Ideas Man

That really is an open question, it does kinda depend on what the core requirement is. For home users, I still don't understand why they need pro, except that it's 'better' and Tommy the computer expert down the street has it. 90% of home users do not need anything that pro offers over home, yet still buy pro and then complain it's too expensive (go figure, would you go out and buy a top of the range sports car if all you were ever gonna do is drive down the street every day?). If you're a power user, then I'd pick Pro (I have it, and I actually USE the added functionality provided, not just to have it say 'pro' ). They all have their respective markets, if I wanted to watch telly, I'd have picked MCE, if I wanted to run a web server or any server, then I'd have picked Server 2003. See, need to be more specific.

I read Microsoft said this was because they haven't been signed yet, this is why some obvious applets will prompt for permission.

There's a button in the quick launch bar that does that for you, it looks like a few white windows, atleast it's on mine and it does it. Plus I think it's Ctrl+Space, but I can't confirm, ain't in it ATM.

I'd say you're treading a very fine line continuing to use it, it's crap anyway. Most of the files are fakes anyway, so it really has no major uses anymore.

I recently purchased a new computer too, I looked at SATAII drives, but there is no speed improvement ATM over standard SATA drives from all the tests I saw, so I just stuck with SATA drives. So don't be too concerned if the performance of them isn't too good because it should be on par with SATA, considering it's very very new (Hell, SATA drives originally were the same if not slower than their PATA counterparts when SATA was released).

It's not, you have to specifically tell it you want to use it, otherwise it reverts to Windows Update. To tell it you want to use Microsoft Update, goto http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate and install the ActiveX controls. It will then use this by default.

Beta 1 will NOT be full of eye candy, or any consumer oriented things, that's all for beta 2. This is really for developers and initial beta testers. Think about it, if Microsoft included it all in beta 1, what's to stop everyone else copying it and releasing copies before they release Longhorn?

Anyone got a big copy of the new Longhorn logo that has been floating around? A vector version would be excellent

All those who say they won't use it until SP1, I spose that's alright, but at least help in beta testing. If your excuse is that it will be full of bugs, then definatly help in beta testing. That way you know it should be right at least for what you do with it and how you use it. It's easy to sit back and critise about it, but will you go the distance and help Microsoft when they give you the chance instead of accusing them of making buggy software and using that crappy M$ stuff?

I'll queue up at the store to get it as soon as they open, I can't wait for Longhorn. From the developer POV, and the gamer, this is hands down the best Windows yet. Gamers, see what Avalon is, what it can do, that is your DirectX10 and it's very exciting!! And if they can implement what's been in the alphas, it will blow you away (I know WinFS isn't going to be in it initially, but MSN Desktop search can fix some of those holes )

I'd say that there's a special file or something that contains the information about the originals, if you delete the dllcache stuff, it just keeps asking you fort he CD i spose, or, if you have SP1 installed, obtains it from there.

Um i beg to differ, Longhorn is a very big task, it requires a lot of effort and is quite revolutionary, the time taken i feel is justified because it will be the OS to die for. Also i did notice that, another thing weird about it is that the Professional part is missing too, odd.

Yeah, i got rid of StyleXP, but i formatted so it's hooks are gone too, so yeah, a combination of a format and removal of StyleXP... guessing the removal of StyleXP.

Most files in the system32 directory are protected system files, they are also commonly blue.

StyleXP was the cause of that for me, dunno why, it just was, stupid program anyway, ever since i adopted the uxtheme.dll patch, my problems went as well.

Check that one is setup. Open regedit and goto the key HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop and check the string SCRNSAVE.EXE it should display logon.scr, if not or not spelt correctly, it won't display it.

Yeah, it's just that you've used those programs that many times, they remain in that spot, bit like a counter thingy, if the counters are all something like 500 and you use a program 100 times, it won't appear until it passes the lowest commonly used proggie.

I'd say it is your account then if it did the same thing on another computer.

LOL, still am.

I've heard that before, though it was the Americans and the French the version I heard, still very funny.

Did all that googling and didn't look at HowStuffWorks.com? This article should answer your question .

****, I was gonna say that.

The server OSes are optimised to run programs running in the background, although you can change it so that it run forground apps with priority, lots of DX stuff is turned off etc. Check out the guide located on this site somewhere about turning it into a workstation, it tells you.

What processor have you got in it? If it's a Xeon, Pentium III, 4 etc. it's 32-bit. If it's got an Itanium 1 or 2, it's 64-bit.

They are the same as the themes for Windows XP I think. You can either purchase a proggie like StyleXP or find the Uxtheme.dll patch for your version of the OS and run them nativly on the OS. You can get many themes from ThemeXP.org