Need "Other"

[kayofcircles]

Was gonna post in the After Hours area, but said was not for techie stuff, so reminded of TJay's suggestion of four major catagories: Hardware, Software, "don't know the difference", and "other." Have two "other" questions.

1. I tried posting this morning and got error messages. Look at main forum page and it says I did post, but when click on the link, it's not showing my post. So..increased traffic on Net, increased traffic here at this site, or am I having problems again with my ISP???

2. See a lot of posts here where they reinstall the OS. Is that usually a good idea for a first or second thing to do? Or is that more about impatience and not being willing to wait a bit trying to discover the actual problem?

Thanks, Kay

[sea69]

hi kay- always nice to see you post anywhere.. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

#1) it does things like that sometimes when people are running 'BOTS'.. I emailed Charles about it (today, and everytime it happens)

#2) reinstalling the OS is usually a "last resort". Except in certain situations where it is mandatory, we never suggest reinstalling the OS lightly here because we like to be able to "save" the person the trouble of possibly loosing everything they already have, and often it is just not necessary.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif


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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


;)~

[kayofcircles]

Thanks, Sea. Didn't see anyone here suggesting it..just saw a lot of people saying they just did it, and then usually saying they still had whatever problem they started with. But seemed to remember someone here saying that they had reinstalled 98 regularly, so that's why I was asking.

Okay, will admit that I don't know what a bot is...and will go look it up.

BTW, I really liked the floopy. Floopies are cartoon versions of floppies, right? Sounds "nice" somehow...lol.

[ranchdog]

Didja ever see someone's house that was so cluttered and things strewn around so bad that getting around in the place was impossible? THATS the way they live with windoz. Negative organized maintenence whatsoever. (De-Frag etc.) More fun to re-install? Different strokes for different folks.

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"Lemmee Fix That Thing......."
-Beauty is only a light switch away.-

[Paleo Pete]

just saw a lot of people saying they just did it, and then usually saying they still had whatever problem they started with.

That's one of the main reasons I have always strongly advised against reinstalling except as a last resort, as Sea mentioned above. In many cases the problem comes along with the reinstall, especially if a full fdisk and format is not included. We can often isolate the actual problem and fix it without having to reinstall. In almost a year with the forums I don't think I've seen more than about a dozen situations when we finally gave up and decided to try a reinstall, other than a few that were obviously reinstall candidates from the start.

A "bot" is a term referring to a robot program, we have problems with them from time to time, people run "bot" programs to download the entire site at once, with the computer on "autopilot" so to speak. It ties up the server trying to send a huge chunk of information at once, and it gets to the point it's all the server can handle, so your post doesn't make it through. You might try the refresh button, and see if the post did come through and you just haven't refreshed the page yet.

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YOU! Out of the gene pool!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[iisbob]

Yeh, Kay-it seems that most tech co's answer to their customers is to reinstall windows, they always claim it's not their machine/equipment that's faulty-but only windows! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif
As bad as it can be sometimes, most problems usually wind up be simple things; aka this post (http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000194.html) says it all i think?! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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iisbob
"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run."

[kayofcircles]

Thanks all. Yes, iisbob, I saw that post and copied the link. From personal experience, we had already learned (or re-learned, I guess would be more accurate) the "basics" recently when my husband was complaining that his new modem wouldn't work, and it turned out that he had plugged it into the wrong spot. We felt foolish for the other troubleshooting stuff we had tried first but we will remember, at least in the near future, to check that sort of thing.

Pete: Tried the Refresh this morning after posting and getting an error message. It didn't work, but based on yesterday's experience, I didn't try to repost. Just went off and read some other threads, then went back to see if my post went through, and it did. Is there a way to prevent the bots from running on this site? Seems to be getting more and more frequent that I get the "server error" message, but might also be increased traffic at this site.