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By: Da Sissop
Date: 6/22/98 10:00:31 AM
# Replies: 32
In yet another example of how I am cursed, yesterday morning I was browsing Usenet newsgroups with Outlook Express. A group caught my eye, and I was intrigued. So I double-clicked on "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.gillian-andersons-head-on-other-womens-bodies", and Outlook locked up.
Miffed, I did the three-finger salute and attempted to shut Outlook down via the "End Task" button, at which point Windows 95 completely locked up.
Perturbed, I rebooted, and when Windows 95 came back up, I saw that it was going through the motions of the Internet Explorer 4.0 SETUP stuff again, i.e.(4), "Now creating shortcuts", etc. "That can't be a good sign," I said aloud. It churned and churned and finally presented me with a profoundly disturbing message box: "Windows encountered an error accessing the system registry. You should restore the registry now and restart your computer." There was a single button on this box: "Restore from backup and restart". I clicked it.
...and the exact same thing happened again. AAaaaeeiii! I'm stuck in an infinite loop!
I have found that if I just *ignore* the message box and hide it behind some other windows (you cannot close it), Windows 95 finishes loading and the web server runs fine, which is why you can read this now. In fact, I think it's actually running with more system stability than it has in years. I'm almost reluctant to try to fix it.
But, alas, I will be trying to fix it, so the server may be up only sporadically for God knows however long it takes...
Response #1
By: Ralf
Date: 6/22/98 6:39:39 PM
The first one who bleats, "y'know, if you owned a macintosh..." will be vivisected with a rusty pizza cutter.
Response #2
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 6/22/98 9:24:18 PM
If you owned a Mac...
You 'd have a really neat machine...but no preactical SW that will run on it.
Fang, if you need some set-up switches to clean and rebuild the registry, let me know and I'll send them to. Have worked several times for me very well, saved doing an entire reinstall. be forewarned though, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
You might want to also try regclean. It can indeed fix a lot of registry corruption problems.
Response #3
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 6/22/98 9:28:39 PM
Fang, do you mean that you are running this under 95 and not NT?
(Shudder!!)
Response #4
By: Da Sissop
Date: 6/23/98 10:28:20 AM
Well thankya, and yes it is 95, as I'd still like to be able to run non-microsoft software occasionally if I feel like it... :)
The reinstall of Win95 was a success, and I will never use Outlook Express again. However, I've lost whatever email (and a buncha new email addresses) I had in Outlook, so once again I'm starting with an empty mail box back in Eudora Light. So if anyone sent me anything important and I haven't replied, that's probably why.
Response #5
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 6/23/98 1:04:34 PM
Hmm. I use Outlook Express on a very regular basis and have never had this problem. Matter o' fact, I'm already running Win98, too.
Obviously, this is way too late, but there are ways around this. You can boot to a DOS prompt and then manually copy the backup of your registry over your current registry and 9 times outta 10, that'll solve the problem. (yes, I said there's a backup of your registry right there on your hard drive)
Also, if you didn't reformat your hard drive (which I'm assuming is the case), you may still be able to get at that mail and address book. They're in the C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft directory. You'll know it when you see it.
Response #6
By: Da Sissop
Date: 6/23/98 9:57:54 PM
Well when I first clicked the "restore and reboot" button, apparently Bill Gates did something to sabotage my backup as well, because the .da0 and .dat files were timestamped almost identically, and my attempt to restore the .dat files to the .da0 state produced the same results.
I've checked, and hey! I *do* have address book and mail folders in the place where you stated. I can see my old mail, but the address book is kinda cryptic.
Response #7
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 6/24/98 12:52:02 AM
cappy spastic sez: >>> If you owned a Mac...
You 'd have a really neat machine...but no preactical SW that will run on it. <<<
Well, yah, I guess, as long as you define 'practical' as 'having to go to DOS to find your email and a backup of your 'registry.''
Anyway, Fang's sitcheeashun reminds me of a URL I got yesterday in email... CyberSnare.
Response #8
By: Ralf
Date: 6/24/98 5:13:40 PM
Dammit! [Rummage, rummage]
Where's my pizza cutter?
Response #9
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 6/25/98 3:37:39 AM
Hey, blame Cappy.
:-)
Oh, and in the interest of equal time...
Response #10
By: Ralf
Date: 6/25/98 5:36:03 PM
Beats the Micorosft ad where Bill Gates holds a loaded gun to the head of a six-year-old and says, "where do you wanna go today, punk?"
Response #11
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 6/25/98 10:34:28 PM
Well, let's see. Defining practical: The format and basis of machine and Sw that roughly 2/3's of the business world runs. Which means if you ever want to make a living, you are going to HAVE to deal with it.
Got Sour Apples?
Response #12
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 6/26/98 4:06:38 AM
Ok, so 'practical' is the same as 'what everyone else is doing.'
By this definition, it was practical to re-elect Ronald Reagan.
"Microsoft Windows 98: What S&L do you want to bail out today?"
I don't want to bore everyone (myself included) with a mac/wintel flamefest, really. I just enjoy the feeling of smugness that comes from being on the highest of ground.
Whee!!!!
Response #13
By: Da Sissop
Date: 6/26/98 12:12:28 PM
Personally I think Microsoft is very near the point (if they haven't crossed it already) that installing Microsoft Product A is likely to trash your previously installed Microsoft Product B.
They're spreading out in so many directions at once (DirectX, ActiveX, TripleX, COM, et al.) I think they run a real risk of their own left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I've already encountered a scenario, in my recent battles to fix and upgrade my own PC, where a Microsoft tech support rep has told me that before I can restore my operating system, I need to uninstall Internet Explorer 4, reinstall Win 95, and then reinstall these various products in a specific order.
Will the giant collapse?
Maybe Java really *is* the wave of the future.
Response #14
By: Ralf
Date: 6/26/98 12:43:10 PM
Oh, please. There is no magic bullet.
Technology has grown exponentially more complex every year. It's evolved from single-celled to invertibrates since about 1970, and is about to grow a spine. But the SUPPORT structure -- how we build & maintain software -- hasn't kept pace.
We're trying to maintain a 747 with a Sears socket-wrench set.
At SOME POINT the software's going to be smart enough to build, fix and upgrade itself. Expecting Humans to continue doing this is unrealistic, and only temporary. Hang in there... a few generations from now this will be as dead a topic as "how do I re-ink my dot-matrix ribbon?"
Response #15
By: Da Sissop
Date: 6/26/98 5:21:38 PM
A few generations from now we'll all be great great grandparents.
Response #16
By: Ralf
Date: 6/27/98 2:51:06 PM
COMPUTER generations. Like, every three years marks one complete cycle.
In 1998 the most kick-ass Intel processor you can buy is the 400 MHz Pentium-II.
In 1995 we had the 200 MHz Pentium.
In 1992 we had the 486-66.
In 1989 we had the 386-33.
(If somebody'd like to do this same kinda thing for the Motorola/Mac lineage, please do so... I only know Wintel.)
Software's experienced a similar curve in complexity & power.
Response #17
By: Mycroft
Date: 6/27/98 4:07:03 PM
Homer, since when did you own an Amiga? Or maybe you're talking about the ST/Atari family of products...
Since seeing the new "iMac", I don't think it's safe to call any company that would drop from it's original stance to sell a USB/IDE, pc-compliant computer that looks like it was brought to you by the same firm that handled "Brain Cady" (as in the drug _in_ the movie) and doesn't even have a floppy drive, "highest ground".
Of course, this is coming from a guy who's cheek is still red from the slap he just got from every english teacher he ever had...
Response #18
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 6/28/98 9:39:06 PM
You know Homey, I hear you CAN still buy Betamx movies too!
Don't get me wrong, I am no grand fan of Microsoft's by any notion. But the reality is that it's a platform and a machine that there is no way to aviod dealing with in the real world, if you are going to make a living, as opposed to the ivory tower smugness of a machine that only ONE company is allowed to build and license OS for.
Yeah, that was a superior idea.
Response #19
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 6/28/98 11:00:18 PM
I think the phrase "make a living" is misleading. I'm sure Homer will come up with any number of ways he can "make a living" with his Mac.
I'm also sure that like many of us and many others around, he can and WILL use a WinTel machine if the situation requires it. He PREFERS to use a Mac. There are plenty of people who still use Amigas on the Net and at home and they haven't made a new Amiga in 5 years. (That's all about to change, but that's not the point)
Granted, if he wants to work in the common workplace environment, he'll have to use a WinTel machine. If he wants to use many of the common applications used by most people, he'll have to use a WinTel machine. If he wants to frag Fang, Rail and I at Quake II, he'll need a WinTel machine. Sure, he could use any of the software solutions for the Mac to run PC applications, but from what I understand, they're lacking and generally require the fastest, latest and greatest Macs available in order to function properly.
I wish people would realize that no computer is really better than any other one. Some are better suited for one job than another. Some are more popular than others. Some are faster than others. If it does the job YOU want it to do, why cares?
Response #20
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 6/29/98 6:34:07 AM
Actually, I saw an amiga 1000 at a thrift store the other day. I'm thinking of getting it...
I've used Windoze PCs. I dislike them. They're designed backwards. That's my gripe, and it's boring to talk about it anymore. I could list specific gripes, but what's the use?
I will mention, tho, that my brother, who uses PCs, was helping my mom upgrade her powerbook to OS 8. He called me long distance from Houston to ask me where the File Manager is on a Mac. "I've been looking and looking, but can't find the place where you move and copy files around... What's the deal?"
iMac is basically a workstation. You plug it in, boot it up, and do net.things. I have no idea why it's green and clear. I plan on getting a G3 upgrade card for my 7600 when they fall below $500. I recently purchased a Quadra 650 for the household to use (so they wouldn't annoy me with their constant and unending pleas to check email). Oh, and if you make a disk image file that's around 2megs, and put it in your startup items folder, you can tell netscape to use it as a cache and speed things up. If you need the RAM back, just unmount the cache disk.
I saw Brain Candy recently... BRILLIANT!
Response #21
By: Ralf
Date: 6/29/98 7:09:35 PM
SO I should rush out and rent Brain Candy?
Response #22
By: Zipperhead
Date: 6/30/98 8:59:29 AM
Yes Ralf...Rent it...It ROCKS!!!!!!!
Response #23
By: sooz
Date: 6/30/98 12:43:16 PM
Like Gowan said.
It's like the music argument. "My thing is better than your thing because, well, because I like it better!" Ok, yes, it's better for you.
Response #24
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 6/30/98 7:41:23 PM
Brain Candy is a fun movie, particularly if you're on Prozac.
Response #25
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 6/30/98 11:44:50 PM
I liked _Brain Candy_, but wish Dave had been in it more. I also wish it had been their second movie. If the KitH had done a sketch movie first, it probably would have done fairly well. Then they could have done a movie they WANTED to do.
Unfortunately, since they did that one first, there won't BE a second one.
"Look at me...hey hey."
Response #26
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 6/30/98 11:57:16 PM
Because it's fun to set Home off Gowan. Not other reason.
You people seem to always forget, I started off in the MAC world myself. But alas, I now have salvation!
Brain Candy was great Homer, I loved it! Where are you living now? I thought you WERE in Houston?
Doubtful the KITH are going to be doing anything together anymore anyway. From what I have heard, they are all pretty pissed at Bruce McCoulloch, although Scott wasn't saying much about why.
Response #27
By: Shadow Sprite
Date: 7/1/98 8:10:00 PM
KITH has passed on, but Buddy lives! Scott has recently been touring the country doing stand-up comedy in the form of Buddy monalogues. I don't think he came to Houston though. They've been popping up everywhere lately, individually that is. Them and suddenly I keep seeing some of the better comedians from "Whose Line is it Anyways?" on network television too...
Response #28
By: Capt. Spastic
Date: 7/1/98 10:27:40 PM
Yeah, that's what I was reffering to. He's been here twice in the past 6 months.
Response #29
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 7/2/98 12:22:01 AM
Scott's gunna be here while my parents are visiting.
Hmm.... Do I go with my parents to the space needle? Or do I go hit on Scott Thompson?
Response #30
By: Ralf
Date: 7/2/98 5:51:16 PM
What? You think he's cute?
Response #31
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 7/3/98 10:55:00 PM
Mais oui!
In fact, I'd do any of those kids. ..And then get makeup tips.
Response #32
By: Ralf
Date: 7/4/98 10:38:04 AM
Hmmm. Bruce MAYBE, but Scott..? I dunno.
Guess it's a matter of taste.