I don't think that, like one of you said, it has better memory management device management etc: the kernel is still the same. Maybe there are some different registry parameters I'm not aware know, but when I did some benchmarks time ago I got almost the same results with home/pro versions of xp. I think win2003 is the best one (if well configured) except for all problems with those nasty drivers/installers that look at the windows version and won't install on 2003 even if you use change it to a workstation (fortunately somebody invented tweaknt). However that's not ms fault From when I installed sp1 I could notice that now finally microsoft closed almost all the nasty open ports (yeah i'm talking about epmap etc): I can finally get on internet without a firewall without having those internet worms connecting to my windows trying to exploit something (**** I hate them: all those connections just waste bandwith!). Also with 2003 I can do things like copying 4 4gb files simultaneously to a partition to another in the same hd and having them going at full speed because, differently from xp, windows 2003 with it's bigger file caches etc exploits your ram very well (unless you don't have 64mb of ram). Unfortunately xp comes with those cache settings locked. And you can't do nothing about that :angrym: :angrym: ... NOTHING!!! Muahahaha!!! (evil grin) /me escapes by launching himself from his airplane without realizing that he took his win2003 server's case instead of the parachute!! BTW you can install media center with plus! accessories on win2003 (just search on google you should find the tutorial) so you can get everything from it! What could you desire more?

yes but xpero uses some .ini files to replace the resources, maybe there's a 64bit program that supports that method too that could be used. If there's not, xp/2003 64bit will probably never be supported

there's an xp bug for some p4s models that prevents your key from being authenticated correctly. if you can't enter it even without using the unattended installation then search on microsoft website for the patch (probably somebody here in these forums knows the kb number of it)

hello. as long as I could see reshacker, used to replace resources in xpize, doesn't seem to support 64bit executables and since its website hasn't been updated since 2002 I don't think that it will ever support them shouldn't you consider using another program?

I've installed windows xp sp2 bluetooth drivers on my win2003, the dongle works fine I can send/receive files from bt devices and connect to internet with my bt modem however I can't get pan to work! The pan driver is correctly installed but the pan connection doesn't show in the network connections window. Did somebody here had the same issue or knows a way to fix it? Thanks in advance!!

Well with nlite, xpcreate, wpi and xplode you should ask how many times a day instead There are some ppl here in this forums that just to try all their nicy and shiny unattended cds format their poor computers more than one time a day Long time ago I was one of them but fortunately, since I discovered virtual machines, I never needed to format so often again Well, maybe now since there are no x64 emulators I'll start formatting again my poor new pc like the old times I hope that my hd will last enough! Oh no!! My HD heads and cylinders heard me!! they're going to break right now!! heelp mee!! --- End of Transmission -- LEGAL NOTICE: this may have never happened

I've just try installing windows 2003 on my pc, however during the installation (that completes correctly) and when windows 2003 is running I'm continuosly getting an error that is shown in the event log as: "Machine Check Event reported is a corrected error. " I've tried updating the video drivers (I have an ati radeon videocard) and also my soundcard drivers and lan drivers, however I'm still getting that error. The funny thing is that I get it only with windows 2003 and windows xp 64bit (that's built on windows 2003 and probably that's why it shows the same error): in fact when I use windows xp that error never appears. Did somebody here experienced the same problem and/or knows what causes it or a way to fix it? I have an a64 3000+, an asus a8v mainboard and a ati radeon video card and 1gb of infiniteon ram. The hd shouldn't be the cause of this issue because i've tried using a different hd but nothing changed. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance

It's a great program! Thanks for having me knowing of it's existance I'll add it immediately to my windows unattended cd

Well only somebody with lot of money to trash would not buy an a64. It's very fast even at 32bit and it overclocks a lot! Mine (3000+) without even changing the dissipator goes at 2400mhz (the same frequency of a 4000+)!! Also i'm using xp 64bit and it's not unstable like you're saying: i've never got a crash and also with my a64 mb I got all the 64bit drivers and they look quite stable so I had no driver problems for now. Also 32 bit applications run very fast on windows 64bit even if I thought that windows 32bit emulation would have slowed them down. Well probably 64bit drivers will not be released for all the hardware you may have (expecially old hardware) and they may not be as stable as their 32bit counterparts for now but because of intel deciding to start selling 64bit p4s too I think that all the hardware manifactures will start to release and improve their 64 drivers soon. The speed gain may not be noticeable with 32bit applications but with 64 bit applications that do intensive use of cpu (like video codec compressors etc) you'll see that there will be a big difference. A very big difference. Sorry for my crappy english

well the plus acquarium screensaver is not made by microsoft. It's sold by serenescreen or a company with a name like that. Try getting that instead of trying to run the xp version, the commercial version is a lot better (a lot more fish). BTW don't try to fish them out of the screen: mine got broken

why do one at time when you can do it on all together in much less time you can try using a bartpe boot cd and then using ghost using with a ghost image stored in a computer in the same network (supposing they're linked together)

Sorry if I'm asking here however does somebody knows if I need to install mpeg2 mpeg2 decoder on windows xp? Also what about the mp3 encoder/decoder included in the pack: are they better than windows ones? and last but not last are all those ac3 codecs needed? do they do decode the same thing or are they used for different kind of files? (I saw that one is associated to the 3vix codec but what about the others?) Thanks in advance

Kaspersky has the best detection routines and also it's the fastest AV: you can't ask for better. However, if you want a freeware antivirus, you can try avast! home: it works way better than antivir or other freeware antiviruses and also it has a lot more protections and a better user interface. Try it and you'll see that i'm not wrong Have fun disinfesting all those nasty virus from your pcs

You can try extracting the installer using winrar. You will find some directories in the place where you extracted the installer: each folder contains a part of the catalyst drivers (one is the graphic hardware one the controll panel etc.). Just try to install the setups contained in each folder to find out which one goes wrong: if it's just the video driver that is giving problems then try installing omega catalyst video driver (www.omegacorner.com) and then install the remaining components. Have fun