Anthony A

I wasn't aware IE was Skinable. I know Tweak UI has an option in it to change IE's tool bar back ground but that doesn't work on IE7. Other than that I don't ever remember seeing a skin for IE. I changed my theme to Windows Classic and selected slate as my color and it changed the whole color of IE's UI and changed the tab bar quite a bit. Thats as close to skinning IE as I have come. Here is a shot of it. http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs217&d=07295&am...7-20_162529.jpg

There still is a freeware version of Total Uninstall around though. From what I have heard it's slow. The Revo Uninstaller has a several other tools that seem very interesting though besides the uninstaller. Andavari, could you explain what happened? I not convinced any of these programs are totally safe. If you track an install with Zsoft or Total Uninstall and 5 months later you decide to uninstall the program you tracked so may things have changed on the system since than. How do you know if any of the files or reg entires for the program have changed since the install. Than you uninstall with the uninstaller programs and gut everything that is is the install log. The potential to do damage seems very real to me. I have been using Zsoft to track installs of programs I am trying out and than remove if I don't like a week or so later not half a year later so there isn't that many changes to my system at that point.

What utility are you talking about?

OK I see that now. That makes it even more interesting to me. I already use Zsoft Uninstaller. This program has many interesting features. The Hunter Mode sounds cool. I posted this mainly to see if anybody here has used it what they think of it.

Life Hacker.com recently featured a program called Revo Uninstaller. This program tracks your installs like Total Uninstall and Zsoft Uninstaller does so you can completely remove them. Also has a start up manager, secure deletion tool, junk files cleaner, browser history cleaner and a bunch of other stuff. It is free ware and looks very interesting. Anybody try this program? Here is the Life Hacker article http://lifehacker.com/software/featured-wi...ller-282337.php and the home page for the program. http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Faststone user here to. I wouldn't pay though. If I couldn't get the free version I would use something else.

Opera wasn't free for the longest time. You had to pay or put up with adds. They would be much farther ahead in market share IMO if it wasn't for that. I?use Opera often and love it. Also love Firefox, Maxthon?1?and?2.?I'm?always?amazed?though?at?all?the?features?Opera?manages?to?pack?into?such?a small?app.

Everybody I know loves chocolate. I will be sick if I eat it. Worst flavour ever.?Just?the?smell?makes?me?feel?ill. ?In?the?end?what?ever?does?it?for?you?is?all?that?matters.

I have said many times to push those clowns and you will get what you want. These idiots confuse "can't" with "won't". They just need some body to unconfuse them as I have done several times and you have just done. Good for you. That made my day. One less customer getting screwed over. By the way it was the Idian call center that finally gave me what I wanted to. The Canadian call center was useless.

Thats for sure. There are people that actually like Safari for Windows. I really like Maxthon 1 and 2.

My laptops I reboot about once a week. When there not being used the lid is shut and they go into "stand by" mode until I open the lid and use them again. When in "stand by" they are basically off. The hard drives off and the screen is off.

They only seem to respond to extreme rudeness. I have no problem what so ever providing that for them but wish I didn't need to. I have lost count how many Dell reps I have told to go F themselves. I have had some really good ones to though so it's a crap shoot depending who you get on the phone.

It is a lottery depending on who you talk to. I hung up on more than one idiot and told them to where to stick the computer. I find it strange though that they won't send you the machine without an OS installed. It's no effort for them to do that. It is a bit of a hassle to install XP for you if their assembly lines are set up to install Vista but it's no problem to but an empty HD in and send you an XP install disk. I would phone back and insist and request to talk to a manager. These clowns on the phone are just baboons taking orders.

Maxthon 2 final was released today. I have been using the betas for a while now and this is a very cool browser. Very configurable and has the best skins of all the browsers I have tired. http://www.maxthon.com/download.htm

My hope that MS OS coming to an end will help those things you suggested happen faster. I have played around with a Mac and like it. I will buy one for sure at some point and I will definitely buy one before I would buy Vista. The sooner MS dies the better. Than more attention will go into the other systems and maybe a whole new competitor will emerge.

They might be refusing to preinstall XP in the machine you want but ask them if they would send it with no operating system installed give you the XP disk instead/inplace of Vista? Than you can install it yourself. I find it interesting that the XP machine is more money. The specs don't justify it.

Like many so called "manufacturers" of computers Dell doesn't build them. They assemble them from hundreds of parts made by other companies. The guts are the same. I don't think Dell makes a single component. As for the tech support, it's a crap shoot. Like many companies they have have call centers in India and all though they are smart and well intended techs communication can be a problem. I don't think you will need to use tech support too often though. You know more than most of them.

Lets hope so. It's long over do.

I highly recommend Drag De Go if you are looking for a drag and drop extension. This extension has the best drag and drop functionality I have seen in any browser. You can control what happens for each direction you drag. For example you can set it to open a link in a background tab if you drag up and open it in a forground tab if you drag down. High light some text for seaching and you can not only control if the tab is for ground/back ground but also what search engine you want to use. You could have a different search engine for each direction. Many other options to. Very configurable. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2918

No it's not. I have had it disabled on all my machines for a while now and the Windows Firewall works perfectly fine. According to Black Viper it is no longer needed for the Windows Firewall since SP2. http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/Services/A...way_Service.htm

I don't notice a performance difference with any defrag program. That's probably because I don't let the disk get too messed up before I defrag again. Usually once a month I defrag. I do see a big difference though in how the disk looks after I use JK Defrag and than analyze it with the Windows built in defrag.

I did a major over haul of my Desktop. It was time for a change. I created a folder on the Desktop and put most of my Desktop icons in there. Than I dragged the folder to the top of the screen and it becomes a tool bar. Right click the tool bar and customize it and select "autohide". The tool bar disappears and reappears when you put the cursor to the top of the screen. This is a shot with the tool bar showing. The icons activate the programs with a single click instead of a double click. This is a shot with it "autohiding" so the Desktop is very clean. I am using Windows Classic and selected Slate for the color. Doing this also made some very nice changes to IE7. Darkened the whole UI and changed the tab bar. Basically it skinned IE7 and I like how it looks.

Try that before and after comparison but use JK Defrag. The difference is very large.

Did you try asking them not to install Vista? Just get an empty machine and install XP yourself. Should be no problem getting the disk from Dell if you don't already have it. I know when I bought my latest Dell in October I had to argue with them not to install any junk on it. They were more than willing to send me an empty machine and the XP disk to install windows myself. I figured for the money I was paying I shouldn't have to do that and finally got what I wanted but the point is they were very willing to send me the machine with nothing in it so I would think they would do the same for you.

I'm not too fond of that orange button either. That bug with the Noir theme is really not a problem for me. Once I go into the folder and activate the theme that way I save my set up and name it Noir and it appears in the theme drop down list. I also got the blue version with the Noir. As I said no hack needed from where I down loaded it from.