The MS deployment tools like look into WAIK can make customised images (With windows vista and above windows installs are comprised of a copressed image, and some scripts which run in the installers...

Yes, look into WAIK, and Sysprep. Also Norton Ghost.

Basically the registry stores data for users programs and the OS. Everything from options, to file associations. In comparison, UNIX-like systems use text-files instead of one centralized registry.
...

Yep, the reason not all processors (annoyingly the core-duo in my laptop cant but the old P4 in my desktop can....) support the "mode" is because they have H/W virtualisation support. This is also...

Same thing happened to me. About a week ago they released an update for the WU agent on vista and it seems to have broken it.

Seems like a wierd issue though. I just did a clean install on another...

If you cant get the suite to install, just unzip it with 7zip, and point the HW wizard to search for new drivers there.

Did you even bother to look on the ATI site? The Win7 drivers are right here... took me like 3 seconds to find them!
...

Yeah that was a typo. now fixed. meant to type service tag (dont quite know how that happened lol)

yep, just google for "dell support". Click drivers and downloads, and enter your service tag. Download your video driver there (make sure you get the correct one, there may be 2 or 3, if you havent...

There isnt anything like RocketDock in windows 7?

Its right there at the bottom of the screen where it usually is?

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/15/windows-7-superbar-overview

Because AMD originally designed and popularised thier 64 bit extensions to the x86 instruction set (which they actually licence from intel). Intel then licenced back the rights to the AMD64...

You are wrong. Starting with Version 2.1, VirtualBox supports 64-bit guest operating systems, even on a 32-bit host OS, so long as you have a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support...

It is an issue because installing grub removes the option to "push f11 for recovery" when it overwrites the boot sector. Also, resizing NTFS partitions from linux is inheretly dangerous (if there is...

Yes, easiest way is to use Ubuntu linux. Comes as a live-cd so you can try it out before installing, and it has the option to rezize your windows parition and install linux in the free space. It is...

Control panel -> power options -> on the side menu click "change what do when the lid closes". There is also one under power schemes where you can click "advanced power settings" for even more...

after trying what smallrabbit said, try making sure the handler for shortcut files is set correctly

(before i had a bug where the handler for disk drives was broken so it opened word everytime i...

um, tell your parents to stop paying his subscription?

Glad you got it sorted. Ive marked it as sloved.

Oh yeah, if you upgrade the OS it tends to nuke the recovery partition

Looks like you will have to send off for the XP cds.

it *should* have a hidden recovery parition on the disk. This is the case with dells and ibms that dont ship with disks - normally you hit F11 or something during boot and it will run,.

what are these temps? c or f?

please use C

No. Vista eats disk spacs.

Overheat or lack of enough power

The fact his machine has a 20gb leads me to believe its an ancient machine in which case he may have a drive size cap of some sort

20 gigs is too small for vista. A clean install of vista uses like 4 to 20gb alone. 40gb+ is the minimum reccomended.

Buy a bigger hard drive and reinstall.

Safe mode only loads the core microsoft windows drivers. If its vista compatibile. then that means it should aught to work..

Is it compatible with 64 bit vista though?

boot into safe mode and see if it does it

You almost always need to reinstall windows (repair usually works too) after changing a motherboard. After that, reinstall the motherboard drivers for the new board,

does it give you an option to submit the error report?
does it find any solutions?

what are the specs of the machine

what are the microsoft reference numbers for the hotfixes which fail?
it will say under update history

do my option

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

meant for XP but it should work

go to run and type cmd

in the command prompt type

sfc /scannow

and wait. you may need your vista cd.

so is this solved?

if not, are you on a corporate domain, is UAC on or off?

i had this same problem in xp. only a reinstall could fix it

yeah they probaby will blacklist him if he tries to activate it or use WGA



they could potentially charge him with breaking the terms of the EULA but its highly unlikely.



no matter what...

no its not. its illegal - it says so on microsofts damn site and in windows itself
...

yes he did



vista home premium doesnt allow virtualisation