Zxian

This type of discussion is not perrmitted on MSFN. Please read the MSFN Forum Rules before posting again. Regardless of where you download it from, it's illegal. The only way that you can have a legal copy of the files is by purchasing XP from a retailer. As for your third question - Like -I- said, booting is a BIOS setting. Have a look in your computer's BIOS for this.

AFAIK, you cannot merge separate drives into one. What would the OS think if you were to use two or more of the flash drives at once? Windows needs to keep them separate. As for hiding them when not in use, I don't think you can do this in My Computer, but you could hide them in My Computer and use a program like AveDesk to have them appear on your desktop when in use. Have a look at my Desktop Customization guide for a link to AveDesk.

Moved to Software Hangout.

Moved to proper forum. Please pick the proper forum to post your questions in the future.

I don't really think that there would be that many projects going on... The only ones that I can think of would be Mindows, MicrowinX, and this one. Project and How-to have some potential overlap, so it would probably just muddle things up more than need be to have both.

Perhaps... although I did a test just today with the bootable rescue media and the archive file comes out to the same size. This was pretty much the same results that I got with Acronis 8, so I'm not sure where exactly the problem lies.

Probably not... he's a pretty hardcore nLiter...

The media library would be part of the GUI... making it a valid point to upgrade... If you're talking about file formats, then yes, WMP is limited, but that's also what Microsoft is going to try to keep doing. Apple is doing the same thing with the iPod+iTunes. Did you know that iTunes converts all your files to AAC when transferring them to an iPod? It's a format that's not reckognized by Windows Media Player in any case... Most of the problems that people complain about is usability though, something that deals with the GUI (emphasis on user interface). In any event, it's a bit too early to tell now how things will look when Vista and WMP11 are finally released. You can only really get a feel for things when you actually use them.

NX - I don't have it, and it doesn't seem to affect my security at all. SSE3 - Programs need to include SSE3 instructions to actually make use of these processors. I'm not entirely sure about games, but most programs that I can think of won't make use of SSE3 instructions until it becomes mainstream. As for lagging... BF2 is just nuts when it comes to resource requirements. You see a massive (i.e. 100-120%)difference in performance when going from 512MB to 1GB of RAM, and even more performance gains when upgrading to 2GB. Dunno about Guild Wars though. The big question you've got to ask yourself is whether or not its worth the money to buy upgrades now, and then shell out even more money when you decide to buy your next computer. Remember, computers are never an investment. What you buy today will be on the market for at least 25% less 6 months from now (generally speaking).

It's not, the moderator of the forums may have not thoroughly read through the post before deciding that it did not comply with the rules . No... I did notice... (I know - I've been a bit of a hard-liner lately) I figured that it would turn from an introduction into an offical "How-to" at some point. I'll leave that to you to decide when that happens though. Keep up the good work.

@TheFlash428 - Yup... Funny Farm it is.

Just to rule out any other reasons/causes of your image being bloated, can you verify with an image explorer that your pagefile is non-zero in size? Ghost has Ghost Explorer that lets you view your files. I'm unfamiliar with Acronis. Does it have a similar program that let's you view and extract files if needed from the images it contains? Acronis does allow you to view the archives that are created. You mount them and view them in my computer as you would with an ISO and Daemon Tools. When mounted, the file is listed as its full size, but the actual size in the archive is 0 bytes. So viewing it in the Acronis mounter won't help. @albator - I'm not sure what's going on, but you already asked about the paging file in my Acronis Bootable CD guide here. I did a test there with version 8, and I'm doing a test again with v9 as I write this. However... I've noticed something different between our installs... I'm running Acronis True Image from within Windows, while you're using the bootable rescue media. This might be causing the differences, because the bootable media may not be able to reckognize what is a system file and what isn't. From the bootable rescue media, it may not be excluding the pagefile like it would within Windows. I'll do a bit more testing on this and let you know how it goes. And... as I'm writing this, the v9 is done. Both file sizes (with and without pagefile) are essentially the same. We're talking about a few KB this way or that, but nothing like what you're experiencing. EDIT - I just tried this again with the bootable rescue media (Acronis True Image 9) and both archives came out to the same size...

Winamp uTorrent Opera Outlook 2003 OneNote PuTTY WS_FTP Acronis True Image VMware MPC Man... why are there only 10 choices allowed? My list goes on for a little bit.

Yup... you make the folder yourself and then create whatever files and folders you need within that.

Read the one and only guide you'll ever need for the basics of multi-boot CDs. Some of the material is outdated (ERD 2003 vs ERD 2005), but the method still works, and all the files that are there are still valid. http://flyakite.msfnhosting.com/ There are explicit instructions there for ERD and BartPE.

Yeah, I know we've got access to that. I'm gonna look into that next term when I'm back in classes, but for the past year, one re-install of Server 2003 has done me well for my second computer (which in its original revision had Millenium on it).

I think it's the opposite actually... Pro probably has more potential security holes since it's designed with remote administration and connections in mind. XP64 still has compatibility issues with drivers and the like. I know manufacturers who release AMD64 based computers and don't have the 64-bit drivers for the rest of their hardware...*cough*Gateway*cough* I'm running the 180-day trial of Server 2003 at home... because it's free. I mean... re-installing from a UACD isn't that much of a hassle every 6 months when what you're getting is free. There's nothing against doing so in the EULA. Yes, it's true that Win2K3 won't let you install some programs or drivers (Logitech webcam drivers for example...), but then again, I don't think that it was really meant for someone to sit at and chat over MSN or Skype...

That thing may have been "hot" 2 years ago, but it'll still keep up very well today. Just because it won't cost someone $3000 new doesn't mean it's a slouch. Your graphics card will support all the fancy stuff of Vista. 64-bit isn't living up to all it's made out to be just yet. Are you having any specific problems with the hardware? i.e. do you need to upgrade? If not, then doing so would be a waste of money for now. Hell... I know a guy who's playing Doom3 on a PIII-1.2GHz... go figure.

True that personal preference plays a role in the choice here. Both are excellent programs. I think the problem with Jeremy's situation is that he only left DK on his system for a few hours. I remember when testing out O&O vs PerfectDisk ages ago, O&O would completely reorganize the order of the files on my computer. Subsequent defrags with O&O were indeed faster, but the first defrag when going back to PerfectDisk was horribly slow. It could be that DK and PerfectDisk organize files differently on the surface of the disk so that the next defrag passes are quicker for each program.

I'm guessing that you don't get the activation notice after you restore the image of your drive with Ghost 2003. If the system is still sluggish, check to see if your hard drive is running in PIO mode. You'll find this information in Device Manager under the IDE channels. If the drive is running under PIO mode, uninstall all the IDE devices and then reboot.

Hmm... something's not right here. I've never noticed Diskeeper running on my desktop. I use my desktop as my server, so it's got files coming and going to/from it all the time. Diskeeper has the Smart I/O feature, which is meant to give your actions priority over the defrag engine. I've never had any problems with the defragger running in the background while I'm doing things. Sure it's a little bit slower, but not to the point where movies stutter or the system slows to a crawl. Also, it's not that files are defragged on the fly. It's that the DK system is constantly monitoring (or at least periodically) your hard drives for fragmentation. When fragmentation levels get to the point where they would hurt performance, it kicks in and defrags your drive. Oh... and Diskeeper 9 and 10 have the option to consolidate free space as well... For the record, I use Diskeeper on my desktop, and PerfectDisk on my laptop (Have been for the past 3 months now). Both do what I want them to, so I've got every right to point out the pros and cons of each....

Holy crap... just saw the updated first post. Under 20MB is nuts... It'll be funny to see a computer where the OS takes up 20MB and games take up 3GB each...

Sorry prathapml... there's already a post about this here. @trevor.gillingham - Please read the forum rules. You can find the links in my sig. Please use the other thread from now on. - Link Topic closed

First off... chill... No need to get hasty. If the copy of Windows is legal, then you've got nothing to worry about. Have you tried simply reactivating? Do you get any problems when you try? If you can't do it over the internet for whatever reason, call Microsoft and they'll give you the activation code. I've done it several times without any hassle. Did you change drivers? Maybe a driver upgrade or change may have caused Windows to think that hardware was changed, giving you that message. Title Edited - Please follow new posting rules from now on. --Zxian

You're right. The pagefile and hibernation file are stored in the root of the system drive as pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys.