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#46
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 21:42:58 -0700, Ken Springer
wrote: On 12/9/17 7:05 PM, Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 14:04:32 -0700, Ken Springer wrote: On 12/8/17 11:18 PM, Char Jackson wrote: On Fri, 8 Dec 2017 16:10:05 -0700, Ken Springer wrote: On 12/7/17 3:16 PM, Ken Springer wrote: On another quest to find a replacement for the default Windows Explorer. What I'm looking for would actually replace Windows Explorer, much like Classic Shell replaces the Start Menu. Meaning, when I right click on the Start Button, and select Explore, the replacement is used, not the Explorer from MS. Does anyone know of one? I'm getting bleary-eyed from trying different file manager programs. So far, none have met the desire to have it run instead of the MS version when you go Startright clickExplore. That's a main wish at my end, followed by the hierarchical structure lines. I didn't see anyone mention it yet, but I assume you know that Windows Explorer can display those lines that you're talking about. I like'em too, so I have the lines enabled here. NO!!! I did *NOT* know this!! I've been trying to find out how to do it for years. Even asked in this newsgroup long, long ago. (But, not in a galaxy far, far, away! LOL) How did you enable the lines? Something along the lines of what Mayayana suggested? I'm using Classic Shell 4.3.0, in case the version matters. 1. In its settings, select the tab labeled Navigation Pane. 2. In the first section, Navigation Pane Style, hover your mouse over the first item, Windows XP Classic. 3. The balloon tip should read "The navigation pane has lines connecting the folders". (While you're there, hover over the other two options to see what they offer.) 4. If that sounds interesting, select that option. Click OK. 5. Open a new instance of Windows Explorer and the various folders should have vertical lines connecting them. The current version of Classic Shell is 4.3.1, and that's what I installed. It took actually reading the help file and some Googling to figure out where you were trying to send me, but I got it! I have been wanting that for years!!! Thanks a bunch. Excellent! -- Char Jackson |
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#47
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Windows Explorer Replacements OT: QtTAbBar (tabs for explorer)
On 12/9/2017 7:46 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 12/9/17 8:01 PM, Mike S wrote: On 12/9/2017 6:05 PM, Char Jackson wrote: On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 14:04:32 -0700, Ken Springer wrote: On 12/8/17 11:18 PM, Char Jackson wrote: On Fri, 8 Dec 2017 16:10:05 -0700, Ken Springer wrote: On 12/7/17 3:16 PM, Ken Springer wrote: snip Classic Shell rocks, I've had older friends buy windows 10 machines and they were completely lost looking at the tabs and wondering how to get to their programs, control panel, etc. Classic Shell made them feel like they had regained control of their computer again. My W10 system has Classic Shell in my admin account, but in the 2nd account, it's turned off.Â* I use that account for screenshots of an unadulterated system. OT I just installed QtTAbBar and it rocks. It puts tabs on the Windows File Explorer, right click on a folder and a new tab opens up exploring that folder, right click on a tab and it closes. And tons of options. Really cool freeware. Â*Â* http://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/qttabbar.html Does the install of that tab bar affect all accounts, or can you install for a specific account? I haven't been able to check out the two links you posted for the newer systems, but I do have them open in tabs in Firefox. I looked through their manual here, didn't see anything about installing for individual or all users. http://qttabbar.wdfiles.com/local--f...s/summary.html |
#48
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 12/10/17 1:01 AM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 10 Dec 2017 05:07:13 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote: In message , Ken Springer writes: On 12/9/17 7:47 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , Ken Springer writes: On 12/9/17 2:24 PM, Mayayana wrote: snip I've never understood why MS removed the lines (substituting those tiny triangles) in the first place. One of life's mysteries, I guess. Maybe the triangles look new, modern, fresh, exciting, and more than anything else, *different* from what came before, helping MS differentiate the new from the old. Change for change sake. What they end up doing over all is, remove the items that made sense to the user, and the system easier to use and understand. I used to agree with the people that said the Mac was easier to learn. But over the years, Apple has made that more difficult, IMO. Based only on the UI, my opinion is W10 is now easier. I'm not saying it's easier, just easier than Macs. I hate and detest the current Mac UI. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.11.6 Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit) Thunderbird 52.0 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#49
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Windows Explorer Replacements
| The lines are apparently all Classic Shell, as when I removed Classic
| Shell, the lines also disappeared. | | So, Classic Shell remains, and I'm a happy camper. | What if you just remove the program without uninstalling? Sometimes programs like that will undo what they did with uninstall, either to be considerate or to stop freeloaders. (CS may cost for business customers.) |
#50
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 12/10/17 6:54 AM, Mayayana wrote:
| The lines are apparently all Classic Shell, as when I removed Classic | Shell, the lines also disappeared. | | So, Classic Shell remains, and I'm a happy camper. | What if you just remove the program without uninstalling? Sometimes programs like that will undo what they did with uninstall, either to be considerate or to stop freeloaders. (CS may cost for business customers.) What do you mean by "remove"? -- Ken Mac OS X 10.11.6 Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit) Thunderbird 52.0 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#51
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Windows Explorer Replacements
"Ken Springer" wrote
| What if you just remove the program without | uninstalling? Sometimes programs like that will | undo what they did with uninstall, either to be | considerate or to stop freeloaders. (CS may | cost for business customers.) | | What do you mean by "remove"? | I meant take out the program files and see if it still works. But now I see it might be more complicated than that. It turns out the author has decided to quit and has released the cource code. I just started looking at it, but so far it seems that the program includes an Explorer Bar (left-side or top panel in folder windows) and a BHO to load it. In other words, CS is actually modifying Explorer with it's own components, not just changing Registry settings. So the customizable treeview could be a Registry setting or it could be part of the CS Explorer Bar. I think I'll look over the code. There could be some fun Registry settings in there. But it may be purely shell extensions that modify Explorer directly. |
#52
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 12/10/17 9:34 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote | What if you just remove the program without | uninstalling? Sometimes programs like that will | undo what they did with uninstall, either to be | considerate or to stop freeloaders. (CS may | cost for business customers.) | | What do you mean by "remove"? | I meant take out the program files and see if it still works. But now I see it might be more complicated than that. It turns out the author has decided to quit and has released the cource code. :-( Another program to give us options to what MS wants bites the dust. Hopefully, someone will actually take it over and continue. I just started looking at it, but so far it seems that the program includes an Explorer Bar (left-side or top panel in folder windows) and a BHO to load it. In other words, CS is actually modifying Explorer with it's own components, not just changing Registry settings. So the customizable treeview could be a Registry setting or it could be part of the CS Explorer Bar. I think I'll look over the code. There could be some fun Registry settings in there. But it may be purely shell extensions that modify Explorer directly. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.11.6 Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit) Thunderbird 52.0 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#53
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Windows Explorer Replacements
"Ken Springer" wrote
| :-( Another program to give us options to what MS wants bites the dust. | Hopefully, someone will actually take it over and continue. | Probably not a problem for Vista/7/8. MS may break it in Win10 with their endless updates, but a shell extension is pretty much a standard thing. The good news is I found how it's doing those treeviews. The bad news is it's not in the Registry: https://sourceforge.net/p/classicshe...read/08570be8/ The long and the short: Each item in a window, like a button, textbox, treeview, etc, is usually also a window. They're standard items provided by Windows. In this case it's called a SysTreeView32. Windows like that have options related to how they should be created. There are style options, like border or no border. Some of those styles can be set after the fact. Some must be set when the window is created. By showing it's own window via Explorer Bar, Classic Shell either creates its own treeview in its own Folders Bar, or hooks into the Windows instance. Either way, it's controlling the style setting for the treeview. So the old style options are still there, but they require programmatically setting the window style. Long story short: Classic Shell should work fine for the forseeable future but you shouldn't remove it. I installed CS recently for a Win8 computer I was repairing. I didn't look into the details very much but I liked the basic function: Start Menu back to normal and Metro giant dancing buttons well out of sight. One possible problem for you, though, is that the system treeview is going to be different in different windows. CS will tweak it in Explorer , but other programs are creating their own and the only way to fix that, if it's even possible, would be to write a program that hunts down SysTreeView32 windows whenever a new program starts and changes their style. Windows *could* do that with a Registry setting for "classic view", but I haven't found any evidence that they've provided such an option. |
#54
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 12/10/17 12:20 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote | :-( Another program to give us options to what MS wants bites the dust. | Hopefully, someone will actually take it over and continue. | Probably not a problem for Vista/7/8. MS may break it in Win10 with their endless updates, but a shell extension is pretty much a standard thing. I had it installed in 8.1 & 10 for the account I normally use, and turned off for the other account. So far, I've noticed no problems in 10, but rarely use 8. Minor downside of the install in 7, I had a number of programs pinned to the Start Menu. They all disappeared. I'll have to sort through the myriad of settings and see if that's an option in CS. snip -- Ken Mac OS X 10.11.6 Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit) Thunderbird 52.0 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#55
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Windows Explorer Replacements
In message , Char Jackson
writes: [] The other half of what I meant was that, regardless of how you get there, the stock Windows Explorer could show the vertical lines. In that respect, I was pointing out that you don't need a whole new file manager to get that feature. That's what I'd picked up on. But it seems from a later post that it's not going to be practical to just change a setting somewhere to get it )-: - in effect, for most of us anyway, the only way to get it _is_ to load Classic Shell. (Which I've no objection to doing, but it'd have been nice if a simple tweak would have done it.) I've never understood why MS removed the lines (substituting those tiny triangles) in the first place. One of life's mysteries, I guess. Maybe the triangles look new, modern, fresh, exciting, and more than anything else, *different* from what came before, helping MS differentiate the new from the old. Yes, probably "modern" being the biggest factor, with acres of empty space rather than the lines. (It doesn't actually _save_ any space, as the indenting is still present.) It's like the modern fashion for lots of emptiness in the home - which is fine for show, but makes it not very practical to actually _do_ anything. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Bread is lovely, don't get me wrong. But it's not cake. Or it's rubbish cake. I always thought that bread needed more sugar and some icing. - Sarah Millican (Radio Times 11-17 May 2013) |
#56
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 03:24:26 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Char Jackson writes: [] The other half of what I meant was that, regardless of how you get there, the stock Windows Explorer could show the vertical lines. In that respect, I was pointing out that you don't need a whole new file manager to get that feature. That's what I'd picked up on. But it seems from a later post that it's not going to be practical to just change a setting somewhere to get it )-: - in effect, for most of us anyway, the only way to get it _is_ to load Classic Shell. (Which I've no objection to doing, but it'd have been nice if a simple tweak would have done it.) Agreed, it doesn't appear to simply be changing an existing Registry key. Instead, it seems to store info in the following key, but it's more a case of Classic Shell just storing its own settings. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IvoSoft\ClassicExplorer \Settings\TreeStyle If you went to a clean system and created that Registry key with whatever value you wanted, you'd still need Classic Shell to be installed before you'd get anywhere. -- Char Jackson |
#57
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Windows Explorer Replacements
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
| Yes, probably "modern" being the biggest factor, with acres of empty | space rather than the lines. (It doesn't actually _save_ any space, as | the indenting is still present.) Maybe it's just that people have got used to the treeview, so the lines were deemed unnecessary. I mostly use XP and don't use the folder treeview panel. I tend to be very organized, so I don't hunt for things. But when I do use the treeview I don't see any lines. Just the little + squares. And I don't see any winfile.exe anywhere. So I don't know where Ken is getting his File Manager. | It's like the modern fashion for lots | of emptiness in the home - which is fine for show, but makes it not very | practical to actually _do_ anything. That's an interesting point. I suppose it can be an expression of ascetic taste. But I'm inclined to think it's mostly an expression of materialistic/ nihilistic world view. We live in a culture wed to a belief in naive concretism: The world is exactly what it seems on the surface. Nothing more and nothing less. Aesthetics and spiritual values are relegated to decorative roles, at best. Modern art, to a great extent, is dedicated to breaking any lingering expectation of meaning in human expression. The only option for meaning is Nihilism, as a stage more sophisticated than mere belief, which self-consciously clings to the multi-paradigmatic aesthetic of transcending aesthetic: It's all bull****, but at least we know that, so we're above it; transcendent. So how do people express their personal passions and attachments? In their homes they only put items necessary in practical terms. But there can be symbolism in terms of things like showing off one's success and sophistication with expensive items, provided that those are presented as merely practical: Keurig coffee makers for the up-and-coming hoi polloi who think cinnamon flavored coffee is clever (and who don't have the sense to reject the idea of throwing away one plastic cup into a landfill for every cup of coffee they drink). Stainless steel Braun appliances for the minimalist upper-middle class denizens who've arrived... somewhere or other. ("And the walls, sir? Shall we paint very white or normal white? We could also go retro with a slightly warm white. A humorous touch.") I notice that a lot of those people even buy art. But what is art in a nihilistic worldview? Just another appliance. They buy non-evocative abstracts. It's almost like a frame with a label that says, "Official art painting - what were you expecting, you hayseed?". Even the art is only practical, a la Charlie the Tuna who tried to impress Starkist with his good taste in TV ads by wearing a beret and carrying an artist's tripod. At the other extreme, the sociologist/semioticist Dean MacCannell, in his fascinating theorizing about social symbolism, noted that houses in Nazi Germany at the end of WW2 were often stuffed with kitsch. Which makes an interesting point: Kitsch symbolizes that one partakes of the lowest common denominator. Having cliche plaques in one's kitchen (Good bread, good meat, good God, Let's eat) tells people, "Don't worry about me. I'm completely normal and predictable. I don't have an iconoclastic bone in my body. I don't even take my own religion too seriously." It makes sense that people under Nazi rule would have felt a need to express hyper-normalcy. But what's normalcy in the modern world of scientific materialism where we've washed away belief systems? Nihilism. And a tasteful dash of Postmodernly superficial appreciation of "authenticity" -- historical relics from one's ancestors, fertility statues from the South Pacific, etc. In a way one can see the same progression in the Windows UI. First there was the UI as progress in itself. Then there was prettification and even some commercialization of the UI. (Active Desktop.) XP brought Fischer Price garrishness. Vista/7 brought slick techno-pizzazz with semi-transparent windows and pseudo-3D, which looked impressive even though they served no purpose. Metro brought return to minimalism. Nothing left to achieve. The sophisticated aesthetic of people who can't decide between normal white and slightly warm white. Meanwhile, Apple have always tried to serve the Braun crowd who pay $500 for a toaster and like to decorate their glass coffee table with a miniarture Zen sand garden. Steve Jobs had a knack for the "just so" flair in an otherwise blank landscape. Nihilism as meaning in itself. For anyone sophisticated enough to reject their mother's tacky kitchen plaques, Jobsian aesthetic looks like a worthy self-development goal. |
#58
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 11/12/2017 14:29:02, Mayayana wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote Yes, probably "modern" being the biggest factor, with acres of empty space rather than the lines. (It doesn't actually _save_ any space, as the indenting is still present.) Maybe it's just that people have got used to the treeview, so the lines were deemed unnecessary. I mostly use XP and don't use the folder treeview panel. I tend to be very organized, so I don't hunt for things. But when I do use the treeview I don't see any lines. Just the little + squares. And I don't see any winfile.exe anywhere. So I don't know where Ken is getting his File Manager. Well I count myself as being very organised but I have never been able to get on without those threading lines especially when going many folders deep in the path. Using Dopus since early nineties with these lines and for the last few years the line is now highlighted for the path taken which is even better from a visual point of view. My newsreader has those lines too and it makes it sooo much easier to follow deep into a thread that maybe more than a page in length or width. -- mick |
#59
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On 12/11/17 7:29 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote | Yes, probably "modern" being the biggest factor, with acres of empty | space rather than the lines. (It doesn't actually _save_ any space, as | the indenting is still present.) Maybe it's just that people have got used to the treeview, so the lines were deemed unnecessary. I mostly use XP and don't use the folder treeview panel. I tend to be very organized, so I don't hunt for things. But when I do use the treeview I don't see any lines. Just the little + squares. And I don't see any winfile.exe anywhere. So I don't know where Ken is getting his File Manager. If MS deemed the lines unnecessary at some point, they must have determined were are all now GMO's and just know this. A patently false assumption, IMO. I tend to organized my stuff, and I prefer to be able to see that organization via Treeview. In fact, in XP I've forgotten how to switch from the Treeview. I wonder if possibly MS dropped the lines over the years. Plenty of shots on Google Images with the Treeview. http://www.daleisphere.com/wp-conten...lders-view.jpg I just looked at my XP, which is Pro, and you're right, no lines. I wonder if there could have been a difference for the Home version, Wouldn't make much sense to do that to me. snip Meanwhile, Apple have always tried to serve the Braun crowd who pay $500 for a toaster and like to decorate their glass coffee table with a miniarture Zen sand garden. Steve Jobs had a knack for the "just so" flair in an otherwise blank landscape. Nihilism as meaning in itself. For anyone sophisticated enough to reject their mother's tacky kitchen plaques, Jobsian aesthetic looks like a worthy self-development goal. I'm certainly not one of those, I don't even own a complete set of dishes!! LOL The quality of the components installed has to make a difference in the cost, but I've never seen any definitive answer to that question. I do know this, when I worked part time in a pc repair shop, lots of hard drive replacements of windows systems, almost none for Macs. Online, you'll find sites that say the life of an average HD (whatever average means), is 3-5 years. In this Mac, which has been my primary computer since I bought it in 2009, the drive lasted 8.5 years. If all HD's are the same in this area, why are some drives built "differently" for heavy use? Years ago, I saw a number of threads arguing about the cost of a PC vs. a Mac. Every once in a while, someone would post an actual comparison, if you built one of each from scratch. When the PC was equipped with the same peripherals, or as close as possible to being equivalent, invariably the PC was just a couple hundred dollars cheaper, not 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 the price. I'll tell you what sold me on this Mac. It was the display. I had never seen a PC monitor with the quality of the visual display of this Mac. And, this is *before* the Retina screens. It is now dieing, hardware issues. I do not want to go back to a PC. This thing just works. I'll give you an example... I've spent 2.5 months working with an individual on social.technet.******* to get my PC's to network to El Capitan, the version of OS I'm running. After 2 months, we finally had 8.1 and 10 networked. We never got 7 to work as desired, but at least we got it to where I could map the Mac shares to 7. But, it means I can't print to my USB printers attached to the Mac. We never got Vista Ultimate and XP Pro to connect. Know how long it took me to get the Mac to connect to my Windows computers? Maybe 30 minutes, and that includes tracking down the instructions from Apple. After following the Apple instructions, the Mac connects to XP. Vista, 7 Starter and ultimate, 8.1, and 10. I've been playing with Linux Mint. I want to network it too. I figure this will take a bit of fiddling, but to what extent I don't know yet. Right now, it doesn't even see the Windows computers. Neither did Windows see the Mac at first. But, to my surprise, the Mac was there. When I tried to login, I entered my Mac username and password, and all my shared folders were available. And, I can print! I will concede, it's probably because of the similarity of the operating systems. :-) -- Ken Mac OS X 10.11.6 Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit) Thunderbird 52.0 "My brain is like lightning, a quick flash and it's gone!" |
#60
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Windows Explorer Replacements
On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 14:09:28 -0700, Ken Springer
wrote: I tend to organized my stuff, and I prefer to be able to see that organization via Treeview. In fact, in XP I've forgotten how to switch from the Treeview. I wonder if possibly MS dropped the lines over the years. Plenty of shots on Google Images with the Treeview. I just looked at my XP, which is Pro, and you're right, no lines. I wonder if there could have been a difference for the Home version, Wouldn't make much sense to do that to me. I fired up an XP VM and the option to display the lines or not can be found by opening a Windows Explorer window, then go to Tools, Folder Options, select the View tab, then UNcheck the option called "Display simple folder view in Explorer's Folders list". It's the third option from the top. In my XP Pro VM, that option was checked by default, so no lines were displayed. After unchecking that option and opening a new Win Explorer, the lines were displayed. I'll tell you what sold me on this Mac. snip I'll give you an example... I've spent 2.5 months working with an individual on social.technet.******* to get my PC's to network to El Capitan, the version of OS I'm running. After 2 months, we finally had 8.1 and 10 networked. We never got 7 to work as desired, but at least we got it to where I could map the Mac shares to 7. But, it means I can't print to my USB printers attached to the Mac. We never got Vista Ultimate and XP Pro to connect. Know how long it took me to get the Mac to connect to my Windows computers? Maybe 30 minutes, and that includes tracking down the instructions from Apple. After following the Apple instructions, the Mac connects to XP. Vista, 7 Starter and ultimate, 8.1, and 10. I've been playing with Linux Mint. I want to network it too. I figure this will take a bit of fiddling, but to what extent I don't know yet. Right now, it doesn't even see the Windows computers. Neither did Windows see the Mac at first. But, to my surprise, the Mac was there. When I tried to login, I entered my Mac username and password, and all my shared folders were available. And, I can print! Networking anything to anything else, when both sides use the same underlying protocol, TCP/IP typically, shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Where people run into problems, many times, is when they have an expectation that they should be able to 'see' a visual representation of the remote host. That's never necessary, but many people act as if it is. They want an icon to appear on their screen that they can click on. With DHCP, networking is all but automatic these days, but people don't realize it because they can't see an icon to click on. Several years ago I was visiting a friend in a distant city who runs a guided tour company. She had 3 PCs in the office, and someone messed around to the point where the PCs couldn't talk to each other anymore. Two of them lost access to the Internet, and two stopped being able to open the shared customer database, which was actually an Excel spreadsheet stored internally on the third PC. She hired an IT guy and he came to the office for two full days. At the end of the second day, he admitted defeat and submitted his bill for something like $1700. She asked if I'd take a look, and I expected the worst. All I found were static IP entries that were wrong, as in wrong subnets on two PCs, wrong network masks, wrong default gateways, etc. I had it all straightened out in about 5-6 minutes. So what was that other guy doing out there for two full days? No one knows. She says he had his laptop open the whole time, tapping away at something, but he never physically visited any of the PCs that were right there in the office. He reminds me of an IT guy who posts in the Windows groups from time to time who has problems with the basics. -- Char Jackson |
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