Zxian

I've used it, but I didn't really see any advantages to it. I guess on my computers, I've got enough crunching power to handle explorer as it is. Can't... wait... for... 1 GB...Ram chip... for .... laptop....

Just a little question out of curiosity. When we purchase a computer with WindowsXP installed (along with the XP CD) or if we buy the package from a store, what is it that we're paying for? Is it the license only? or are we also paying for the media? I would personally think that we are paying for the license, since there are other products that we can find in stores that we can also purchase online for the same price (example: Norton products).

Hi there, Thanks for the link... but that points be towards the german Windows Update site... and I'd have to say that my German is a bit rusty... I just changed the ln=de to ln=en... As for SP2, no I don't have it installed. I've had way too many bad experiences with SP2 so I'm sticking with SP1a with NOD32 and Sygate. Both of the mentioned Services are running. As far as I know, I have the latest version of WU installed (I got through the first time and then I was able to get 7 updates that I hadn't slipstreamed). AFAIK, I don't have a slow connection. I have a cable connection and I know that I've reached speeds of 500Kb/s. I just find it wierd that the built in link to Windows Update doesn't work at all... can I change the target in the WU shortcut in the Start Menu to the address that I got from tomcat78 without any problems? Thanks for the help! Edit: I copied the link from WU in the start menu to have Maxthon open up WU in another tab. I'd still like to know why my computer isn't allowing me to access WU like it should...

Maybe... but in the meantime... I've moved onto Sygate... it uses a bit less memory and lets my system be idle... I'll probably check back with Kerio when they release a new version. Apparently there's some talk about a complete rewrite of the kernel.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to get into Windows update, but all I get is a little flash in the bottom left corner that says "Done but with errors on page" and then a blank white window. I've tried this in both IE and Maxthon with no luck. All of this after a clean install of Windows. Any suggestions? P.S. I've got all the required services running for Windows Update to work.

Hey everyone, I'm having a small problem with Kerio Personal Firewall 4.1.2. When I have it running, explorer.exe is always running at about 15-20%, even when I'm just sitting there idle or right after booting up. Here's a copy of my HijackThis log... I can't really spot anything funny there... Logfile of HijackThis v1.97.7 Scan saved at 22:11:37, on Dec 07/2004 Platform: Windows XP SP1 (WinNT 5.01.2600) MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106) Running processes: C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall 4\kpf4ss.exe C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE C:\Program Files\Eset\nod32krn.exe C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall 4\kpf4gui.exe C:\Program Files\Eset\nod32kui.exe C:\Program Files\WinKey\WinKey.exe C:\Program Files\Kerio\Personal Firewall 4\kpf4gui.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\taskmgr.exe C:\Program Files\Maxthon\Maxthon.exe G:\-=Installs=-\HijackThis.exe O2 - BHO: (no name) - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll O2 - BHO: (no name) - {53707962-6F74-2D53-2644-206D7942484F} - C:\PROGRA~1\SPYBOT~1\SDHelper.dll O2 - BHO: (no name) - {AE7CD045-E861-484f-8273-0445EE161910} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx O3 - Toolbar: Adobe PDF - {47833539-D0C5-4125-9FA8-0819E2EAAC93} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [nod32kui] "C:\Program Files\Eset\nod32kui.exe" /WAITSERVICE O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [scriptSentry] C:\Program Files\Script Sentry\ScriptSentry.exe /check O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MSConfig] C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSConfig.exe /auto O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [AVEDESK] "C:\Program Files\AveDesk\AveDesk.exe" O4 - Startup: Rainlendar.lnk = C:\Program Files\Rainlendar\Rainlendar.exe O4 - Global Startup: WinKey.lnk = C:\Program Files\WinKey\WinKey.exe O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE/3000 O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console (HKLM) O9 - Extra button: Research (HKLM) O9 - Extra button: Related (HKLM) O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Show &Related Links (HKLM) O10 - Broken Internet access because of LSP provider 'imon.dll' missing O16 - DPF: {3E68E405-C6DE-49FF-83AE-41EE9F4C36CE} (Office Update Installation Engine) - http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate/content/opuc.cab O16 - DPF: {6414512B-B978-451D-A0D8-FCFDF33E833C} (WUWebControl Class) - http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/v5co...b?1102480988621 Also, I just ran a Trojan Scan... nothing came up. This is the case even right after a clean install of Windows...man... The moment that I close Kerio (not just disable it), explorer goes back to normal. I've checked on the Kerio forums, but with no luck. There are apparently a couple of other people there who have had the same problem, but no one has replied. Does anyone know why this happens?

Ok... well... I found out that the problem doesn't lie with Aston Desktop... (I just did a clean install). It was just wierd how it happened right after I made the switch back. I'm gonna move this problem over to the Software Forum since it has more to do with Kerio than Windows.

Hey everyone, I decided to give Aston Desktop a try since it had been suggested by a few people. I installed it and used the Shell Switcher to make Aston my default shell. It was nice, but I noticed that Kerio Personal Firewall didn't have it's icon in the system tray and only 2 of the normally 3 processes going. This I didn't like, so I used the switcher to move back to Explorer (for all users). When I had moved back, my explorer.exe process was sitting at a constant 15-20%... no matter what I was doing. After a bit of digging, I found out that if I disabled Kerio, the explorer.exe would go back to normal, but if I turned it on again, it would sit at 15-20%. I've tried just about every single combination of uninstalling and reinstalling the two programs. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get my system back to normal? I'd really like to have my firewall back, but I can't afford to have my system burning battery power on nothing. I'm going to try a System File Checker tonight while I go to bed. If it solves the problem I'll let everyone know as a warning of this incompatibility. Thanks in advance.

Hi there, Thanks for the suggestions. I don't really want to go into making the XPE CD since I have no idea what this is, and I don't really have the time to figure it out. I'm still leaning towards XP since it is much more user friendly when it comes to installing programs and drivers and such. For example USB keys. There will probably be lots of times where I or others will use our USB keys on that computer, and having to bring the driver CDs would just be a pain in the butt. Just a reminder, this isn't going to be my computer. I'm trying to set this thing up so that it needs as little maintenance as possible. That's why I chose NOD32 because it's always kept upto date. Kerio is pretty much set-it-and-forget-it. Just another little thing... the internet on it is going to be wireless... so some extra services needed for that. I'll probably set it up with the same way that I have my services set with a few less... my parent's won't need to connect VPN (like I do... stupid telephony required...) Thanks again.

Hey everyone, I've got a small project coming up in a little while... a clean install of XP on an old-ish laptop. PIII-M 750MHz 256MB Ram 10GB HD The computer is going to be used for surfing the web and reading e-mails. The occasional picture download from a digital camera as well. I was thinking of nLite-ing the install to slim down the bite that XP takes of the hard drive. Here's a list of programs that I was going to install for general security/funcitonality: NOD32 (Anti-virus) Kerio Personal Firewall SpywareBlaster SpyBot S&D Ad-Aware Maxthon (Browser) Office 2003 First off... I know that I'm probably going to get a lot of flames for choosing Maxthon and not Firefox... just don't bother... I'm not going to spend the time to get Firefox to work with a reasonably low memory usage and all that other stuff. Besides, the computer is going to be used by my dad, who's a total techno-clod and would simply like to be able to read his Financial Times and check his e-mails, that's it. I've used it for about 9 months now, and with SpywareBlaster and Spybot and an updated Hosts file, I haven't got a single piece of spyware on my system since. I'm trying to keep all the background programs as lightweight as possible since it is an older machine. Now I'm just wondering if there's anything else that people would suggest I install or any items I can remove from XP with nLite without screwing anything up. I think I've got a simple list made up in my head (I haven't started anything yet) such as Remote Registry, Messenger, and all the services that are used for file sharing through XP. Thanks for the help.

Well... my name actually came originally from a game (don't really remember which one) which had a random name generator. Zian came out of the gen, and I thought an extra x would be cool (please note that this was about 6 years ago, when I was in grade 9 and z's and x's were "cool"), so I added it in there and Zxian came out. I've been using it for about 4 years now online and in games and such... although I don't have much time nowadays to play games... stupid 7 classes per term... (UBC Engineering Physics).

Awesome! Thanks a million!

Hey everyone, I'm just wondering a quick thing. I've looked around for this topic, but all I've found are threads with info on how to change the settings for an unattended install. If I set the Print Spooler service to manual, is there anyway that's easier to start and stop the service than going into the services config and the service properties dialogue? Any way to do this with batch files? Thanks in advance.

It is indeed a love-hate relationship with Firefox... I certainly hope that this doesn't turn into another non-FF bashing thread like there are so many of in this forum. For those of you who have FF working to your liking, great! Use it! For those of you who like Opera over FF and other alternatives, great! For those of you (myself included) who like Maxthon, great! My interpretation of the talk about different browsers can be paralleled to cars. Some people just can't get enough of the high-end cars with wood-trim and all the luxuries, including the iPod holder, NAV systems, and other add-ons that you can get for your BMW/Merc. (Most like Firefox, you can always find plugins to suit your needs) Others like the really lightweight and fast browser alternatives. They use less resources and are usually easier to set up and get going. (Most like Maxthon, pretty much full right out of the box) And then there's the people who like the big heavy SUV's that can handle just about anything. Get it up and running and take over the webpages that you're surfing on. (Most like Opera, really heavy on resources, but a well developed browser) For me, I like m Maxthon. It's really bloody fast right "out-of-the-box" so to speak. Have a look at this test rendering page. http://scragz.com/tech/mozilla/test-rendering-time.php I picked the link up from another one of Tarun's posts elsewhere. I've been getting pretty consistent 2.15-2.30's for the most part. Load up the page once and then refresh it. The webpage for some reason starts counting before the whole page has been downloaded. Just for reference sake, I ended up getting consistent 5.0-5.3's with Opera... I decided to see what xMac and prathapml were talking about. It's a nicely laid out browser, but the 50MB of memory usage by the end of my session (only playing with settings and toolbars) made me cringe... Just so that no one comes and tries to take off my head. I do enjoy hearing about the new features and abilities of the Firefox and I would like to see it be developed into a better browser. As long as all these programs are freeware, I think that it's really awesome that people can compare the different types of browsers and point out what they like and don't like. I know for one that there are people who have commented on the Maxthon forums about certain aspects or plugins that are available for FF and how they would like to see these features integrated into Maxthon. Likewise for the FF forums. For the time being, FF just doesn't suit my needs and my likings. Everyone's different in this world, and that's what makes it an interesting place.

I have tried SP2 in general, and the wifi manager was one of the reasons why I acutally reverted back to SP1a. If I was sitting on the bus with my wireless card turned off, Windows would constantly bug me every 5 minutes telling me that there was no network available... so annoying. Yes, like I said, the new manager looks prettier, but that's about it. It's not necessarily more useful. It doesn't connect to networks any better than the previous version, and it doesn't contain any new features except for the WPA access (which you can install for SP1a anyways). If you've got what you want, then great. I just can't stand the annoying part of it's constant pop-ups.

Winamp 5.06 Maxthon 1.1.067 Rainlendar Winkey CDex 1.50 (with Lame 3.96) Azureus Ad-Aware SE AIDA32 AveDesk Bazooka Scanner CCleaner CWShredder Jane (Just another NFO editor) TweakUI ScriptSentry SpyBot S&D SpywareBlaster Acrobat Speed-Up PokerStars... I think that's it for now...

A really easy way to speed this up is to partition your hard drive into smaller partitions. I've got a smaller hard drive, but my paritions are laid out as follows. C:\ - 8GB Windows & Programs F:\ - 14.2GB Music G:\ - 14.2GB Stuff (whatever else) When I need to format, it only takes about 3 minutes to format the drive and then 25 minutes to install windows. Of course, if you need more space for programs and whatnot, make your primary partition larger. Hope this helps.

As for manufacturer's shipping software for their wireless cards, Compaq ships their Intel ProSet software with the computer (I've got a Presario X1050CA), but I find that it's just a piece of crap that takes up a lot of system resources. Personally, the wireless manager in SP1a seems just fine. If you need the ability to connect to WPA secured networks, MS has a separate update for that. What does beautiful have to do with the functionality of the new wireless manager? It doesn't connect you to wifi networks any better, and the only other gain that you get is a fancy icon in your system tray. I actually didn't find the interface to set up each new network any better than the SP1 version. It may look nicer when you're looking for your wireless networks, but that's about it. I'd say leave your system working as is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Prefetch is a tool that allows windows to, just like the name suggests, pre-load a program into memory. This way, when you go to run the program, it will load up faster than if there had been no prefetch at all. As you open programs and use them, Windows keeps track of this and puts a type of link to the program in the prefetch directory. When you next boot up, Windows will take an extra few seconds to pre-load those programs into memory. If you have the task scheduler service, stopped this function will not work. Also, you can control the behaviour of the prefetch folder at the following registry entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters 0 = disabled 1 = User appications only 2 = Boot applications only 3 = everything The default is 3. If you don't want windows to load any of your common programs (browser, e-mail client, etc etc) then set it to 2. It's also a good idea to delete everything from this folder every now and then. After about 3 boots you'll have all the boot loaded items back in prefetch, and after the first run of your favortie programs, they'll be back in the folder as well. Hope this helps!

I've tried using nLite before, and it's definately a good program to use to slim down an XP install. I'd also like to be able to use it to get my drivers installed, but I can't seem to get my chipset drivers to integrate properly, or my video drivers. This is probably because the video drivers are not standard ATI, but Compaq adapted. Another point... I rarely boot up anymore. With a slimmed down system, I only have to reboot when I install a new program or after 5 days or so. I just use hibernate on my laptop and all is good. There are some services that I need to be running for this to work properly, but it's worth it to me to use the extra 3 MB of RAM so that I can "boot" in 2.5 secs from hibernation. As for the bloated-ness of my windows install... It took me one try to slipstream SP1a onto my install CD. After about 25 mins of installing windows, I pop in my Office cd, and another CD that has a compilation of my other programs that I use. Everything is done in about 3 hours. Total working time to get my system that way, 3 hours for install and about 1 for the prep. Not too shabby for a fully functional mobile system that I'm only going to re-install every 8 months or so... There comes a point when the amount of time that you spend getting your install CDs/DVDs right doesn't pay back in the time that you save installing stuff. If you're making CDs to install over an entire office with a VLK of XP n stuff, then I can understand the need, but for common home users...

Ok... isn't Maxthon IE based??? Maxthon uses the IE core. It doesn't use the IE connections like some other IE based browsers (the ones that people call IE skins).

As for this... I would say that Firefox has more features than IE. The Tabbed browsing feature is worth it to make the switch in itself. However, it does have a few drawbacks. Right after a standard install (from the Firefox website), it'll eat up about 40MB of RAM on my system (512 total installed). To get any useful functionality, you have to go searching for plugins and then install them on top of everything else. For a basic user (someone who isn't completely computer literate), it takes quite a bit to get Firefox to have "full" functionality. I use Maxthon. It's a smaller installer, and it uses a lot less RAM (11MB right now ). Right from the setup, I have access to mouse gestures, Super-drag-n-drop (right-click drag a link and it opens in another tab), Tray icon options, Favorites Groups, URL Alias, URL Key (use an F-key for a webpage), Full download control (what media get's downloaded), and of course, as any good browser should have, a very good pop-up blocker. All of these are simply options in the browser, not plugins. If you want plugins, then you can find those as well to do other crazy stuff. Conbining this with JavaCool's SpywareBlaster (which everyone should install and run on their system, it doesn't have to be running to work), I haven't had a single piece of spyware on my system for a long time (can't even remember). Firefox just takes too long to configure to get it to my level of functionality. The high RAM usage is also a real turn off, since I like to be able to close the browser to the system tray (basically just keep it in the background, 2 MB of RAM) and then run it when I need it. Another disadvantage to Firefox is that you need another plugin to show all webpages properly. Yet another thing to find and download.

Yep... Tools->Options->Other->Advanced Options Uncheck "Warn before permanently deleting items" Cheers!

No, I don't think that that's the reason. I've tried this after a simple boot and I'm usually sitting at about 15 MB of RAM for explorer.exe. When I open Windows Explorer (Win+E), and then minimize it, the RAM usage drops to 600K or so and then starts to increase gradually. As for the reason... I have no clue... P.S. If you read his post, he said that he wasn't having any problems with CPU usage.

You can get PerfectDisk to work without PDScheduler running all the time. You just need it to start up when you want to do a defrag. As for a clean and optimized system... I think that I've done a pretty good job for that with my laptop. Just 20 processes running at startup with only having disabled many services that I don't need. Have a look! Desktop Automatic Services Some of those services are normally set to manual, but since their dependencies are in automatic, I've set these to automatic. Please note that if I wanted to... I could get rid of AveDesk, CursorXP, Rainlendar, and wbload (WindowBlinds), and I'd almost be as low as Jeremy (almost...)