GrofLuigi

It happenned and disappeared for me roughly as others reported. But I noticed something - If I don't visit the forum for more than 24 hrs, it's almost certain that I will be asked to log in. GL

I guess soon they'll start measuring the trial period in hours... GL

If anyone is interested, it didn't work (the hidden components were installed). I guess there are many more parameters in the .msi database to tweak. What worked is integration of .mst file produced by Orktools with Orca to the .msi. Not very big, but still something. GL

Maybe the Tweaks button on the first page wasn't pressed in one of the times you ran Nlite (either when Last Session.ini was created or when it was loaded)? GL

Without having concrete experience with that combo, I'd say - the ones to which your boot partition will be connected to. Or both - I don't think it would hurt. GL

I see this often on computers with serial port not present or otherwise disabled. Just set this to cure the question mark in device manager: REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Serial] "Start"=dword:3 GL

X-Setup can do it. It's a simple registry tweak which can be found out and applied independently. GL

Yeah, I know, they brought the OS down.... As another experiment, on one live machine, I noticed I had several hotfixes for gdiplus installed. So I tried to remove them manually (didn't know which they were, didn't use hotfix uninstall files since they are long gone), keeping just the highest and the lowest version. Success, no problems so far, but that doesn't mean much because they were introduced later as hotfixes. I learned the places they populate (my fingers slipped to write pollute ) by installing the latest gdiplus hotfix. There are three registry branches and three locations inside WinSxS, apart from the usual stuff (registry entries and the global .cat file) for the hotfix. GL

It was discussed here and probably on other places... It is debatable whether Nlite should do anything since it's the OS's "feature" by design. GL

Does the virtual machine have (virtual) network card? Are its drivers properly installed? Things tend to get weird on machines with no network cards, real or virtual. Another thing is, check dependencies of dhcp service: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp] "DependOnService"=Tcpip Afd This is not a reg file to import! Just check visually with Regedit! My memory is failing, but was it Dhcp service or LanmanServer/Workstation that had unneccessary dependency on NetBT (which you have disabled)... While you're at it, also enable LMhosts (tcp netbios helper) cause I think it could also interfere. In an ideal world it shouldn't, but you never know... When I think about it, all your disabled services in [services2] section have something to do one way or another with network... Try enabling them. GL

Sorry, I meant Qwerty.Msi. All "Features" are nicely displayed (even the hidden ones) like in Office Custom Installation Wizard and each and every one can be disabled. In comparison with this, Microsoft's wizard is a joke... there are around five times more items to remove. Juicy ones like primary interop assemblies and all web junk. "White Rabbit"... yeah right. They are making fun. I will try setting each unwanted Feature to "Not Available", but it will take time... there are lot of them and the selection doesn't propagate to children. Then off to the virtual machine... The question is will it bite back on runtime? GL

I researched Pidgin and MirandaIM more and it seems they also have poor video support (if at all). I guess it comes down to closed/unfriendly protocols of individual IMs. Also, here's another thread on this subject. GL

If I understood you right, I think that's another thing. Search order for plain DLLs is controlled by PATH variable, several registry entries (SafeDllSearchMode*, SafeProcessSearchMode), KnownDlls**, SharedDlls (maybe)... and of course compiler instructions. My take (which is oversimplified, and probably completely wrong) on WinSxS is that those are dlls protected by policies and cryptographic catalogs. That's enough to wake up the (healthy) paranoid in me. I tried on a clean XP installation in a virtual machine to move the dlls from their folders to system32 and delete the manifests, cats and ALL relevant entries in the registry*** - the system wouldn't boot (or booted with severe problems). The least I can say about that is that it brings their argument of "Dll Hell" down - either they ship their OS defective by design (with DLL hell dependencies) or the solution is worse than the problem. GL * which, after XP SP2, by default is exactly the oposite of what you'd need to run older (DllHell's Angels ) applications. Another sabotage. ** I always disable all KnownDlls with Autoruns for several years now, on many computers, and have noticed NO ill effects whatsoever. System stability is always greater. *** now I remembered I didn't delete/unregister sxs.dll - back to the drawing board GL

It's called the places bar. You can modify individual items now (on already installed windows) with TweakUI from Microsoft. GL

I encounter this every day when friends invite me to fix their computers or install apps (demanded by guess who? - their kids). That's the problem - kids will go after shiny things their friends have (or tell them they have) and there is no force that can stop them. What I do is scare them off (not actually scare, just exaggerate the risks) and fortunately they listen to me because they see I'm far more experienced with computers than their moms/dads. Or is it that thing when they listen to others more than their parents? I guess it depends on the parent/child relationship... All I can say is - good luck! GL

I had this problem once, and the culprit was the NVidia Graphics Card Driver. I did some "bad configuration" (change 'Coolbits' settings) and the "black screen" blinks every time that I turned on the PC. Take a look at your video card driver. Good luck, Anderton. No it wasn't bad configuration. NVidia (and other manufacturers') graphics drivers add themselves to desktop context menu (in order to be 'readilly accessible on right click' - I call it 'in your face'). Depending on the version of the driver and actual hardware, it might be or not be visible. To cure it, use another Sysinternals tool - Autoruns. Look in the following location: REGEDIT 4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\New] @="{D969A300-E7FF-11d0-A93B-00A0C90F2719}" This is the built-in windows entry that must remain! NVidia adds two entries at the same level named 00Nview and (another one). I don't have the exact names because on my computers they are long gone. Deleting them should get rid of the blinking. For good measure, other NVidia's startup entries could be deleted (Under HKLM/HKCU...Run key), and their service could be disabled, because I haven't found any proof they are of any use except for returning themselves in startup. But that's up to personal taste... or should I say belief in good will of Nvidia's programmers? GL

Nlite's official site is http://www.nliteos.com . To download from the download section you need to set your browser to pass through "referrer header" information (some download managers and some browsers, depending on their configuration, don't set this, so downloading with them will not work). Maybe Norton also interferes with this. GL

Vista on flame! Rock on... GL

Yeah, I was asking about that exactly. I have used only Trillian so far and my impression is that it works good with text features of various IM protocols, but it's pretty quirky (insists on its own weird skins/interface; the programmers are probably preocupied with Astra and react slowly; video rarely works, if at all). GL

I use Total Commander's multi rename tool. Haven't tried any other renamers, but I doubt they have MANY more features than this. GL

Is there a comparison of features among those alternative IM clients? I.e. pidgin vs. miranda vs. trillian? GL

Some more info (and tool?): The End of DLL Hell What p***ess me off is that it's like police taking you to paradise - no way to resist. You can't go to hell even if you wanted to. But I'm still searching... GL

Mostly interested in 2003, striping the components that aren't shown in orktools (besides the few ones that get reverted during an actual install ). They can be seen with SuperOrca as unnamed components. But I don't know how to work with SuperOrca... :( Any pointers? GL

Media Player Classic (Home Cinema) has codecs built-in. GL

OK, since the OT doesn't stop... Guys, I wrote that in a (semi) joking way. I didn't wipe it with zeroes or any other number, didn't wait hours, just wiped the partitions with a couple of tools cause: 1. I wasn't sure if Vista's new partitioning scheme would interfere later. 2. And I didn't know whether the tools work properly with Vista, so I used a couple of them. 3. I wrote short because I thought it wasn't important/wouldn't be picked on. I know about the challenge and don't have anything to hide anyway, so stop teasing me! GL