TravisO

So what are you going to do when you go to a site that you trust (eBay, MySpace, Flikr or whatever) and somebody finds a sneaky way to use an iframe or interject some HTML that exploits your system and infects you? Actually if you just follow this guide I wrote it becomes nearly impossible for your browser (IE, Firefox, Opera) in get infected anyways. The best protection is removing the REAL flaw, which is surfing the internet as Administrator. Since most people don't like that idea, then simply using the guide above allows you to be admin but run a program in a non admin mode (and is easier & better than using RunAs). Despite I always run a decent AV and Spyware protector because when you really learn how these things work, you realize only a layered approach really makes you secure.

This is a really bad idea!!!! USB is MUCH slower than IDE and Vista still isn't optimized so it's already slow enough. Booting on the USB would make it unusably slow. But doing it would be extremely easy only if your motherboard supports booting from USB (which is still rare).

Anybody that uses FAT on anything larger than 20gigs is a sick little monkey that doesn't understand the differences between FAT and NTFS (or they just need cross OS readability which is forgivable). Windows didn't set the limit to push an agenda, they did it for sanity. I can't disagree more: #1 HD life is measured in usage, defragging obsessively is HD abuse #2 fragments are only created if you are constantly deleting and creating new files which doesn't happen as often as you think in a desktop scenario #3 it takes years to fragment a system badly enough that a defrag actually speeds up usage I only defrag once a year and I still don't see a difference in speed. Any speed difference you see after a week/month is all in your head I believe that you know security very well but NTFS does offer protection that FAT32 alone does not, why do you think you no longer hear of viruses that destroy hard drives? (like in the old days?). Fat32 first offered improved protection because it keeps a 2nd copy of the FAT and replaces the live version if it gets corrupted, that was 3/4th of the security trick I will admit. But keep in mind in a normal usage scenario (at work, at home with roomates/kids/wife/etc) that FAT is not really a great idea. PS: you spend too much time making sure your file system is pristine

I've heard that FAT is faster on small drives (let's say a 5gigs or less) and NTFS is faster on larger drives (more than 5gigs). But I've never benchmarked it myself to prove it. Plus if you disable the "last accessed" parameter of NTFS you get a minor speedup. Don't forget tho obvious features of NTFS being, there's more than JUST security & large disk sizes 1. viruses can no longer (easily) destroy your index table 2. file on NTFS don't get corrupt (HD failure is a given) 3. no more "lost file chains" 4. reliable file compression on the OS level 5. less wasted space on file blocks (NTFS can use smaller file blocks that FAT) For those who don't know what file blocks are, just know that your HD is more like a grid than a big box, no matter how small 1 item is it must take up the entire block of the grid. You can see this by creating a tiny file (like an empty text file) then right clicking the file and seeing it's (real) "size" vs it's "size on disk" in properties. IIRC FAT32 requires very large blocks (like 16k or 32k) when you get really large disks (30gigs or more). Obviously you can see a bunch of 1k files would shrink your 30gig FAT32 VERY quickly.

Hotmail, I've been using it since 1997, years before Microsoft ever bught it. Despite what people think about it being a spambox, the adding a couple custom rules and enabling spam protection works like a charm.

I don't know what your problem is but you can bet your panties that the .Net time IS accurate.

It sure looks like to me that the Windows Shell is progressing faster than Vista is, so I don't know why they said they don't plan on shipping the shell in Vista! Is MS is going to invest the time and money, just do it anyways. This will keep the unix shell zealots at bay.

If you really want 1 desktop & My Documents location, just configure autologin via the TweakUI plugin MS has made. It seems silly, in fact outright wrong to force Windows into this non secure, non privacy model you are thinking up.

I'm guessing you're not a VPC user, it's much cleaner to run these within VPC because VPC lets you use generic hardware, where as there might not be good video/sound/motherboard/NIC/etc support in Win 3.x/2.x etc. When it comes to true "playing" or software testing, you need a pure enviroment which is only something VPC will give you. VPC allows things like controlling the HD size, the ram size, etc. You can't do any of that in DosBox. Dosbox and VPC have two TOTALLY DIFFERENT USES. Dosbox is great for playing your old games or apps with limited support of accessing your current NTFS drive. VPC is for using an OS in a true, self contained virtual session. PS: I currently have a DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11 setup in VPC.

Considering that WinAmp 2.91 is the final version of Winamp 2.x, imho you're missing out not upgrading to that. I can understand prefering 2.x, because it does use less memory and loads up faster, but I'd still think everybody would at least want the "final" version of the software they love.

The $29 player Walmart is pushing nowadays Watching videos on the computer is WAY too nerdy for me, I'll take the comfortable laid back scenario of my sofa anyday. Not to mention my 25" TV looks more appealing than a 19" monitor (ok I know, the monitor is highly quality, blah blah). Plus I'd rather spill a bear on the sofa than on my keyboard.

Well if your Intel box is using different fans & case of course you're going to see different heat. Traditionally P4 is cooler than AthlonXP, I don't know how the Athlon64's compare though and I have heard all the newest P4s produce a lot of heat nowadays. A fan's cooling abilities are directly related to the size & speed, which of course affect sound. So if this box is quieter with the same number & size of fans, then of course it will be hotter. My best advice don't listen to the majority of PC people, they all obsess on how cool it is. Personally I believe the louder a setup is, the lamer it is (and the more deafly ignorant the user is). I want my box as quiet as possibly, which means I ran it on the hotter side (it won't affect the lifespan as long as you stay below the 80c zone). Also 3DMark is the most intensive application and will stress your system more than any game, so expect serious temp load, but as long as you're idling at 60c or less and full load below 80c, there isn't a problem.

Did you install SP1 for VPC2004? It's mandatory for proper Win 3.11 & DOS support. Obviously the DOS support is an important groundwork for Win 1/2/3

MS has said in the past and present the last two things they do in developement is documentation and code optimization. You shouldn't expect to see decent speeds until they hit the RC phase. That's the main reason I don't play with it. But I expect to run Vista as my primary home OS when they hit RC1 or RC2

Interesting idea, I sure hope Vista addresses this issue better.

I just want to get an idea which version people use to make sure my Winamp codec pack will be worth my time.

The larger the "Word Size" and the larger the "Dictionary Size" the better compression you'll get. And you'll want to use the LZMA "Compression Method". But keep in mind the harder you compress it the longer it will take, mostly because of memory requirements. A 5.2meg Excel file I had, when set to the highest settings needed 1.3gigs of RAM to compress. Obviously if you don't have enough ram you're system will swap and compression can take 5x longer, so choose a setting only as high as your memory allows. And don't forget we're talking about available memory, if you currently have 1gig of memory, you probably only have 512-768megs available at any given time so I wouldn't go beyond that (unless you don't mind the excessive wait). When it comes to dict size vs word size keep this in mind, a larger word size will give you better compression with virtually no change to memory usage (consider this a freebie) but dict size will balloon your memory requirements very quickly. Fortunately un-7Zip'ing is very memory friendly, it doesn't get higher than 130megs of ram needed to uncompress so the only person suffering here is the compressor, not the uncompressor, both ram and speed wise.

This powerpack would work on 2.x and 5.x and I would mainly focus on audio playback, but I'll include video codecs too. The people who will benefit the most from this PowerPack would be users who use WinAmp 2.x but want improved MP3 playback and support for alternate formats in their older player. People who always grab the newest WinAmp will have little to benefit.

There is no upgrade you can (legally) download to convert 98 to 98SE, you need to purchase a 98SE CD. Once you have a retail CD you can upgrade your 98 to 98SE.

FYI the "Adobe Gamma Loader.exe" that I have in my C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Calibration\ is exactly 113,664 bytes created Jan 5, 2005 and it's version 1.0.0.1 I have the following Adobe products installed in order (latest on top) Acrobat Reader 7.05 Photoshop CS2 Acrobat Reader 5.x Acrobat Reader 6.x Acrobat Pro 6 Photoshop 7 I'll swear Adobe never hard copies (entire EXE) into your startup folder.

I have to agree, if you can't read your Win98 disk either, it's most likely the drive is failing. Considering NewEgg sells CD/DVD combo writers for like $35 or less, you should hook him up with something affordable but still good. The only reason I didn't want to say the drive was failing last time because it sounded like it was a recently purchased game. As far as Win98, well on one hand I agree, I'm a hardcore XP guy, but many people on this board swear by Win98SE, especially after you install uSP2 which is housed on this forum under the Win98 section. But then it is your job to fix & sell computers, so I can't blame you for recommending the upgrade

I don't recall getting the gamma util when installing Acrobat reader. I do run Photoshop and Acrobat Pro (aka Acrobat Writer) and I know Photoshop will push the gamma thing. Personally I find it suspicious and I would question if that really is the gamma util or some sneaky spyware. But you are running MS AS which does a really awesome job of catching spyware so maybe it is real. Sounds like I need to create an XP setup in Virtual PC and run some tests on the matter... one day. I don't run the gamma util, the only reason one would want to is because you use Photoshop and need to match your screen output to your printer output, hence why I find in VERY suspicious that Acrobat reader would actually push it, but hey anything is possible.

A reg cleaner doesn't "fix" anything. Hopefully it removes reg entries that were not removed by programs after you deleted/uninstalled them.

You've got my vote as the disc is question has a really crappy protection that doesn't happen to work on his older drive. I've never heard of that before but it's the only reason explanation I can think up.

Powerhouse, Thanks. Although a more logical naming scheme would make sense like "Abandoned" (or "Legacy") and "Updated" or what-not. At the very least it needs to be on the official pages what A and B mean.