St Landrew

Came as a bit of a surprise to find the authour died recently. I've never been his biggest fan, as I've always felt that, whilst reading his books [admittedly only 3 of them] I've felt he's had one eye on the screenplay. Timeline and another lesser known book about coverups inside an aircraft company - Airframe, both read that way. As someone who likes a story to unfold, it puts one off a bit. So it comes as no surprise then that Crichton used to write screenplays too. But there's no doubt that Crichton's books are readable, unlike IMO, another multi-million dollar author who writes about a boy magician. But he was never a Dickens. Then again, Crichton being an intelligent bloke, it strikes me he wouldn't want to be compared to Dickens either.

Back on XP now, but due to the fact that I'm getting a bit piddled off at the clunkiness of IE7, I've decided to go on Safari again. I have to admit that every time I use it, it is a pleasant change. The HDD with ME on it is still about every time I want a change of pace, back into the fast lane, so to speak.

I'm recording The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw at the moment. Which reminds me, it must be finished by now. It's a bit of a laugh, and Jayne Mansfield was never lovelier.

Which kind of reminds me that one of my computers should be on Vista. I'm so bloody out of date with Vista it's not true. It's almost embarrassing. Thank goodness the take up for Vista has been relatively small compared to those still using XP.

Yeah, I've come across it. There are various reasons for it, but the bottom line is that the EXE file has become either corrupted or replaced, or the path has been lost. If you venture into the Windows OS you should find your answer. By default, WinXP doesn't show the file extensions [in fact it doesn't show system files at all, but this can be amended easily]. The path you need is C [or whatever drive letter your system is on]:\WINDOWS\system32 and find the CONTROL[.EXE] file. As suggested before, it probably won't have the extension showing though. Click on the file to open it. It should work. If it doesn't, it has been corrupted in some way. An easy solution, if you have another PC, is to copy it from the other one, and replace the one you have. Otherwise, get it off a friend's PC with the same OS. On a Windows OS Disc it exists in the form of a CAB file, and cannot be assessed except through installation. You may find TweakUI for XP can do some repairs, but I can't vouch for it. After all the fussing around, it's easier to just re-install the OS, which by default, gets you a good copy of Control Panel.

Bit of a coincidence, as we were referring to old OSes the other day. Finally Windows 3.X has officially stopped making money for Microsoft. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7707016.stm

I'm listening to a BBC Radio dramatisation of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. It's absolutely bloody brilliant. 10 hours of it too.

I think he knows very well where this thread is. Nice put down there Robsk. EDIT: Ah, I see he answered himself.

You're saying less than £100 total price, or for each..? Super price if it's £100 total. Of course, I'd expect no paper manuals.

Thanks to Scudamore for reminding me of something I should have done long ago. For a TweakUI for XP download, go here: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/tweakui.htm Nerdy note: Tweak UI Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or above / Windows Server 2003. If you have a Windows XP system without any Service Packs installed, download Version 2.00. Click on my TweakUI pic below. What a lovely sight.

Found what I was looking for. Usually the trick is to download TweakUI for XP, where there is a box to tick and switch off the advice balloons, but you can do this in the registry [if TweakUI is installed]: edit this registry dword to a value of "0".. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced "enableballoontips" And children don't try this at home.

You're not alone Scudamore: http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2007/06/the_curse_of_annoying_windows.php

Somewhere around the penalty spot, I'd have thought..! Sorry, I've just come from TMS.

In all honesty, fish fingers are not my ingredient of choice in a sandwich.

And this is an odd way to win: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7704567.stm

Yes, but you can set Windows to provide only a pop-up advice bubble that a download is available. Hence, no update, and it won't even download. And there is a way of disabling the pop-up bubble too. But I can't remember how. Look it up. You do realise I've almost made this thread nerdy enough to transfer it into the appropriate techy forum.

We've all heard of the commentator's curse, but this was just asking for it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7704600.stm OUCH..!

You'll be needing all our addresses to send us flowers. Particularly as I'm thinking of being very offended by this motorway closure, as I'm sure everyone else is.

Coincidence. If you look at the Listening thread, you'll notice I was listening to a Procol Harum track. Before that I was listening to another PH track - Conquistador, and it had this film as a Youtube video background. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R7SlkS8wGrI

I think it's reasonable to call for a Rule 1 at this point..?

Not to be bring the thread too down, but I have a work friend, whose best friend took their own life, while on holiday, last week. She's quite upset about the whole thing. There was no sign of depression or anything. The person seemed very stable, yet something very deep was going wrong.

Yeah, fair enough.

OK, but make sure you get the discs too. You don't want that scenario that always happens in 18 months time... Peeps, my OS has gone up the creek and I don't have the discs...!

There was nobody on TMS at the time, and about 20 people on the Lounge.

Download..? I think you'd be better off having the official disc in your hand. Far safer. But I agree with thesaint_sfc, there just seems to be no point in 64bit at present. Nobody is making the jump where 64bit is significantly better than 32bit.