W98 2 XP, need ref's Re: dist. of sys files etc.

[koonaone]

Hi Folks

I'm a DOS man, circa 88 or so, migrated through GeoWorks, w 3, 95, to
98, where I have been more or less happy for many years. I never made
the W 2000, NT, jump so I'm in deep waters now I'm into XP sp3.

Now I have 2, Acer aspire's, @1.6Gb ram, running OS Win XP he 2002
sp3. Looking at the directories as the machine comes from the box is
intimidating. They run efficiently and quickly, though there's an
awful lot of spam popups I'm going to have to get rid of. Automatic
system, antivir, google desk, updates mostly.

I'm trying to cuff the directory system and default applications
around to my way of thinking but the machine does things it's own darn
way. I should add that my hobby is trying out new utilities and
applications so I'm not a complete clutze on 98 dll's and where they
properly go etc. but XP I know zilch about.

My problem is I havn't found a good (small and concise) reference that
compares the layout and logic of the 2 systems yet.

It may well be that my hobby will have to be restrained when it comes
to XP, there isn't much that I can't do just fine in 98. Well there is
skype, hmmm, and Zotero 2, and well..... hmmm.

If anyone can point me towards a good info source I will appreciate it
very much. Just as an afternote, it looks like a nice quiet useful
group here, congrats.

yours

douglas

ps I still use a DOS, genuinely, cubical spread sheet that has
functionality not found anywhere else.

 

[koonaone]

OK I'm on page 4 of: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1477&page=4
and am getting lots of what I need. keep it coming

douglas

 

[DL]

If you are a DOS / Win98 experienced user, *do not even think about* trying
to configure WinXP to your old tried & Tested ways

You are probably getting all sorts of popups due to the preinstalled junk
that comes with your new PC

 

[koonaone]

Thanks for the reply DL and John

*do not even think about* trying to configure WinXP to your old >tried & Tested ways

I fear he's right; they're _very_ different.

OK guys, between you and the machines themselves I've pretty well got
the message. My temptation is to leap in and use these two netbooks as
workhorses, being as they have 300 Gb storage between them, and a
flippin GiGabyte of RAM each. Cripey. I think now though with your
good advice I will tread lighter.

John, your idea of partitioning off the system files and such didn't
occurr to me, thanks, I'll do that. What I did right off was make a
lot of directories "hidden" so at least I didn'r have top look at the
mess they'd made of the C: drive. Then though I was faced with the
godaufull dogsbreakfast of the program files directory. Could they not
have made one folder for Microsoft products at least? I made my own
programs directory with accessories, bases, browsers, editors,
graphics prog subdir's all neat in a row. I have installed a few of my
favourites, but open office for instance got shanghiad and ended up
installed in the "proper" program files dir. there probably are good
reasons for that, I guess mother knows best.

First thing I did was install XYPlorerFree ver 5.55.0
[www.xyplorer.com] so I at least have a decent file manager. My first
look at XP's "find::files and folders" arrangement did not activate my
sense of humour, even the cute pup, especially the cute pup.

I like the LAN functionality so far, it took no time at all to create
a 100% clear line to my old machines and download a whack of tried and
true apps and utilities zips. All of them have been handpicked over
the years for speed and reliability and it is a delight to see how K-
Meleon 1.5.3 for instance rockets onto the screen and snaps from page
to page, must be all that RAM and 2 cpu cores or something. My good
old dialup doesn't seem any faster though.

I guess what I'll try to do, though I don't know if it's possible, is
do a remote desktop on a XP netbook, from a w98 desktop, with its nice
monitor and keyboard and periferals. Heh heh. I am working my way up
the ladder with that one. At present I can run Komposer 0.8 on the XP,
open and edit and save an html file, from any one of my old 98's. I
don't know what will happen tomorrow when I try to open firefox 3.x
which won't run on win98se (at least it won't allow itself to be
installed, there is a difference) then save a web page so that I can
then edit it with kompozer. Do I want too much from the poor little
things?

I just had a hell of a fright. John's mention, >>>> I still use
XTGOLD for the same reason. >>>> of XTGold, which I don't know about,
had me off on a google picnic tracking it down. Panic set in when I
realised this forum was gone, buried under googles, xtgolds, and ZTree
for windows pages. Then I realised I had written my reply on a sticky
note. Whew!

Well, there's light in the sky, and the chickens will like some feed.
So I'm off.

yours

douglas

 

[koonaone]

DL and John

Well I couldn't wait till tomorrow and I tried it. Trying to run
firefox 3.x over a network from a w98 machine was a failure. It gave
an error message that 2 dll's were not available. This perplexus me ,
komposer 0.8 won't install on my w98's, it is installed on a XP, I can
run it From a 98 machine over a network just fine and do work with it.
Komposer gave me no indication that it was running on the 98, I don't
think it was, I'll just have to check on that.

In any case, have a fine sunday morning folks.

yours
douglas

 

[koonaone]

Hello folks

As you were saying John:

(not 320? 160G seems to be a boilerplate for netbooks!)
[why have you got two?]
received wisdom seemed to be that XP was much happier
with 2G than 1, so I bought a 2G module;

You are right on there John, my speed got ahead of my attention to
detail. I have 2
because I've taken on a horse training job far from home and want to
be able to use
a satelite skype video connection to keep in touch.
Is it possible the Ram usage of XP is a consequence of some XP
applications ram requirements?
Personally I go for the faster lighter breeds though I keep
msWorks4.5, softmaker2007, and open office3.2
on hand, they all do the same jobs only progressively more
ponderously, and sometimes
I really do need a heavier tool for a particular job. I'm beginning a
big new writing and
want to run Zotero which requires Firefox 3, so need XP's horsepower.
I will have to look
0up ERUNT. Isn't the built in restore accessable from DOS? can you
not run regrestore etc?

(Though keeping the left pane in Explorer showing the tree has taken some cuffing,
and still doesn't always work, such as when opening a .zip file.)

Exactly why I installed XYPlorer and made it default shell..

(As a rough rule, I've often found that old friends whose
latest version will work with XP, but will still work with '9x, tend to
have remained speedy and simple to use.)

Now that is a great tip, thanks

I fear that's limited to the 56k ,,,

'>phone line I would say that, to a first approximation, a large part
[probably >50%

of the 'net is, for practical purposes, now unusable on dialup.

Big downloads can be problematic for me but I don't use the machines
as a surogate
TV or entertainment centre, well, I do try out a lot of software, I
suppose that's
playing with machines isn't it? I do hard core research when I'm on
line and
write when I'm not.

I've used a "dot matrix" [impact] printer with XP

I rue the day I came home to find my landscape wide epson dotmatrix
had
been relegated to a dump. run by a short term overly enthusiastic
bunkmate.

There's a thing around called something like kernelx

Yes, it works wonderfully though it can create DLL hell on some 98
configurations,
I have a nice toshiba techra 8000 that belches and moans still after
a month of messing
with library version numbers.

progress is in general good.

I turned 65 a while back, you just blew your covers young fellow.

You used DOS, and survived without XTree? (For those that don't know,
it's a - character-mode - utility that gives a file/disc access
interface not that dissimilar to Windows Explorer.) In almost any old
publicity shot from my old department in which a monitor screen was
visible, the familiar blue of the XTree/XTGold screen.

I used PCTools, it had 3 windows, a directories, a files, and an
ASCII, dB, or Hex
rendering of the file itself. Then I "rented" a copy of GeoWorks which
somehow
stayed on my little 286's hard drive, 16 Mb ?
(that I ran off a solar panel, 3 car batteries, +backup honda for
winter)
That worked better than any windows till
w3.11 for workgroups I think it was. So no, I never did use norton
commander type
tools You might like some of the things XYPlorer does. It shows hex/
binary/ascii/
simple dB in a little screen at the bottom , and has a pretty good
super grep type search/replace function.

Have you run across a russian affair called Connect, or sometimes the
IBM handshaker?
It's outrageous, does everything, has a built in html reader writer,
dB, csv reader, I
can't remember all it does. Thing is though the help files and ini's
and configs are all
in flipping russian cyrilics and all. I live in the bush and have
never had help
fixing my computers when they gibble, which windows always seems to
do. (and I'm seldom rich)
You wouldn't believe the endless hours I've spent with Connect, in
DOS, trying
to recover some long file named creative work of genius (so I always
told myself)
so I could plug away at it using Qedit.

Well thanks for replying to my post you guys and good luck to you with
your netbook John
Now the cow is bawling.

yours

douglas

If only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.

 

[koonaone]

In message
<e670c3cf-f9ff-4b33-9042-cb27b46708b2@v34g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, > >

The default disc system for XP is NTFS (XP will run fine on FAT32, but
that isn't the default). DOS - even assuming you could find a way of
booting into it (remember you haven't got a floppy drive, usually -
certainly not on

any netbook I've seen) - can't access NTFS: it would

say it couldn't find any hard drive.

In that I have had no problems with file read errors, and that I have
poked around in the dos "window", made a dos directory with cd.. ; md
DOS ; dir /p and dos edit works fine in fact I edited a .zulupad ini
file with it; I have just made the assumption that these Acer's must
be fat32 formated. How would I find out if that assumption is wrong?

The F8 on bootup gives the option to boot in safe mode command prompt
but it turns out disabled. I just ran Aida32 on it but am not much
wiser, there is a REM in autoexec.nt to the effect that that file
initializes the ms-dos evironment. Similar in sys.nt.
I was just looking at the bootloader initialisation file boot.ini
Could this be edited to accomplish a clean dos boot when desired? Yes,
of course the first sector would have to be fatx wouldn't it. hmm

The boot entry is:

boot.ini = multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

would it be prudent to edit this?

. whew, a lot of stuff to think of in just a couple of days,
considering that when I got the things it was to use them more or less
like a glorified cellphone.

Yes, you _can_ use the restore
console from the XP CD (assuming you have one), and _possibly_ boot into
it even if you don't have one,

I accessed cmos on bootup once but don't remember if it boots from USB
or not,

you need something that can read NTFS discs, and I used BartPE (on the
recommendation of the chap - Lars, I think - who wrote ERUNT, when I
asked him that very question [how do I get at my backups]). System
restore requires you to at least be able to get some way into Windows to
use it; regrestore I haven't heard of.

I got it wrong I meant the dos command: scanreg /restore, sorry.

BartPE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE sounds like just what
the doctor ordered IF these Acer Aspire's boot from USB because as you
say, there's no cd/dvd/floppy bays, nor even a true serial port for
DCC. First thing in the morning when I have some energy I will look at
the bios again and find out

So yes! I must find out how to access the data on the machine in the
event that the current ms OS self destructs as has happened, my first
thought being of course to always have it backed somewhere else on the
lan, or flashdrive,or web for that matter. Also you know if my
writings can't be saved on the machine in dos readable form or
something equally sensible I'll have to wipe xp and put knopix or
ubuntu on them. Linux runs skype perfectly, and recoverability of data
is a sure thing.

bye for now

douglas

 

[koonaone]

Aha John, it looks like I'm in luck

For the record: this refers to Acer Aspire One netbook named ACERDOUG,
with Widows XP home edition pre-installed on partition C:\ about
150Gb, with a 10 Gb hidden partition containing restore information.
The bootloader initialisation file "boot.ini" is written thus:

boot.ini = "" multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect ""

The good new is that upon pressing F 12 as soon as the computer is
turned on, the following screen appears:

BOOT MANAGER
boot option menu
1 IDE 0: ACERDOUG
2 Network Boot: Atheros Boot Agent
3 USB HDD: [A-DATA USB Flash Drive*]

[*this just happens to be the HDD that
was in the machine]

Looks like this machine boots from a suitable USB HDD
I will look into the Atheros boot agent business

Thanks for all your help, in reference to my original subject posting,
microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers/ has proven to be a very good
reference site for a newby needing initialisation to Window XP

Bye for now

douglas

any netbook I've seen) - can't access NTFS: it would

In that I have had no problems with file read errors, and that I have
poked around in the dos "window", made a dos directory with cd.. ; md
DOS ; dir /p and dos edit works fine in fact I edited a .zulupad ini
file with it; I have just made the assumption that these Acer's must
be fat32 formate

d. How would I find out if that assumption is wrong?

The F8 on bootup gives the option to boot in safe mode command prompt
but it turns out disabled. I just ran Aida32 on it but am not much
wiser, there is a REM in autoexec.nt to the effect that that file
initializes the ms-dos evironment. Similar in sys.nt.
I was just looking at the bootloader initialisation file boot.ini
Could this be edited to accomplish a clean dos boot when desired? Yes,
of course the first sector would have to be fatx wouldn't it. hmm

The boot entry is:

boot.ini = multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft
Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

would it be prudent to edit this?

. whew, a lot of stuff to think of in just a couple of days,
considering that when I got the things it was to use them more or less
like a glorified cellphone.

Yes, you _can_ use the restore
console from the XP CD (assuming you have one), and _possibly_ boot into
it even if you don't have one,

I accessed cmos on bootup once but don't remember if it boots from USB
or not,

you need something that can read NTFS discs, and I used BartPE (on the
recommendation of the chap - Lars, I think - who wrote ERUNT, when I
asked him that very question [how do I get at my backups]). System
restore requires you to at least be able to get some way into Windows to
use it; regrestore I haven't heard of.

I got it wrong I meant the dos command: scanreg /restore, sorry.

BartPE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE sounds like just what
the doctor ordered IF these Acer Aspire's boot from USB because as you
say, there's no cd/dvd/floppy bays, nor even a true serial port for
DCC. First thing in the morning when I have some energy I will look at
the bios again and find out

So yes! I must find out how to access the data on the machine in the
event that the current ms OS self destructs as has happened, my first
thought being of course to always have it backed somewhere else on the
lan, or flashdrive,or web for that matter. Also you know if my
writings can't be saved on the machine in dos readable form or
something equally sensible I'll have to wipe xp and put knopix or
ubuntu on them. Linux runs skype perfectly, and recoverability of data
is a sure thing.

bye for now

douglas

 

[Twayne]

In

Hi Folks

....


I'm trying to cuff the directory system and default
applications around to my way of thinking but the machine
does things it's own darn way. I should add that my hobby
is trying out new utilities and applications so I'm not a
complete clutze on 98 dll's and where they properly go etc.
but XP I know zilch about.

Microsoft has defined and explained more than you could possbly want to know
about XP onsite and in ther KBs; start there. Wikpedial will help too once
you figure out the termnology; it's not very different from 98 in many ways.

My problem is I havn't found a good (small and concise)
reference that compares the layout and logic of the 2
systems yet.

It can't be done in 2 small and concise manuals.

It may well be that my hobby will have to be restrained
when it comes to XP, there isn't much that I can't do just
fine in 98. Well there is skype, hmmm, and Zotero 2, and
well..... hmmm.
Research


If anyone can point me towards a good info source I will
appreciate it very much. Just as an afternote, it looks
like a nice quiet useful group here, congrats.

MS web site support.microsoft. ... .com

HTH,

Twayne`

yours

douglas

ps I still use a DOS, genuinely, cubical spread sheet that
has functionality not found anywhere else.

Try searchiing: thousands of hiits on Google; e.g.:
cubical spread sheet yielded:
a.. Download Excel Cubic Spline Function Spreadsheet 1.01 Free - Excel ...
Sep 8, 2006 ... Download Excel Cubic Spline Function Spreadsheet - Excel
Cubic Spline Function Spreadsheet is a vba cubic_spline function for
Microsoft ...
www.softpedia.com > ... > Office tools > Other Office Tools - Cached -
Similar
a.. Download Excel Cubic Spline Function Spreadsheet, Excel Cubic ...
Aug 4, 2009 ... Whether you're happy or not testing and using Excel Cubic
Spline Function Spreadsheet 1.01, be our guest and let's solve all the
problems ...
download.famouswhy.com > ... > Office Suites Archive - Cached - Similar
a..