Andromeda43

duh.....the last time I checked, we cannot send files through this forum. Maybe someone who has it could PM you with a request for your eMail address, where the file could be sent. DO NOT post your eMail address on any open forum. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

Hmmmmm! If you were a customer, neighbor or just plain friend of mine here, I would strongly suggest that you let me upgrade you to Windows 98/SE with SP2 installed. Your little computer would work so much more efficiently and have so much more capability than it does now. That's the reason that M$ spent millions developing the SE version. For USB control, better printer control and networking, SE Rocks!!!! SP2 incorporates all the tweaks and improvements that I used to spend hours putting in by hand. Get it.....you'll love it Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Well, you're obviously working with a computer that DOES boot up ok. You can probably find that file at a download site somewhere or someone could eMail it to you. Or, you could snag it off of a Windows 98/SE PC that is still working. I don't currently have a 98/se machine that I can power up to look at, but I just checked a Windows ME PC and found that file in the C:\windows\system folder. It's 1,020kb in size so would fit on a floppy disk if you can find it on another computer somewhere. The problem comes in where you replace that one file and then the computer tells you that you need some other file as well. It will stop at the first file it finds missing, although there may be many files missing. I've been there, done that and it's very frustrating. Borrowing someone's Windows 98SE CD would probably be your best bet. Just do an install right over your current OS for a quick fix. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B) PS: There's a bunch of stuff on the internet about that file. Google for "Vmm32.vxd download" Also, take a look at this web site. I just picked it at random, more or less. http://freepctech.com/articles/articles.php?ArticleId=49

Will Windows actually create a Pagefile that's NOT contiguous? On the chance that it might, a person can fix that by turning off the pagefile, defragging the HD and rebooting the PC after turning the pagefile back on again. My tack on this process is a bit different. My HD has always been in FAT-32 mode. I run my backup program, Ghost 2003, from a boot disk. From batch files on that boot disk, I can delete the Pagefile, Old restore points and all other junk files on the HD. Deleting the Pagefile and other junk files, saves me about 2 gigs of space in my backup Image file. Once the backup is completed, to my second HD, I do an immediate Restore. All files are rewritten to the HD in perfect order with NO spaces and NO fragmentation. When I'm finished with the backup and restore, I reboot the PC normally. Windows writes a new Pagefile at the end of the data area. I do this a couple of times a week. Windows manages my pagefile very nicely and is currently @ 1.5x the size of my ram. 1 gig of ram = pagefile of 1.5gig. Running Ghost 2003 (Ghost.exe) from a boot disk, like I do, I get three benefits. (all in less than 10 minutes, with my 3000mhz processor and SATA hard drive) 1. A full backup of C: 2. A really great Defrag, (complete re-write of C:) from the Restore process. 3. A fresh new Pagefile, when Windows starts. It jus don't get no better'n that! Andromeda43

The Windows Firewall is NOT a program as we've come to understand programs. It's a "Service". All services are listed in a program called: Services.msc You can run this program from the RUN box in the Start menu. Open the window to max and scroll down the list to Windows Firewall. Make sure it's set to Automatic, and then under properties look in the Dependencies tab for a list of what other services must be running to support the Firewall. All those services must be set to Automatic as well. This may not be the complete answer to your question of getting Firewall turned on but it's a place to start. On my own PC, something was turning my Windows Firewall OFF every now and again. I took a slightly different tack to this problem. I wrote a little program that turns on the Firewall and I put that program in my Startup Folder, so the Firewall is forced ON every time I boot up. I've not had any more problems with the Firewall being OFF when I go online. Here's the little batch file, if you want to try it: @echo off cls rem This batch file will Stop selected Services and set them to Disabled. rem Or, turn them ON rem The file names for the services are: rem Firewall = SharedAccess rem sc config SharedAccess start= auto sc start SharedAccess Just copy the above text into a wordpad or notepad document and save it as: Firewall.bat Running this batch file should turn on your Firewall if all the support Services are also running. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

Correct.....absolutely correct!!!!!! When you don't know history, you're bound to repeat it. (that's a very famous quote....sorry I don't remember who said it.) Compressing any file on a computer has always been problematical. In Disk Cleanup, the experts recommendation has always been to turn off the file compression thingy. Here's a little registry tweak to turn it off. *************************************************************** Hanging of Disk Cleanup Hanging of Disk Cleanup during compression is a known problem with Windows XP. To solve it, you must edit the Registry. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ VolumeCaches Under VolumeCaches is "Compress Old Files". Click it once to highlight,then click the Del button. Close the Registry editor. Disk Cleanup should no longer hang. Temporary files can also cause Disk Cleanup to hang. If the previous change does not solve your problem, try this. Click Start>>Run. Enter "%temp%" (without the quotes) in the box. Click OK. The Temp folder will open. In the Edit menu, click Select All. Press the Del key and click Yes to confirm the deletions. That will send everything to the Recycle Bin. Next, click Start >> Control Panel. Double-click "Internet Options" On the General tab, click Delete Files. Select "Delete all offline content." Click OK. This could take a while. Disk cleanup gets rid of temporary files, old applications you no longer use and Internet cache files. It asks before any of these are deleted. *********************************************************************** I automaticly install this tweak for all my customers using Windows XP, before I ever run Disk Cleanup to remove junk files from their computer. Good Luck and have a great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda43 B)

Cygnus, I have no problem with anything you're saying. I understand you completely. I can see why some would think XP is a real dog compared to their tweaked and tuned 98 machine. XP is a much larger OS and requires more tweaking and tuning than 98 to run as well. The difference really comes in when we realize that the new XP machines are running CPU's and RAM several times faster than that running on the old 98 machines. My own XP system is tweaked and tuned for peak performance. I wait for literally Nothing. When I have to go back and use my little Compaq Laptop with 98/SE on it, I feel like I'm in a slow motion movie. I do like that little PC and I've always had a fondness for 98/SE, but it just can't compare to my XP system, which of course, I built myself. Like my little Commodore 64, the 98 machines will someday be gone from everyday use and will become just a curiosity. I'll hate to see that day, but I know it's coming. Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda43 B)

I've only been working on PC's for 26 years so I'm a bit of a 'nube'. About as much as those OS programmers at M$. I've tried all sorts of this idea and that idea and this "Expert" and that "Expert" and all I ever saw was some program or another would buck and snort because what it expected to see as Virtual memory wasn't there. Windows is completely written to take advantage of X amount of virtual memory. There are a bunch of programs out there that just won't run without it. After ten years of working with this thing those guys at M$ have gotten it down pretty well PAT. If you want a huge jump in system performance get your Kernal Code up off of that terribly slow hard drive, (compared to RAM Speed) and into ram where the OS can access it in nanoseconds instead of milliseconds. All it takes is a simple registry tweak of changing a zero to a one and the job's done. I even wrote a script to do the job faster than manually editing the registry. I do this for all my XP customers. Here's the tweak: *************************************** Memory Performance Tweak These Settings will fine tune your systems memory management -at least 256MB of ram recommended, 512 preferred for first tweak. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management 1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive. 2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory improves system performance a lot. This tweak can actually slow down a system with less than 256 megs of ram. *************************************** There's more to getting an XP system to run efficiently, but this tweak is a good place to start. Leave the pagefile alone and put your effort where it will really do some good. The above tweak costs absolutely nothing but a few moments of your time and is easily reverseable if you decide you don't like it for some reason. Another HUGE speed increase on any system is achieved by replacing your old, slow, IDE hard drive with the newer and much faster SATA hard drive. With my IDE hard drive a Ghost Backup used to take me over a half hour. With my new SATA drive, the same operation takes me less than five minutes. If your mobo won't support a SATA drive, a PCI Drive Controller Card can. I used one for about a year till I got my new Mobo with built in SATA support. Typical data transfer rates are around 1500 mbpm. At least since the release of Windows 95, the Pagefile, or Swapfile as it was called in the early days, was always put in the root directory of the OS drive. Most commonly C:\. That happens to be the place where the drive controller can access it the quickest and it's certainly where Windows will look for it. Move it and Windows has to go looking for it. (just a thought) Oh yes,,,,,keep your drive clean and defragged for top performance. (and I don't mean once a year.) Y'all have a really great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda43 B)

Fabulous.....absolutely fabulous!!! I evaluate so many new programs each week that my computer can get messed up in a heartbeat. SO, I try to follow my own (good) advise and Backup, Backup, Backup! I've developed this crazy system where I have all my partitions (two drives) set up in FAT-32 mode. I use Ghost 2003 as my backup program....not the full GUI, but the Ghost.exe file on a bootable floppy (or CD). From that humble beginning, I can boot up my system, clean out the pagefile, old restore points and all the junk files before I run Ghost. This saves me about 2 gig's of space in my Backup Image File. With my well tuned system and SATA hard drive a Ghost backup of C: takes me less than five minutes. I turn right around and do a Ghost Restore to C:. Another five. The result is a C: drive that's perfectly ordered with NO spaces and NO fragmentation. As soon as XP boots again, it remakes the pagefile and a new restore point. My freshly Restored HD looks like this: I do this at least twice every week. The backup Image files are stored on my backup drive for a quickie Restore and written to DVD once a week for permanent backup in case the house burns down or blows away in a hurricane. The backup DVD's are kept in a vault in town about twenty miles away. I haven't had to reinstall windows and do a complete reinstall of everything in several years. I never will. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

A fix: Find your own Doc's folder and right click it. Send to: Desktop as a shortcut. It will be right there on your desktop when you want to look into it. When I set up a new XP PC for someone who's been using a 98 or ME computer, I always go through all the hoops to make XP look like 98, from the start menu right on through the file folders (Classic Folders). Yeah, XP will never be another 98, but it will look close anyway. When XP is properly tweaked and tuned, it can actually boot up and shutdown every bit as fast as the old 98 machine. My own XP PC, boots up in 20 sec's and shuts down in 8 sec's. I've seen many 98 machines perform much slower than that. Someday, all those old 98 PC's will just grow old and die. Eventually we'll all have to learn how to tune XP to run the way we want it. I've already found enough tweaks and tune-up tips to make XP run almost 100% better than it does "out of the box". Out of the box, or "Off the Store Shelf", XP runs like a three legged dog. I spend about two hours cleaning out the junk and tuning up every new PC that I install for my customers. The increase in speed and funtionallity is amazing. It's Do'able! Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Hi, Is there any special reason or need for wanting to have a DOS 6.2 boot disk (CD)? I've been working with DOS since the 2.0 days and I see no advantage to 6.2 when that wasn't even the last version before Windows 95 came out to replace DOS all together. If you want a great DOS boot CD that will allow you to perform FDISK, Format, Scandisk, etc and do some cleanup on a FAT-32 hard drive, then you need my custom Windows ME boot CD (DOS 7.x) You can have it in two formats. 1. A floppy disk builder, executable file. (wnMEboot.exe) 2. An .iso file to make the CD directly.....Nero or any credible CD burning software can handle this one. (ME-Boot CD.iso) You can get either one from my (rented) download site at: http://tools.house-tech.net Click the "Computer Tools" topic to enter the download page. It's completely free and a quick download. Take a look and see if it will help you out. Cheers! Andromeda43

Norton continues to be the worse virus I ever have to remove from customers PC's. Again this week a customer was begging me to help him with a Norton 2006 install that was driving him nuts. It was reporting a virus and then refusing to remove it. And, his computer was running so slow he couldn't stand it any more. Total frustration!!!!! WELL, the old Norton Killer I had said it was out of date and refused to work. Norton also would not uninstall itself. So I did what I have to do so often and I physically ripped it out by the roots. Then I installed both AVG 7.1 FREE and Trojan Hunter and AdAware SE/Personal and Spybot S&D and got his computer completely clean of all malware. I had to remove over 200 pieces of spyware. Some were pre-installed by the computer's manufacturer. After I got home, I did some Googling and found that indeed there is a new Norton Removal Tool. It comes in three parts now, not just two. So, I packaged them up (zipped) and uploaded them to my Rented Site where others can easily download them. From: http://tools.house-tech.net In the "Computer Tools" section, Download: NortonKiller.exe Put it in a Desktop folder and run it to unpack it. There will be three files, each one numbered consecutively. Run file #1, then file #2 and then (guess what) file #3. When you're done running the three files, Norton will be GONE! I hope this will help those who are as sick of Norton as I am. Bartender! Beers all around! Andromeda43 B)

WELL, IDE sucks no matter where you use it and regardless of the OS. But, just for your information, XP drives the heck out of a hard drive, unlike 98. Getting the Kernal up off of the HD and installed in ram will add considerably to your XP systems performance. There's a registry tweak for that. See my registry tweaks on My Webpage Then keeping all the crap'files off of your HD and doing a Defrag on a regular (weekly, not Weakly) maintenance schedule will go a long ways toward keeping your PC running in top form. Then if you really want to remove the biggest bottleneck in your system dump that IDE drive (or reduce it to a backup drive) and install a SATA drive. No SATA port on your mobo?.....not to worry. Both Manhattan and Promise make a real nice little PCI card that will drive two SATA hard drives. I have several of them. They work great. You can even use reverse technology to run an IDE drive off of the SATA controller card, using a little IDE to SATA dongle on the IDE drive. It will run the old IDE drive at almost SATA speeds. Over 1000 mbpm transfer rates. I wouldn't have believed it had I not done it on my own PC. cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Norton's Ghost 2003, which is what I use for all my disk imaging, will copy, with compression, any hard drive no matter what OS is on it. It will backup an NTFS drive as easily as a FAT-32 drive. Andromeda43 B)

Computer security is no less important for a 98 machine than for an XP machine. Security is security and hackers, viruses, trojans and worms, spyware adware and any other malware are the same no matter what the OS. Being in the computer repair business it falls to me to Secure several new PC's every week. The security package that I use on my own xp system is the same I use on my customer's old 98 systems. First you need to get all the old "crapolaware" off of the target PC. Deinstalling Norton or McAfee is the first stage of the Cleanup. Then I install AVG 7.1 FREE, update it and do a full scan. Then I install AdAware SE/Personal with all current updates and perform a full scan. AVG active scan also looks at every file scanned by AdAware. Then I install Spybot Search & Destroy and Spyware Blaster and get the latest updates via the internet. Then run a full scan with Spybot. Spyware Blaster is only a blocker and does not scan or remove spyware. Spybot S&D will find and remove things that AdAware will not. On an XP system, I may also install "Trojan Hunter", in its 30 day trial version and run a full scan. Quite often it finds things that no other program finds. By the end of the last scan, the system is completely clean and running smoothly. It's really quite a simple process. Cheers! Andromeda43

I have an upgrade version of 98/SE.....it will NOT boot up a PC. It must be run from within some previous version of Windows. I also have an OEM version which cannot be run while Win.com is present on a HD. I have used it to repair a messed up install of 98/SE or to even upgrade an older version of 98, but, I have to rename win.com first so that the setup program can't see it. Yes, its a bit sneeky, but it works. Many things are possible if you just learn how to "fuss" with the windows installer. Lets say that I have an old PC with windows 98 on it and I want to upgrade it to 98/SE. I first make a \98SE\ folder on the hard drive. Then with my 98/SE OEM CD, I copy everything from the Win98 folder on the CD to the new folder on the HD. Then I boot up with my 98 or ME boot disk, (either one works equally well) go to the new folder on the HD and run Setup /ie /is Setup runs and the OS is updated. The 25 digit Key is required. This will become a mute subject when we all are running XP, in maybe a decade or so. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

In their efforts to wring every dime out of Windows users possible, Microshaft has created a licensing nightmare. I don't blame anyone for using a legallized (hacked) version of XP. What they've done with WGA is absolutely Criminal. I think someone already expressed my disdane for the whole system with the term, "Crapola". I echo that sentiment. I have several friends/customers that have legal versions of XP, but WGA told them their version was Illegal. In most countries of the world, that's considered "Fraud". I was infuriated and so I wrote a little program to totally remove WGA from the HD. Then you can tell MS-Updates to NOT download WGA again. Old Scrooge said it well....."Bah Humbug!" Andromeda43

You don't need the entire GUI version of Ghost. All you need is the Ghost.exe file and a bootable floppy or CD. That's the most basic use of Ghost. Add Mouse.com so you can use your PS2 mouse to run Ghost. I've created a great Ghost boot floppy which I use several times a week. It's all menu driven. Here's the Ansi-Color menu: GHOST 2003 Menu 1. Run Ghost to make a new image, Windows XP This program will delete all temp files, cookies, histories, etc. The Cleanup works only on a FAT-32 partition. 2. Run Ghost This program runs Ghost alone, with NO cleanup being done. Use this version to do Ghost Restores or Ghost image without cleanup. You must use this option on any NTFS partition. 3. Run Ghost on Windows 98 (deletes the Swapfile and all temp's.) 4. Delete all Restore points (Windows XP. Works on FAT-32 partition only) 5. Delete Windows "Pagefile" (Windows XP. Works on FAT-32 partitions only) Type in a number at the DOS Prompt and press ENTER. ********************************** This setup is designed to work on a Windows 98 system as well as a Windows XP system. It's all you need to do full HD backups whenever you like and on any system with a floppy drive. Most CD burning software will take this floppy and create a bootable CD from it. I use Nero to do it on my own PC. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

In the mid 90's a company called "Ghostsoft, Inc." wrote a disk cloning program simply called Ghost. Some years later, Norton bought out Ghostsoft. Then as we all know, Symantec became the owner of everything Norton. Up thru Ghost 2003, which I still use almost daily, Ghost was pretty much un-fussed-around-with. If you buy the entire retail package of Ghost, it comes with a GUI and must be installed into some version of Windows. I don't use the GUI interface. I use only Ghost.exe on a boot disk to do the whole job. It does require a modicum of intelligence and being able to click on a few options to get the desired results. I've assisted users worldwide in setting up their own Ghost backup routines and I've been told by many how much they like the program. Ghost 2003, run from a boot floppy or CD, can backup an entire HD partition and save the resulting image file to either a second partition on the same drive, or a separate drive or even burn the image to CD's or DVD's. Automatic spanning of disks is a part of the program. It can also perform a disk clone from one hard drive to another. Ghost can read and backup an NTFS drive as easily as a FAT-32 formatted drive. When booting the system with a boot floppy and burning the image to a DVD (for instance), Ghost will offer to put the information from the floppy on the DVD as the boot information. When the resulting DVD boots a system, it looks just like the system is being booted again from the boot floppy. It just works SO VERY well. When I decided to upgrade my system from Windows 98/SE to XP-pro....oh those many years ago now, I made the decision to keep my FAT-32 file structure, a structure that I felt more comfortable with. I've thanked God a thousand times at least that I made that decision. From my simple little Ghost boot floppy, I can run batch files to remove the Windows Pagefile, delete old restore points and clean out all the junk files from my Hard Drive, before actually running Ghost. I save about 2 gigabytes of space in my Ghost Image File by doing that cleanup before making the Image File. This simple task cannot be done from DOS on an NTFS drive. DOS cannot see an NTFS partition,,,,,Ghost can. Ghost 2003 is readily available and can even be had for free, from certain sources. I got mine off of a Drivers CD that came with a new motherboard I purchaed several years back. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

I can fix computer problems.....it's what I've done for the past 26 years. What I can't fix is lazyness. There's no fix for it and really NO excuse for it either. Lazy? You're on your own. There's NO help for you in any forum. Good Luck though, Andromeda43 B)

Norton on a laptop??? That's like putting two tons of rock in a 1/4 ton pickup. Talk about Overload! I'd get rid of that thing, ASAP! Does the upgrade even try to load? Since Media Center is a newer release of Windows than Pro, that may be a problem. Upgrades are designed to go from an old version to a newer version of windows. M$ is probably the only ones to answer your question. Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

You can sure say that again!!!! When you've already done a fresh install once.....why go through all that pain and agony again????? Just make your Ghost or whatever, backup Image of that nice clean install and whenever you might need it again just do a Restore of that image. If you change any major hardware items, just make yourself a new Image file. An install can take an hour or better (just for Windows), while a Ghost Restore (for instance, because that's what I use) can take as little as three minutes on a SATA hard drive.....a bit longer on an IDE drive. Or even longer from a DVD, but it's almost seamless. Start it up, go have lunch and come back and its all done. I've been using Ghost (originally from Ghostsoft, Inc.) for about ten years now. I love it!!!!! I've just finished recovering a very badly fouled up HP/ Pent III/ Desktop PC. Someone had totally removed Outlook Express from it. Getting that back in and working properly was no easy chore. But now it's done. There is NO factory restore disk for this old PC that started out years ago in a bank. MY next step now will be to finish the cleanup process and make them a Restore CD, using Ghost 2003. The CD will be self booting with the Ghost program on it, so I can do a restore even to a brand new HD. When you've got the best, you can forget the rest. Cheers! Andromeda43

You're going to get at least a half dozen answers....all different. One cheap, dirty and very easy way would be to send the mail to an OFF-Site mailbox, like GMail, HotMail, Yahoo Mail, etc. Then go to that webmail site, log in, and forward the mail back to your local address. Job done. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

And, I'm proud of you too. In the business world, when you have to completely reload a computer, it's often a complete disaster. When you work in that environment for as many years as I did, you learn to do "Maintenance" to prevent those disasters. And, of course, Backup, Backup, Backup! Remember: "The only bad backup is the one you decided NOT to do".

You heard? We give solutions here, not rumors or hear say. Are you willing to provide Acronis for FREE for someone and then teach them how to use it? Acronis costs money! I got Ghost 2003 for free. It's so typical,,,,,there's always someone wanting to bring a cat to a dog fight.