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Our garden is fenced with galvanised steel. It's very nice but the original black paint peeks off very quickly. I understand that when painitng on top of galvanising that you have to use the correct...

I'm sure there's somebody who can help here... all my questions so far have yielded good results.

On my PC I have contacts (names and addresses) in MS Outlook, AOL Communicator and Palm PDA...

Afraid not. It's both illegal in the UK and not permitted by the guidelines of the Royal College Veterinary Surgeons, the body that controls the Vets in the UK.

Thanks to all for your good advice. The cats and I have had a man-to-man discussion about where to scratch and where not to, and what happens if you scratch in the wrong place. They decided this was...

What I was looking for turned out to be Microsoft SnycToy, a free download from their updates and downloads website. It appears to have been written by Microsoft staff but is not supported officially...

I've had a look at My Briefcase - it's not exactly what I want. Ideally, what I'm looking for is a software solution that recognises that I've connected my usb memory stick or external hard drive and...

I have two six month old Maine Coon cats (to be neutered next week). In the past week one of them has taken to removing the wood chip wallpaper of our house by scratching it with his claws. Hmmm.
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Thanks for that. Looks promising. I'll let you know how I get on...

I back up the important files of 'My Documents' on my PC into a usb memory stick and some important programme stuff onto an external hard drive. This in case of... whatever.

However, as I...

Bingo! Thanks a lot...

Yep, had done all that. All three set to UK English.

Since carrying out a successful hard drive wipe on my PC (with lots of great advice from this forum) I find that several keys on my keyboard have changed their id. For instance the @ key has now...

Hmmmm. Think I did that but all seems well at the moment...

OK. One last minor point...

A couple of the keyboard key functions don't tally with their graphic. The @ key actually gives " and vica versa.

Any ideas how to correct this please?

Delving into the Dell handbook showed me how to load the sound card drivers. All is now well.

Here's my view of the advice given by Curlyben earlier in this thread:

* Brandy, not coffee. ;)
*...

OK. Makes sense. Can you give me a clue as to how to do that please?

Well. Here we are again! Hard drive wiped, software re-installed, PC running quick. Success :)

Can't say it was anything but hard work but made it in the end. Well, sort of... Just one question:...

Guys. Sorry for the delay in replying. I didn't get the email response to say anyone had replied, to I assumed they hadn't.

Thanks for all the advice... haven't done the business yet. All is...

I guess my worry is that once I start this process I can't ask... I'll be off-line

Curlyben - hello again...

Some more clues in you can please

* What do I do to get to the bit where I'm looking for "booting from cd"? :eek:
* Factory Splash screen?? :eek:
* Third-party or...

Can anyone tell me what's the best advice for wiping a hard drive and re-loading all software, including Windows XP? :eek:

I've been advised through another thread in this forum to do that after...

Er, right. So it's not that you mis-spelt the name of that little village just outside Berwick-upon-Tweed then.

In simple terms, because I'm a simple bloke, what would re-installing achieve? I...

I joined the forum yesterday...

Here's what I know...

* Several people jumped in to join me within a couple of minutes of posting.:)
* My start up time has reduced from over 11 minutes to...

Curylben

At the start of this discussion it was taking 11 minutes or so from hitting the start button to getting internet access... We had a 'clear out' from MSCONFIG start up which got us down to...

Turned off all the AOL files in MSCONFIG and as far as I can tell, no difference. AOL still runs but PC still slow.

I'll be looking further at the Hijack thing over the weekend but on a quick look...

I had an ugly feeling all along that this was going to be suggested. Up to about three months ago I had Norton anti virus which had worked well but then a new update came along and things got really...

I'll take a look. Thanks! I should get some PC quality time (urgh!) over the weekend.


Boot up time this morning was 6min:25sec, just like yesterday since I removed most, but not all, of the...

OK. Done that. The bottom line...

BAD remove almost always - 0 (zero)
BAD if you don't know what it is - 15 (mostly McAfee, Messenger, bluetooth, Real audio, Excel... there's three that mean...

Ok. I've left in all you said leave in and deleted all the one's you said delete apart from AOL and HotSync (otherwise the PDA doesn't sync). I haven't tried deleting the AOL yet.

Things are...

OK, I'll try that this evening, many thanks again. :)

I know that these are all programs that run on start up and are running all the time but, presumably, they're there for a reason? Could you...

Well I looked in there but to me it's all gobbledeegook. I wouldn't know what I should have as opposed to what I shouldn't have. How do you tell?

There should be about 6? There's 36! :eek: :eek:...

Culryben - I've done all you suggested including scan, defrag, chkdsk, system managed size etc... no improvement. It took the PC 11 minutes 23 seconds from hitting the on button for it to boot up and...

I'm part way through your notes, thanks.

Error checking is currently running and has been for thirty minutes. At this rate it'll be another hour...

This bit of your earlier post: 4/ Page file;...

Thanks for the prompt responses. Well impressed. :)

I've run anti-virus, clean up, defrag and emptied caches and temp folders till I'm blue in the face and for no improvement. :(

Should have...

Hello. Hopefully someone can give me a clue... I have a Dell Dimension 4550 2.5GHz, 1Mb RAM, 60Gb hard drive running XP SP2 and (amongst other things) McAfee (scan, firewall, spam... ) and AOL for...