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Win32s is 32-bit. Windows 3.1 doesn't support FAT32 out of the box, but that can be fixed.

Thanks. You showed me a new *useful* word... pebkac

I link it here as I did not know what it was. It refers to the problem existing between keyboard and chair.

So true.

http://www.computing.net/answers/security/rapport-security-software-avoid-using-it/28295.html

...many believe it's not intended to be uninstalled.

*Wonders if it leaves any back doors open*

http://www.computing.net/answers/security/rapport-security-software-avoid-using-it/28295.html

This product is to be avoided at all costs...if anyone is still having problems, I have managed to switch it off and uninstall it, altho' the Rapport/Trusteer team clearly did not want to help, and many believe it's not intended to be uninstalled.

"Dropping $300 on every processor generation Intel makes is a waste of money. If you got that much to spend, buy a more expensive CPU and keep it a generation or two longer. It not like it goes broke just because it's not the newest toy anymore, you know."

True, but why do I need to buy a new motherboard too? LGA 775 lasted from 2.6ghz Pentium 4s until 3ghz Core 2 Quads. Socket 939 came out in 2004 and was used from 1ghz Athlon 64s to 3.2ghz dual-core Athlon 64 X2. These sockets lasted through several CPU generations without change.

My real complaint is Windows Product Activation freaks out when you install a new motherboard. more more. I've lost more data changing motherboards than I have changing CPUs, hard drives, video cards or all other hardware combined. Upgrading a motherboard is an all day process, since I have to dig the old motherboard out and put the new board in and deal with Windows issues and drivers.

Swapping out a CPU is as simple as popping off the heatsink and changing cpus.

"Hurray, you belong to 1% of the market. "

great statistic, where exactly did you get that 1% from? Do you seriously think only 1% of PC users dislike upgrading motherboards?

In fact can anyone think of anything technically innovative that Microsoft ever put their name on, that wasn't originally bought, copied, 'embraced', assimilated, or blatantly stolen from some other company? I can't.

For those wanting a reference, the article "Microsoft, the Innovator?", Mar. 2001 by David Wheeler would seem to agree with your assertion, as does Microsoft: Hall of Innovation (not original link - original article seems to have been taken down). Both generally accord with my personal recollection.

Nope. Windows firewall runs by default on XP SP2, if you'll recall. I did NOT disable the firewall. 100% clean install, all default values, nothing changed. I installed Avast before connecting, and ten minutes later, the connection slowed to a crawl. Another few minutes, Avast alarmed out over infections, but failed to clean them.

No bullshit.

http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/bizarre-virus-after-fresh-install/80205.html

It WAS a dialup connection, so there was no hardware firewall, just Windows own software firewall. On my own machines, under the same circumstances, I would have installed Tiny Firewall, but I was unwilling to "pirate" Tiny for a third party.

Interesting, I never heard of anyone using DeBug like that, how'd you do it?

I wrote most of the FAQ for Computing.net forever ago:

http://www.computing.net/faq/contentdos/badsector.html

I think its been close to 15 years ago now... Little things you put out of your mind until someone brings them back up. Strange to see what a following my work has gotten these days.

There are a variety of USB drivers for DOS.

The "Disk Operating System" (so named to keep the Win9x noobs in their proper forums) section of the computing.net forums has plenty of info for the searching.

http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

That would only work if you slipstreamed SP4 before copying and TrueImage supports 48 bit LBA.

And SP4 does need EnableBigLBA

http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/65067.html

So you'd need to install SP4 and set this before imaging. Win2k was a bit funky too - if the Bios didn't report the 48bit LBA disk capacity it would only see 137GB. So if anything went wrong the disk would become corrupt soon after moving to the 250GB drive since 48 bit LBA wasn't enabled. On Windows XP (no SP1) with a 300GB drive I installed to a 137GB partition - the max I could create during installation - then installed SP1 to enable 48 bit LBA and then created a second 'data' partition in the 163GB of unallocated space that then appeared.

Wow! Nice informative links, and well thought out arguments. I guess my real world experiences of not being able to play a turn based game without choppy and distorted graphics on a Toshiba P205-S6337 are completely imaginary.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7813_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=237419&messageID=2424465

http://www.computing.net/gaming/wwwboard/forum/8832.html

http://forums.filefront.com/company-heroes-general-discussion/301188-why-game-slow-my-comp.html

Oh what the hell, just google games are slow on vista and see the 10+ pages of returns.

The National Archive is required to maintain a copy of every newspaper, magazine or journal published in the UK. In many cases, some magazines came with floppy disks, and CD-ROM's containing programs, data and applications submitted by users.
This is the case, especially with computer magazines. Sensible publishers will have used self unpacking executables and/or the ZIP format.

Finding a device to read floppy disks and CD-ROM's is straightforward enough. But trying to find the relevant application which runs on current hardware may be a problem.

Here's a typical story
Looking for Fastback Plus

OK, first, it doesn't look like anyone from Apple has recommended that everyone using Nortel VPN clients simply set a default host and be done with it. This is a user discussion. Maybe some of those people are Apple employees, but I didn't notice anything telling me that they were. Second, the more appropriate solution would probably a be a port trigger, which the new base station supports. I don't use Nortel VPN, and my Cisco VPN is working fine with my new Extreme, but this thread seems to imply that a simple port trigger fixed the exact same issue for Linksys users. Hopefully that will help.

OK, if you can boot from a thumb drive but not your external hdd it is a formatting problem. Take a look at this and try the hp usb image tool. I think that's what I used when I formatted my external hdd to be bootable.

And I've got news for you if you think Canon printer drivers are going to be any better than the experience you've had...

Which experiance; Dell or HP?

I was under the impression that Cannon printers were used on Apple computers and such unlike the Dell which are Windows only.

I just jumped over to Cannon's website and picked a random model and went to driver downloads. The i950 has these drivers ready for download.

                    Add-on Module for Printer Driver (Windows Vista/Vista64)
        2006-12
                  i950 v1.62a Printer Driver for Windows XP

                  i950 v1.62a Printer Driver for Windows 2000

                  i950 v7.40 Printer Driver for Windows Me

                  i950 v7.40 Printer Driver for Windows 98

                  i950 v4.14 Printer Driver for Mac OS 8.6 - 9.x

                  i950 Printer Driver Ver. 4.1.9 (Mac OS X)
        2007-01

You must be talking about the HP.. It was only the Dell that was limited to two versions of Windows.
Cannon has supprt for Mac and most older versions of Windows. Only 95 and 3.x do not have support.

If you want to use this Cannon on linux a Google search bring up this;

http://www.turboprint.info/printers.html
The supported list includes the i950 picked out from random for testing.

Now try to find a linux print driver for a Dell Printer.

I come up with this.
"I just bought a dell laptop from dell.com and it came with a free printer. the printer is a dell 720 (color inkjet), but i cannot find any driver for it. is there anyways to make it work? i do not need to do any fancy thing, i just want it to print in colors and i would be happy."

http://www.computing.net/linux/wwwboard/forum/2639 4.html

The reply is very helpful.
"Dell printers are junk. Here's why:
1. Dell repackages Lexmark printers and sells them as Dell's
2. Lexmark printers are absolute garbage
3. Dell modifies the print cartridge bays so ONLY Dell cartridges will work
4. You can ONLY buy Dell print cartridges online, and for overpriced sums. Then you have to wait while they're shipped to you for extravagant shipping costs."

Any questions?
I have not heard these complaints for Cannon printers which is why I am considering one of them.

There's been something fishy going on at nVidia for a while.

One is nVidia's policy that *they* don't support nVidia techology; the OEMs do. They tell you if you have problems to contact your OEM. Now Apple is a big company and could conceivably do this, but many nVidia cards are made by small OEMs who slap electronics on a board and sell it. Are they going to help you with a crashing nVidia driver. And when you follow the link on the nVidia to their OEM "support partners", this is what you get:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_support.html "Page not found"

nVidia has gone so far to shut down the feedback page on their website: It says "This module is still under construction." You really believe nobody at nVidia knows how to make a web feedback page?

There's a long running bug in nVidia drivers known as the nv4_disp bug. You'll be typing away on your PC, then suddenly your monitor goes blank. A few seconds later, your PC power down. This was happening to me and I though it was some perculiarity with my PC. It turns out, this is affecting a lot of people, and it has been around for many years. nVidia know about it (they mention it in passing on one of their forums), but haven't fixed it. Windows BSOD diagnoses it as an infinite loop "device driver programming error." Independently some skilled owners worked out it was a timing problem with how nVidia writes to an I/O register. If you're lucky this bug will hit you only once a week. If you're unlucky, several times a day. THIS HAS BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS, yet nVidia won't fix this damned thing!

Want to see how widespread the problem is? Google for nv4_disp. The owner of this web page says he's amazed how many hits this page gets, and theorises a lot of people are affected:

http://s13.invisionfree.com/nv4_disp/index.php?sho wtopic=10
http://byronmiller.typepad.com/byronmiller/2005/10 /stupid_windows_.html
http://www.computing.net/drivers/wwwboard/forum/49 55.html
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/nvidia-nv 4disp-problem/
http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread27150-1.html
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread18930. html

The most frustating thing is that nVidia do everything they can to put you off. A "under construcion" feedback page. The fob-off to their partners, with a support page that doesn't even exist. Ignored e-mail. Ignored forum questions.

One solution is of course to buy an ATI card, but if you're paid hundreds of bucks for an nVidia card, what do you do? Does anyone know how we can make nVidia fix this damned thing?

Nonsense. I've seen IE spit out 404-pages, even though Firefox had no problem accessing the interweb.

Often, when I've seen badly infested systems, the first thing I'll do is put firefox on there via-CD, so that I can get to the web. Network connectivity, check. Google pingable, check. IE? 404 not found on everything; including local 127.0.0.1 pages! Firefox solved the problem.

Here's an anacdotal report from Google, but I'd like to stress that I've seen this personally.

1. Drivers - Windows 2000/XP uses a different architecture for drivers.
2. Anything requiring direct hardware access. Windows 2000/XP requires all programs to use drivers and kills off programs that attempt direct hardware access.
3. DOS programs. Sound emulation for cmd.exe is iffy. Combined with the previous point, DOS programs are hit or miss. DOSBox is your friend in both *nix and Windows.
4. Programs that explicitly look for NT DLLs and refuse to run if they are located

Even though I only mentioned compatibility back to Windows 3.1, I mentioned DOS here because Theme Park is a DOS program.

On top of that, you can search for drivers for hardware. Google turned up something when I searched for Miro. It may help, or it may not. I can't tell, because I don't know which Miro model you have.

The other day I spent over an hour fixing a friend's computer. She couldn't visit secure sites with IE. To help me determine if the problem was with IE itself or the system's networking in general, I downloaded Firefox, and it couldn't get online at all. A little googling showed me the problem was due to Norton Internet Security being fucked up. Learning that, I had to jump through many hoops to uninstall it.

Fuck Symantec.

Symlinks can also be referred to as softlinks. They can be created across filesystems.

http://www.computing.net/solaris/wwwboard/forum/42 12.html

Yeah. Cause that proves a lot. Look at all the people who've had problems installing various Linux distros. They must all suck too! *rolls eyes*

You can play HL2 in offline mode without steam calling the mothership. You can even play without any internet connection whatsoever. Once you've validated once, it's yours.

If oyu don't connect to Steam, the game will not be updated.

Steam also includes a backup feature that you can use, but it's easier to just burn the game directory to DVD. If you accidentally let steam update, you can restore the backup.

You can play HL2 in offline mode without steam calling the mothership. You can even play without any internet connection whatsoever. Once you've validated once, it's yours.

Steam also includes a backup feature that you can use, but it's easier to just burn the game directory to DVD.

So, there you go. Get crackin -- it's worth it.

you must be *connected* to Steam. Or your dead-tree package doesn't work

FUD you. You can play HL2 in offline mode without steam calling the mothership. You can even play without any internet connection whatsoever.

Activation is only required once. And even that can be bypassed.

You can play HL2 in offline mode without steam calling the mothership. You can even play without any internet connection whatsoever.

Actually, dell did write that, and it's a free download from the dell ftp servers.

I pressed F8, selected the menu item, "Disable automatic restart on system failure", which let me see a blue screen with a rather generic message saying:
STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error} The Windows SubSystem system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000005 (0x7ffe0297 0x0015fab8). The system has been shut down.

I disabled Date Execution Prevention (DEP) by editing boot.ini with emacs under Knoppix and added /NoExecute=AlwaysOff This had no visible effect.

This link smugly claims to have a solution if I fork out $10 US on the VISA card.

After a multitude of reboots and selecting Debugging and Safe mode, found that it was getting stuck at Mup.sys. That, presumably, is a critical component of the Muppet system :-).

In the recovery console, I used the command:
disable mup
but this did not change the behaviour in any useful way that I could see.

I also disabled and reenabled many drivers loaded before Mup.sys. No visible effect.

Selecting "Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)" had no visible effect; the machine still rebooted after about 5 seconds.

Googling led to many blind alleys, but I am still unable to boot the machine to XP, except with the recovery console from the installation CD.

One very long exchange (related to Mup.sys, but not really SP2), ends with this exchange:

AnalogMan: I deleted the partition and re-installed Windows XP. All
is happy now ^^

per: Cool! have a nice night.

I am sure that there must be some well-known solution (besides reinstall). I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

The machine still runs Fedora Core 1, Windows 98 okay. Windows XP worked okay before SP2.

Value-added? This non-technical AOL user doesn't seem to see it that way. Personally, I can't quite figure out what she's talking about, but the way she's describing it -- this new feature looks more like a nuisance than anything else. And besides, there is no need to add value when your customers are already locked into your service.

Download a bho remover http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/ 43535.html use msconfig, look in task manager, or use sysinternal's procexp, and you should be able to remove it yourself http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp .shtml

Startup Control Panel
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Have you checked to see if it's piggy-backing on any extensions? Check in registry editor under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and look under .com and .exe. This link will help you out too. A simple google search brought that up. If you do a search for "shim.exe" on google it finds shim.exe with variable words in front of shim.exe. The program may be duplicating and rewriting itself just like a virus. This this, and this might help too. Of course this site and this site will always help.

Most common computer users run AOL's Instant Messenger and it comes bundled with spyware.

Even users who don't use AOL as an ISP will run AIM so they can chat with their friends and family.

-i

"System Restore" is a feature XP has, where you simply click a calendar to restore your PC to how it was on that day. It's fixed everything I've needed it to fix (dodgy ATI driver installs, crappy shareware, etc.) and can be used by any end user. It even knows when you're doing something that could screw your machine (ie unsigned drivers) and makes a restore point automatically.

That's great, unfortunately it doesn't always work.

It's not perfect, but it's as close as anyone's got to a self-fixing OS. I'm no microsoft zealot but Linux has to achieve that just to stay on par with windows' usability.

That's a very silly statement. Linux doesn't have to implement System Restore to "stay on par". There are many aspects to usability and snapshots will not make-or-break Linux.

A really good troll makes every word in his sentence a link so that his point seems valid.

You don't even have to visit the sites, just google something like "linux vs windows", grab relevent links and include then in your post. No one will read them anyways, and believe you because you provided plenty of background Info and reputable sources (computing.net included!). They will have to believe your Pro-Windows rant.

Linux isn't a Toy OS. it's used by google. Who provided you this Informative post :)

A really good troll makes every word in his sentence a link so that his point seems valid.

You don't even have to visit the sites, just google something like "linux vs windows", grab relevent links and include then in your post. No one will read them anyways, and believe you because you provided plenty of background Info and reputable sources (computing.net included!). They will have to believe your Pro-Windows rant.

Linux isn't a Toy OS. it's used by google. Who provided you this Informative post :)

I won't blame developers, but there is a true lesson in this. I too always test in Mozilla, but many times I simply must concede that IE is the market.

I have read comments from individuals who prefer a one browser environment.

This quote makes a good argument against that kind of ignorance:

"I understand having one browser makes web development easier. But imagine being able to simply have a set of standards, which allow code to display on multiple browsers, perhaps of the user's choice? Ideal, yes. Impossible? Already has happened.

Still efficiency and operability are minor points.

A browser is not the end-all of the Internet. There are open standards that need to be followed in all network-related models to promote the medium, not to mention save everyone time and ensure that a common medium exists.

I am not advocating the death of IE. It is not a bad browser, but it breaks rules which it should be following (ie. standards which make everyone's lives better, including CSS). If IE wants to please developers, the first thing it should work at it is compliance to the standard. Deviation without strict design means that parts of the standard are not standard at all (everyone pays for the lack of standards-compliance).

"It would be great if I could force everyone to use the same browser"

A more important problem arises out of the dominance of IE. That is that standards are twisted to the browser's interpretation, therefore any error or change in the openly designed standard is accepted by the development and user community. This essentially means that implementation choices or (more commonly) errors are dictated by the browser. If we subscribe to the second law of thermodynamics, these changes (being mostly errors) are almost exclusively for the worse...

Everyone should be pushing for standards-compliance."

quoted from computing.net forum.

Does anybody know if the new apple keyboard (M9034LL/A - not the bluetooth one) can be used with a pc running windows(or linux)? it seems that it is possible with the old (black keys) one

Who'd a thunk it? Here is the closest I could find on Google. There are actually entries dated today. ;-]

I saw this first hand. When Opaserv variants were coming out almost weekly last fall, Symantec was very slow to acknowledge their existance. A few people I know sent them executables of a new variant on October 19. Finally, on October 23, they announced they "Discovered" it...4 DAYS AFTER WE SENT IT TO THEM! Those Symantec liars didn't even tell us that they discovered it, but they're working on a fix. No, they sat on the virus for 4 days! (Want proof? Check out Symantec's Oct 23 discover day for brasil.pif, here, and compare that with the Oct 19 date that many of us first noticed that virus on this discussion sire here.) And of course, following true to Symantec policy, they claimed to have released a fix either the day of discovery or the the next day...to show they're working hard for their customers.

Stupid liars.

It isn't like FreeBSD has some super-duper-mega code to make your computer run games faster.

perhaps I've been lucky, but I've never had to reinstall Windows 2000 or XP

This was only really needed with FAT(32). Windows NT4/2K/XP have all used NTFS

I've had my Windows XP desktop at work running for the past month without downtime.

In a default Windows XP Pro installation, there should be no services you need to manage.

People who hate Windows just because it's a Microsoft product.

When I have a question about any Windows OS (or any OS for that matter) I go to Computing.net. I usually get good answers to my probs. That is of course if slashdot is down and/or I can't get to it. :)

>I have a 1.47Ghz processor on my K7S5A...

You're lucky then.

These people haven't been so lucky.

This person seemed to think installing a hacked BIOS would solve the problem. It did. A perusal of ECS' site shows they've improved upon PCChips service (they provide BIOS updates for the K7S5A, so I'm assuming they didn't pirate this BIOS, or they've learned to hack it properly), but as of December/January ECS motherboards with the incompatible BIOS were still streaming into the store I worked at. The K7S5A BIOS support page doesn't list a specific 1.4 ghz fix, but it looks like they fixed it just in time for this year (BIOS V.01/11/09). I guess 3 months waiting time isn't too bad.

Perhaps with the BIOS fix this board isn't junk, but long-term reliability is definately not a trait associated with PCChips products, IMHO.

A lack of testing advertised features (and XP support was advertised on these motherboards) is sure proof the company doesn't care for its customers. This occasionally happens to name brand companies (Abit comes to mind) but is, in my opinion, the status quo for PCChips and their cronies. Maybe ECS will eventually escape the bad name of their suppliers -- they are providing far more support for their products than I expected to see.

As with all things, only time will tell. Perhaps in a year or two I might be able to forgive ECS prdocts for being PCChips knockoffs. We'll just have to see! :-)

Anyways,

Whip out that soldering iron and fix it yourself the manual way if you choose.

The FAQ will probably help explain this problem better than myself.

1st a quote..

"F-Secure Virus Descriptions

NAME: DlDer
ALIAS: Trojan.Win32.DlDer, Troj_DlDer

This two-component trojan was discovered in the end of December 2001. The trojan being installed on a user's system constantly upgrades its main component that connects to 2001-007.com website and reports user's ID, web browser a user is using and all URLs that a web browser and all its child windows open. The trojan violates user's privacy and opens a security hole in a system by downloading and activating executable files.

The main component of the trojan is Explorer.exe file that is located in Windows folder in \Explorer\ subfolder (do not mix with the original Windows' Explorer.exe). This component is constantly upgraded by the second trojan component that has the name 'DlDer.exe' and is located in Windows folder.

The DlDer.exe file is most likely dropped to user's system by ActiveX applet or Javascript code that a user doesn't notice when he is browsing Internet. The exact way how this file is dropped is not yet known. The case is under investigation.

The DlDer.exe file when it is started downloads Explorer.exe file from a website and puts it to \Windows\Explorer\ folder. Then the trojan creates a startup key for Explorer.exe file. On next System restart the Explorer.exe file is activated and it creates a startup key for DlDer.exe file and starts to connect to 2001-007.com website and report user's ID, web browser and all URLs that a user visits to there.

We recommend to delete both trojan components from an infected system. If these components can't be deleted (locked files) they should be deleted from pure DOS (in case of Windows 9x system) or renamed with different extensions (EXA for example) with immediate system restart (in case of Windows NT/2000/XP system).

[F-Secure Anti-Virus Research Team, December 28th, 2001]"

Now some links

Astechnica Forum - "Is download.com infected with a virus???"

Arstechnica Forum - "explorer.exe and Explorer.exe"

Computing.Net Forum - "How to delete trojan in explorer.exe"

Gnutella Forum - "p2p Trojan info"

$85 later... or
YOU MUST SUPPLY POWER TO THE HDD THEN SHORT OUT J11 J15 SHUT DOWN AND FDISK THEN FORMAT AND YOUR READFY TO GO

Someone claims that a program called 'zap' from IBM will do it.

It's response number 16.

Enjoy,