Andromeda43

I'd ask a little more like....... Who really gives a schmidt? If you had an exact number, what on earth good would it do YOU? That seems like a terrible waste of peoples time and forum bandwidth, to me. Sorry!

Countless books have been written on phenomena of the mind and spirit. Astral projection, telekinesis, ESP and "Davine Healing" have been documented thousands of times over, and also poo poo'd just as many times by the non-believers. It's really easy to be a non-believer when you've never experienced anything supernatural. But hey, it's a supernatural world we live in.....it's just that some people are totally closed minded to it. The very world we live in was supernaturally created as were we. I've experienced ESP with my mother on many occasions, over many miles and likewise my mother and her sister over thousands of miles. I've worked in the "Healing" ministry and seen healings that would blow most peoples minds. All of these things are quite common though, for those open minded enough to see and believe. It's never a matter of "is it real", but just a matter of 'are you open minded enough to believe it' ? My heart goes out to those who are so closed minded as to believe only in the physical. They are missing a really great part of life. Blessings! Andromeda43

To prevent the data corruption and crashes that befall so many, HD maintenance is just as important as maintenance on a jet aircraft engine or a race-car. M$ has always given us the basic tools to keep a HD healthy. For years, we've had Scandisk for FAT-32 drives and Chkdsk for NTFS drives. Then going clear back to DOS we've has defragmenters, to keep things neat and tidy. Spinrite was written back in the 80's, along with Peter Norton's "Speed Disk". Both were excellent programs for their day. Then came PCTools with their Compress program, another excellent Defragmenter. So, let me bottom line it. Keep your HD error free and defragmented and at least weekly, do a full HD backup with whatever program you choose. Acronis True Image and Norton's Ghost are the most popular. Cheers! Andromeda43

Hee Hee! To say that one man created the Internet or the PC would be as insane as saying that one man created the modern day automobile. Almost everything we use today in the technological world is an outgrowth of many inventions and innovations by many different people over many years. A jet engine or high speed printer could have been built in the 1800's, if only there were the metals, fuels, etc. available to make them work. Every invention, depends on many inventions and discoveries that have gone before it. Over the past 43 years, I've grown up with computers. I've been on the cutting edge. I worked on computers with Vacc. tubes in them, then discrete transistors, diodes and resistors to build the gates and flip-flops used to build bit adders and logic gates. Then came computers using ECL logic chips, hundreds of them to do the most basic computer functions of adding and subtracting numbers, one bit at a time. Finally, LSI chips incorporating thousands of transistors in each chip. Even the CPU chip we use today, is just a work in progress. Stacking of chips and internal liquid cooling is on the drawing boards as we speak. What we'll be using for a computer ten years from now will no more resemble todays PC than a horse and wagon resembles a Porsche 911. No one man can take credit for any of it. It has all been the hard work of metallurgists, chemists, programmers and thousands of lab tech's working long hours and burning lots of Midnight Oil. Been there,,,,done that. Sorry if my post ran a bit long..... Cheers! Andromeda43

That would be my best guess too. Setting the ram used for onboard video, is absolutely the ONLY thing regarding RAM that one can do from the BIOS. There is also a maximum that can be used, depending on the video chipset installed on the mobo. You can't make it more than it was designed for. Writing 1/2 Gallon on the side of a quart milk bottle doesn't make it hold a half gallon. Cheers Mates!

XP should format it. If not, then boot up with the ME boot disk and run FDISK and select that drive and DElete the partitions. Then make new ones. I could easily do that with my custom Windows ME boot disk. It has every utility on it to completely set up a new HD in FAT-32 mode. You can download the floppy builder for my ME Boot Disk From my FTP Site That's an excellent TECH-TOOL and I share it willingly with anyone needing it. Cheers Mates! Andromeda43

I guess I'm either very tired or a very poor hacker. I can't get the program Msconfig to change, even though the one line was changed as per the example. Is there another line to change? I too am missing some critical step in the process. ???

You can find it here: http://www.devhood.com/Tools/tool_details.aspx?tool_id=420

There are several important tasks that Windows performs during the normal (correct) shutdown procedure. Using the "power off" technique should only be done if your computer is hopelessly LOCKED up. If that left the registry screwed up, and you can get windows back up and running, even in safe mode, then doing a System (Registry) Restore will usually put things back in order. I need to do this "System Restore" about once a week when some program I'm testing messes up my desktop or some such. I even run a little script from my Startup folder to force a Restore Point on every boot-up. This assures that I'll always have a fresh restore point handy when I need it. (at the very least, one per day) The very first thing you should have done it try to run System Restore and go back to a restore point made when the system was functioning properly. Good Luck, Andromeda43

You're talking about Steve Gibson's "Spinrite 6". It's a tech tool, not for use in backing up your data. And, at almost $100, it's a pricey tool at that. If a drive seems to be failing, Spinrite can be used to scan and repair bad sectors, recover data (sometimes) from bad sectors, etc. It's not for the common User and can take many hours to run on a large HD. To back up your data you need an archiving or Imaging program. Something that will Image your HD in just a few minutes. There are several well known programs on the market, including Acronis True Image and Norton's Ghost. For various reasons, which I won't go into now, I prefer Ghost 2003, run from a DOS boot disk, to back up my entire C: drive at least once a week. That job only takes about six minutes on my SATA II hard drive. I store the Image file on a second HD or DVD, so if C: ever goes up in smoke, I have a mirror Image of that drive which I can restore to a new drive in just a few short minutes. If you came to me as a customer, I'd set you up with your own Ghost backup system. Using it is a piece of cake! good luck, Andromeda43

Kewl ! I love scripts. I use them every day in my own PC tuneup business. They can just be tailored to do so many neat things. Like shutdown redundant services, delete old restore points, etc. But, for a home user that doesn't have to worry about corporate or Office security, why not just shut off that very annoying Security Warning popup? That was the first tweak I did to my own Vista machine. And also give that same user the highest Admin priority possible. Another "Must-DO" for home users (and the tech that has to support them). Now there's a great idea for a VBScript! Any script writers ready to jump on that one? I know that many of us non-script-writers would sure be very thankful.

If memory serves.....I think I heard somewhere that some older versions of Office, won't work correctly with Vista. On the file vs. Flash-Drive thingy..... has it been tried to just copy the files off of the FD into the Documents folder on the HD, editing them with Word and then copying them back to the flash drive? That seems like a workable solution. Give it a try and see if it helps. I have Vista Ultimate, on a new PC that I recently built, but I don't (and won't) have Office on it. So I can't test out your problem for myself. Sorry! Cheers Mates! Andromeda43

Any disks coming from the hardware manufacturer are out of date the day you first turn on the new PC. What I do for all my customers, when setting up a new PC: First I clean off all the Games, demo's, trials and spyware, then setup the desktop and install all the Security software, like AV and AS software, cleanup utilities, etc. Then I set up their internet browser and email program, address book, etc. Finally when I have the new PC all cleaned up and set up, I boot from a Ghost boot disk and make a copy of the C: partition of the HD to another location like an external HD or even DVD's. Those DVD's now become the official Restore Disks for that computer. If the customer elects to go along with my 6 month inspections, I'll make new restore DVD's at each inspection interval. In a business environment, many users will elect to do their own Ghost backups on a weekly basis. I even had one Corp. CEO who did a Ghost backup every day, before leaving the office. It was a drive to drive backup and only took a few minutes. Factory Restore CD's become Impertinent after the computer is fully installed. Just my technical opinion, of course. Andromeda43

It might just be that every time you use IE, it takes over the default status. Then using FF again should set it back, if you have FF set properly. FF should be updated to 2.0.0.3 In FF, click Tools on the upper tool bar, then click "Main" and at the bottom of the page make sure the box is checked for FF to check to see if it's still the Default Browser. That may help you.....I hope so. Good Luck, Andromeda43

There are many cleanup and maintenance routines that will dump the Run History folder. Find the program doing that and you'll have your answer.

Carolina, I'll take just one question that you asked and try to answer that. OK? There are two very easy ways to get over, past, through or under problems with Winders XP. I upgraded from 98/SE to XP-Pro with an Upgrade CD years ago and had no problem with the upgrade. I keep a VERY clean PC and XP always ran good. So how you got there (to XP) is not the problem. First, in XP you have a quickie backup system called, "System Restore" where XP makes periodic restore points, or copies of your registry, that can be restored if something goes haywire, but the PC still boots up OK. You can manually make restore points yourself or just run a little script in your Startup folder to make a new restore point every time you reboot your PC. (that's what I do) Then there are several very good programs that will back up your entire C: drive to a compressed Image File which you can store on a second hard drive, DVD, etc. For that purpose, I use Ghost 2003. I got it for free on a Drivers Disk that came with a new mobo I bought years ago. I've been using it several times a week ever since. I'm not going to go into a tutorial on Ghost here, but suffice it to say that if you have a recent Ghost Image stored somewhere safe, you never have to worry about loosing your stuff due to a HD crash, fire, theft, etc. At least once a week, I make a ghost image to a DVD and store it in a fireproof vault several miles away. Have you even tried to use the System Restore feature? It's already on your PC. Luck! Andromeda43

Cute Kitty! 10-4 on one little partition for those huge files that like an NTFS partition. I don't need one and don't have one. For us old DOS addicts, XP was a real POC, that is till I figgered out that I could run XP on a FAT-32 partition and if anything it ran better than on an NTFS part. And the best part of all......with anyones old DOS boot disk, I can boot up my system and access any file on the HD, to get rid of problems, make repairs etc. I don't need no special PE disk or any of that new fangled junk. I even run Ghost 2003/2005 from boot disks, in DOS mode. With a series of batch files on my boot disk, I can remove all of the junk files from my HD, delete the Pagefile (1.5gigs) and remove all the old Restore points. That saves me about 2 gigs of space in my Ghost Backup Image files. I can even Scandisk my HD from my boot disk. It was a real kick in the keester when I discovered that Vista will not run on anything but an NTFS partition. So my new Vista machine will never be my main PC. Unless of course I install XP-Pro on it. Actually, I've already set that up on a second HD. DOS Rules! Andromeda43

Norton is far too much of a resource hog to run on such a limited system. See my sig line. All the best protection software in the world is FREE. AVG 7.5 FREE AdAware SE/Personal Spybot search & destroy Spyware Blaster Windows Defender AVG 7.5 FREE Anti-Spyware Those are my favorites and the same ones I share with my hundreds of computer customers. We all stay 100% malware free. For cleaning up a Dirty system, add, "Trojan Hunter", 30 day free trial. There's no need for anyone to be malware infected or to have to put out hard earned money. Cheers! Andromeda43

Since the (POC) writers of Vista changed so many old time names of files and folders I'm sure surprised to hear that they didn't change Temp files to "Only needed today" files or sum such foolishness. Temp files means "Temporary"......that means only needed while the creating program was still open and running. After that they are just as much Garbage in Vista as they were in Windows 95, 98, 98/SE, ME, XP, 2K, NT, etc. For more years than I want to count anymore, I've had a line in my startup files that deletes all temp files, temporary internet files and anything else I can find of a similar nature. How about Recent files, Prefetch files, cache files, AV Quarantine files? They are all junk and should be deleted on a very regular basis to keep your HD clean and running at peak efficiency. Running windows "Disk Cleanup" on a regular (even daily) basis is a good place to start. There's still more junk that builds up on your HD that even Disk Cleanup won't delete. I didn't say "Can't",,,,I just said, "Won't". Do a windows Search for *.log and see how many entries pop up. Most of those are temp files too. Remember: "Minus Crud is Cool!" Andromeda43

AVG is my favorite Anti-Virus program, but having said that, it's not a specific Anti-Trojan program. Even though it does catch a trojan here and there, that's not its main focus. Even some Anti-Spyware programs will nail one, once in a while. If you feel like you need more Anti-Trojan protection, then why don't you get a "Anti-Trojan" program? I did.....and I've been very happy with it. Trojan Hunter, is a first class Trojan Horse Virus removal program. The downloaded version is a 30 day, Fully Functional, free trial. Use the Free Trial to clean up a Dirty system or buy the retail license to have two years of full service plus updates. Download "Trojan Hunter" here: http://www.misec.net/trojanhunter/ From the web page, just click "Download Free Trial Version" It's a 5.9 meg download. Like any piece of Security Software, it's only as good as its last update. SO, check for updates often and always do a scan after getting an update. And then,,,,,what are you doing about Spyware protection? NO ONE program is going to keep you Spyware free. It takes at least two. Here's the main players in that game. All FREE, of course. Spybot Search & Destroy, a great anti Spyware program. Can be downloaded from: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_desc...id,22262,00.asp For instructions on how to set up Spybot for best operation, See my Spybot Setup instructions on this webpage. AdAware SE/Personal. Another top notch anti Spyware program. Can be downloaded from: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php Spyware Blaster, a great Spyware Blocker. Protects both I.E. and Mozilla Firefox. Can be downloaded from: Click here. DO NOT use in conjunction with Microsoft Office. (They'll fight with one another) You can always add AVG's Anti-Spyware program and of course MS's Windows Defender. You can't protect the whole world, but you sure as heck can protect your own computer. And, all the software to do it is absolutely FREE. good luck, Andromeda

Sorry for the hi-jack.

Tom, I was working with my software/networking guru last night and I think we got it, using a formula we found elsewhere in this very forum. I also have a shopping list of registry tweaks that greatly speed up XP and we were going through those to see what ones would apply to Vista and what NOT. The best ones still applied and I've got Vista prettywell tweaked out for increased performance. I keep them all in a .reg script, so applying them is a snap. Thanks again for your quick response. Cheers Mate! Andromeda43

Tom, Would you mind telling us Vista novices how you disable that UAC thingy? Me

Forget the 500 number. That is probably the Max Peak Current Rating. That means the maximum current for the second it takes to charge all the caps on the mobo and begin the boot sequence. That is NOT the all day running current for the supply. The all day current could be as low as 300w. You would do best to go to Antec's web site and read up on their supplies. Personally, if I were building a system with all that hardware, I'd go on up to about a 680 w. supply, with dual cooling fans. Also, you've got lots of heat generators there. Be sure to provide plenty of air circulation for those hard drives, or they'll roach themselves in their own heat. Good Luck, Andromeda43

An alternative: (just a thought) It's frustrating that it can take me, an experienced tech, over an hour to DE-Install the crapola, including Norton, that Compaq (and a few other mfgrs) puts on its new computers. They are grossly overloaded. There are tons of games, demo's, trials and even spyware. Most come off neatly, but some insist on rebooting the PC, which of course, slows down the process. Then, when I'm all done with all the removals, I tweak the registry, disable redundant Services and install all the best AV and AS software, arrange the desktop and set up the internet connection and eMail. (whew!) Finally, if there's time, I run Ghost 2003 from my boot CD and make them a Restore DVD. Use Ghost, Acronis, whatever you like, but make that Restore DVD when you're done setting up your new PC. At that point, you can forget the factory restore disks, etc. They all become redundant. If there's ever a serious problem, you can always to back to that moment when you finished your initial setup of the PC. It don't get no better'n that. Y'all have a really great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda43