ashmedai

The best - not to use RAID 0. You're unlikely to benefit from it much if at all, especially for "average business computer use" applications. Multimedia content creation, maybe, depending on alot of things. Since you're probably going to do it anyway, do one of two things. 64k, or the NTFS default 4k. Pagefile for example always operates at 4k regardless of what the cluster size is, so anything above or below this will harm pagefile performance. Also NTFS compression will not work if the cluster size is above 4k. Again, the best thing to do is to just NOT USE RAID 0.

I try to keep the volume setting constant within a recording as a whole, so that the volume shifts inherant in the recording are preserved. If you copy tapes to digital alot and need to amplify, you might consider getting even a cheap hardware amp, as there's only so much you can do on a sofware level without problems.

I did the "replace the files" bit, but for some reason it boots into Windows Classic until I manually change it. The theme is replaced properly other than that. WINNT.SIF is also set to point explicitly to Luna (the replaced Luna, anyway) as the default theme, but that isn't helping either. I used the Tablet PC Royale/Energyblue theme, modpe the files, all that. Reverted to my CD source and replaced ONLY the four files for the theme too, same problem. Unless y'all know better, I'm just going to add something to my reg patch file to set it. BTW for login screen and boot screen there's a guide on the unattended.msfn.org page, I believe under Advanced > Customization (the boot screen one didn't work for me but I didn't spend much time troubleshooting it, so I probably just forgot a step).

Worked after adjusting VPC settings to +divide time equally, +run VPC at maximum speed. Although I also restarted the setup when I retried for the Nth time, so maybe it just screwed up copying the setup files or something. It had been working just fine on the previous settings for quite a few times previously, so either is possible. Given that this forum is full of people from habitual tinkerers to seasoned veterans of the deepest arts, I figured it pretty likely someone might know what was going on given that it always happened at T-30 +/-.

AFAIK just do Office Shrink & then run through the 7z SFX guide (there's even a special one specifically for Office around here somewhere).

Basically you're flipping a wall switch with when the power to the building is off - it's meaningless. It still takes time to do though, because you're telling the computer to flip thousands of switches.

This happens most often with AC3 audio streams, which may have an item in CP to adjust. If your media player has an equalizer, just software amplify the volume with that. WinAMP & WMP both do. Sound can often be adjusted or mixed through your sound card's software/drivers. Speaker sets also frequently have their own volume adjustment. You might try VirtualDub + Audacity for a quick, free, and relatively simple solution to permenantly amplifying the audio track if you will be playing the file/DVD more than just the once.

I'm tinkering around on Virtual PC and it's been "rebooting" every time it hits about T-30 (just hit complete bar on network install). I've been being a good boy and testing out the CD after every major modification or so, but I lumped quite a few fixes in this one and I'm not sure what I messed up. I really don't want to have to sit through enough extra install cycles to test them all individually and hopefully someone knows which file I need to fix to make it complete the installation?

But when the install CD no longer has any of that? Killed most of the drivers it had since I end up having to install specific ones that aren't built in anyway, removed all the languages except the default, deleted the upgrade from 9X/NT/etc directories...sitting at around 200MB instead of the original 600ish, and it takes roughly the same amount of time to install. I think their installer just sucks...or at least has so much "what if" built in to try and id***-proof the thing, that it blows it for 95% of the time as a hedge against the other 5%. Heard about their new "Tray and Play" thing? (could have picked a better name, PnP is about the deadest horse there is to beat) Maybe THAT will be the thing that makes Longhorn worthwhile, they'll include it for Windows Setup!

Windows Setup seems to take an inordinately long time relative to the amount of data involved, even considering that it's largely compressed. Why exactly is this, and is there a way to speed it up (other than what's already accomplished by shrinking the install data)?