marmite

1

Are you running Vista? Have a look at these articles ... http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/1058...lder-icons.html and ... http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/90705-pe...ll-folders.html It's a very good idea to always back up the registry with something like ERUNT before you mess around with it.

Completely agree Alan ... and if you?d phrased it like that originally, I wouln?t have batted an eyelid

I'm very impressed that you are cognizant of the thought processes of 99.9999 recurring percent of today's computer users. Of course cost isn't an issue with Linux - that's why it's easier for people using open source find it easier to upgrade than those tied to Microsoft. You're still generalising, in my opinion. At the end of the day this is just an exchange of opinion. There may be many people in that position, but I would still say that you're over-simplifying matters. Many people use computers as a means to an end, in the same way that many people stick with a basic saloon car and couldn't give a damn about the latest Ferrari. Doesn't necessarily mean to say they couldn't drive one. Their motivation for change is because the car breaks down, not because there's a new Ferrari out. That's me done on that topic.

I agree that most Linux users are likely to be technically savvy ? that?s one reason why they?re running it in the first place. Not so sure about Mac users generally ? always seen that as a niche market anyway. I think this is a massive generalisation and an over-simplification. Historically, for many users "computers come with Windows". There?s always a financial cost associated in upgrading a Windows OS (at least if you?re doing it legally) and quite often there?s a reluctance to upgrade the OS because of either perceived or genuine issues with newer Windows OSs being resource-hungry. XP was a hugely popular OS - add to that the fiasco that was Vista and you can see why there?s such a big XP user population. At the same time, as Aethec says, it is an aging OS and XP users have to accept that things move on. I like Windows and I make a living writing software for the Windows platform. At home I?m still running XP and for me it?s practicable to move to W7 at the same time as upgrading my desktop hardware ? coming soon I hope. But for the moment XP does what I need it to and I?m not in a hurry to upgrade. Yes people have to move on, but it's more complicated than apathy and comfort zones.

Wow, had to google that one ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Kuvayev

Chris Whilst I wouldn't be quite as melodramatic as Alan in pushing a 'spam-the-world' guilt-trip on you, I would strongly recommend following Hazelnut's advice and post in the 'Spyware Hell' forum. If indeed your PC is infected then you will receive first-class assistance in cleaning your system. And if it's clean you may be somewhat happier.

+1

Indeed - probably why Auslogics' software is called duplicate file finder And I think this functionality is better as a separate app for that reason - you want good reporting / selective deletion options and I think that makes it too complex to be part of CCleaner.

Good suggestion for a new app - quite a few people have asked for this. In the meantime, you might like to see if this meets your needs ... http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/duplicate-file-finder/

Think+ the DNS cache is a relatively 'minor' setting and it's just down to personal choice whether you select it or not. The only thing it really effects is privacy unless, as Jamin4u says, you have a DNS problem. It doesn't save much space or improve performance. Cached content expires after a while anyway. How you set this isn't really a big issue either way, unless you're obsessed with privacy issues, in which case you may as well turn the caching service (DNS Client) off in the first place.

If it's just the display you're concerned about, then you can just change the cell properties (via right-click) to just display a number to zero decimal places. So the actual value might be '3.456' but you'll only see '3' displayed. So using the ROUND fn would lose accuracy if you wanted to use the value in another calulation, 'cos it actually changes the cell value to '3'. Changing the cell properties keeps the value at '3.456' (although you only see '3') which is useful if you need that accuracy for future calculations.

I'm unclear as to whether you're trying to use integers in your calculations or in the displayed values. But either way you just need to use the maths functions that are available to you. There's a lot of useful stuff in Exel's own help files - find the maths functions section. For example there's a ROUND function that rounds to the number of digits you specify, and an INT function that rounds down to the nearest integer. Have a look here ... http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/CH062528291033.aspx There are also many date and time functions that may be of use ... http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP052042111033.aspx#Date and Time functions://http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/e... Time functions

Thanks

Considering 40% of the US population doesn't have broadband*, you are indeed doin' okay Though it does say many of those "aren't interested". [*source]

1.37 Gb seems a lot of memory to be using if you're 'idling'. My XP Home netbook set up uses about 0.5 Gb idling, and I'm not shy of appropriate start-up software either. Your second screenshot shows 70 processes, which is nowhere near what's listed in the first screenshot. Try listing the processes for all users - that will show some of the system processes that have started. There may be some other programs or services there that you can can do without. As JDPower says, don't go overboard; think carefully about what you realistically need. You might like to try something like Autoruns from (Microsoft) Sysinternals which will allow you to disable your start-up entries and then easily re-enable them if you need to ... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinte...s/bb963902.aspx And if you're up for it, their Process Explorer is like Task Manager on steroids ... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb896653.aspx Edited to add, since we're somewhat off-topic, the above two bits of software are way up there on my freeware list!!!

Hi RSW Please follow the steps here ... http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20120 ... and post in the Spyware Hell forum.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think that even the W7 image is a full system partition copy. Anyone confirm that? They don't _rely_ on removable media. As you say yourself you can have an external copy or a copy on the internal drive. I have a Macrium system image on a separate partition as well as on an external drive - so I'm covered either way. Even if I lose the drive I still don't need the Windows CD and I can just restore onto a new drive. I agree Ishi - all that I'm saying is that a computer can only look after itself to a certain degree - you still need some of the old fashioned methods as well, to get the best 'disaster recovery' What I would like to see are better built-in recovery mechanisms so that inexperienced users have a one-click option to get their entire system back to a usable state.

Eh? This is straying off-topic, but to address your comments ... I can restore my system partition (in fact the entire disk) with a USB stick and an external hard-drive containing back-ups. Or, if the disk is still good, I can restore my system partition with a USB stick and a system partition image from my back-up partition. Edited to add: one of the pieces of software on my USB stick being an ISO image of the Macrium recovery disk.

You're right - you have to do it manually with the free version.

Personally this isn't high on my list, although I do think there could be more things built into the OS to ensure the integrity of registry and systems settings go. I think many problems are caused by badly written software and by user inexperience. It's difficult to mitigate against that. If I see a BSOD (and I don't very often) it's usually because of something daft that I've done. I've never been 'forced' to reformat / reinstall an OS, professionally or personally. But obviously these things do happen, and there does need to be a way of either reducing the risk of this happening, of providing better recovery mechanisms so that users (and as you say Ishi, particularly inexperienced ones) can restore them systems quickly and easily. I'd rather see built-in software that returns the PC to a fixed state, like roll back software (e.g. RollBack Rx) or virtual machine environments (e.g. VMWare). Disk space costs peanuts these days and I think there should be better built-in recovery mechanisms that allow you to maintain up-to-date system images. You're not doomed without an OS CD if you have appropriate back-ups!

I haven't upgraded to Windows 7 yet ... I couldn't give a monkey's about W8 Anyway ... computer heal thyself ... What do you mean exactly?

Additionally, is there a resaon for not downloading the latest version (1.17.172)?

Windows XP SP3 has a while to go yet, I would hope.

You can see what is in your DNS Cache by opening a command window (Win + R, "cmd", Enter). Type "ipconfig /displaydns". And you can flush the cache manually with "ipconfig /flushdns". If you have lots of entries in your hosts file ( %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts ) these will still appear after you have flushed the cache, because these are your explicit DNS overrides. As Jamin4u says, privacy is probably the main benefit of clearing this in CCleaner.