jaclaz

You are not really launching the .exe to installl the drivers, aren't you? The rules of thumb with any printer driver ever made by HP are (IMNSHO): never use the .exe extract from it the relevant drivers install normally through the .inf fileThis will normally result in a working printer without unneeded bloat. However you can find here: http://www.treiberupdate.de/treiber-download/download-19121-treiber-HP-HPHewlett-PackardDeskjet970CxiUSBConnection.html the German version of that driver and here the "normal" version of the same: http://www.treiberupdate.de/treiber-download/download-19119-treiber-HP-HPHewlett-PackardDeskjet970Cxi.html by cleverly comparing the contents of the two between them and the differences against the English one already provided, you may be able to modify the English one in such a way that the install "from .exe" works properly (and install besides the actual driver a whole lot of the usual HP bloat). jaclaz

Good. And maybe you missed the fact that the given driver does contain USB related drivers, of course it is very possible that the good guys at HP included them ONLY to confuse matters, but the actual .inf does contain: so, allow me to believe that besides being unneededly rude (a joke is a joke), you are also unfairly accusing me of having provided you a "wrong" driver. jaclaz

Not needing to change disk order and only use the third party bootmanager for those. Better using the available devices. A full install of DOS 6.x or earlier, including any DOS program of some utility ever written and a considerable amount of data created with those programs would top at - say - 300 Mb. If you are really clever and manage to actually have *all* programs EVER written for DOS , this will top at around 600/700 Mb. Quick reality check, when DOS 6.22 came out it was year 1994 AD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_DOS_operating_systems At the time the size of a common hard disk was within first CHS barrier, i.e below around 528 Mb: http://www.pcworld.com/article/127105/article.html http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/1024_cylinder_528_limit.htm likely below 250 or 300 Mb. Of course such images can be mounted on other OS, namely on DOS 7.x and on XP though there may be issues from Windows 9x. jaclaz

Yes and no. Again, DOS NEEDS to start from active primary partition on first disk. If you have three disks of which two contain DOS you need to change the disk order. This can be done by a third party tool or by entering the BIOS and changing disk order (that may or may not be an option in your specific BIOS, and in any case, it is a nuisance). The NTLDR is mainly a OS loader with very little capabilities as bootmanager and cannot exchange disks. You can have DOS 6.22 and DOS 7.x+Win9x on the SAME disk and partition (as this is one of the intended uses of NTLDR and DOS 7.x/Windows 9x has a "special" provision for it) but not on different disks. Among the third party tools, grub4dos (which is NOT GRUB and NOT GRUB2) has some dedicated features aimed to the "DOS/Windows world" among them the possibility to be chainloaded from NTLDR without needing any "install" and it is strongly suggested. But, again, grub4dos has also the possibility to load and run a DOS from a disk image, the suggestion was to have (since you are going over a multi-disk approach): a disk dedicated to DOS 7.x+Windows 9x (containing also the NTLDR+BOOT.INI+NTDETECT.COM)a disk dedicated to Windows XPany number of disk images residing on either of the two other disks (or on a third one) with each image dedicated to a given version of DOSjaclaz

~sigh~ Save us from academics! Wrong you knucklehead, bad analogy because that is NOT what happened historically with clay tablets and stylus instruments. Gutenberg happened, and the printing press, and mass produced literature with efficient, consistent reproduction. If anything, the manual stylus has all but gone away in favor of efficiency and standardization. And about your touchscreens and Windows 8? They will be the blip on the radar, reproducing the old way of finger painting or stylus etching into clay, a solution in search of a problem. Besides, pen input and stylus entry has been with us all throughout the computer age, used in places where it simply made good sense, it didn't just arrive in some new paradigm that you eggheads have discovered. Mark down these two clowns as people to never take seriously. Good comment thread underway though. Even the fanboys question these two geniuses! Charlotte, you have it wrong . The keyboard is an INPUT method, not an OUTPUT one. Gutemberg and printing is a reproducing method (in several copies) of something that has been INPUT. If you have ever seen a Linotype (which is what took printing to a new stage in 19th century): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine you would know how it has a keyboard as INPUT method. I have used extensively (and still use) stylus input devices, and I find the method perfectly adequate (and BTW much more handy than a "virtual On-Screen-Keyboard). For a simple language such as English where there are no accents or diacritical characters a "plain" touchscreen OSK may do, but on most other languages it is a big PITA or you start writing grammatically incorrect, not entirely unlike SMS bastardized the languages. I have the fortune (or ability ) to possess a very "clear" handwriting, and - just as an example - my good ol' Sony P900i character recognition capabilities are enough to allow me "fluid" writing (and recognition) with only a very little percentage of mistakes/backspaces needed. To me stylus input is a very valid alternative to the keyboard. Of course, in the case of a touchscreen device it only makes sense if you hold the device in your hands, on a desktop one would need a graphic tablet or something similar. BUT again, it can be an option. In any case even the ancient peoples that used clay tablets used a stylus on them and NOT their fingers. Even monkeys learn to use a stick to get ants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals#Chimpanzees Painting with fingers is what is taught/used pre-school, it is not "natural" anymore to anyone that has actually gone to school and used for several years stylus or pens or brushes for hand writing and drawing and painting. As a matter of fact, I personally find a graphic tablet and pen the "natural" interface for a PC, much more precise, accurate and fast than the mouse, not only inside graphic programs. jaclaz

It depends of what you want to do. A "report" sheet made using vlookup and similar functions is "dynamic" and "connected" to the source worksheet(s). Any change in the source will be "reflected" on the "report" sheet, you can have as many "report" sheets as you want, each one highlighting some fields or having fields in a given order, sorting them, etc. In this case you would be using Excel as a "poor man's" database, where you have one or more sheets (separated or connected among them) containing "raw data" and one or more "report" sheets allowing to sort/visualize the data in any given form. The use of consolidating functions built-in in Excel is a (very limited) subset of what you can do "manually". jaclaz

I know that it is installed by default in 9x. I was asking if it can be installed on a separate partition (multiboot with 9x). So can you have this sort of setup: Disk 1: DOS 7.x Disk 2: Windows 98SE (which includes 7.x) Disk 3: Windows XP DOS needs to start from First Active Primary partition of First disk. You need to change disk order in BIOS (or use a tool like grub4dos and change disk order with it). But to run *only* DOS, if you plan to use grub4dos anyway, having it in an image makes a lot of sense. jaclaz

Well, that file contains a directory enu\9x\disk1\win98usb\ . Not having a stupid HP deskjet 970 cxi it was a rather educated guess that it does contain the USB driver as well. Possibly (I would dare to state "most probably") you were incapable of installing that driver properly (or you have a modified system and that driver is incompatible, HP drivers are reknown for being troublesome). In any case I can see how vast is the gratitude that you express for the time I wasted trying to help you. I am overwhelmed by it, and I won't feel like attempting to help you anymore (that amount was more than enough). jaclaz

I guess that the HP deskjet 970cxi is non-resilient printer. The driver should be : http://www.filewatcher.com/m/dj975en.exe.3500157-0.html jaclaz

Rule of the thumb. Don't expect anything higher than 30/40 Mb/s on USB 2.0. Anything faster is USB 3.0. Of course the "estimated transfer speed" is "estimated", however. jaclaz

Define "resilient", please. @Everyone, please note how the OP asked this question on April and never replied, and -as highlighted by dencorso on post #6 - darreljon is particularly fond of this question, that he repeats from time to time, as he plainly stated on post #16: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162657-why-use-win-9x-on-new-pcs-in-2013/#entry1037374 Why not waiting for his re-posting expected for September 2015? jaclaz

Not really, really. (please read as NO! ) A BIOS is a Basic Input Output System. Basically at boot time it gathers some info from the hardware and stores this info in a given format and provides to the OS loader a set of interfaces to these data. BIOS and EFI/UEFI do not share the same data format let alone the same way to access those. Most EFI/UEFI have still a setting to "behave as BIOS" (or if you prefer a number of EFI/UEFI motherboards have also a BIOS). A "normal" XP expects a BIOS. There are ways (reFind, bootcamp, reFit or similar) to boot XP on a EFI/UEFI motherboard, basically the bootmanager replaces the BIOS and provides to the OS loader the "right" data: http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/ And we already had (almost) this same conversation. http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/163378-xpx86-win7x64-uefi-dual-boot-on-ssd/ Of course you are perfectly free to believe that EFI/UEFI is OS independent . jaclaz

I only posted how a valid path should be made. , which doesn't necessarily mean that a backslash is needed specifically there . Now, if congnt92 would have spent some time searching instead of posting AND bumping, he might have found these examples/tutorials: http://gosh.msfn.org/replacesource.htm http://reboot.pro/topic/4528-how-to-make-your-favorite-theme-for-xp/ (no, the backslash is not needed there) jaclaz

Well, open a command prompt and run in it: SET windir[ENTER] If what you get back has a backslash at the end, then you should NOT add it, if there isn't you NEED to add it to make it a valid path. jaclaz

An image of an "average" drive (I actually presume you are meaaning "disk", but when it comes to this compression topic this disambiguation is irrelevant) is ACTUALLY made mostly of 00's. A "filled-up-to-the-brim" disk (or partition/drive) image is obviously not compressible as much. A 3/4 empty (disk or drive) image will be actually made for 3/4 of 00's. So, if your 47 Gb image compresses in around 4Gb, very likely it contains between 8 and 16 Gb of (not-compressed) files (i.e. once taken the 00's out of the equation, as they will compress in Kb's, not Gb's, you have a compression ratio between 50% and 75%). jaclaz

Try making a largish file filled with 00's. Then compress it (still with the same 7-zip). Astounding how much it can be compressed, isn't it? Three rules of thumb: compression ratio depends on contents of the UNcompressed source compression ratio depends on how "homogenuous" is the UNcompressed source each compression tool may have particularly efficient algorithm for a specific file format of the sourceA "generic use" tool tend to be more or less "symmetric" in computing time, i.e. it must compress in "reasonable" time and be able to uncompress still in a "reasonable" time. As a general rule, the more you compress something, the more it takes (and the more it takes to uncompress it). In theory highly asymmetric compression algorithms can be devised that take ages (hours/days) to compress a source, needing extremely powerful machine/plenty of resources and that can yet be uncompressed in a "reasonable" time on an average machine. As an example the KGB archiver had (among MANY senseless FUD spread about it) a period of notoriousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB_Archiver http://sourceforge.net/projects/kgbarchiver/ (current results are however better than that) And - as a side note - this is the reason why compression tests are usually done on a given set of known files: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/files/ this may produce - if the archiver developer is trying to cheat - lead to tools written and optimized explicitly for a given set of files. THe factors involved in a compression tool, on th esame fileset are three: compression time compression ratio uncompression time to which everyone can give an appropriate "weight", resulting in "efficiency", the formula used in the mentioned site: is a good way to judge generic compressors. To make a practical example, if I had to chose: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf.php i would use nanozip and have 74.4% of compression ratio, compress 316 Mb in 24.1 s, uncompress in 14.1 or FreeArc, rather than having PAQ8 breaking the 80% compression ratio "wall", but doing so in several tens thousands of seconds, both in compressing and uncompressing. A good example of a very well compressible source file is a log, see: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/log.php around 98 % is achieved by many compressors. A good example of "difficult" to compress file is JPEG (which is already compressed): http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/jpg.php but here PAQ8 takes a revenge, even over a specific-for-jpg compressor such as PackJPG jaclaz

Forget about Excel 2013. This is "basic" spreadsheet use. Post an example of the contents of first and second sheet. Basically you want to use the VLookUp function on the third sheet: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/vlookup-HP005209335.aspx jaclaz

JFY, I find this handy: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman OT have a look at how Windows 8 (actually Defender) manages Hosts file : http://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/19/you-cant-block-facebook-using-windows-8s-hosts-file/ jaclaz

... but much more (needlessly) colourful jaclaz

I guess the point is about TPM 2.0 and BIOSes (or EFI/UEFI crap) where the TPM chip cannot be disabled. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/23/nsa_germany_windows_8/ However, as a side note, let's say that hypothetically I find a way to attempt accessing the TPM chip (with totally incorrect/random credentials/password/whatever), I can seemingly lock you out of your system for 20/24 hours: http://www.wave.com/support/trusted-platform-module-tpm-disabled-unavailable-or-locked-1 Raise your hand if you never managed to lock yourself (or someone else) out of a handy by mistyping thrice the PIN (and needed to find the PUK, that has a known tendency to hide amid a zillion pieces of papers in the back of never used drawers ). There is now an official BSI statement: https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/Presse2013/Windows_TPM_Pl_21082013.html translated as: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-08-26/german-government-confirms-key-entities-not-use-windows-8-tpm-20-fearing-cont jaclaz

And so should "in theory" the XP (with or without Kansas City Shuffle is to be determined) or any other "non -real mode" OS, as long as you manage to NOT use BIOS to access the hard disk and "jump" to protected mode (and dedicated OS drivers). Please consider how we don't have any actual results from tests on the specific machines, but only the results of cdob's nice experiments with "comparable" but not "same" motherboards. Another interesting approach would be to use KEXEC (or similar) to pre-boot in Linux and then switch to XP (though I am afraid you have to "go through" grub4dos or similar and that would vanify the whole thing ) or try kexec-loader: http://www.solemnwarning.net/kexec-loader/ (this should allow to stay within the 32 Mb DOM alright, if the "switch" to Linux is decided) There are a lot of possibilities or experiments to carry and seemingly so little time.... jaclaz

I also feel very sorry for the actual users . Seriously, now: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/opinion/krugman-the-decline-of-e-empires.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0 jaclaz

If I may, that effect is more often provoked by cheap booze, not cognac. They were most probably high on moonshine . From http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2013/08/27/on-dickens-rashomon-and-twitter.aspx The blog post seems to me like a very polite way to say: we know better than you do you are - by definition - demented or at least narrow minded/incapable of analyzing the specific situation (or actually *any* situation) all genius and intelligence, and creativity and knowledge ARE BELONG TO US!Hey, Mr.Shaw, noone asked to have N.C.I. OR a good non-touch interface, everyone is asking to have ALSO (AND or additionally) the possibility to choose the whatever he/she likes better. jaclaz

Good , personally , I would use QNX or BSD, what gives? The problem here is seemingly that the BIOS "as is" does NOT boot from the bigger than 32 Gb "standard" hard disk, it is not that Linux (or any other OS) has an ESP DDO working around the issue, AFAIK. If you prefer a DDO is OS agnostic. As cdob verified if you manage - one way or the other - to initiate the boot from *something* else, a "protected mode" OS loads alright. jaclaz

OT , maybe it is one of the false pairs with Italian , but I rarely find a device "exciting" , unless of course it is specifically aimed to sex or cybersex . IMHO the adjective is being over- and mis- used. Not unlike "cyber", just for the record: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cyber jaclaz