nmX.Memnoch

Sounds good...more tomorrow unless someone else replies with suggestions before I do... I'm off to be now since I have to be back up for work in about 4 hours...

Quick Googling tells me this could be a sound card issue. Remove your sound card (or disable the onboard if that's what you're using) and see if the problem persists. Also...list your hardware specs. Motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, etc, etc...everything that you know or can find out.

That helps to know. I'll start out with a C2D E6300...but it's a $50US price difference from the E4300. They're basically the same CPU except the E6300 has a 1066MHz FSB (and whopping 60MHz speed advantage) and the E4300 has an 800MHz FSB. I haven't actually used an E4300 but I've read that they overclock like crazy. Just bumping it up to a 1066 bus will have it running at 2.4GHz, which is faster than the E6300 at stock speeds anyway.

WinXP's System Restore isn't supposed to mess with data files (i.e. Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc). The System Recovery utilities from HP, Gateway, Dell et al will mess with data file if you aren't careful with how you run their System Recovery utils. Their's are designed to basically reinstall the computer to a "from the factory" state.

A bad hard drive wouldn't result in a non-POSTing system though. It may have been a fan... I've also heard PSU's make some weird noises when they go bad. My bet is either with the RAM or PSU (and more likely the PSU).

This was a change Intel made when they moved to the LGA775 sockets. I forget the reason for the change though...

What components do you already have? Do you need a video card, sound card, case, etc, etc? If you just want to go with onboard video and sound and have some components already, we might be able to stretch it within your budget...but it'll to be at the lower end of the Core 2 lineup. Think either an E4300 or an E6300 as the CPU base.

Check 'Documents and Settings' for an old profile. When you do a repair install the system recreates all user accounts. Since the new user account doesn't have the same SID as the original user account, it'll create a new profile. If it there is an existing directory structure for the profile it starts with appending the computer name to the new profile path. So you end up with something like this (red is old profiles, blue is new): C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.COMPUTERNAME C:\Documents and Settings\All Users C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.COMPUTERNAME C:\Documents and Settings\LOCAL_USERNAME C:\Documents and Settings\LOCAL_USERNAME.COMPUTERNAME C:\Documents and Settings\DOMAIN_USERNAME C:\Documents and Settings\DOMAIN_USERNAME.DOMAINNAME Keep in mind that it will do this with domain accounts as well...even if the account isn't new, the machine install basically is. Edit: I just noticed you mentioned HP System Recovery. It will have this same issue...unless of course she did a full System Recovery which WILL delete all files on the drive before doing the recovery.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss...ocid=MIGR-42983 Edit: posted while I was searching... The full machine type is an IBM NetVista M42 model 8305-61U.

It'll lease an address regardless of domain membership...even if the workstation/laptop/etc isn't a member of a domain.

More than likely you're going to have to pull the motherboard...and probably the CD/DVD drive. Not to start a whole other debate...but what motherboard did you put in that system?

Actually...the latest IntelliPoint drivers work pretty good. You can't get some of the features of their newer mice without installing the IntelliPoint drivers. The newest Logitech mice are the say way... The mouse he got is a very basic optical mouse. It's one of the first (maybe second) gen optical mice though. The DPI is pretty low compared to newer optical mice. It still shouldn't require the tracking slider to be all the way up though. I've got people at work using the same basic mouse (black/charcoal version) on dual screens. I know for a fact they don't have to "skip" across the screen(s). You may want to try uninstalling the software just to see how it performs. It's possible that it's the software, but I don't think it is.

I'm sure some of XP's policies will work on Vista. It's a case where you should use WMI filtering to prevent them from applying to Vista machines though...that is, if you want your XP and Vista policies to be different from each other (which I personally would). Just create a WMI filter on root\CIMv2 with a query like this: Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Caption like "Microsoft Windows XP%" Then apply that filter to the GPOs that you want to apply only to Windows XP. I don't have any Vista machines in my domain yet, but the filter for that would probably be something like: Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Caption like "Microsoft Windows Vista%"

They should be able to provided they're on the same network.

Actually that was a new addition with WinXP if I'm not mistaken. It may have been there on Win2k, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't with WinNT 4.0. As for folder extensions...they don't get extensions. Sure, you can name one something like "My Folder.dir", but folders/directories don't get true extensions like files do.

Don't include them in the $OEM$ structure or your OemPnPDriversPath. That will prevent Windows from automatically installing the drivers for the SoundMAX cards since it doesn't have them built in. I'd still recommend using CMDLINES.TXT at the T-13 stage though. KB888111 has to be applied before the drivers for any HDA sound cards. Without that hotfix the drivers won't install (or at least not properly).

I doubt it... SCSI SCSI RAID SATA SATA RAID SAS RAID using SAS drives SAS RAID using SATA drives SAS RAID using both SAS and SATA drives on a single controller (yes, it can be done) Fiber Channel using FC drives My most recent being the Fiber Channel with thirty 146GB 15K RPM 4Gb/s fiber channel drives. It's a no contest choice between PATA and SATA drives. SATA wins every time. To be honest, SATA drives are surprisingly fast on the right SAS RAID controller. You'll never get a PATA setup to be that fast.

If you use CMDLINES.TXT then it'll install at about T-13. If I were going to run it during install, that's where I would do it. Doing it at that stage will run it after all of the drivers and hotfixes have already been applied to the system.

I'm pretty sure you'd have to install that via RunOnceEx after installation has completed. You wouldn't want that install running if the machine doesn't have a SoundMAX card so you can do a little scripting to detect whether or not the system has that sound card.

The driver only has to be installed for printers that Windows 2000 doesn't have drivers for. If the driver isn't there then it won't be able to auto-create the printer when a client connects.

You can back them up by grabbing the files in %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\GroupPolicy\. However, the correct method would be to copy one of the security templates located at %SYSTEMROOT%\security\templates\. Edit it for your needs and then apply it to each workstation. This will also prevent any of the settings being changed with GPEDIT.MSC.

well the raptor is sataI and is faster than basically every sataII drive but you forgot to say what the definition really is. its the max transfer rate that could be possible by that type of connection. its all about the type of connection, not the drive. just like that max speed of ide 66, 100, or 133. sataI max is 150. and sataII max is 300. but since drives only have an average transfer rate of ~65 ill say, it really doesnt matter. You really should read the information on the SATA-IO site that both jcarle and I have linked for you. The max transfer rate is NOT the definition of a SATA "II" drive (remember, there's no such thing as SATA I or SATA II...only SATA). "SATA II" is only used as a marketing term...it has no real meaning. If you look at the features supported between so called "SATA II" drives you'll probably see a lot of differences in the supported SATA features. The Raptor drives are faster because of the faster spindle speed, as well as supporting nearly all of the technologies outlined by the SATA II members.

Have you checked the System Event Log?

TweakUI offers an easy way to edit those options.

And a little more explenation in this thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=95967