Andromeda43

At best an errant driver,,,,at the worst, a virus or spyware just not wanting to close. Can you edit your registry? There are two registry tweaks that force a fast shutdown. They are: ******************************************************************************* Decrease Shutdown Time Cut the amount of time it takes your computer to shut down to only a few seconds. Click Start, click Run, and type regedit. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control. Click the Control folder. Right click "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" and click Modify. Set the value to 1000 (One Second) *************************************************** Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ AutoEndTasks = Set the value to 1 HungAppTimeout = Set the value to 1000 WaitToKillAppTimeout = Set the value to 1000 (One Second) ********************************************************** I can have several programs open in addition to my AV and AS software and even have my internet connection open and click "Shutdown" and my PC will be down and dark in 8 seconds. If you feel comfortable tweaking your registry, try these two tweaks. They do work. Good Luck, Andromeda43

Keep reading the internet help forums and every day you'll read where some poor guy has a computer with the OS on H: or I: or some other drive than C:, and he's crying for help. It causes more compatibility problems than you could even imagine. Every major program in the world wants to load to C:. It's an industry standard that just should NOT be "Futzed" around with. Give yourself 40 gigs or so on a really huge drive for C: and throw the rest of the HD space into a Storage Drive. Make that Storage partition FAT-32 even if you decide to make C: NTFS. Keep backups of data files, etc., on the storage drive where they can be easily accessed even from a DOS boot disk, in case of trouble on C:. Then keep C: as clean and organized as possible, and backed up with an Imaging program like Norton's Ghost as often as you feel necessary. I do mine at least twice weekly, usually storing the Image files on my second HD, but once a week I let Ghost burn the Image directly to a DVD and make it bootable. That Ghost boot DVD goes into a Fireproof Vault for safe keeping. Good Hard Drive management isn't a talent we're born with. It takes time and study and maybe even a few mistakes to get it right. I've been at it for 26 years and I've worked out a system that just works fabulous. In many years and many hard drive crashes, I've yet to loose the first important data file. To save space on C:, I load very large Suites like MS Office and Corel Suite on D:. The program files really don't care where they are. The "MY Documents" and "MY files" folders remain on C:. There's no reason in the world for all those thousands of program files to be on C: where they have to be scanned or backed up over and over again. With proper management and maintenance, I still get my whole C: drive on a single DVD with Ghost 2003, using High Compression. "God, I love it when a plan comes together!" Good Luck, Andromeda43

A Ghost Image is a huge ZIP file, in it's simplest form. Removing drivers from it and from the Registry which is also compressed inside the Image would be a herculean task. If you don't want something in a Ghost file, you need to take it out of the HD before you make the Image. That's why I delete my Pagefile, Restore Points and all temp files before I make a new Ghost Image. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

Windows XP/SP2 and any mobo that hosts a SATA drive, won't have that 138 gig limitation. If you don't have SP2, get it. You might also check to make sure your mobo is up to date with the latest Bios. I recently set up my new 200 gig hard drive with my own Windows ME boot disk. It FDISK'd and Formatted the new drive right out to its maximum usable size. NO Problemo! If you're hitting that 138 gig wall, something's just not up to date. It's fixable. Good Luck, B)

Since a generic DOS, like Dr Dos, or MS Dos or FREE Dos or even IBM Dos, cannot see a NTFS partition, it gets tricky. That DOS boot disk would have to have some pretty special software on it to see a NTFS partition. A Ghost boot disk can do this, but only for it's own use,,,,not to give the operator access to the files on the HD. I've been told there are disks that will do it, but so far I've never had one. Presumably, a Linux boot disk can do it. B)

NTFS to FAT-32 can only be done with a total reformat of the hard drive. the vise-versa is easy....it's a routine in Start/Accessories/System tools It's always been there in XP. But once you do that.....you can never again access your HD via a DOS boot floppy/ or CD. Andromeda43

I've got mine set to "None". YUP! That's a great setting! Works for me! Like any other program,,,,,if it ain't running, it can't hurt nuttin'. B)

Not knowing exactly what else is running on your PC, my first response would be, "Stop Using Screen Savers". It's been my experience that many screen savers (not from MS) are poorly written and can cause all sorts of problems with the OS. Also they have to run in the background, thus taking up CPU time and RAM space and can conflict with other programs running on your PC. In general I try to discourage the use of screen savers by my own customers and I won't even have one on my own PC. Those .scr files are some of the first ones to GO when I set up Windows. I hope you find a workable solution to your problem. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

That's easy, you can copy Ghost.exe and mouse.com to a DOS formatted floppy disk and make your autoexec.bat file look like this: @Echo off cls mouse.com Ghost.exe That's all you really need. Ghost will be much easier to use if you have the mouse drivers loaded before you actually run Ghost.exe. I go one step further and boot into a Ansi-Color menu where I have several options to do some cleanup work before actually running Ghost. I use the same boot disk (with Windows ME's DOS on it, not Free Dos, Dr DOS or IBM DOS) on systems running DOS, Windows 95, 98, 98/SE, ME or XP. I've had no reason to try it with Win-2k or NT, but I don't know why it wouldn't work. I've used "Nero Burning Rom" to take the info from my boot floppy and make a Bootable CD, for those 'puters that don't have a floppy drive. Or, since you already own the program I can offer you a copy of my own Ghost boot disk.(minus Ghost.exe) Just add your Ghost.exe file, which you already own and you're good to go. Drop me a PM for details. Cheers! Andromeda43

The world is full of computers that simply cannot run Windows XP. They are too slow, or have too little RAM or too small hard drives to accommodate the bloat of XP. That's not going to change, regardless of the fact that MS has withdrawn its support of 98, 98/SE and ME. Big Deal! What support did we really get from them anyway. I never got any! The only update that was ever worth spit was the ones for I.E......that buggy browser. Use FF and you don't even need those anymore. So 98 will continue for as long as those old computers continue to operate. In a few years we'll see the same thing happen with XP. Many of our old XP machines just won't run Vista. Period. So XP will be around as long as these 'old' computers continue to run.

Right! That is the whole idea of using Ghost in the first place. The program that I use, (not ver. 8) Ghost 2003, will let you make a quickie backup to a HD or a much slower backup to a DVD. In my own case, I use Ghost from a floppy disk. (call me a throwback if you like) When run in this manner, Ghost offers to put all the info from the floppy on the CD/DVD to make it bootable. Of course I just let it do that. Then indeed I do have a DVD that will boot up to my Ghost menu. From there, I can do a restore to any HD I please. It's not a fully automated restore, but I always like to keep my options open. After all, it only takes a few mouse clicks to get the restore process started. I don't like running Ghost from a GUI in windows. It's time consuming and the Ghost program itself just adds to the file bloat on the HD. I found having Ghost installed on my HD, to be redundant. I hope you work out your own process for using Ghost. It's a very powerful program. Cheers! Andromeda43

That Sample batch file is fabulous! Good work! In the original post, AdAware was used as an example. If that's the actual program to be used in the batch file, once run, there are two choices to make,,,,,Check for Updates or Run a Scan. Which would you be doing and do you know the command line option to make it do that automaticly? To just run programs that are going to require operator intervention doesn't avail you much. You might as well just run the program from a desktop icon. (I do!) I use batch files a lot and have for 26 years, so I find this thread "Velly Intelestink"! Thank Y'all for some interesting work, B) PS: Batch language has gone through several transitions in the years since I learned it and taught it in our local "Community Education Dept." My last book on Batch was the DOS 6.22 manual. Don't laugh! Where can I find a tutorial or manual on the current batch language? Anyone know? I saw commands in that big batch file that were totally unknown to me and I'd love to get 'up to date'.

Hi Martyn, Just a quick question. Why are you focused on that particular version? Is this for home use or in a business/corp setting? And do you already own that program? I use Ghost 2003, run from a boot floppy or CD, and it works fine with my SATA hard drives, my IDE hard drive and all my CD/DVD burners. It will also back up a NTFS partition just as easily as a FAT-32 partition. The only place I've not been able to get it to work right is on a PC using the new AMD 939 motherboard. On my SATA hard drive, doing a Ghost Backup with minimum compression, takes me only five minutes. I've tried another popular backup program but have since deleted it from my computer. Just going through the pages of setup options took several minutes to complete and then the actual backup took over a half hour. What really made me delete that program was when I found it running in the background and trying to "Phone Home". I hate it when that happens Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

How are you going to do it automatically when you still have to type in a name for the backup image and in the case of writing to a CD or DVD, you have to open the drive and insert a disk?! In most cases where the same batch file was used to do an Automated backup, the same file name was used each time, overwriting and destroying the previous image file. The image would have to be written to a second partition or hard drive and could not be written to a CD or DVD. Ghost could be programmed to do that, but the result is far less than satisfactory. Do it manually and you'll get everything you need in the place where you need it. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Appologies, but I'm having a hard time following just what it is you're trying to do and WHY. If you're worried about NOT being able to restore your computer in case of problems in Windows, the answer is very simple. Use any commercially available program like Ghost or Acronis to make an exact image file off of your C: drive and save it to another drive or a DVD/CD's. Then if there's a problem requiring a re-write of C:, just run either of those programs from a boot disk and do a restore of the Backup Image file and in a few minutes you're back in business again. Personally, I use Ghost 2003, run from a boot floppy or CD and I save my backup image files to a second hard drive for aquickie backup or to a DVD for a permanent record. Either a backup or a restore only takes me five minutes with Ghost. It's a piece of cake! Cheers, Andromeda43 B)

WOW! I thought I had this topic all figgered out, and then I read this entire thread, front to back. Yeeeeks! I'm hosed! Y'know, they say that ignorance is Bliss and I guess that's true. I fixed the problem with the Windows 98/SE boot floppy that I've used for years, not being able to set up LARGE HD's. I started using a Win-ME boot disk. In spite of a few small partition size 'irregularities', the ME FDISK and Format allowed me to set up my brand new 200 gig IDE drive just last week. I know that format reports the wrong disk size, but that just didn't bother me. It formatted the HD partition out to its max size anyway, without ever a whimper. Now I find I'm using faulty software. OH Yukkkkk! I think I'll say a big "10-4" LLXX's comment "Kill the versioncheck on and fix the ME version and release that. Supposedly M$ has already corrected some small bugs in the ME version so you won't need to do as much." I'm not sure if the 'versioncheck' would have to be "fixed" if the boot disk was just 100% ME from the format on.... I love my ME Boot disk, because it also installs CD drivers when it boots up my system. I'd really love to have that "fixed" version of ME's Format. The ME format already does the job, but like what's already been said, it mucks up the numbers on the partition size. I still use it exclusively, whether I'm formatting a HD for Winders 98 or Winders XP. Heck, I'd even make a monetary contribution to someone fixing that annoying little glitch. Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda43 B)

Just a question, out of pure curiosity,,, Did you buy O&O or did you get the trial software? I went to their web site to take a look and didn't like the invasive registration procedure. If they are going to give you something for free, then it should be free of personal questions too. Oh well, that's just a personal gripe and nothing against the software itself. By the way, what is the retail price of the registered software? At least once a week, in some forum or another the same old question comes up about "What is the best Defrag Software" or some such. It's been hashed and re-hashed to death. The only answer comes in the form of a question.... "Have you found one that does what you want it to do?" and "Are your expectations realistic"? It seems like each person has their own idea of what the perfect defrag should do. I've seen NO perfect defragger since the revised Defrag.exe program was released with Windows ME. That was not a trial and it was FREE. I get as close to that perfect defrag as I can by taking an entirely different tack to the problem of file fragmentation. I do a backup of my C: drive with Norton's Ghost 2003, run from a DOS boot disk. I follow that with a Ghost Restore. All the files are re-written to the HD in sequential order as they were put into the backup Image File. Of course, there is NO space between files and NO fragmentation. With my SATA hard drive, that whole process takes just under 12 minutes. I know that other people like other software than Ghost, and that's OK. I suspect the same thing could be done with Acronis, etc. In fact, I did the same thing with Acronis 8 just a few days ago to see what results I would get and it was similar except that Acronis took a half hour to complete its backup instead of five min's for Ghost 2003. I'm not hawking any software here, just the idea of trying a completely different process. If you have a backup program like Ghost or Acronis, try doing a backup followed by a restore, then take a look at the drive with Windows Defrag Analyzer. Here's what the Analyzer shows after I've done it "My Way". That's on a FAT-32 hard drive. Results may vary for an NTFS drive. In years past, I've tried Diskkeeper and other alternative software. I found them all "wanting". This isn't meant as a tutorial or any such....just an alternative. Happy Computing! Andromeda43

Plamdi, Thanks.....I've been looking for some of the improvements you listed. I just found out too, on another forum, that typing "set" in a command prompt will give you all those shortcuts. We live and learn! I've already modified my Generic XPCleanup.bat program on my website to reflect those changes. Thanks for your input. It's appreciated! B)

There you go again. Lying to people. Neither of those commands can remove just one file from a sub directory or a group of files of the same type, like .xyz. XP uses Deltree.exe just fine. MS removed it from the list of external DOS commands in XP, but all you have to do it put it back. I clearly explained how to do that and where to get it. I do wish you'd read more carefully before you turn on the flames. Yous guys are always telling people to download this program or that program to do something, but when I say to acquire Deltree.exe to do a certain job, you flame me and basically call me a liar. You know....I'm really getting sick of it. Thousands of people worldwide are using Deltree.exe and my XPCleanup.bat program to keep their computers free of junk buildup with never the first problem. A shortcut to the batch file can even be put in the startup folder for a FREE cleanup on every boot. If you don't want to use Deltree.exe or a batch file to clean up your computer, then don't, but stop calling me a liar every time I try to answer someone's question. He asked how to write a batch file....not how to use Firefox or some other method to eliminate internet files. If you can't help with the man's question, then why not just remain silent.???

At the risk of being flamed, AGAIN, here goes. I had the same idea years ago and have been writing my own cleanup batch files ever since. They now run on PC's all over the world. My Windows 98/ME batch file is called "Hoover.bat" and my XP cleanup program is called "XPCleanup.bat". All you need to run the XPCleanup.bat program is the old DOS command, "Deltree.exe". You can download it Here. Just put it in your C:\Windows\System32 folder and forget about it. Here's the generic version of my own XPCleanup.bat program: Use what you need. ************************************************ Rem: Copy the following text into a new wordpad document. Rem: To save this listing as a batch file; Click 'File' then click 'Save Page as...' Rem: Keep the name as it is, and save it to your desktop of ease of use. Rem: The Deltree.exe command must be in your C:\windows\system32 Rem: folder before this program will run. Rem: This command can be found in any system running Windows 98 or ME. I've also Rem: placed this program on my webpage for easy access. Rem: The /y after deltree tells deltree to execute the command without stopping to ask if it's OK. Rem: The lines that do not adhear to the DOS 8+3 filename structure must be in quotes. cls deltree /y C:\temp\*.* deltree /y %SystemRoot%\temp\*.* deltree /y "%SystemRoot%\system32\config\systemprofile\cookies\*.*" deltree /y "%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\config\systemprofile\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\config\systemprofile\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.*" deltree /y "%SystemRoot%\SYSTEM32\config\systemprofile\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" Rem: No need to duplicate the following section for each registered User deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Cookies\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\recent\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\cookies\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\userdata\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\History\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\History\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Cookies\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\Cookies\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\History\*.*" deltree /y "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Cookies\*.*" ************************************************ to delete additional junk, just put the path to it in an additional line and add it to the file. for instance: deltree /y "C:\Program Files\CallWave\Calls\*.*" deletes the old messages stored by my CallWave program. I hope you can use this as a guide to create your own custom cleanup program. I still use Deltree.exe because it can be used to delete just one file or a group of files or an entire tree structure. It's all in how you write the path statement. No need to rip out a whole sub directory, when all you want to delete is a single file or file type. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

Was that a question? What Acronis does in a half hour when writing the image file to a HD, I can do with Ghost in five minutes and without all the pages of options to wade through. I just recently tried Acronis, but couldn't get Acronis to see my DVD drives (2) at all. I gave it every opportunity to work for me, but it wet the bed in live tests. So I'll just continue to use Ghost 2003 which I've used for several years now, with absolutely NO problems. Actually, I've been using Ghost, originally written by "Ghostsoft, Inc." in the mid 90's., in some form or another since 1996. I still have Ghost images of my HD going back several years. If I need some old, long since deleted file, I can use "Ghost Explorer" to go back into those old archives and extract the file. Through many HD crashes and Windows upgrades, I've never lost one single file. Every thing's packed away neatly in a Ghost Image file. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Toshiba uses Norton's Ghost 2003, just like I do. Once you've got your PC all cleaned up, tweaked out and customized the way you want it, you can run Ghost from a boot disk (floppy or CD) and write out the compressed Image file to a DVD for permanent storage. If you boot up with a DOS boot floppy, like my Ghost boot disk, Ghost will offer to put it on the DVD for you thus making it a Bootable Restore Disk. The Ghost backup will still work, even if you have to boot up the PC with a separate boot disk. Andromeda43 B)

And then remember one very simple rule: Never MOVE data for backup. By it's very definition "Backup" means a second copy. Always leave the original data in place when you do a backup. Then if something happens to one copy, you've always got the other one. Since almost forever, MOVE is a short term for "Copy and Delete". That's the way computers move data. They copy it to the new location and then delete the original. Once a file is deleted from Your HD, the next file saved could overwrite it. Learn from your mistake and NEVER Move Data again. Always COPY it. Good Luck, B)

Not really! Those are the UNDO files for MS Windows Updates. The number of the update is right there in the filename. If you got the update and it installed and caused no problems on your PC, then, "YES" you can delete those UNDO files. NO Problem. A restore file would look like this: C:\System Volume Information\_restore{099F9CAB-B6CE-4CEF-83A3-C323EC81139F} Don't be a nube.....turn your System Restore feature back ON. It's your first line of defense against any software change, update, etc. , that goes wrong. I evaluate many new pieces of software every week and wind up using System Restore to fix little problems about once a week. I even run a little script on every boot up to force a new Restore Point. It's way too valuable to just shut off. It's worse than shutting off the smoke alarm in your home. Cheers! B)

And, you don't want to just add more ram.......WHY? That should be your first effort. B)