Zxian

Just go and install xampp. It's a simple all in one package that will have you up and running in no time flat. It's what I'm running at home - http://zxian.dyndns.org.

Have a good one Jeremy! Hope you get lots of DM'ing in today.

1) I'm not sure about defragmentation, but the computers that I've set up haven't been suffering any performance loss since the beginning. The average startup time for apps is the same now as it was 6 months ago. 2) Yes. You can create a second partition that is not "frozen", meaning that the disk contents will remain as they are upon reboot. Alternatively, you can create a "thawspace" on the drive, which will be mapped to a second drive. I personally prefer the former, and then mount the partition into the My Documents folder. That way, when everyone saves things, it's to My Documents as usual. On the 20GB hard drives that we've got, 15GB is for the system and applications (we've got some big analysis apps - Matlab for example), and 5GB for user saves. 3) The actual installer is only about 25MB, and I think the installed files are about the same. You definately don't have to make a mirror of the drives or anything like that. Just for the record - this is not a ghosting image. The bootup time is no slower than normal, and you really don't notice the difference in performance. When you configure the installer (you basically build your installer for your system), you can select to remove the tray icon, so that users don't even know it's there. 4) Yeah - it's a pretty wicked app. You should download the trial from the DeepFreeze homepage and give it a whirl. At $27.30 per licence for 10, you can't go wrong compared to "traditional" security and maintenance software. btw - try not to circumvent the swear filter next time. It's there for a reason.

If you want to see some "extrem"-ly unsafe overclocking, have a look at this video.

I'm gonna say faf4life this month. Plain, simple, and to the point.

Is it just me, or do the words "safe" and "overclock" just not fit together? Any time that you overclock, you're reducing the life of the components, and increasing the risk of something breaking. Sure, there's a little bit of a margin of error, but you're still pushing things past manufacturers specifications. I'm not trying to put it down - it's fun to see how high you can go. I'm just not sure if the word "safe" fits in anywhere. As for the original question - the best test for overclocking is still Prime95. Run it for a full day (yes - 24 hours) and see if you get any errors. If not, then you're in the clear.

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=41967&hl= Enjoy.

Yeah - I'm the "computer administrator" for my student society, and we've got 5 computers that everyone uses. When I got there, 4 computers were running Windows and 1 was our Linux server. The previous comp admin was a total Linux junkie, and didn't really care about the Windows boxes. I took one look at them and reformatted and put Deep Freeze on there. Faronics actually offers co-op jobs to us students (they're a local Vancouver company), so we got a special deal through our co-op contact. Just a note if you do this - disable all auto-update services. They'll just pop up with annoying messages every time someone uses the computer.

The old Celerons were really horrible CPUs. The newer versions (Celeron D) are actually quite alright. I've built several systems around these and the people using them certainly don't complain. Have you checked your hard drives for the transfer mode? You can find this in the Device Manager under the IDE controllers. If any of them are set to PIO mode, then that's your problem. Usually uninstalling and rebooting will help fix this problem. Otherwise it's a problem with your drive itself. You want to be running your hard drives on Ultra DMA mode for best performance.

Unattended Windows Install = Unattended Windows forum Topic Moved. Please post in the correct section next time.

Another option is to use a program like Faronics Deep Freeze. It'll completely restore the computers to a "base" stat at every reboot. When you need to change something, reboot the computer in a "thawed" state, make your changes, and then reboot in the "frozen" state again. Those changes will then stick after that. You'll never have to worry about viruses or spyware ever again either! Get infected? Just reboot.

You flicked the switch while it was on? That's not good. Try a different power supply and see what happens. If there's still nothing, you've probably fried your mobo. The ONLY switch on your computer you should be touching while it's on is the power switch (and possibly reset). Fan controllers are ok, but definately not the PSU itself.

Whoa... that's a long post...

If you guys think that Aero is the only new great thing about Vista, then you've gotta do some more testing and reading. There's a lot more to Vista than meets the eye...

Umm... are you sure there's a problem here? If your power supply is set at 230V and is only fed 115, then there isn't any question about feeding in too much voltage into it. If you were to live in an area with 230V power and set your PSU to 115, then you might have a problem.

Like people have said before, the TCP/IP limit will NOT affect common day to day internet usage (i.e. no P2P). Anyways... Service Pack 2 includes all of Service Pack 1, the updates between the two, and many other security and usablility enhancements. If you're asking the question on whether or not to upgrade, the answer is almost always yes.

No. Like rjdohnert said, 64-bit Vista and 32-bit XP are completely different. I've heard of people getting Creative's drivers to work under 32-bit Vista, but I don't know about 64-bit. You'll either have to try or dig around some more to find out. Avast and Symantec (not Norton) are the only two that I've heard of that work well under Vista. There could be more, but these are the ones that I know of. I'd highly recommend not purchasing Norton again when your subscription runs out - it's a horrible product that's driven purely by publicity (and coming pre-installed on computers). I don't think that there's a site that has a list of working programs, but most programs that you use in XP should be able to run in Vista. There are some that might be XP specific, but I haven't come across any that I know of. Firefox and Opera both work well in Vista. On the other hand, have you tried the Vista version of IE7? It's a bit different than the IE7 that you install on XP, and it might "fit" better with Vista than it does with XP.Also - make an image of your current XP installation and then do a clean install of Vista. Upgrades are probably the #1 cause of headaches when setting up a system. Clean installs just work well. Another advantage - if you want to go back, just re-image the XP onto your drive and you're back in business. Also - this topic is more about Vista than XP. Topic moved. Please post in the correct forum next time.

Glad to be of help. I know how much of a relief it is when people guide you in the right direction as to what to get or what to avoid. I've wasted countless dollars on products that weren't what I wanted, or didn't do what I expected. Hope you enjoy your new toy.

How about this - GeneralMandible, would you perhaps place a disclaimer in the original post or change the topic title to include something like "BETA". At least that way unsuspecting people don't think that it's a fully finalized setup that'll work for everyone. Hopefully that'll make more people happy, and encourage more bugtesting and fixing than what I've seen so far.

@ripken204 - Getting an AM2 mobo would also require getting an AM2 CPU. Not all of us are overclocking-crazy like you are...

Norton is better than AVG? You're going to get a cartload of nasty comments about that one. I can't even begin to count the number of times that I had to reinstall Norton to fix a problem with updating. Avast is my suggestion for a free anti-virus. It's simple, lightweight, and does a good enough job for most people.

@Dagonet - I like... *downloads wall* @WolfX2 - Cheer for Brazil!

Just a suggestion about your download package - make it at least have some sort of prompt before extracting the files. Having it all of a sudden drop a command window in front of you can be intimidating. Also, try making the "installer" a VBS script. It can run without the big fat window and it'll look more professional.

ASUS ASUS ASUS. Key things to look for when building an Intel CPU system - Intel northbridge and Intel Southbridge - forget about nVidia and VIA. Here's a really good choice for you, although the price might be a bit high - P5WD2-E Premium. Also - you gotta be more specific with the specs than what you gave. The video card is probably PCI-E x16 (not just PCIE), and the CPU is probably socket LGA775, which makes a BIG difference. As for RAM, you're probably not going to find a motherboard with DDR and DDR2 support. If you did, I wouldn't recommend getting it. You'll only be able to use one or the other, so you might as well get with the times and go DDR2.

LLXX said it all. Bottom line - just about anything out there will do what you need. The extra features such as faster speed or bigger cache are nice, but not having them won't hinder you at all.