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View Full Version : What a F**kin' PALAVER!


Treefrog
26-08-2007, 20:36
It all started with Conor deleting a game that he doesn't play but Bridgit does off the HD on their machine. "Good excuse to get a bigger HD and put my old one in theirs" I thought.

Nice shiny 250Gb drive later (from a shop that has absolutely nothing to do with a certain hardware forum that we all know ;D) and I'm ready to go. XP disc, motherboard drivers disc, My Documents, etc, backed up on a spare 40Gb drive and off I go. Except that the mobo drivers disc was the one for the kids machine. And XP wouldn't recognise the drive as over 128Gb. Swap the old drive back in and go hunting online for a partitioning utility. Cute Partition Manager is nice and fits onto a floppy btw - no sense burning a CD for 232Kb is there now? ;)

Start again. By this time Conor has found the mobo drivers for mine - I didn't hide it in amongst his games, I know that - format the boot partition and install XP. 0300 by now and I'm knackered. Bed.

Woke up around 0800 :shocked: still knackered but there's stuff to be done. Create the other partitions and format them; while that's going on I had a bath and did the dishes. Watching paint dry is edge-of-the-seat stuff compared to formatting ;) Woke up (again) in freezing cold bathwater and looking like a prune - oh joy!

Getting fed up by this stage, so I just dumped everything from the smaller drives into the spare partitions so that it's available without having to keep swapping cables, then realise that I have absolutely no idea where Thunderbird stores all the received e-mails, addresses, etc. So now I have to put the 80Gb back in to use the bookmarks, etc to go and try to find out where it does hide everything, create a new profile, save all the data as accessible to that, then copy it to the new drive and cross fingers. And to my vast surprise and relief it worked. So fairly functional again atm but ...

..it's been ages since I set up this PC originally and I've forgotten a few things:

1 - where do I find the option to change the quicklaunch icons to 'big icons' ?
2 - how do I change the scrolling up and down a window to just scrolling smoothly rather than in ripples. It's making me feel seasick :(

Help!

Flibster
26-08-2007, 20:57
1) Right click on a blank part of the quicklaunch bar - view - large icons.

Should do it....

2) Pass.

Simon/~Flibster

Mark
26-08-2007, 20:59
OK, assuming XP, Large icons (if you don't have Quicklaunch, which most don't):

Right Click on Desktop, select Properties.
Appearance Tab.
Effects button.
Tick 'use large icons'
I'll go see if I can find t'other one.

Mark
26-08-2007, 21:02
Smooth scrolling in Internet Exploder (Explorer):

Tools -> Options
Advanced Tab
Tick 'Use smooth scrolling' (it's at the bottom of the 'Browsing' section).
If you mean somewhere else, then it may be a driver thing, or it may be somewhere else. Specify where and I'm sure someone will find it. :)

Edit :- I think there might be a mouse option related to scrolling too. Maybe it's that one.

LeperousDust
26-08-2007, 21:04
The smooth scrolling may be graphics driver issues, got the latest? Or per chance still got the default XP ones running? If your drivers are good to go, smooth scrolling is hidden in the advance IE options if i remember correctly, but i thought its turned on automatically, so i may have to pass too...

Stan_Lite
27-08-2007, 05:04
The scrolling thing definitely sounds like windows drivers. If you haven't installed the drivers for your graphics card yet, doing so should fix that.

Treefrog
27-08-2007, 12:29
Si - no 'view' item on the menu when I right click the bar :(

Mark - tried that, it only works on the desktop icons :(
I did break the cardinal rule and make several changes before noticing that it now scrolls nicely - I'm guessing it was the graphics drivers though so ty for the suggestions

Flibster
27-08-2007, 20:20
Sounds like the taskbar is set to be locked then. ;)
Remove that, view menu should appear. :D

Simon/~Flibster

Darrin
27-08-2007, 20:27
Must be an XP Home thing, because mine isn't showing any "view" either. And my taskbar is not locked.

Mark
27-08-2007, 20:48
There's a Large Icons option for the Start Menu. Is it that one you want?

Right-click Start
Click Properties
Click Start Menu
Click Customize (the enabled one)
To get the one for Quick Launch (and indeed any other toolbar):

Turn on the toolbar you want.
On that toolbar, but not on any button (this is important - at the left or right end of the toolbar seems to work best), right click and select 'Lock the toolbar' to remove the check mark.
In the same place as step #2, right click again and select 'View', 'Large Icons'.
Repeat step 2 to lock the toolbars.

Darrin
28-08-2007, 05:00
Honest, it's not there.......

http://www.boomspeed.com/bofh1968/boatdrinks/taskbar.jpg

Darrin
28-08-2007, 05:01
I think I just realised what you are saying. "Toolbar" and "Taskbar" are two totally separate things. :embarassed:

Mark
28-08-2007, 09:26
Yes, they are. It's the toolbar you want. :D

Darrin
28-08-2007, 11:42
Ah, see. I don't have any toolbars, so.... ;)

Mark
28-08-2007, 11:46
Me neither. They get in the way of perfectly usable taskbar space. :)

Stan_Lite
28-08-2007, 12:22
I like the quick launch toolbar, it means I have quick and easy access to applications or folders whatever I'm doing without having to bugger about in the start menu, or go back to the desktop. I also use it to save cluttering up my desktop with icons - I currently have no icons on my desktop, meaning I can gaze undisturbed at the beauty of Christina Ricci :D

I hate to see desktops with dozens of icons all over them. I know when I go to Shetland next, my dad will have the desktop full of them and it'll annoy me and I'll want to move everything - but I can't, because the poor old sod wouldn't be able to find anything :(

Mark
28-08-2007, 12:25
I have the Start menu set to small icons with 16-20 programs in the list. I find with it set like that that most things I would want to use regularly tend to stay within easy reach, plus I don't have to do anything special to get things into that list.

Treefrog
29-08-2007, 13:13
Sounds like the taskbar is set to be locked then. ;)
Remove that, view menu should appear. :D

Simon/~Flibster

D'oh! Yep, you're right.
Now done. Also thanks Mark, tis indeed the quicklaunch toolbar I specifically wanted.

Like Stan, I much prefer to have the icons on there so I can use the desktop for displaying whichever piccy has currently taken my fancy (fnarr) in its full glory ;)

Just one other question: anyone know how to get rid of the recycle bin icon? I've got it set to delete with confirmation rather than put stuff into the bin. I know TweakXP and similar will do it, I'd just rather not install something just for that though if there's a better way.

Daz
29-08-2007, 13:16
http://www.petri.co.il/delete_recycle_bin_icon_from_the_desktop_in_xp_200 3.htm

:)

Treefrog
30-08-2007, 03:35
Perfect :)

Thanks Daz