More Awesome Than You!

FINALLY I have my own computer. Huzzah! It does have Windoze Vista, but I don't care. It has moar RAMZ than the last one, which I am happy about. I think the graphics card is better, too.

Here are the new specs:

Machine name: zOMG NEW COMPUTER!
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO.,LTD
System Model: MS-7387
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  E2180  @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Page File: 981MB used, 3351MB available

So is it a good PC? We only bought the tower, which was under $800. It isn't a specific brand, we got some techie type person to build us one.

It should be quick enough for Sims and most everything else. Since someone built it for you then when you want a nicer video card you should be able to upgrade it easily. How big is the HD?

HD is 232GB with 183GB being used.

Congrats on the new PC, Jess ;D Looks like a really good one!

Thanks, Emma ;D Going over a week without my own computer nearly killed me! The sister's laptop sucks and has a stuck 'D' key that you have to mash on REALLY HARD to make it work.

Ohh! And I have my beloved Spell Check now. All is good with the world.

I'd cry if I had to go a day without my PC :D You did well, girl!

Personally I'd want more RAMZ. How are you going to get twins with just 2 GB?

Looks like a good deal for the money.

Mother wanted a cheap machine, and since I "am only sixteen twelve so I know nothing about computers"* I was supposed to have no say in the matter. But before the techie person left to get us a quote I mentioned that I play the Sims 2, so I needed a decent amount of RAMZ and a decent graphics card. If it wasn't for me mentioning that we would have probably ended up with some shitbox like a $600 Dell.

*Complete and utter bollocks. When we first got the message on the old shitbox *I* was the one trying to reboot it and looking for ways to fix it. Idiot older "computer genius" sister had no idea what was going on or how to fix it.

If you are the only one using it, get Ubuntu. (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download) I'd get Ubuntu if I was the only person using my shitbox.

Wow, Jess Maree, have you requested a DNA test to see if those idiots really are your mum and sister?

It's probably true. I mean, Pedobait hasn't reformatted the computer to REMOVE VISTA.

Unfortunately, it's still called the "family computer" even though I spend 99.99% of my time on it. Mother only uses it for e-mails and that.


Heh, I still reckon I'm adopted, but apparently me and my sister look alike. I have the same eyes as everyone in my family, so it looks like I'm related.


I LIKE Vista, thank you very much. You can keep your XP/whatever you use.

Vista is PRETTY so it appeals to F-types. My T-type husband removed it from my new computer first thing, I had no say in the matter.  :P

I managed a fortnight. I got so sick of affirming everything I wanted to do, despite disabling a bunch of crap, that no matter how pretty it was, it had to go.

There is a way to stop the annoying "make sure I can do this!!1!oneone!!" pop-ups when you start a program or change a setting. The techie type person did it for the sister's laptop. I'm looking in the Control Panel to find where I change the setting.

ETA: Pedobait can has success! Go to Control Panel/User Accounts and Safety/User Accounts/Turn User Account Control On or Off then untick the box and restart to have those annoying pop-up boxes feck off for good.

You'll get some User Security alert thing bitching at you about it, but don't pay attention to it.

Not a bad system Jess  :)  I have to build a new one for school soon.


I use Vista as well, and I like it... but then the first thing I did was go into control panel and turn off every freaking warning notification the thing had.  Including User Account Control which is the pain in the arse that asks "are you sure you want to do that?" every time you try to do something. 

"Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Yes"
"But that will delete a file."
"I pressed the delete button."
"Have you considered the alternatives?"
"What alternatives?"
"Not deleting files is very nice."
"Okay, I won't delete it."
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
 >:(

I hate an OS that believes it is smarter than me.  It is so often wrong.  ::)

I don't mind the "do you want to delete this?" message, because I don't want to delete anything important and forget about it. But the User Account Control thing pissed me off to no end.

Also, I love that Vista is pretty. I like my computer desktop to look nice :D

That reminds me of a joke.
"Pro-life virus: Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless of how old it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counselor about possible alternatives."

Nice work Jess.  Vecki can haz new puter too so has been celebrating by... playing Sims endlessly

(yes, I stopped long enough to put my hacks back in again)

(yes, I spent some time getting rid of the promotional garbage that came with the computer)

(yes, it was out of the box, that's why it had loads of promotional garbage on it.  I couldn't be arsed building from scratch.  At least I got a free printer out of it)

(yes, it has EVILL VISTA(tm))

(yes, it asks me no less than 4 times if I really, really REALLY meant to double click on that file I just downloaded from a reputable website)

(yes, when presented with a compatibility issue, it links to a Japanese website which I suppose is meant to have a solution but I can't frickin' read Japanese - That's right Trend Micro 2008, I'm looking at YOU!)

Vecki - go to Control Panel/User Accounts and Safety/User Accounts/Turn User Account Control On or Off then untick the box and restart to get rid of the "do you want to do this?" pop-up boxes for good. It took me ages to figure out how to do it.

Or if you want the UAC protection, but hate the pop-ups, get TweakUAC (http://www.tweak-uac.com/) and set it to silent mode.

And yes, I had to cave and put Vista on my laptop, since I need to learn it for work... <sigh>

LOL - Bang goes your Vista-free rating.

Yea, all good things must come to an end...


(But my custom built, super-duper desktop computer is and will remain Vista-free for as long as possible. :) )

Revenge story about getting Vista:  I was working from home yesterday, so I ran up to Best Buy to get the upgrade pack (Home Premium), which was listed on their website at $129 (I had a bunch of reward zone coupons I was planning to use).  After waiting a while for a salesman to finally get it for me, since they don't keep it on the shelves (like people are going to actually try to steal it :)), and waiting in line, I got to the register and it kept ringing up @ $159. In spite of their web page saying that $129 was the price, and the sticker on the shelf in the store saying it was $129, the cashier and her boss kept insisting that $159 was the right price, so I told them to keep it and walked out.

Went on line a bit later and ordered it for pickup at the $129 price.  Went to the store to get it later in the day, and had to wait a bit as the guy found someone with a key to the locked cabinet they had the pickup orders in.  When he finishes the ring-up process, it turns out the in-store price is really $95, and that I also get a discount because of their guarantee that you'll get an in-store pickup item in a minute or less (didn't know about that one).  So with the lower price, discount, and the reward coupons I had, the Vista upgrade cost me....

$35. :)

I grabbed that TweakUAC think. Cheers, Jsalemi!

Your computer does not have enough RAMz for Vista anyway. Just reformat it and install XP. Vista requires at least 8 GBs of RAMs to hit the breakeven point.

I know you like XP, Pescado, but my old PC ran Vista with less than 1GB of RAMZ. I think I'll stick with Vista.

Also, is it even possible to have 8GBs of RAMZ? How much RAMZ could one PC have? Curious minds and all that.

And I've learned that depending on which brand of Vista or chipset or whatever you have (32 vs 64 bit), Vista may not be able to see extra RAMZ anyway.

I hear 32 bit can't see more than 3 Gig RAMZ.

Well I have the 32 bit version, so I could only upgrade by 1GB of RAMZ.

Hmm...I wonder what the difference is between 32 bit and 64 bit. Might hit Google.

The difference is 32 bits. :p

I meant what is better, 32 or 64. Meh, I won't worry about it. If I get my internetz I'll be happy :P

Depends on the motherboard and the type of RAM sticks it takes.  There are 4GB sticks out there, so if your motherboard supports it, you can have 16GB RAM in the machine.

Of course, the 32-bit version of Windows XP/Vista will only see 4GB, and effectively give you 3.5GB usable memory.  You need the 64-bit versions to see it all.


If you have a need for more than 3.5GB RAM, then the 64-bit version is better. :) Otherwise, it's a toss-up for the average user, with the downside that you can't just upgrade from a 32-bit version to a 64-bit version -- you have to do a fresh install, and re-install everything on your system.  I remember that some applications had problems with the 64-bit version of XP, but I've read that applications written for Vista don't care one way or the other which one they run on.

I'm happy with my 2GBs of RAMZ. Before it took my old PC five minutes to "set up" once I logged on so I could use the internet, but now it takes under a minute. I am so glad we got a new PC.

I don't need massive amounts of RAMZ or some fancy 64 bit Vista. I'm not picky and I'm happy with what I got. :)

16BGs of RAMZ. Whoa, that's a lot of RAMZ.

I was happy with 512Mb until I got 1GB.  Then I was happy, until I got 2GB and wondered how I lived so long with 1GB.  Then I built my own PC and put 4GB in it, and wondered how I ever got along with 2GB.  It never ends, Jess. :)

Also, don't forget that your new PC also probably has a more powerful CPU than the old one (I think they upgrade the CPU capabilities every other day these days  ;)), so that certainly influences how fast things happen.  But it's a kind-of PC formula -- faster CPU + Faster and more RAM = much happier user.

I don't know a whole lot about computers, but I like whatever makes this current one run fast :D I suppose it'd be nice to have 4GBs...

And so it begins...  :D

:D I'd have to buy it myself though and probably ninja my way into the computer to put it in. Apparently every time I touch the computer it asplodes.

Whut?
 ::)

Yeah...didn't quite get what you were saying. Something about reformatting, getting XP with SP 2, upgrading my graphics card and mentioning my "rig" has a lot of potential.




I think.

Not to mention the silly advice with no backup reasoning to stay away from SP3, which is perfectly fine.

SP3 is perfectly fine if applied on freshly formatted system. Or better yet, when slipstreamed into the XP installation CD itself.

Hijacking this thread with a question on finding a torrent.

Faizah got a new computer last week.  She didn't buy an OS as thought she already had Win XP discs (she doesn't).  My Win XP discs are recovery discs only - apparently Win XP was pre-installed on my machine, so I discovered I'm stuffed if I need to replace my primary hard drive.

I went looking for a win xp installation torrent on The Pirate Bay.  I got 989 returns for my search.  Taking a look at some of them I saw flame wars with accusations of "this torrent has trojans, I suggest you go get mine instead" (and similar remarks were made by the accused in the accuser's torrent thread).  I also saw downloads that had a lot more than win xp in them.  All Faizah wants is a bootable, installable Win XP without the "extras", basically something that's the same as if she went out and purchased it and upgraded to SP3.

It's all too confusing for F-types like us.  My techy T-type son would help, but he's in the middle of his exams right now and is so busy studying/revising that he hasn't had time to deal with his own computer issues (his hard drive crashed the week before the exam period started).

Can anybody point us in the right direction - what should we be searching for on TPB?

Try here. (http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4007347/Windows_XP_Professional_SP3_(Integrated_January_2008)) That should be what you want.  :)

The other recommendation I would make is to got to an ATI Radeon card, rather than an NVidia one if you ever get the chance to upgrade. I swapped about 2 years ago when I built my current machine and although I have the odd graphics glitch, it's nothing like the problems I experienced prior to that with NVidia.

I know it's a huge problem for a lot of people who have nVidia cards, but I've never had any problems with the one that I've had. (GeForce 7600GT desktop, GeForce 8600GT laptop, 6200 laptop). Maybe I'm just lucky.

This ISO is from January 2008, which predates the official release date of SP3 (5/6/2008). It may contain beta release of SP3.
As I'm not using English version of Windows I cannot personally help you finding the right version. But I think if you want the version with the official SP3 slipstreamed, you should at least look for the one that was released after the official release date.

Woah, deja vu witch! ;D

Haha I thought that too :D

Weird, I didn't notice the double posting, MATY was crawling and I was clicking submit, then I refreshed the page and clicked submit again. I suspect it was user error this time.  ::)

How many times do I have to tell you Jess Maree!  :D

/me scribbles notes

- Get ATI Radeon card
- Don't refresh and re-submit posts

PPPBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRTTT!!!!!

/me pokes Witch