TravisO

Wow, you should quit the whole PC thang and become a full time comedian!

I've tried to read around before asking this and I cannot find an answer. I notice there is an A and a B pack for each driver pack. What's the purpose of this, what's the difference?

There's a registry setting that determines how much time Windows gives a service to quit when a shutdown is requested and obviously if you have a couple services acting up, this can seem very long. Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control Modify/Create the Value Name [WaitToKillServiceTimeout] according to the Value Data listed below. Data Type: REG_SZ [string Value] // Value Name: WaitToKillServiceTimeout Value Data: [Default = 20,000 (expressed in milliseconds) Modify to preference.] Exit Registry and Reboot I prefer to use 6000 for the value (that's 6 seconds). Keep in mind that doesn't mean 6 secs per service in order, this means all at the same time. On slower machines you want this value higher. Considering that buffer flushing takes upto 5secs, I highly insist you don't use a value less than 6 secs. Original url (I couldn't find my notes so I pasted from here): http://www.theeldergeek.com/increase_shutd...es_to_close.htm

Even if your AV software can't scan inside the package, it does scan EVERY file before it writes itself to memory or the the disk drive. So any quality virus scanner /w AntiSpyware support will block the virus/spyware no matter how you package it. Also keep in mind, any good virus scanner can scan inside a .ZIP file, and possibly other archived files (.CAB) and most likely even .MSI. You should contact an AV vendor or find a white paper to find out for sure but I'll bet the shirt on my back that Panda AV can scan all of these formats. Of course I'm guessing you want to scan your packages you create and/or download off of here and I don't blame you, but at the same time you should NOT be using a PC in today's world without an updated virus & spyware scanner. I mean, would you drive your care down the road without a seat belt? BTW, the best Spyware realtime blocker & remover is MS's AntiSpyware (love or hate MS, it is the best, that's why they bought it). And this comes from a guy that's been running Spybot since 2001. Considering MS has been improving MS AS I'm sure it will scan at least .ZIP and .MSI installs and .EXE packages (which are often just a .ZIP file merged with a GUI unzipper.

If you have to be sneaky, upgrade her to Win98SE /w uSP2, then replace the startup image and the start bar image /w Windows 95.

WinAmp 2.95 (and 2.92) were never released because they are actually WinAmp 5 betas. If you want to be a 2.x purist then run 2.91, which is the real last version of 2.xIf you are going to run 2.95 then you might as well download 5.13 and admit you're running 5.x and get all the features finished.

EVERYBODY POST WITH ME! CLOSE THIS THREAD CLOSE THIS THREAD CLOSE THIS THREAD This thread is a sore on the face of the forum.

EVERYBODY POST WITH ME! CLOSE THIS THREAD CLOSE THIS THREAD CLOSE THIS THREAD This thread is a sore on the face of the forum.

I insist on Win98SE here, especially since you can apply the uSP2 which gives you recent bug fixes. This is a classic example of when you need to help somebody even when they don't think they need such help. Win95 is totally abandoned, at least Win98 gets trickle down support from MS and is still supported in a large number of recent applications (ex: Office XP, .Net 2.0 & IE6 all work in Win98). You can find all the Win95 updates at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/

The optimal setting is... surprise surprise... let windows choose aka "System Managed Size". Since when is a hard value better than what MS has tested (way more than any of us have) in accordance to your ram. BTW, the automatic value is the optimal value, which, as you said, is 1.5 times your system ram.

You are correct and I should have mentioned that. Stealing the in_???.dll's from WinAmp5 is an easy way to improve your older WinAmp setup. You'll get higher quality playback, bug fixes and improved file compatibility. I see that Winamp 5.12 added the ability to play protected WMA files and I'm curious if that would backport to 2.x by copying the in_wma.dll

My favorite theme is the one from Media Edition... the Royale theme http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhan...for-WinXP.shtml or http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en

I haven't tried on Win98 but on a side note... GoogleToolBar v4 destroys all the previous versions: 1. It's way cleaner and no longer fugly (new icons) 2. It has server side bookmarks 3. You can add custom search buttons Although about #3, I already do this with IE shortcut searches so I won't use this feature)

Just FYI, I sure hope you don't plan on using the flash drive as your desktop OS or anything. Flash Drives have a very limited lifespan, older ones will get failures at only 10,000 read/writes and newer ones die somewhere between 100,000 and 1million read/writes. Booting and using an OS in a flash drive can destroy it very quickly. Here's a news article about running XP on your thumbdrive http://www.informationweek.com/windows/sho...cleID=177102101

velu05 wins my vote for sloppiest typer on MSFN, he has more "AOL slang" than he has lines of text. "r any other" "i m currently" "n i usually" "if i stops the download" Why am I posting this, because I want to remind you that MSFN is used by everybody across the world and sloppy typing like that is unreadable to people in which English isn't their native language. "n i" may be obvious to you, but tell that to somebody in Sweden or Germany. Please keep your AOL speak on AOL, and not in the forums I'm not perfect either but at least I try to type actual words and use proper grammar.

For those who don't know, the in_mp3.dll was the ONLY change in Winamp 5.12 -> 5.13 for the "critical security fix". So all you really need to have "secure" MP3 playing is to just update your in_mp3.dll, which I am providing a link for below. Now, no matter which version of WinAmp you use, you can use of this update to protect yourself (that goes for you Winamp 2.x users too!). http://rhelik.lehost.net/Files/in_mp3.zip Take that file and unzip it to: C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ I have tested this on Winamp 2.91 and it works great, and I expect it to work on almost any version of Winamp. ----------------------------- UPDATE - 2/11/06 I have extracted the in_mp3.dll from WinAmp 5.2 beta which adds support for gapless MP3 playback (no more hickups between songs) and some other minor features. As above, this is totally backward compatible with WinAmp 2.x and 5.x so you might as well reap the benefits. http://rhelik.lehost.net/Files/in_mp3_5.2_beta_427.zip If you still use WinAmp 2.x's defalt MP3 playback you're living in the stone age, get this now, you'll get better sound quality, less CPU usage and more features. I'm thinking about extracting all of the newer plugins and packaging them into a simple installer that way you can get the benefits of all the music formats in WinAmp.

I've zip'd up my in_mp3.dll from WinAmp 5.13 in case anybody wants. For those who don't know, that DLL was the ONLY change in Winamp 5.12 -> 5.13 for the "critical security fix". This way no matter which version of WinAmp you use, you should make use of this update to protect yourself (that goes for you Winamp 2.x users too!). http://rhelik.lehost.net/Files/in_mp3.zip

IIRC, Win95 never had "integrated" IE as the last ver of 95 included IE4, which could be removed from the system. If you want to see a breakdown of each Win95 version including what IE it has, USB supporth and Fat32 support check out the WikiPedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95

Angelico_Payne is correct, TweakUI for XP already does this under the following section: My Computer > AutoPlay > Handlers No reason to install an app to do it (I'm assuming TweakUI is a must have right?)

If you could only get your hands on WinXP /w integrated SP2 OEM cd It's the only way to fly!

Yes Symantec supports exclusion (I don't recall how), this is an essential feature for a server where you don't want certain files scanned because it will bog a server, ex: database files, log files.

Yes WinAmp 5 can play video files, by default it does try to steal some of your video extensions. You can enable them all during installation. BTW, I use WinAmp for music and WMP for video, I prefer to use the best app for the job. One good reason to NOT use WMP or iTunes for music playing is that both players rewrite your ID tags in your music files everytime you play a song. While it isn't really a speed issue but if you just happen to be sharing this music over BitTorrent, you can't share rewritten files as their signature is different.

When I right click on the IE toolbar area and see all my available toolbars, two of them have the names switched (PrivBar and Developer Toolbar, both of which are made by Microsoft). I did a search through the registry and there was never a time when any PrivBar registry entries every pointed to the wrong DLL or were in the wrong place. Any other ideas? PS: I'm on XP SP2 /w IE6 & all updates

The bloat in Nero 7 is totally uncalled for. Heck, I think the 35meg downloads for Nero 6 is too much but I just deal with it. I'm a dedicated Nero 6 user until I jump on the HD-DVD/BluRay wagon when I have to upgrade. Normally I'm an upgrade junkie, I'm always about the latest & greatest but Nero is the only app I'm not happy about the blost. I'm starting to feel the same about MS Office but at least 2003 added some nice features like the Task Bar and the new slicker mail merge. Personally I'm hoping Alcohol 120% will get a little more mature and support nero plugins, it's a decent program and the tiny ~4meg download is seductive. PS: Yes I know about that custom Nero 7 Lite guy here on the forums but I'm still trying to avoid it.

I've been a Photshop user for 10yrs and I've never heard of a safe mode. jcarle has it right, the faster the hard drive the better, thats the only cure I know of.