jaclaz

Just to utterly disagree: when it works, AT works alright. (and no it's not a truism) And the Task Scheduler in NT 4.00 (besides the IE related issues) is far from "perfect": http://www.piclist.com/techref/os/win/winnt/cron.htm Relying on an "external" machine to run tasks (if they are "critical") represent a good way to invite Murphy's Law at dinner for a live demonstration Another day, another tool/approach (scheduled unlock) : http://www.softtreetech.com/24x7/archive/51.htm jaclaz

Hmmm. now really OT, meanwhile in the UK: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/adminandfinance/schoolscapital/buildingsanddesign/baseline http://www.dezeen.com/2012/10/03/uk-government-bans-curved-school-buildings/ the future of (public school) architecture and design is doomed (you see, you start by making windows flat, and see where it brings you), the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) promptly emitting their concerns, that are really worth some comment (just the first three): Cannot say about developments in pedagogy , but I can tell you about a couple things on the light of technology ones, which seems pretty dim. I wonder how the heck did we survive all those years in cubic/rectangular school buildings without getting chokied to death in occasion of a serious congestion , and without being killed/harmed by bullying practices, inevitable wherever concealed stairs are in use. Well-ventilated well-lit classroom (that can BTW be made in any normal rectangular building) are essential for kids to concentrate on angrybirds or chatting online (the two main activities currently carried on in school classrooms). NO, seriously, meanwhile in London.... jaclaz

There are two "types" of Reinstall CD's (yes the one that came with your PC or that you "burned" from the recovery partition): first type is an "ordinary" XP install CD that the good Dell guys in their simplicity couldn't leave alone, changing senselessly a few settings second type is an image (or backup, or whatever you call it) of an installed system If it is the first type, fixing (if needed) the few things that were changed is easy. If it is the second, things may become more complex. If I get you right, currently that Dell 755 is running (I mean it doesn't bluescreen, it boots more or less normally as you can run Belarc Advisor) right? In any case, get a second opinion: Very basically, all MS cd's are the same, and only a few files determine if the CD is OEM, "Retail" or "VLK" (put in double quote as to avoid someone to chime in saying that "Retail" and/or "VLK" are not the proper terms, etc.). A key (your current key as seen with the mentioned tools) is only valid for an OEM source (and won't work if you install from your "other CD" which is "Retail"). You won't have problems if you install from OEM source CD with the key gathered from the mentioned utilities, and your Vista COA/Sticker is OK, as it is within the Vista Eula - I believe - one of your rights to "downgrade" to XP (a misnomer meaning actually "install a better OS version" ). So the whole point is understanding what exactly is on the DELL OEM Cd you have, as said it is possible that it is "good as is" (bar the need to create a new one with the needed SP and possibly integrate some needed drivers) or that one needs to re-create a valid "install/repair" CD. Easy, open a command prompt and in it (provided that your CD/DVD drive is E:\ ) do: DIR /S E:\>C:\mydellcd.dir compress the resulting file to mydellcd.zip and attach it to your next post. It is also possible that your 755 has the (in)famous DELL recovery partition, which may as well contain some needed files. Have a quick peek at these: to have an idea of the procedure to rebuild an install CD (if needed) jaclaz

Hey mates , how many posts are actually ON Topic lately? Too many! Here is an Off Topic , but not much one: http://phetdreams.tumblr.com/post/42959902001/massive-google-play-privacy-issue More here: http://www.benedelman.org/news/021913-1.html jaclaz

If I may, forget about nlite (not that is not good, simply it is not a tool suited IMHO for this). If I were you I would use the Dell source (which normally is a synonym of "troubles") to create manually a "standard" install disk, then integrate the SP3 (if that is what you have) and the needed drivers. About the floppy drive (or lack of it ) you can use grub4dos together with a floppy image and a ramdisk driver to replace the "real" floppy with a "virtual" one. jaclaz

Nice one . Besides the main ones and the nice conclusion: B) I particularly appreciated the Bonus Rant about the ribbon interface, and the possible issues with the "average Suzie secretary" needing to fight with .XML. jaclaz

RE: Windows 8 Accounts Some more interesting points: http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/the-hidden-danger-of-windows-8-microsoft-accounts-191185 http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-8-from-Windows-Store/Windows-8-Disconnecting-a-Microsoft-Account-and-a-Skype-account/td-p/1148638 http://www.infinitechusa.net/blog/2012/04/24/windows-8-microsoft-account/ Please do notice the dates of the above, I hope the good MS guys won't come back saying "you talked, we listened" or "noone ever told us that" .... The same user that started the thread Tripredacus referenced: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itproinstall/thread/8124f5da-dd2f-4866-85de-5d369abe1450/ also posted: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itproinstall/thread/78ab2085-e3b7-4e28-9805-a2a07026e04b/ For the record, in Preview there were some issues and a tool was actually released, looking at the checks that the thingy does with a critical eye some items appear to be worth a raised eyebrow: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/07/04/windows-8-troubleshoot-microsoft-accounts-issues/ I mean, if there should be an issue *somewhere* in a connection it seems like issues may arise: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprosecurity/thread/8c9dad97-1eb7-4960-91ca-0755f0bb2e44/ And of course there are issues even on the non-business use, check the point "The one that got away" here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2013667/8-worst-windows-8-irritations-and-how-to-fix-them.html jaclaz

Yep , BTW sometimes reading the stickies does help: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-9x-me/ Don't forget to also check : jaclaz

Nice move so now the links I posted are invalid Correcting them. jaclaz

So this is what, the 6th or 7th separate thread you started about the same issue? Do you expect that members would search the board for all these threads to be current with your progresses? You already stated how that batch wasn't working, the most current threads being: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/161834-shutting-down-and-restart-nt4/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162062-following-my-previous-posts-about-shutting-own-nt4/ Merged by dencorso into this same thread: (you do see the difference between posting a link to something as opposed to referring to your "other thread", don't you?) BTW; please read, attentively, this post in the latter: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162062-following-my-previous-posts-about-shutting-own-nt4/page__view__findpost__p__1031398 page__view__findpost__p__1031398 Divide et impera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule simply doesn't work on a technical board, on the contrary : You were already suggested to try using some other programs (listed) INSTEAD of that batch, after one and a half month you are still with that same batch? What happened with those other programs/approaches that were suggested to you? What happens NOW, following the given suggestions in THIS thread? jaclaz

Yep , I was comparing the referenced post to the first post of this thread, and intentionally posted the info in the dubitative form of "maybe yes, maybe no" . The difference between aakozi and aakozidog should be evident : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubitative_mood But I stand corrected . Every post should be now correctly referenced and "connected", unfortunately increasing the responsibility of Multibooter for not noticing it (twice ), but I would say again "good", another positive result of the community ! jaclaz

NOT "strictly" Windows 8 connected, but near : http://www.osnews.com/thread?551437 Selected parts: I have rarely seen words as wise condensed in such a few sentences. jaclaz

That's good news though of course we don't really know what actually was the issue, nor what could have been the actual fix . Maybe the actual issue was the originally presumed one (some kind of mismatch between 512 and 4096 bytes sectors) but I wonder how it can happen (unless the original laptop BIOS *somehow* sees the disk as being 512 byts/sector while when you mount it "externally" to your "work PC" it is seen - correctly - as 4096 bytes/sector ). However, the only important thing is that you are now among the happy bunnies in the basket. jaclaz

A message to the good MS guys: Sure, the whole problem is that you need to turn 180 degrees in order to look forward, the NCI represents "backwards", I will re-iterate how you will soon be calling the desktop and start menu "legacy interface" with the intent of somehow give some more dignity to the NCI , but effectively undermining the value of what you provided all these years and that proved to be successful: http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/legacy-is-not-a-pejorative.html Among the above quotes, I particularly like the definition by Peter Langston: jaclaz

My guess is that you are having issues somehow connected with this: http://techsupt.winbatch.com/ts/T000001035F9.html Some remedies are suggested in the referenced page, but you need to provide more details on the specific issues you are having. Maybe, just maybe, this approach: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/16197/Remotely-Unlock-a-Windows-Workstation http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/topic/32164-autounlockpc/page__p__10052092#entry10052092 works on NT 4.00 also, but if a way to correct the behaviour of the single specific scheduled tasks is possible, it would be IMHO preferrable. jaclaz

Maybe yes, maybe no. (he does "rock", but possibly not for this specific item) To be fair: cdob posted - passing by - this info earlier, but it went unnoticed/wasn't followed (most probably at the time "we" weren't ready for it ). The main blame (of not noticing it) is of course to be put on Multibooter (and to some extents to myself), but he also has the merit (of having re-vamped the topic), and I claim that without my "torturing" RLoew (and cdob) we wouldn't have had the matter fully exposed as we have it now. All in all, I would say that the whole thing is a "product of the community" in the best sense of it, everyone contributed to it, proportionally to their capabilities and inclinations . jaclaz

Which makes a nice, round, TWO of us! However it shows the exact same partitions TESTDISK showed once in GPT mode. The only tool (till now) that "sees" something more (or better) is DMDE. Ysing the "r" and then the "v" option in gdisk should only provide additional info (and not change the disk contents): http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/repairing.html jaclaz

AFAIK NO (and anyway not a "public" one, possibly some of the good guys making professional hardware/software recovering tools have one - reserved to members or the like - which is anyway created by experience/experimenting/reverse engineering as the manufacturers tend to be very, very secretive about the innards of their disks and the way they work/fail/can be fixed). Yep, what I meant is that depending on the volumes (in the sense of quantities and compexity) of your business, setting up a "data recovery" station, even if limited to to the most "common" cases might be worth the effort, IF actual data recovery is needed, otherwise (i.e. if you can re-build on new disks dorm images/backups) it makes very little sense. Disks are strange beasts , sometimes (not necessarily applying to your case ) imaging "backwards" and in "chunks" succeeds where "normal" imaging does not, see: http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/v3/drdd.htm http://reboot.pro/topic/15040-data-recovery-off-clicking-disk/ http://reboot.pro/topic/15040-data-recovery-off-clicking-disk/?p=133567 jaclaz

I vehemently refute that as I have clearly shown/proven. There is WAAAAY too many "freebies" out there that have this stuff in it. Anyone who clicks "Next" without PAYING ATTENTION deserves the stupid toolbars ( like my daughter used to ). Maybe (please read as most probably) when Multibooter posted that info (Posted 25 May 2011 ) the kaspersky definitions AT THAT TIME did mark it as "riskware". And as well, it is very possible that what he posted was relative to what the downloader would do (if not opted out), i.e. describing the "capabilities" of the downloader. jaclaz

Well, it is very possible - as said - that there is a whole range of issues with those drives, of which we know NOT the source/reason, let alone the "proper" fix. If you are doing this "Commercially" or "Professionally", you might consider getting a PC-3000 and a subscription for it (or a similar tool/software/support). The real issue with these (but as said with *any* failed drive) is that the most you can get for free (IF the disk is still under warranty) is a replacement drive that, this time specifically for the Seagate, is very often a "refurbished" disk drive. Personally, besides the quality of the original "new" hard disk, I tend to be very, VERY doubtful about quality and longevity of refurbished disk drives (not necessarily Seagate's, any "high capacity" disk). Paradoxically , the refurbished 7200.11 might be (IF they belong to those that were simply bricked by the original firmware issue) more reliable then refurbished disks from other manufacturers as they have anyway never been opened. In my perverted mind a hard disk drive is only worth the data that is on it, and once you have it, the idea of "refurbishing" them yourself is IMHO utterly risky, so, the idea of getting a PC-3000 or the like is only aimed to the recovery of the data. (otherwise it would be easier to get a bunch of disks and keep them in the warehouse to "rotate" them with the RMAed ones, i.e. making the "cycle" shorter by inserting in it a "buffer" of locally available replacements) Very rarely you can talk the Seagate support into allowing a free data recovery at their i365 subsidiary, and in any case it takes time and there is the big risk (not to be underestimated) of freight to and from them (lost items, stolen or damaged ones do happen), so even when "total" data recovery is possible and "free" it is risky. Otherwise a typical data recovery carried by a Pro goes into the several hundreds of dollars/euros, no matter if it happens to be a five minutes job. (though there are of course several very reliable and correct data recovery firms, there are also unfortunately a number of charlatans and let's say "less than 100% transparent approaches/procedures"). jaclaz

Well, your previous post was partially (please read as COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY) deceiving If you are not a member/ you are not willing to pay for the download, downloading an installer is NEEDED and some antivirus programs may report the .exe as infected, to the extent that once you resolve the CAPTCHA you get this: Of course the decision to "opt-out" from the crap ads/toolbars (or whatever, I didn't, don't and will not run that crap installer/downloader) is up to the user, BUT the facts are (only to be clear): a downloader/installer MUST be downloaded an antivirus program MAY mark it as a virus you MUST anyway execute the dowloaded executable you MAY opt out from the whatever it does there are NO guarantees - apart the word from the good DriverGuide guys - that it doesn't do anything malicious, nagging, tracking or whatever jaclaz

Seemingly that option is given in exchange for a mere US$ 2.99 for the single download or just US$ 14.95 for a "premium" membership : Clicking on "access" I was given a CAPTCHA and then the "Downloader" (an executabe called setup_42982.exe, sized 1,184,968 byte) started downloading. jaclaz

Cross-posting to a new build of mkisofs : http://cdob.reboot.pro/ http://cdob.reboot.pro/downloads/cdrtools-3.01.a13-bootcd.ru-mkisofs.7z created by cdob with - among some others - the ability to use "0x3 Floppy images up to 1024 cylinders, ie. 36 Mb", see also: jaclaz

Cross-posting to a new build of mkisofs : http://cdob.reboot.pro/ http://cdob.reboot.pro/downloads/cdrtools-3.01.a13-bootcd.ru-mkisofs.7z created by cdob with - among some others - the ability to use "0x3 Floppy images up to 1024 cylinders, ie. 36 Mb", see also: jaclaz

Strange, but if I were you I would forget nlite direct integration of the single SATA driver (not that it is not good) and integrate instead the driverspack: http://driverpacks.net/ http://driverpacks.net/docs/beginners-guide-windows-xp You want to have Base+Chipset+MassStorage (all the other ones are optional and should not matter for booting/installing). jaclaz