Wolf87

"Staying out of the Loop" updated 11 March 2002: http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

PlayCenter v.2.52.18: http://download.asia.creative.com/files/creative/drivers/app/pc2/en/PC252upg.exe

Beginning with Control Panel, remove all occurences of the previous driver installation, including files unzipped in Temp folders and the relevant oemx.inf file in C:\Windows\Inf. Unplug keyboard and use its PS/2 extension or another keyboard while reinstalling drivers and the upgrade. Plug the USB cable only after full software installation and wait for Windows to recognize the hardware and complete the installation.

Fastwrites are usually disabled also in the Videocard Bios to conform to Nvidia & Microsoft standards.

The Intellimouse 3.0 has one sensor, four flat supports and the thumb button in front is easily accessible. The plastic edge extending into metal on the right side can be felt as an inconvenience. The cursor feels very fast and precise. The low supports catch dirt easily. Because the program loses control of the mouse when switching between users, it has to be stopped and restarted. The Logitech Dual has two sensors, five supports with rounded plastic tabs glued and the thumb button seems too low though easy to reach. The Logitech is the most confortable mouse and the cursor glides very smootly. Heavy use (Serious Sam) will unglue the rounded plastic on the three supports at the back of the mouse. A solution is to remove them. The Mouse program has a hefty memory usage. On the whole, my preference goes to the Logitech Dual.

My Computer, right click, Manage, Removable Storage, Libraries, Sony Cd-Rom, right click, Properties, General and check enable drive & Security and check Permissions. If everything is fine there, attempt this: -Start, Run, Regedit and go to key: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup -Edit, New, Multi-String Value, name it. -Double-click and enter path F: for the CD-ROM to protect and OK. -Repeat the whole process for the G: drive. You could also turn off system restore for hard disk drives in System Restore tab in System Properties but that is none too safe.

Remove DVD, Linksys and Audigy to install Windows XP. Add them later.

Some ideas: A) Try the patched Region-free Firmwares for DVD-116 & DVD-116R: http://www.inmatrix.com/articles/win2000.shtml http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/ Disable the built-in Xp CD-burning engine: Control panel Administrative services Services Imapi CD burning Doubleclick and disable C) Check aspi layer or replace it with Nero aspi driver: http://www.nu2.nu/aspi

Check for defective ram chips. Check Bios and choose PNP OS installed = NO. Assign Irq to VGA and USB. Allocate devices in PCI slots in accordance with Irq assignments. Avoid using PCI slots 1 and 2.

Right click Taskbar, Properties, check Hide Inactive Icons. Click Customize to display the dialog box and choose whether to hide or show each icon. Clicking the Taskbar arrow on the right will expand the notification area to reveal all icons. But this does not otherwise reorder the icons.

Go to My Computer, push F3 or click Search. Click Change Preferences. Click Change Files And Folders Search Behavior. Uncheck the Advanced option. The standard and advanced styles offer the same choices but the presentation is different.

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314060

Access Registry and delete LowerFilters and UpperFilters here: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}]

WinIso, CDMage, CloneCD, Daemon Tools and Blindwrite suite.

"Creating and restoring Ghost images" http://users.pandora.be/soulmaniacs/backup.html

Try PCI Latency Timer (Clk) = 64 in the Bios.

The *.psx files exported to diskettes for backup can be imported with Internet Properties, Content, Certificates, Import. Read Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q255742: "Methods for Recovering Encrypted Data Files". You need access to a Recovery Agent's account with a valid recovery key: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q255742 The Windows XP CD-ROM in \Support\Tools\Support.cab file contains a command-line utility named Efsinfo.exe to show who encrypted each file and who has permission to decrypt it, including any recovery agents. Read Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q243026. Freeware EFSDump.exe ver 1.02 can dump that information: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml With this information in hand, use the Runas command to launch Cipher.exe /k at a command prompt to create certificates for your previous User and Password but it would probably not recover your previous encryptions.

Epox KHA+ with Via drivers (4in1, AGP, Busmaster)and Latency patch 18 with Nvidia Detonators 27.20 plus reg patch and overclocking all. It is safer to avoid Detonators 22.XX and 23.XX.

Download also the IE6 QT5 plug-in from Apple for Web compatibility.

Reports abound of the Infinite Loop problem occurring with Nvidia and ATI display adapters on Via and Intel chipsets with Windows XP or Windows 2000 with Microsoft DirectX 8.x as the possible culprit. The Via Latency patch shows responsiveness to needs of the users and tying that problem to Via hardware is unfair. Windows XP should make all computers ready to work out of the box. Further patches, upgrade and tweaks allow to get the best out of the system and there is nothing wrong with Memory Interleaving, Read around Write, Bus Mastering drivers, AGP patch, register enabling HALT Command Detect, etc. Intel also offers patches and tweaks. The Matrox edge was due to better quality hardware components. Since then Ramdacs have improved on most cards. ATI 7500 offers superior image quality over Geforce 3 with the Nec Multisync FE 950+ monitor. GF3 though ahead of the GF2 still looks a bit washed out. Geforce 3 for framerate & gameplay and ATI for work.

The Microsoft Java Machine is a bit different. Altough intended to be part of Windows XP, it was not included because of litigation with Sun and once downloaded and installed it cannot be removed. Get this 5 Mb file from Microsoft Downloads: msjavx86.exe

Assuming that the ACDC 4.0 Registry entries have all been deleted, which is very difficult to achieve, start ACDC 3.1, go to Tools menu, Options, Miscellaneous, choose Do Not Store nor Automatically Regenerate thumbnails.

The program may be building a database while Windowx XP may be building thumbnails. Avoid those settings and check Tools, Folder options, View, Do not cache thumbnails options.

The Mig Alley joystick problem with XP is yet unsolved: http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=15750 http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/Forum34/HTML/000335.html

Move to ACDC 3.1 and get back to speed with full screen settings. ACDC 4.0 is resource hungry and much slower besides being sunk down by useless extras.