Ralf Hutter

Just put together a new box using the EPoX 8K7A mobo. It's AMD 761/via686B. I run Win2000 (slipstreamed) sp2. Installed OS, didn't install any drivers (4-in-1, miniport, busmaster etc.) and everything's running great so far (knock wood). My system is T-bird 1.4, 512 Crucial DDR, 20 + 60 gig IBM GXP's, Geforce2, Turtle Beach. Very stable so far. This board is 'da bomb right now, check out the reviews here, here, here-this is a 3 way 760 test with the Asus, the EPoX and the Gigabyte, or here. Have fun.

Well Mr_Q, you're not alone. I use an Orinoco wireless PC card and there (supposedly-according to tech support) will be no XP drivers for it until it is officially released. BS. I got the guy to send me some new, beta Win2000 drivers but they didn't work either. So-no wireless until 10-25-01. Also my AV (Trend PC-cillin 2000) doesn't support XP. Had to switch to Norton.

I'm running NAV 2001 on my rc1. It works fine so I won't be trying any Symantec beta's anytime soon.

Somehow I managed to get my "start>programs" menu to shoe only the shortcuts in my "C:\Docs & Settings\Username" folder. I also want all the shortcuts that are in the "C:\.....\All Users" folder to show here (just like it does in Win2000). How can I return to this method of viewing? I know I can just drag things around in an explorer window, but I don't want to. I managed to change this by checking/unchecking something and that's how I'd like to fix it. Any ideas? (BTW-this is rc1)

I'm not that much of an idiot, I'm real used to poking around inside OS's. That's the first thing I did when I noticed that my start menu had changed. The only place I was messing around with settings was the "tools>folder options" menu in the control panel and the "display properties" screen. I wanted to change the GUI to a less "Teletubbies/AOL/Playskool" look, so the only thing I was doing was getting rid all that crap. I undid it and still no luck. Any other suggestions?

I caan't sign up for the preview, I keep getting an error (using 2 different browsers)during the signup phase.

I keep getting an error when I try to sign up for the download. The page says that I don't live in the US even though I do and that is what I entered in the form. Can't get any reply from MS via email for this problem. Can anyone point me in some other direction to get RC1? Maybe a direct URL, or some alternative method. Thanks.

Might seem like a silly question but I'm a die-hard Win2000 guy who's never paid much attention to this cutesy version of NT5. Now I'd like to play around with it so I can install it for friends when it's finally released. I like the NTFS file system. Can you install RC-1 on NTFS or does it have to go on FAT32?

That's what I hoped to hear. NTFS is a much better file-system than FAT. Thanks!

Here's the site that tells you exactly what file to modify to stop Windows installer from asking for the CD-key. I did it to my disk last year, it was very easy and now I'm not bothered by having to enter it every time I install.

Toby- no prob- I wasn't looking for credit, I just wanted to make clear that this tweak is in reference to sp2 only.

If you had to reformat why didn't you go with NTFS during the fresh install? There shouldn't have been any issues with Inoculate IT 'cause you weren't converting from FAT32 to NTFS AND you would have started off with a better file system. Sorry NT Compatible couldn't help but, apparently no one else could either.

The quote from Ars is from me and it's in reference to sp2 only. Pre-sp2 installs need only the reg-hack to turn off WFP. If you have issues with messing around in your registry you can use X-teq's "X-setup" tweaking program to disable it also. You can get it here. After you install it, go to "system>software intallation>windows file protection" and disable it. You gotta reboot for it to become effective.

I use a "HOSTS" file. There's info (and already working HOSTS files that you can use) here or here.

You can download the FREE, 1x version of cdrwin and use it to create your bootable image, then burn it with Nero. That's what I do.

You can get Startup Control Panel here.

It's http://www.ntcompatible.com/ but the Tips & Tweaks article isn't up there anymore and I can't find it anywhere else on the site either.

Where are they being posted?

STi Steve-I have a great way to save the 22megs of IExploder ram wastege: run "IEradicator 2000" from www.98lite.net . On first boot, with nothing running, Win2000 uses about 15megs less RAM then when IE is installed. Then use Opera the 5.11 browser.

What functions require reinstall of the sp2? I'd really like to delete this folder. If I need to reinstall the service pack later can I just re-run the original w2ksp2.exe ?

Works fine for me: C:\>ping www.napster.com Pinging www-kyle.napster.com [64.124.41.39] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 64.124.41.39: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=110 Reply from 64.124.41.39: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=110 Reply from 64.124.41.39: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=110 Reply from 64.124.41.39: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=110 Ping statistics for 64.124.41.39: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 90ms, Maximum = 100ms, Average = 92ms Try using the usenet instead of Napster. Lots more music available here with no extra BS. Won't be closed down in our lifetimes, either.

I'll definately give it a try. I've been a dedicated Netscaper since Mosaic, it's just that the latest (4.76) browser is outdated. Over the last year and a half I've tried several versions of the Mozilla builds and they were so buggy that it was an exercise in frustration trying to browse. I'm not a tweaker by nature, I just want to be able to browse efficiently and haven't been able to do it with the Mozilla builds or the Netscape 6 (various betas). Yeah, Opera's a little funky but it beats the pants off of any current Netscape or Mozilla stuff. I REALLY want to like and use the Netscape/Mozilla stuff but I'm gonna hold off until they're more finished products. BTW, remember when you had to pay for Netscape? I do (and did) so I don't mind too much paying for Opera.

So..........what does the lack of CSS-2 and DOM mean to me? I have no trouble browsing that I can see. 99.99% of the pages load fine. If I'm missing some sort of wonderful browsing experience I'm sure not aware of it. Sometimes, if a page loads wierd in Opera, I'll try Netscape 4.76 and if it loads different it's just that, different, not necessarily better.

Opera 5.02 baby! Fast and stable. I've always used Netscape and in the last 9 months I've made an almost complete transition to Opera. I've tried the Mozilla builds but they're way buggier than Opera.

DosFreak's correct, STOP using that drive now. Anything you do will write to it and reduce your chances of recovering your data. You should look up some of those companies that specialize in HDD data recovery (there's lots of adds in the back of the computer mags, also check the yellow pages) and get a price estimate from them. It may be expensive but you'll have to decide if it's worth it to recover your data. You could also try something like Norton Clean Sweep (run it in DOS only) to recover your data, it may work. I had luck using it on a friends computer to recover some deleted files and it got alot of his stuff back even though the drive had been written to a little. Good Luck!