Iain - they could only block access to MS sites, there's no MS involvement in your PC accessing, say, AM via Pipex. There has been some talk about future updates disabling systems using security codes known to be shared, but the legal/practical difficulties make this course of action vanishingly unlikely.

the troll,

Unfortunately MS *have* disabled updates on copies of XP that are known to be installed with shared serial numbers.

If it has been installed with some shared codes, then the service packs wont install (and trust me, you *want* the service packs!)

J.

Thanks for replys.

TullettJ - assume you can still apply updates if downloaded onto another PC? What I was suggesting won't happen is MS completely disabling the OS if an update finds it to be erm, unofficial.

Of course, using a key generator rather than an existing key avoids these issues altogether...

Where can i fInd a.............Ahem. Key generator?:-)

What, for research purposes, you mean? If you were running filesharing software (such as that found at www.kazaalite.com) and searched for "keygen", that might be quite enlightening.

:-)))))))))Ta Troll.

the troll,

it is nothing to do with the downloading of the updates, its the installing of them that will be blocked.

Of course, you can also download cracked updates, but ill not go into that here.

I think you should move to Linux and OpenOffice, much nicer :)

J.

Tullet could you E-Mither me on internal mail on how to Allegedly Download cracked updates

Kayak and others who tried to help

An update to my hard disk troubles.

Spoke to various data recovery people and it breaks down into two main areas - logic/data or electric/mechanical. The first one is "relatively" cheap, probably @2-300 and they use some clever scanning software to winkle out whatever info is on the disk. The second area is where they need to use (from the sound of some of the descriptions) some kind of partial vacuum/sterile Level 5 Ebola virus laboratory to take the hd apart and try and physically repair it. Thats where things can get very expensive. So, down to the local specialist who pronounced it dead anyway, not ill or grumpy and awkward but DEAD.

Ordering a new hd today and very carefully reviewing back up procedures.

Kayak, if I ever moan again that my hard disk has gone wrong and I only have old back ups please laugh, make jokes about it and generally abuse me with robust language for not sticking to the back up plan :-).

Regards
Rob

Iain,

I personally dont know where i can download them, as I said, Linux and OpenOffice, that is there my heart lies, and if I do use MS, I use licensed versions of it and thus have never had a need.

http://www.kazaa.com may be of use. But its loaded with ads and other funky stuff.

J.

Thanks anyway.

lol Robb, I'll remember that. BTW I use a Seagate tape drive for backups. It means I can set the computer to turn itself on automatically early in the morning every day, and take a differential backup (i.e. only those files changed since the last full backup). A whole full backup fits on a single tape and a daily backup means I should only lose a day's work. A relatively expensive backup option but very reliable and easy to use. It does depend on how much disk space you use of course.

Big caution to naughty boys/girls who download Keygen.Lot include Virus!
I know of someone who has virus free working Keygen if anyone needs one.As if!:-)

Ooops, sorry - that was the other thing - do scan anything you download from filesharing networks :-)

Kayak (aka ask Jeeves :-)) etc.. this is going to sound really stupid but how do I back-up my data? I have about 9gb of data that if I lost would cause me a great deal of pain. I have a CD writer but thats not practical. Is there a system on my PC (running XP) than can do this for me?

Thanks.

Mr.E - a CDRom is practical if the data is first compressed using something like WInZip. If you could compress from 2Gb downto 640Mb then you only need 4 CD's to backup the lot.

Now, that does depend on your PC skills......

Failing that get a DVD writer which stores about 5Gb data on each DVD. Which means you only need 2 of them for everything. You should be able to get one for a couple of hundred quid. Basic backup software should come with it.

Again, that does depend on your PC skills......

Mr euro, take a long hard look at the files and data you need to back up. My guess is that much of it is "static" data which could be seperated from your "active" data.

Ive been through this process myself and by re-organising my directories the bulk of my files have now gone into the archive category which just need burning onto cd once in a while.

My day to day records (trading stuff, emails, addresses, favs etc) amount to about 150Mb which I back up nightly onto zip discs but a cdr or cdrw would be just as good.

The above might not be relevant to your circumstances but I hope may help.

Neil

Mr E, I don't think many people know this, but the Win XP CD has a backup programme on it. My copy is XP Home, and the backup programme says it won't do ASR (a automatic restore of the sytem files) but it seems to backup the data files OK. XP Pro probably does do ASR. I use the Croc method of a removeable hard disk. The caddy's are cheap and the hard disk is a 20GB one out of an old machine. Seems to be OK but I would like to get the Kayak 'seal of approval', if he is about...

Thanks guys, and yes most of it is static data (consulting methodologies etc..). Will ponder for a moment.