dazz1973

Recently purchased a new notebook with Windows 8. I now have 3 PCs on the network now, Windows 8, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. I'm using the workgroup name 'WORKGROUP' and simple file shairng is turned off and full permissions provided for all shares. The Window Vista machine can see and access the shares on the Windows 8 and vice versa. The Windows Vista machine can also see and access the shares on the Windows XP pc and vice versa. However, the Windows 8 and Window XP are blind to each other. The one exception is that under Network in Windows 8, it shows the Windows XP pc as 'Other Devices', but I cannot access any shares, just gives network information of the Windows XP machine e.g. MAC address, IPA etc. I've copied over the shortcuts from the machines, investigated the firewall as best I can, but I'm really stumped. Any advice much appreciated. Dazz

Hi people, A few days ago I purchased a SOHW-1673S04C Liteon DVD burner. I can burn CDs and DVDs with it fine, but it has a DVD movie playback problem. What happens is when I play a DVD movie in the drive, the movie starts in the middle and plays (it does this straight away, playing the movie at a point halfway through the movie - doesn't go to the title menu even though I have never played the movie before (i.e. so it doesn't have a restore point). I cannot even go to the beginning of the movie: even if I go to scene selection and choose the first scene, the movie just goes to the middle of the movie again - the same part of the movie it starts at every time. I have used DVD movies from different DVD regions and used both PowerDVD 6 and WinDVD 6 as the software player, and both experienced this same problem. I have a Intel 3gig chip, 1gig ram, running Windows XP and this is a freshly install HDD. I have not flashed the DVD drive (it has the firmware installed that came with it when I purchased it 'JS01'). I have looked, but there doesn't seem to be any new firmware released for this drive. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Dazz PS If you think the drive may be a faulty unit and should be returned, please let me know.

I want to play HL2 and its mods at top specs. I've heard from another source that Gainward is a quality brand, so I will probably buy this if they still have them in stock when I get home to Australia on 28 January. Somebody did say the X800XT was best for HL2, don't know why, but I do know nvidia support pixel shader 3.0 and radeon doesn't yet (I know not many games are making use of pixel shader 3.0 yet, but they will in the future, so seems smart to get a card that supports this). Dazz

Thanks Wicked, I want to play HL2 and Doom 3 at full specs. Sounds like the Gainward can do it and the build quality is apparently quite good from what I have picked up. Dazz

I did a complete upgrade in early 2004, all except for my graphics card as I've been waiting for HL2 to be released. I have an Intel 3.0GHz cpu and 1gig RAM and run WinXP SP2. My current GPU is an Asus Gforce 4 4400 128mb. I have an AGP port and have been looking to buy a Gforce 4 6800GT or 6800Ultra. The most reasonably priced 6800 Ultra card I can find is Gainward 6800Ultra/2600 TV/DVI/DVI 256MB (Model no. FX6800Ultra), for $830 Australian. I cannot find any reviews on this model. The most detailed information I can find is: http://uk.insight.com/apps/productp...03YGH#mainspecs. That website doesn't give any recommendations, conclusions or compare it to other 6800 Ultras, so I was hoping people could help me out with some information. Is Gainward a quality card maker? Does anyone own this card and/or recommend it or not? Does anyone know how this card compares to others in its class? Does anyone know of any full reviews of this card? Thanks Dazz

ERD QUESTION: You were able in Win2k to create an Emergency Repair Disk by right clicking on C drive, Properties, Tools tab, Backup. However, in WinXP you just seem to be able to back your data up under this procedure, either via the wizard or the advance mode. Can you create an ERD with WinXP? If not, what is the next best option? I'm using NTFS partitions on all my HDs now and so a DOS boot disk is useless and I've been unable to find a copy of NTFSPro Boot Disk. I'm not sure if NTFSPro Boot Disk is share ware or not. LAST KNOWN GOOD CONFIGURATION I've had to use safe mode for WinXP, but when I tried to restore to 'Last Known Good Configuration', the system said there was no save point. This was shortly after I installed WinXP, when I was still loading on all my apps. Can I set a 'last known good configuration point' or is XP suppose to do this automatically. Also, if I restore to last known good configuration, does this just address drivers i.e. I expect I wouldn't lose new word documents, excel spreadsheets etc., created after the 'last known good configuration point.' Any advice will be much appreciated. Cheers Dazz

Should be considering my mobo was bought in January this year and came with the battery. I've always noticed that windows time keeping has been slack, no matter what version of windows I've been running. Dazz

Didn't know Windows XP had some clock syncronisation program. Atomic Clock Syn works like a charm and I've been driven made over the years with my PC clock being out. I can buy a $5.00 digital watch which keeps perfect time, WTF can't a PC, which often cost in excessive of $2000, do the same? Doesn't surprise me that the WinXP syncro feature is complete crap. I'll be sticking with Atomic Clock. Dazz

I haven't tweaked or altered anything I shouldn't have, or installed any tweak programs at all or anything I can think of that may have alter such a setting... I just installed the programs I listed in my original post. Hmmmm... well, still thinking... I can live with it, but I like to have things working how they are suppose to and I've always learnt more from the problems I have with computers (fixing those problems), than anything else. Cheers Dazz

The Properties/Target settings seem correct. The registry path you gave, the values I located were: Name Type Data ab (Default) Reg_SZ (value not set) NoDriveTypeAutoRun REG_DWORD 0x00000091 (145) Not sure if this is standard or correct. Thanks for you help Sampson Dazz

Sampson, yep that's exactly right... except for some reason that doesn't work for me. Click on 'Explore' or 'Explore all users' and nothing happens i.e. Explorer doesn't open. Hope that clarifies. Thanks for your post. Cheers Dazz

Thanks Davros, Much appreciated. Dazz

Davros, I'll give it a go, but a little guidance would be helpful. My second HD with the other OSs will be on drive D (slave HD). This is the information contained in my boot.ini file. Could you show me the changes I would need to make to give myself the multiboot options for WinXP,Win2k and 98SE. [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect Cheers Dazz

I just completed a fresh install of Windows XP Professional. All drivers and programs installed and configured and system is running very smoothly. However, when I go to organise the icons in the Start Menu -> All Programs, then one of the folders on this menu (e.g. Accessories) and right click, choose 'Explore' or 'Explore All Users', nothing happens. Explorer doesn't open up, and the right click menu just closes. Explorer works fine when I choose the Explorer icon and in all other instances. I navigated to these files via C Drive, Documents and Settings et cetera, but I do like things to work how they are suppose to, especially after a fresh install. I tried to re-install over the top of the OS, no good, problem still there; I went back to an image of my HD when I was half way through the install and still had the same problem. The programs I have installed are: Ad-aware, Acrobat 5.0, Photoshop 7, Atomic Clock Syn, BFFTP Server, CloneCD, Half-Life, Day of Defeat, EasyRecovery Professional, Fantom CD, Fireburner, FlashFXP, MS Office, mIRC, Nero, Winamp, WinMX, WinRAR, Drive Image 2002, PGP, MSN Messenger, NAV 2002, Webshots, DNS2GO, Netcaptor, and Real One Player. Running WinXP Pro, AMD 1800+ CPU, Asus A7V266-E, ASUS GeForce 4 4600 GFX Card, 512 DDR RAM. This is a long post for a simple question, but somebody with more knowledge than me might know the registry point I should edit to possibly fix this tiny problem (this is my 'uneducated' guess, that the explorer option in the menu is not being pointing to the Explorer program). Any advice will be appreciated. Cheers Dazz

Thanks fellas, I've just completed a fresh re-install of XP on my master HD, and on my slave HD (which I have in a cradle for convenience) I'm going to multiboot 98SE and Win2k (I use XP 95% of the time and will just disable my master HD in bios and boot to the slave HD). Currently completing A+ Certification; reason for this thread. Thanks for the help, especially DosFreak for posting those boot files for the OSs. Dazz