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Sampson

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Posts posted by Sampson

  3. Posted

    I hate to say it, but XP may have become robust enough to survive standard operating glitches, and games not designed for it is all that seem to keep choking it up. I have no empirical basis for this judgment - it is just that there is no traffic on the site.

     

    Actually, I would be much more interested in what DosFreak says about Ubuntu than any news about Vista.

  4. Posted

    Ok. Let's do it the hard way as peterh suggested. What you will want to do is first look at where this folder is located and exactly how it is spelled. In other words, in Widows Explorer, it was under the Windows folder as Wontdelete.tmp - then that tells us where it is hierarchically. You are going to have to try to delete this folder through the DOS like prompt. In this case in DOS, this folder would look like C:\Windows\Wontdelete.tmp . IF on the other hand this folder is located under you C: drive, in DOS, it would look like C:\Wontdelete.tmp . Hope you can see that where it is in the hierarchical chain means that your DOS commands have to replicate it in a command line structure.

     

    So, you should reboot the computer and when it starts to come up press down F8 and you may have to be insistent. You should be presented with some options. The one you want to choose is Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Sometimes you can use your mouse to choose it; sometimes you have to use the number keypad. Choosing that will bring you to the DOS emulation for XP. Should be a black screen with the cursor indicating the position in the hierarchy of folders you are in. Sometimes it will come up as C:\ or sometimes it will say C:\Windows . Now this is where you have to use your keyboard to go up and down through the hiercarchical directory. In DOS a Folder is called a Directory.

     

    To change directories you type at the Prompt cd\ This just means change directory. Generally cd\ followed by no directory name takes you to the root directory or what is equivalent to C:\ . To get to the Windows subdirectory you could type cd\Windows or to get to the system directory you would type cd\Windows\Sytstem32

     

    You have to be in the directory you desire to delete a specific file. Be sure that the your prompt has the name of the directory before deleting anything. To sse what is in that directory (since a directory is a folder) you type dir /p This will allow you to see the files in that directory and will only scroll for a screen full and pause. Hit any key and it will continue showing what files are in that directory until there are no more files.

     

    Now, you are wanting to delete the \Wontdelete.tmp directory. However, you first have to find out whether that directory (or folder) has files in it since you can't remove it until the directory is empty. Pretending for the moment that this directory was in the Windows directory, you would type cd\Windows\Wontdelete.tmp . If it lets you in, type dir /p and see if it contains any files. IF it does contain files, you would type del *.* to wipe them all out. If it doesn't have any files, then you will need to get out of the directory by typing (in this case) cd\Windows . To get rid of the directory you do not use the del command. Rather, you would type rd\Windows\Wontdelete.tmp

     

    Hope this helps.

  7. Posted

    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. danleff has asked whether you diabled the onboard video in bios. That is an important step. You did not list it in your note above. Go through the steps outlined previously. Be sure that you go to Add/Remove and get rid of all video drivers you see installed. What this does is cause Windows to revert to Standard VGA so that any card will be recognized when it is defaulted and you can then put in your own drivers. Also, as danleff has implied, you might want to see if your motherboard is compatible with the card you are attempting to install.

  10. Posted

    As you point out ConQueso, the best selections are made by the user who often through trial and error finds the best combination of tools. And this is dependent on how adventurous a user is as to exploring "questionable" sites that are often susceptible to hijacking - or installing "sharing" software (eMule, etc.) that also opens the computer to quite a few vulnerabilities.

     

    Rather than consider the merits of your choice, and I am sure that there will quite a few who have found other combinations, I would suggest two additions. 1) if you use broadband, buy a router to connect the modem to the computer. This will reduce the pinging that can drive a software firewall insane telling you that some process is being requested. 2) look into additional socket protection like XPI's SocketShield monitor since even the best software firewall's can be fooled by some pretty sophisticated and subtle intrusions.

     

    I can name a lot of equivalent software to that which you have suggested. But, rather than take that route, I would suggest the above as "suspenders" in addition to the "belt" that keeps your security up.

  11. Posted

    While Windows is up using the onboard graphics, go to the Control Panel, click on Add/Remove software and find the video drivers for the onboard graphics and uninstall them. After doing so, Windows will want to reboot. Tell it no. Then, proceed to Shutdown not just restart. When the machine is shut down, install your new card (if you haven't already done so. Power up the machine, when you see the message (Hit DEL or whatever button to get into the BIOS) do so. Once into the BIOS, as peterh says, disable the onboard graphics and change the default to the video port. When you exit the BIOS, be sure to write the changes. When Windows comes up, it may already be using the drivers you previously installed or it may tell you that it has found new hardware and want to install the drivers for it. Use the CD that came with your card to install the drivers. Be sure to follow the instructions. For many cards this requires that you disable your anti-virus while you install the drivers.

  12. Posted

    You might want to change out your nVidia drivers. Some work better than others with games. Make sure you have the most recent patches for the game. Finally, some processes running in the background can cause a game to stutter. The usual candidate is anti-virus applications. This is the standard stuff that you are asked to consider doing, and you have probably already done it.

  14. Posted

    More mysteries of the nefarious USB port. It sounds like that it did work at one point and now it has stopped working. With both W2K and XP whenever you put something into a USB port, it goes "Thunk" and a little icon appears (unlike 98). Thing is, to disconnect the appliance from the USB, you don't just pull it out of the socket, you have to go through the procedure to disconnect it. You can get away with unplugging it but at some point it bites you back.

     

    If it had been working previously, (and this is going to sound ridiculous), shut down the old XP machine and completely unplug the computer from the wall plug for about an hour. I do not know why, but this will sometimes work.

  15. Posted

    It is possible that this is a timing issue between the Ram and the new motherboard, but there are so many things that could cause this given what you said. If you could inform us how the "upgrade" took place and what was done, this would be more helpful than articulating the symptoms of what the computer is now doing.

     

    It sounds like you kept all your peripherals and just put in a new motherboard and video card. If you are using XP, the motherboard replacement will cause the OS to go south since it will not be expecting the motherboard it finds. In fact, more often than not, it won't boot at all without a clean install of XP with something as major as a new motherboard, and this is complicated with the fact that your XP product was registered along with your previous hardware which will make you have to call Microsoft and re-register the product.

  21. Posted

    If you want all of your PC's to use the broadband modem, the easiest way is to purchase a router, like Lynksys, or something equivalent. The modem would connect to the router and your hub would connect to the router. The router will set the IP configuration for you automatically.

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