TP. I use Hibernate & can confirm that it is quicker to boot up - But - (there's always a 'but' isn't there) I have a feeling that someone posted on this thread some time ago that Hibernate creates a lot of fragmentation issues.
Or did I dream it ? :-)

Edit: Or should I have said might create fragmentation issues

I've not heard of it causing defrag problems, but the hibernate routine does create a file the same size as the installed RAM. These days, that may well be 1GB or more so that size of file could make defragmentation difficult. You could always delete c:\hiberfil.sys before defragmentation.

B & O,

You are right about that hiberfil.sys file needing to be removed to get a total defrag. I had that problem when I first installed Diskeeper and had to remove it to get a full defrag.

Having said that I have just come out of Hibernation and a Search did not find that file. Maybe Diskeeper can deal with it once installed without it being there.

What I have heard is that you need a full re-boot from time to time to give XP a chance to tidy up its registry etc. With that in mind I'd use Hibernate normally and a full close down every few days.

TP

Although rebooting does clean up things best, I find that logging off the user and then logging on again is almost as good and quicker.

TP

You can remove the need for logon access and let XP automatically log you on as follows:


The "quick" Welcome screen must be available - check in User Accounts that the conventional logon is NOT used

Guest account access must be turned off - again in User Accounts

There must be only one user account on the computer and that user account must not have a password


All these conditions can be set using Control Panel > User Accounts, as long as your account has Computer Administrator status.

If you can live without passwords, this can speed things up at boot time.

Alfa.

Alfa,

My problem, see above, is that I have been given a third user. What I said was:-

"a third user. I have that ASP.NET and I can't remove it even if it was safe to do so as it is password protected and I think MS put it there in an upgrade."

Have you any idea whether I need ASP.NET and, if not, how I get rid of it when I don't know what its password is?

In the meantime I am using Hibernation and it is proving so much faster.

Have a good week.

TP

TP

ASP.NET is not required - it is a utility for website development that is is not considered malicious and which is installed as part of the Microsoft.NET framework - unless you need it to use this framework of course !

You can easily delete this and any account from User Accounts. Logon to the computer as yourself and then just select the account you wish to delete from the list provided (in your case, it sounds like your own, Guest and ASP.NET).

If you click on ASP.NET, there will be an option to delete that account, regardless of password protection.


Alternatively, you can define the auto-logon account (fully reversibly) as follows.


1. Give your own account a password first from Control Panel > User Accounts and close those windows.

2. Then click Start, Run and type in control userpasswords2

A list of user accounts will appear.

3. Untick the box saying "users must enter a password to logon etc."

You will be asked for the username and password of the account you wish to use for auto-logon.

Good luck.

Alfa.

Alfa,

Thanks for that.

I have a web site, but do nothing more than upload browser folders to it using Cute. My 'development' is restrained to some crude page editing, on my home PC prior to uploading, using MS Frontpage.

I'm assuming that getting rid of ASP.NET will not have any effect on my limited work on the web.

In which case my simpler solution is to get rid of guest and asp and follow your suggestion in 5972.

TP

TP,

Removing the ASP.NET account should have no effect on your work - as far as I can judge.

Solutions in 5972 or 5974 are equally simple and do the same job.

5972 gives you only a single account. 5974 lets you have as many accounts as you wish.

Alfa.

Thanks alfa,

I'll get on with it shortly.

TP

Quick update on my graphics card problem. Bunged an extra card to take the load off my existing one and it's only made a marginal improvement.

Am now pretty sure it's my cpu that can't keep up.

CC

Just a shot in the dark, I think you said that you said you had 3 GB RAM, it may be worth reducing this to 1.5 or 2 GB to see what happens.

My reasoning, with previous operating systems, although the maxim 'the more RAM the better' was generally true, there was always a point where more RAM became counter productive. Win XP is supposed to have fixed this, but you never know.

I'm about to order some stuff off an American website - my concern is that on the page where I am asked to enter address and Credit Card details, I do not see the familiar padlock sign (using Opera) on the address bar (although the address does begin with "https://"). However, there is a padlock sign in the section where the Card details are required. There's also a link next to that and it displays security information (along with a padlock on the address bar). Am I right to be concerned? Any thoughts appreciated....

I would be concerned if the paddlock sign is not shown on an https site. I suggest that you initialy try the site using alternate browsers.

Bear in mind that they will be recording your IP address, which is fine for a genuine site but not so good if it is a scam.

Thanks Optimist. The same page when opened in FireFox correctly shows as a fully secure page without any problems. So I'll just go ahead and carry out the transaction using FireFox rather than Opera this time.

Optimist

"Bear in mind that they will be recording your IP address...."

What do you mean by this?

Doc

Every website that you visit records your IP address. There is very little you can do about this, but it could help to identify you.

If you were to visit a dodgy site, then it is just a little extra info that may enable them to target your computer, rip you off or steal your identity.

If you really think a site is a scam then it's best to avoid it entirely.

.

Can anyone help with this problem I have on my PC.

I installed a new Hard drive (SATA) couple of weeks ago - but kept the original Drive in situ (to be reformatted once all files were transferred to new drive). The new drive has been working without any problems.

However - this morning I installed some Software (for Canon scanner) - but when I tried to restart the PC - the WindowsXP window with the bar scanning back and forwards appeared then stopped. The PC was rebooted - but the same thing happened once again. I was unable uninstall the scanning software in Safe Mode - so used a previous Restore point.

However - since then whenever I switch on the screen shows the page giving Safe Mode, or (wait 25 seconds or whatever) to switch on normally etc - and this is a continuous loop. Even by clicking on any of the other options the loop continues (unable to get into Safe Mode).

I have tried changing setup in the bios so that the original drive boots up first - and that is ok - but using My Computer the new drive can't be seen at all.

Any clues where the problem might be?

Many thanks in anticipation.

Hi Timeliner

The first thing I would do is disconect the old hard disk to make sure that nothing happens to your old system.

If you can't boot from the hard disk, you will have to boot from the instalation CD (which must be SP2 if your new disk is over 120GB) then either use the repair facility to completely restore Win XP but keep most of your settings or use the recovery console to try and correct things. You will need to spend some time browsing the Microsoft site to sort that.

If your new disk is only 2 weeks old, you could consider booting from the old disk, copying any changed data from the new disk, then erase the new disk and re clone it.