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brooktrout

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Everything posted by brooktrout

  1. Grabbed these right after Phil046 posted and they work great for me as well. I also decided to try the install w/o a uninstall first and all has gone well.
  2. Could this be it: http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/c/casinoxosetup.asp Maybe the setup program that is running on startup has the hidden attribute set? Do you have "show hidden files and folders" set in your folder view options? Do you have anything in your startup folder that is suspicious or possibly this thing has setup a scheduled task to run at system startup. Go into control panel\scheduled tasks and check if that is the source.
  3. Try downloading ISOBUSTER and take a look at the CD to see if you can see any files. http://www.smart-projects.net/ If you can see any files on the CD in this program you might be able to extract them. Worth a try.
  4. I've run all three of the CM games on dual processors. My current setup is dual P4 2.2Ghz Xeons and you are right, it is not coded to take advantage of dual procs. The OS spreads the CM process over each cpu equally, roughly 50% across each cpu. I can however run other background processes such as a full virus scan while running CM and not notice any slowness or choppiness in CM. This is where duallies shine IMO. Great responsiveness while running multiple apps.
  5. Zip disks are ok for small sets of backup data and you can find the drives cheap right now but the media is still expensive per megabyte. As someone suggested a CDRW drive would probably be the cheapest solution for archiving. However you would need to manually span the data across the 650-700 MB discs or buy a utility to do just that. The other solution is to buy an external harddrive or buy the external case and put an older HD in it. USB 2.0 or firewire would be best but you can use it on a USB 1.1 connection (just very slow). This way you could start or schedule a nightly or weekend backup during the evening. If your OS is a version of NT (NT 4.0, 2000 or XP) then you can use a Microsoft utility called Robocopy (robust file copy utility). You can download the util here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en Just install the resource kit and you will find robocopy.exe and robocopy.doc in the tools folder. This util has over 40 different switches to customize your backups but you could just use something similar to the following: robocopy "D:\CMBO" "U:\CMBO" /MIR This switch will Mirror the directory tree D:\CMBO and its contents to another drive and folder - U:\CMBO. The first time you run it it will make a duplicate of the source folder onto the destination folder. From then on when you run this same command it will only copy files that are newer making backups very fast. The mirror switch will also remove destination files and folders that have been deleted in the source. You can then put your batch command into the NT scheduler and have it run every weekend night unattended. You can even use this util to backup across any networked pc's if you have them. Something similar would work for that: net use u: \\anothercomputer\d robocopy "D:\backup" "u:\backup" /MIR /R:10 /W:5 /NP /LOG:ROBOJOB.TXT robocopy "D:\updates" "u:\updates" /MIR /R:10 /W:5 /NP /LOG+:ROBOJOB.TXT net use u: /DELETE The above would map the U: drive to \\anothercomputer\d and start the mirror switch with 10 retries waiting 5 seconds between retries, turn off copy progress output and log the results to the text file. The log+ would append results to the text file. Put these commands in a .bat file and place it in your scheduler for nightly backup. Edited to add: From robocopy's documentation: Note As Robocopy uses the CopyFileEx() Win32 API, it can not run on Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.5x, nor Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows ME. Since the above util only works on flavors of NT, if you have Win9x or ME then you can use a similar freeware utility xxcopy: http://www.xxcopy.com/index.html#pagetop [ November 04, 2003, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: brooktrout ]
  6. No reason to reinstall. I've reformatted my C drive before w/o reinstalling several games that exist on a separate partition. In fact I believe you can just copy the CD files directly to your HD and run the game.
  7. Ok, I just re-read your last statement which It know looks as if you were thinking of booting off of the older system disk (which has a running copy of Win98 from another machine) in your newer system. If so, I would not do this because Windows would now see a new motherboard/chipset/video etc and would try to load all of those drivers over your existing Win98 setup. Just plug the newer system disk onto an empty IDE port of the older system (keeping in mind the Master/Slave jumpers on the channel you plug it into) and back your data up once windows boots up. This is assuming you have enough free space on this older drive to back up your data before wiping it clean with a new OS install.
  8. Not sure which drive is which here, but if you have an older system that is currently up and running then I would unplug the drive from the newer system and hook it up to the older system. Backup all the files from the newer disk to the older disk. Then put the disk back into the newer setup and boot from XP CD and install fresh copy. Once setup is finished I would hook up both machines thru network connection and move your data files to the new system. Of course this assumes you have a network adaptor in each and a crossover cable or hub/switch. If you do go this route, the drive from your new system would be jumpered as Master so you would want to hook it up as the master on the secondary IDE channel of the old system since it has a boot/master drive on the primary IDE channel. If your older system has a CDROM as master on the secondary channel then you would need to unplug the CDROM or jumper the newer system disk as the Slave for that channel, etc. If space is tight on the older drive then Zip the files when backing them up.
  9. Just a thought but did the techs or you try safe mode? If not hit the F8 key (repeatedly) before Windows loads and select the Safe Mode option. You might try selecting the command prompt only option and renaming the autoexec.bat and config.sys to .bak files before rebooting and selecting the safe mode option. There is also a step-by-step with confirmation option that lets you Y/N during each process during the bootup. If it will not load with safe mode then the easiest thing is to borrow/buy another drive as others suggested and install a fresh OS to back up your files when both disks are mounted. Depending on how much data you have to backup, if it is only a few hundred meg you could use a parallel zip drive (if available) and back your data up when booted to DOS mode. This would require the pkzip.exe dos version along with the guest.exe (downloadable from iomega's site) program that let's you mount a zip drive in dos mode. You could use pkzip to compress all of the data and then span the large zip file across mutliple 100 MB zip disks.
  10. dh1998, I believe that your problem with DirectX is the reason that you are only allowed to choose the 640x480 resolution when selecting your prefs. That happened to me in the past and I had seen where Schrullenhaft had posted something about this in the past. I ended up reinstalling DirectX and still the problem persisted. I had to uninstall DirectX, reboot and then reinstall DirectX followed by my video card drivers to fix the problem.
  11. dh1998, Go to your start menu and select the run option, then enter 'dxdiag.exe' and hit the enter key. You should see a DirectX diagnostic tool. Select the Display tab. In the lower section of the screen you will see a DirectX Features area where you will have a DirectDraw Acceleration, Direct3D Acceleration and AGP Texture Acceleration each followed by whether they are enabled or not. All three of these should be selectable. If any of these are grayed out or you cannot run the Test command buttons then you need to reinstall DirectX.
  12. The Intel 810 chipset uses what Intel called a GMCH or Graphics and Memory Controller Hub. This allowed them to integrate a video device onto the motherboard with direct access (bus) to your system memory which is the 11MB shared memory that you stated. That 11MB of system memory is not available to your OS for other tasks. Some of the 810's also had 4MB of onboard video cache in addition to using the system memory. The 810 chipset does not have an AGP bus so your other option would be to use a PCI video card. There are only a few choices in that bus, namely the GeForce MX PCI series and I believe that ATI makes a few PCI cards in the 7000/7500 range. I believe the ATI cards do not support fog in Windows versions of CM.
  13. Here are a couple of links for MX440 PCI versions: http://www.inno3d.com/product_geforce4_mx440_2_pci.html http://www.prolink.com.tw/new_web/products/vga/g4/GeForce4%20MX440.htm Couldn't find the MX460 in PCI. I thought that I had seen one before.
  14. Here as some G4 MX series specs: MX420: Core Speed: 250 MHz Memory Type: SDRAM Memory Speed: 166 MHz MX440: Core Speed: 270 MHz Memory Type: DDR SDRAM Memory Speed: 400 MHz MX460: Core Speed: 300 MHz Memory Type: DDR SDRAM Memory Speed: 550 MHz Shatter, your brother will see the biggest boost going from the onboard video to one of these cards, preferably the 440/460. I have seen the 420 for around $79 retail, the 440 around $99 retail. Of course you can find better online prices. Have not looked at the 460 prices yet. Mike, not sure what kind of boost in speed you will see going from a V5 to one of these cards. I would make sure I could return it if you try one out and you are not satisfied with the speed boost for the money. I will be finding out the same thing soon enough myself. Another note is the G3 Ti 200 beats the MX440 in AGP slots so don't expect these to be the same benchmarks that other G3/G4 series cards do. The MX series have been the budget line for nVidia vendors. Just not that many choices with the PCI bus anymore.
  15. mike, Compaq's site is hard to find a downloadable .PDF for your motherboard layout (not sure they even have one) but looking at the 7500 series it looks like an Intel 810 motherboard chipset. I believe the whole 810 line has built-in AGP Graphics and does not have a separate AGP port. That's probably why you have the PCI V5 since it is a stronger 3D solution than the built-in graphics. The 815 line added the AGP port for that series. Shatter, There is actually a GeForce4 MX420 in addition to the 440 and the 460. The MX420/440 is found more easily in stores. I hardly eaver see references to the 460, but it is probably the faster (and more expensive) one. I am in the same boat as you guys. I have a Tyan Thunder 2500 motherboard and cannot run a AGP nVidia board in it so I am also looking at the nVidia PCI line (and others). I currently have an AGP Voodoo5 which slows down substantially compared to CMBO so I plan to try video cards. I have not investigated the GeForce4 PCI cards enough yet to give opinions other than the product line itself but if I see anything I will post back (same for you guys). There is a PCI Kyro II card that is available in 64mb version that you can get on the net for 49.00 easily. However, do a search for "Kyro II" in this forum before buying. I even inquired about it a couple of days ago. It's actually a decent performing card and does not take a big performance hit when FSAA is on like some of the nVidia products. I'm going to try this card in my AGP slot to see if it even works. But my hunch is the nVidia cards have the least problems with CMBO/CMBB as long as you check the boards for driver version compatibility. I will probably end up with one of the nVidia cards.
  16. mike, I have the AGP version of the Voodoo5 card that you are using and I tried a GeForce 2 TI model and it was quite a bit faster than my Voodoo5 so I think you will be happy with that upgrade. Most people point out the 4200 because of the price/performance ratio. To get much faster than the 4200, the price goes up considerably. Are you limited to only PCI cards in your current PC? I.E. did your PC originally have onboard video and you later added the V5 PCI card? If you are limited to PCI upgrades only then the best you can do with a PCI card (that I am aware of) is the GeForce4 MX440/MX460.
  17. I think I would like to change video cards and was looking for some advice on this. The problem is I need a PCI video card. My motherboard is a Tyan Thunder 2500 with the Serverworks Serverset III HE chipset and it is not known for great AGP performance. I am still running a Voodoo 5 AGP card with no issues with this board and I have tried a NVidia AGP board which causes hard lockups. Other people experience the same results with the GeForce cards in AGP with this board. As far as PCI cards go these days it looks like the GeForce4 MX 420/440 are the fastest PCI cards available? ATI has PCI cards but I would rather have fog support in CMBO/BB. I also noticed that there are Kyro II PCI cards available. I did a search and it looks like the Kyro chipset still has a couple of problems with text corruption or is this only on Win9x platforms. I am running Windows 2000. The Kyro cards look nice since they do not seem to take a hit when using FSAA. Are the drivers still being updated for these cards and does future support look ok? Would the GeForce4 MX440 be the better choice? Thanks Jeff
  18. Capitalistdoginchina, I wouldn't think that this is HD related. It sounds like a device driver problem or the inability of ME to force a shutdown on a particular program. Have you installed/updated anything lately? Try running thru this link and see if anything looks related to your setup: http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnme.htm
  19. If you are running IE6 then a privacy icon should appear on your browser status bar at the bottom each time a cookie is restricted by your privacy settings. If you double-click this icon then you can allow cookies specifically from the order page w/o changing your overall privacy settings.
  20. I have four desktops and one laptop at home to back up. When I first set up a computer with current drivers, browser, virus protection (latest definitions) etc., I image the C partition using Ghost. This image always fits on one CD-R with high compression. I also make the CD bootable with the Ghost exe for restoring to a clean setup (which I do occasionaly). After I install all of the applications to the D partition, I image the C and D partitions over to a 80gb Maxtor across a network connection. These images usually span across a couple of files since they are pretty large but I just leave them on the 80gb drive for restoring if needed. I then just back up data files on a regular basis to another 80gb Max that is in a removable drive chassis in another machine on the network. I capture a lot of one/two hour documentaries from the history channel which I eventually convert to VCD format and burn onto CDR's but I also capture/store them on the Maxtor and another 80gb WD drive so I end up using a lot of that storage space, at least temporarily. Basically I use CDR's and HD's for backup since an 80gb can be had for $125.00. I gave up on tapes years ago, at least the tape drives targetted for home use. The DAT tape drives that I have used at work are much faster and reliable but they cost quite a bit.
  21. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Pvt. Ryan: ...The one problem I am having is that one machine won't let me install IE. No matter what I try the installation stops when it tries to access MS's site. I get a message along the lines of "cannot proceed with installation - not able to access the internet." The computer has a DSL connection and works fine otherwise. I even bought an IE disk thinking the whole program would be on it and it wouldn't need to access the net. Aparently even the disk just has an install program that tries to access the net. [ 01-14-2002: Message edited by: Pvt. Ryan ]<hr></blockquote> If the computer is having trouble doing an online install of IE, try downloading the full version locally and then install from the harddrive. I realize that is what you were trying to do with the CD but you can download w/o installing IE. Instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;q174680 Basically you have to download the ~400kb setup program and then point to it using the Start Menu/Run and adding a couple of switches. I have downloaded IE 5.5SP2 and IE 6.0 for all operating systems this way and just keep them on a CD. If that still will not install IE then try booting in safe mode and try the installation. Remember to place the IE files onto the harddrive before booting to safe mode as you will not have access to a CD.
  22. Those pics look fantastic! Thanks for using your talents to make this game even better.
  23. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges: ...I'm not able to upgrade the compaq buy purchasing an off the rack mobo and simply replacing what I have. Does anyone know if this will be a problem with the dell? Thanks.<hr></blockquote> I'm pretty sure that a couple of Dell's that were laying around at work were not upgradeable with a new mobo because of the mounting within the Dell case and the power supply using a proprietary connector. At least that was the case with Dell computers a couple of years ago. Not sure if that is still the case. Of course you could always replace the power supply with a generic one and maybe the case if that is still needed .
  24. For those of you who may have slow connections and have to download large service packs for Windows NT/2000, Microsoft has started a campaign to release (quarterly I believe) Security Toolkits that are free to order. The CD contains NT 4.0/5.0 service packs, security patches, IIS security patches and a lockdown tool along with "a simple mechanism for updating your current system. When you start this tool, it evaluates your system and offers to install the minimum set of updates required to establish a baseline level of security." Kind of handy having these on one CD if you have not already compiled your own CD with these patches. Not only is the CD free but shipping and handling is free as well. Here is the order link: http://www.microsoft.com/security/kitinfo.asp
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