| Friday,
August 30, 2002 THE FOLLOWING PROBLEM
IS SOLVED.
On one of my XP Pro machines I cannot set
the page file size. Every time I boot up, I get a system notice that there
isn't a page file, and I should go to Control Panel / System etc. and set
it. So I log in as administrator to the local machine and do all that, and
when I tell it to set a page file size it says fine, but it doesn't DO it.
I have to reset, each time -- I thought XP was supposed to stop our having
to do all that -- and each time when it comes back up it says I don't have
a page file and I should go set one.
I may have to reformat the hard drive and reinstall, only of course I
don't know if I can activate the machine's copy of Windows XP after I do
that. I hope to have all this taken care of before I do the column. Stand
by. But the "Activation" policy is the danger here: the machine
is fairly new, I don't have a lot on it, and I have played about with
stuff on it; I wouldn't mind scrubbing it and starting over. I'm used to
that. But the idea that if I do that I will find that my copy of XP Pro is
all used up is a bit worrisome since I doubt I can get any help over the
long weekend, and I need that machine to test a new ATI 9700 video board
with 128 Megabytes of Memory on board (ye flipping gods! 128 megs of
memory on a video board!) and some other hardware. Only I don't want to
test new hardware with a machine that may or may not be flakey.
LATER: WOW that was quick.
I got hold of the Microsoft Developer Network
tech support people, and the page file system problem is solved. It turned
out to be a known problem needing an updated INTEL driver for the
motherboard. I'd have found this if I had the stupid satellite up so I
could do web searches. The Intel driver took about 4 minutes to download
and about 40 seconds to install, and Darth runs like a top. My problems
with XP Pro were taken care of. This will be in the column. Incidentally
the tech support wallah knew who Jerry Pournelle was but didn't realize
that was who he was talking to.
I still have the following problem:
Next: on all my older IOMEGA ZIP drive machines when the system shuts
down the disk ejects. On this machine it doesn't, and when the machine
tries to reset it tells me that I have a non-system disk in there, and I
have to manually eject the ZIP disk before reboot can proceed. Does anyone
know if there's a setting in the new IOMEGA ZIP software? I don't see to
be able to find any tools setup.
Understand I have the IOMEGA tools installed. The icon for the drive is
a Zip image. The zip drive clicks on shut down. I can eject it either with
the button on the drive or through the desktop eject command. And on every
other internal Zip drive I have the disk ejects when I shut down. I can
and will tell the BIOS not to try to boot off the Zip Drive, but I did
like the automatic eject, and I keep wondering if there is some hidden
control panel of Zip Tools I have not found.
There will be discussions of languages over in mail.
And I am still working on BURNING TOWER, so I don't have a lot of time
for commentary on our random lurch toward incompetent empire from flawed
republic. But that seems to be what we are doing, and there seems to be no
one standing in the way to shout STOP!
Understand, while I prefer Republic, I do not automatically condemn
Empire. There have always been imperial aspects to the United States. The
price of empire is high but there are rewards as well. But that is
for COMPETENT empire. What we are doing is reluctant and incompetent
empire, with maximum cost and not only not much benefit to the citizens,
but an ideology that says the citizens SHOULD NOT BENEFIT from the Empire.
We are to get rid of the rights and freedoms we had in a republic, but we
are not to get anything for them; no Civis Romanus Sum for our citizens.
Instead, we are to be subjected to more harassment than our clients.
But we were born free.
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