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   While it is a very small possibility that the disc is bad, what Levy didn't pickup on was the difference between RAM and Virtual Memory. Otherwise, he would have asked the caller what he had set his Virtual Memory at. Had Levy asked him, I'd bet that the caller would have said 2 MiB (the minimum allowed) thinking that the more RAM you have the less Virtual Memory you need.
   Even with a Gigabyte of RAM, the Virtual Memory should be to set near or above the amount of RAM. Some suggest setting it to 1.5 times the amount of RAM.

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   I think the caller was thinking of the Windows 9x Resource Meter (rsrcmtr.exe). In Win9x, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools then Resource Meter. In NT (2000/XP) you get the Task Manager by right clicking the Taskbar and choosing Task Manager.

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   Long range wireless keyboards do exist, they use RF (radio) instead of IR (light). Here's a link to one that goes 100 feet, thanks to Harry for the link.
   As for how to get the video card's output onto a TV. The first thing is getting the picture from the computer's format to the TV's format, this is done with a scan converter or with a video card that can output to a TV, like the ATI All-in-Wonder cards. The next problem is how to get the converted picture to a TV that's about a hundred feet away. Using a really long cable is one way, but the signal could get weakened by the distance. So a better way would be to use something like the Radio Shack Wireless Audio/Video Sender (model #: 15-2572).

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   Not all Packard Bell motherboards are pop-riveted, I even dug out a PB machine from my library and verified that it used screws.
   However, the caller may still need to buy a new case if the old one is an AT. Because the new motherboard will use the ATX form factor (which uses a different power connection and mounting hole postions).

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   MS products or not, Klez will not infect a Mac. The caller thought he may have been infected because people were emailing him saying that he had sent them the Klez worm. This happened because Klez spoofs the From address, giving the impression that it was sent from someone else.

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   Stiction is when the drive's platter(s) won't spin up at all because the Read/Write heads are stuck.
   Consumer hard drives are NOT hermetically sealed. They contain what's called a barometric (or breather) filter to allow the internal pressure to equalize with that outside the drive. However, there are some special use (e.g. aircraft) drives which ARE hermetically (but not vacuum) sealed.

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   Problems with the boot sector are NOT problems with command.com. Boot sector errors can be caused by a crashed/broken or badly connected drive, and by data corruption among other things. The boot sector code is not a file, but is written when the drive is formatted or when you use the program sys.com (for DOS/non-NT drives).
   Lastly, command.com is not a bootable file, it is the Command Line Interpreter. Command.com is loaded by the io.sys file, which is loaded by the boot sector code. Also see the errors for June 15, 2002.

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   The default left pane contents for WinXP's Explorer are set to show information about the current folder and different actions that can be performed. To have the left pane contain the directory tree view, open Explorer and at the top, click View then move down to Explorer Bar and click Folders.

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   A CD can contain upward of 700MiB (originally only 650MiB). Next, the caller isn't producing a TV show, he doesn't need a Video Toaster or anything expensive. A scan converter will work just fine. A scan converter connects between the video card and the monitor, and another plug on the converter gets plugged into the TV or VCR. Then everything that is seen on the monitor is also seen on the TV/VCR.

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   If there was a large enough demand for home built laptops, the Manufacturers would see to it that the components were available.
   The use of Anti-Static Wrist Straps and other Anti-Static products is not unique to laptop construction. ANYTIME you handle computer components you should use a static discharge system.

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   Levy would have been correct except for the fact that the caller had an eOne. The eOne was a PC that was similar to the original iMac, in that all it components (such as the CRT, the motherboard and the drives) are all in one case. And that is where the problem comes in, the floppy drive in the eOne is NOT a standard off-the-shelf drive. It relies on the outer case as its bezel but most important is that it does NOT use the standard cable interfaces (which Levy described), it instead uses a single ribbon cable for both data and power.
   The easest way to fix the caller's problem would be to buy an external usb floppy drive.
   This page tells how its owner upgraded his eOne to Windows XP.

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   Removing the Client for Microsoft Networks will cause even more problems. One of the new problems will be Dial-up networking not saving the password, and other networking problems.
   What the caller needed to do was use the Network control panel to change the Primary Network Logon to the "Windows Logon" or the "Windows Family Logon." See this page for info about Win9x network password setup.

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   WJView is Microsoft's Java class loader. On my test system the registry contained 171 Keys and Values which contained the term "main." And deleting them would not fix the caller's problem, but instead would cause severe problems. Instead the caller should run msconfig and under the Startup tab uncheck any entries which are loading .class files and/or wjview. I've also heard that Limeshop, which is installed with Limewire, can sometimes cause this problem. It too is listed in msconfig.

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   Let's see take 20+ minutes to reinstall, or 10 seconds to drag it back. There's two ways to fix the caller's problem (in under a minute):
   1. Right click on the folder and with the button still down, drag the folder to the Start Menu (don't let go yet), when the Start Menu opens move the cursor up to Programs, then Accessories. Then, where you'd like the folder to be, let go of the mouse button, and in the new menu choose Move.
   2. Right click the Start Menu and choose Open. Now use the regular Explorer window to navigate to the Accessories folder. Now just right click and drag the folder that's on the Desktop, into the Explorer window. Let go of the mouse button and choose Move.

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   If the proper partition wasn't active there would be no boot menu, it would cause an error along the lines of "Missing Operating System." The caller's problem could be caused by a misconfiguration during the install or, exactly what the message says: the hal.dll file is missing. Reinstalling should fix it, or using the Recovery Console to take a known good copy of the file and copying it to the proper directory.
   Note: Hal.dll is the NT (2K/XP) Hardware Abstraction Layer.

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   A completely full drive goes through as much work has one that is nearly empty. However there are two things which do affect a drive's data rate: Fragmentation, which is when a file is split into several piece on the disk. And to a lesser extent, placement of the data on the drive, because on some drives the inner tracks can be read/written faster than the outer tracks (on some it's vice-a-versa).
   Most importantly, none of these things are causing the caller's problem, because a drive's state doesn't change from the time it is shutdown to the time it's restarted. And rebooting would get the caller's computer running again for a while. What the problem could be is, a virus or other malicious program or, a badly written program that may be reeking havoc on his Resources or stuck in a loop and is hogging the CPU.

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   Fdisk has no risk, it ABSOLUTELY will *invalidate any pre-existing data. Fdisk is designed to simply create and edit the partition table, it is a destructive partitioner. Whereas Partition Magic is a non-destructive partitioner, (or destructive/reconstructive).
   *The word invalidate was used because the data is still on the disk but, without a very recent backup of the partition and file tables, it would be best to engage a data recovery specialist if it needs to be retrieved.

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   To remove NT4, which is what the caller finally settled on, you just need to delete the folder that contains Windows NT (such as WinNT or Windows). Then edit the boot.ini file to remove NT4's listings.
   Note: The boot.ini file is a read-only file, so it must be made writable before it can be edited. Also, there may be NT4 related files within the Program Files hierarchy which would need to be deleted on a case by case basis.

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   Out of the box Windows 3.x can NOT access FAT32 volumes, partly because Win3.x is not an Operating System but a windowing system that sits on top of DOS. And all versions of DOS prior to 7.1 can't access FAT32.
   There are however two ways to access FAT32 from Win3.x. One way is two use a FAT32 driver for DOS 6 (or lower). The other way, is to use a patch that's floating around that allows Win3.1 to be loaded from DOS 7.x.
   Note: The first system to use FAT32 was Win95 OSR2.

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   It's Icon, not Con. But what's worse is that deleting the ShellIconCache can cause the desktop icons to lose their placement, the exact problem the caller had. Because the icon placement data is stored in that file.
   Microsoft has even addressed the exact same problem the caller had. (Safe Mode deletes and re-creates the ShellIconCache file)

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   While Levy is correct that he would lose the data, what Levy failed to mention was that the caller could convert his drive to NTFS (using convert.exe) without reformatting. Here's two pages that show how: Here and Here(for XP).

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   The file ShellConCache does not exist, however the file ShellIconCache does. The two Ls in Shell are mixing with the capital I, making it hard to see the I. Besides which even when spelled right, if you search for shelliconcache.* (dot asterisk) you won't find the file because it does not have an extension, thus no dot.

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   While he's right that they're called keys, they are not actually folders. The Registry Editor just uses the folder icon as part of its representation of the hierarchy within the Registry. This very technical article has information about the internals of the Registry.

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   To paraphrase Microsoft: 'Don't do it.' Ctrl-Alt-Delete (X2) is the ejection seat of Window's reboots (excluding NT based systems), it's not the proper way (clicking Start/Shutdown, etc.), and can cause file corruption. Ctrl-Alt-Delete (X2) should only be used when the system has crashed/locked up. It's funny that even though MS says not to reboot that way, it's one of Jeff Levy's top suggestions for quick rebooting.