Dil, probably that will work with W98 and similar computers. Plug and Play might try and install stuff it finds but its so long since I used 98 that I cant remember how good its P&P is.

When you say "look and work exactly" if the graphics card and screen resolution are the same it should look the same, if the first machine has any devices that are not in the second one then it might not work the same, obvious really.

What if the second PC doesn't have a SYSTEM.INI file. Is this something that swapping the disks will fix .... I've screwed up a bit :-)

I'm a simple soul (as many may have observed) !!!

I have bought a couple of webcams which I thought it would be simple to set up so that I can see live video of my son/daughter/grand-daughter and they could see me. It all seemed as if it should be straightforward. NOT SO !!

Having said that, I've discovered a site called Conquercam which allows me to post to my website but I keep having to refresh the stills it sends and I'm not very happy with that. Not really what I've seen other people have on their sites. I thought this webcam thing was all the rage - and simple to set up.

I've also been on a site which suggests that I use Windows Media Encoder - which I duly downloaded but in order to post to my website it asks me things like my Publishing Point - which I can find no reference to - unless I use VirtualBasic to programme a publishing point etc. etc.

I can see myself in all my glory (with and without thong) - how do I share this image of adonis with others?????

Anyone got an idiots guide to how I set up a live video webcam, as simply and effectively as possible.

mg

Dil

If you swap hard disks, you will transfer the entire system to the new computer. As Spaceman has already said, Windows will try to adapt itself to the other machine but this may not work and will almost certainly stop the hard disk working on the original computer.

If it is only system.ini that is fouled up, then you could try to copy that file to the non working computer using a DOS boot disk or you could run the setup disk and select the repair option. If this works you will have to update all security patches so only do it behind a seperate firewall.

If you want to transfer the OS from your other computer safely, buy a new hard disk and use a disk management program to copy the OS to the new disk. That way you don't lose the original computer.

MG

Sorry I can't help very much apart from confirming that in my experience web cam software seems very unreliable. If you find a good solution, please let us know.

MSN Mesenger works fine (sometimes) for point to point video and sound. It can have issues with some wireless routers. The Yahoo product should also worked but have not tried it.
skg

Dil, I might have misunderstood what you are trying to do, I agree with optimist if you put the hard disk from one pc into the other and leave the original hard disk in the second, that's a bad thing to do and could lead to a mess. If thats what you planned then I also suggest dont do it.

This is one of those problems where a IT person (eg me) might well do something completely differently to what is recommended for a non IT, I would do it but then I would be able to deal with the consequences. Apologies if I have caused confusion here.

MG, web cams live streams can contain a lot of information and use a lot of bandwidth, in addition if you have Broadband and do not have fixed IP addresses it is a pain to set them up for live streaming anyway as the public DNS records need to be dynamic if you want to allow secure access. In my experience this is very hard to setup reliably. There are a number of products that are supposed to help with this but I have not found them reliable.

If you are just sending stills then you can still hit problems as you have found, different ISP's have different methods of allowing users to update their web space and in some cases the updates take a while to appear on the site.

What should be OK is to use the webcams with something like MSN messenger to do video chats but again the bandwidth use is fairly high, it will be OK with Broadband but not with dial up.

This is an area of technology that needs the next generation of equipment to work well, when we have a better DNS system with much more bandwidth and dual processor (or dual core) then this should all work well. Say another 2 years...

Cheers Opti , couldn't get the computer to boot from a boot disk hence the idea of swapping disks.

Will let you know how I get on , neither disks have any critical data or programs on them so nothing much to lose in trying.

Dil

If the computer won't boot from a boot disk, the first thing to do is check the BIOS settings have the floppy drive listed as the first boot device.

If that doesn't work, Google for a new boot disk.

Dil

If it is just the system.ini file that is fouled up, you should be able to boot the machine in safe or DOS mode from the hard disk (press F8 on startup). There are normally some old copies of system.ini hanging around that you can remame.

Spaceman
Thanks for that - no wonder they are selling webcams for next to nothing.

Just for information I have set up a fixed DNS using no-ip.com. Having said that, as a novice it is not easy to follow instructions from people like this:

http://www.robertwisbey.com/how_to_web_cam_wme.html

He makes it sound all so simple - but as you say - it aint.

Have tried to stay away from MSN Messenger because of stories of it being an excellent way for hackers to get into your machine - but maybe that's the simplest way to go.

mg (defeated)

mg, I haven't heard stories about MSN Messenger (ICQ yes). I use it regularly for a video link both ways to Italy. Works fine for the video on broadband although it's not really true video, more a sequence of stills at 1/4 sec. interval or so. Sound I don't use since it maxes out the connection and affects the performance of the video side.

Opti that was my original problem , pressing F8 or any other key wouldn't let me get to the DOS prompt , all I wanted to do was reformat the hard drive.

I can get into the BIOS set up but I can't get to the DOS prompt from there either.

Dil, can you boot from a CD? if youe are going to reformat you could do that from your OS CD and then do the reformat as part of the reinstall.

Your symptoms sound as though you might have a virus or trojan ;-(

Kayak
Thanks mate - looks as if it's MSN Messenger then.

mg

Spaceman , if I put a Windows CD in it comes up with a message something like

"get lost , use an emergency boot disk , then use scanreg / restore to find your missing system.ini file".

Can't remember the exact wording.

Dil

Are you booting from the Windows CD? What option are you then choosing?

From the original Windows CD when I get that message.

I don't get any options.

at the risk of sounding pedantic.....

Its difficult for IT people to give good advice without exact information, accurate error messages and codes are very valuable, and enable us to assist far quicker and more importantly to give accurate information.

Dil

Normally, when you boot from a Windows CD, it will start by inspecting the system and then ask whether you want to install windows. At that stage, it may also offer a repair option. If you select the install option, it will then ask you where you want to install and you have the option of deleting the existing partition and then reformatting. If you elect to install in the existing Windows directory you will be given the option of fixing the existing system.

If you run the disk without booting directly from it, the behaviour is different. I have seen some Windows disks supplied by computer makers that try to copy a disk image to your machine, but there is normally a way to get into the basic windows setup.