gosh

you can always run sfc /scannow, but that only replaces files missing, i believe, i dont believe it checks all files for corruption. -gosh

you can always try safe mode, install scripten.exe from microsoft.com, and follow that microsoft article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313853 -gosh

Did you right click on each device in device manager and disable them? One easy way to do this is with a new power profile. In the hardware tab you can make a new profile, then log into that and disable your hardware. When you're done you simply delete the power profile. -gosh

post your event logs, and in device manager disable devices and see if that fixes it. If it does, some devices has a setting such as "enable device to use power management features" or something under the tab for power management. -gosh

xp and server 2003's support tools comes with dvdburn.exe that let's you make dvd images for free, however to make a hard drive image you really need something like norton ghost. -gosh

When you press F6 to load drivers win2k only looks at your floppy, not a cd. i wonder if you're putting in the wrong driver floppy. -gosh

Everything you see in services.msc comes from the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\dmserver Is the key for logical disk manager. If you look at depend on service it says this: RpcSs PlugPlay So in services.msc you need to make sure these services are started and set to manual or automotic. -gosh

A GM kind of market by gosh I have heard many explanations about why the US markets are have been tanking, but one i haven't heard is the relation to GM's woa's and the US market. In 2001 the US economy was in recession, and with the terrorists attacks it seemed the concessious was the automakers were doomed. The market was flooded with used cars and people defaulted on loans and lost their jobs. Because of the hostile environment, GM offered lucrative promotions on there vehicles, such as 0% financing or $3000 cash back. These incentives coupled with 40 year low interest rates caused many people who were on the sidelines thinking about buying a car to buy a car (including me). The problem though is by "greasing the wheels" to increase demand, GM was sacraficing future growth. People who might have bought a GM vehicle in 2003 instead bought one in 2001 and 2002 because of the deals. This meant there would be less demand over the coming years. GM knew this at the time, but continued to offer steep discounts on there vehicles, because if they didn't sales would majorly drop because of lack of demand. The problem GM faced was they were producing too many vehicles and the only way to sell these vehicles was by sacraficing future demand. GM's union contract states that if they idle a plant, GM still has to pay all workers full wages, as if they had worked. This forced GM to overproduce to keep there plants going. All of this led GM to be dishonest to the public. They knew they were over producing and eating future demand, but they continued to do so because any admission of problems would cause the stock price to tank. Then in 2005 things climaxed. Things were so bad that GM was forced to announce the bad news. Lots of people were laid off, plants were closed. The stock hit 30 year lows. GM lost 12.8 billion in just 2005. The problem was GM had too much supply and was discounting there product too much, often at a loss. So GM closed plants, and ended (for the most part) steep discounts. And so far the plan has had some success. GM is making money again. Eventually demand will pick up and GM will be in good shape. I think GM's story mirrors the US market. In 2001 because of a recession and terrorist attack, interest rates were lowered to 40 year lows. This caused anyone who was thinking of buying a home to buy a home. The only problem was by 2003 interest rates started rising again, and future demand was eaten by the low interest rates. Instead of being honest about the problem and seeing there stock price plunge, the real estate sector bought growth by lowering standards to the people with the worst credit. These people didn't buy a house in 2003 because they couldn't afford it or because they had risky credit. This fueled the growth from 2003-2005. The real estate industry ran into the same problem as GM: by lowering standards and severly discounting the product and not addressing rising supply, the real estate industry grew at the expense at future growth. What we are seeing in the US market today is what GM experienced in 2005. The real estate companies are finally being honest and saying how bad things really are, because they have no choice. The bad news is there will be negative growth over the coming years, and real estate companies will have to stop giving mortgates to people with bad credit with no money down - the standards will have to be raised. No one can stay in business by flooding the market with severly discounted product. You have to reduce supply, you have to decrease promotions. However, there is a bright spot. Many people are just refusing to buy anything with "real estate" in it, but i think that's a mistake. Just like foreign auto makers made money in 2005 (such as Toyota) when GM was losing $12.8 billion, there are going to be companies today making money while other lenders go bankrupt. The market panic really opens up opportunities if you'll willing to see not all real estate is created equal. I've been putting my money into health care REIT's. REIT's have alternate sources of funding other than banks. The whole point of a REIT is to get financing when the real estate market is bad. Also, health care REIT's typically don't invest in residential housing. They invest in commercial and retirement homes. Commercial real estate hasn't seen a major drop, and retirement homes have a lot of room to grow. Commercial real estate should be unaffected by subprime. Next year baby boomers will become eligible for social security. I think you'll see a huge demand for retirement homes that health care REIT's have. There's a lot of potential. The REIT i like is HCP. It has a market cap of $5 billion, making it one of the biggest. This size advantage will allow HCP to be able to pounce on any opportunities that come up. There's a chance interest rates will come down soon, usually that benefits real estate. It's size also makes it more liquid, since most health care REIT's have market caps at $1 billion. HCP will be around long after other health care REIT's go bankrupt. It's price has also come down about 20-30% during this correction, limiting the risk. And let's face it: no matter what state the economy is in, old people need retirement homes. (I own shares in HCP in case you didn't notice, i also own PFE) So that is gosh's take. It'll take a couple years for demand to get back to historic levels for real estate, just like it took GM 2 years to get back to profitibility. There will be a lot of pain as companies go bankrupt and good people lose there jobs, just like Gm downsizing plants. However, not all real estate is created equal, just like not all car companies are the same. Everyone is avoiding real estate stocks like the plague; there has to be money made in investing in the right company. -go$h

one other idea i had was to reinstall com. you can do this by editing sysoc.inf, removing the hide from com=comsetup.dll,OcEntry,comnt5.inf,hide,7 Then use add/remove windows components and uncheck and check it to reinstall com Another possible option is to reset the default permissions using setup security.inf, which is a dynamic file created by xp setup. http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/dsss/docs/acls3.shtml microsoft does email support, you can try that. -gosh

What you need to do is do linear troubleshooting instead of jumping all around the place. Go into safe mode, is everything ok there? If so, use msconfig and do a clean boot. Does that work? If so use msconfig to narrow down the problem. If msconfig doesn't work go into device manager and disable devices, if that works use devman to narrow down which device is causing the problem. the boot log only works if a service is causing windows to hang and msconfig doesn't work. The bootlog isn't too helpful because it sometimes lists drivers loading after the problem driver. -gosh

By default the administrator account will be hidden on the welcome screen, you can change that with tweakui which modifies a registry key under winlogon. But a simplier resolution is simply press ctrl+alt+del twice, thatll bring up the classic logon screen, just simply type in administrator for the user name and you can log on. -gosh

anything you see at the welcome screen (ctr+alt+del, also known as the SAS - secure attention sequence) is from the default user hive. You could simply edit hkey_users\.default -gosh

just go to computer management > users and groups > right click on user > select rename (for xp pro, for xp home use the net user command) -gosh

What do you mean? When you go into dxdiag.exe is it reporting version 8.1? Even if you install the latest version of dx it'll still have older file versions. -gosh

It sounds like you're talking about oobe, which you can customize using oobeinfo.ini i believe. Ref.chm included in the support tools documents all this. -gosh

Using a retail cd on an oem copy is a very bad idea. The oem is free to make as many customizations as it wants before it ships the computer, such as including non public hotfixes. Also, OEM's use a special oembios.bin to auto activate your copy of xp using your bios. You have a real possiblity of breaking activation mixing versions, i've seen it before. You'll need a retail key for a retail cd because pidgen.dll is different for OEM and retail. You will need to modify setupp.ini because that specifies what kind of version you are using (upgrade, full, oem). Your best bet is to get a retail cd and retail product key then clean install, or get an oem cd and oem product key and clean install. -gosh

You can just make your own unattend file. In the i386 folder is unattend.txt that has a reference. Ref.chm has the command lines. Are you clicking on next on each option in setupmgr, or are you skipping around? Make sure you're using the latest version of setupmgr.exe included in the deploy.cab in the support tools. When ms releases a service pack they also update the deploy tools. -gosh

the f2 option is stored in setupreg.hiv, which is a registry hive. You can load the hive in regedit and possibly modify it, but i've never done that. -gosh

Disable browser extensions in inetcpl.cpl, do a clean boot with msconfig, since you have a router you can try safe mode w/ networking. -gosh

Are you checking system in event viewer (or whatever vista calls the logs)? A blue screen would be logged under system. If a computer overheats it will randomly restart, could be unrelated to vista. Do you have the latest bios available? -gosh

There shouldn't be. I have money 2006, last week i installed money 2008 as a free trial download from microsoft's website and all went smoothly. What i would recommend is copy/backup the .mny file to another location to save. -gosh

couldn't you just remove format.com from windows\system32? Opening format.com in notepad i see it depends on these files: ulib.dll ifsutil.dll What happens if you remove these files? Does format run or does it give a dependancy error? The question in my mind is if disk management calls a file or an api. If it calls an api the best method might be to hide the drive letter as discussed. -gosh

Try a new profile, sounds like registry corruption. Have you tried reinstalling wmp? Nothing in event viewer? -gosh

your problem is with txtsetup.sif, very simply it's not finding the ident file, which is something on the root of the cd with a name like winip or winip.sp1. -gosh

enable active desktop -gosh