jaclaz

Can someone provide a translation of a few key sentences here? http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/06/windows-8-at-6-months-q-amp-a-with-tami-reller.aspx I read 'em as: Noone thought that SP1 was a suitable name, so we decided to call the update Windows Blue for a change, <some meaningless mumble-jumble>. <some meaningless mumble-jumble>, <some more meaningless mumble-jumble>, Hey, it's "green"! <some vague mumble-jumble> It will be an improvement. This is our last chance to put together our act.<some false mumble-jumble> <this is ONLY meaningless mumble-jumble> Really, beside the total obviousness of each and every sentence, it reminds me school when we had to fill a given number of pages and struggled to use longer sentences to express non-new ideas and absolutely trite arguments in a "politically correct" wording (along the ideas of the teacher), adding senselessly repetitive sentences to reach the assigned length (and get a better grade). jaclaz

For no apparent reason : jaclaz

But, IIRR, your NT of choice is XP SP2 (or have you moved on to SP3 at long last?)... and that qualifies you as a die-hard, too. Of course, being a regular DOS user (true DOS, not a simple DOS box) is also a great die-hard qualification... then again, the whole MSCDEX vs. SHSUCDX matter itself is actually a bona-fide true DOS subject. Well actually I still have machines running NT 4.00, 2K and the XP (SP2, you are right) I normally use is due to a couple of softwares that I cannot really run on 2K. I expect to be qualified as die-harder. jaclaz

Actually I would not consider myself a Windows 9x/Me user, though I have used them and like to play with them, I am much more a NT user. Now, DOS is another thing. And no, no intentions to start the usual flame war about 9x/Me vs. NT or the more common NTFS vs. FAT32. jaclaz

The bad news being that I wasn't that much young (not even then ) the good news are that when the CIH/Chernobyl virus struck (you should remember it): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH_(computer_virus) I saved quite a few motherboards by simply hot-swapping with a good "reference" BIOS chip. This same approach should work still today.... jaclaz

I have to disagree with you, not only a lot of people are math challenged, but when it comes to certain types of software most users are "feature challenged". (or at least have been till now) I have been working in the building field for many (maybe too many) years, but - seriously - I know maybe two or three people capable of using AutoCAD "properly" (in the sense of being capable of using the features that it offers), As you might well know AutoDesk outputs a new version of Autocad every year or two. I guess I have seen them all, the only "revolution" I can remember was the R14/2000 version (in practice the first versions running nicely under Windows). Sure each year some new features were introduced, but the point is that noone (exception made for very high end users, which actually - often - use Bentley Microstation instead ) uses them (not only because they dont' even know how to use those features, but mainly because they have NO use for them). Still, on the PC's of each and every engineer, architect, surveyor, draftsman and what not there is a copy of the latest (or near to latest) Autocad (whether "original/licensed" or "pirated" is another matter ). Same goes more or less for Photoshop. Noone - if not a handful of high end graphic designers/illustrators/photographers - actually know how to use it if not "fully", well enough and actually *need* it's features. Sure these people *need* it but they are a little number when compared to the common sillogism "graphic tool" = "Photoshop" or "drawing app" = "Autocad". The photos you (or anyone else "average", no offence whatever intended ) took of a cousin's friend last year at the seaside have nothing to do with the work of (say) David Hamilton, besides the uglier model and the much worse photographer you had also a bad camera, a terrible lighting, a senseless composition of the scene. Sure you can use Photoshop to remove the red eyes and the other friend pulling faces behind her, but the result will suck big anyway (and you could have used any much cheaper soft to get the same result). On Amazon, Photoshop CS6 (new, not "used") is (casually) a little over 600 bucks: http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65158237-Photoshop-CS6/dp/B007R0RKV8 So it is easy to compare. It's not "thousands of dollars now" vs. 50 US$/month (600 US$/years), it 600 US$ now (and maybe another 600 bucks not earlier than two or three or four years) vs. 50 US$/month for the rest of your life. Evidently even the most math challenged users maybe started to realize that it was foolish to buy a new version of the software with added features they wouldn't use. Most probably a large number of them (possibly with the world crisis as additional reason) stopped buying a new version of the software every year, and the good Adobe guys "invented" a way to force them to start again (BTW in the meantime saving the costs for the CD/DVD's, the box, etc.). Just like it is the issue with the MS guys, Adobe is of course perfectly free to choose the business model and licensing terms they prefer, whatever it is, and also to provide no alternatives, the real issue is AGAIN attempting to attribute this marketing move to preferences of their customers' base. jaclaz

Good . But that was three years ago, you have just been told how, besides being "better" , SHSUCDX also uses lots less memory, so you now have TWO reasons to keep nonetheless using MSCDEX.EXE. jaclaz

Sure , but on a brand new machine (within the first few months) it is more likely that the Windows is "working", over the years, due to any number of reasons it is possible that something "goes wrong" in it, and the user may have each and every kind of half-@§§edly coded services or device drivers, automatic updates, background scanning or defragging, whatever. Flashing under Windows is dangerous. (or at least it is more dangerous than under Dos). If you prefer, flashing a BIOS under *any* multitasking OS is more dangerous than flashing it under *any* singletask OS. The difference is in the "multi" , and that's exactly (in the "multi" part exceeding the "single") where Murphy's Law waits patiently an occasion to prove itself right once again jaclaz

Patent on what? It's WHAT, more than ten years that third party "Bios savior" (watch it it may be a Copyright) exists: http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior.html http://www.realworldtech.com/ioss-bios-savior/ And there are patents by Asustek, Hon-Hai (Foxconn), Inventec on similar approaches: http://www.google.com/patents/US8205069 jaclaz

That is Rule #3 . Rules of the SHSUCDX club: #1 You DON'T TALK about the SHSUCDX club. #2 You DON'T TALK about the SHSUCDX club. #3 You DON'T TALK about memory footprint! Ooops. jaclaz

Well, there is not even a need of doing a statistical analysis, a psychological/targeting one is good enough: Are you cheap, a geek (or BOTH ) or simply cannot afford an Iphone BUT want a smartphone -> Get a Google/Android smartphone Are you trendy, have lots of money or demented enough to replace the expense for many good meals with an awful amount of money -> get an Iphone Are you "Corporate", do you think (wrongly) that your employees actually use the smartphone you bought them for work -> get a Blackberry Are you for any reason affectionate to MS (because they have been good to you all these years) or, more simply, are completely demented -> Get a Windows Phone Are you BOTH cheap and geek AND have no use for a last generation smartphone (or you are jaclaz ) -> keep your good ol' Symbian (or keep using a normal cellular phone) The good news are that overall the amount of completely demented people is fairly little , the bad news is that, even considering that a small part of #1 and #2 are "Corporate" the people that actually "work" are a minority (a number of "Corporate" that migrated from #3 to #2 or #1 did that only to be able to play Ruzzle during meetings ). Humanity is doomed. jaclaz P.S.: @Charlotte Yes, hooks and more than that correct spelling are a good thing, not only in hand-writing: jaclaz

Sorry, but this time I have to disagree with you. Should you need it, I am a (self-declared ) authority on the matter of "I" vs. "J" in handwriting as I greatly suffered (and still suffer from time to time ) from this particular issue. According to official papers (here in Italy) a capital "I" in hand-writing is considered "J" when the lower part of the letter extends below the horizontal line of all small letters no less than half the amount the descending letters (like the "g" in the posted logo). If it descends less than that, then it has to be considered a plain "I". I cannot provide a reference but I have seen myself the instructions given to municipality clerks when the digitalizing of birth certificates took place. Indeed. jaclaz

Only problem being that this piece of info was kindly provided by ricktendo .... jaclaz

Most probably you can also "cross-link" the two files. I have NO idea how currently your spreadsheet is made and how the data is input in that, but check the attached Calendar1.xls and Calendar2.xls. (of course just an example) when some data is entered in calendar1 the corresponding cell in calendar2 becomes red.... Just a basic idea, then you might need a third spreadsheet to "merge" the calendar of the first two (at the end of the day). jaclaz calendars.zip

Actually there is NO disagreement whatever. MSCDEX is "crystalized" in time to it's last release, which was BEFORE a number of changes happened to the ISO 9660 standard (and it's integrations) SHSUCDX is continuously updated If you are in the usual nostalgia trip and want to - say - explore an AOL CD : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/america-online-aol-cd-discs,11854.html MSCDEX is more than OK . If you want to access data written to a CD (or DVD) more recently it is possible that MSCDEX will choke on it. As said elsewhere : jaclaz

The 6.2.9200.16438 version seems connected to the Windows8 SDK: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/desktop/hh852363.aspx according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_SDK but cannot say if cabarc.exe is in that. jaclaz

What you report is "typical" of the power supply progressively failing, usually due to over-stressed or not-good-enough quality capacitors. Mind you it is not necessarily that , there could be seral other causes, but to verify IF it is that is easy enough, usually failed/failing capacitors are easily identifiable without instruments by checking if their top is bulging and/or in the most severe cases if they leaked some liquid. See (example): http://thetechnickel.com/projects/samsung-syncmaster-204b-lcd-monitor-repair-bad-capacitor-replacement-guide#.UYZZnPnLLnE This kind of failure is so common that there are "specialized" re-sellers that provide speciifc kits of capacitors for a given LCD monitor model. jaclaz

To hopefully clarify, Rufus is a nice, newish tool that by design uses a (slightly) different method to install an XP from USB (different from the "more established" various methods listed in the forum section cdob pointed you to). This choice of the Rufus developer is very good (as it provides yet another way) but it is seemingly "less universal" than other available solutions, each of which may anyway fail at "queer" BIOSes or with particular sources. If you want to report the issue to the developer, the UNofficial support board for Rufus is reboot.pro, here: there is already a "known case" of an user having a similar issue with Rufus (on a Gigabyte motherboard), it is very possible that your Ebox suffers from the same or similar problem. jaclaz

The tool you found is one that makes the spreadsheet "behave" as a database, it doesn't seem too difficult to install/configure but most probably it is not the "ideal" solution, it would probably be easier to see if something more "vertical/dedicated" *like*: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bookingcalendar/ http://www.php.brickhost.com/ (just examples), more here: http://sourceforge.net/directory/business-enterprise/scheduling/resource-booking/freshness:recently-updated/ would do for your problem. jaclaz

Well ,actually it's my bad , I should have used, instead of the plain "whistling" emoticon (which I often use to underline a friendly mocking) , the more complex "ducking"one that Larryb123456 expressly made for me to underline the spirit of some of my posts, see around here: The result was so good that the emoticon has been added in reboot.pro as the "standard" "jaclaz" emoticon: Sorry for the misunderstanding , it was intended as a friendly joke. jaclaz

Try here: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/174-windows-8/ jaclaz

NO. There is a situation at your workplace where the only solution devised for a problem has been that of having two users access the same spreadsheet simultaneously. You are slipping on a chocolate covered banana : http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.html And now, for some recreational Zen, let me cite Master Foo (actually Sean Mc Grath): ... databases are Rocks spreadsheets are Water ... http://www.propylon.com/news/ctoarticles/051115_master_foo.html jaclaz

Sure you can ask questions , the point being if people looking in this area may be able to answer it.... AND there is the whole philosophical point about the utility of answers on a board. The general idea is that people trying to help you or answering your questions don' t do it ONLY to help you, but rather to provide something (hopefully) usefull to *all* people having the same questions. The more a thread is "on topic", the more it is likely that it will help other people having the same problem. One thread = One Topic = One Problem/Question = One (hopefully) solution/answer. You are not charged a fee for starting a new topic , if threads become of the type "help congnt92 on each and every possible question he may have" it may possibly be more convenient to you but hardly so for all the other peeps.... jaclaz

Rectius: If there were I were able to find a head-scratching emoticon .... jaclaz

The board has sections. You asked in a section called "Install Windows from USB" a question related to "Installing Windows from USB" and you got your reply. Then you posted in the same thread a question that is related to "Unattended Windwos install" and casually we do have a section called : MSFN Forum > Unattended Windows Discussion & Support > Unattended Windows 8/Server 2012 http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/176-unattended-windows-8server-2012/ Now it is more probable that people interested in USB install will look here, ad people interested/expert in "Unattended install" looks THERE: Start a new thread THERE with your question/issues related to "Unattended". Consider that you normally would allow a reasonable amount of time, like two or three days, before "bumping" a thread, and usually knowledgeable board members don't like helping people that start whining/begging for help if they don't get a reply within a few hours: jaclaz