Hi, I was given this laptop and have ironed out most of the problems, except that I would like to have it log into windows automatically without asking for a password. Does anyone know how I can get it to do this? The other thing is that it doesn't seem to have a defrag utility. Can anyone suggest a good, preferably free, one? Thanks, John www.cedargallery.nl

There ought to be a built-in defrag utility, AFAIK, all windows versions after XP come with one. But on the other hand, windows defragger pretty much sucks for a number of reasons. I'd suggest you look for automatic defragmenters. Automatic is more effective than the ancient manual or scheduled defragmentation, because the defragger runs in the background consuming very few resources, but monitors for fragmentation and defrags automatically when it has crossed a threshold. It will defrag only if it is sure that the operation will not affect the programs you are using, so it is very transparent. No more manual/scheduled defragging, and the drive is mostly fragmentation-free most of the time.

My apologies, I didn't see that you had NT4 as the OS. I erroneously assumed that you had XP :( Disregard my statement that NT4 has a built-in defragger; I don't think it does. Also take care in choosing the defragger for NT, because some of them have compatibility issues with NT and Windows versions that are older than XP.

Hi, Thanks for your suggestions. I ended up downloading Sysinternals' System File Defragmeter. It seems to work, but then I wouldn't know how good it is. Just out of curiosity. Is Windows XP based on NT/2000 technology or windows 98/ME? I don't have XP, but I'm curious. Thanks, John www.cedargallery.nl

Windows XP and 2000 are based on the NT kernel, directory structure and principle, basically. I used XP for a lot of my earlier computer years however ever since I got my hands on Windows 2000 a year and a bit ago, have ever since preferred it. That laptop, if it runs NT4, may well be able to run Windows 2000 as well. Btw, Windows 2000 has good USB support even to this day, is VERY stable, and still runs the vast majority of programs. It also has this one feature which I particularly like, which is as you were asking, Auto Logon. The nifty thing is, it can still store your password for you AND log on automatically, which keeps your security at max so you can still lock the workstation at night etc. Windows NT4 lacked things like the group policy editor however many of its features were integrated into User Account control. Haven't had much experience with NT4 but have a root around, you may get what you are looking for. Also, Windows ME was the last version of Windows to carry on the Windows 95/98 principle. The Windows 9x line is now defunct, and all of Microsoft's OSes are in some way NT based. Hope this helped, I like babbling about this stuff :)

Thanks Celsius. This is exactly what I wanted to know.... john www.cedargallery.nl