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2nd this... the button MS provided is fine, just don't like where it goes to I dont't think you understand me. Instead of windows 7 orb for example can we have the one that 8.1 already has and opens the start menu? I am just saying if startisback has a way to use the BUTTON that 8.1 came with instead of another orb. Yeah that's what I meant, I understood you perfectly,..

2nd this... the button MS provided is fine, just don't like where it goes to

Hi, I just thought as I've been testing this recently that like in Windows 7, could this software detect the use of remote desktop (and the visual settings for it) so that it automatically disables aero glass when RDP is used? Otherwise with it enabled, using RDP over the internet uses too much bandwidth which makes the whole experience quite slow. Thanks

+1 I agree that should be an option, initially you may want any 3rd party code disabled, but also the familiarity when troubleshooting is also something that can really help...

Hi, I work in the IT department for a company, which is on the brink of changing from a family run small business ethos, into a more corporate structure, and I am trying to fight the battle, where the MD thinks he knows best about everything and should also be buying everything including all computer equipment whilst barely even involving me in those decisions (he think's he can save pennys if he does everything himself). I'm gradually converting him over to the way larger companies would work in this instance. The biggest problem I've had and still have when he just goes off buying what he thinks a customer needs (or his business needs) is that he would just go to any shop buy any old PC with obviously either XP home a few months back, and now vista home premium (as that's what shops tend to sell to the public). Obviously these have limitations when it comes to business features like joining our domain etc. Is there a quick and easy way (for instance like any time upgrade) to just pay a small sum of money to convert home premium to business edition? Without having to go off and buy a whole new OS license again? Thanks

Or you could just press down the ALT key to get the menu to appear temporarily and this also works in all windows where there used to be a menu (IE, explorer etc), I think it's a really cool thing, cos it takes up screen space most of the time, and you dont want it most of the time either, so press ALT when you do, it's neat

You can have up to 4Gb on a 32bit system, however the issue arrises when you do put 4Gb on a 32bit system in that other resources also make use of the address space, and you have no control over this. So what tends to happen is you end up with about 3.2Gb of usable memory or there abouts, so you still have more than you would from just 3Gb (most of the time). If I were you I'd do what I did with mine, and had 2 sticks of 1Gb paired up and 2 sticks of 512mb paired up, that way you pretty much get all the memory you've paid for and it's still more than most home users currently need.

Well i'm using it right now, but I dont like it much, gave it a couple months to get time to get used to it etc, but it definately has stability issues, and I really hate DRM. It is ok to use on a day to day basis, like web browsing or email etc, dont get the point of the search thing personally I know where all my stuff is, and for the odd thing i forgot then XP's search was adequate... Drivers are a pain, I have a soundmax onboard sound card, and my god that does not like to work very well, I cant play audio cd's in windows media player (but can in everything else), playing movies in media player then pausing them kills audio as well requiring to restart part of the new audio stack, half the time codecs just wont play stuff, or crash things.... I know a lot of that is down to drivers/codecs, but doesnt stop it being very annoying, so I do agree that give it a try once SP1 is out but stick with XP for the time being... Though if I had my way, I'd be saying use linux and dump microsoft (but i know that's not always practical, especially for gamers, however linux probably handles my hardware 10 times better than vista does now, although maybe not quite as well as XP, although close) To be honest with you I personally think this is another WinME flop, though time will tell, and MS have listened to the music/movie industries far too much and not to the customer.

Ooo very nice, just the other day I was thinking about something along these lines, then I see this post! Brilliant script!

hrm oh well if that's the case i dont think i'll be using their sidebar, i was hoping that would be the one thing it did better than the competition, but seeing it doesnt, everything else about the side bar is poo, may as well just continue using samurize or something... thing is, i understand what the other poster was saying about it's by design and that it is another window, but, kde doesnt do that with karumba, that program rules, it sticks perfectly to the desktop even when u press the show desktop button, i was hoping for something along those lines, all in all after playing with so many builds of vista, i am incredibly disapointed, and actually prefer XP... dont think i'll be giving microsoft quarter of my months wages just for that!

Why not enable the option to keep the Sidebar on top of other windows in the properties then? You really should look before complaining However, my grumble now, is that why the hell is the sidebar transparent on Glass-Incompatible gfx cards? I'm on a i915 and if I enable sidebar-on-top my sidebar becomes blocky, but it's still see-through (I can move windows behind it and see them). Half-assed glass is worse than no-glass at all Hey i do know about that option, so dont go saying i dont look, i dont want it on top of other windows at all, I want it underneith all of them and STUCK to the desktop so it wont minimize like it's just another standard window...

wow 128 builds since RC1, and that's all they manage? the **** sidebar still minimizes when u press show desktop, that's what I wanted fixing, it seems to have also stopped working with free avg (not completely but windows defender seems to not like the resident shield, and I cant see a way to get it to like it - edit: ok on closer inspection it fails upon loading the drivers, so it is vista, and not defender). bit disappointing this release really....

Only a couple so far, mainly when my epson rx620 crashes, but that's more an epson issue really cos they havent released vista drivers, i might also complain that the sidebar in a previous build used to stick to the desktop, so even when u press show desktop it still stays there, which i liked, but in RC1 that's gone, which is annoying!

....Are you saying we're supposed reach deep into our pcoket book and give microsoft good,hard erned money so they can make 3rd rate software that crashes on first use?The Only reason I use Windows 98se is not becasue its good on my PC...Windows XP has problems...deep Deep issues that can only be adressed by downloading 200-300MB of fixes they "forgot to update".And you're blaming ppl like us for asking microsoft too much by telling them to make their products more stable?Well if so,here is a message to Microsoft and ppl like YOU!...If you really wana force people into Windows XP then I suggest you clean up your act(and OS) I'm not saying that at all, it's your computer do whatever you like with it, i couldnt give a monkeys what OS you use, what I am saying is that Microsoft also dont care about windows 98 anymore, and why should they?? It's worthless to them now, and my point about the licenses are, that that is the legal reason they dont have to make a product that works fully - but to actually answer your point, there's nothing wrong with XP at all, it's stable as anything, i've never had it crash in the 5 years i've had it, well in actual fact it did crash once but that was when i had a faulty memory module, so that's hardly XP's fault. (Yes ok there's the odd security problem, or bug here and there which gets patched when it's found, but it's nothing to write home about if u use decent protection from spyware and viruses etc). But basically for a business to work and to make money, they have to look forward not back to the dark ages - i've got nothing against win98 it was fine 8 years ago, and all i'm saying is, there's no point keeping it up to date anymore especially just to keep people like urself happy who dont give anything back to Microsoft anyways, so why would they care about that portion of the market whom arent really a market at all cos they dont buy anything?

There's a really really really simple answer to all this stuff about microsoft not supporting win98 anymore..... it's this: MONEY You guys dont give Microsoft anything, didly squat, wtf would ANYONE in their right mind continue to support and PAY for people to test and write patches for stuff so ancient, for a bunch of people who dont give them anything in return? It doesnt make good business sense at all. In 2004, they may have thought to keep u lot happy so perhaps u'll want to upgrade to vista, but none of u do, so why would they bother? And if u think it's wrong that they release buggy software, well every software in the world is buggy, there tends to be on average 1 bug per every 100 lines of code (and not just from microsoft, in linux or any other software too), win98 contains millions of lines of code, also, u didnt buy windows 98, u bought a license to use it, which is why it doesnt have to be perfect.

Ok I'm not taking anything back, it's still crap

Think u could probably do that with group policy for the users on ur AD. Though i think what they actually meant rather than internet, is internet explorer so the web - Run gpedit.msc then goto Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Software Restriction Policies

Yep tried outpost, tried kaspersky (which was complete and utter crap btw), had the same "interfaces" problem described originally, had next to no options, and although I tried this program a few months ago I *think* i recall that you either allowed net access or not, not server or client access etc... Outpost is ok, but buggy atm, that would be my second choice, although it has the problem of needing an expert rule for every program u want to have some access etc... Also the interface isnt the best... I'm not leaving any ports wide open, cos atm, i'm running a hardware firewall, and windows firewall so nothing can come in, I just have no outgoing protection right now, except for antivirus and antispyware etc. Nice to see though that I'm not the only one who thinks the current state of firewall software is pretty abismal!

Checkpoint is the company that owns ZA is it not? Not sure if i'd trust another firewall by the same company if they cant even get the "simpler" desktop version to work correctly. I know what you mean though, i administer cisco pix's and routers at work, if that's the kind of thing u were on about, and no I dont think I need a firewall like that for home use, for home use I want simplicity.

Hi, As the topic says, why is it every single software firewall out there is complete crap?? I have been testing almost EVERY firewall I can find on the internet today for the past few months and ALL of them are crap. Each one of them has a few nice features, but most of them are unusable on a daily basis. Yes they all block leak tests and stealth my ports, big deal is that the only thing firewall makers are interested in? How about the UI?? 99% of all firewalls out there dont even use a trusted zone on layer 3, what good is it when you have a router to the internet in selecting your network card as either trusted or untrusted? Completely pointless, cos all LAN and Internet traffic goes out and in via the same interface. Why arent they doing it via the subnet? About the only firewall that does that is ZA. What about Norton?? Well the UI for that is all over the place, it wasn't intuitive at all plus it's just bloatware. Tiny, and Outpost are just too complex for a home system, yes i could spend all day configuring all the options and expert rules, but why?? These along with 90% of all other firewalls either have a "create a custom rule option" OR, "allow full access". What about denying all outbound access and allowing inbound or vice versa?? Kerio was ok, but suffered from the interface problem described above. The only firewall really although it suffers from being a bit bloaty, that does everything i've described is ZA. But ZA is FULL of bugs, it cant get anything right, the installer hangs for 10 minutes trying to install it, most of the system tray icons disappear with it running, u cant use ebay properly cos it blocks something ebay uses. And what about trying to give svchost.exe internet server rights (perhaps for allowing remote desktop to any user) well that doesnt do anything, ZA just ignores the option you set. How about allowing port 3389 through the internet zone options? Well that works for an hour or so, before again ZA seems to get stuck in a memory leak, and freezes when RDP'ing in after only a few seconds. And what about all the magazines that rate norton and ZA so highly as well???? Have they not even used the buggy and bloaty software? All they seem to do is ask "does the interface look pretty?" and "does it block steve gibsons leak test?" well they both do so they must be our editors pick. Why cant software companies just develop a good firewall?? Anyways, rant over, just getting fed up with the firewall arena, and wanted a place to let off some steam

As the title says, only just installed it myself, but thought other members might want to give it a go.

I chose 9 cos i hate DRM with a passion, and who on earth wants mp3 encoding in a video/music player - there are rippers out there that ignore DRM.

I would say it's best to be safe, software firewalls can help if you accidently run a trojan or something. I have a router with built in SPI+NAT firewall, plus DoS protection. However for some of the things I do, certain ports need forwarding to my internal network, also I let upnp configure some ports on the router as well. So although my router blocks 99.9% of incoming stuff, there's still a little bit that can get through, which is then caught by my software firewall, which monitors both outgoing and incoming, and can be far better configured to make those open ports very secure.

Hrm dont care about macs, they suck, but i'm pretty sure i read an article about linux and all that TC stuff a few months ago, saying they were boycotting it, unless they have now changed their mind. Also I never use ms office, i use openoffice. And I'm thinking more along the lines of mp3z etc, which luckily i can still use an old ripper for which doesnt know about DRM. Also in reference to your other reply, why on earth do you want those things? Also if you read my response carefully I never said 3rd party apps can do EVERYTHING vista can, just the usefull things. WinFS although I personnally cannot see any use for (how often do you really search your files? If you have to do it often enough to warrent that, then you have a very short term memory - no offence is intended by that, but that's all WinFS was made for, for faster searching); anyway, as I said winfs will be included as an upgrade for XP anyway. And you use IE? Ok fair enough, but even so IE7 will be available in XP as well, not quite sure if this is what you meant by the sandbox thing, unless you're on about removing IE completely from the OS, which then yes I agree that's something you cannot do right now. Does it really matter that much, imo not really, but if it does to you - then I did also say that vista will have a few positive's, just nothing worth spending the money on. And high fidelity graphics?? Jees, (again not intended at you) but how far do graphics companies want to go? My 160 quid (about 250 dollars) TV displays a perfect picture, my LCD monitor which is 18 months old or so, displays a perfect display, why do I want high fidelity graphics? I can see a point in getting better and better graphics cards, so my gaming becomes more like photo realism, however you dont need a better monitor for that, monitors can already display well beyond what the eye can actually see. So again, a pointless technology - now normally I love new technology, but some of the stuff recently seems like it's only being brought out, simply cos they think it's cool, and they CAN do it - doesnt mean they should, cos most of it's pointless.

Well the reasons for not switching to vista are quite vast... firstly XP is very reliable, and a solid OS, that runs everything you need/want very well - any new techs next year will be included in SP3. Also SP3 will include all the good bits that VISTA would bring, including things like winfs (which isnt even included in the final vista). What else will vista bring? Well apparently it's going to bring a lot more graphics in the OS itself, which can only use more resources. I dont want a transparent taskbar thanks. Besides everything vista will be bringing as positives will be included in XP SP3, OR if you do need them, can be accomplished with 3rd party apps. Also, vista will bring in TC and DRM.... well when that's in the OS, there's not much point even using the computer anymore (well at least for me ). So all it does is keep the MPAA happy, uses far more resources, and has nothing of value in it, that wont be brought into XP. So what's the point?? Oh and also to answer the people who think that everyone eventually upgraded to win2k or XP over win98, when they thought at the time that win98 was fine, and didnt eat up all ur resources. Well back then, there was actually a real need for win2k and XP. They introduced full 32bit kernels, and a lot more stability, plus the advanced features that IT Pros like from the NT series. 98 was crap, it was a GUI built on top of DOS. Vista doesnt have the same kinds of improvements.