clutch

Got any DOS apps running?

Wow, he could be using Home, couldn't he? I guess we will have to ask these questions more often eh? I am just so used to people using NT/2K and beta testing XP Pro that I forget there's a stripped/clipped "Home" version out there.

Are you using a Via solution for your motherboard, Palos? Is this infinite loop BS some issue that only affects Via MB owners? I have read of a patch to address this, but it only seems to be for Via owners. I had one Via motherboard, and that was enough to make me never get another. After going right back to Intel, I stopped getting bizarre compatibility issues and performance picked up greatly. So far, most of the reports of increased performance in WinXP seems to be coming from Intel owners. If that's the case, it may be something to look at. I know that Intel may have strong-armed Via, but if the concept of nVidia releasing hardware that isn't compatible or has poor drivers burns you up so much, then why bother with Via? They are KNOWN for having issues with their motherboards having pi$$-poor performance out of the gate and needing a ton of driver releases to make them worth a damn. I understand that they are a competitor with Intel and supporting them may help ONE day down the road, but I don't have the time for that. I had the Pro 133a chipset from them, and with 2 Intel processors clocked at the same speed, using the same hardware, I would drop 8-10fps in Q3 and had similar performance issues across the board. Plus, the POS wouldn't work with a GeForce2 Ultra that I bought. I went through a TON of those stupid-a$$ 4-in-1 drivers and AGP drivers as well, but to no avail. The AMD processors are pretty nice, but I won't touch them until a fast and STABLE chipset is released for them by a strong supplier. Personally, I am hoping that nVidia can pull off a good chipset with great performance out of the box, because I have yet to see Via do it.

I think Rollercoaster Tycoon was a major reason for Atreyu to upgrade, because it rocks (as you can see, I am from the US and I don't need quotes around "rocks" when used in a sentence HAHAHAHAH!!!). Is WinXP oversimplified? I thought Win2K was WAY oversimplified when coming from NT4 and Novell, but I got used to it and really liked the platform quite a bit. Almost all of the statements being made about WinXP now were being made about Win2K when it was released. Personally, I dig the new Start Menu and some of the other features (larger thumbnails for picture browsing, which was all I used ACDesee [sp] for anyway) along with the major performance increase on faster machines.

If you look here, APK covered a pretty solid method for locking it down and I defined it further for AD users. This way, it won't start at all.

CKM, I hope you got it working well. As for MasterFinn, normally this issue will manifest itself if IIS didn't install properly. I actually had this very same issue on a machine that I had Visual Studio on, and when I removed and reinstalled IIS everything worked perfectly. Now I read that you have already removed and reinstalled it, but you might want to try it one more time. Also, try making a custom IIS MMC panel by running Start>Run and type "MMC". Then, add the IIS snap-in and when you open it, you should see the local machine. If you do reinstall IIS, make sure you have all of your updates in place. If you are having HD issues, you might have some sort of corruption problem which would also impair your ability to administer (or even start) IIS. Is IIS starting in your services panel? Have you had another other "bizarre" problems that would lead you to think that your HD is going out? Did you delete the partition and format it on your last install? Are you using an original of the WinXP CD or a copy that might be corrupt?

Cool. Good luck.

I like it, and to me it was worth upgrading. I used most of the basic hardware tweaks that were listed (PIIIeb tweak for instance) but I really like the easy editing of Outlook's (2000/2002) annoying file attachment lockout where you can't get to certain attachments, and the easy access to certain memory settings (like not paging the kernal). It has some cool stuff that I like, so for me it's worth buying. Try out the demo, and see if you like it first. The demo time period gives you enough time to fiddle with it and see if you like it.

I think you can run your mapping batch file at startup via your group policy editor. Open "gpedit.msc", and go here: and when you double click on "startup", you will get this window here: I haven't fiddled with it, but I was under the impression that this will behave in the manner you are looking for (runs scripts when system launches, not user). The logon/logoff companion to this is under the User Config half below the Windows settings. HTH

LOL, sure thing bud. You got me... ;(

Have you tried looking for the newest drivers for your sound card? That might be a good place to start.

I understand what you are saying, but right now the volume of NT4 questions is REALLY low compared to Win2K/XP questions (which was why those were separated to begin with).

Because I am tired of people getting a hold of w4rez and seeking help for it. You want to know the reason? Well that's why. I think it's horse$hit when people want to know why they can't host a Counterstrike server on their PII 300 with 128MB RAM running Win2K Advanced Server with ISA Server on top of it. If anybody wants to know what to do with .NET server, then it's obviously w4rez and I have no interest in helping him. The links were really for CUViper, as I believe he works in the IT field and would have a high chance of using this software legally. So many w4rez freaks run servers without having a clue as to how to set them up, and those servers wind up hosting all kinds of worms and other BS that attack legitimate networks. Here's the deal, I find it offensive when someone breaks a contract with a company (in this case a NDA with MS) by redistributing it to all kinds of people, and then those people who have no idea what they are doing get it and seek help for their stolen software. That is what I have a problem with. If you *do* get a hold of software legitimately, you will: A. Know what you are doing and have a good idea as to what it's for (and may have gone to a class for it that gave it away; MS does this all the time), and B. Get some sort of documtentation (plus access to secured newsgroups in the case of MS along with direct access to the appropriate testing team when doing beta work for them) with the software to guide you through its workings. That's why I get pissed when people ask a question like "hey, would .NET server (a platform I can't buy anyway) work well as a desktop? Can I host my webpages on it through my AOL dial-up account? What is XML, or EDI? Will they lower my fps in Quake 3?" or similar questions. This was the post that I *originally* wanted to respond with, but I tried having some restraint. If you are looking to *legally* obtain this software, but somehow managed to never see ANY documentation and have no idea what it is supposed to do, then I am sorry for this response. But that isn't likely.

Yeah, I know. I just wanted to show that it wasn't only the newbies that thought WinXP was kicka$$ on workstations. But you really do need to have a lot of RAM to see it, otherwise it's just a pig. My gaming has been smoother, and apps that were flaky in NT, and got stable in 2K, seem to run quite smoothly in XP so far (mostly CAD utils, and some games). My fav OS is still Win2K server, and I am waiting to see what .Net brings...

Win2K is still MS's answer to an industrial strength OS for corporate use, and WinXP has a long road ahead of it. I see no reason for anybody (other than laptop/remote users, just because of remote desktop and all of the improved power management features) in the corporate world to run to WinXP. Plus, Win2K with SP2 worked really, really well for me (hell, even SP0 and SP1 were fine too) as a desktop solution, and SP2 fixed a good deal of AD related issues that made it more reliable.

CUViper, As for the splintering of the servers, the idea is to have multiple OSs that can respond to the application specific and appliance server market shift. Basically, why tie up a $900 OS just to host a website, right? Here's the general .NET info page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows.netserver/ and here's the direct comparison page between the versions. http://www.microsoft.com/windows.NETserver/evaluation/choosing/default.asp As you can see, when someone asks "is .Net server any good?", it probably an early Beta that they are dealing with. Many in the IIS community are getting invites to test the newest web appliance OS in the .Net line to see how well it does. My interest is in ADO/ASP.NET functionality, and to see how it likes Outlook Web Access as it would eventually be the hosting OS for our OWA connections. From what I have read, the pricing should be adjusted according to functionality as well.

Actually, I am a beta tester for a good deal of their OSs, and I am expecting the .Net platform shortly. Now, here's the thing; if you obviously didn't get invited to test AND didn't RSVP for the platform, then you would probably accquire it via w4rez which is something that we try to avoid here. Also, they (MS) have specific things that they want you to evaluate when running it, and using it as a desktop isn't one of them. But, you would know that, since you are getting it through "official" means, right?

Well, I know that *I* can setup systems properly, and *I* can tell you that XP has "felt" (launched applications, moved through multiple tasks, etc) faster. Also, its standby support is GREATLY improved over Win2K's, and the PC doesn't appear sluggish anymore for the first 5 or 10 min afterward. It doesn't seem to be as affected by multiple standby sessions either as Win2K was. I am a diehard fan of Win2K, but if you have excessive amounts of RAM (384+) and a 500MHz+ processor to throw at it, then it won't disappoint you. Hell, my celeron 300a@450 screams with WinXP, and I wound up bumping the RAM to 640MB and disabling the pagefile to see what would happen. Well, it got faster. It picked up another 5fps in Q3 (with a 450MHz system and a GeForce SDR, it's not the best for Quake but I do get over 65fps in demo four.dm_66 in v1.30 after I tweak the settings) and it launches and shuts down VERY smoothly. So, in short, I like it and it runs quite well. The way it handles applications can make people "think" that it is more responsive, and some people may confuse the responsivness with boot-time since it does boot and shut down a lot faster. But, I can tell you that *I* feel it is faster than Win2K on fast machines, and *I* am objective as well.

I think that they have been working on them overnight, since I have seen the same thing. It does work now though.

Stick with ASUS, as they make some really nice stuff (I use it as well). Maybe try getting a hold of a CUSL2 and a PIII 1GHz proc (or somewhere close). That would be a pretty fast combination to work with. Also, throw as much memory as you can into it. Since it's so cheap, get at least 512MB.

I hate to tell you this as it will probably sound rude, but if you have to ask if you should install it as a desktop, then you shouldn't have it at all. The newest .Net betas are actually being splintered from what I have heard, one of which is only to serve as a NAT system and host IIS. It is a *server* OS, not a desktop OS.

Ouch, I was trying to find something earlier, but the app from Executive software was the only thing I could think of. I thought there was something from Norton that would work as well, but I hate them so nothing came to mind... As for what you are looking for, I thought Norton (ick, the stench of evil ) had some sort of utility that would "shred" anything on a given partition so that it couldn't be recovered. Also, check out download.com for "shred" and/or "hex shred" utilities. I think that's how those would be listed.

What does your appliance cover? Is it a web host, or some sort of firewall? An application host?

OK, I just re-read your post, and noticed one small thing; you want to stay UNDER $1500 for your server? Wow, well, if you want to put a TON of faith into your equipment, then your listing might work out fine. However, all this talk of reliability and redunancy do NOT go hand-in-hand with low cost. The last backup drive I bought was around $800, and that was CHEAP! The cheapest server that I have ever setup with an OS was very recently for a startup company. It has no disk or power supply redundancy, but a sweet ServerWorks chipset and a P3 1GHz processor in it plus 1 20GB and 1 40GB harddrive in it. That baby was $2300 from Dell, and has worked quite nicely so far. But we, at work, have a mission critical application at work as well. It's our ERP system by QAD and that's what the first 2 servers on the list run. It has only come down once due to a capacity flaw in our version of the database software, and it was a "disaster" for about 4 hours. We actually had the software flown in that night to a small airport next to us so I could have it up and running the next day. So, in short, you might really want to see what's more expensive; putting in close to $5000 now or having a meltdown and waiting for parts, not to mention the possibility of reinstalling the OS just to do the restore of your old data.

OK, after a brief look over your hardware, it looks like most of it will work. The only thing that I can think of you might have issues with is your ATA controller card as it will need an extra driver during the install process to be seen immediately. Now, if you REALLY want/need top-end reliability and redundancy, then get a SCSI hot-swappable RAID 5 controller/backplane arrangement. That way, you can install the driver for it during boot, and install NT's system partition (better make it 2GB if you want to upgrade and absolutely NEED to keep the existing information in tact) across a group of harddrives. This will also work if you are using RAID 1, but I am just a fan of RAID 5 so that's my opinion . As for servers, I have: At work Compaq Proliant 3000R (2 RAID 5 Arrays in internal cages) Compaq Proliant 5500R (4 RAID 1 Arrays across the internal and an external cage) Compaq Proliant DL360 (1 RAID 1 Array) Compaq Prosignia 200 (No RAID) Acer 9000 (I think, it's the dual P166 unit that I have for web use) (No RAID) Dell Dimension XPS 400 (It's acting as our Exchange server until I can get our new server and do some moving about of applications) (No RAID) At home • Server-1 (AD Root) 1. Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP2 2. PIII 550 (5x100) 3. ASUS P3B-F 4. 768MB PC-100 RAM (3x256MB) 5. Intel Pro/100 Management Adapter 6. Maxtor 6GB ATA-33 5400RPM Hard Drive 7. IBM 20GB ATA-33 5400RPM Hard Drive 8. WD 120GB ATA-100 7200RPM Hard Drive 9. Matshita CR-586 32X CD-ROM 10. 1.44MB Floppy Drive 11. Generic 14” Monitor 12. Generic Keyboard 13. Logitech Optical Trackball 14. Generic Mid-Tower Case 15. HP 722C DeskJet Printer 16. APC USB UPS • Server-2 (Second Server for AD Replication) 1. Windows 2000 Server SP2 2. Celeron 333 3. Diamond Micronics C400 Motherboard 4. 512MB PC100 RAM (2x256MB) 5. Intel Pro/100 Management Adapter 6. Maxtor 20GB ATA-100 7200RPM Hard Drive 7. Acer 50x CD-ROM 8. 1.44 MB Floppy Drive 9. Generic 14” Monitor (sharing the one on Server-1) 10. Generic Keyboard 11. Logitech Optical Trackball (sharing the one on Server-1) 12. Enlight Case Server-1 handles my primary SQL 2000 databases, web/ftp sites, and Exchange server 2000. Server-2 is my backup SQL 2000 server. Generally, these are my test subjects that I use after I get software from a class or before I use it at work. Would I recommend these configurations for commercial use? No, but they have been reliable. When setting up a server, you really only have to ask yourself two things: 1. Do I run applications ON it or THROUGH it? 2. How much am I willing to spend on it? If you are running applications ON it (like database engines, email servers, etc), then you will probably get a beefier box that somebody who only runs applications THROUGH it (like simple file and print sharing). Does this shed any light on your situation?