Replies

Thank you, gentlefolk all.
You are running far ahead of me.
I just found out about USB 3 adapter cards and then read a review that said ” big backups still take a long time with USB3, although it seems faster than USB2.”
And the explanation is already there in the forum waiting for me.

After all your advice, I’m convinced: SATA is the way to go.
I need to postpone the replacement of my Dell Dimension 5000 as long as I can.
My internal SATA cages are both occupied.
So, in words of one syllable if you please, what do I need to buy in order to go the eSATA way?

Many thanks – Folder Size 2.5 does just what I wanted – and Microsoft should have done. Brilliant – to think that it’s been around for several years!

MAYbe its due to that bug – we are certainly up-to-date.
When the mystery strikes again, we will try the right-click – many thanks for the tip!

If you have ‘Display the full path…’ enabled in your Explorer setup:

it is possible to copy the full path from the address bar:

Is that what you are after?

That would certainly eliminate some of the spelling errors IF one could paste into the MS-DOS command line, but there still room to get wrong the command line parameters needed to get the filenames and none of the other directory data.

BigAl’s suggestion of Karen’s Directory Printer is a great answer to my need.

Many thanks once again, Big Al: Revo looks like a very useful multipurpose tool – sort of thing that looks too good to be true, until an expert comes along and recommends it.

Interestingly, Revo gives the date I suspected because Windows had numerous write mode entries for that date including folders as well as files.

And: Yes Joe — svcpack.log was written on the date Revo gave. KB 936929 had vanished from my folder too.

Sorry to say my hunch that maybe I could blame SP3 for one site’s slow downloads isn’t supported by the date of installation.

Moral – Don’t lunch on hunches.

Thank you both for your help.

Thanks Joe:
Restoring usually failed for me after taking several minutes, so I was glad when Hans told me where to shut it down.

Final contribution to this thread:
In order to get the missing security updates for Internet Explorer, I had finally to risk SP3.
No regrets so far – we see just 13 blue crawlers during re-start, which suggests that most of the reboot delay was due to working through a long list of updates.
Another benefit is that I have gained almost 2% more free space on my system drive!

Great – Thank You, HansV – Unlocker set me free!

Thanks once again, BigAl:
I run the complete Kaspersky security and find it’s pretty good – nothing catches every specimen of spyware, and some of the catcher programs try to worry us about trivia.
Performance is now “as new” once I get past the initial booting sequence.
I suspect most of its deterioration is due to working through all those Microsoft updates.
Maybe SP3 has consolidated those into a quicker-loading OpSys but I’m uneasy about getting SP3.

Thank you so much Hans:
I have lots of room on my data disk but the system-and-programs disc got 90% full due to some program updates and all these Microsoft updates plus a GB of online gaming software that loaded itself into administrator’s documents and won’t allow deletion – invariably pretends to be in use.
With your help I got rid of hiberfil.sys and the Volume file – system restore usually fails and never says why not, so I’ve stopped using it anyway. Got to 84% full.
Now defragmented and all’s well but I’m going to have to watch the upgrades.

Thank you, Big Al:
So far so good after more than four hours under power.
I had thought it might be that the video circuitry was failing.
The printer operated faultlessly during the worst blackouts.
There is another monitor in the house that I shall install when the problem recurs.
Meanwhile, no power conservation functions.
Thanks again,
Syd.

A new CD that is supposed to be installed by Windows Installer can’t be installed. I thought this might date from installing IE7 (which I haven’t used) so I removed it using Control Panel. Still can’t install. The IE desktop Icon was still there, so I clicked it and IE6 is still operational. However, Windows Installer still won’t install the program. Every time I try, the error message is the same as if I try to install a program that’s already installed: –

Following guidance from the CD supplier, I have tried all possible combinations of Started/Stopped with Automatic/Manual/Disabled for Windows Installer running services.msc and I still can’t install their program — not even with a replacement CD that’s certified to load OK at their place.
I haven’t installed all of the options that come as part of XP, by any means – is one of them required for Windows Installer to work?

Yes – autorun.inf calls startup.exe and that’s what I click, resulting immediately in the oft-repeated error message.
Here’s autorun.inf:
[AutoRun]
icon=PhotoPlus.ico
label=Serif PhotoPlus X2 Studio Pack
open=setup.exe

Install doesn’t autostart – I think I have autorun disabled anyway.
I have installed several programs from CDs since this problem with PhotoPlus started, but they all used Installshield or their own custom installers.
Yes Windows Installer 3.1 is listed.
There were no difficulties whatever in installing IE7 from download.

OK – this goes against the grain! I have installed IE7, and have acquired Windows Genuine Advantage in the process.
But attempting to install PhotoPlus X2 still results in the same error message and no installation.