Andromeda43

I've used Nero for years and InCD likewise with various OS's. But, I've never allowed it to run as a TSR. That's rediculous! Take it out of your startup folder (DE-Select it in MSCONFIG) and put a shortcut to it on your desktop and only run it when you need it.....then shut it off. Then it won't be hogging your resources. But why do you really need it? I find NO need for it at all. In fact, I find no need for rewritable CD's. They cost more money, are not cross-platform compatible and can only be read reliably on the drive what made them. CD-R's on the other hand, can be read on any CD drive anywhere, cost much less and are more reliable. And, with Nero, you can write a data CD, for instance, in Multisession mode and write to it several times before you have to retire it and open a new disk. I limit re-writes to just 4, for best reliability. Good Luck and DO have a nice day, Andromeda43 B)

I'd just use my XP-Pro +SP2 Upgrade CD. Works great. Get the UPGRADE cd though.....not the OEM CD. It also makes a great "Repair" in case windows functions cease to work. You can even use it to do an "Unattended" re-install of XP. From the 'RUN' box: (type in the following line and press ENTER) D:\i386\winnt32.exe /unattend (In the above example, my XP pro Upgrade CD was in the CD drive and "D" represents the drive letter for my CD drive) You can also copy that "i386" folder from your CD to a second HD partition or backup HD for an even quicker reinstall. Works every time! Good Luck, Andromeda43 B)

Ah, the infamous ZA! With ZA you have to allow every program on your computer, that you want to let get to the internet, permission to get out through the firewall. Open ZA and look in the permissions list. I don't have it on this PC so can't tell you exactly the name for that list. But check that your programs have permission to access the internet. It may just be called "programs". A wrong click somewhere may have disabled them. Or, you can try, totally shutting down ZA from ever starting and reboot and try your updates again. I'd much rather have my updates than I would to have ZA. With proper security and the windows firewall running, ZA would become totally redundant. That's why I no longer use it. I haven't since SP2 was installed on my PC. ZA is also somewhat of a resource hog. If you don't really need it......get rid of it. For those people who are just too computer illiterate, too lazy or just plain Refuse to do updates to their security programs, ZA becomes necessary. For the rest of us, its just not required. The windows firewall is sufficient. Cheers, Andromeda43 B)

Just curious,,,,did you even try the 'Windows key + R' hotkey command? I'm almost ashamed to admit I've never done that before. I never use the keyboard when the mouse will do..... Andromeda43 B)

For years in my own computer business, I've specialized in computer security and efficiency. I use only AVG 7.1 FREE for my AV and Trojan Hunter for my Trojan remover and preventer. The anti-Spyware programs you mentioned are also on my preferred list. To get rid of DCOM (the real one) and several other security NO-NO's, download GRC.com zipped files from my Download site. Unzip it to the folder of your choice and run each routine to eliminate a security hole, from your OS. The "Decombobulator" will shut down DCOM on your computer. (the real one, not the phoney one) Good Luck, Andromeda43

Just try to download Windows Defender. They (MS) check the legallity of your registration before the download is permitted. Why would you even question your key, unless you bought or otherwise acquired your OS from a disreputable source? There are however, hacked versions of XP, out there that pass all MS tests. I saw one, once. Nuff said about that. But I've never heard of anyone writing a program to check for key validity. I would assume that only MS would have the ability to do that, since only they have the master key list. Have a great day, Andromeda43 B)

In this day and "Age of Enlightenment", why on earth are you constantly reformatting your HD and reinstalling windows? Whether moving to a new HD or just fixing "things", NEVER do a windows install again. It's totally NOT necessary! Wouldn't that be like buying shoes two sizes too small? Or likewise with your shorts. (constant wedgie! Ouch!) I guess if you're into pain, reformatting and reloading windows would be your 'piece of cake'. But, as for myself, I don't like pain and I don't like reformatting and reloading Windows and all those crazy drivers. It's bad enough that I have to occasionally do that for one of my customers. All you need is to get your OS all set up with the settings you need, the protection software you want and the data files you need and then make yourself an Image file of your C: drive and burn it to a bootable CD or DVD. On my "Hal 9000" and my SATA drive, that takes me all of four minutes. ((Sorry, that's for a Image to a second HD....an Image to DVD takes about a half hour)) Then when you need to do a full restore of your C: drive, you just pop in the DVD and run the restore routine (also on the DVD) and in a few short minutes you're right back where you were when you made the disk. I've been using this technique for many years and I've never had to reformat.......EVER! I still have backup image files going back six years. I still have my old 98/SE backup image. I store Image files on a Second HD for a quickie restore if needed and on DVD for a restore from a total disaster, like fire, hurricane or theft. I keep a current DVD restore disk in a friends safe, 20 miles away. I've spent hours detailing my process here and in other forums and have suffered endless harang from the unbelievers and naysayers. If you're seriously interested in using my technique, I'll help you get started. It will cost you nothing. Just drop me a PM. Andromeda43 B)

I just leave the case covers OFF and don't need no silly case fan. The whole inside of my computer stays at room temperature. The cpu stays cooler and so does everything else. And there's NO fan noise! It don't get no better'n that!

It could be some electronic 'hash' coming out of the mouse. Have you tried a different mouse?

16x for a DVD is really "haulin' the mail". That pushes the hardware, including the CPU just about as far as it will go. Most new CD/DVD burners require an 80 conductor data cable. Keep the data cable as short as possible and don't share it with other devices. Then shut down all redundant Services in Services.msc and all unneeded TSR's in Msconfig. Then use a program like "End It All 2" to shut down everything else before you even open up Nero. Success is all in the preparation. Then remember what I allus say, "a slow burn is a better burn". If you want your disks to be readable in a wide range of readers, "Burn SLOW". DVD's are still too expensive to just be making coasters out of them. Cheers! Andromeda43 B)

Hmmmmmm Just removing the old battery and then sticking in a new one won't reset the entire bios. You must leave the battery out for at least 20 minutes or more. Then after going through the battery replacement and a reboot, enter the bios and manually reset the time & date and all the drive settings, boot up sequence, etc. There's always the possibility that on a mobo that old, that the bios chip is defective and no amount of fiddlin' with it is going to make it work properly. Cheers!

I'd have to be skeptical of that file being totally un-deleteable. Because, I've never found a file that was not part of the OS that could not be deleted. Before grabbing for the Linux Boot disk, Knoppix or BartsPE CD, I think I'd play around with it for a bit first. In SAFE mode, try checking the properties of the file to see what attributes it has. Remove them all. Then try again to delete it. Try moving it. If it still won't go away, try renaming the extension to something other than mp3. If that worked, try deleting it again. Then try Unlocker or KillBox. I have found in the past where a file name had hidden characters in it, making it undeleteable. I was able to use Deltree.exe to delete the file in DOS after removing the other files from the folder and just taking out the remaining folder with the one bad file in it. Failing everything else in my above list of things to try, I'd grab for the old BartsPE CD. I just love the challenge of "the non-removable file". There's no such thing, really. Good Luck, Andromeda

I blacklisted that program back in the last millenium when it started eating Seagate HD's all over the country. There was NO internet in those days (circa 1989), BUT, there was a very good network of Bulletin Boards among the dealers and techs of this country. (USA) The word went out accross the country that Norton's SpeedDisk was not compatible with the new Seagate HD's and data was being erased from those drives by speeddisk. On other brands of drives, Speeddisk seemed to be working OK. I stopped using speeddisk, just to be on the safe side and haven't touched it since! Central Point Software had a great package called "PC Tools" that had the "Compress" program in it. A really great defragmenter! I used that, till it showed up in MS under the name of "Defrag". The windows ME defrag has all the same characteristics as the standard 98 Defrag, but it runs about 10x faster and it's about 50 bytes smaller. Just like the 98 version, it will let you select to order the files to put the ones used most at the beginning of the hard drive, closest to the Directory. I've never seen the need to go any further than that. If for some perverted reason ( ) you wanted the hard drive ordered just the way the Windows Explorer displays the files (in alphabetical order, by folder) then do a Ghost backup followed by a Ghost Restore. Then your HD will be in perfect order. I do that all the time with my Windows XP hard drive (in FAT-32 mode, of course). Cheers!

How many open threads does it take to answer that one question. In this very forum there is one already open on "what's your favorite Firewall". vegettoxp, since you didn't do the do and tell us even what OS you're using, I can only say that if you keep all the malware off'n your PC you won't need anything more than the Default firewall that comes with windows. Of course, if you're running 98, 98/SE or ME, that's a different matter all together. Then you'd just as well get the FREE version of ZoneAlarm and set it up and be done with it. I install ZA, version 6 for all my customers who are too dumb or too lazy to keep their computer security software, which I give them for free, up to date and run their scans on a regular basis as I've trained them to do. I even give them a nice little booklet of instructions on how to run all the programs that I give them. I also give them AVG 7.1 FREE (anti-virus) which updates itself and runs a full scan once every day. At least, I don't have to worry about them getting a computer virus. Cheers Mates!

For a temperature monitor to work, it requires the installation of temperature pickups called "thermocouples". Now, if there are none installed in your vid card or mobo, there's no way in this world that you're going to monitor the temp of those things, unless you install the thermocouples yourself and hook them up to a monitor. My next question....where are they going to be put anyway? On a chip? Maybe Under a chip? On the board? So much to-do about temperature monitoring and it's a bunch of bull XXXX! If you can lay your finger on any component in your PC after it's been on for an hour and you get your finger burned, it's too hot. Unless you're a lab tech doing calibrated temperature measurements, the finger test is all you need. Save your time and money for something more constructive. Cheers!

Well put! You only need a heavy duty, two way, firewall if you run a "Dirty" machine. Keep the Malware off of your computer and the Windows Firewall will do you very nicely, thank you. That's all I use and all my logical ports are in full "Stealth" mode. My Anti Virus, Anti-Trojan and Anti-Spyware software does the rest. That's all ya need! Andromeda43

There are many aspects to any defrag. "How long does it take",,,seems to always get itself into the conversation. Then there's,,,,, "does it leave any unfragmented files, or empty spaces?" So many questions and I've got just one answer. "Ghost". I run "Ghost 2003" from a boot disk to completely take Windows out of the equation. On my FAT-32 formatted HD, I can run a cleanup batch file from my boot disk to delete the windows Pagefile, the old Restore points and all those junk files that windows likes to stash away in secret places. I gain just about 2 gigs of space by doing the cleanup first before running Ghost. On my SATA drive the backup only takes me four minutes. Then without even leaving the program, I do a Restore from the file I just created on my D: partition. That takes about five minutes. All my files are then written back to the HD in the same nice neat order they were put into the Ghost Image. So within ten minutes I've created myself a nice backup of my C: drive and performed the best Defrag ever. When I'm done, my drive looks like this: If anyone has a Defrag program that will do all that in less than ten minutes, I'll take a copy! Cheers Mates, Andromeda43 PS: I didn't even have to buy Ghost. It came as a bonus program on a SOHO motherboard CD.

Of course I could be wrong, but..... I was always under the impression that Windows 98 didn't have enough addressing bits to address 1 gig of ram. With that much ram, that system might be a good candidate for an upgrade to a newer OS. Just a thought. Thanks EMD for the tips. I've been using the ConservativeSwapfile thingy for years, but not the rest of it. Andromeda43 PS: EMD, is that a '57 Chevy convertable in your Avatar? That was my very first car....back in 1965. Watta car!

In poll after poll, ME always comes out on top, as the worse OS ever. If someone gives me a PC with ME on it, I either put it back to 98/SE or I upgrade it to XP, but I never leave it in ME. I might even just dismantle it for parts. Having said all that, I have to admit that there actually were some admirable attributes to ME. 1. It had a greatly improved Defrag program. 2. It would search a CD for a driver without you having to look for it. 3. The FDISK and Format commands in ME would set up a much larger HD than those of 98/SE. I used my ME boot disk to set up my new 160 gig SATA drive. If you're someone who messes around with hard drives or you just need to set up one over 40 gig's, then you should download my ME boot disk from My Download Webpage It's there in both floppy and CD formats. The floppy version is on a self extracting and running .exe file that will automaticly make a boot floppy for you. Floppy drive required! The CD version is an .iso file easily burned to a CD with Nero or any decent CD burning software. For a tech who still works on the older PC's, this is one of them "Must Have" things. I've put everything you need to set up and maintain a 98 or ME hard drive, on the one disk, with a neat little color menu. Look around the site. Take what you need,,,,,use what you take. Share with friends or colleagues. Happy Computing, Andromeda43

Sorry, Guys and Gals, Norton or even Symantec did NOT write Ghost! It was written way back in the mid 90's by "Ghostsoft, Inc." I was using their 30 day free trials back then, because their retail prices were totally out of reach. That's probably why they went bankrupt and sold their most excellent product to Symantec. I've been using Ghost 2003 now since I got it FREE on a SOHO mobo drivers CD. Some other mobo mfgrs have offered it as well as a free bonus. I like to think of it as being written by little grey guys from Andromeda or somesuch place, as it's "Out of This World" software. You can load the entire package on your HD and install it INTO Windows if you like, but that's not necessary. Why load your HD down with more software when you can just run it right off of a boot floppy or CD? All you really need is the "Ghost.exe" file on a bootable DOS disk. Several years back, I prepared such a disk with a nice little colored menu, using Ansi.sys. It works just as well for XP as it did (still does) for Windows 98 or ME. I've tweaked it some over the years but it's pretty much the way is was years ago. With menu driven batch files on that boot disk, I can totally clean up my HD before I actually run Ghost to do the Backup Image, which by the way, I can save to any other partition on my computer or burn directly to CD's or a DVD. It does all this without any special drivers being loaded. It's really phenominal! I can do a total backup of my C: drive and save it to my D: drive (all on my SATA HD) in just about four minutes. Burning to a DVD takes (of course) a bit longer. A huge added feature is that if I boot up with my floppy in A:, Ghost will offer to put it on the DVD as a boot sector. That makes the DVD a Bootable Restore Disk. It's way better than anything you'd ever get from a computer manufacturer, because it represents YOUR computer and not just a factory setup. A total sideline to making a Ghost backup with Ghost is that I can do an immediate Ghost restore for an effective DEFRAG better than any defrag program on the planet. All folders and files are rewritten to the HD in Perfect order, just the way they were placed in the Ghost Image file during the Backup process. After doing that, my HD looks like this. Ghost 2003 (full package) can be purchased from many Internet sources for as low as $6.95. However you aquire it,,,,the bottom line is that once you get it, start using it and make friends with it, you'll never have to worry about loosing your stuff EVER again. ( I still have Ghost Images on CD going back four years) Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear? (Happy Easter) Andromeda43 Watch what you say about where to get software... - Zxian

Would you care to define "backup activation"? Where is it located? I'm not a nube and don't mean to sound like one,,,,but I just don't understand what you're talking about. Sorry. Andromeda

NT (XP, 2k, NT) was written to be a Business system and never a HOME computer OS. So, security was of primary importance. Then MS in it's infinite wisdom decided to force it down the throats of the home user. (I guess they were just too lazy to fix the problems in 98) The little ol' granny who just wants to eMail her grandkids, is now stuck with a humongous Business system in her home computer. If the OS gets hosed, all the pictures of her grandkids and all the recipies she's saved are lost to her. And, to a good share of the Geeks (tech's) out there too. All those guys know how to do is run the restore disk that came with the PC, if there even was one, and there goes all of granny's STUFF. So, what is all this Security stuff about anyway. How does that help granny? Does it keep out the viruses, spyware or hackers.....Heck NO it don't. She still needs all the same protection software as if she had '98. I'm really getting sick of hearing all this "Security" crap, when talking about XP on a home computer. It's a bunch of bull xxxx! SO, just keep your whole computer (both partitions) in FAT-32 mode and it will run faster and be very fixable in case of trouble. Any half way decent tech can surely figger out how to boot up the PC with a boot floppy or CD and go in and fix things, remove bad files or access data for saving. I know I sure can! And stop telling people to get a second HD. Many (even most) computers today are made so cheaply that there isn't any place for a second HD and the stock PSU is too weak to properly power one anyway. Heck, I saw one PSU die when I added an extra case fan to the system. So, we're back to the original question of this thread.....about partitioning. You can go completely crazy with partitioning. But there's NO reason to. NO increase in efficiency is going to be seen from adding a partition to store your stuff. Leave the entire OS, programs and pagefile on C: and only store stuff you don't want to have to scan and defrag over and over again, on your D: partition. Recently, I installed MS Office on my 'puter. I did a custom install and put the program files on D:. It runs just fine from there and my scans and defrag won't be slowed down by that mass of files. I also do Ghost backups of my C: partition several times a week. I run it (Ghost) from a boot disk with a neat little menu that lets me do some cleanup on C: before I do the actual backup. I run several batch files to delete the pagefile, old restore points and of course all the temp files, etc. on the HD. Not possible with an NTFS drive. Then I run Ghost and do a 'quickie' backup to D: in just four (4) minutes, or I let Ghost burn the Image file directly to a DVD in about 30 minutes. In either case, that file is greatly reduced in size (almost 2 gigs) by my cleanup which can only be done on a FAT-32 formatted hard drive. When you have a Ghost image file on a DVD, you never need to worry about loosing ANYTHING! Let your HD go up in smoke and your data is still safe. At that point, how many partitions you had is pretty immaterial. Backing up several different partitions is a whole lot harder than just backing your C: drive. Keep at least the master copy of your data on C: Be Safe, Be Happy! Andromeda

If the old PC with ME on it is an upgrade from 98 or 98/SE, then it's very unlikely that it's powerfull enough to run XP. ME can be made to run much better than it does "out of the box". I do it all the time. I can just about double its efficiency. XP's a good OS, but uses several times the resources that ME uses. ME could run OK on 64 megs of ram, for instance. XP needs 256 just to get started, 512 to run decent and 1 gig to run at optimum. Think twice about installing XP on an ME or 98 machine. :cheers: Cheers mates, Andromeda

The biggest question I see there is "Do you have a Socket A processor?" You know, AMD doesn't make those any more. (old, out of date technology) Around here, anyway, those who have one for sale are asking twice the original price for them. You'd be better off with a newer Mobo that would take the new 64 bit socket 754 processor. Just a suggestion...... I have a beautiful AOpen socket A mobo, but no processor and I don't want to pay $200 + for a socket A chip. Good Luck, Andromeda

When I first installed Windows ME, years ago, I did a defrag after the upgrade and I was blown away by the speed of the ME Defrag program. Heck, it looked exactly like the old 98 defrag, but the Defrag.exe file is about 50 bytes smaller and the program runs about 10X faster. I guess some programmer at MS took out some of the redundancy. That program really had not changed since Windows 95 days. I have not looked at that site (sorry) but all too many help sites are exactly that.....Overwhelming! I've been to so many sites that give me a bad case of "Information Overload". I hope that I've been of some help here without creating any 'overload'. Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear? Andromeda