Basil

Hi xpclient, the always on top add on is working fine, very useful, will install on my other PC's, thanks very much for that! If i make the USB sond card in the TX dominant I *THINK* there may be an issue with Windows sounds entering the transmitter when something fires off a sound when I am transmitting digital stuff. I am sure i read a warning somewhere. I'll try it though, I have an app called QuikMix that allows sound settings to be saved and recalled alter. Personally i think Windows does not handle sound card set up very elegantly at all, especially USB stuff. In fact it doesn't handle USB stuff itself very well at all Again, many thanks for taking the time to reply and link to the application!

I am using my PC for amateur radio, and one form of communications is digital modes. To this end my transmitter has an on board sound card, USB driven from software on my PC. This means i have two sound cards, in effect, the on board sound card, on the motherboard , a Realtek HD Audio, and the sound card within the transmitter, which Windows XP pro sees as "USB Audio Codec". I want to make the keyboard + and - buttons for volume control effect the USB Audio Codec sound card, not the on board Realtek card's volume. If that isn't possible is there a workaround to have a volume control always on top in Windows, by some registry tweak or whatever? Thanks. Oh, the keyboard is an old Trust 16365 wireless one. I would change the keyboard if it gave me the option to control the none "on board" sound card...

Thanks Woomera. I have a fresh install on a fully re formatted drive now, and have been using Avast free version for some weeks now. I find it far less resource hungry than AVG free was. Not sure how good it is, for every opinion on AV there seems a contrary one lurking elsewhere I will download the MBAM version and as you suggest, run it weekly for peace of mind. thanks everyone for the very helpful replies, and a belated happy New Year to all.

I was disappointed to find a file I thought suspect was passed as OK by a fresh and updated install of AVG Free, under a clean of XP Pro with all updates on from MS. I trusted it, ran the .exe file and got a terrible set of infections, the worst being that damned ping.exe virus and something eventually discovered to be Rootkit.ZeroAccess I thought I had rid of everything, then found I could no longer make Firefox my default browser, and was finding both blank and populated windows of IE8 launching. I need the laptop for work, and despite it being freshly loaded with a lot licenced automotive diagnostic stuff I decided to do a full (not quick) re format, and reinstall XP Pro from scratch. I then re flashed the BIOS witha fresh bios image from Dell, downloaed via a clean PC. With no internet connection I then loaded the Recovery Console files from a virgin MS XP Pro CD, and ran fixMBR and the command to rebuild the boot sector, which I forget. I am now at the stage where I can start installing my applications again, or should I reinstall XP pro again, knowing (hoping...?) the boot sector and MBR are clean? What I also do not fully understand is if MBAM is an adequate standalone virus checker for viruses in general, or just for "malware" whatever that means, which I think could be different things to different people. I now find my trust in AVG (albeit it was only a currently updated free version) gone. If MBAM is not a sufficient tool for all round protection what should I be looking at please? Great forum!

OK, thanks guys, have left them as basic. I believe it's trivial to change them from basic to dynamic afterwards, even with data on, but not vice versa? I was just wondering if dynamic added worthwhile speed or data stability, that's all. Cheers, great forum BTW. All the best fro Christmas.

I have updated my Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop to use a 120GB SSD drive in bay one and a Toshiba 500 GB conventional drive in bay two. I will be running XP Pro on this machine. I tested my NLite custom install CD on this and it loaded XP fine, with all my desired settings. I then added the second drive. I find an option to make this second drive basic or dynamic, whilst the first drive with XP on it is shown as basic in disk manager. I am not familiar with this dynamic thing, and a search has left me little the wiser. It's no big deal to reinstall XP if required. How should I have these drives for best results please? I have somehow ended up with this new 500 GB drive formatted NTFS which is what I expected, but showing as dynamic, with the SSD showing as basic. Thanks for any help.

Great in depth reply, thanks for going to such lengths! I have to admit I didn't really understand a lot of the technical stuff, but I now know that I should just let IE sit there, I had no idea it was all so interwoven. Thank you again, much appreciated

I have built up an nLite disc to install XP Pro with all my laptop drivers and settings, and it works fine. I am wondering if I choose NOT to install Internet Explorer 6 at all, can I still get auto updates and set a custom auto update to not install IE afterwards? I use Firefox for browsing. Or is IE hard coded into auto updating? Any gotchas if I also say do not install Media Player, as I also use something else for that purpose? Cheers.

Thanks, that worked just fine

All of them? Just .inf files? Ahh, just looked at the last install on my laptop under system blah blah drivers, and there are loads of files loaded for what is showing as two video adapters. I was expecting a single file, maybe two but I am hopeless with anything past DOS Perhaps they are for different resolutions? I'll give it a go, thank you for taking the trouble to check that out, appreciated

Thanks, yes, I see your point re the danger of this, I'll probably not bother about that aspect It would be nice to have nLite install the video drivers, the file is an .exe one and it expands to several sub folders, and I am unsure how to integrate it. If you feel bored you can find the Dell driver file at http://www.newbury-house.com/driver/R181739.exe If you or someone else can tell me just how to integrate this I'd be much obliged, thanks again.

I have made a bootable DVD with XP Pro on that loads my SATA drivers, strips out unwanted apps and does a nice custom (nearly) unattended set up. Only two issues are bothering me. One is it stops and asks about overwriting an existing XP set up and deleting and formatting partitions. Is there any automation for this, or will it only fully automate on a blank pre formatted drive? It also stops right at the end when Windows asks if it can change and test screen resolution. I told nLite to use default resolutions. Neither are show stoppers, and I'd much rather be asked about something as major as partition deletion, creation and formatting than for nLite to do something wild, but thought I'd ask to see if it can actually be fully automated, start to finish? Some of my driver .exe files for my Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop, when clicked on, do not have .inf files in their expansion, so not sure how to integrate these. i am adding them manually after XP is fully loaded. Can I add some straightforward none OS programmes, too, for automatic loading? Some ask if a driver can be loaded once they themselves have set up, this sounds complex..... Thanks, a great product!

If I use nLite to add SP3 to XP Pro, remove some unwanted apps, then just add all the Hot Fixes and Updates since SP3 was issued, will there be issues if some Hot Fixes are for apps I chose to have NLite not load? It's hard for me to be sure just WHAT some Hot Fixes are exactly for. Thanks, great app, just hope I am up to getting it working properly.

Edit: I have deleted the content, I mistakenly posted here re an nLite query, apologies.