GrofLuigi

Again depending on more variables: shape of the island, wind, rate at which the fire spreads, 'geometry' by which it spreads (radial/perfect circle?)... I break one branch off, set it on fire and start another fire at the opposite end of the island (not directly oposite - imagine a triangle within a circle - touching point 1 is the thunder fire, 2 is the fire I started, and 3 is where I run to). The two fires should cancel out (burn each other's fuel). There is a tiny flaw though - at some point I'll need to cross the 'line of fire'. I'm dead, I know... GL

In this story's logic, are the following true: 1. Are the treetops high? (do branches start growing near to the ground concrete?) - you could pass below 2. Does the lightning strike out of the blue, or does it start raining (as it usually does)? - obvious NOP GL

So LegacySelect is a pre-os option I guess configurable thru the BIOS set up program tho I'm going to try and find that setup & quick reference guide. So maybe there's a ROM chip somewhere that the BIOS reads... but it looks to me that some of the options in BIOS are the LegacySelect. ACPI puts all power management into the hands of the OS and APM "talks" to the BIOS so I thought LegacySelect = APM. But maybe the LegacySelect configurations are "reported" to the OS thru FFH or AML and then the OS takes over. The bottom line for me is is there a ROM or BIOS button that got turned on that I should turn off. But it seems unlikely to me that Dell would offer an option that rolls back the clock to APM so I think maybe LegacySelect is those options in the BIOS setup and I still have no explanation for why ACPI got turned off but a good old reinstall should fix it. As I said, don't worry too much about it, it *should* get automatically sorted out. Most probably the button didn't get turned on in the BIOS, but in Windows (Windows got confused and maybe it -- or another program -- tried to install what it thought was missing). And yes, from the description, at first I thought LegacySelect is the name of the BIOS menu Onboard Devices. That is the Option ROM (the BIOS chip of the RAID controller). It's independent of the system BIOS. XP's drivers are there so that the OS can 'talk' to the RAID controller. No 32-bit switching takes place, as far as I know (and everything is supposed to be 32-bit on that computer, anyway -- that is, if you haven't installed another OS). There is a pause (when the Ctrl - I... message is shown) to enter the controller's options, and probably you could say the control is switched to the RAID controller, but that isn't important for everyday operation (even for reinstall of OS). I'm a little rusty on RAIDs, but yes, it's not advisable to remove one of the drives out of the blue - I've seen too many cases when the RAID drives lose their 'relation' to each other (or how it's called) and the array needs to be rebuilt - to try to induce that on purpose. Although, this might be the perfect chance to do it - when the drives are supposed to be blank (always backup first, right? ). See in the Ctrl - I options whether there is a JBOD (just a bunch of disks I'm not kidding, that's the name) option - where each drive is on it's own. I hope so, looks like it will. GL

Yeah, it looks like standard speed. Here's what I found in registry related to that. This is how it's set on mine and the speed is the same as yours, if not a little slower. Don't know what values it takes (if it can go negative). REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows] "DragDelay"="0" "DragMinDist"="0" "DragScrollDelay"="0" "DragScrollInset"="0" "DragScrollInterval"="0" "ScrollDelay"="0" "ScrollInset"="0" "ScrollInterval"="0"

None of that. Just evacuate your stuff to the external HDD. Then you format & reinstall the OS, then the drivers, then reinstall the programs you use, then slowly bring your stuff back. That's what I had in mind, at least. It would be good to flash the BIOS to a new version in the meantime, BUT, if you haven't done it before, DON'T do it - in some (rare, but still...) cases you could kill your motherboard. And I would feel guilty for advising you to do so. They are supposed to be in BIOS, regardless of the OS. If you don't see them now, you'll never see them. So, Legacy Select still might be a Windows program as I suspected, and ACPI/APM are (most often) worded diferently, or they don't exist as options in the BIOS. That's the Idea of Clean Install - reformat. If you're comfortable with such (relatively) advanced RAID operations, do it, but I wouldn't be. My idea was to let Windows Setup (when booted from CD) format the partition you intend to install to. While we're at it, do you have a Windows setup CD that recognizes the RAID array (has drivers for it)? If the installation CD you mention was received with the computer, it should be OK, but maybe you should check? (Boot from the CD and wait to see if it sees the partitions, but don't do any actual installation. Don't proceed when it prompts you to. Read carefully, there is plenty of information shown). Yes, that's often a problem with Windows copy - giving up too early (and not showing hidden/system files). Maybe you could use some third-party file manager (I use Total Commander) or something like XCopy, but that might be an overkill - I think you should just take care of known documents you saved, email contacts (if you use Outlook/Outlook Express), any messenger settings, and favorites/bookmarks of your browser. Everything else can be re-created. As I said, there is no pressing need to update the BIOS, and it poses a great risk. OROM should be Option ROM, the firmware of the RAID controller. And from what I remember, Dell packs everything in such exes, which can be extracted with some archiver or Universal Extractor, but I think there's no need to. Sorry, I don't know what keyboard sx's is. Of course, you use the OS installation disc to fresh install and, if you care to invest some time, download newer drivers than the ones from the second CD (the link by VideoRipper.) They aren't about ACPI/APM, but here's what they mean: AC Recovery - what will your PC do when there's a power blackout and then the electricity is restored - your setting is to remain OFF. Auto Power On (and time) - to turn your computer on every day at the same time. Low power mode - don't know Remote Wake Up - Turn the PC on from another computer through network with a so-called magic packet. Suspend Mode (I believe that is S3 sleep state) - Older OSs had problems with it, but I think XP SP2 should be okay with it. Hyperthreading - sees your processor as two. Good thing, although it wasn't brilliantly implemeted in this generation, I'd leave it on. Speedstep - ON reduces the clock speed of the processor when it's not doing anything. Conserves power and reduces heat, but there could be sligthly slower reaction on demand and problems if the OS isn't aware of it (XP SP2 should be). HDD Acoustic level - trade off between Hard Disc Drive making lotsa noise, but working faster, and the opposite. Turn off any that you don't use (the last three are good candidates), it will help ACPI (the magic word ). SATA settings could be significant - if anything changed, it could render XP unbootable. Careful there! Good Luck, GL

Acpi enabled <- make sure it's in BIOS. Do everything you can in LegacySelect that seems logical. I think you might (in this case) consider APM as "lack of ACPI" so try to be guided by that. But if there are options for enabling both ACPI and APM, enable them both (they are not exclusive). For that PC, I think XP setup will select ACPI Uniprocessor PC. Doesn't matter what's in the OS, hopefully it will be a clean install (after format/wipe the HDD) and only ACPI HAL will be present (XP will install it, you don't need to do anything; chipset drivers won't make a difference). If it's not a clean install, there's a big chance the Mess will propagate. Don't worry too much, just a clean install will be fine. After that, the chipset driver (utility). Then, nVidia drivers. Then, other drivers... GL

I successfully solved the problem of one of the "smart" ISPs that allow only ONE computer per connection by adding a second computer to the Surfboard and cloning the MAC address of the first one (in Windows, device manager, properties of the network card, advanced; I've never ever seen a network card by ANY manufacturer that doesn't allow you to do this) and then switching the network cable on demand. And a third one through USB (but not two at the same time). Even the technicians didn't believe it was possible. But ANY router will do and it would be most comfortable solution. GL

From what I remember with my brief toying with Vista (and this is one of the reasons I abandoned it), you can't disable the journal - as you've seen, the OS recreates it. That's part of the transactional NTFS. I forgot the details, but I tried very hard (and I'm very persistent about these things) and it would always get recreated. I see no reason why win 7 woudn't be the same. GL

As far as I remember, the only time it matters whether you have ACPI enabled in BIOS is before (or during) the installation of the OS. If you change it afterwards, it won't matter. So you need to sort that out before the install. And yes, reinstallation of (many) drivers indicates the computer type changed. For any computer less than 10 years old, the preferred type should be ACPI (except in rare cases when there are problems with it or the OS, but those are really rare). I don't know anything about LegacySelect technology. From the Google search, it's either another name for "Integrated peripherals" BIOS menu or a remote management tool (inside Windows?). In either case it shouldn't afect ACPI (but I might be wrong). GL

Yes it did. Sorry for offtopic. GL

@woody.cool: sorry, I can't make much of the command line, I guess the Qemu Manager parameters confuse me (I never use it). For the record, here is mine: net start kqemu qemu.exe -L . -localtime -m 512 -hda D:\EMU\drive.img -cdrom D:\EMU\CD.iso -kernel-kqemu -soundhw es1370 -usb -usbdevice tablet (XP) GL (preemptive edit): If the post comes out as the preview, there's another bug in the forum software - the closing CODE tag is before (XP).

AnnieMS, since I have problems editing my posts, I'll add that the driver you need to download is Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility GL

AnnieMS, that's The Big Mess - that both ACPI processor and Standard PC are installed. I guess the presence of ACPI is preventing NT APM/Legacy interface from working (NT APM sees that ACPI is installed and aborts its own initialization). <- just a guess. I recommend the absolutely first thing to do is to backup your data, since I think this could break up any time. Only then keep on trying to fix it, but way better would be reformat and reinstall. If this is your model, then I think this is your chipset (I'm not sure about the X). Just don't install the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager driver yet. GL

Try monitoring with Process Monitor what's going on when you plug the camera. Maybe you could find the CLSID and change its DefaultIcon registry entry. Maybe part of the path is in My Computer/Namespace. GL

•Computer Browser YES •DHCP Client YES •Distributed Link Tracking Client NO •Distributed Transaction Coordinator NO •DNS Client NO (but YES doesn't hurt too much) •Extensible Authentication Protocol Service NO (just leave manual) •Health Key and Certificate Management Service NO (just leave manual) •HTTP SSL NO •IPSEC Services NO •IPv6 Helper Service NO (MAYBE if connecting to Vista) •Messenger NO •MS Software Shadow Copy Provider NO •Net Logon NO •NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing NO •Network Access Protection Agent NO (just leave manual) •Network Connections YES (change to AUTOMATIC for quicker boot) •Network DDE NO •Network DDE DSDM NO •Network Location Awareness (NLA) YES (for wireless) •Network Provisioning Service NO (MAYBE for wireless) •NT LM Security Support Provider NO (leave MANUAL) •Remote Access Auto Connection Manager MAYBE (depending on type of connection) •Remote Access Connection Manager MAYBE (depending on type of connection) •Remote Desktop Help Session Manager NO •Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator NO •Remote Registry NO •Routing and Remote Access NO •Server YES •SSDP Discovery Service NO (MANUAL or DISABLED) •TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service YES •Telephony YES (most of the time you need it) •Telnet NO •Terminal Services NO •WebClient YES •Windows Firewall / Internet Connection Sharing YES •Wired AutoConfig NO (leave MANUAL) •Wireless Zero Configuration YES •Workstation YES GL

(Attempting to edit my reply brings a broken version with <br> tags and what not... Proof that new versions (of board software) aren't always better. ) I wanted just to add that I'm not sure if the image format is Qcow or Raw (I changed it one time, but did I keep it? Don't remember, sorry). GL

I use QEMU, XP on XP (as a kind of sandbox for installing apps/testing). I like it because it's extremely well behaved > doesn't write to registry or outside its directory (unless told to do so). I would never install tons of services and what not just for this. The speed isn't that bad, approx what you'd expect out of real hardware with that specs. I don't use networking, just UltraIso to get files in (the cdrom image) and WinImage to get files out (of the HDD). Otherwise I'd have another 'computer' to maintain. I see the host OS is idling when the emulation is (with the kqemu driver). If the WMI service is enabled (which I never have), the emulated System Properties show the same CPU specs as the host. Woody.cool, I've noticed the same issues with the Cirrus emulation with any version greater than 9. Most often, BSOD. Nothing worked short of reinstalling the emulated OS from scratch. I use QCow image format which WinImage can read (except NTFS with disabled short names). Maybe post your command line here? GL

AnnieMS, Start from item 5e. in the article to regain automatic power off. But you should rectify the problem as soon as possible. It seems to me there is pretty big mess going on and the best course of action would be to reinstall OS from scratch. GL

Sounds very much like BlockSendInputResets. The value survived from Win2K through XP and Win2k3, so I think there's much hope it exist in 7 too. GL

Yep, that's the reason why the stick approach is useful, how come you didn't use it this time? http://www.msfn.org/...ic=125258&st=11 I was weak. But I was healed pretty fast. jaclaz Yes, that's probably the reason, but I found it pretty amazing that it changed the drive letter from Windows itself, on the fly (not sure if it asked for reboot and/or did some work after the next reboot). I can't check now, but I think it saw the C: partition with XP at install time, and it gave its partition the letter F:, so I wanted every installation to refer to itself as C: so I could "transplant" programs (copy them without installation). My partitions were (as seen from XP): C: (xp) D: (data) F: (win7) After installation of 7, and when booted into 7, they were: C: (xp) D: (data) F: (win7) (I think, maybe D: and F: were swapped) I wanted to make them: C: (win7) D: (data) F: (xp) Maybe there was an extra step to rename another letter (D:), but I couldn't believe my eyes when it let me reassign the letter it was residing on and booted into. No partition was ever hidden. GL

Installed on a primary partition (but not the first one) - dual boot. After sorting out multiboot issues (verifying that XP was intact), I was left with slightly different drive letters than before and in 7's Disk Management, I tried to change the letter it's installed on to my liking* and couldn't believe my eyes when it worked without a glitch, after some waiting. Not a single registry error or similar. If I were MicroSoft, I would tout this feature much more than stupid visual effects. Alas, after some hours playing with the trial, I realized it's nothing more than a Vista SP2.1 and wiped it, ran out with screaming to buy some anti-bloat soap to wash my mouth. Sadly, there was none. * Don't remember exactly if it was F: to C: or vice versa, but I think both worked. Bye. GL

DHCPINFORM and/or (looking for) WPAD? Just guessing... GL

Performance-Disable custom EXE icons (it applies to all EXE's) GL

He's already done that. As far as I understood, he wants to change 'the definition of the paths' in Windows (not to change shortcuts - too many of them) to: %USERPROFILE% == C:\Documents and Settings\***** (same as before) %USERPROFILE%\My Documents == D:\My Documents GL

The obvious: can't you replace the reference in the shortcuts from %USERPROFILE% to the new path (in this case D:)? Otherwise, I think the answer to your question is PROBABLY NO. PROBABLY because you might be able to work something out with symbolic links (junction points), but there is a (small) chance that some programs might not interpret them correctly. And I think nothing can be done from the registry. GL