Warning! Do NOT apply XP SP 3!

[MrToxin]

Mr. David, that is a perfect example of a flagrant ID10T error on your brother's side. :V

[Azselendor]

That is so true.

I helped a friend get his computer up and running after it crashed. Dell force-fed him Vista. He couldn't use it. Constantly cussing his computer. I used it with no problems (once I figured out where things moved to) remotely. After a week of him not being able to use it, it downgraded to XP.

He won't stop cussing it.

He doesn't understand why I can use it so easily and with few hassles.


I bought my first XP-run machine when XP first came out with SP1 for it. I haven't reformatted it or anything since. Almost 7 years and it turns on a dime. Meanwhile the computers used by my office mates and family have to be cleaned out and reformatted every few months.

In fact, my office mates started demanding macs be installed, but the owner didn't want to splurge the money on what he felt were over-priced linux computers. So he had me install window blinds on all the computers with the mac theme. That alone cut complaints about windows.

I do think Microsoft made some bad design choices with Vista, but that happens. You can't please everyone. For most users, Vista was too jarring of an experience from the usual XP. Windows 95-XP were all the same basic design, just updated without moving stuff around too much. XP to Vista was like going from Windows 3.11 to XP overnight.

[Fyron]

David E. Gervais said:
If I talk to MS I'm sure they would say "it is not reccomended to have both v1.0 AND v2.0 of .NET Framework installed at the same time".. LoL

Actually, there isn't any problem doing that, and its necessary to be able to run 1.x .NET apps. IIRC, installing .NET 2.0 gets .NET 1.1 installed during the prerequisites phase anyways.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

You say 'It's a poor workman who blames his tools'.

I say 'Anyone who says that has never tried to pound in a nail with a rock'.

[capnq]

Captain Kwok said: I've never had an issue in the past when I've used a restore point. But in the case of removing service packs, you don't need to use this feature because they are treated as installed programs and like I mentioned, can be removed through the add/remove programs control panel item.

Is that a new feature for WinXP SP3? Because my install of SP2 doesn't show up anywhere on Add/Remove Programs. (In fact, the System Properties tab is the only proof I can find that I'm running SP2.)

[phalzyr]

David: Microsoft has a program called TweakUI that is very handy. It can make your machine auto login again. It provides easy access to some hidden registry values that are very useful to tweak (And does so in a safe way)

I agree with you totally. Any user that installs a lot of crap can majorly slow down/unstabalize their machine. AS a tech I see this way too often. "My computer is so slow now..."

Unfortunately too many useful program do this, and some are even preloaded for you when you get a new PC. I tend to format and do a manual install whenever I get a new PC to get rid of Dell's/Gateway's/etc's advertise crap they install for you that can cause slower unstable machines.

If you are unfamilair with registry areas where program auto run from their are also useful tools to look at those area and check/uncheck them (Rather than just removing the registry line and being screwed if it was soemthing you needed).

[Suicide Junkie]

phalzyr said:
David: Microsoft has a program called TweakUI that is very handy. It can make your machine auto login again...

Uhm.

DG said:
...but even using Tweak UI to set the auto logon does not work.

[David E. Gervais]

a little FYI,..

I found the fix for the auto-login problem, it appears that XP has a way to do this. in the 'RUN..' command type "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes) a dialog comes up for "User Accounts" (not the same one as 'User Accounts' in the control panel) simply select the user from list, and 'uncheck the box' for "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer"

it then logs in bypassing the login password screen.

NOTE: This is not recommended for people who have multiple users who want to keep their info private or need different user settings and prefs. It works for me, I'm the only user of my comp, and I have no personnel info on my comp that can be stolen, or if stolen would have world shattering results.

Cheers!

[Captain Kwok]

This is also a wee bit off topic, but involves calling up Task Manager. I know you can access task manager via CTRL+ALT+DEL, but I recall reading about another key sequence that brings up task manager while skipping any of the extra dialog stuff (such as login info, or shutdown etc). Does anybody know what key combo does that?

[Fyron]

ctrl-shift-esc