Hil and Opti:

It's possible (pace Dil above) that it's a recent Microsoft "fix" that's destabilised the connection. I just had a conversation about this with our Engineering Director and he said he had a similar problem at home some time back which corrected itself. He put this down to a Microsoft update correcting the earlier problem -- but didn't investigate as he "was too busy sorting out our engineering problems without getting enbroiled with Microsoft's".

And, Opti, you're right, the SP3 problem is unrelated to Hil's kids' problem -- I expect :)

Thanks for Filezilla Opt,

It seems a jolly site quicker than my CuteFTP.

TP

As I install my software and data on to my two new Computer Doctor PC's I am inspired to set up the Acronis True Image 11 recovery system.

Am I the only person who would quite like to set Acronis running at the end of a session and leave it to turn off the PC when it had finished?

MS Updates do that frequently.

Has anyone found a way of doing it with Acronis?


EDIT But having thought about it I guess that most of you folk never turn your PC's off anyway. Maybe they are more reliable if left running.

TP

Anyone using Acronis?

I may need some help - but not until after the weekend.

Have a good one.

TP

TP

You ask: "Am I the only person who would quite like to set Acronis running at the end of a session and leave it to turn off the PC when it had finished?"

Hmmm? Sounds like a good idea if it can be done.

Sorry not to reply to you earlier on this but we are doing a spot of decorating and this is just a coffee break posting.

The Computer Doctors did load up Acronis on my machine but I have been totally negligent with it. Your post prompts me to make an effort and read up on it a. I do make back-ups, but I sorta kinda, I do it 'generically' - IYKWIM? I am also mad on machine housekeeping and I'm sure this is why I haven't had to take this machine back to the CD's for any kind of help.

I've just been to the following site:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

A quick read tells me I am missing out on not using Acronis more actively. Apparently, for system and also data backup "Acronis absolutely rocks!"

In the Review section of the above web site, one guy says:

John Hight: "Thanks for the reply to my e-mail. You were right. I purchased Acronis True Image 6.0 and I must say it is a great program. I backed up my Hard Drive C: with all the operating system files and programs on to Hard Drive D:(which is another partion on the physical drive). It took about 30 minutes to back up 18.5 Gb with a 3rd compression. Then just to see if it would work I put in the bootable rescue disk I had made during installation and let the computer boot to this disk. From the time I put the disk into the drive till I got my system completely back up and running was about 15 minutes. Everything was the same as when I backed it up. It deleted the old information and reinstalled the new information from my backup copy in less time than I could make a pot of coffee. This is really a terrific program. It does all you say it will. Now there is no more all day affairs trying to recover from a fatal crash."

Backup can't get much better than that!

Exec

This site has told me more about Acronis than any other.

What I found confusing was the reference to an Acronis Secure Zone and the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.

There are as many who swear by them as who feel they cause more trouble than they are worth.

My understanding now is that the ASZ is vital if you are storing the backups on the main system drive - but not intended when you, as I do, store on a USB external hard drive.

If you do that an have a bootable CD (which you will have if your Acronis came in a box from CD) you boot from that and not from the ASRM. And indeed if your drive C went AWOL your Acronis backup on it might also be AWOL anyway.

I've just done my first backup and am verifying it now. I'll try booting with the CD from the box and prove that works.

There is also the matter of refreshing the backup with differential and incremental backups. The consensus is that differential is better and safer. And when you have done a number of differentials you can do a clean full backup and follow it with more differentials.

That's the key stuff I have puzzled out over the last 48 hours.

TP

Thanks for that. I'll take a look at the link.

Just had a weird experience. a tiny insect crawling across my screen, only when I look, it's actually under the screen - can't be brushed off. Didn't think that could happen!

Quite common actually :-)

Insect behind PC screen

Send for Batman PacMan?

Hmm, just wish I had a mouse with a stun button. Someone on that forum suggests it's a Microsoft bug. Thanks guys :-)

I bet that the first thing you thought was that it was time to go to the optician :-)

Groan :-)

Actually thought how good my specs are that I can see that bug!!

Here is one hell of an absolutely brilliant 'Fixing Computer Problems' site:-

http://www.fixingmycomputer.com/

PS. Don't forget to add it to your 'Favorites'.

Hi all,

I have windows XP Home and for some reason I had to re install windows with the function repair, I used to have windows service pack 2, when I re installed I had to do so with service pack 1.

I have tried to update from windows update to service pack 2 but it will not complete the installation, keeps saying internal error, does not give an error code and SP2 has not installed.

The other problem I have is that when i switch my PC on first time it keeps crashing and it starts up after about 6 attempts, almost like it needs to warm up.

I can live with the second problem but I am concerned that my PC says that service pack 1 is unsafe, what ever I try I cannot seem to install SP2.

Stewart

Perhaps the best place to do a Microsoft Update is at:

Microsoft Updates

If you want to update ALL of your software try doing a scan on your machine at:

FileHippo

This will give you a scan and a full report and also allow you to download all of the necessary updates.

As part of your housekeeping, I'd recommend using CCleaner, which you can download at the above site. This download is also very useful for controlling all of your cookies. If you are into Cashback Internet Shopping, then you need to check that certain cookies are removed from your machine before you start to shop, otherwise you won't get the cashback introductions properly qualified. (Here, I'm talking about sites like Quidco and the like)

For a Free Antivirus program, I'd recommend Avast!Home Edition, which you can also get fromm FileHippo above

For Malware and Spyware, I'd recommend SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition, which you can get from:

http://www.superantispyware.com/

If you want to produce a full inventory of all of your machine's Hardware and Software, with the latter also telling you exactly where it's installed, then I'd recommend using the Belarc Advisor

This is also Free and you can get this at:

Belarc Advisor

The Belarc Advisor will also allow you to produce a report, which details all of your Windows Updates too.

stewart3250

How big is your hard drive?

If it is larger than around 128GB you need to use SP2 or SP3. If this is the case, I suggest that you stop using it until you can do a repair with an SP2 disk.

While looking at vid clips on Utube & other blog sites, there is an option to 'Embed' with an option to also 'Copy to clipboard'. Rather than do something I shouldn't. can anyone explain what this option actually does please? Normally the clip is played by one of the Flash players, but I didn't think they came with any options apart from play, pause & stop.

Harrycat

What you could do, thanks to MoneyAM's editing facility (Click on the symbol on your nickname line after you've posted) is try it out with a bit of Copy and Paste and the editing facility to take it away if you don't happen to like it after you've done it.

If you don't want to kick off a new post on this thread, find one of your old ones elsewhere on the Traders Room list of threads and, using the Edit facility, put an 'Embed' in and then take it out again.

Go on! Go for it! You know it makes sense! :-)

Hi.

I can't open more than 6 graphs on my laptop, any suggestions as I would like to be able to view 10.

Is it a case of not enough memory?