alexepascual

I recently had some problems with my computer (corrupted hal.dll file) and I used the win XP CD (setup) to repair the system. This procedure actually deleted the corrupted dll and I later had to expand it from the SP2 CD. (I got the CD) At some point after this, my computer stopped shutting down automatically. I goes into a screen that says: "Now it is safe to shut down your computer". As I had turned off the power management features, I thought that might be the reason. But now I have (I think) all power management back to it's original settings and the problem continues. All the hardware and software is the same as before. I tried to see if there was some place in windows to modify the shut down behavior but I didn't find anything. Any help will be appreciated. -Alex-

benyahuda0: You size for the framework seems too low. The framework I am talking about is the one people install in their machines just to run .net programs, and I don't think it includes the SDK. I would assume that Visual Studio.net installs the SDK, but I wouldn't know where to look for it. From what I understand, the framework is a download of about 25MB but once installed it takes about 100MB on your hard drive. On my machine, the size reported for the framework in Add/Remove programs is 988.00MB, which is apparently wrong. Could you check in your machine to see what size it shows? How did you get your number for the size of the framework? I also asked a question about the updates and I'll paste it here again as I didn't get any answers yet: What about the windows updates? Under my Windows folder there are a bunch of files that start like.. $NtUninstall.. These are like 500MB. I wonder if I can delete them or if there is a better procedure to remove them. Would I also have copies of the original update that I can copy to a CD? One more: I found a folder in the root directory named winxpcd that apparently contains the files in the windows XP CD. I don't remember If I put it there or the windows installation did and I wonder if it is safe to delete it. Thanks guys, -Alex-

Does any body know this: What about the windows updates? Under my Windows folder there are a bunch of files that start like.. $NtUninstall.. These are like 500MB. I wonder if I can delete them or if there is a better procedure to remove them. Would I also have copies of the original update that I can copy to a CD? Boooggy: Thanks for your suggestion. A lot of the files cCleaner cleans I clean directly from windows. On the other hand I am affraid it might clean things I don't want to clean. Now, cleaning a few unused shortcuts or other files here and there might not represent a substantial gain (Gigabites) in hard drive space. I am not trying to squeeze the size all I can, I am just trying to get read of the biggest offenders. I may use cCleanin the future, but right now I think I'll continue cleaning a few things by hand. Thanks for your suggestion anyway. -Alex-

raskren: I am actually thinking about creating 3 or 4 more partitions besides C:. The reason to create partitions would be to avoid fragmentation, to allow faster access to the files that are used more frequently, and for safety reasons. I have a 60MB hard drive with a 30MB partition. Although I could create more partitions using the windows disk management tool, I will need some partitioning software to resize my first partition. purewaveform: I already have installed a second hard drive and setup a small partition at the beginning of the drive for the swap file. I have heard arguments in favor of having a swap partition even if it is on the same drive to avoid fragmentation. But I guess if I put it in my second drive I'll also gain in access time as that is the only partition in that drive that I'll use while running windows, so the heads won't be moving that much. As far as moving programs, I have already uninstalled a lot of them. I am not planning on manually moving any program. I uninstall from the first partition, and then re-install to the new "programs" partition. I guess I can follow tukeshi's suggestion to use TuikUI to change the default programs folder location. The programs I have uninstalled I am not even using at the time, so I'll re-install them when I need them. I have already reduced the disk usage on C: to 5.9GB. With respect to unnattended install, winnt.sif, nLite, etc. as I said before, I don't understand the benefits of creating an install disk. Is not that I argue agains it, it is just that I haven't found any explanations on the web about the benefits of such procedure. Maybe you can point me to the right place. Thanks guys for your advice. -Alex-

OK, I visited the links. The first one has to do with nLite. This is a topic that I never understood. Even I visited the nLite thread, I didn't see any introduction explaining the concept of unnatended installation and why you would want such a thing. If I were an IT guy and were to install XP on 10 computers, I can see how making a special CD would help. But for one computer, I can't understand what the advantages are. The second link (microsoft) about how to change the internet temporary files is part of what I was looking for. I read it and I'll be able to follow those steps once I have my partitions set. So I still need to find a way to change the "Documents and settings" and "Program Files" to other partitions without reinstalling windows (if that's possible) Thanks for your help Digerati, -Alex-

Thanks for your info Digerati, I don't kmow what WINNT.SIF is. What I am trying to do is to change the location of these folders (in a way that will be recognized by the system) without re-installing windows. I'll use a partitioning tool that I downloaded from the net to re-size my C: partition and create the other partitions. I haven't visited the links you posted yet, but i'lldo that next. Thanks again, -Alex-

I am planning to partition my hard drive more or less like this: C: Windows XP system files D: Swap partition E: Temp partition, includes Internet Temporary Files F: Program Files G: Documents and Settings H: Rarely used files such as backups, uninstall info, etc. My quetions are: (1) How do I set Partition E to hold the internet temporary files? (2) How do I set F: to hold the Program Files folder such that it continues to be called "Program Files" and remains the default installation folder? (3) How do I properly trnsfer documents and settings to the G: partition?

On one of my threads and on other threads here I have seen people suggesting not to have the .net framework installed. This makes me wonder what is the present degree of acceptance of the .net technologies. (1) Are companies writing programs that target the framework or are they trying to make them compatible with machines that don't have the framework? (2) Is Microsoft still pursuing wholeheartedly the .net thing? (I heard that Longhorn is based on .net) (3) Are there other technologies appearing on the horizon that may challenge .net? (4) What about Mono?

Purewaveform, I went to the regitry key you posted and it does in fact correspond to the .net framework v1.1.4322. The estimate size line says 0x0000f5af (62895), which I would assume means 62.9 MB. If it is from here that Add/Remove is supposed to get the size, then I guess it is not getting it right. If this is just a failure to report the correct size and it doesn't have any other implications then I would not worry about it. There is always some curiosity to know why it is wrong, but I wouldn't spend too much time on it. What worried me the most in the beguinning was the idea that maybe the framework was really taking that much space.

Purewaveform: Thanks a lot for your help. I'll follow your suggestions and see what I find. I was also wondering what size is normally reported for the DotNet Framework in the Add/Remove software. Suryad: From what I understand, Microsoft has practically bet the whole company on .net . Probably most programs today still run without the framework (unmanaged) , but I wonder how long that situation will last. There are two reasons I don't want to remove the framework: 1) I have MS Visual Studio 2003 2) I wrote a program in Visual Basic.net that requires the framework. About the acceptance of the framework, and it's present state in relation to other technologies, I'll initiate another thread for people to give their opinion.

I understand the size of the DotNet Framework is under 100mb. But in the add/remove programs it appears as using 988.00MB. Does ayone know why would this be so? Does the Framework once installed really take that much space or is the Add/Remove programs reporting the wrong size? I don't know either if that size is reported in my machine only or in all XP machines. I'll appreciate any ideas. -Alex-

I have read other threads about a streamlined installation CD but I don't understand why you might need that. I understand that after many updates there might be some redundancies and it might be possible to elimninate those from your system. But why do that on a CD instead of making the changes directly in the hard drive?. Is this concept unique to nLite? Maybe I don't understand this stuff because I never used nLite. Bucketbuster in a previous post suggests using XPlite instead of nLite for an already installed system. Now, I understand that If I wanted to install XP on a new computer, having a CD with a smaller windows that includes all updates might be handy. But, wouldn't the installation program want to do some activation over the web to check that I am not installing the same op system on a different machine? Suryad: I'll check the size of my Temporary Internet folder as you suggest. That might still be eating up some space on my drive. Thanks for your advice.

Cartoonite: I have been suspecting that System Restore migh be taking space on my drive. The problem was that I didn't have access to the System Restore tab in order to disable it. I posted that problem on a different thread and someone posted a link to a site with steps to fix that. After I followed the steps and was able to disable System restore, my usage went from 13.4 to about 8.5GB. Big change! . Also this morning I found two suspicious files directly in the C:\ drive (not in a directory) which were taking a total of 1GB. the names were ~cevts0 and ~cevts1 . I did a search in Google and found that they are related to a probably failed copy of an audio CD. So I deleted them. Now at 8.5GB things look much better. I don't want to follow jeffshen's advice and remove the DotNet framework as I happen to know what it is used for and I think it is usefull to have it. Jeffshen: The DotNet Framework is used by newer programs that are written using the newer technologies. Without going into details, if you buy or download one of these programs and you dont have the Framework it'l ask you to install it. If you don't want to install it, you'll won't be able to run the program. I am familiar with this because I myself wrote a program that uses the framework. ( I used Visual Studio .net). Thanks anyway for your advise. Cartoonite: I realize that I may still have things that are taking too much space so I'll keep an eye open. But for the time being I am happy with the new size. Thanks for your input and I certainly will keep in mind your fact that a fresh install takes about 2GB. Thanks again, -Alex-

OK guys, Thanks a lot for your help. I went to the "techrepublic" link you posted and followed the steps. Problem Solved! . As it says in the article, I had used Maxblast from Maxtor to transfer my system from another drive. Not only that, but after disabling System restore I regained like 5 GB of space in my hard drive. Thanks again, -Alex-

I don't know the status of system restore as I can't get to the tab. Is there another way to look at it? On the other hand maybe I don't understand what you mean by "status", I would assume you mean if it is On or Off. With respect to RPC (which appears to be the only dependency) I am very unfamiliar and I wouldn't know how to check on that. Thanks for your suggestion rjz, and if you could help me a little further I'll really appreciate it. -Alex-

When I go to the "System Restore" tab in "System Properties", I get an error. It says: "Run a DLL as an App has encountered a problem and needs to close" I was recently trying to disable system restore when I found that problem. Using Win XP Sp2. I'll appreciate your help. -Alex-

OK Jeremy, I looked on the web and the size of the .NET Framework is more like 100MB. However, when I look at the size in Add-Remove Software, it says 988.00MB. I don't understand that. I'll look into nLite. Thanks, -Alex-

I have been trying to reduce the size of installed files in my hard drive. With a lot of work I have managed to get it down to 15Gb. I figured that if I unistalled most programs I still would have like 10Gb left. I don't understand what is taking that much space. I have XP with SP2 installed. I noticed that the dot net framework takes about 1GB of space, OK, I can live with that. There is nothing I can do anyway. But I have noticed that there is a "DotNet Framework Hotfix KB886903" that takes another Gb. taking the total size of the framework to approx. 2GB. I wonder if there is any way to reduce this. Even with this, I wonder if there is anything else kind of hidden that might be taking room in my drive. Would the swap file be counted when the drive size is reported? Right now I have virtual memory set to automatic. Also, I got the impression that after removing programs, the "used" space reported was not going down as much as I expected from the reported size of the program in "Add-remove software". All this has me puzzled. I'll appreciate your suggestions. -Alex-