visual studio .net setup: Richard,

Sounds like when you installed the IM thing, you sucked in
a virus or a malicious spyware program. I had one of
those once and the symptoms were very similar to what you
describe.

Go out on the web and download two programs:
Sypbot Search & Destroy, and Ad-Aware. A company called
Lavasoft puts out Ad-aware, not sure who wrote Spybot.
Install those & scan your disk (after you update). Remove
the problems they find. The performance of your PC will
be better afterwards.





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If .NET is so good, why

Holy Cow, I'm confused. Help!
I am a developer. I just bought a new IBM T42p Thinkpad to replace my old
A31p. It's a long story, but I lost my original disks & had to buy- at
tremendous cost- the following software for it: MSDN Universal, Acrobat Pro,
RobohelpX5, IBM Rational Rose XDE For VS, IBM Workplace Team Collaboration,
WinZip & WZ for Outlook, Paperport Pro V10.0, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking
8.

Before I give some very pertinent background, I will pose my questions:
(1) Being an OLD (46!) VS 6, C++ programmer, if I only install VS .NET, will
the SDE be similar enough for me to start developing a new web based app
using C++ & .NET framework? Or, do I also need to instal VS 6.0 to use C++?
(2) If I bite the bullet & learn C#, will I be more state-of-the-art than
developing in C++? I dill not have a problem learning C#. I ask this
question because I need to get on with developing & believe the .NET
framework (which I also need to learn) to be my logical platform. However,
I am unsure & uneducated about my need to learn C#. I cannot waist my time.
Honestly, is C# a fad, or is it the developer tool for the new millenium?
(Microsoft guys please try to be objective).
(3) Is MS Money & Encarta part of MSDN Universal anymore?
(4) To the extent there is a "best way" to install all my software (see
below for a list of specific MS apps I will be installing from MSDN), what
is that best way; including which order? I am having trouble planning seem
to figure out Many of these apps rely on MS Office or VS. For instance,
since RoboHelp & Acrobat both rely on Word & Word relies on Viso (at least
for my needs), which one do I install first?
The following background explains why I was forced to upgrade. It also
explains why I am very concerned about which order I should install these
apps.
First, I got sick in Oct 03, & have been pretty much out of touch wrt MS
development since then.
Next, my A31p Thinkpad had the above software & the following Microsoft
software installed: XP Pro, Explorer 6.0, Nortan Antivirus w/ auto update,
Office XP w/ Visio Pro, Visual Studio 6.0, Visual Studio .NET, SourceSafe,
Frontpage (2002), Encarta, Money and Project. I used them all and relied on
most. Plus, back then, I thought I was totally state-of-the-art. Everything
worked fine, & my A31p ran so fast I had no reason to be thinking about
upgrading.
In Oct 04, after installing that MSN Messenger thing- so I could chat with
my kids- something went terribly, terribly wrong. My A31p locked-up tighter
than a bull's behind in fly season. My hard disk swas pinning at top speed
& no physical action could interupt it. I had to remove my battery to force
a reboot which, of course, did nothing to stop whatever went wrong. In what
follows, I use "locks-up" to refer to this state.
From that day forward, my A31p has done countless wierd and really bad
things including locks-up, rendering it pretty much useless.
No, it isn't a virus; at least according to Norton.
And, no it isn't the Thinkpad; at least according to IBM's repair division.
Consider my frustration trying to get back to work when the following things
were happenning regularly (once or twice an hour).
-it has slowed down by an order of magnitude.
-Auto-update continously told me I need to download critical XP updates.
-whenever I tried to install any XP update, the Install window opened & the
hard disk appeared to be active, but the progress bar remained at 0% no
matter how long I left it running (all weekend once). In any case, it ended
up causing a lock-up; removing its battery is my only way out.
-it never even seemed to know I already downloaded all XP's updates; if I
allowed it, my A31p would download the very same XP updates over and over.
-at random, Explorer would issue an unfound reference error and would enter
into a not respondsive state. Once that happened, while not locked-up
(Ctrl-Alt-Del worked), I had to reboot because no IE browser would respond.
Plus, before shuting down IE opened several dozen windows which are all
empty & cascaded down my screen like stairs.
-Word's lower task (or info) bar would not respond to any mouse activity
until I opened Task Manager and closed it again. I din't have to actually
do anything in TM, just open it and close it.
-the first time I selected File/Save in Word (using any access method like
tool bar our short-cut keys etc.), Word became non-responsive with its
window blinking. Once again, Task Manager corrected this.
-if I opened Word & closed it without opening a doc, Word crashed.
Fortunately, this would not make my Thinkpad lock-up.
In any case, I have a huge complex problem. In addition to my above
mentioned apps, I also had several dozen other very expensive apps. When I
got sick, I somehow managed to lose every single software disk I once owend,
including my miticulous MSDN binder! I cannot afford to buy anymore
software for now. Not only that, all of my apps including Office & Visual
Studio have complex configurations which I do not want to loose. Most
techies advise me to use my Thinkpad recovery disks to start my A31p from
scratch. Ouch!!
Is there anything else I can try? I simply cannot afford to loose
everything on that computer.
Even though I have everything backed up, and I have a Norton image of it, I
cannot see these being of any practical use. Once I 'recover' my thinkpad,
it's empty plain and simple. I loose my ability to run my old apps on it.
So, what do I do with my A31p? And, what steps can I take on my New T42p to
reduce my risk of the same thing happening to it?
(5) Finally, thinking I was savy, I bought all this stuff on-line at the
same time. That was a huge mistake! I used a temporary Hotmail address and
got bombarded with emails to register this & sign up for that. Consider
Microsoft's .NET sign-in which is different from but required in my MSDN
subscription, which is different from but related to Microsoft Open Liscence
agreement, which is different from this newsgroup. If .NET is so good, why
can't my MSDN subscription & Open liscense use my .NET info & give me one
source for Microsoft goods & services?
To make matters considerably worse, IBM has exactly the same problem. They
have "PassportAdvantage" for software, "Access IBM" for Thinkpads &
"Electronic Service Request" for software support. Once again, neither seem
to know or care about the other.
Add to this, my Paypal registration which I required to pay my software and
hardware vendors whom I also had to "register" with to set up my accounts.
Finally, Norton, Adobe, Scansoft, WINZIP, and Macromedia all have their
own electronic registration.
This has left me with a dozen different names and passwords. Not only that,
but each company expected me to download my software over my telephone

You can archive the whole hard drive in the old PC and then put the files
to the new ThinkPad(I did it once using Acronis True Image 8.0) The only
thing you should do next - Reinstall Windows XP in some "tricky" way - load
from Windows CD, select new install and chose repair on the 3rd or 4th blue
screen (don't remember exact). This will help to secure all registy data
concerning installed applications.