packman

I've now done that, Relic. However, most of the settings in that button were already checked; the only one that wasn't was Forms. I'll now run a test to see if usernames and passwords are now being stored and will report back here.

Situation is that I have the following disk partitions, currently with just Win2K on the root. I now want to install WinXP on the E partition, and therefore to have an arrangement where I can select, between Win2K and WinXP, the operating system to boot to. C: Primary, active (Win2K) D: reserved, Logical E: Primary (for WinXP) F: reserved, Logical Win2K is using NTFS and I intend WinXP to also use NTFS. I'd appreciate some assistance in sorting out the following queries: 1. When installing the Setup for WinXP, will it be necessary to set up the BIOS to boot from CD-ROM (as is the case with Win2K), or is that no longer required when installing WinXP? The impression I've had is that you just put the WinXP CD into the drive and it will immediately come up with the message "Press any key to boot from CD". 2. To get these two operating systems to work as a dual-boot arrangement, will I need to install or uninstall any specific files, or will it all be taken care of automatically and in the background by boot.ini? I gather that, by configuring Startup & Recovery, in System Properties Advanced tab, I'll be allowed to choose between Win2K and WinXP at boot-up. 3. At present, the root partition (C partition) is the active partition. So, when the WinXP Setup eventually asks me how to set and format the selected partition for it (in this case, the E partition), will I be allowed to set E to Active, or will that be denied? My understanding is that you can't have two operating systems active at the same time (but maybe they're not considered active until one or the other is actually booted?).

Yes, I've seen that, thanks. It helps a bit. Actually, when I view that webpage with Firefox 2.0, it won't display anything beyond the Supported File Systems paragraph. Only a few of the hyperlinks there seem to work, in other words. Using Internet Explorer, though, it's fine. Looks like there are some bugs to get ironed out in Firefox 2.0 yet. Some of Microsoft's articles on installing and using XP, including dual-booting, can be subject to misinterpretation, I've found. For instance, the following article: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/winxp/install.mspx seems to be saying that all you need do to start the WinXP Setup is simply to put the XP CD into the drive. I don't believe that for one minute. Surely, you have to go into the BIOS first and change to boot from the CD, especially so when you're trying to install a second operating system in tandem?

I'm not sure what you're saying here, DosFreak. Are you saying that the incompatibility of Defender with Win2K can be completely overcome by downloading and installing Orca? At the last count, you'd just finished doing a spyware scan, so how has Defender run since then? Is it truly bug-free, under Win2K? I'm rather sceptical because I've just read at Microsoft's website that Defender is categorically incompatible with Win2K. In fact, Defender will only run properly under Windows Server 2003, WinXP and (presumably) Vista. Actually, as a Win2K user myself, I successfully used MS Antispyware, the predecessor of Defender. So, I'm really annoyed that Microsoft have decided not to make Defender suitable for Win2K.

Can anybody explain to me the precise circumstances under which Norton Ghost should be configured to load USB drivers, prior to a partition imaging exercise? I've recently introduced a USB-connected external hard drive into my system and yesterday imaged my root partition to another, reserved one, on the same drive. I did this, starting from the Windows environment. I had no problem with this but afterward I wondered whether I'd set all of Ghost's options correctly, especially with regard to USB usage. In Ghost's Options, there are settings for USB external storage, whereby Ghost will load USB drivers, either 1.1 or 2.0. I was in two minds as to whether to select one of these but, because I performed the imaging within the main drive of my PC on this occasion and the external drive remained powered off, I chose 'No USB drivers' instead. Did I do the right thing or, if it became necessary to do a restore, would it fail? The important factor here is that I did the imaging with the external drive powered off, so although the PC has its USB driver assigned to that device, it presumably reckoned that the device was effectively not connected at the time of the imaging. Operating system: Win2K SP4 Ghost version: 2003

I'm thinking of reorganising my hard drive(s) for dual-booting but am unsure as to whether what I propose will work. I'd be grateful for any useful comments. I currently use Win2K on a hard disk that I've partitioned thus (all partitions here are NTFS): C:Primary, bootable (Win2K) D:Logical (used) E:Logical (used) F:Logical (used) Attached to the same PC, I also use an external USB-connected hard drive that I've partitioned so as to give (again, NTFS): G:Primary (used) H:Primary (used) I:Primary (used) I plan to back up what I've got on D, E and F and then delete the Extended partition which they currently comprise. Partition C and its contents would remain untouched. I would then reconstruct D, E and F so as to make E a Primary partition. (D and F would be made into an Extended partition again). I would then install a copy of WinXP on to E. So thereafter, the booting option would be between Win2K and WinXP, both NTFS. Would the presence of the USB drive constitute five primary partitions and therefore break the rule of having only a maximum of four Primary partitions? Or would the USB drive not count, for that rule? I assume that, once I've installed WinXP into the E partition, I'll be able to boot up into C and, in the Startup & Recovery section of the Advanced tab of System Properties of Win2K, it'll be possible to configure the bootup sequence to initiate either Win2K or WinXP. Is this correct? Can anyone see any potential problems with this proposal?

Thanks for that link. I've taken a look and, yes, I knew most of that already. But hey, thanks. Nice to see it laid out concisely by Microsoft. Currently, I use Win2K and, again, am familiar with what you can do as regards Disk Management. I suspect that Win2K's and WinXP's Disk Management are identical. In the dark and distant past, I had some experience with Partition Magic. It's interesting to learn that PM would show the main and USB drives as being distinct, separate ones.

Thanks, that's interesting. You're using Partition Magic, though. The situation might be slightly different if dealing instead with DOS or Windows. In Win2K, for example, you can edit partitions in Windows Management and I can't help but wonder what Windows would do if I tried to beat the rule-of-4. Rather than preventing me from devising more than four primary partitions, spread across both main drive and USB drive, would it instead delete the C partition? I'd certainly hope not, but the fact is I just don't know. Certainly, at the moment in Windows Explorer, my partitions C-thro'-I are not displayed as being on separate physical drives. Thus, I've no idea as to whether Windows is regarding my main drive plus USB drive as one, single hard drive. D'ya see what I'm getting at? Okay, you've been using Partition Magic but the scenario I'm describing is where I'd be installing WinXP into an existing but empty partition (on the main physical drive). The making of the additional primary partition for WinXP, and its formatting, would be done entirely within the WinXP Setup. It's hard to tell what the WinXP Setup would do, though, if it found I was asking for more primary partitions than the rules allow. It might decide instead to delete one of the existing primaries, in order to comply, in which case there'd be a risk that it'd delete the C partition!!!!

danleff, I think you're missing an important factor here and that is that, by definition, the USB drive is an extra physical drive. Therefore, there's some question as to whether having two primaries on the main HD and, say, three primaries on the USB HD would overstep the limit. The real question, therefore,is whether you have to regard the USB drive as part-and-parcel of the main drive or not. The partitions you create on the USB HD certainly carry on, in terms of partition lettering.

I see what you're saying danleff. Presumably, a USB drive doesn't count anyway, as far as that rule goes, because it's not an IDE-connected device?

Has anyone met an "Abort:3600 General Exception" error when using Norton Ghost 2003 to image a partition to a USB-connected external hard drive? I recently bought myself a USB 2.0-connected 250GB external hard drive, for making Norton Ghost partition-to-partition backups and for archiving copies of photos, files, etc. I reformatted the external drive to NTFS, so as to be compatible with my existing file system and to handle large files, making three primary partitions at the same time. The drive itself works wonderfully well and I've already copied across a large number of photofiles and also copied across a Ghost image into its own dedicated partition (using drag n' drop). However, I cannot seem to make a backup imagefile (ie. a backup of the root partition on my PC) to the external hard drive in the normal way, using Ghost. I start the backup procedure by using Ghost in the Windows environment and then it correctly switches to PC-DOS. But it then bombs out and simply gives the following DOS error message: "ABORT: 3600 A General Exception occurred. Abort details output to GHOSTERR.TXT. Please contact Symantec Tech Support at http://service.symantec.com. General Protection Fault in RMCB at eip=33abf; flags=3016 eax=000a0001 ebx=00001246 ecx=00000000 edx=0000000a esi=00001861 edi=000a8e48 ebp=0000000d esp=000a8db4 cs=af ds=3b es=8f fs=33 gs=bf ss=8f error=0000". It does indeed write an error log, which is found in the Ghost application, once you've got back into Windows. That file would, I guess, be useful to send to a Symantec techie, but since direct support from Symantec has long since expired on this product, I can't do that. I've used Ghost 2003 for several years now to make and restore partition images but hitherto have not tried making images to a USB storage device. I've tried altering the 'ext drives' option in Ghost's Options section from USB2.0 to USB1.1, with the same result. As far as I know, anyway, all my external devices are USB2.0. All ports on the PC are USB2.0. Have taken all the usual precautions - stopping screensaver, disabling Ethernet connection on Internet router, etc. Has anyone ever hit this problem with Ghost? If so, what's the cause? This version of Ghost being three years old, I can't get any one-to-one e-mail support from Symantec, and I've been right through Symantec's KnowledgeBase and found nothing on this particular error. It seems that Ghost gets as far as writing a 1KB file to the external partition but then just bombs out for some reason, being unable to start the copying of the actual partition contents from the PC to the drive. I'm using Win2KSP4 and fully-updated Microsoft USB2.0 drivers. What am I doing wrong? Have I got something wrongly configured in Ghost? Would the imaging be more likely to work if I started it in the Ghost DOS environment rather than the Windows? From hereon, I can't get away with making backup images on my PC and then using drag n' drop to transfer them to the external hard drive because there won't be enough space for them, increasingly, on the PC. That's why I got myself a large-capacity external hard drive! In short, ........ HELP!

A friend of mine, a Mac user, has emplored me to download and use iTunes on my Win2K PC. I don't doubt the usefulness of iTunes for music downloads but I've reservations about its compatibility with my operating system and with certain of my drivers and applications. Does iTunes have a clean bill of health in that regard, when applied to Windows machines? A couple of things in particular concern me. I'm given to understand that iTunes auitomatically embodies Microsoft.Net Redistr. If that's the case, then my graphics driver will definitely be incompatible, as my graphics driver is one that's specifically designed to perform without Microsoft.Net. The other concern is Quicktime, which I gather is also installed by iTunes by default and which is necessary for certain video streaming. I thought I read some time ago of some dire problems with Quicktime on Windows machines. Were these unfounded? I've a perfectly good Windows Media Player, incidentally, and wouldn't want that to be screwed up in any way. Any idea of the total size of iTunes? Is it several hundred MB?

A friend of mine, a Mac user, has emplored me to download and use iTunes on my Win2K PC. I don't doubt the usefulness of iTunes for music downloads but I've reservations about its compatibility with my operating system and with certain of my drivers and applications. Does iTunes have a clean bill of health in that regard, when applied to Windows machines? A couple of things in particular concern me. I'm given to understand that iTunes auitomatically embodies Microsoft.Net Redistr. If that's the case, then my graphics driver will definitely be incompatible, as my graphics driver is one that's specifically designed to perform without Microsoft.Net. The other concern is Quicktime, which I gather is also installed by iTunes by default and which is necessary for certain video streaming. I thought I read some time ago of some dire problems with Quicktime on Windows machines. Were these unfounded? I've a perfectly good Windows Media Player, incidentally, and wouldn't want that to be screwed up in any way. Any idea of the total size of iTunes? Is it several hundred MB?

Is it still possible, in the UK, to buy a straightforward copy of WinXP Pro? That's to say, without embedded SP2. I'm a 2K-user myself but am planning for the time when support for Win2K will have waned beyond redemption and where I'll need to invest in WinXP instead. Vista wouldn't be a feasible option for me, due to the more stringent hardware requirements of it. Oh, and I wouldn't be able to move to XP via an upgrade, as my Win2K itself is an upgrade version (unless Microsoft accepts Win98 as the qualifier). Would prefer, anyway, to go for a full version, as then installation is so much easier. I seem to recall there being masses of bugs in SP2 for WinXP and so when I now see WinXP Pro SP2 being sold in abundance, I wonder whether I'll later be investing in a veritable minefield of problems. I've heard that it might be better to instead buy a straightforward copy of WinXP Pro and then download and add the very latest and corrected SP2. But where to buy a straightforward copy of WinXP? I've yet to find any retailer here in the UK that still sells the original version. Anybody care to comment?

Yeh, I've been using Win2K for several years now and, generally speaking, it's been stable and it's done all that I've asked of it. I've had to apply a good many patches, though. I'll feel a bit sad when finally I'll have to say goodbye to it, but it's very much the case now that application writers are producing software for WinXP and Vista, and no longer with Win2K in mind. So, more and more during this last year or so, I've been finding that new applications that I've needed to use have not been 100% compatible with Win2K (some even failing to install properly), despite claims to the contrary by the sourcers of the applications. It's an attitude by them that truly annoys me.

Thanks, AZ and jmmijo. According to that list, the majority of my apps won't be usable with Vista. So, unless Microsoft brings them, and presumably a lot of others, onboard during 2007, I can safely rule out ever having Vista. Yup, it's beginning to look as though I will indeed need to invest in WinXP instead - or maybe just bite the bullet and struggle on with Win2K.

jmmijo, So, are you saying, then, that it's likely that a good many popular applications will be automatically compatible with Vista? I would be very annoyed indeed if I invested in Vista and then found that even just one of my apps was incompatible; I don't exactly use obscure apps. These are they: Office 2000 Photoshop Photoshop Elements 3 Nero Express 6.6 (and InCD4.3) Norton Ghost 2003 Pixmantec Rawshooter Essentials (photo-editing s/w) Firefox Canon Zoombrowser (photo-editing s/w for EOS350D camera) Zone Alarm firewall AVG7 antivirus WinDVD4 plus a few specials utilities. And what about device drivers? Are they all likely to be compatible, or is it going to be one long haul, to find out? If Microsoft could say, for example, that if an app or a driver is currently compatible with either Win2K or WinXP, then it'll automatically be compatible with Vista, I'd be the first to raise a rousing cheer. I suspect I'm being rather hopeful, though.

Thanks. It's good to know that. Actually, earlier this evening I took a look at the latest news about Vista, at microsoft.com, and realised that Vista is, in fact, to be offered in various forms. Furthermore, it seems that the hardware requirements for Vista that I'd originally heard of have been relaxed, so it might transpire that my current hardware will, after all, be Vista-compatible. The one main area of doubt is the graphics capability of my current system, plus of course whether my applications will be backward compatible with Vista (anyone got any general thoughts on that?). But, assuming that that'll turn out okay and I'll be able to use (say) the Basic Home version of Vista, it would probably make more sense to spend the money on that, rather than on WinXP (since Microsoft now seems to regard WinXP as a spent force). It looks like I'll just have to wait for further news about Vista.

Here in the UK, some retailers who sell the OEM versions of XP publish the revised advice. You're only supposed to buy and use XP OEM if it's genuinely to be used on a brand new machine, constructed by a systems builder. The advice also states that the version won't be transferable from one machine to another. There's also no support available from Microsoft for OEM versions; instead, it's up to the purchaser to self-provide that support, or to provide it directly to the customer. Whether that impinges also on standard Windows updates via the Web is difficult to say; I'd assume, or rather hope, not. The wording of the advice is expressly along the lines that Microsoft is now closing a loophole that existed, where individuals could purchase an OEM version as a direct substitute for the retail version in order to escape paying the full price. In particular, getting around the ruling by simply buying a PC component alongside the OS purchase would no longer be deemed valid. I've no idea whether this is an issue peculiar to the UK. It could well be, as experience has taught me that just about everything concerning Microsoft is more expensive and more restrictive in the UK than in Canada and the US. The UK has long been viewed as a "rip-off" country, for just about all consumer goods and services, not just Microsoft IT goods. It'll be a matter of temporary conjecture and, eventually, experience as to whether the revised advice will be enforceable. However, I'm sure it's not escaped your notice that Windows updates are no longer downloadable without first Microsoft's Product Validation sequence being envoked. I suspect that this gathers a fair amount of information about your PC and not just whether certain security updates are already installed. In other words, it might well be that Microsoft now take a snapshot of your PC's architecture (the name you give the PC, the public IP address of the gateway to which it's attached, the type of CPU, etc) when you log on for updates and so it might well be that, if it's detected that there's suddenly a change of OS in a given machine to an OEM version, it'll get logged as invalid and the updates refused. This is only conjecture on my part, though. It's certainly the case that downloads from Microsoft's website(s) are now policed a lot more carefully. For instance, yesterday I thought it'd be perhaps a good idea for me to download WinXP's SP2 to my Desktop, to keep for the day when (hopefully) I'd get a copy of WinXP. (It's clearly best to add the service pack immediately after you install the basic OS). I'd simply browsed to the appropriate webpage for the download. But Microsoft instantly detected that my current OS was Win2K and promptly warned me off, in fact refusing to allow me to download it. This can be regarded as a sensible safeguard against someone installing completely the wrong SP, but it's also prohibitive for those of us who want to plan ahead. All the same, it ably demonstrates that Microsoft now monitors MS downloads more closely than hitherto. In one sense, this policing of users' machines is fair enough, I suppose. After all, a retail version of the OS will cost considerably more than the OEM version. (In the UK, the cheapest price I've found for WinXP Pro inc SP2, ie retail, is £215.03 incl VAT). If instead it was just a simple matter of buying an OEM version for personal use when you need to move to the next version of OS, why would retailers (and why would Microsoft) still bother to sell the retail version, at or near the full price? Think about it. Personally, I do have an issue with Microsoft maintaining such a high price, especially in the UK, for both WinXP and Win2K. I was reminded the other day that WinXP was released in 2001 (is that really correct; time flies!) and if that's so, it means that I'd be buying a product that's already six years old and about to be superseded. So, why doesn't Microsoft play a bit fairer and gradually reduce the price of its products as the years advance? A bit of customer consideration would go a long way. I can't think of many other consumer goods where, six years later, you'd still be paying the same price as on the day of first release.

Maybe all that business about the embedded SP2 being buggy is a fallacy, then. I'd like to be convinced that that's so. However, as I mentioned before, I've read submissions in forums elsewhere where people have seriously regretted buying WinXP SP2 for that very reason. Still, it's difficult to judge such submissions. Please continue to persuade me that an embedded SP2 will be okay - if you can! Incidentally, I notice that in certain OEM versions now you get what's referred to as "SP2B", which is presumably Microsoft's attempt to put right the mistakes they allegedly made in the first issue of SP2. And no, buying an OEM version would be a bad move, as although I'm a seasoned PC builder (for myself), Microsoft has now closed off the loophole whereby self-builders could hitherto legitimately purchase and use an OEM version of the OS.

This is a long shot but has anyone here had any problems after installing the latest cumulative security update for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (918899), under either Win2K or WinXP, available at the Windows Update website? Given the number of caveats it has when you click on the details, I'd be surprised that anyone's PC would still work properly, after installing it (I'm exaggerating, of course). Seriously, though, the number of known issues that Microsoft admits can arise from installing this update is not inconsiderable. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918899. Am I being paranoid?

Likewise, WinXP, eventually.

Err, well, actually I'm using Win2K, so there's no prospect whatsoever of me shifting up to IE7, even though Microsoft will be assuming that most people will be doing that in due course. You can only move to IE7 from WinXP, not Win2K.

I've just bought a Belkin PCI USB card to use in my Windows 2000 SP4 PC. It's Belkin's product F5U220, which gives you four external USB2.0 ports and one internal USB2.0 port. Does anyone know if the supplied USB2.0 drivers have to be installed, as I've already got installed a set of standard Microsoft USB2.0 drivers, which currently work fine with the PC's six embedded ports? The user guide that came with the card gives specific installation instructions for the CD-supplied drivers, with different methods for Win98, ME, 2K and XP. However, from the wording in the guide, it appears that it was written before the time when standard Microsoft USB2.0 drivers were supplied in WinXPSP1 and Win2KSP4. Thus, I'm wondering if adding the Belkin drivers would actually mess things up. Has anyone here used this card with Windows 2000 and therefore can they say what needs to be done? From what I've googled so far, those WinXP users who've added the Belkin drivers have ended up with corrupted drivers. When you add a PCI device like this, would you definitely expect additional drivers to have to be installed? In other words, should extra controller and hub entries be effectively loaded into the USB entries in Device Manager? My system BIOS settings aren't helping either, as the motherboard handbook gives no guidance whatever on the configuring of the USB 2.0. The motherboard manufacturer has long since stopped providing support, as well. Other than USB2.0 [enabled] [disabled], all that the BIOS gives is: USB0 Access Interface [EDB bus][PCI bus] USB1 Access Interface [EDB bus][PCI bus] USB2 Access Interface [EDB bus][PCI bus] USB2.0 Access Interface [EDB bus][PCI bus] The bracketed entries represent the choice between the USB bus that's embedded on the motherboard, which the current six use, and any USB porting done via the PCI bus. Currently, all are set to EDB. I'm assuming that USB0,1 and 2 refer to the motherboard's six embedded ports but I've been unable to find anything that ties up with that. USB0,1 and 2 could equally refer to PCI slot positions, for example. What d'ya reckon? And what's that other entry there all about? Could it be that I'll need to leave USB0,1 and 2 on EDB bus and just set USB2.0 Access Interface to PCI bus?

I wish I could be as confident as you, jmmijo. I suppose that all I can do is just see how things run over the course of time. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there'll be no IRQ clashes. My particular motherboard manual does NOT, in fact, give any information about IRQs assigned to the PCI slots. If it did, it'd help an awful lot. I think the reason is that, when you're running an ACPI-compliant Win2K PC and the BIOS is in control of the IRQs, there are no set IRQs for a particular PCI slot. I confirmed this to be the case some years ago, when I experimented with switching one or two PCI cards from slot to slot. I think that what happens is that the BIOS assesses the situation whenever a new PCI card is introduced and then reassigns IRQs, and the resources that go with them, according to each card's requirements. What's been surprising has been the large number of IRQs that USB2.0 requires - on the setup as now devised, some seven IRQs, in all. And because my PC's already run out of IRQs, two devices have each had to share an IRQ with a USB controller.