Posted on 02/06/2010 5:29:00 PM PST by HuntsvilleTxVeteran
Welcome.
Have fun with it ;-}
Just plugged a USB floppy drive into my Win 7 machine. It recognized it and was able to access the files on an old disk.
Run DOS? Depends on what you want to do. Run an old DOS program or use a command line interface?
The suggestion of using something like FreeDos in a virtual machine is your best bet. Otherwise, try booting into DOS from an old floppy. You won’t be able to access your NTFS hard disk, but any machine should run DOS to some degree.
Thank you, I will bypass vista and buy a Win 7 and a USB to floppy monday.
I recently installed Windows 7. It sees all my USB devices just fine, with the exception of two USB drives that worked under Vista and XP. They are called Pico drives, made by Super Talent.
Thanks; I did see something like that on Wikipedia. Hopefully free... my netbook (which has Vista) does have Movie Maker though
oops, I mean it has XP
Thanks, will try that next time. Have sure had some problems since I got this machine in 2003 but have managed to get myself out of all of them so far, occasional talks thru w/tech support on tricky installs like NAV Arrrgh! People here have helped me the most of anywhere. I never mastered some of the finer points and shortcuts and don’t know what you meant by “won’t leave the desktop environment”. With ctrl-alt-del I sometimes have to wait quite a while to get the tast manager window to come up.
All hail XP SP3 !
Win XP has served me well although does have some quirks. Don't know what you meant by SP3. I used to wait on installing the updates to see if people were having problems, think SP3 might have been one for some.
Since then something force turned on the updates to auto, so I just leave it at that so I don't forget to check like I used to.
I remember when I first got it I was annoyed that I couldn't see the file extensions so had to go out on the net and find out how to get them to show. And so on thru the years.
Somebody here recommended CCleaner, one of the best things I ever did.
I had to pay somebody to come out from the geek squad to get my pc and imac on the web with the same router. He seemed to know his stuff but was never able to get the two to talk to each other which I wanted for transferring my files. I have to do it with external drives which will be very slow.
Don't touch Service Pack 4. no, no, no.
SP4 is probably already installed as auto updates was on. I turned if off in the control panel. It didn't like it no no no. Even NAV has freaked out. I turned it back on. I can prevent installs as I get a notification when I go to shut down to click on a link and not the usual button if I want to turn off my computer without doing the installs, a nuisance.
I was poking around those folders, hard to know what they all are for but looked in one for downloaded and see two Active X Control files are damaged.
Well, what is wrong with SP4 now that I've probably got it? I found two files with SP4 in them, one a .dll and one a .STK file.
I feel like I'm playing Russian Roulette every time I let those installs go through because I have no clue what they might do. I used to go out and get them myself, and it would explain a little, still left me pretty clueless.
Oh the joys of Windows.
"To determine which service pack is currently installed on your computer, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. Copy and paste, or type the following command and then click OK:
winver
A dialog box displays the version of Windows and the service pack that is currently installed on your computer."
So what do you suggest I do now? I can't find much on SP4 except download it, won't. Don't see any known issues.
More modern (present-time) MS updates from that point on, haven't been any trouble for me...known bugs have been found and eliminated, I take it.
That's why I don't like the automatic updates but don't like my system freaking out because I turned them off.
I neither want nor need SP4, and it may dl automatically at some point, but I did have the option to dl IE8 myself which I did but let it sit there and wait to see if any problems reported, then installed it. I hope that will be the case with SP4. So I need to figure out what they want to install before I let it go ahead, and may have to get some help with figuring out where to look on my computer and how to tell what it is.
I did get hit with that blaster virus, but that was a long time back and checked the updates more frequently after that. But when I saw SP3, I'm like you, wait and see if people start reporting problems. Now at some point they forced me into auto updates; I did NOT turn them on.
SP3 is purdy...we were quite pleased with it. Not messing with a good thing tho.
Replacing a floppy drive is stupid easy. Spend $10 (or less) at Newegg to buy a new one, and look up a quick how-to guide online. No hauling your computer to expensive repair shops.
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