Pangloss

It's ok. Windows Explorer is the file browser utility. It's the other way you can copy and move files around. If you're not familiar with it, you can get the same information by opening My Computer and looking there.

Whether I took it personally or not, that's what you said. Are you going to answer the question?

Oh I see. Now not only do we all (those of us who think this is a reasonable compromise) hate sex offenders (which I doubt is the case), but now you're accusing us of being a greater danger to society than sex offenders. Gee. Thanks. That aside, why can't we deal with both "people who hate" and the potential danger of sex offenders who continue to threaten children after serving their time, so long as both are handled in reasonable and fair ways, such as that outlined above?

I'm afraid that's not what your BOOT.INI file indicates. Why don't you look in Windows Explorer and see if both directories are actually present? Do you have both a C:\windows and a C:\winnt? While we're on the subject, do you have any other partitions or hard drives in the system?

Oh ok, so you did actually do what that BOOT.INI file seems to indicate? You actually installed Windows XP twice to the same partition? In that case you're going to have to remove the unwanted partition. You can probably just delete the C:\Windows directory (if that's the one you don't want), but here is the problem you may run into: Any programs you have installed after you finished installing the operating system may have incorrectly interpretted the location if the system files. Many installers are hard-coded to look for C:\windows, rather than prompt the OS for the location or use the old %SYSTEMROOT% nomenclature. And sometimes even if the installer appeared to function correctly, it may not have. Some files may be in the correct places. Others may not. And there's another issue -- when you go to uninstall some programs, they may get confused over the same issue. They could break, look in the wrong places for their files, or many other wierd possibilities. What I'm saying is that some of your applications may cease functioning. Or you may have no issues at all. It's pot luck. And you HAVE to resolve this, because the longer you wait, the worse it may get. Learn a lesson from this: Never install two operating systems to the same partition. Ever.

Ok, that's a very simple situation that arises sometimes when people do multiple installs, similar to what happened to H2SO4. Assuming the information you posted above is PERFECTLY CORRECT, this is very easy to resolve, becuase they are both pointing to the same partition. Obviously one of the entries is false, so all you have to do is determine which entry is the incorrect one, and remove it. And that's very easy to do, because if you look closely at the entry you'll notice that one of them indicates that Windows XP is installed to "C:\WINNT", and the other one is installed to "C:\WINDOWS". Obviously both of these cannot be true. Delete the one that is not, and you're done. (You seem to be indicating in your last post that the C:\WINNT one is valid, so that's fine.) Don't do *anything* in Computer Management. That doesn't appear to apply in your case. Don't delete any files from your hard drive. Don't remove any partitions. But before you edit that BOOT.INI file, just pop open Windows Explorer and make SURE that you have a C:\WINNT folder, and do NOT have a C:\WINDOWS folder. If you have BOTH, then you could have a much more complicated problem that requires further investigation to resolve.

Yes (actually 0 just makes it go away, if I remember correctly), but as I mentioned above there's an even easier way -- just uncheck the boxes in the GUI and don't open the file at all. Also, I didn't mention this before, but if the uncheck deal doesn't work because you're having to select the SECOND entry, you can always simply designate a different partition using the "default" parameter in the first section by copying over the partition name from the second section. Yah, that's the most common reason for this to happen. The funky thing about it is that you deleted the partition, so how can it possibly be remembering what your previous partition information was? Bizarre, isn't it? What happens is that when you boot off the Windows CD it copies BOOT.INI into RAM, and when you reconfigure the partitions, instead of creating a new BOOT.INI file, it simply copies the old one back from RAM onto the hard drive, modifying it to suit (so it may not be exactly like the old OS menu). Freaky, I know, but that's how it's worked since NT4 or 2000 (I forget which).

Sadly, the ACLU has already spoken out against the hurricane shelter compromise. He raises a couple of valid points, but the "child beaters and rapists still get in" argument is clearly a two-wrongs fallacy, and he incorrectly implies that this is the result of community government work, when in fact it was a state government decision. http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2005/08/06/State/Stormy_plan_for_sex_o.shtml

I cross-posted with Dave -- he's talking about my first post above (#6). Post #7 describes how to remove the files themselves. One of the really serious dangers with doing this sort of thing is that you can easily end up deleting the partition that the BOOT.INI file actually resides on, which them makes the computer unbootable (until you replace that file somehow), even though it has an otherwise perfectly valid OS on it.

And yeah, you have to actually delete the contents of the partition before you edit BOOT.INI. The easiest way to do that, however, is not what is described above. The "proper" way is to boot into the "correct" partition (the one you want to keep), and then do this: - Go to Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management - Go to the Disk Management module under Storage - Locate the incorrect partition and delete it (YT has a great suggestion there about Partition Magic, by the way, but it won't help you at the moment because it's only useful if you run into an issue *after* PM has been installed.)

Yeah you can remove one. But this can become a very complicated subject very quickly. The easiest way to view and edit the list that appears on that screen is to do this: - Go to Start, Control Panel, System - Click on Advanced, then "Startup and Recovery" - In the first section ("System Startup"), you should see an Edit button. Click it. (By the way, if you uncheck those two boxes, it will automatically run the first option that's been appearing on that screen. If that's all you need, you might want to just do that. But if you've been selecting the other option, or you REALLY want to remove that other option, read on.) Now you should have a text editor up with BOOT.INI open. This is where it gets really tricky. This uses the standard SCSI nomenclature, which used to be very common (but isn't used much anymore). You will likely see two operating systems listed in the lower section. This is where you have to be really careful. But at this point you can remove the one that's incorrect (if you know which one that is) and then that screen should no longer appear. The details of how that naming convention works can be found here, along with a more thorough explanation of what we're talking about: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311578 Are you sure you actually have two operating systems loaded, or did you install maybe a dual-boot config with Linux or something, and then later remove it?

He could be right, just because DSL/Cable routers have become so cheap lately, and earlier models often hit the discount shelves in record numbers. A quick search at Froogle showed 5-port switches as low as $18. Pricegrabber lists one for $12. This is just from glancing at the first page, though -- a more thorough search should show prices even lower.

By the way, a friend of mine in another forum quipped that this was kinda sad, because it would mean no more Catholic priests in hurricane shelters -- surely a loss for all who pray within. ;-)

Alas, I've already paid for TextPad. I guess it was worth it, since I was able to load up a nice assistant for when I took a VRML class last year. (grin) (Like I'm ever going to use VRML!) But I do appreciate the suggestion.

Thanks for the link' date=' yeah I thought the article was really interesting as well. Here are a couple of particularly noteworthy quotes:

Good post, tiny. Really made me think. (My personal favorite Horace quote, by the way, is: "When discord dreadful bursts her brazen bars, And shatters locks to thunder forth her wars.")

Wow, I'm a little surprised at all these new names. I was expecting to hear nothing but "JBuilder" and/or "Eclipse". Are these really full-featured IDEs that you guys are naming? I'm afraid that I've become very accustomed (pampered?) by Intellisense in the Visual Studio IDE, which NetBeans has as well, so I feel at home with that (for example). (ScITE, for example, just looks like a text editor with keyword highlighting, unless I'm misunderstanding something. I've got that with TextPad, and it's great, but I've done the work-directly-with-the-SDK thing and I think I'd rather work in a real IDE. Yeah, I know, I'm spoiled.)

Yup, I have a lot of problems with the 2500-foot rule as well. The other measures, such as Jessica's Law (25-year mandatory sentence for violent sexual assault against minors age 12 or younger) and the hurricane shelters thing, however, seem quite reasonable to me. The interesting thing (to me) is that most of the people in this thread seem to feel that way as well. Even those of you who scored in the lower-left quadrant. I find that quite encouraging.

I can respect that interpretation. What you see as examples of how we're doing the same thing today, I see as very dramatic differences as a result of how those decisions were made in WW2. But that's okay, that's how it goes in debate sometimes. I see a lot of value in your comments, even though I disagree with them, and I appreciate you posting them.

Oh I see, so if we just learned how to love sexual predators and not hate them, they would stop what they're doing and the children would be saved. I mean it has certainly worked for the British. They tolerated and harbored extremists, and nothing bad's come of that, right? Do you think Jessica Lunsford harbored a secret hatred for sexual predators, Thomas? I wonder if that's what was on her mind when John Couey offered her a piece of candy. No? Well, perhaps it crossed her mind later as he was brutally raping her over and over again. No? Well perhaps it crossed her mind later, as the dirt was filling in over her face, in between gasps for air. You think? You know, I wouldn't say that I hate anything, but there are a few things in this world that I strongly wish I saw a lot less of. And no, it's actually not "sexual predators" that I happen to be thinking of at this moment.

Do you have any suggestions for how we dig ourselves out of this mess, or is this just another one of your your-way-sucks-but-I-don't-have-any-better-suggestions deals?

Ok, well this is probably moot since if the module is installed then you should see the computer in My Network Places even though you haven't designated any shares yet, but it's worth pointing out that, well, you haven't designated any shares yet. The root drives are shared by default, it's folders that you have to designate as "shares", and then they appear in My Network Places under the heading of the computer's name. Same with the printer, and yes, it's typically a USB printer that you share. (There's no such thing as an "ethernet printer" attached to a computer. "Ethernet printers" stand alone, and computers don't control them at all.)

I have no idea what that could be, sorry.

Usually it's automatic. It detects another computer in the area and fires off its software, asking you if you want to transfer files via the wizard. Typically you just get the computers close together and point their infrared points directly at one another. Bear in mind that it's a purely line-of-sight operation. They have to be very close together (sometimes within an inch or less, in bright room lighting conditions) and pointed directly at one another in order to work. It's very finicky.