bizzybody

Yes! That nearly invisible super light blue color I can barely see. I'd love to see a hack for the default Aero Glass theme that just changes that highlight to white text on a dark blue background when files are selected in Windows Explorer. The slightly darker blue of the selection lasso has enough contrast, same with the selection highlights on the Desktop. I set my desktop to a dark blue, no wallpaper image. When I first got this laptop with Vista, one of the first things I did was switch the theme to the old "Classic" style. Well, it's not. Somehow Microsoft managed to make it *wrong*. Every little part of it is just off in some way. I've never been able to get used to OS X's "Aqua". It's just too distracting. Microsoft has managed to make a 'pretty' interface win Aero Glass that's not distracting, except for that @#%%&ing light blue highlight color.

SP1 refused to install on most vLite'd installs of original Vista, so to keep things custom we had to use vLite to integrate SP1 and customize the install. It would be nice to be able to just install SP2 onto my system as-is, then delete anything it keeps around for uninstalling SP2.

The "highlight" color that's nearly invisible, the one that cannot be changed to something that actually highlights what's selected... Has Microsoft fixed that insult to human interface design (and to humans in their late 30's and older)? I suspect people who're colorblind also hate it. I wish I'd been involved in the Vista beta testing. I'd have complained a lot about it, both for how nearly invisible it is and for the fact that it's not distinctively visually different enough. I've deleted many things accidentially because without carefully examining the screen it's extremely difficult to tell what's selected in Explorer. How does a GUI faux pas like this make it all the way to RTM status? Probably the same way the original Quicktime 4 did, the programmers collectively say "Frack you all! Style is more important than usability!" and ship the gawdaful thing, while making it impossible for users to change it to something that doesn't cause eyestrain- or the desire to beat the software stylists about the head with heavy objects...

It's XP Pro. When I logoff to the welcome screen, it will not accept the password for Administrator. I'll check out the WinNT.sif file later today.

I'm putting together a PC just for the game "Portal". Got everything stripped to the bare minimum required to play the game, which works quite well. I used nLite to pre-set the Administrator password to 999valveportal but that password doesn't work to login as Administrator, which I have to do to move the swap file to its own drive and edit the Registry to lock everything down so people playing Portal won't be able to screw things up. I just checked the settings for the session of nLite when I created this special XP version and that is exactly the password shown in nLite.

Am doing various things, Got Vista Ultimate on a laptop, connected to the net via a wireless connection to an Actiontec router that nothing may be changed on. Router's IP is 192.168.0.1 Running Windows 95b on Virtual PC 2007 on the Vista laptop. Also running Windows 95b on a Compaq Armada 7380DMT connected to the Vista laptop's ethernet port through a 10/100 switch. I *had* things working where I could be running VPC with a drive on the Compaq mapped and drag files directly from Vista and drop them *through* Virtual PC to the Compaq. Hooray and spiffy etc. Take that Vista-refusing-to-copy-anything-toWin95-over-network! But something had screwed up how Windows Explorer on the Compaq, ONLY Windows Explorer, would maximize, and the Display Properties window had extra space on the right side. So I nuked and paved it, making sure NOT to install the old DirectX drivers I'm pretty certain caused those problems. If HP is going to take things off their site for old stuff, WTH don't they remove the *obsolete* software like drivers for DirectX prior to version 8? I don't know if I'll install version 1.02 of the service pack on the Compaq. It's running fine and I have all the software it'll need burned to a CD-R. I also found that the trick of editing the iesetup.cif (changing the UIVISIBLE=0 to 1) to force the IE5.5 installer to install the IE4 Desktop Update doesn't work. I checked the box and all I got out of it was a non-functional Start Menu, then I had to uninstall IE5.5 then install IE4 then IE5.5 to get the left pane back in Explorer. Might have something to do with it being a pre-hacked OEM copy. Installed from the options/cabs folder I saved, it creates a code exactly like the no-key install hack. Haven't worked with Win95 in almost a decade, bringing back memories of all the *fun* things about it...

The Win95 system doesn't have wireless. I did find some forum posts that said if I created a bridge between the Wireless and Ethernet, then removed the Wireless from the bridge, it'd fix the problem of it refusing to enable sharing on the Wireless. It did! BUT it still isn't actually sharing the wireless because it's still assigning the same IPV4 address to Vista's ethernet AND to the Windows 95 system. Still does it even after deleting the bridge. I've never seen anything so problem-infested as Windows 2000 and later networking! (Especially when any two or more different versions of Windows are involved.) Whenever I do get a setup working, it never stays working. Any change anywhere turns a network into a NYET-work.

The setup. Laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, connects to a WiFi router and can go anywhere on the net. Router has IP address 192.168.0.1 cannot be changed, nothing on the router may be changed, no security on the router. Laptop's wireless is set to get IP automatically, router typically assigns it 192.168.0.5 Go to properties on wireless, Sharing tab, check the box, click OK... about 30 seconds go by and "An error occurred while Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled." What error?!?!?!? "WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION?!" It would be very nice if "An error occurred while Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled." was "An error occurred while Internet Connection Sharing was being enabled due to..." followed by *exactly why it could not be enabled*. Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : AcerLaptop Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain.actdsltmp Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink Fast Ethernet Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1B-38-53-41-51 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::64f5:be3d:f008:54a4%11(Preferred) Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.84.164(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1 fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1 fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain.actdsltmp Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1D-D9-01-57-E7 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::4142:a2aa:bf31:f285%10(Preferred) IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.4(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:40:09 PM Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:42:08 PM Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 205.171.3.25 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 6TO4 Adapter Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 11: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:4137:9e50:146f:1e78:b9c5:5f7d(Pref erred) Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::146f:1e78:b9c5:5f7d%12(Preferred) Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : :: NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 12: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 15: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain.actdsltmp Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IIRC, the first one was an .inf in Windows\inf then there was another one. Said something about it couldn't access the files. It's bloody stupid is what it is. An Operating System should be able to copy any file from one disk or other storage media to another disk or storage media! Score one (more) point for XP over Vista.

I setup osr2 on VirtualPC 2007 then after installing the 1.02 version of this pack it would no longer connect to the net, couldn't get a DHCP assigned IP from the host, which is Vista Ultimate. Without the pack it works fine with IE 5.5 SP2 and Opera 9.64.

I was trying to get Vista to work with a Win95 PC, but even after getting the two to see each other and setting up passwords etc, Vista still refuses to allow any files to be copied to Win95, nor will it allow browsing below the root level of shared drives on the Win95 PC. So I setup Virtual PC 2007 on vista and installed Windows 95, using the VPC additions from VPC 2004. Tada! Now I can drag and drop files directly from Vista to the other PC by tossing them through the VPC hole in Vista's network obstacle course. Just map a network drive in VPC, open it in Windows Explorer and I can drag files from Vista to the other computer on the LAN. Microsoft provides their own easy pathway through their attempts to stop people from networking Win9x and Me with 2000/XP/Vista. I wonder if I can use VPC with Win95 on all my 2000 and later systems as a workaround for the over paranoid security that's not needed at all on a physically isolated LAN?

I've searched the forum and the web for a download for IEAK 5, but keep getting "hits" for IEAK 6, 7 and 8. I'm setting up an old Win95 laptop and want the Desktop Update without having to first install IE4. I've also tried looking for a full installer of IE 5.5 SP2 with Desktop Update already integrated, no dice there either, but I did find many pages with the setup command for making ie5setup download it along with everything else. Can IE5 still be installed via the internet? I would much prefer NOT to do it this way.

I installed the previous version on OSR2. After it was done I get a box every boot that windows is setting up the following items, but there's nothing listed. Of course I installed it the day before 1.02 was released! So now I uninstalled 1.01, rebooted and installed 1.02. That popup is still there. Another issue that's cropped up is Windows Explorer, and ONLY Windows Explorer, when maximized, goes partly off-screen to the lower-right. I don't know exactly when that started because I didn't maximize Explorer until after installing this service pack. Yet another oddity is the Display Properties box is quite a bit wider than it should be, with extra empty space on its right side. Looks like I need to reinstall from scratch on this Compaq Armada 7380DMT laptop.

I attempted to copy a Windows 95 install from one disk to another using Vista. It balked at copying several different files. I then hooked the drives up to an XP box and it copied everything with no problems. In both cases the drives were connected to USB>IDE adapters. I wonder if this may be related to the problem where I can't get Vista to copy any files over ethernet to a shared drive on a Windows 95 system? (Copying a Win9x install is simple. fdisk/format/sys the new drive then copy *everything* except IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM to the new drive. YES you want to overwrite MSDOS.SYS and anything else.)

"FolderSort version 1.1: runs under MS Windows 95, 98 and presumably NT." "presumably"??? Even if it does, I wouldn't want to use a file system utility for NT's version of NTFS on 2000, XP or Vista, even if I'm using it to sort a folder on a FAT32 volume.

I have a GPS / mobile media player that uses SD cards. As I add and remove and add more audio and video files to an SD card, the player software on the GPS lists the files in whatever order they were put on the card. It has no options to change how it lists the file names. Is there a Windows program that can change the actual order that filenames are listed in a folder/directory? I remember a sort utility for DOS that could do that. I had to use it for some program that assembled files into a data file and it would grab the files sequentially in the actual, physical, order their names were in the directory. If they weren't sorted correctly, the data file wouldn't work. Instead of using the sort program, the files could be copied one at a time to the source directory, but with a few hundred files that would be extremely tedious. It's the same with putting files on this SD card. I can have them listed in order if I want to take the time every time to delete all the files from the card then copy all the files I want to keep and any new files. It'd be much easier if there's a way to sort AND APPLY that sort to the actual directory listing written on the card.

This is really odd, when I launch Windows Explorer then maximize it, it goes to the full size but off to the lower right of the screen. It only affects Windows Explorer with the folder view pane. It does not do this for My Computer, Control Panel, IE5.5 or Media Player 7.1 or anything else I've installed on this old Armada 7380DMT laptop. I have DirectX 8.0a installed too. I may have to give up on Win95b and go with 98SE, but 95 seems to work very well with only 64meg- I know 98SE won't run near as well with 64meg. Been there, done that, saved my $ for 128meg! The only other thing as weird I've seen with Win95b was a TriGem Ark Logic 1000 videocard where the Win95 drivers from TriGem would restrict the mouse cursor to 1/2 of the screen. (I fixed that by hacking the TriGem drivers together with the Ark Logic reference drivers. I uploaded the hacked driver to driverguide in the 90's and I still get e-mails thanking me for it.)

Finally got it to work. I manually assigned an IP to TCP/IP bound to the NIC on the 95 laptop because somehow it was getting assigned the *same IP* as the bridged connection on Vista, which I still have as automatically assigned. I also had to enter 192.168.0.1 (IP of the wireless router) AND another DNS address AND a domain suffix. FINALLY it could get internet access. But NOW Vista refuses to copy any files to the shared drive on the 95 laptop, which is shared with FULL access and NO PASSWORD, claiming I "need permission". Vista also refuses to explore the shared 95 drive below the root level. 2000 and XP had no problem with this, even while they wouldn't allow access the other way. Since when does setting up a Win9x share with *no security at all* mean another PC "needs permission" to access it? Microsoft has royally screwed up networking in Vista. I've been working with PCs, DOS and Windows, for almost 27 years and I've never seen anything so effing stupid.

Vista suddenly decided that it was not, no way, no how going to have ICS enabled on the WiFi connection. It'd just give me the useless message that "An error has occurred..." not even an error number. So I tried bridging it again with the laptop's ethernet, then I ran Winipcfg on the Win95 laptop, hit Renew and instantly got an IP! That worked for about 10 minutes before Vista cut off all connection to the Win95 laptop. I was able to get to windows update and start downloading what's still there for Win95. Now Winipcfg can't get an IP from the Vista laptop. Where's the "SharethisconnectiongawdammituntilIsayotherwise!" checkbox?

I have a laptop running Vista Ultimate SP1 with a WiFi connection to a DSL router. I cannot change anything on the router. I've had a desktop running XP Pro SP3 hooked up to the laptop's ethernet and it was a simple matter of bridging the laptop's wireless and ethernet, the XP desktop's built in ethernet automatically adapted to using a standard cable as a crossover. Got all Windows updates and more downloaded, no problems. I figured it'd be as simple with this old Compaq Armada 7380DMT laptop with a 3Com CardBus 56K/10/100 combo card and a 10/100 switch added in the middle. No way! The laptop has NO USB, the only ways to get stuff onto it is via floppy disk or CD-R, the drive can't read CD-RW- and ethernet if I can make Vista stop snubbing the olde thing. Vista is apparently not automatically assigning IP's to Windows 95. I've searched for hours and found lots of other people attempting to use a Vista box to share a connection to Windows 9x or even Me. I un-bridged the laptop's connections then turned on Sharing on the WiFi. I've tried manually assigning IP's etc for the ethernet on both laptops. So far nothing I've tried has made the two communicate. Never had such problems getting 2000 or XP to share a connection to 9x clients, and get one-way file sharing where I could 'push' stuff to 9x from 2000 or XP. A simple matter of sharing the host's internet connection, leaving the ethernet on automatic all around and sharing a drive on the 9x/Me client. SIMPLE! Vista, NOT simple.

My Compaq Armada 7380DMT can create a set of restore floppies, great, but I don't happen to have that many floppies on hand and 'sides that, floppies have that disturbing tendency to make their data go *poof* even under ideal storage conditions. What I'd like is a virtual floppy drive that the disk creation program can write to, then save disk images which I can burn to a CD-R. It'll have to support Microsoft's DMF format because the OSR2 CAB files are that big. (1.6M vs 2.0M for original Win95 CD version.) I fished this lappy out of a trash can, bought a 20x MultiBay CD-ROM and a power supply for about $5 each off eBay (paid more than 2x that each for shipping) and just fired it up today. There was a floppy drive in the MultiBay, so I *can* make real disks, but they're just so inconvenient. Battery won't charge but they're plentiful on eBay. It has no USB, but does have CardBus and a 1024x768 TFT LCD- even cooler it's *white*. Nobody makes a *white* PC lappy these days! The keyboard and surround of my Vista laptop are sorta greyish-white but the rest of it's all black. The ultimate use for this old Compaq is to be an OBD II automotive diagnostics system.

I have an old Compaq Armada 7380DMT which still has the OEM installed Win95 OSR2. Is there a way to extract the FAT32 converter from a 98SE CD-ROM and run it on Win95 OSR2? I don't currently have a PC with 98SE installed. I *could* temporarily install Partition Magic 8, but where's the fun in that? Got two desktops with XP Pro, one laptop with XP Home, one laptop with Vista Ultimate, one laptop with Win95B and one CRT iMac DV with OS X 10.4.11.

I'm going to give this a try on a Compaq Armada 7380DMT. Pentium 266MMX, 64meg, 4gig. No USB but does have CardBus.

Today, out of the blue, Vista Ultimate decided that every DVD or CD I put in my laptop's drive was "blank" and had to be formatted. After searching the web and finding nothing that applied to this problem, I popped in a CD-RW and erased it then burned a big file to it then verified with Nero 7. That seems to have smacked Vista upside the head and now it will see the contents of optical discs. So try erasing/burning/verifying a CD-RW or DVD-RW the next time Vista turns its nose up at your discs and NONE of the following applies. 1. Disc not finalized. You've verified the disc IS finalized. 2. Disc is multisession. You've verified the disc is NOT multisession. 3. Drive firmware update needed. You've already updated to the latest or there is no newer firmware. 4. The disc is blank. You've quintuple checked and the disc is NOT blank. 5. The drive is bad. You've connected the drive to another PC where it works perfectly. Hopefully this will help some people, and since I got it to work, I don't have to write a post listing all the above- then have to watch as a bunch of people completely fail to read and comprehend it and tell me to do everything I just said I've already tried. (There must be some usenet/forum/IRC law that ensures there's almost always some nut who does that.)

Is there some other way to get Microsoft Update to work with WinMe? Going to update.microsoft.com just gets kicked to windowsupdate.microsoft.com I want to get Office XP updates and AutoPatcher with just the Office XP downloads won't run on WinMe. It just pops up a 100% unhelpful box that says Missing files with an OK button. Hmmm, I'll see if c't offline updater will work. I've used it for Office 2000 since AutoPatcher doesn't do it.