Computer's screwed up

[rootbear75]

A nice little story of my computer f***ing up on me...

 

Last night, before i go to bed, my computer is running fine, everything is happy.

Today, i come in, my computer's off, and i start it up only to find that XP for some reason, decided it doesn't want to let me log in...

I type my password etc...

and it goes "Logging In"

i hear the log in sound, and IMMEDIATELY, i see Logging off.... Saving your settings.... and then i hear the log off sound...

I try this for ALL USERS (even the Safe Mode Administrator, and it doesnt work.)

(by now im pissed, cause there is only 1 copy of a file i need on the comp)

so i go to my computer's system restore (manufacturer's restore (cause thankfully my comp came w/ a recovery par!@#$%^&*ion), not windows) and i choose "Keep user files (non-factory-reset setting)"

so it does its thing, i come back in about 30 min, to restart it,

comp restarts, wait another 20 min on the screen "Please wait while XP prepares to start..........................................."

then another 10 min on the Windows XP boot screen

then after loggin in, 30 minutes for XP to reinstall all the old hardware that is attached.

(what i did while waiting -> )

AND THEN I FIND THAT IT "ERASED" Microsoft Office.... and now im super pissed cause i need Word for the do!@#$%^&*ent i have.

And i also find that all the programs that required the serial codes to activate, require activation again (Macromedia Flash)...

im about to pull all the hair out of my head....

 

Please let me know if you have had any problems like this with XP...... god i hate windows...

[»SD>Big]

what you could have done is several things, i'll name a couple.

 

boot up with your windows cd and preform a Repair (not repair console, but an actual repair) it will reinstall windows, basicaly, and you will keep you registry (all your settings and installed programs) as well as keep all your files.

 

there's a program called wininternals (erd commander) which you can boot with and it gives you multiple ways of fixing xp, among them is a restore to previous state, as well as registry tools. and you can reset any password on the system with it (yes it works on win2k3 server, yes you can take over any server you have physical access too and that you can reboot without anyone knowing).

 

way more complicated: you could have backed up your registry and then used parts of it to restore program installs but i wont get into that.

 

the next time your comp ASSS up, i strongly recommend you do a windows repair because you won't lose any data/programs. however if that doens't work, yank out your hard drive, shove it into another comp you have access to, backup your do!@#$%^&*ents and settings folder, as well any other folders on your root that you put yourself, use microsoft office settings saver or whatever it is called, there's one for outlook express too and outlook. format then reinstall windows and replace your data. it will be like the first day you got it!

[»1587200]

You know whatelse works? Not download illegal content, and constantly checking your computer for spyware, malware, adware, viruses, ect.

[JoWie]

Try openoffice.org as a MS Office replacement. IMO I find it to work a lot better then MS Office.

[»SD>Big]

i dont agree syrus, i download plenty of illegal content.... you know what it is? just get a freaking good anti-virus. you dont need some special firewall, or crazy doodads. I recommend Kasperky (the best right now) or NOD32. as well you can install spybot for spyware protection. but for years oi've been operating with just an AV and i've been fine. JUST DONT CLICK THINGS YOU SHOULDNT CLICK!!

 

as for office sucking.... well thats presonal taste, however i've tried out office 2007, and i have to say its a really good upgrade. normaly all the office upgrades have been mediocre. but one big thing they have changed is they've done away with drop down menus and everything is in tabs. its really, really effecient! plus open office can't come anywhere, remotely close to oultook on an exchange server.

[Samapico]

I use avg internet security... never had any problem

 

and openoffice... I tried it... and I uninstalled it IMMEDIATLY and deleted the installer... I HATED it... really... I wanted to make a graph in ... calc or whatever it's called, and I searched for half an hour how to change the cells from which it took its data / x-axis ; it would always select them automatically, and I couldn't change these things individually (i.e. one cells region for all data) ... Maybe I just didn't find it... but doing that with Excel (which I got the day after) took me 2 minutes... So yeah... it sucked real bad imo.

Of course, I won't bash the product too much, cause it's free... for someone who doesn't want to pay for ms office, and would feel guilty of getting an illegal copy, then it's fine, but for anyone else, just get ms office...

 

Most people using open office just hate microsoft for no apparent reason... these people annoy me... bleh

[»SD>Big]

oh, one thing that is REALLY annoying about ms office 2007.... the default extension to save files in word and excel are .docx and .xlsx which are not supported by any version lower then 2007 and you have to download a seperate reader just to view them if you dont have 2007 installed... so you have to manualy choose the .doc and .xls extensions when saving file cause, well, not many people have 2007 yet.

[»doc flabby]

Open office is good at somethings. If you have corrupted doc or xls files it can normally open them, when excel and word can't.

Open office reminds me of how word 6.0 was and excel 4.0 (if anyone can remeber them back in the win 3.11 days)

Back then everyone used lotus 1-2-3 and wordperfect because word and excel sucked it has a long way to go to catch up with ms office.

 

However ms office owns it ez. But if you cant afford the £400 to buy office (not everyone is a student )

and you don't want to be a pirate open office starts to look like a good bet

 

That said ms 2007 is designed to force people to upgrade.

Also Microsoft is refusing to fix an exploit (that is being actively used) that effects all versions of word except word 2007.

 

If you have office 2000 like i do there really i no compelling reason to upgrade. office 2000 does everything i need.

[Excel]

oh, one thing that is REALLY annoying about ms office 2007.... the default extension to save files in word and excel are .docx and .xlsx which are not supported by any version lower then 2007 and you have to download a seperate reader just to view them if you dont have 2007 installed... so you have to manualy choose the .doc and .xls extensions when saving file cause, well, not many people have 2007 yet.

 

You can change it to save as .doc or .xls automatically in the preferences. Go to the little Microsoft icon on the top left, then click word options (It's on the corner of the bottom right) and go to save. There you can select to save files in a specific format. The problem with this though, is that it actually does save it as a office 2003 file, removing any special things that were added in 2007 and saving them as pictures instead of the actual object. Equations for example, which can be used in word 2007 will be saved as simple pictures in 2003.

[rootbear75]

what you could have done is several things, i'll name a couple.

 

boot up with your windows cd and preform a Repair (not repair console, but an actual repair) it will reinstall windows, basicaly, and you will keep you registry (all your settings and installed programs) as well as keep all your files.

 

there's a program called wininternals (erd commander) which you can boot with and it gives you multiple ways of fixing xp, among them is a restore to previous state, as well as registry tools. and you can reset any password on the system with it (yes it works on win2k3 server, yes you can take over any server you have physical access too and that you can reboot without anyone knowing).

 

way more complicated: you could have backed up your registry and then used parts of it to restore program installs but i wont get into that.

 

the next time your comp ASSS up, i strongly recommend you do a windows repair because you won't lose any data/programs. however if that doens't work, yank out your hard drive, shove it into another comp you have access to, backup your do!@#$%^&*ents and settings folder, as well any other folders on your root that you put yourself, use microsoft office settings saver or whatever it is called, there's one for outlook express too and outlook. format then reinstall windows and replace your data. it will be like the first day you got it!

lost the XP cds (even the ones Microsoft sent me after i told them i lost my originals)

im gonna buy a new hard drive to install XP Pro onto and use this !@#$%^&*ed up one as the one i install programs to, or i might backup everything onto the new drive, and wipe this one...

 

and thankfully all programs were still there... continuum, flash, etc... i just have to re-activate everything cause i suspect the recovery wiped the registry

 

though i gotta say, my computer seems to be running a lot faster...

[Drake7707]

you can ask microsoft for windows cds if you got only recovery disks where windows is preinstalled ?? How, who , what, tell me. I'm used to reinstalling my pc every 6 months but i can't because i don't got windows MCE 2005 (and i don't want to install a less legal .....again)

[Wampus]

You can order a copy of the Windows MCE '05. There is no retailing of this however, since microsoft holds the position that: "...the average user cannot install and stup Windows MCE, due to its complications."

[rootbear75]

i can just downloaded XP Pro from an MSDN site my school signed us up for.

then installed the image onto a CD

now i have pro and home xD

only thing i need to do now is transfer settings to pro and wipe home

[Samapico]

i can just downloaded XP Pro from an MSDN site my school signed us up for.

then installed the image onto a CD

now i have pro and home xD

only thing i need to do now is transfer settings to pro and wipe home

Exactly what I did...

I could also get Vista from there...

[rootbear75]

all for free xD