Re: Many XP Problems Solved

Mike
Here is a great Computer time-table for you.
When the Challenger crashed in 86, Computer Technolgy was stagnant, as
most all Technology comes from the military and NASA. The only real changes
to computers in the 3 years that followed the grounding of NASA was 101 Key
Keyboard, 3 1/2' floppies went from 720k to 1.44mb, and clock speeds went
from 8mhz to 16 mhz, hard drives stayed pretty solid at 20 mb and 40 mb and
they were $499 and $699. Machines were 286s and then 3 years later when NASA
was back in the Air, it was like Christmas with Technology again, 386 came in
the front door and right out the back door and then the 486 486DX and 486DX2
and suddenly from 8 bit went to 16 bit and soon there after it was the
Pentium 1 and 1 mb of 512mb of ram was quickly becomeing archaic and 1mb was
no longer only available with expansion boards. CD-ROMs were solid and in
1985 Comptons had introduced a full Excylopidia on CD for $700. It was great,
had short videos, a dictionary that had phonetics built in it etc. MS-DOS was
solid and Deskmate was going out and Windows was coming in. What gave IBM the
BIG boost was that Computer Marketing was o cut throat that in order for
companies to stay alive they slashed prices, problems with
Manufacturer/retailers was they could not slash prices to the 8% GPM that
many were being sold at and still be able to absorb manufacturing costs, R7D
and In Warranty Repairs. So Tandy backed off and the Deskmate/Windows war was
over and Windows 3.0 became the standard almost over night. Apple was still
being lead by people who refused to beleive that MS-DOS was the Industry
standard.
Tandy sold out to I beleive AST and the industry took a BIG turn to the
better for the public. RCA and Tandy had developed the THOR CD back in the
early 80s and that enabled Reading, Writing and Erasing thousands of times on
a CD, the problem? CDs held 700mb and the BEST Hard drive was barely peaking
a 212mb at the time.
There was alot involved for the road of success for Microsoft and IBM,
Microsoft was doing some pretty shady moves as was some of the others, it was
CALLED SURVIVAL. Those who were most determione were going to win, it was a
ground that was never before traveled.

--
I Have forgotten so much of what I once knew.
"A Stranger is a Friend you haven''t met yet."


"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

Craig

IBM didn't aim at the home market.. when they allowed Bill G to keep the
rights to DOS, they thought that maybe 20000 or so units would be sold and
that was that.. the market that surfaced took all by surprise.. there was no
way that IBM alone would be able to keep up, and the architecture was
licensed out to others.. in the late '80's, home users were still messing
with Commodore's, Vic 20's, BBC Micro's, Amiga's, Atari's etc.. some were
essentially games consoles with a keyboard.. others promised a little more..

The rise of the clone machines, half the price of IBM, Compaq etc, sealed
the future for Microsoft and Windows.. even so, the early clones were not
exactly cheap cheap, but eminently more affordable than the top flight
commercial stuff.. clever marketing took over, and here we and a host of
others are, typing letters, making up posters, playing 3D games, sending
electronic greetings cards..

Taking office software as an example, it would be easy to say that MS pushed
very hard to get their Office package to where it is.. 90% or more use it,
but look at what the competition was doing.. MS saw fit to produce all of
their own stuff, ensuring some reasonable level of integration, and
Wordperfect thought that WP51 would live forever just because it seemingly
had already.. their first offering in 'Windows' clothing was just not good,
and it integrated with nothing in particular.. Lotus ran around buying up
anything available, and then tried to palm it off as suite.. the competition
killed itself off, just like DR-DOS and others way back when..

Admittedly, the success of the clones and revenue from Windows gave MS the
boost, but had IBM not tried to force OS/2 users to use hideously expensive
hardware , maybe this group would be ibmnews.public.OS/6.general.. we will
never know for sure, but one thing is plainly recorded in history.. the what
if's, maybe's, golf score cards etc were pushed aside when Bill Gates told
that world the Microsoft had arrived and was affordable..

It's laughable really.. the original big bad wolf was IBM.. then Microsoft
took the mantle.. so who do you think will be next?..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User


"Craig A." <CraigA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8D689A5D-143F-415A-B271-6B921A2E925F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mike

Well informed respose. I started selling in 1976 and was very involved
with Computers for many years. I was not trying to accuse anybody as much
as
I was pointing out the developement of where we are today. Windows has
problems and many of them but as compared to the days of trying to search
down Print drivers and hardware compatabilties etc it is easier.
I lost alot of respect for Bill and his team with the evolution through a
Lawsuit of Ms-dos 6.0 to 6.1 Version 6.2 was the result of Bill snuffing
out
his comptetition and bringing back the utility that was really someone
else's
but someone who was much smaller. They complained when the Utility
appeared
in 6.0 and the courts leaned in their favor and Microsoft had to take the
uitlity out and released 6.1 and soon after the wealthy pressure of
Microsfot
the accusser was forced into submission and thus 6.2
I watched that several times over the years and Microsoft had been
accussed of many things such as ONLY packaging certain applications with
windows etc. It was No Doubt a Dog Eat Dog market for many years and I was
there for it. It was interesting to watch and the results were many times
leaning towards who they felt would be the long term survivor and not as
much
who was Right. There is no hate from me, but I was trying to inform the
poster that his complaints about problems, are NOT new and there always
has
been problems and always will be and that is what pushes change and
developement.
1964 was the year that 3 students and a Professor at Dartmouth College
perfected Basic and I rememebr one program that was a great demo of
Virtual
Intelligence and was written in 1964 and that was Eliza.. How many people
today remeber that or even give credit for the idea being 42 years ago?
Wang and IBM wewre two leaders in Mainframes and IBM was the smart one
to think that Homes were going to be a LARGE MARKET, Wang felt they would
be
selected for the Standard as was the case with Apple. IBM made the right
move
and not only were makers of some awesome Mainframes, but they were able
to
produce Row boats as well as Yatchts. Wang faded into the past as did 150
other manufacturers that didn't adapt. Savage Competition has only ONE
winner
and that is the PUBLIC.

My response earlier was based on the Grins and smirks a couple of
replies
had, as if I was some jerk standing in the shadows with snot running down
my
nose.
I respect your reply and the other two MS-MVPs need some help in ethics
and Computer History.
--
I Have forgotten so much of what I once knew.
"A Stranger is a Friend you haven''t met yet."


"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

Craig

Beware of advertising.. I did a quick search with the companies shown to
have accredited Registry Booster, and can find no trace of any mention of
Registry Booster..

As Shenan pointed out, you were lucky this time, but you may get problems
that Registry Booster will not fix..

Re. some of the remarks you made to others, I didn't notice anybody
shouting
THEFT when Acorn released a GUI OS for their Archimedes series that was
way
closer to Apple's GUI at the time.. OS/2 was also much closer in
appearance.. Xerox lays claim that everybody took the idea from them..
MS-DOS was born out of QDOS, and some shouted CHEAT, but PC-DOS which was
IBM's branded MS-DOS escaped the same criticism..

The 640K memory issue is affixed to the hardware architecture, an IBM
creation.. Microsoft have just built upon it, and when you consider just
what has been achieved, they have done well.. for whatever shortcomings
there are with the basic PC architecture, Linus Torvald still saw fit to
port a version of UNIX to it.. Linux developers will have to exactly what
MS
did to overcome the archaic base structure..

IBM attempted to take the PC in a different direction with MCA
architecture,
but failed.. MCA is still used in their RS6000 equipment, but RS6000 is
being challenged by PC servers (still using the original x86 platform)
now,
the cost benefit to customers is huge and the performance gap has
decreased..

If you read any of the books by Bill Gates, you will know that when MS
broke
ranks with IBM, it was by no means accepted as a given that Windows would
make it.. the reason that Microsoft did so well has to be IBM and the
rise
of the cheap IBM clones.. all of the other companies were way too
fragmented
in their approach.. had they all gotten together to create a standard,
computing today may have been different, but they didn't.. had the man
behind DR-DOS not been playing golf when he should have been meeting with
IBM, computing may have been different, but he continued his game..

It is about time that all of this crap was put behind us.. computer users
should go with what suits them and their tasks best.. personally, I think
that the demise of all of the old small go-it-alone companies is not a
bad
thing.. what we have left is way more compatible than ever it was way
back
when, with performance and ability unimaginable back in the early '90's..
not bad considering that it is all based upon IBM's 8088/8086 of 25 year
vintage..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User


"Craig A." <CraigA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:489E9B04-C8A0-42CD-921F-80FC665C116B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mike
I have regcleaner and I tried it.
Not every one has the time nor the knowledge to go in an edit the
registry. I have been selling Computers, troubleshooting them and
supportingthem since 1976. Yeah! the Tandy Model One Level One was the
first
i sold, and long before there was any support groups in India to answer
your
support questions, it was the guy who sold it to you that was
responsible.
I
did Batch Files to assist customers in the early DOS days before
windows.
Have worked with every level of windows from 3.1 to current. I still
neithe
rhave the time nor the interest to learn and get involve with such a
critica
file as the registry file. Maybe you are comfortable and I say good
for
you.
I just spent $30 and have a 30 day guarantee and bought a program that
was
recommended by many companies. It worked and even theough I was
prepared
to
spend a few days re formating and re installing, I do not have to, so
did
it
work? YES IT DID.. Did it work 100% as you refer to? WHO CARES? My
problems
are gone and and I am not involv3ed in the reformatting process.



--
I Have forgotten so much of what I once knew.
"A Stranger is a Friend you haven''t met yet."


"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

Craig

Registry cleaners do not clean registry 100%.. they never have and
most
likely never will.. to be safe, they err on the side of caution.. so,
when
you press the button to clean all of your registry and fix all other
problems at the same time, it is not doing quite as much as you
think..

Two programs spring to mind.. Regcleaner 4.3 and Regseeker.. both
return
different results for the reasons stated above.. not to be
unexpected..
what
do they both cost?.. nada, zip, nowt, nothing, zilch.. do they do the
job
that I want?.. yepper.. how much do I use either?.. once a year maybe
on
my
own stuff, and as a matter of course on client machines.. RegCleaner
is
very
useful for removing crap left by Norton and McAfee installations

Manual registry editing is still the most thorough way to do the job..
true,
it can be a little time consuming, but highly effective.. it's free
too..
type <regedit> in the RUN box..

Re. free software.. in the case of major software, you do indeed get
what
you pay for.. however, some free programs are really quite good.. I
use a
free AV, Avast 4.. no firewall though, relying on the Di-624 router..

I am more fussy about hardware.. generally, the better the make, the
better
the support tends to be.. I never buy anything without running a check
on
support level..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User


"Craig A." <CraigA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ED02E227-949C-4049-B3D3-AF6DCA96495E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am surprised that an MS-MVP would even suggest FREE, after all
don't
you
usually get what you pay for?
You know like FREE copies of Windows etc.
Come on Mike..... There is NO Good Free copies that will do the job
as
well, I am listening if you can list one.

--
I Have forgotten so much of what I once knew.
"A Stranger is a Friend you haven''t met yet."


"Mike Hall (MS-MVP)" wrote:

Shenan

Hardly luck.. there are a couple of half decent free ones out
there..
the
OP
could have saved $30.. :-)

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User


"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uah4c3DSGHA.2224@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Craig A. wrote:
I just want to pass some info on to you all. I had chkdsk auto
running at start up and I came here seeking advice. Nothing
worked
and my Mouse Cursor was also freezing up among other issues on a
7
month old system with all of the updates.
I did some further searching and was able to find a Great
Registry
Cleaner, I paid $29.95 for it and downloaded the 4.5mb file. I
.