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[kinmel]

If any of them are Linux, Set that drive to boot and repair grub - then you'll get a boot menu without having to constantly fiddle with the BIOS - and it won't affect your MBR for the Windows installs, so if Linux (or GRUB) dies you simply change the boot order and voila - I've done it this way for 3 - 4 years with no problem.

Steve

Both ways work just fine, but if you are using multiple drives, GRUB provides nothing extra.

Modern BIOSs give you the chance to select the boot device during start-up without having to go into the BIOS itself and if none has been selected after 20 seconds, it then boots the default choice .

This method also has the benefit of allowing me to select a bootable USB device at start up.

[D-Dan]

My MB is about three years old - maybe they've advanced since - I expect I'll find out later this year when I upgrade my MB/CPU/RAM

Steve

[kinmel]

It's one of those "features" you either use all the time, or else never use at all !

[zappaDPJ]

I'm about to put that to the test. I've found so many things that won't run in Windows 7 64 bit I'm going to start again by installing the 32 bit version and I want to wipe all traces of the current installation. It's a good job I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, that's around a week's worth of time gone west 

[DorsetBoy]

I'm about to put that to the test. I've found so many things that won't run in Windows 7 64 bit I'm going to start again by installing the 32 bit version and I want to wipe all traces of the current installation. It's a good job I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, that's around a week's worth of time gone west 

What have you found that won't run in Win7 64bit? 

[zappaDPJ]

Quite a number of things. These two gadgets don't work which is a pain because I use them all the time, every day: http://www.dailysnooze-gadgets.com/ There is a workaround for 64 bit but it will only work with Vista.

My Plantronics headset which is totally reliant on Windows drivers won't work correctly, the mike is muted on some applications and I'm having problems getting other devices to work such as a HP laser printer.

I have a few older applications that are doing strange things such as Photoshop 7.0 which continually crashes when I try to save a files of a certain size (in terms of x,y dimensions).

The major one though is my Asus motherboard which is constantly warning me that my processor is overheating. It isn't but it thinks it is. This particular motherboard usually has an application running in the background that controls BIOS functions at an OS level. That won't run at all and I'm assuming that's causing the issue but I've not really done any research on it.

I only have 4GB of RAM so it's not essential that I run in 64 bit and it's no big deal to go back to 32 bit.

[zappaDPJ]

I'm now running Windows 7 (32 bit) and I'm much happier than I was running the 64 bit version. Everything seems to running correctly and after a bit of customisation I feel quite at home with it. The only thing that annoys me intensely is that Windows to this day still doesn't fully support two displays. You can't for example change the backdrop or the way they appear on individual displays and things don't map correctly. I'm pretty sure the next PC I build will support three displays and I dread to think what problems I will encounter with that.

I've also taken the opportunity to drop IE8 and Chrome in favour of Firefox. Contrary to popular belief Firefox does not render faster than IE (it's actually quite slow in comparison) although it does score a huge plus in that it renders web content correctly! I also love the way you can skin it with a predefined skin at the click of a button and the way it handles downloaded files is superb. The only negative point I've encountered is that plugins are an absolute b****** to install. The fact that most plug-in vendors have to detail a work around is testament to that. I understand the reasoning behind it and it's a one off problem but it started to put me off using it at one point.

Oh one last thing, I've switch to FF for a number of reasons, one of them being the built in spell checker. Um, where is it and how do I get it to work? 

[Rik]

You need to download the British dictionary, Zap, after which it just works. Most addons are similarly simple, which ones are you having problems with?

I do recommend getting hold of a copy of FEBE, which will back up your entire profile, or parts of it. Cookie Culler is another useful one, imo.

[zappaDPJ]

The two addons that have given me the most grief are Adobe Flash Player and an embedded video player that Microsoft requires to watch embedded video content on their site. The Flash problem I eventually fixed using Adobe's work around but I gave up on the MS issue and downloaded the content to watch in a stand alone player.

Thanks for the heads up on the spilling chucker  and I'll look into your other recommendations Rik