Time for an episode of Good idea vs. Bad idea.

Good idea: Running " CleanMy PC" to clean your registry. It takes 20 seconds and your computer will run noticably faster and will possibly fix a few annoying problems. This feature of the software works just as advertised.


Bad idea: Using the same software, to defrag your registry. Now I don' t pretend to be an expert with software, infact I' m terrible with software. I understand any piece of hardware inside and out but software drives me nuts. So for anyone here as novice with this aspect of computers as I am I would like to express that defragging your registry is not a smart idea. Infact it' s a very bad idea.

Pressing the button " defrag registry" was like a self annihilate button for my computer. It too less than 10 seconds for this button to brick my computer. First my computer froze, Which wasn' t too bad in itself. However when I rebooted my computer I recieved the messege from Hell.

It was something about \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file missing or currupt. Apparently this file is important because without it you can' t do a god damn thing with your computer. I wasn' t able to go into windows.

I went in the command console and tried the chkdsk /p trick which did nothing for me. Then I tried to input some commands that was supposed to reinstall that specific file from the startup CD. Except I couldn' t freaking input the commands because french keyboards don' t have BACKSLASH!, I can get Backslash to work in a word document but not in the command prompts. My computer did not want to detect any other keyboard other than the one already there.

Well I don' t have any patients for this sort of shit. Being utterly defeated by a ***ing file, I decided to reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP. I' m not sure how long it took to reformat my HDD but it was a few hours easy.

So I' m choosing the settings in the windows installer and I' m relieved not to be staring at a black screen. At this point things are looking up, I' ll reinstall all my shit and even though this can take a week at least it will work. This feeling quickly dissipated when I came to the point where it asks me for my product key. Hmm, what did I do with that damn sticker? Oh yeah, I threw it out...***.

So now I' m here on the family computer[:' (], waiting for my copy of Windows Vista in the mail.

Moral of the story: If you feel the need to defrag your registry, don' t.

Moral of the story: If you feel the need to defrag your registry, don' t.

Moral of the story? WinBlack XP owns all. Forget Vista.

Agent if you need a key [or anybody looking], just:

- Go To Start- Run- Type in regedit
- Go to Hkey Local Machine and click the +
- Software click +
- Microsoft click +
- Windows NT click +
- Current Version click +
- WPA Events
- On the right, there should be something that says " oobetimer" , right click and hit modify
- Delete the letter/number code and replace with this.......
FF D5 71 D6 8B 6A 8D 6F D5 33 93 FD then click OK
-Quickly (you only have a few seconds before the system will change the number code back) go back to WPA Events on left, Right click on permissions
Highlight the user SYSTEM and put a check under DENY for everthing
Click Apply, then OK to everything.
- Restart your computer

Done!

Check to make sure you are activated:
- Go to Start, Run, Type in %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe \a
click ok, If you did everything right, you should get a message that says, " Windows is already activated" . And yes, after this, I was able to install Windows Updates on the computer and it even passed the " Genuine Windows Validation Tool"
From what I understand, the code that is being changed is the same on EVERY computer once Windows XP has been activated.

Illegal yes [if you dont own windows] , But it works perfect. Since every activated windows activates to the same code, its changed easily, basicly what this does is that it changes your unactivated code to the single activated code.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

It' s too late to pull off some scheme, I already bought Vista. It' s either arriving at home today or tomorrow. I bought it OEM so I only paid about 145$ CAD (including tax and shipping). The only real downsides of buying Vista OEM is that the OS is locked to my Motherboard and I can' t change to 64bit (I chose 32bit).

What happened to " Not touching Vista untill at least service pack 1" Agent?

I downgraded from vista [is that the right word I am looking for?...] back to xp as Vista was causeing too many problems. Mainly becuase of two reasons, listed in order of importance:

1). My computer wasnt really up to it.

2). Vista is a little ' green'

I am sure you will love the UAC thing.
But yeah, Vista is good.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

Except I couldn' t freaking input the commands because french keyboards don' t have BACKSLASH!

Wow that sucks and I say that this is just one more reason to hate the French(like they needed it)

And dude don' t do that again. I don' t know crap about software either so I let people who do deal with mine. And I was going to upgrade to XP but it turns out because of Vista sucking so much XP has shot up in price so I am now not going to.

What happened to " Not touching Vista untill at least service pack 1" Agent?

I actually have Vista installed on my computer as I type and I have to say it' s an adjustment. Not only am I going from XP to Vista but I' m also going from a generic keyboard+mouse to a G15 and a Razer Deathadder. Everything feels weird.

I did say i would wait but that' s before my computer died. It simply did not seem logical to purchase XP only to buy Vista a few months after. Actually the Beta for service Pack 1 will be released in a few days, with the final expected in November. Meh, in any case it' s not like I have a pussy computer. So I might as well get used to the change now.

So far everything seems to work fine, except for some of the devices that I have yet to install the drivers.

I have yet to install the drivers.

What Drivers? lol

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

lol, I have creative drivers for my X-fi card (I have no sound right now), drivers for my G15, Deathadder, drivers for my 8800gtx (already complete), drivers for my screen, I' m probably missing something...

The drivers are nothing, the real time consumer is to download/load all my programs, music, games, settings, my favorites. It will take me a week to set everything as it was.

A real pain in the ass (only because I did a clean install), but so far I' m enjoying Vista.

you lost your music? the really sucks if you have anything over 1gb. Which i say you do.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

I reformatted my HDD so I lost everything. I think I had about 2500 songs. Most of those were from CD' s. It' s going to take me a long time to re-encode them.

On the bright side Vista is working very well and it seems just as fast if not faster than XP, at least with my computer.

I couldn' t imagine losing all of my music. I' d keel over & start frothing at the mouth.

I remember when I made the jump over to XP Black Edition, I managed to get everything onto 3 GB of pendrives. I still don' t know how I did it.

Ever since I installed Vista I' ve had problems with my connection. I can' t access most sites. For example Ars Technica,Yahoo inbox, webroots won' t load. This is so irritating. I can' t even update Windows.

" Eddie, your mission should you chose to accept it is to get Ghost to switch to your OS"

I fixed my problem with a system restore. I don' t know what was going on. My connection is still shit though, but it was that way before the change in OS, and the other computer has the same issue. I fucking hate sympatico, high monthly rates for abysmal service.

Connection speed? Anything above 100kbps and I don' t want to hear you complain. I' m still amazed I can run Xbox Live and the PC at the same time.

I' m supposed to get up to 5 mb per second but it dips below 100kps frequently. I can' t run Live anymore! I' m calling those assholes tomorrow.

I' m supposed to have 150kbps... you don' t even want to know what DL' s trickle to sometimes.

I can' t wait for fiber optics. Imagine internet speeds 3500 times faster than the current average. Over 100mb per second at great distances! At this speed, the limitation will be our computers not the internet speed.