Curley_Boy

On Windows XP if you want to try and run older software you have the option of running the .exe under a compatibility mode (W95/98/NT4 etc..) The feature appears as a tab on the properties page of the exe. In 2000 this feature was installed with SP2 (if memory serves). I have a new installation of w2k that came with SP4 integrated and this feature does not seem to be installed. How can I get it back? Is there a dll I need to register or a separate download somewhere that MS has 'forgotten' to advertise?

I know that IPsec allows you to filter ports on a machine, but I know it also allows you to encrypt network traffic. Does this capability extend only to machines on a LAN or corporate network, or does this feature allow you to encypt internet traffic? If so is there a good online guide to get me started somewhere and what effect will this have on networking with other PC's on the local LAN that *Don't* support IPsec encryption (XP Home, NT4 etc). I am running Windows 2000 Pro SP4, and am connected to the internet via an hardware adsl router.

Thanks for that, I will try and remember to tune in. But do you have anything I could look at in the meantime?

When I try and install hotfix 834707 (the latest Internet Explorer update), the update program tells me I have an incorrect version of Internet Explorer. I'm running Win2k SP4 with IE 5.01 The hotfix was listed for Win2k SP4 (with IE5.01), what else can I try?

Thanks (as always) for your reponse APK, The reson I don't use versions of IE beyond 5.01 is because the features MS added to 5.5 and 6.0 I do not need. I keep a stable unbloated system (as far as is possible) by only installing updates that actually fix problems I'm experiencing or include features that I would use on a regular basis. I see that Opera has a beta available for 7.60, I'll wait for the 'finished' version I think. Much as I like Firefox, Opera tends to render pages faster and has a shed load of features built-in that you need to find plugins for with Mozilla based stuff (Opera's less resource hungry too I find). I think I will have to do what you suggest and manually extract the files (I have had to resort to this trick on more than one occasion with a 'stubborn' hotfix!) However the patch includes updates to the registry which block numerous dodgy activex controls. I could always merge those manually I suppose *sigh*, but since I only have activex enabled for my trusted sites (very trusted!) then I don't think I need to bother, as I have IE set up to prompt me before attempting install anything!

See the following thread for my solution: http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread27064-1.html If you want to use the mouse in mech2 you need mouse2kv.zip (available from vogon.zeetafleet.com, search the forums), or alternatively I can send you it via email. Add the the following line to the .bat file mentioned in my solution: 'mouse2kv 640 480 8 8 mech2.exe' (minus quotes) **Note: although this will give you mouse support (on my machine) it causes white noise to play instead of the FMV or menu audio. MAKE SURE YOU TURN YOUR VOLUME RIGHT DOWN TO THE BOTTOM, UNLESS YOU ARE ACTUALLY IN-GAME Finally, I have discovered that the game *must* be run from a fullscreen dos prompt. So maximise the dos prompt, before you load your .bat file.

No, the patch specifically states that it's for IE 5.01 (on Windows 2000 SP4). Check the bulletin page: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-038.mspx The link for the patch is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...;displaylang=en I have NO intention of upgrading IE beyond version 5.01, the day MS stop releasing patches for this version is the day I finally wash my hands of IE (being mainly a Firefox / Opera user, at present).

When you use the repair option from the Win2k installation CD the installer restores your settings from the 'c:\winnt\repair' folder. Trouble is that this will restore your registry and security policy settings to installation defaults (envisage days of you setting up all of your software and tweaks again...) Shouldn't it be possible to replace the files in that folder with your current ones? The contents of my repair folder are thus: <RegBack> (a folder containing): NTUSER.DAT UsrClass.dat default SAM SECURITY software system (the remaining files are in the root of the 'repair' folder) ntuser.dat default sam security software system autoexec.nt config.nt secsetup.inf I recognise the .nt files and could replace those easily enough. The 'secsetup.inf' file is the default security policy. Now when I take a look at my local security settings (through admin tools) the option to export my current policy is greyed out... suggestions anyone? The remaining files are the components of the registry, but which ones refer the the files in 'system32\config' and which to my user profiles, also what is the difference between those files stored in 'repair\Regback' and those in the root of 'repair'? I have also lost my emergency repair disk. What files need to go on this please should I ever need it's services? Many thanks for any help you lot may be able to offer me.

Thanks Zen, I was an XP user for a year or so before switching back to 2k, so I forgot about ntbackup.exe's ERD feature (even though I use ntbackup each week to backup my c:\ drive to my server ) However when try and make an ERD I get the following error: The operation failed. The disk file was not found or was inaccessible. I know it isn't a defective floppy so I seem to have hit a dead end with this one (unless someone can suggest I solution)? APK, you are as ever a goldmine of information. It looks like I shall have to do registry backups manually. Trying out some kind of script or .bat commands seem a good idea, trial and error will find the best solution. I used to use the recovery console to back up registry files before any 'tricky' operation (and on more than one occasion such methods saved my system!)

How does Windows mesure the 'size' of the registry (as revealed on the property sheet where you set up your pagefile)? The size currently reported (14mb) is not the same as when I select the files in the system32\config folder (and does it include my ntuser.dat, and usrclass.dat in their aswell?) How does the size of the registry in RAM relate to the size of the files on the hard disk? Example: I recently deleted my 'HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet004' entry (my last failed configuration, as reported in the 'select' key). The size of the exported .reg file was a couple of Mb, so I expected that the reported size of the registry would decrease... nope! In fact my registry has been growing. It 'should' be around 12Mb (Windows 2000 Pro, with all my software installed), but after a few regenerations (and subsequent removals) of redundant 'ControlSet00x' keys the overall size has reportedly increased by 2Mb. Can someone explain (preferably in English) why the size continues to go up, when the amount of keys and values stored in the registry remain comparatively the same?

Damn posted twice by mistake (and I can't delete it) this is an edit (ignore!!)

Thank you very much indeed for this info I have been trying out the dureg and instaler tools from the MS reskit. Finally I can find out where all the space is going (and get rid of all the junk). I was already familiar with the built-in features of the regedt32 (the 'File Manager' UI lives! :x) and regedit apps, but I had not come across Windiff (I will give this a go next time I try another great "merge n purge" in the registry). However I am still as to a loss of where the extra mb of space in the registry came from (as unfortunately I didn't know about any of those reskit tools at the time)... What happened was I dumped ControlSet002 (my default control set) to disk as a .reg file (from regedit). Then ran a search (through notepad) for all mentions of 'ControlSet002' and replaced them with 'ControlSet003' (my last known good set). Then I erased 'ControlSet003' from the registry and merged the updated .reg file as my new 'last known good'. To cut a long story short I was trying to ensure that my last known good was in perfect sync with my current control set (bar one tweak I was going to add). There had been a previous occasion where I needed to use the back up set and the two weren't in sync and everything got messed up. So I was suprised to find that after merging the new file (in which only one value was different between the two complete sets) there was a huge overall size increase. I also know for a fact that no other programs or drivers were installed between reboots to account for it. Well perhaps armed with my new set of tools bloats like this in the future will be less common.

Sorry for the lack of replies (I know it's rude to leave a response unthanked). Thanks for the link adam, although fool that I am I thought I remembered something similar myself from ages back (and a 5 min search in google confirmed this). Anyhow thanks for your help.

I've tried this tweak on my 2000 PC. (1/2 the suggested value also b/c I only have 512 RAM). So far no instabilities... but no shocking performance increases either (then again we don't all have the luxuary of a hardware ramdrive to store our pagefile on!). I have been fiddling about with an NT 3.51 PC recently and it still has the same setting in the registry (which I have enabled at one 16th of the suggest value!!). It is interesting that Microsoft only recommends this 'tweak' for their 2003 server range, as I am willing to bet you could (theorectically) use this tweak on an NT 3.1 machine. Anyhow happy tweaking and thanks for the link!

I was wondering how I can improve multi-tasking performance in Windows 2000. I like to have a lot of applications open, and whilst the system remains stable, performance (and switching between tasks) drops when more than a few resource hogging programs are opened. Previously I have used the 'Win32PrioritySeparation' tweak in NT4 (or manually set process priority levels in the task manager). In 2000 and XP I have been told that you can fine-tune the priority separation tweak. I've read a few articles on the MS knowledge base (but as I am not a programmer, or systems administrator by profession it just made my head spin). In addition I've heard that values located in the key below: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Executive can be tweaked also (but since I haven't the faintest idea what they do I have steered clear). What I am looking for is a system that remains as responsive as possible without compromising stability. I would assume that to achive this (and overcome the problem of 'process hogs') is to ensure that all processes are allocated an equal amount of system resources. I could really do with some expert advice on this. Athlon T-Bird 1.1Ghz, 512RAM, Windows 2000 Pro SP4

Thanks for the info Alecstaar, 'you live and learn' as they say. I have decided to stick with a value of 2 extra critical and delayed worker threads for now, and add more if needed. I tried setting apps to 'realtime' with this tweak and suprise suprise, as you said: smooth as glass instead of a near lock up (and I only have 1 cpu). Thanks again

I have been experiementing with various values in the priority control key, and have found a decimal value of 37 suits my needs (short quantums [fixed length ones for forground applications] with a medium boost). Applications like Dosbox (which is particularly resource intensive) can be helped along by tuning cpu cycles and frameskip (or manually adusting the priorities of other open applications). btw sysinternal's 'process explorer' is a great little utility, the ability to 'suspend' processes I have found invaluable. Why didn't MS added this functionality to the standard taskmanager by default? I had tried adjusting the 'AdditionalCriticalWorkerThreads' and 'AdditionalDelayedWorkerThreads' beforehand (set both to '2'). However not wanting to compromise system stability (death by tweaking through ignorance) didn't push things. I assume the performance gained will vary according to hardware set up and applications used, which is why you weren't more specific on what values these should be set at? However further guidelines would be appriciated if at all possible. For example do both the values listed above have to be the same? (why). Is there a suggested limit to set them at? (ie does it affect system stability beyond a certain level?). Does this tweak conflict with any others that I should be aware of? Thanks once again.

If your data is really that valuable you should find some way to back it up properly. If you want a complete Windows reinstall from scratch then you need to reformat your installation partition to get rid of any left-overs from your old Windows install (bye-bye precious data). Hard drives are cheap these days, as are CD-RWs and DVD writers are coming down in price. I know forking out for stuff is never a joyful experience but it is better to have your data safe before you start messing around (I'm speaking from many instances of painful experience: plan for the worst). However, If you are intent on pursuing your current plan then you might find this useful: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ BartPe is a customised boot CD which will give you access to any 2000/XP/2003 installation with a GUI, network and full file system support.

When you launch a program that has a different screen resolution to your desktop, the icon and window posistions can become scrambled when you exit. Although most of my programs are well behaved a consistant offender is Winamp. If winamp is active and I change my screen resolution it's 'windows/componants' become scattered all over the place. Is there a solution to this?

In NT4 you just type 'systray' in the run dialog box to get your icons back after a shell crash. Although that was before I installed the IE shell update. Well there's no harm in trying.

My mum wants me to backup her work stuff to CD. However when I try and burn the stuff to CD (using Nero) it tells me that some of the file names are either longer than 255 characters (or have characters that aren't supported by the CD file system, ISO 9660) and directories are more than 8 paths deep. The problem is she has TONS of files with many many subfolders (haven't found more than 7 deep as of yet though). I can't possibly go through them all. Does anybody know precisely WHICH charecters are not supported by the format listed above, and perhaps suggest an easy method to locate and rename files/folders that are too long or have unsupported charecters in their names. Alternatively can I use a different format to ISO9660 (one that would allow me to keep my current names intact and still be readable on other PCs [98/Me/NT/XP] using FAT, FAT32, NTFS 4 and 5)? Any help much appriciated I'm going spare here!!

I don't know if the game in question has a DOS version (your pretty much sunk if it's Win 95 only) but IF it's a DOS version you can find my solution at: http://www.ntcompatible.com/thread27064-1.html Good luck!

Have you considered: http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html With that I have got my 2k installation down to about 330Mb (I have programs that install alot of stuff in the 'system32' dir, so you could probably get yours down to around about 200mb).

Your RTCW problem sounds like you need a driver update for your video card. If it's an NVIDIA based one then www.nvidia.com is where you need to go. (The driver installation program is completely automatic, but make sure you uninstall any previous nvidia drivers / programs AND *reboot* before you attempt to install the new ones). As for 98 being better for gaming than 2000, that's a matter of personal opinion and really depends on your hardware and what games you plan on running. In the first year or so of it's release Windows 2000 was definately inferior to 98 for gaming because of it's increased hardware requirements and the fact that hardware manufacturers had not optimised their drivers for the new OS. We're now a good few years down the line: 2000 has 4 service packs to its name and with the launch of XP developers have had to optimise their software and drivers for the NT platform. However if you still need 98 for the odd troublesome program, you can set up your system as a dual boot (assuming you haven't converted your drives from FAT32 to NTFS). I've never played Neverwinter Nights so I can't help you there. I would suggest that you visit the offical site or forum and see if other users have a similar problem, there will most likely be a patch or workaround availiable.

Does anyone else here play DVDs on NT4? I can't for the life of me find a compatible player, and the problem is overlays. I can get most players to install and run fine (even detect and play the dvd) but the screen is greyed out. I discovered overlays were to blame when I played back video in winamp and realplayer (disabling overlays fixed the problem). However most DVD software doesn't allow the user to mess with overlays and thus renders it useless! ;( Does anyone know of a good freeware DVD player than allows me to turn off overlay / hardware support? (and preferably comes with it's own codecs). Failing that can anyone tell me of a commerical product that works on NT4? Here's hoping!