clutch

Generally, yes you tend to get less, or someone gets you the "combo" present for both birthday and christmas. I just found it easier to make enough money to buy stuff for myself all during the year than to wait...

Tnx I got some cool toys over the year, but here's what I got last night from my wife: A SCUBA diving computer (the 500AI Console w/compass & QD): http://www.diveaeris.com/500ai.html and a regulator set (Viper Gold): http://www.divedacor.com/index_regulators.html It was the wife's idea to get into SCUBA diving, but of course I am the one that gets hopelessly hooked on it. Like I need something ELSE to spend money on besides computers, right?

Normally you could go here: http://corporate.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp but right now they don't have WinXP on it. Check back later, as they might it soon.

Actually, I don't have a problem with you complaining about them, and if you would have read my post carefully you would see that I asked what your experience was with them. And, when I had my lovely <*cough* *cough*> Via-based motherboard, new 4-in-1 drivers seemed to introduce as many issues as they addressed. And if you didn't get new ones, it was probably because they didn't fix anything to begin with. I know that Via doesn't get much information from Intel, but then again why should they expect it when dealing with Intel's CPUs? Not to mention that many of these issues carry over between the Intel AND AMD architectures, so who should you blame then? I would have to lay the blame solely on Via, and I hope that they either get their act together or someone else can, since the Athlon is quite a nice processor but it's worthless without a stable platform (to me anyway). As for Creative, I haven't had any problems with them at all for any of my soundcards, and I wanted to hear what your issues were (not what you had heard from others). Your immediate response to the Audigy question was "bloatware", but it had no explanation as to why you thought this was the case. So, I am asking.

While I am not sure about the FTP site in general, I do know that MS will only give out hotfixes before public release if they address certain problems that the user is calling in about. Generally, once they get a good amount of testing done, they will release it later or factor it in to the next service pack. Hence, the probable need for a password if they don't simply email you the hotfix.

Well, you could: A. Not use an office suite at all B. Get a freebie (like StarOffice) C. Don't upgrade to the newest one when it comes out. There are a great many people that could still use Office 97 Pro or some old copy of MS Works that would do everything that they need. As for me, I like to work on digit dashboard stuff and I am trying to get back into CDO coding for more calendar views from our Exchange server. So, in my case, I get the newest copy of the Developer's Suite (usually MSDN) to work with. We only finished upgrading to Office 2000 at our office in the last 8 months so I have no need to upgrade any of the older systems to Office XP. Sure, the cost of software may be expensive, but it is the right of the developer/publisher to set the price and NOT the right of the average person steal it if he/she thinks it isn't worth what the selling price is. If it's that bad, the market will respond and the prices will come down. Wonder why the pricing doesn't come down? Nobody can come up with a decent product to compete with MS Office and have it at a lower price. This is what happens with anything, so it isn't a major surprise. You could ask Corel to, but wait, that's right, they couldn't make a decent suite on their own and started to fail. Then MS bought them out from the virge of closure...

Correct. However, why is the restricted user logging on locally anyway? Is this person a server admin? If so, an admin can reset permissions on NTFS even if he/she is locked out.

I don't, so I couldn't tell ya bud.

I have the Platinum, and I noticed the sound quality difference in "Aquanox" between my 2 systems (my main one has the Platinum, and my test machine has the SBLive! MP3+). The sound positioning seems better with the Audigy, and overall a bit clearer. Mostly, I dig the Live Drive interconnects and the remote.

Works great for me, and seems a wee bit faster in games (about 3-5fps if you are really into it). The sound quality is really good, but I don't watch movies on my PC as I have dedicated equipment in the living room for that . If you have a SBLive! and just want to upgrade, then it works fine. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. Palos, do you have one? Are you speaking from experience? I noticed that you don't seem to care for Creative Labs, MS, Intel, or NVidia as of late. You were irritated about NVidia releasing cards that were "incompatible" with Via chipsets, yet Via has been releasing hardware for a VERY long time that always has issues.

If you look here, you'll see where APK talks about using policies and I list a link to Technet that speaks of stalled launching of Outlook when MSN messenger is disabled, yet Outlook still has it enabled. Look for a way to disable MSN messenger in OE, and you might be fine.

Bump, because nobody seems to see this anymore yet we are getting questions about it still.

I use Group Policies (AD in my case) to keep MSN Messenger from launching, and I use Trillian as my messenger. Have you looked at these alternatives?

Yes, you can. Try it. I am assuming that the hosting server and all workstations are in the same workgroup/domain. You can also explicitly deny access to people and groups just as easily as you can grant access to whatever files and folders you like. This is how you share a folder (I generally set mine to "everyone" and let NTFS do all the work): http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q301198 And here is a break down of setting up NTFS permissions (simplistic overview, but it works): http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q301195 HTH

Check out this thread I posted on the Win2K side: http://www.ntcompatible.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=19149

I don't know if any of you have these, have used these, or even know what these are, but there is some work being done to get these to work under Windows 2000/XP. Right now, I am beta testing the driver, and it does work in the following: Descent 2 (a bit choppy though) Descent 3 (really smooth) Aquanox (really smooth) Clusterball (it functions, but the game really limits you on what you can do with the controller) You can see the message traffic here, and general stuff from one of the last SpaceOrb fan sites is at the following: www.planethardware.com/spaceorb It was a wonderful controller, but the first company (Spacetec) started going under, got bought out by Labtec, and so on and so forth... If you have one, don't can it just yet. The driver does function, and it uses a command line utility to contol it like the old Spaceware software used to. A couple of the other guys are working on an interface for that utility. Just thought I would pass this along, as I still have 3 of these controllers and would like to see them in use again.

Please don't cross post in the future.

Is the network card blinking at the same time this is going on? My modem still receives info even if it isn't passing it on to my router. Just a thought.

I don't know about home, but I would imagine it would have PWS like Pro. Basically, it's IIS 5.1 and has essentially the same features and limitations as IIS 5.0 did in Win2K Pro. I am not even sure if it will support .NET (like aspx files and such) features either. Also, if you search around a bit here, you may see others have asked the same types of questions. Over here, CKM asked about a similar situation and I gave him several links to start him off. Those links might be of some importance to you as well.

Can you use a driver from RIS in Win2K? That provides a utility for making boot disks, and that might have an updated driver for you to use. Just a stab in the dark though.

I just posted here about a floppy distro of Linux that could be used to replace ICS. Check it out.

Just thought I would pass this along... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q307635 edited for stupid-a$$ change in URL format by MS.

It had a LOT more to do with ATI's drivers. We had a ton of Rage Pro cards here on our engineer's boxes, but when we went from 2D to 3D (parasolid-based) applications, it was hell. They would crash all the time doing just about anything. I swapped them out with GeForce MX cards until we can get them new systems next year, and they have been fine ever since.

Or check out this thread which links to another. These threads contain methods that deal with both Pro and Home versions of WinXP. If you are using Pro though, I would recommend using the policy manager to lock it down.

VxD errors tend to center around driver issues. Usually, there are two sure-fire ways of getting them: 1. Start installing something, and then watch Windows act stupid and ask for a CD when you and it both know DAMN well it wasn't bright enough to load a CD driver. Then, it wants to (or flat out forces a) reboot. Or... 2. Perform some sort of driver or even run Windows update, and it will load a wonderfully new and spiffy driver that instead crashes miserably with the old one. Best way to get rid of them is to write down the driver name and any memory address info that you are presented with, and then go here and search for anything pertaining to those errors. Almost every one that I have had has been found here, and they usually have a simple, straightforward resolution.