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I tried out Ubuntu for a few weeks recently after much broo haha here in the Australian computer press about the latest release (Hardy Heron) being a "Windows Killer". To say that I tried it out is probably an untruth - I should have said that I spent a few weeks trying to get it to work. Thank heavens I set up a dual boot system as I had to constantly fall back to my Windows set up to access the net & search for solutions to my problems. I couldn't initially access the net through Ubuntu as it couldn't identify my external dial-up modem & subsequently I spent many hours entering command line commands to get Ubuntu & the modem to talk to each other. Then I spent a few hours unsuccessfully trying to get Ubuntu to recognise my video card - no success there. Now I don't like to give up easily, but when I couldn't get Ubuntu & my scanner to talk nicely to each other I finally threw in the towel & reverted to Windows.
I make these comments as a "person in the street 'puter user" & acknowledge that probably all of the problems I faced were do to third party vendors & not Ubuntu, but my experiences will be common for many people & highlight, I think, why many of us stay with Windows.

In the end I needed to use both VPC & the (free) VMWare reader in combination. The reader gave me the required USB device accessabilty which VPC on its own couldn't provide. So - VPC runs inside the VM environment & I can now use that software whose auto-installer would only accept installation where the OS was on a C: drive.
The elephant stamp goes to Mouser for pointing me in the right direction, but thanks to all for words of advice.

If the software doesn't rely on the registry for knowing where it's installed, that might work.

It does rely on the registry

this would be a good case to use a virtual machine (virtualpc, vmware, etc

I was hopeful that this would work, but the software is supplied on a USB device & VPC (at least) doesn't support USB devices. Also the device must remain "plugged into" the host PC for the software to run

Would a dual boot scenario be worth considering?

Thank you D & M. I'll give both suggestions a shot & let you know how things pan out.

Thank you for the suggestion. I downloaded & gave it a whirl. Whilst it does handle vector type graphics files it, sadly, won't handle .vec type files.
Anyone else with a solution I could try?

Carol ,
Thanks. I've checked as you suggest & those settings are already in place. I have tried the author, also as you suggest, & no success there either.
I think that I might be snookered!

I have some software whose auto-installer wants to install the program to drive C:, but my OS is on drive H:. Is there a workaround which could be applied? I have zero programming knowledge and consequently have no idea if this is a really naive/impossible question.

Thanks always,
Clive

I have some files with the file extension .VEC (graphics/CAD) which I would like to share with another person who doesn't have the software to open this file type. I have spent 30 unsuccessful mins doing Google searches looking for freeware which would handle these. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Clive

 :Thmbsup:Thanks for pointing me to httrack - just what I wanted.

The ability to download several "layers" of a website used to be available in IE as part of the favorites options. I discovered that it is no longer offered in the most recent iteration of IE. As a user living in a remote region & who is never likely to have access to broadband this option was useful to me when a site had "knowledge" type information that I would want to refer to again later, but not want to have to wait for ages as each successive page loaded.

I say "have a go". I had no idea what I was doing, but with help of WYSIWYG editor Nvu/Kompozer, a template from Andreas Viklund, Ask the CSS guy, people at DC & friends I produced thishttp://www.singaporedeep.com.au in less than ten hours (not including research). I would never suggest that I can do better than a professional, but if the budget's tight & you need a presence then have a try yourself.
It just love the way people are so generous here & elsewhere on the net. Thanks everyone.

If you decide on Outlook my advice would be to download from MS & use the Back Up add on (still not a fixture even in 2007) & read and digest the KB files on its use.
See also the note I added here: http://www.donationcoder....ic=8770.msg78739#msg78739

Yep, it might be old but it fits on my thumb drive and that's where I use it as a de facto pictorial note taker. So what if it hasn't been updated. It may not be an unuiquely Aussie saying but it's apt here.. "if it ain't broke don't fix it"

This excerpt from an article by David Flynn in the Australian PC User mag (04/07) may be of interest to users of Outlook who keep it running continuously and who are noticing their systems bogging down :

...a common cause of Outlook slow-downs is a bloated .pst. The .pst file stores all your e-mails (sent and received), address cards, appointments & tasks. E-mails will quickly balloon the file to enormous proportions, especially if they have attachments. This can result in a .pst of several hundred megabytes (or even gigabytes if you are like me!).
This slows your system down because Outlook tries to keep as much of the .pst as possible in memory, and even if it offloads part of it into virtual memory, those hard disk accesses just take longer again.
The first fix is to delete e-mails you don't need, especially those with attachments. If you need only the attachment save it to a folder on the hard drive & delete the e-mail. Next compact the .pst file (like defragging the HD) - select File -> Data File Management ->  Data Files tab -> click on Settings button -> click on Compact Now

Italics are my comments.
Trust someone will find this useful.

Anyone know if it's possible to run an app like DoPDF on a USB memory stick?

Thanks for alerting us to this site. I'm always grateful for any assistance with site building.

Clive

Just wondering if there are tutorials for project management software. I've had a bit of a search, but not found anything suitable for the complete beginner.
I tried OWB, but found that their forums were bogged down with spam & consequently very few real replies to queries.
I'm interested in Project Management as I'm considering being the project manager when/if we build a house we're currently dreaming about.
Anyone know of any specific software for construction PM? I've heard of AccuPlan.

Thanks,
Clive

TWAIN
Geeks can have a sense of humour

Thank you Armando & SteelAdept.
I've tried cloning using:
1) DiscWizard from the SeaGate site - it couldn't find the second drive which I was cloning to!
2) An old copy of DriveCopy by powerQuest - it was semi successful as I was able to boot as far as the password screen, but as soon as I entered "next" the boot process flipped over to "Windows is logging off"
I plan to try the free version of XXClone next. The author of this software has written heaps of supporting documentation which looks helpful.
My fingers are crossed.

Something which I don't seem to ever get right is the re-install process after a catastophic event. Over recent months I've suffered a "C" drive failure & a motherboard failure at different times. I keep backups on an internal drive and a clone of the "C" drive at a remote location.
For both the above events I've been able to restore everything without loss.  The clone was no help with the motherboard failure as the new MB was different from the old one and the clone was no help with the HDD failure either as there was some glitch (Yes, I did omit checking the clone worked when I made it ).
So obviously I'm learning from my mistakes and striving to have a better solution for the next event.
I'm currently recovering from the HDD failure with a brand new computer
It's all so slow though and I wish there were a way to streamline the process. I've made a clone at the 50% re-install stage and checked to see if it works - no it doesn't What to do now?

I'm no geek (no offence meant ) and the hours spent re-installing I would rather spend doing something else. (Paying someone else to do the task is not an option)

Has anyone thought about these issues and developed a solution that works?

You could look here too:
Free Music and Other Audio Editing Software - Download Wave and ...
Download this free audio editing software. A music editor, sound editor, wave editor, it can convert audio to Wav or MP3 and includes Sound Effects like.
http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/
[ Result from Google ]

Thank you Masu

Again I turn to the collective brain for assistance.
In some "try B4 u buy" tweaking software I tried there was a tweak which allowed the changing of the HDD's rpm - lower speed = lower noise. Is there any free software which achieves this?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Clive

Probably not quite what Superboyac had in mind, but does anyone know of free project management s/ware for construction i.e. building a house?
AccuPlan looks OK, but not free. I had a go at Open Work Bench - found it too hard to learn OOTB and its forum is clogged with spam.

On a related note, another thing that was made clear while Office was in beta is that Outlook 2007 can import pst files created in 2003 and earlier, but pst files created/updated in Outlook 2007 can not be exported back into Outlook 2003. I am SO glad that I caught that before blithely migrating everything into the beta, which is what I had planned to do!

I wish I'd known this before I blithley upgraded to Outlook 2007. The reason being that when I wanted to confirm that .pst backups were occurring correctly (in Outlook 07) I tried restoring the backup. As you may know this process opens the backed up Personal Folders below the current Personal Folders. Whenever I attempt this process the computer freezes and I get the error message "this program is not responding". Now I live in fear of losing all my precious Outlook data & I can't go back to 2003.