Registry Checker??

What the heck. Do you work for Mr. Gates & Company ?

But at the same time the deffinition ( or interpatation ) of user
friendly varys GREATLY (a 98SE comparison). That is ridiculous

NO WAY in hell is it rediculus. It is a FACT.

. Again you make something personal by comparing 98SE to other operating systems.***

It is true that I do make it personal. I have the 100% right to do so. And this being my personal machine I see no reason why I can not make my own personal decisions as to which OS I think is best.

Over a period of time I have learned more MUCH MORE from my Crashes and/or conflicts and other mess ups than I have from things going without problems.

Over a pieriod of time I have learned to rearrange the order in which I run programs so that conflicts do not arise. And I have yet to see a book yet that says program A is not compatable with ( or causes conflicts with ) program B if run in that order. However. Real life use tells me that if I run B before A there is no problem. But at the same time I can not blame the OS for that. It is strickly a software problem. This is on one machine. On the other it makes no difference.

That my Friend is not Book Learning. That is system crashing, conflict causing and correction of same learning

Now if you can find me a book that tells me that I will buy it. To be honest it may be hard to find a book about DOS. Oh My. I forgot. DOS is supposed to be dead. Sorry bout that.

Yesterday I was jumping back and forth between a HD with 98SE and one with XP pro. And if I did not know I would NOT be able to tell the difference.

Yes. I do have XP in the Classic Mode. That is a Personal Choice.

PC does not stand for Personal Computer for nothing.

it is what you don't know that is the issue.

Well I guess that I do know just enough to make my own desicison as to which OS better for me.

And make MY MACHINE behave the way I want it too regardless of what you or Microsoft say.

BillyBob

 

BBob,

Obviously your experience doesn't include systems prior to Gates. Proof: I don't know of any children that could operate a computer prior to the user-friendly systems on today's market. There was a time when to qualify as a computer operator position required 2 years of college or tech school. That are the facts and not to be aware of that change is one borne of ignorance. One can experience the change or read a book.

"Over a period of time I have learned more MUCH MORE from my Crashes and/or conflicts and other mess ups than I have from things going without problems. "

This comment is a complete contradiction to your continued assertions that you have a superior system!!... A user-friendly computer is automatically eliminating many of those problems or at least provides visibility to the problem and with the proper application by the user it can be easily corrected.

I don't know of any computer reference book that doesn't get into crashes, interrupt conflicts, etc. Whether DOS is dead or not is irrelevant. It appears it is quickly being phased out.

Your comment on a prior post on this thread a forum that discusses computer problems is the best arena to learn computer technology because you assert this where the experience of problems is discussed. Implying MS is not aware nor does it care about the users' practical matters or urgent problems.

That is a misunderstanding as well. To know MS's marketing responsibilities and their accepted obligation to consumers after the release of their product would be to know they request and receive thousands of complaints and with experienced professionals with knowledgeof theory provide patches and fixes to the most frequent problems and then work in a decending order to provide further solutions.

"And make MY MACHINE behave the way I want it too regardless of what you or Microsoft say. "

If you have a recalcitrant machine with all those crashes and problems that you say you have experienced, somewhere in the background is theory that relates to your problems and with that knowledge you would not have to have suffered/suffer all those problems. You may want to think about something modern in the future.

 

I guess that User Friendly is interpited differently by you and me.

I do have XP behaving quite well. But it is not one dam bit better than 98SE.

And if I were to some how lose it I sure would not cry about it and there exists a good possibility that it just might not be re-installed.

I still have my Win98SE HD ready to plug back in and go if needed

Other than something new to play with I WASTED $199.

But on the udder hand I would have to do some thinking as Software and Hardware venders may be dropping support for anything less than XP.

BillyBob

 

FWIW,
I find XP VERY user friendly, problem with XP as with all MS OS's is that the average user (not many of us BBS users!) doesn't do enough, or the correct maintenence on their PC, and most don't realise that their PC is not unlike your Car, which requires the tires checking, the oil and water changing, tune up etc and other periodic maintenence.
Providing you DO this maintenence then the OS remains in good health till we, or a third party programme stuff it up!

The challenge for MS is to automate much of this maintenence and provide utilities that SAFELY and accurately clean the registry and clearout useless files that eventually fill up our HD's and further erode performance.

 

One thing that Win98SE has NEVER failed to do that XP fails at everyday. .

SE would at least make a registry backup at the first startup of the day. As long as I the USER keep scanregistry loading at bootup.

Sometimes XP makes a Restore Point when installing software. Sometimes IT DON'T. ( more of the latter ) And unless we MANUALLY check on this we would not know.

I have as yet have XP make a Restore point on its own. I really don't care as I make my own when needed anyway. When I get ready to make changes I make my own RP. Then if XP does decides to make one so be it

I never have and I never will put my full trust in the so called automatic ****. I have had it fail on me too many times.

Paul mentioned the OS being like a car. He is SSSSOOOOO right it is almost funny. We get so darned used to all the Automatic stuff that we depend on it TOO MUCH. And have no idea what to do when it fails.

I have had the low oil light come on when I just got through having it changed. I have had the low fuel light come on when pulling away from the gas pump. I have also run out of gas when the gauge said 1/4 full. The 1st instance was a malfunction.

The 2nd was a Stupid DRIVER's brain malfunction. I deserved to pay $35 to have 3 gallons of gas brought to me on Interstate 81 in Roanoke VA after driving from Atlanta GA. with the gauge reading less than full when I left.

So if we feed both the car and the PCs' operating system the proper fuel/software and do periodic MANUAL/CHECKUPS they will both usually run quite well. But without same we may be finding ourselves sitting beside the road or reinstalling.

This is true.

But the USER still needs to take the responsibility to check MANUALLY to see that the Automatic stuff has done its job.

BillyBob

 

To BB,
Sorry I accidently passed over your comment "What the heck. Do you work for Mr. Gates & Company ? " Reading your post and other posts on a different BBS, there appears to be a misunderstanding regarding Gates's status with the business he founded.

Microsoft Corp is now a publicly owned business that is a legal entity (pays its taxes, can sue or be sued, etc.) Gates is employed by Microsoft as well as a major stockholder, and he will in due coarse prosper for himself and enhance stockholders' wealth.

We, the stockholders in the aggregate have voting power and if Gates underperforms he can be replaced. Ted Turner, Malone, Murdock and many others are examples of high fliers that have been displaced through stockholders approval for a merger or a change of management...No one associated with MS works for Gates. Gates works for the stockholders. My comments regarding MS is an attempt to put forward opinions and facts that reflect objective reality not personal experience as such. I try to distinquish between opinions from facts.
_______________

Paul makes a good point. "The challenge for MS is to automate much of this maintenence and provide utilities that SAFELY and accurately clean the registry and clearout useless files that eventually fill up our HD's and further erode performance. "

Automation is the trend of the future and it does very well when it gets into areas that are redundant and that would include verification of the contents of a file when compared to another file so I don't agree with "But the USER still needs to take the responsibility to check MANUALLY to see that the Automatic stuff has done its job. But the USER still needs to take the responsibility to check MANUALLY to see that the Automatic stuff has done its job. " However, in my opinion, changes to a system will almost always require user intervention to make the choices and the options available and this function will never be completely automated.

As an example to verify a computer function manually would be as useless as verifying the change of gears in an automatic transmission of a car. With my La Sabre a light on the dash will indicate the problem. If one had to go back and check manually a computer function, then the user might as well perform the function and disregard the automation process. Doesn't make sense.

 

Lets forget MR. Gates. I am not sure what his status is anyway. I am just dealing with an OS that his company produced.

I have just one question about that.

What happens if the light on the dash does not work.

Do you or do you not also listen to the change of engine sounds and watch for RPM changes if the RPM gauge is present ?

Do you not also check the feel when the transmission shifts ? Does it go smoothly or jump from one gear to the next ?

Of course that could depend on how heavy the operators' foot is.

Also do you check the dash everytime you turn the ignition on and make sure that all the indicators come on the are supposed to ? I myself are very lax there. But when I turn my PC on I watch and/or listen for everything that is supposed to happen.

Well let me says this about that. Disregarding the MANUALL check to make sure the auto part is indeed working does not make sense to me.

If I DID NOT manually check, how would I know that XP was not making Restore Points as it is so called AUTOMATICLY supposed to do ? And get s.c.r.e.w.e.d if I really needed one.

Right now I am not sure whether it is XP or me that is causing that problem. But either way it is not happening.

How would I know that SE does make a RB00X.CAB files on the first boot of the day EVERY DAY ?

And last but not least.

If the operator of either Windows or the Automobile does not do some manual checking then he/she would have no damned idea if the automatic part was even working or not.

BillyBob

 

If you do the "sfc /scannow "....when it's finished checking, does it give you the option NOT to do any repairs if necessary? Just would like to check and see without doing anything based on the results.

 

Thanks PeteC.

 

Forgot to ask.....

If I decide to run sfc /scannow, and it has to rewrite some files from the cache folder or XP CD....that should be all it does? I should NOT have to REINSTALL anything....say Win XP, video, sound drivers etc.?

If it's just going to replace any files it needs to WITHOUT a reinstall that would be ok.

 

Ace - yes/no/maybe.

If you have an install CD with the same SP as your PC is running you shouldn't have to do anything after the sfc /scannow unless one of the files replaced had been updated by a post-SP hot fix.

If your CD is original XP and you have installed SP1 then you should reapply the SP after the scan - a big point in favor of making your own slipstreamed CD with OS and SP already combined on it.

But otherwise you shouldn't have to do anything to the system.

 

Newt,
My CD version of XP has SP1 on it.

 

Yesterday I ran sfc /scanonce. No choices were presented. sfc ran on reboot asked for install CD (no sp1 on mine), did it's thing then Rebooted machine. All hotfixes and SP1 gone.

Now Update site fails to recognize uinstall and will not present uninstalled hotfixes and SP1 for download using "Scan for Updates." Site will present installed update history and says that they may not actually be installed. I could not find any option to redownload.

After being led around in circles for 20 minutes was able to find 76 available downloads plus service pack 1a. Some applled to XP and some did not. Not in any intelligble order as far as I could see. I think the site needs some work.

Didn't 98SE actually scan machine for installed updates? Seems that I remember it doing that.

Rather than trying to install sp1a and other updates willy nilly, I'm considering a repair (upgrade install). I did that previously and "Scan for Updates" worked. Just hope it will again.

 

update to last post. Went ahead and did repair install, update site now shows all XP applicable updates available for download. Just wish site would allow re-download of previously installed updates without having to re-install XP

 

A point in favor of downloading and storing the updates before you run them. Burned to CD is a good option.

 

In XP. Does SFC give you a choice of "UPDATING its file(s)" the same as SFC in 98 SE does. ?

If not then it STINKS.

In SE SFC would tell you that a files had been changed and give the info on it. And then give you a choice to replace the file or update SFC. I chose replace ONCE and paid dearly for it by having to reinstall SE.

SFC in SE would tell us that a file is corrupt. ( It lied many times ) because the file was not corrupt but just different then the one from the last time SFC was run.

Didn't 98SE actually scan machine for installed updates? Seems that I remember it doing that.

Yes it does. And so does XP. But in either one all things necessary must be present and accounted for. In your case ( after running SFC ) they weren't.

I had to re-install 98SE and IE6 on one of my machines yesterday due to the same fact of losing Windows Updates. I did that one Format and clean install as it had the 98SE UPDATE version on it and never was really quite right.

BillyBob

 

I just ran SFC on the new install of SE. I chose UPDATE all.

There were MANY changed files. Most of them were due to having UPDATED Windows and/or IE or some software.

Being the first time run after the install the log was 24 printed pages long.

In the log it says

100-- folders examined.
1173 files examined.
295- files aadded to verification Data.
0---- files removed from verification Data file.
219- files updated in Verification Data file.
0-----files restored.
0-----file changes or ignored.

I will be adding more software today so I will run SFC later and see what the results are then.

Does the SFC in XP do the same or does it just plain replace files that it THINKS are wrong ?

And if SFC in XP is like the one in SE IT MUST BE RUN after each and every change to the system in order for it to be reliable.

BillyBob

 

Just installed MS Works.

New SFC log only 2 pages.

106-- folders examined.
1191 files examined.
18---files aadded to verification Data.
0---- files removed from verification Data file.
0---- files updated in Verification Data file.
0-----files restored.
0-----file changes or ignored.

Is this what SFC in XP does ?

BillyBob

 

For clarifcation to the orignal poster's question, the SFC with 98 required (as I remember) one to scan for altered files and manually extract.

ME and XP discontinued SFC as such with 98 and incorporated the scan with the Windows File Protection feature. Initiated it will scan for all protected files and will automatically replace any corrupt or unknown files with known files.

I have never used the WFP to scan for a problem so I can't verify the following but it appears acceptable.

corrupt file fix
Perform a "Disk Cleanup ": Double-click "My Computer" then right-click on your XP drive,
select Properties > Disk Cleanup. Next, perform the following:
1) Open the "Command Prompt" and type: SFC /SCANNOW , and hit enter. (Important: Make
sure there is a space between the 'C' and the ' / ' otherwise it won't work) [SFC = System
File Checker].

(Have your XP CD available since you will be prompted to insert it in the CD drive. The
SFC procedure will take approximately 20 - 30 minutes to complete.)

2) Afterward, perform a Checkdisk (file error-checking and repair procedure).
Open the "Command Prompt" and type: CHKDSK /R , and hit enter and answer 'yes' to the
question and restart your computer.

3) After performing the above procedures, run "Defrag ".

As stated in another post when running "scannow" after installing SP1 you will need to use a WinXP streamlined with SP1.