Bursar

I ran into a slightly similar problem. I copied my MP3 files from my C drive to my D drive as I had to do a reinstall of Win2k. When it came to copying the files back again, 2 or 3 had become corrupt. I'm not entirely sure what happened to them. I've run a full scan disk (using Norton Disk Doctor) and haven't found any problems on my drives, so maybe it was just 'one of those things'.

I haven't run any benchmarks on D3, but I have had perfectly acceptable performance out of it under Windows 2000 (pre SP1 - haven't played it for months). Make sure you have the latest patches for D3 as well as those for your video card.

First up, you didn't really explain what you wanted. Second, my point about viewing the screen on a locked machine is still valid. Third, how secure do you want this machine? If removing the keyboard and mouse from it (no input devices = no chance of people trying to geuss the password) is not suitable, then why not lock it in a room with a bullet proof glass panel in the door. If only you have the key, then you can go in and do what you want to the machine, and everyone else can just look at it through the window. Scratch that, if you destroy the key, then it should be even safer.

If you're looking for a card in the not too expensive bracket, consider a Matrox G400 (or G400 MAX). 2D quality is exceptional, and although it's not the fastest card around anymore, I'm still chuffed with mine, and to be honest, your CPU isn't going to let you get the best out of any of the current crop of 3D accelerators. 3D gaming is also very good with this card. I'll admit that my RAM and CPU help, but the card will do you proud. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Matrox Millenium G400 MAX AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value Windows 2000 Professional

I actually went to the MS Office 10 beta sign up website today, and one of the things it explicitly tells you is that you should only install it on a machine that you are preapred to format when testing is complete. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think that may be your only choice. You could always try recreating the folder on your hard drive, installing and then removing, but I don't hold out much hope.

Be sneaky, pull the keyboard/mouse out of the back! Just plug it in again when you want to use the machine. You'll probably find that most security related products that allow the computer to be locked also blank the screen or replace it with a message. After all, what's the point of securing your computer, if people can just come up to it and read that top secret memo you've just typed?

Doc: The comment about USB wasn't meant to imply that it was a high performance solution, just a way of chaining loads of drives together at a reasonable price. The bit about RAID was my goof. You're right, you lose a 1/3 of the space, but it is across all drives, and not one drive that is dedicated to the job of storing parity. I'll make sure my points clearer in future.

This was raised briefly in the Hardware forum, but I thought I'd pop in here and ask properly. Are any you people who are running Whistler using either a DualHead or TwinView card? I ask because the multi monitor stuff in Win2k is basically broken compared to how it works in 9x. I was just wondering if Whistler does it correctly by allowing you specify different refresh rates and resolution for each monitor. Here's hoping it's good news.

J_Pro, as you kind of hinted, the problem lies with the OS, and not the card drivers. G400 users (myself included) have been battling with Matrox to get this fixed, but they are 100% adament that the problem lies with Microsoft and the way they have coded parts of the OS. I think I might just put a post in the Whistler forum to see how things are stacking up.

An interesting topic. Just because motherboards are starting to have RAID controllers built in, doesn't mean that they are going to be used properly. For most people 1 (maybe 2) drives attached via IDE is plenty. If you starting getting beyond that, you are probably better off moving to SCSI where you can daisy chain a number of drives together. Failing that, you can get 127 devices chained off of USB (IIRC), so get a USB external drive, and start stacking them up! The other thing is cost. For RAID 5, you need at least 3 disks, and one of them is not usuable by the system, so that hacks a 1/3 off of the amount of space available. In addition to that, you have the added cost of fitting 3 disks to system instead of 1 or maybe 2. And after that... you have the education thing. It's all very well having loads of disks all setup in a nice fault tolerant system, but if you don't know how to setup the system to make best use of the RAID, then you might as well not bother in the first place. So, at the end of the day, I reckon that RAID is fine for servers, and maybe for really highend workstations, but everything else probably wouldn't really see any difference. (Edited for a typo) [This message has been edited by Bursar (edited 13 October 2000).]

Thank god! Others have a similar problem. I thought I was the only one. "Hello, my name is Phil, and my mouse pointer disappears." *round of appluase* I haven't experienced it in any major applications, but I have been trying to use the version of UnrealEd that ships with the Deus EX SDK, and my pointer is fine over the menus and toolbars, but as soon as I move it over one of the 3d or 2d view windows it vanishes. I will admit that I haven't tried turning down the acceleration of the card, but I've tried pretty much everything else. Guess it's wait and see time. ------------------ PIII 800EB FC-PGA Intel D815EEA Motherboard Intel® PRO/100 Integrated NIC 2x256MB PC 100 RAM Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Maxtor 52049U4 20.4GB 7200RPM UDMA66 Matrox Millenium G400 MAX AOpen 52x IDE CD-ROM Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer USB Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro US Robotics Sportster Flash v90 External modem Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17 Adaptec 2940 Ultra Wide SCSI controller Sound Blaster Live! Value Windows 2000 Professional

C&C TS should run fine in Win2k, I know my copy does.

Windows 2000 doesn't actually support ATA 100 controllers and drives properly. It will run them at ATA 66 speeds. There is a Win2k patch available (but not to the public). I'm in the process of getting MS to send it to me. These files I would suspect will update the existing Win2k drivers to support ATA 100. It probably won't help in your case though. When you are installing Win2k, are you doing it by booting from the CD or running the upgrade from inside Win98? Try booting from the CD (if you haven't already), and seeing how you get on.

hteles - Where you based? I might be able to send you one. [Edit] Just noticed, it's Portugal. Tell you what, drop me an email with your address and I'll get one in the post tonight for you. It'll be coming from the UK so it may take a few days to get there. [This message has been edited by Bursar (edited 11 October 2000).]

Quote: sorry no luck didnt help Does this mean you already had the latest BIOS or that flashing it didn't help. Even if the latest version on the website is the same as the one you are currently using, it'd be worth re-flashing it anyway. Do you get any STOP errors when Windows boots, can you use the F8 key to go in in Safe Mode? Can you do a logged boot, and then clear the BIOS, boot into Windows and read the log to see if you can find what is failing? After you clear teh BIOS and get back into Windows, is there anything in the System Event Log?

You should find that most of the books should be available on the Technet CD's as well. I don't have my Technet CD's handy, but I think it should be there somewhere.

How easy this is depends on how the RAM in your machines has been fitted. What you'll need to do is to take the case off of both machines and have a look inside. You'll see some slots about 4 inches long. There should be three of them next to each other. These are the DIMM slots that the memory plugs into. If both machines have 128MB of RAM, then you'll either have 1 x 128MB DIMM fitted, or 2 x 64MB DIMM fitted. In the first case, you're not going to be able to move any RAM about, as one machine will have 256MB, and the other will have none. If you have 2 x 64MB DIMMS, then you can take one out and put it into the other machine. This will give you 192MB of RAM in one machine and 64MB in the other. Removing and fitting DIMMS is quite straight forward. The main thing to remember is to switch the machines off first! Then, once inside, you see some catches at each end of the DIMM module. These just ease away from the DIMM. The module should then pop out. When fitting, the DIMMs have small grooves in them, so they'll only go in the slots one way round. Pull the catches away from the slot, line up the DIMM correctly and push it home. You may need to be a bit firm. Once it is in, push the catches towards the DIMM to ensure that they have locked into place. That's about it. The last step is to go into the BIOS on each machine, and just save and exit. This will update it with the new amount of memory (you may see a message about the RAM size changing when you first switch on). If you really aren't sure about it, and there are no techie friends who can help, call a local PC shop and ask if they'll do it. They might charge a small amount, but it's better than you breaking something if you are not sure. Hope this helps.

Can you not use the Win2k machine to dial out? If you can do it, then the Win2k ICS is dead easy to configure and use.

Quote: Win2000 is no safer at hiding your [censored] (not that I have to, parents don't use computers and other half is cool ) unless you encrypt your data. When did you get an other half???

Newsgroup support in Outlook 2000 isn't that great. I started using it the other day (I dodn't want to change my Agent configuration). If you really want to use it, click View -> Goto -> Newsgroups and you can set it all up in there. Beware that it is a bloody awful interface. If you select 6 messages, right click and shoose open, you get 6 new windows open. There is no way (that I have found), to only download attachements from messages. This means you need to open each message, wait for it to download, right click the attachment, and choose Save As. There is a Combine and Save option for multi-part attachements though. If you are downloading messages, and you switch to another group, all the messages you were downlaoding stop, and all the windows display a message along the lines of "Message no longer available, or you are out of disk space". All in all, it's hopeless. But, if you really want to use it, you can see how to set it up here: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q195/8/79.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0

I don't think there is a way you can limit it. What I'd be tempted to do is either unshare your DUN connection (if appropriate), or pull cables out of the hub so that they can't use the net when you're playing.

Is there a reason why you want the Win95 machine to have that specific IP address? If not, use your Win2k machine as a DHCP server to assign an address. This is how I run my home LAN, and everything works peachy. My network consists of a Win2k Pro and a Win98SE machine.

And your system spec is....?

Does anyone have any suggestions on the best model to go for? Will be used by our "big boss" for an important meeting, so must give fairly good quality image. Am looking in the region of £100 (UK). TIA.

Thanks for all the suggestions, but someone here remembered that we have a video camera along with a capture card. I haven't actually tried this yet, but it sounds like it should work. If it doesn't, I'll see if we can splash the cash for the 3Com camera.