Curley_Boy

I've recently bought myself a new Dell PC with Vista Home Premium pre-installed (wish I hadn't bothered now, as Vista has been nothing but a headache for me!). My latest difficulty has been trying to get Vista to allow my old XP Home SP2 machine to connect to its shared folders. I've set up both machines using the Windows Network Setup Wizard, and my Vista network is set as 'Private'. Both machines can see each other in Explorer, but the XP PC is asked to provide a password to access the shares on Vista. Now in Vista's Network and Sharing Center, I have already made sure that 'Network discovery', 'File sharing' and 'Public folder sharing' are set to 'On' (in addition to ensuring that users accessing Vista's Public folders have full permissions, and that 'Password protected sharing' is switched off). However, my XP PC is still being asked for a password to access the Vista PC and its shares! I am positive this is a problem with user account permissions, seeing as I've already tested my hardware and disabled all uncessary protocols and services on both machines. When I first configured my Vista PC, I initally chose to name my default logon account 'admin', and to create a limited account for everyday use. Now my old XP machine also has an account called 'admin' (but, unlike the 'admin' account on Vista PC, it has a blank password). I assumed that the problem was to do with conflicting account names, and so I renamed my Vista 'admin' account to 'root'. But this has not solved the problem. By using Vista's advanced security/sharing dialog, I've been able to run a search for all accounts recognised by the OS. It turns out that although my old 'admin' account appears as 'root' on the Welcome screen, it still named 'admin' in the Users and Groups dialog. Unfortunately, re-naming the 'admin' account on the XP PC is out of the question (as it doesn't belong to me). Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this irratating problem? At present, I can still copy files and folders from the Vista PC to the XP PC's shared folders (though not visa versa), but it would be nice to have my network working properly!

Over 100 views and no reply? ...you lazy people you Well I did (eventually!) find a program that allows you to save window positions called 'Winsize'. Although it's no longer supported it can be downloaded from: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1560701,00.asp Although initally you may find it a bit 'quirky' (the readme is practically non-existent) I have finally figured it out (and it has saved me a lot of headaches in the long run).

Ever since the days of 95 this has been a problem that has plagued Windows users Say you have a lot of different programs running (windows open, nicely arranged all over your desktop(s)). You might also have a lot of icons which you have painstakingly positioned in just the right places... Then you run a full-screen app and *boom* when you switch back to the desktop (or exit the app) your windows are thrown all over the place (sizes screwed up too of course) and your icons are everywhere! There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this behaviour some full screen programs behave nicely and leave everything where it was and others... well see above. I have used all the registry hacks that control explorer window sizes/positions and icon placements (they work fine), but of course these don't affect 3rd party apps or those not directly linked to the explorer gui (and even then these tweaks only save settings for windows that have been closed and re-opened, they do not reset positions for processes that are currently running). Does anyone know of a freeware app (or a *cheap* commerical one if needs must), that will allow me to control window / icon positioning on the fly? Also if such a program exists does it manage its settings over multiple desktops? P.S I seem to remember that Nvidia incorparated limited functionatly for some of the above in its driver releases (you could add options to the context menu if I remember rightly). Does anyone else remember this, and if so does the feature still exist in the later revisions? btw I'm running Windows 2000 SP4 and the 56.72 NV Detonators

Thanks for the advice Unfortunately I already tried both of your suggestions (I love both QTA & RPA) unfortunately for the WM9 codecs to be detected on many sites, they require wmp 6.4 to be installed alongside Media Player Classic (fair enough) but some sites it would appear need the full WMP9 in order to work at all. So after hours of frustration I gave up and installed WMP9 (it is so bloated it is unbelivable). Fortunately I have an uninstaller program, so if I do decide to remove it at a later date I can clean it all up instead of the mess the MS uninstall process leaves behind.

Trying to view some video clips off comedy central ... tried firefox ... nothing ... opera ... nothing ... ie 5 ... "you need WMP9 blah blah blah..." cut a long story short I don't want wmp 9 clogging up my pc... can I just download the codecs somewhere?

If your running 2000 or XP you could restrict their accounts to 'user' level and allow them access to the local Administrator account via the 'Runas' service. Click an .exe file (or the application you want to run as an administrator from a limited account), hold down shift and then right click. 'Run as...' appears on the context menu then you can enter the name and password of an account that has admin rights. To always run specific shortcuts from a different account to the one your currently logged in as, edit the property sheet for that shortcut, select the 'shortcut' tab and tick the 'Run as a different user' box. You can also use this feature from the command prompt. Just type 'runas /?' (no quotes) to what options you can use it with. **Keep in mind that 'user' level accounts on Windows machines probably won't be as restrictive as their counterparts on Linux boxes (eg users still have access to event logs, can install *some* plugins and software, have limited registry access and can run files from system dirs etc)... stay vigilant.

I think this must have been discussed by me (or some other person) before, so if it has forgive me, but I have something to get off my chest. I've just helped my dad upgrade his Quicken software to the latest version and it was a *painful* process. I had to prompt him EVERY step of the way. He is not new to computers he has been using them since the days of the ZX spectrum (and even programmed a few games on that for me when I was little). This is the man to taught me how to use DOS (which for months was a complete mystery to me), and yet this man cannot figure out even the simplist functions of MS's latest and greatest: XP Perhaps it's just me and the XP gui is really unintuative. I've met many people (dad included) who can't get their heads round the concept of an "install wizard". They don't know how easy they've had it since the days of 95! For most people the problem of installing any application downloaded from the web (or wherever) can only begin once they've actually remembered where the file has been downloaded *to* (cue hours of frantic hard-disk searching, and cursing for the lack of an intelligable search function)! I don't know, can we really blame MS for all our security woes, when most people have difficulty getting to grips with even the most basic Windows tasks? Windows XP has a built in firewall, restricted user accounts, a whole host of system repair tools, and even the "evil" IE and OE can be locked down pretty tight (and with automatic updates, the OS installs security patches as they are released). I just wonder if so many of these worm and virus wouldn't be half so lethal if people had their machines set up securely in the first place? Simply configuring XP correctly would eliminate most virus and spyware problems (or at least severely restrict the amount of damage such attacks cause). But in the after-math of any such news-worthy attack everybody points the finger at the programmer and not at themselves. That's why I think before somebody is required to own a PC with internet connectivity (which is most of them these days) they should first have to pass a basic "security awareness" test or something. Starting with how to configure your browser and firewall properly, then "what is a virus-scanner and why do I need one?", "Spam and how to avoid it", "Is this email genuine?" and "If it sounds too good to be true, it is: DON'T CLICK THAT BANNER!" etc... I suppose the simplist thing people could do is get in the habit of backing up on a regular basis, but even that is beyond most of them! (I back up my files in triplicate and have a copy on my person at all times). If you had a car and then you hopped in it one day... did 120mph, on ice, causing a fatal pile-up... would the judge show leinancy because you *really* needed the car for work, but never found the time to take a driving test or get proper insurance? Or imagine the insurance company asked to pay out on a claim by a man who couldn't be bothered to lock his doors and windows each time he left the house. If people have time to use a computer for lesuire, then they have time to learn how to use it "safely". I'm sick and tired of people bemoaning Window's lack of security. In a home-based environment an NT based OS can be made pretty solid and secure without too much work (even 3.x versions, although 2000+ is better). I've been running NT based OSes now for over 3 years, and I have had no problems with viruses, hackers or spyware (even using IE and OE in the early days... and I don't think that was just luck). What do the rest of you think? Could people do a better job of securing their data, or is it down to the software companies to "keep us safe"?

I think that the preview media function that appears when you highlight a compatible music file makes use of the media player application that is built into Windows (and a regmon scan seemed to confirm this). You say that the files work in your other media players, and in "Windows Media Player", which version are you using? 2000 comes with 6.4 built in, but if you've upgraded to a later version, something might have gone arwy there. The folder templates that control whether the media preview is enabled (including which file types can be previewed via this method) are located in 'c:\winnt\web'. You could check to make sure those files are all present and correct. The only other thing I can think of is you might have installed some additional dodgy codecs (that may have been included with another media-player, game or a "mega codec pack") etc that may have damaged the preview feature (but then again you'd think that would affect your other players too).

I've managed to do it by creating a restricted account and running winamp.exe through the "runas" service, then lowering the priority via process explorer. If APK's tool will make the job simpler I will take a look (have various 9x cd's knocking about round here)

I have 512Mb of ram, and my sound card is the Creative PCI 128 (old I know). Nevertheless with a bit of tweaking here and there I can run HL2 and a sigificant number of background programs without difficulty (only a slight 1/2 second skip in audio when switching from HL2 to the desktop and back again with winamp running). As mentioned in my first post I seem to have found the optimum priority settings for my plugins and the main winamp.exe, to keep this stutter to a minimum. But like you said the problem is more hardware based. Winamp offers the ability to buffer sound data through its directsound output plugin, I could experiment with that I suppose, but ultimately a better sound card might be in the offering for christmas.

I have been playing a number of CPU intensive games recently (eg Doom III, HL2) and have been running a number of other apps including winamp in the background. The system has no problem with multi-tasking between all of them, but I sometimes have to specify a manual process priority level for certain applications to keep everything smooth. Winamp causes a number of difficulties. My tracks will play smoothly (except a slight hitch when switching away from something like HL2 to the desktop) as long as I set the plugin decoder priorities to highest. But to stop this from interfearing with frames rates in HL, I have to set the winamp.exe process to "below normal" priority. Unfortunately at the beginning of each subsequent track winamp will raise or lower the priority level to whatever is specified in it's settings (which doesn't support anything finer than low, normal, high or realtime). I had considered running winamp under a separate and restricted user profile (with "runas" service), but in that case I wouldn't be able to set priority levels in the first instance. Does anyone have any ideas on getting winamp to stick with the priority level I give it?

A difficult one to answer you might think. But nevertheless I am interested in your opinions (should you have any ). Each new version of Sun's JRE seems to get bigger and bigger, and the only reason I can think of upgrading each time is the potencial security holes that are fixed in each release. But how dangerous (and more importantly common) are JRE exploits? If there is no real danger can I use older (smaller) versions eg 1.2 or 1.3 etc... (I currently have 1.4.2_06 on Win2k) Does anyone who is actually knowledgable about Sun's implamentation of Java, have any suggestions about which build offers the best stablity without bloat or serious security holes (or does it vary between different platforms and browsers)? Thank you to anyone who takes the time to answer this

Your problem is unfortunately quite common and occurs mainly on PCs with an AMD/VIA cpu/systemboard combo, with a Creative soundcard (mainly the "Live" models) and Windows 2000. It was this "issue" that finally prompted me to upgrade to XP (where in most instances the problem is fixed). You've already tried most of the things I did (new drivers, new card etc..) Eventually I found that switching my Live for a PCI128 improved the problem somewhat (but some people have similar problems with these cards also). Try installing the Via 4in1 4.35's (from via arena), and the "VIA PCI Latency Patch": http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/abit/download/utilities/VIA_Latency_patch/ (I use the 0.19 version, the 0.14 was for CPUs that got a bit too hot after applying the patch) Good Luck!

Can you use Windows 2000's 'convert' tool to alter cluster sizes on drives already formatted with NTFS, or will I need a 3rd party program? Thanks

According to the HL-2 tech support page there is an issue with the EU DVD version of the game where if you do not choose to install HL2 *and* CS:Source then you will get an error message during the install process. (kept getting a similar message to you) When you have done a *complete* install (and registered and decrypted) the game files via Steam, you can remove the CS:Source files (if you don't want them) via the 'my games' menu.