Zxian

Do other programs have any problems connecting to the internet? Have you checked your system for spyware/viruses? Did this happen after you installed/uninstalled a program or changed a setting? The more info you can give us, the better we can help.

It could be that your video card is overheating. Either that or it's not properly seated. Those would be first two checks.

Ok... from the first time I joined this forum until now... I've gotta say that Dagonet' definately takes the prize of the most artistic desktops. So much variation! Great work!

I've heard the Maxtor Diamondmax drives do very well performance wise. You might want to have a look at them.

Microsoft VirtualPC will give you what you need, so if it's for the occasional UACD test, it'll do the trick. If you are really hardcore and care about getting things done fast and easily, then VMWare is the way to go. Like SiMoNsAyS (man that name is a pain in the butt to write... ) said, it integrates itself into your system a bit more, but that gives you a little bit more control over "device" settings and such. I personally prefer VMWare over VirtualPC, since you can set the VM to get its own IP from your ethernet port. This means that you can test out firewall software in the virtual PC, while still running your usual firewall on your real computer. Not to mention that VMWare is more friendly when it comes to Linux.

So, I guess that's a no...

Like what? XP in itself is pretty un-buggy (if you know the definition of a bug). There's only a couple of true programming bugs that I can think of (such as maximized windows with the taskbar at the top) in XP itself. The rest of them are caused by malware for the most part. Service Pack 3 hasn't been released yet, and probably won't for a while. SP2 locks computers down pretty well.

Memory used to fragment - ever had a stack/heap collision on a program that only used 20MB of ram out of 512? The Linux machines that we've got at UBC have done that to me a couple of times. NT Memory Management is much better, and as a result, we don't have to worry about that. They call it Random Access Memory for a reason.

You need to check in your computer's manual as to how to access BIOS. Once you're in the BIOS (it's a very basic interface that's similar to DOS), you should be able to find a setting for the boot order.

@Thauzar: I think Marthax had a question about automatically activating AMON (NOD32's active monitor) from a UACD. I'm not sure if an answer has popped up yet, but I'm looking for that kind of answer as well. Also, be wary of some comparisons... there are some out there that are highly biased towards one company or software. If you do give NOD32 a try (you can download their trial for 30 days or use their Beta for 2.51), check out http://www.wilderssecurity.com/ for more info on how to configure NOD32 properly. They've got a lot of knowledgeable people there who are ready and willing to help out.

nLite, nLite, nLite. Just remove everything that you don't need on a daily basis and you should be good to go. The only thing I can see possibly causing you problems would be removing IE and IE Core, perhaps...

Well... I haven't done any formal comparison, but here's what I can give you. Norton (Home edition) - Everyone knows the story here. High memory and CPU usage, and also a target for certain trojans and other malware. Stay away. Symantec (Corporate edition) - Better than Norton in terms of memory and CPU usage. Not a very user friendly interface, probably since it's designed for a corporate environment where admins do all the updates and such. Kaspersky - I don't know if it's worth it to have the "best" definitions (they don't do much good for new viruses), but I found this program to bog down computers that were more than a year old. Still a hefty amount of memory usage (~20-25MB). BitDefender - A good all around security suite. Decent track record for AV programs and a user friendly interface. If NOD32 and Sygate didn't exist, this is what I'd use. NOD32 - My personal favorite. Low memory and CPU usage. It's caught everything that I've thrown at it in the past year or so. Small updates, so it's good for people with slow internet connections. It's also got a stellar track record on Virus Bulletin - 3 fails, 2 on Linux, and one on Win98 ages ago. Hope that helps shed a little more light than "I like this AV program".

Deep Freeze is completely different than this. The ImmuneEngine works in realtime to protect your computer, while Deep Freeze restores a working configuration on startup. I had a job offer with them a couple of months back - ended up taking another job though.

I thought of this when I saw the other topic regarding installing Recovery Console from RunOnceEx. I'm wondering if it's possible to install the recovery console, but make it accessible from hitting the F8 key on boot, instead of having a separate entry in the boot.ini file. Does anyone know if it can be done?

Does using 2 computers at once count double? I'm usually at my computer for about 8-10 hours a day now that I've got a desk job.

-Stay up late -Beach Oakleys or Aviators?

Umm.... OW!!!! That's just plain stupid - there's no way it's worth only $10K. To have that tattooed on your forehead... forget about getting any sort of face-to-face job.

As for the question about Ghost - I think that WD should provide you with tools that will transfer the existing data onto your new drive. Have a look around their website. If they don't have it, then you should be able to Ghost an image of your previous drive onto the new Raptor. AFAIK, unless you need special SATA drivers, you should be alright. If anything goes wrong, you can always pop the old drive in there and start again from scratch.

Yes... your best way to answer these kinds of questions is to backup the registry entry (right-click -> Export) and then apply the regtweak. There are very few regtweaks that will cause your computer to be unbootable to the point where you wouldn't be able to get back in and fix things. EDIT By the way... @undeadsoldier: How do you find these things? Lots of spare time on your hands? Or is there a good resource for more of these little tweaks? EDIT2 Umm... I just tried this out and for some reason, my startmenu doesn't work anymore! I'm using the classic start menu - which may be my problem since it seems like this tweak may disable all Explorer based menu items. I found these reg files however which will disable the menu bar only. The moment that you enable/disable another toolbar, however, it'll pop back and you have to re-apply the regtweak. The only other way I found that could get this is to reshack a file... (can't remember which one). hidemenubar.zip

I'll agree with CBC here. Sygate would be my personal choice. It does pretty much exactly what you're asking for - notifies you when a program tries to connect to the internet and asks you if you want to allow it access (Both upload and download). Other than that, it sits there quietly, taking up a mere 10MB of RAM and very low CPU usage. It only bothers you when it needs your input.

I'd have to say VMWare. It costs a bit more, but it works a lot faster. Not to mention that you can have several Virtual Machines "networked" in VMWare.

It's called advertising. People will buy just about anything that's "Faster" and "New and Improved". I've installed Win2K3-SP1 and XP-SP2 on my desktop (Athlon 1333MHz, 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM) and Win2K3 has always booted up slower. The only "tweaks" I do to the Win2K3 install are the ones to convert it to a workstation. The only time it booted faster was when I stripped everything out of it that I could with nLite - but that left me with a system that was useless to me. Same goes for commit charge - it always sits higher on idle in Win2K3 than in XP.

Umm.... ok.... So does that mean that I could try to sell a banana that's curved the backwards?

@gamehead200: Is that saurize that you're using in the top right corner? I'm wondering about starting to use it for displaying my system stats. As for my desktop... not much change from last month. Actually, my desktop screenshot is the exact same now as it was at the start of June (look back for the first Mandy Moore picture in June Desktops).

Yup... he did... By the way... why is this in Software Hangout? Isn't it a hardware question...