MrGuy

You should pick up a PC Headset switch. Plantronics makes a nice one I've been able to get on ebay for under $20. I've got about 6 of them so far and they're really nice. It connects to your sound card speaker out and mic in, then you plug your speakers into the back of the switch, then your headset plugs into the switch box. There's a button on top to toggle between speakers and headset.

Well if you don't mind spending over one hundred dollars, I'd pick up a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 or 4 with a "breakout box." It's an external box that connects to the back of the sound card and you can place it on your table top. It has a lot of connectors, most importantly, a mic and headphone connector with volume controls at your finger tips. Another bonus is firewire connectors. It's real handy being able to plug a firewire media device to a box on your desk.

What's the story on these two PC's? Are they the same hardware type, new OS installations, barebone kit purchases... ? I've experienced this situation with a couple of barebone kits (biostar board with an amd xp3000+ cpu). Turns out one had a bad board and the other a bad power supply.

Does your HD have two partitions now? I'm not familiar with gateway recovery discs, sounds like a customized disc. If you had a XP OEM disk, you could get to the installation, repair, re-installation area of setup. Then you would have partition options for installation.

Aha I've found the solution thanks to Vernalex.com, they replied to my email inquiry the same day. If you want to install Office 2003 and have it prompt you for cd-key and activation after using Sysprep here's what you have to do: Use regedit and remove the product code at this location: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration\{90110409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9} (This example is for Office 2003, other versions will be slightly different but you should still easily be able to find the code) Once this is removed the next time you execute any office application it will prompt you for name, cd-key and activation. This works great, my reference drive for duplication is now complete. Guy

Seems I've found an answer to my question: Sysprep does not configure a pre-installation of Office. You need a MS Office (version) OEM Pre-installation Kit (OPK) to have office activated after you run Sysprep.

Hi, Not sure if this is the correct topic area but it's the closest I can find. I've been using MS Sysprep in Windows XP to prepare PC's going out to our various sites. It's a wonderful time saver. I can install all our applications on a reference drive, get updates, and tweak the OS and then duplicate this drive. My build time is reduced from 2-3 hours down to 20 minutes. The PC's are from IBM/Lenovo and have XP and Office 2003 pre-installed. When you first execute any office application it prompts you for the cd-key and activation (it's already installed--it just wants the activation information). Sysprep does this process for XP when you first boot but I'm wondering how they configured Office to prompt you for cd-key and activation? Thanks, Guy

I've tried a lot of preventative and sweeping utilities: Adaware Stopzilla Spysweeper BHODemon CWShredder IESpyad SpySweeper Spybot S&D MSAS Spoofstick Spyware Guard Spyware Blaster What I'm using now is Spybot, Adaware, and MSAS along with Norton Firewall. I thought Spysweeper did a really good job except it delayed my boot up and the scan took a long time. I've heard good things about CCleaner and plan on purchasing that this week. I'm kind of suprised at how well Norton Firewall is working out--it's much better that Microsu** Firewall and eliminates a good deal of stuff that I needed all these utilities for in the first place.

Are your *.pst files being stored on a server or are they on the actual PC's, if they are on a server you should be able to specify a storage limit for each user. If can be setup to notify system administrator.

Need a little bit more information: What is outlook actually doing? Can you access your inbox, contacts...? Is your system refreshing in outlook only?

Hi, Recently upgraded a user from officeXP to Office 2003 Small Business Edition. I set up her data file (outlook.pst) in Outlook and everything seemed fine until I tried to access contacts using the "To" button in the compose new mail interface. When I select "To" the dialog box comes up, I can "show names from" "address book" or"contacts" but my names do not appear. In office XP I could fix this problem by right clicking on the contacts icon to get to properties and by creating a new contacts heading. Well I can't figure out how to configure it in this version. Basically the contacts are there but when you try and access them in the compose interface they won't appear in select names dialog box. I'd appreciate any assistance you could offer. MrGuy