burtman

I concur. I will never trust the security/privacy of an MS app. Not for fear of hackers / identity fraudsters, but mainly for fear of a monopolising company. Netscape was (is) virtually wiped out because of that, and <lawyer has deleted remaining statement> hole Mickeysoft !!

I thought the whole idea of passwords if that they are easy (for you) to remember, but semi-impossible (for everyone else) to guess. So surely ONE secure password (combo of symbols, Caps, numbers, etc.) should be enough for any standard user of PC (unless u work for the FBI or someone :-) sonsie, you say u have 25-30 passwords ! Jeez - either u have one hell of a memory or u've written em down - and that second one's gonna catch u out. Even if no-one else finds ur password, someday u'll forget it ! At work, we are forced to change or password each and every month, and ur not allowed to repeat any of the last six passwords - so it is a pain to remember them (especially when the expire at 4:55pm on a friday :-) ) (A colleague let slip that his password is identical everytime except for the last 4 digits, which he increments by 1 each month! Guess that would do the trick !) What I think I'm trying to say that on a standalone PC, multiple passwords and paranoia are generally not needed I don't think. I think some IBM laptops have fingerprint scanners built in. Yep, happening here too ! I'm not for it - germ transfer, eeh

Yea, I think I try that once too - quite good. But again, just to point out to all others, it can only be done at reboot. I actually use a batch file from sysinternals.com where you can add your own files to be deleted also at reboot. Useful if you've got some stubborn logfile (like SchedLgU.txt) that won't delete. Oh, and just incase you want to try modifying the key I mentioned earlier, you might find that it isn't really 'do-able' in the normal registry editor - it complains about not allowing blanks spaces, so it may not work. Anyway, it's all good as CCleaner does it as good as I need

Yea, I think I try that once too - quite good. But again, just to point out to all others, it can only be done at reboot. I actually use a batch file from sysinternals.com where you can add your own files to be deleted also at reboot. Useful if you've got some stubborn logfile (like SchedLgU.txt) that won't delete. Oh, and just incase you want to try modifying the key I mentioned earlier, you might find that it isn't really 'do-able' in the normal registry editor - it complains about not allowing blanks spaces, so it may not work. Anyway, it's all good as CCleaner does it as good as I need

Can I just interject - deleting all pf files won't necessarily cause performance loss overall - but, it will slow down the next reboot, but after that everything should actually be slightly faster. Sweet

This is something to do with nVidia (at least on my system). I managed once to delete it manually, for it to reappear next reboot. And I just managed to get me first ever BSoD for over five years, by trying to delete it with Unlocker !! (If it is nVidia's, then why's it called xerox ?? They related ?)

If you really want to freak out ... don't even think of a number, and then press the button. Now, that is genious How did it know what I wasn't even thinking about thinking of a number? Jeez !

I'm afraid it cannot be done. I have seen programs like this before, and all they actually do is 'trick' the system into reading another part of the disk, so it appears the file is deleted. Try for yourslef - take a copy of your index.dat before running your program (save it somewhere else on your harddrive), run the program that 'wipes' the index file. Don't use any other cleaner stuff, and reboot the system. Now compare your index.dat file to the one you saved earlier - very similar aren't they ? Windows has exclusive access to the index.dat file at a very low level, and nothing can write to that file other than windows. There is a very small period of time during reboot that windows relinquishes its grip on it - it can then (and only then) be deleted. (Windows rebuilds the 'missing' file as it then continues to boot) All CCleaner does is set a key that the OS looks for at reboot to delete (it was I believe designed for installers that require multiple reboots to delete leftover files), and it is ... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager, and the key is PendingFileRenameOperations (look at this key before and after CCleaner has ran) If deleting the index.dat file was actually 'do-able' in realtime, do you not think all cleanup apps would do it ? The end-result is you will have to reboot to erase index.dat - period. B.

Excellent - a do-it-urself external harddrive. Now I know where my spare 80Gb HD is going

Superb !! Long overdue. What about the new teams, and the new rules (qualifying / tyres) ? Should be more fun ! And for the rest of u who aren't interested -

[quote name='lokoike' date='Feb 27 2006, 02:57 PM' post='31546'I didn't realize that volatile memory could keep those ghost fragments of data the way an HD does. Never thought of secure erasing my RAM too! 10 minutes apparently lokoike. Now don't quote me on that - I actually have no idea where I read that. Actually, I'm thinking Eraser help files... (harass the SWAT team a bit [about 10 mins] as they swoop)

I had something similar once, well - actually I had no bootscreen at all - just seen MS crap ... I actually found that ......... My Computer, right click, select Properties. Click Advanced tab, press Setting under Starup and Recovery. Under System Statup, have a look at Default operating system. (Press Edit for a detailed look - be carful not to save) I found my script had an extra entry - something like /TATunp=SOSNPO Now, before I go further I will say if u F-UP this script, Windows WILL NOT boot EVER Anyway, my sys has ... [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect yours might be slightly different. As I said, mine had the extra stuff above, and didn't boot correctly. I may be digressing somewhat, and probably not related to adding bootscreen, but how cares. It might help. B.

Quite simply, nVidia task manager is the same as you can get from the control panel. You obviously have to have a nVidia graphics card first. There is settings not to show the task manager icon of you wish. Quite frankly, as to why u so concerned about someone else's taskbar icon is beyond me, as it has no relevance to your original post.

What about trying to reboot in 'Safe Mode' (I assume Windows 2000 has Safe mode) - if it does boot and seems to work better (safe mode is very limited), then there may be a startup proram that is causing some issues. Now, I'm no expert but would a HijackThis log maybe help us to determine the problem? Just thought I'd throw something in the pot :-)

It does. They all delete the index.dat the same method. Unlocker cannot resolve locking issues with index.dat - it can solve issues with other files. Only reboot can solve index.dat situations.

Neither have I - just asked in jest. One word springs to mind - 'bottleneck'; just as you explained. $15 ??? I paid about 60 for it !! I aim to be the first person in work to have a terabyte personal machine (purely so I can claim to do so !!) Going up in 80 gig chunks isn't gonna do it though ! Anyway I might need a new motherboard anyhow Wonder what is the (current) physical maximum HD size a PC can deal with ? Jeez, just thought about defragging a terabyte of data - eeeech !!

The current drive is the already installed 250Gb drive. Yea, I've does that before a looong time ago, and it generally was simple (except if u've a really old machine and try to put a drive > 20gb on it - BIOS just ignores it completey !) Anyway ... Thanks - that confirms it. My HD has one cable going into one, and the other 3 are bunched around it. I checked again, and there is actually only one (with a smaller one for a floppy beside it) ! This is the first machine I've used with a serial HD, and that was what confused me. Now it looks like it's the freaking motherboard Can you get ATA splitters ? Or would that just confound the issue ? Sure hope that computer shop does refunds Thanks lokoike for your advice. (Don't spose you'd like to buy a nearly new 80 gig HD ?) B.

It may sound obvious, but I have a 80Gig Hd that I want to add to my 250Gb system, but I can't. Sounds simple (and it may be), but my current system has a DVD-+RW, DVD/CD-R, multi-memeory cards, etc. anyway, I wanna add the drive so I can use it as a 'games' drive. The current drive is (apparently) a Serial ATA drive (and it looks as if there is another 3 connections [that look like firewire connections] on the motherboard) And .. 1 ATA slot - split between my DVD RW, and CDRW. Now, there is prob a lot more info that I have no idea about. I have a spare slot for this HD, but not sure to fit it. I have the knowledge, but not the noho !

Everything can be deleted with regedit. Can u tell me what exactly the reg key is ? Have u installed many programs recently ? I'll come back to u with some advice if I can. Mr B

I hate System Restore ..! Anyway, to concur with all above, and to hopefully give more info .... Microsoft have deemed their own files (ms doc, ms excel doc, etc.) as protected files [you would too if u wrote the OS], and if these files are in the My Documents folder, they will/should be included in the sys restore. quote "Windows Me/XP System Restore maintains copies of protected (f they are one of the protected file type e.g. *.doc, *.xls etc) files. By default, many document types, such as .doc and .xls files in My Documents, are protected. Windows Me/XP System Restore maintains copies of protected files. Erasing the original file does not wipe the copy that Windows Me/XP System Restore maintains, it eliminates the file's contents from the disk, but does not remove the file name. While the file name remains on disk, it is no longer visible in Windows Explorer, but there is no data stored with it." If u had a doc in C:Doc\test1.doc folders and a doc in C:\Documents and Settings\User\test2.doc and ur system crashed, I can almost be sure system restore would recover test2.doc only (although some disk restore utils may get test1.doc back, but not test1.doc) (uneraser depending :-) Superb Mr B.

I had software that I couldn't remove (even CCleaner didn't spot it) - the software was actaully (physically) gone. To get rid of all eveidence i had to trawl the registry and delete all the class entries [search for prgram u want to remove] and before anyone says, please, please be careful before deleting class entries *PLEASE* If u delete them, and windows breaks - I am not responsible !! B.

Actually, it will - standard MS documents (word, excel, etc.) if saved in My Documents folders will be recovered with System Restore. Have a look at HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup am sure there is similar keys for 'to backup' (index.dat etc. isn't recovered) B. (Just for the record - I haven't used system restore for over a year. Treat ur MC with respect and it wont die) And anyway, system restore will only allow your system to boot (with MS apps) - it does not remember ur apps./games/docs./etc so you loose everything anyhow.

Quite honestly, I would doubt it - it is using MS to delete the entries - they are in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager ==> PendingFileRenameoperations so it's up the the OS So the answer is proabably no ! sorry. B.

This thread made me realise that I should have partitioned my drive - but, buying these commercial machines, you don't really get a chance to partition. Anyway, without my games etc., I've only used 13 gig of a 240Gig HD - the games fill another >150 Gb (if anything needs partitioned ...!) - I really want to shift my swapfile at least. Is there any utilities that allow you to take a chunk of exisiting drive, and create a new partition ? (preferably free as I'll probably do it only once) I've tried a few shareware utils., but all they suceed in doing is telling me if 7Meg unallocated (wonder is that the total of my slack space ??) I'd prefer not to reformat (mainly cos I don't really know how) etc. In case it helps, I have also have a 4 Gig recovery partiton (D drive) included when I bought the m/c - the rest is free-ish (and an aparent 7Mb unallocated) I would like to create a partition for the swapfile (can the MFT go on a partition ?), one for games, one for work stuff ... am I getting carried away ? Anyway, I think my question is - can I create an additional partition after Windows has been installed ? (so far I'm thinking the answer is no), BUT if anyone knows otherwise, please help !! Ta, B.

Hmmm, I remember the Sinclair Spectrum too ! :-)