Brian Frank

I believe for each network componet (i.e. TCP/IP, IPX/SPX) there has to be one for both the network card and the modem.

I have an optical USB mouse, but I use the PS/2 port for that and save the USB ports for other things. Just my take.

I've never used NT 4, but I have heard that SP6 had some major issues. MS release SP6a to unscrew themselves. That's all I know.

I stopped using Power DVD, because of the trouble I had getting it to try to work. I believe you can get a trial version of Win DVD off http://www.intervideo.com Intervideo's website. I just couldn't get it P DVD to work. BTW, what error message are you getting?

AMD has been in business almost as long as Intel, but they haven't been making cpu's for quite as long. AMD has done a lot for the market, in terms of making the cpu's cheap. Compatibility means jack right now, since AMD has 3DNow! and MMX. Plus, the Athlon 4 has SSE instructions, so there is even less of an issue. To some people, buying Intel is worth it, but for many, AMD is just as good, and cheaper to boot, but that does vary on a configuration. If you're worried sick over the issue of burning up your cpu, go Intel right now. If in doubt, buy Intel, but there really is no compatability issue with AMD cpu's in general. It ends up being chipsets too you know. Intel does have better chipsets than AMD. AMD is being smart to make there own chipset instead of relying on Via. If Via screws up, AMD will be hurting. Intel doesn't have that problem, so long as they, or SiS or ALi produce a decent chipset. I just thought I'd straighten things out first, and also, I'd like to say, no flame wars about AMD and Intel. You have your cpu, I have mine. Go with what you want.

Make sure the drives or files you want people to see are shared. But before this, make sure the Guest accout is enabled. It's in Admin. Tools in the control panel, under Computer Management--->Users and Guests. After that, you should be able to enable sharing w/o a hitch. Oh, BTW, when I said components, I ment networking components like TCP/IP, File & Printer sharing, etc.

Make the boot disks was a smart move. I've seen it need to be used, or have used them on occasion. We've advanced so much, yet we still use the floppy! lol To format it, you should be able to do this after the product upgrade verification. You'll reboot and have to go through the process again, but this time when it asks you about changing the filesystem, you just select to leave it intact and start the install.

Go buy a software DVD player, Power DVD or WinDVD are recommended, especially the latter, because I've gotten it to run great. The DVD player in Win2k sucks. As long as you have something above a TNT and a reasonably fast CPU, you should be okay.

Mike, I too am using the pre-release version of SP2, right before it was offically released, but I've had no problems with it. The only thing I've noticed is that UT takes a little while to load between maps, but that's it. This is the only thing I've had with any of the service packs. Hey, at least some of us don't have problems, so you know there is a way out. I do have to agree with David about SP2 not really being different than SP1. Next time I reinstall, I may not use SP2, and just go with SP1 and leave it at that.

You could also try to up your page file and see what that does. Have it set between 1.5 to 2 times your amount of RAM. I'm not sure if this helps, but, hey, it's not like you've got anything to lose. I personally have a 1GB partition set aside for the swap file/pagefile/virtual memory (whatever you want to call it), but this is something that works for me. Another thing I thought of is in what order you installed your drivers. I've heard it's best to install the Via 4-in-1's first, reboot, then start installing the other drivers and apps and games afterwords.

ME doesn't work--at least the promo upgrade doesn't. However, I've used the upgrade for 98 and it works all the time.

So whats up with XP? Im beta testing it, and so far Im not feeling very compelled to go to it yet. Im wondering how everyone else feels about it.

Well, are you using dial-up or cable/DSL? If it's the latter, you may try reinstalling the components that you have there.

Do you have the latest patch for HL? It's 1.1.0.6 off Sierra's website.

Tried the 10.80's? They seem to work the best of all. I've also heard good things about the 12.40's.

Here's something that might be helpful: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon-duron/amd_win2k_patch.html I keep this file saved, cuz I need it everytime. It has to do with gaming under an AMD Athlon or Duron cpu under Win2k. Also, what Via 4-in-1 drivers do you have? I personally use the 4.29s, and they work great. That doesn't sound like a ram problem, although you could swap it out just to check, you still should be running okay. I would suggest that you bump it up a little to 256 megs as soon as possible. If it's not, get a 300 Watt power supply. Also, have you tried taking out the SBLive and running the games? If you have something in PCI slot 1 try to put it in a different slot and see what happens. Ive heard of problems with PCI 1 and the AGP slot related to an IRQ. Hope this helps. The config looks good, try that patch off AMD' site and then go from there.

The only thing I can think of is that the Win95 CD might be an upgrade itself. I know the upgrade for 98 worked with the Win2k upgrade, but I don't know if the 95 CD I have is an upgrade or not. Best thing to do: see if you can borrow a copy of 98.

Make sure that your drive has been configured in BIOS if its on the regular IDE controllers and not an IDE card or extra controllers on the motherboard. And don't forget the power. I'm not saying you haven't done this, but I'm just covering the bases.

Well, I went back over what I read, and the upgrading seems to apply more to OFFICE XP, than WinXP. My bad there. It pretty much seems that MS is strongly persuading companies to upgrade to a new program by basically telling them they have to buy before October 25,2001, or else we'll really jack up the price. To me that does kinda seem to be a little pushy. I probably won't go to another OS for a while, because Win2k rocks for me. XP just really didn't have anything convincing enough to justify that much money. After a while, I'll probably get one of the Linux distros with the 2.4 kernel and play around with that, just to see how much better it's gotten.

This is a cinch! In Win2k, right click on the drive you want to format, hit format on the menu, and then do a full format.

If its not causing problems, its best to leave it alone.

Miku, did you try uninstalling EZ-CD, rebooting, then reinstalling it?

Yes.

Have you tried running the repair option?

I personally think the XP activation probably looked good on paper, but not when it gets applied. No way I'll buy a copy of XP for each of my PC's either. At least I'm not being bullied into upgrading like a lot of companies are who haven't gone to the latest and greatest OS. If everything works fine for a company, there is absolutely no reason they should be forced to upgrade if they don't need to. MS should not be forcing companies to upgrade, and because they are, its certainly an indication that something is seriously wrong here. I for one will probably not go to XP, because I don't like where they've moved things, they dumped NetBUEI--which I use to make it extra hard for hackers in addition to a firewall and a gateway with a hardware firewall, the promised speed increase in boot time hasn't been all that impressive, I don't like Media Player 7 or 8--takes up too much space, the whole activation crap, the category views, the continued support for personalized menus, autoplay, that stupid XP assistant, it's harder to do things in general. Im sure for the first time user, the eye candy is great, but IMO, the eye candy is all there is. It's a modified version of Win2k with a few bells and whistles. Oh,yeah, I still have no way to opt out of Movie Maker, another MS "innovation" I hate. I know a lot of you like XP, but I really don't like it at all. Who really cares if the OS looks nice if its a pain to use. I don't like going through even more hoops to get something working.