My sister-in-law has been offered an upgrade by the guy who came out to repair her PC. She's running ME but he has offered her XP. In view of all the negative comments re XP is it worthwhile or should she go for 2000?

Spaceman ... I recall the 'ads' discussions, and I also understand and accept the commercial requirements for ads. No problem there for me.

However, its only recently that I noticed the apparent CPU hit from the homepage. Now that Ian has picked it up, I'll see if they find anything unusual.

Re. ads blocking, I use Norton Firewall 2003, with ads blocking on. Saying that, I recall I used to get empty 'ad locations' on the am homepage, but now I don't. Maybe my blocker is malfunctioning, or maybe new 'ads design' has circumvented it. I'll have to have a look.

Regards, D.

EDIT ; My ads blocking is working ok. Just had a look at the homepage on a PC without 'ads blocking', and there's extra ads showing which I don't get on my 'blocked' PC's.

Dieng,

I have spoken to JT about this, and he thinks it is something to do with scrolling java on the front page, we are in the process of looking at the front page anyway, so hopefully we will be able to sort this out pretty soon.

Ian

IanT, was the GNI ad on the front page? I thing that was a bit of a hog as well??

TOK, ***IF*** her PC is up to it I would probably go for XP SP2 now.

Thanks, Spaceman. So you reckon all the XP glitches have been dealt with? I'll check with her system is.

Spaceman,

Not sure, but as I say we are looking at the HP at the mo, so should be able to get things ticking over better when that is complete,

Ian

TOK

A good instalation of XP Pro is at least as good as Win 2K. There is nothing wrong with W2K but support will eventually cease ans SP2 makes XP a more secure system.

She should make sure that she goes for XP Pro as opposed to home and install SP2 before she connects to the internet.

Both W2K and XP benefit from clean instalations but this means you have to reinstal all programs.

TOK, I would just say that XP Pro (as Optimist mentions above) is now pretty stable and I am in the process of moving to it. I am sure there are still some glitches but I am sure there are some in ME too.

Ian ... Thanks. I had started to compare pages to see what services / files were common to slow pages. I wondered about Java, but I noticed it ran on some other pages which did not have a high CPU impact.

Anyway, I'm now 'out of my depth'. I will keep an eye on the homepage, and hope that you can improve this aspect. As I mentioned earlier, now I understand the source of my 'CPU hit', I can avoid it by just avoiding the am homepage.

Regards, D.

I have got an old Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows ME and when I switched it on this morning the keyboard doesn't work (the touchpad mouse does). I tried rebooting and presing F2 to enter set up but it won't recognise that either. When I plug in my cordless logitech keyboard that works okay, so I am guessing this keyboard problem is a serious hardware failure, but any other pointers to something that may have been changed in its set up?

Thanks

Can't think it would be a setup option Limpy. Replacement keyboards are advertised on Ebay and they are generally not difficult to fit once you've worked out how, although you might need the maintenance manual to do that. However they are fairly expensive and there is no guarantee that the fault is in the keyboard rather than the motherboard.

Thanks for that Kayak. I will take it into the local pc bod to have a look at later this week but i reckon a new basic one is on the cards (it's not for me, so obviously I will be shopping on price not spec....!)

On that subject does anyone know the best place to buy a nice cheap laptop for just basic office stuff? i have looked at dabs and pc world and they have some that would do the job for around 600 but does anyone know of anywhere else
Thanks again

Limpy, re Dell laptops, I think the keyboards are the least reliable bit. However, I have had three keyboards in mine, and after the last one was replaced I again started having trouble. I ignored it and the problem seems to have rectified itself (kiss of death!!). However if you're running Windows ME you need no excuse for an upgrade!


I have another rpoblem now. I have a rewritable disc which I copy files to from my laptop using Roxio Easy CD creator's direct CD facility and Windows Explorer under Win 98. When I try and read the disc in my Desktop running XP home it only reads the files placed there last week - as though it's remembered the disc and doesn't expect anything different to be on? This is not the case and I want to copy the new files. I'll try deleting all the files and recopying them over and see if this works. Still haven't had time to install W2K on the laptop though!

Kayak any idea? computer keeps switching itself off, no virus!, power supply burning out?

Thanks!

Ruth , had same probs with Favs a few times. I have a wireless router broadband modem. If I unplug for 30 seconds then re open IExplorer then the modem has re set itself and the problem is solved. Give it a try if thats what you use to connect. Its the biult in firewall that causes problems in the modem.
Also I think BT have been having a few issues causing problems since last week. At the end of the day, it doesnt matter who your supplier is. Its all BT carriers behind them.

edit

David, just upgraded to a netgear dg834 g wireless router, built in firewall,

That may be your problem, conflicts between XP firewall and netgear. Worth a call to Netgear helpline probably. Mines a D Link and thier Customer Support was excelent

TP, could be a number of causes unfortunately. Faulty case or CPU fan, faulty memory, faulty motherboard, faulty power supply! First step is probably to check the case and CPU fans are spinning OK and see if anything that you do is causing it to shut down. How does it 'shut down', similar to power off with the fans stopping?

kayak just turns off in the blink of an eye to a black screen, no slow shut down procedure, i think i must have a corrupt file, closed down when i was logging onto the net this mornign so fresh machine, did it yesterday when i clicked on sharescope to load, fans all running as far as i know, how i hate computers! when they go wrong!