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Can anyone tell me how to............

S

sandar

Guest
........do a few things in Windows XP.

Since reinstalling XP last week, I have had to log in every time I wake up or switch on my PC. As I am the only user I switched this off before, but I cannot remember how to do it.

I now have two entries for Widows XP appear on the screen when my PC reboots and I have to select the one I want. I had to reinstall a clean version of XP before I could delete the corrupted copy. How do I get rid of the defunct entry?
 
go into your control panel, then go to "user accounts"

you can eliminate or change passwords there.

. the real fun starts when you figure out how to change the appearance so that it looks like this:

desk2.jpg
 
Cheezy, that's a weird desktop ! Forgive me for deviating from the thread but I thought of you when I saw this picture;

Life's three essentials, eh ?
 
Sandar, are the two xp installations on separate partitions? If so I imagine you could use the XP disk to format the corrupt rendition thus leaving you one. Incidently, there's a way to use the XP disk to do a complete repair of a corrupt installation without losing any personal files, info, or software. I just did it a couple of weeks ago.
http://tinyurl.com/4sfddr
 
waco said:
Sandar, are the two xp installations on separate partitions? If so I imagine you could use the XP disk to format the corrupt rendition thus leaving you one. Incidently, there's a way to use the XP disk to do a complete repair of a corrupt installation without losing any personal files, info, or software. I just did it a couple of weeks ago.
http://tinyurl.com/4sfddr
Click to expand...

Thanks waco. Yes, they are on on two partitions. I thought I had lsot some files, but I have found them and now have them safely backed up and on removable media.

The corrupt installation has all been removed, I tried to repair it, but failed miserably. The new installation is wonderful and fast and about two thirds the size of the old one. All that is left of the old one is the option to start it when I reboot.
 
Sandar, without actually sitting in front of your screen and clicking through the partitions I hesitate to make specific recommendations, however, if I understand what you are asking - how to remove the Dual boot screen and get rid of the old partition. What I would recommend for that is to go to a site called "How to Geek" (http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows/) and dig around a bit for the tips on dual boot setup. I have found they have some of the best step-by-step guides around and they cover most everything. I used their guides to set-up my dual boot Vista/Win 7 and an XP Virtual Machine, and it works perfect.
 
gigabyte said:
Sandar, without actually sitting in front of your screen and clicking through the partitions I hesitate to make specific recommendations, however, if I understand what you are asking - how to remove the Dual boot screen and get rid of the old partition. What I would recommend for that is to go to a site called "How to Geek" (http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows/) and dig around a bit for the tips on dual boot setup. I have found they have some of the best step-by-step guides around and they cover most everything. I used their guides to set-up my dual boot Vista/Win 7 and an XP Virtual Machine, and it works perfect.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the link gigabyte. My biggest problem is that I am not over computer literate. I might know what to do but not the right terminology, so I think you are right, I want to remove the dual boot screen and get rid of the partition. It is a minor annoyance and takes a bit longer to boot up.

If I have time today, I will go to the howtogeek web site and have a peruse to see if I can find any help.

My wife's new PC should be arriving today, so I will have to set that up for her and install all of the necessary software and some extra hardware. All I know is I should expect delivery sometime between 08:00 and 17:30.
 
Gigabyte, that site you mentioned had exactly what I was looking for. It is a very useful site and one I have now bookmarked. Many Thanks
 
thats nothing guys, back in the day I reskinned my entire environment to resemble a Star Trek Next Generation panel.

Trouble was remembering were I had put everything :mixedsmi:
 
cheezyflier said:
cool, i want to see the rest. is that xp?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was XP underneath it.

This is how everything looked "dirty". The icons to the left are the standard desktop icons with new skins, the menu in the middle can lead me everywhere, the bar in the upper part is the title bar of a standard window (with the window itself "rolled in"), the bottom thing is a taskbar.





This is Seven. Lost a bit of functionality since the x64 version of Blackbox doesn't support many of the older x86 plugins. The taskbar for example isn't the same than the one in the first two pics, but an entirely different, less customziable one.



Couldn't live without BBLean. Aero was really nice with the transparencies and stuff, but some applications, like FSX and 3DS Max don't support its skinning capabilites.

The nice thing is that BBlean uses just 1.6 Mbytes of Ram and that it's highly customizable by fiddling in a few text files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bblean
 
cheezyflier said:
that looks very interesting! i might just try it out. any warnings or things i should know?
Click to expand...

Well, you could have to start it manually via Task Manager if you switch to it from the standard Explorer.
Once it's set as default shell though, it starts normally.

If it crashes, just call the task manager and restart it.

Generally, BBLean ain't as fail-safe in 7 as it was in XP.
 
Sandar, don't use multiple partitions on a hard drive only multiple hard drives, which has saved my a$$ a few times. Anyway, you can delete a partition within Windows.

Within Windows XP:
Open the Control Panel.
Open Administrative Tools.
  • Open Computer Management.
  • In the left pane, under Storage, open Disk Management.
  • The right pane should show a list of your drives, by letter, above a diagram of what partitions they have if any.
  • Right-click within any of the fields below the colored bars, and select Delete Partition/
 
Just a quick word of warning. Be careful when deleting an old partition or reformatting it. If you delete or format the old partition with the old installation on there may be a chance that the new installation might not start also. It depends where the file is that generates your menu on start up (the one that asks you which installation of windows you want to run).

In a nutshell, if you delete the file that activates this menu, the computer may fail to find your new installation and boot from it as well as the old installation, so it is best to read up on this and uninstall the old version properly first. There is a chance this startup file may be on the old partition, depending on what route you took to do the new new install.

The fact that it shows the menu giving you the choice at boot-up means that it saw the old installation and took this into account when installing the second newer version. If this is the case, the startup file that triggers this menu may be on the 'C' partition or on the partition of your old installation. If you delete or format it away, the computer might not boot to the new installation as it will have no instructions on how to find it, as I believe the boot loader only points to this menu file at start up.

I only know this as i went through a similar problem a few years ago. I can't remember how I solved it but the answers are out there somewhere, as I googled it on another machine so that I could fix mine afterwards.

I deleted something called a 'HAL' file as well which caused me no end of problems.

I hope everything works out alright for you. If you read up first and uninstall the old version proprerly you will be alright. After a proper uninstall you should be able to wipe/format that partition and do what you want with it.
 
Waco, Thanks for taking time to help me out.

What happened was I couldn't boot XP at all. it was totally corrupt,I couldn't repair or delete it, so I had to reinstall XP on a partition as I only had one hard drive, then I deleted the corrupt XP, leaving the second entry.

I now have a new hard drive and a copy of Windows 7. I haven't installed the hard drive yet. To be honest, I am a bit daunted by it, but I am told that I need Windows 7 to be compatible with my wife's new PC which will be on a network with my PC.

My wife's health is rapidly failing and she is going to take early retirement in the summer, but she is going to continue working as a translator from home, hence needing to set up a network to share hardware.
 
Reinstalling Windows XP must be in there air. I trying to do the same thing now. I feel you pain!:salute:
 
Sandar, I've got 7 in a drawer but haven't installed it yet. Probably be on my next computer build. Anyway, when trying to delete a big folder, you often get a failure because the folder is in use by another file (Sometimes one inside the folder). This can be overcome often by opening the original folder and individually deleting the files inside. Other times the folder is too large for the Recycle Bin. If you let it keeping trying to delete, you'll sometimes get a query asking if you just want to delete the folder. Click yes and it's gone permanently. No recovery from the Recycle Bin.

Can't help you with networking. Ain't my cup of tea. No pun intended. I know how frustrating setting up a network can be. One on my boys does it for a living for big university. The other does it for his home computers. It drives him up a wall sometimes, trying to trouble shoot it.

I got plenty time on my hands. Been retired from the military for years. Lost my wife this past Summer and I have too much time on my hands in the Winter. Just me and doggy.
 
Waco, Sorry to hear about your wife. I have had plenty of time since an accident at work ten years ago broke my back and have been a househusband looking after the cats. Dogs are too much for me and our small bungalow.
My wife is a type 1 diabetic. She has had it for nearly 50 years and it is taking its toll on her body. Her younger sister died from complications resulting from diabetes four years ago and my wife is now going the same way which is why she is finishing work as soon as she can. She commutes into London daily 70 miles away and takes about two hours each way. Her sight is going and she has arthritis.
We aim to grow as old as disgracefully as we can together. I have been practising being a grumpy old man and even though I say it myself, I am getting quite good at it :engel016:
 
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