Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: das boot on May 16, 2009, 11:02:18 am
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Internet Explorer 8...is it worth downloading it? I have IE7 on my laptop, but just had the email to tell me to download IE8, wondered what you guys think of it?
Rich
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It works OK. Some minor differences in appearance. Underneath it might be as wonderful as MS say it is. Who knows? I haven't seen any reported problems with updating.
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Don't - it has "xxxxx" my pc no end
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Without wanting to open up an old argument, I have ditched IE of whatever description - it was soooooooo sloooooow - and am now a satisfied user of Mozilla Firefox.
Rick
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Rich,
If IE7 is working fine......Don't do it.....I know of several people, including myself who have had problems with it to such a degree that we have moved away from IE totally....
You will end up going "round and round" in circles!! :-))
Barry
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I downloaded it a month ago. No real problems and it has an IE7 compatibility mode which can be applied to any websites which don't display properly. The only quirk I have found is that the HTML Cute Editor used to post articles on the Model Boats website (and which is widely used elsewhere) inserts images at the top of the editing box and you then have to manually move them to where you want them to go. Under IE7 the images could be inserted wherever the cursor was. This is apparently being looked into. The problem doesn't occur in Firefox but I get a lot of text formatting problems instead so I still stick to IE. OK, it's plain vanilla but it does the job and works OK with most things.
Personally I think browsers are just a matter of taste and what you feel comfortable with. Others may justifiably claim to be much quicker than IE but in practice you may not notice it because the actual downloading speed of web pages is governed more by your internet connection and other factors to do with your PC setup.
Each to his/her own.
Colin
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I Use Ie 7 & 8 and Firefox.
Ie 8 is still a work in progress but looks good but don't install it unless you need to.
(Some sites still don't work well with it eg, HP support.)
My preferred browser is Firefox, not elegant, not the best but the fastest and highly customisable.
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One of my computers has IE8 on it and I have found no problems.
The other one has Firefox on it, no problems with this either though do have occasional ones on Mayhem.
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I have IE8 on Windows 7 which am I playing with. Seems to work OK, but like all MS stuff, it thinks it knows best what you want and should do %% I prefer Firefox at the moment seems easier to control, but I also like Google Chrome. Not tried that under Win7 yet.
Win7 is quite impressive - I've never updated to Vista - and I think I could get it to work as I want, so have decided to put off buying a new PC until it is available on general release.
Barrie
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There is an item in this month's PC Pro magazine which says that if you are running the Win7 Beta you not be able to upgrade directly to the final version. You must uninstall it and upgrade from XP or Vista. Apparently there is some sort of workaround but it entails a bit of technical knowledge - I expect Martin will know how to do it. ;)
Colin
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Not me, I'm firmly in the anti Vista camp. >:-o
I only run XP SP3.
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ooer missis...don't like the sounds of all this techie stuff. My laptop came with Vista preinstalled and everything associated with it, I'm not overkeen on it, it seems to do what it thinks I want to do, not what I want it to do at times.
I use a 3 remote dongle thingie for my internet connection, it took a lot of fumucking about to get it to work properly (the laptop is an O2 branded Samsung, and was set up for an O2 dongle) and I don't really want to have go through THAT again, so I reckon I'll leave things well alone.
Thank you gentlemen, for all the comments and information, I'll go along with the the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"....
Ta
Rich
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I've just bought a new laptop and my beef isn't with Vista but with the huge amount of limited trial software that came pre installed and occupied a huge chunk of the hard disk. It took me most of one afternoon to clear out the obvious dross and I'm still left with a lot of stuff I'm not totally certain whether it's safe to delete.
And then of course the wireless thingy inside did not like my rather oldish home network router which meant that the router firmware had to be updated. This introduced a bug which hid my original router username and password and wouldn't let me in to reconfigure it. This entailed a factory reset to default settings some of which I had to exhume from some three year old documentation I'd forgotten about. Then the password locked up again when I tried to change it from the default (another bug) which meant yet another factory reset and reconfiguration. After all this I managed to get the router, my home PC and the new laptop all recognising each other's existence and connected to the internet.
And then my daughter came home and switched on her PC upstairs - "Dad! I'cant get online...." >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-( >>:-(
Colin
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Whatever did we all do before these things were invented?
Rich
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Dumped IE8 months ago, too many glitches, Firefox kept losing all my favourites so that was removed also, Chrome was useless. IE7 works well for me so no reason to change.
Vista & XP are almost impossible to network on a hardwired system, gave up the losing battle. A wireless router is the way forward if you need to network these two OS's
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noticed some increase in speed when switching to EI8, the pc's at work are no more than 18 months old running vista from the begining, i have a theory that every thing is logged and user undeletable, every action in a browser adds a little more checking to the list so when they introduce a new O/S or IE then it wipes this log and the browser & O/S runs as fast as when the old browser & O/S did, giving a better speed tricking the unsuspecting into thinking it's better - but then I am paraniod :((
I cannot understand why after all the downloads and security patches, when they introduce an SP1,2,3 etc they do not download a tool that removes all these patches etc as they are usually included in the SP anyway - or is this part of the system to clog up your pc with unneccessary clutter >:-o I mean what can you delete that does not seem to be undecipherable.
I just found after the last set of downloads, that my pc gained i think about 400MB if not more (i actually estimate some where in the region of 10GB) netware 3.5 or summat etc and even then the genuine windows notification would not load, had to download it from their web site to get it to install.
So sorry to rant on >>:-(
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Win7 is quite impressive - I've never updated to Vista
My middle son, who is in IT (officially a Systems Solutions Architect, whatever that means :o ) is running the pre-release version (the one after the Beta version) of Windows 7 and tells me he is very impressed with it. His comment was, "It's everything Vista was supposed to be, and more". My biggest gripe with Vista is its lack of backwards compatibility with much of our software, and it appears that Win 7 has addressed that issue.
Peter.
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"It's everything Vista was supposed to be, and more".
Funny, that's what microsoft say every time a new OS is released, shame they can't make the present OS everything it's supposed to be <*<
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Too true, andygh, MS have regularly released buggy software onto an unsuspecting public far too often. Maybe, just maybe, they've got it right on this occasion .....only time will tell. My information is that Win 7 is not due for general release until October.
Peter.
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I know for a fact that there are people at microsoft who have XP on their computers at work.
Why?
They don't rate Vista. At all!
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I'd give anything if anyone could tell me how to remove the pre-installed Vista OS from a new PC. It's an Acer X3200 and I don't know how to get around Acer's protection dodges when I try to install XP-pro. Vista just reports with a blue screen of death telling you that you cannot remove Windows. It won't even let you do a reformat, and no amount of messing with the BIOS does any difference. The PC goes through the initial boot-from-cd routine, looking like the XP s/ware is actually loading, then suddenly hangs at the same blue screen - every time.
Oddly enough it's easy to remover Vista from an Acer laptop, yet from a X3200 it just won't budge.
Suggestions PLEASE, anyone?
Mr Rich, I'm not really a fan of any particular broswer. I have used Firefox, IE8, etc., but they're all just as stiff as each other. IE7 is my choice of weapon for no reason other than it's always there, bundled free with just about every version of Windows. Contrary to the stuff being bandied around, I've noticed it runs a heck of a lot smoother than most other browsers around - even more so when the operating system in not Vista.
Since you asked, my thoughts would be to stay with the devil you know. If IE7 works for you, why fix it?
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Too true, andygh, MS have regularly released buggy software onto an unsuspecting public far too often. Maybe, just maybe, they've got it right on this occasion .....only time will tell. My information is that Win 7 is not due for general release until October.
Peter.
And how long after that will the first service pack be. ?
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Sorry - I've deleted this post - should have read the original more carefully before I replied >:-o " It's an Acer X3200 "
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There is an item in this month's PC Pro magazine which says that if you are running the Win7 Beta you not be able to upgrade directly to the final version. You must uninstall it and upgrade from XP or Vista. Apparently there is some sort of workaround but it entails a bit of technical knowledge - I expect Martin will know how to do it. ;)
Colin
That is correct, but I'm running Release Candidate 1 on a separate partition. I will only switch to Win7 when I buy a new computer. Even if I didn't buy new and wanted to update, I would do a 'clean install'. A lot of problems with Vista were due to updating from XP.
Win 7 will have an XP mode, but only if your PC hardware supports virtual mode.
Barrie
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PMK
Have you tried reformatting your hard disk to remove any Acer partitions which may be there ' to allow to to easy recovery '? If you do that you should be able to install XP, unless your copy of XP is not a full retail version - in other words if it was shipped with a PC. If it was, its probably locked to that PC manufacturer or even model.
Hope this helps,
Barrie
I'd give anything if anyone could tell me how to remove the pre-installed Vista OS from a new PC. It's an Acer X3200 and I don't know how to get around Acer's protection dodges when I try to install XP-pro. Vista just reports with a blue screen of death telling you that you cannot remove Windows. It won't even let you do a reformat, and no amount of messing with the BIOS does any difference. The PC goes through the initial boot-from-cd routine, looking like the XP s/ware is actually loading, then suddenly hangs at the same blue screen - every time.
Oddly enough it's easy to remover Vista from an Acer laptop, yet from a X3200 it just won't budge.
Suggestions PLEASE, anyone?
Mr Rich, I'm not really a fan of any particular broswer. I have used Firefox, IE8, etc., but they're all just as stiff as each other. IE7 is my choice of weapon for no reason other than it's always there, bundled free with just about every version of Windows. Contrary to the stuff being bandied around, I've noticed it runs a heck of a lot smoother than most other browsers around - even more so when the operating system in not Vista.
Since you asked, my thoughts would be to stay with the devil you know. If IE7 works for you, why fix it?
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regarding getting rid of vista
not sure if this will work unless you may have to make your own start up disc
Have you tried "fdisc" then delete the active partition and make a new one then format that partition, then on boot up have the CDrom as boot priority with the XP disc inserted and run start up /install
just a thought I know it works from windows 95 and right up to XP inc 2000 and millennium but not sure about vista as I am happy with mine (at the moment) but I did get a backward XP installation disc when I purchased the new laptop just in case I could not get on with vista (not used yet!)
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Since I switched over to IE8 I have noticed that, if you want to make a long text post, once you get beyond a certain word count the text stops scrolling upwards as you type. The new text goes in but you have to manually scroll up the editing window to see it. It's not something you would normally encounter as most posts are fairly short textwise but I have noticed it a couple of times recently myself and I don't remember it happening under IE7.
IE8 also seems to affect the HTML editor used to put text and images into the Model Boats website forum posts as well and I think the people who provide the "Cute Editor" are working on the problem.
Anybody else noticed it?
Colin
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I thought it was me pressing a wrong button
R, :embarrassed:
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Cat', tnx for your input, re: removing Vista. FDISK would certainly remove the partition... if only the C:\ partition was not protected (Acer has somehow prevented any attempts at removing Vista from this particular PC model). In a desperate attempt I installed Linux/Ubuntu, in the hope that I could remove it from there. But no Joy. I read that I need to burn an ISO image of Win_XP (along with all the appropriate drivers) to a DVD. Once that's done I simply bung the DVD in the drive and boot from there. Sounds easy, but I'm having trouble getting the image to burn.
There are too many issues with Vista that just aren't compatible with some of my s/w. Even the graphics driver is full of Vista bugs (especially when using MS Paint), and no amount of updating drivers seems to cure it.
The X3200 uses a SATA drive, and, apparently, the Win_XP disc cannot recognise it, hence it keeps crashing with that blue screen of death.
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If you can't delete the partition (you can with Partition Magic), a new HDD shouldn't be too expensive. PC Guru son tells me that you can install from the XP CD onto a PC that only has SATA drive(s). This PC only has SATA drives! I'll ask him if there are any tricks to it when he comes home from work and let you know.
Let's get rid of that Vista rubbish and set your PC free! %%
Andy
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Thank you, Andy - appreciate it.
For the record, I recently installed XP on my bro's PC, without a glitch, and that too has four SATA drives. Regarding your suggestion of a new HHD, I don't particularly want to take that route since this machine is just a couple weeks old and cost more than I wanted to spend already. I know that it's possible to install XP on a SATA, only I just don't know how it's done on this machine. Acer have done all they can to protect any attempt at removal of Vista via all the usual routes.
I made a Vista boot disk which at least give me acces to the DOS prompt, but even from there the protection thing is still overriding the Format and Fdisk commands. I do have a version of Partition Magic, but (you guessed it) is not compatible with Vista, neither will it run on its own from the DVD drive.
I'm starting to wonder if the DVD drive is working correctly. It plays discs without any problem but appears not be recording. Either that or I'm doing something wrong. I'm using Nero to burn the ISO but it keeps coming back with a report that the disc cannot be verified. Looking at the disc itself shows that nothing at all has been burnt/recorded.
I would be grateful for any other suggestions that you or your son may have.
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PMK
Have you formatted the disc,before burning.
Some discs regardless of what they say,just will not play,try another brand
Mark
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Hello,
My DVD/CD Drive will not play or record onto the Purple/Blue coloured discs.
Only works with the "clear" ones.
John.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Although the discs were pre-formatted when purchased, I did format the CD again and finally managed to burn the ISO file (the underside of the disc clearly shows a difference where the burn took place). Booting the PC with the disc in the drive now presents a screen whereby I'm prompted to either start Vista or perform a memory diagnostic -- nothing with the option to load XP.
Maybe the ISO didn't copy correctly, or maybe I'm still doing something wrong.
JayDee, the DVD discs' have 'TUFF' written on the front orange label, coloured purple/blue on the underside. I'm computer illiterate, thought all DVDs were the same purple/blue colour. If you don't mind my asking, where did you get your clear ones?
Although, for the record, I did manage to make a bootable/working version of the Linux ISO, so perhaps my particular DVDs are good after all.
(Neat Wicksteed video, by the way).
Knowing what I know now I don't think I would have been so quick to purchase Acer's X3200.
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Try these guys, like this forum you can join for free,
They may be able to answer the questions for this specific machine
hope it helps
http://forums.techguy.org/
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Wouldn't you rather boot the computer using the XP disk rather than try to make your own boot disk?
With the XP disk in the coffee cup holder, switch the computer off, and then on again. You will have to set the bios to boot from the coffee cup holder drive reference (usually hit F10 at the prompt when booting to access bios). Once XP has loaded all of its files into memory you should be able to run fdisk. Normally you need a minimum mandatory partition for the OS configuration files (apart from any other partitions that you may want to configure).
Once fdisk has run, format each partition and install XP on the c:\ partition.
The bios will need to be re-set to boot from the c:\ drive once XP is installed.
Simples...
(I've never come across an OS that was protected against deletion)
BTW - have any of you guys had a look at www.comparethemeerkat.com (http://www.comparethemeerkat.com) - hilarious...
Malc
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BTW - have any of you guys had a look at www.comparethemeerkat.com (http://www.comparethemeerkat.com) - hilarious...
Malc
I like the TV ad as well.
Barrie
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Malc, to answer your question, yes - I would rather boot from the XP disc, rather than make one with an ISO image. But like I said in a previous post, the trouble being that Vista (or Acer) has somehow put a block on XP overwriting Vista. I can go into the BIOS and set the first boot option for the DVD drive, or I can press F12 from boot-up in order to get a menu and select the boot order from there. Either way, XP begins its usual startup procedure, then suddenly quits with a blue-screen warning and freezes the computer.
Like you, I have never come across a protected OS before. But this one has got me beat. Removing Vista from my laptop was easy... only not so easy on this desktop PC.
I read somewhere that I need to burn the original XP files as an ISO image (including all relevent drivers on the ISO) and then boot the PC from the ISO. Creating the ISO is the easy part, but getting the PC to recognise that ISO isn't. The strange thing is that the PC boots fine from a Linux ISO (a startup menu offers me the option to run Vista or Linux), but no such menu when booting from the XP ISO.
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Thanks for the link, Mr. Warspite. I've been up most all the night trying to glean any info' from there. It seems that the X3200 is still a relatively new kid on the block and, as such, few have even heard of it, let alone know of a possible fix.
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You cannot load XP on to a hard drive that is already has Vista installed full stop. In other words you cannot load an older system onto a drive that already has a newer system installed, it will not work.
The best way around this is to purchase a new hard drive for the laptop and install XP on that. Alternatively, you might be able to format the existing hard drive via another computer so that it becomes another drive on that machine, and then format it in the usual manor.
Should you obtain another hard drive, you can always use the older one as an external drive by purchasing an enclosure and again formating it as I have described above.
I would advise that if you do go down this route that you purchase a high capcity hard drive and divide it into two or three partitions, so that you can have XP, Windows 7 which I believe is very good - so far and Linux if you wish. You should, really, also keep all your pictures and important documents on external drives as well.
LB
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You cannot load XP on to a hard drive that is already has Vista installed full stop. In other words you cannot load an older system onto a drive that already has a newer system installed, it will not work.
LB
Can you not just wipe the hard drive and start from scratch ?
is this of any use
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/
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You cannot load XP on to a hard drive that is already has Vista installed full stop.
Appreciate your input, but if that is the case then how come I manged to do so on my lappie? I've even done the same on several other Vista-loaded PCs without any problem.
Purchasing a separate HDD is not the answer because I've already got a drive with more than enough capacity to shake a stick at, and not in any mood to go wasting more £££ when this machine is all but fresh from the store.
Can you not just wipe the hard drive and start from scratch ?
Would love to, but if I could I would have done so already.
A million thanks for the link. Am just about to take another delve - will let you know how I get on.
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Kill disk - would this application not work at resetting all the bits to 0 etc then an xp upload as described from Bios - others might recommend a better version to use
If you do reformat the disc from another computer - re position the master / slave jumper to slave so that the other computer can overwrite the disk before trying to read it's O/S (i think)
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Have you got an external floppy?
Its a long shot but might just work...
Make a start diskette for Windows Millennium / 98 SE if you can get them (or have them)
have disc in drive on switch on at prompt run fdisk then delete active partition and recreate new partition and set to active, shut down and restart then format new drive (and all partitions made)
remove floppy and insert CD change boot option to CDrom, start up at prompt install XP
as I said I may work I have reverted right back to windows 98 SE before to correct and change an OS that was not being fair (IBM machine)
R,
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"Have you got an external floppy?"
I wish I did. It's a top-notch suggestion and one that would solve all my problems, for sure. But, as is usual, most of my favourite s/w is now useless since the advent of these so-called modern machines. When floppy drives were king it was easy to get our PCs to sing. Then I had to upgrade just to keep pace with things. And that meant that the dear old FDD soon became obsolete.... along with my camera... my internet dial-up modem... my printer... etc, etc.
As it stands, Ive just relieved my nephew of his external HDD, so will try your suggestion from there.
Thanks a million for dropping in with some sage advice.
Same goes to Mssrs Warspite and Long build - thanks for your suggestions also. For what it's worth, I spent most all afternoon on that 'How-to' link sent by Long Build. I followed the intructions to the letter, but still no luck -- the XP disc still cannot get past that blue warning screen. I'm not sure what Kill Disk is. I'll do a quick Google search, try and download a version and try that if I get no luck with the external HDD.
Thanks once again, gents. All your advice greatly appreciated.
Message for CBR Roy from Oz:
Mate, believe it or not, but it seems that my PMs are working again. Yours came in earlier today and was able to download the s/w which you suggested. And guess what?... still no joy. Ares P2P turned out to be nothing like you described -- it's more of a sharing MP3 files sort of thing. Unless, of course, that I downloaded the wrong thing. Same thing goes for the Ultimate Vista Lite. All I got was an ISO image, which was duly burnt to a DVD, but even that didn't work.
Thanks just the same though. Really appreciate you taking the time to bung a PM my way in with your suggestions.
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PMK,
You have to make sure you get the free version of the program, and then select,
software and search dor Vista Ultimate, when they are listed there is the one called
lite, thats what I did and it worked perfectly................
Thats why I did it that way because otherwise you have to have a floppy drive...........
Roy