KevinR

Thanks for the tip about the compatible version of sysinternals procmon. This place must have been the only site I forgot to search for it on! The version at filehippo is still there and launches nicely on win2k One hint of trouble I did notice about my MPC install was that it included a local copy of D3DX9_41.dll. As this seemed odd, i renamed it to take it out of the picture. It felt as if this improved things but the 0xc0000142 then reappeared. I think it only happens for certain media file type(s) or even certain files. I just tried it with the compatible ProcessExplorer running, and can't find a file to break it at the moment.... Have to see what files I can find. Good tip with the re-registering dlls. Funny how one forgets these old tricks sometimes. I'll try that now too.

on Win2k SP4. = 5.00.2195 Reinstalled an updated media player classic (mpc-hc) 1.2.1008.0 and windows rejects starting the application with error 0xc0000142. I also still have an old mplayer classic 6.4.9 on the system (file dates 2006) and that now gets the same error. I had hoped to get more info via systinternals procmon.exe but cannot find a version of that old enough to run on win2k. (current has orphaned win2k). Using filemon.exe for tracing MPC's last access appears to be to DDRAW.dll. Any suggestions....? For the time being I shall ignore comments about changing OS. This hardware likes win2k.

I just swapped the internals of an old PC running ME, and haven't a more more up to date windows to put on it. I used the "delete the hardware enum" trick to make it recognise the new hardware. That seems quite stable and has even picked up VIA IDE drivers and the USB correctly. Had problems with InstallShield bombing out and solved most of that by renaming the /program files/common/installshield* and /program files/installshield*. It seemed to have retained stuff that clashed with either the installs being run or the system. The thing is trying to install the RealTek sound drivers still gives a problem AFTER the reboot. Setup moves files on the reboot OK but after getting into windows gives an error -5006: 0x80070005 setupdll\setupdll.cpp(1209). I suspect this relates to a slightly broken or confused registry because of the hardware change. Has anyone any thoughts or advice? ccleaner didn't show anything.

Its an Acer Aspire M1610. There are many models. It seems to be the third one = lowest hardware specification + Vista HP. The other loadstone will presumably be the onboard graphics. They did seem to get a good price - £299 including a 19" LCD. Pricing something similar on ebuyer/microdirect etc in a no-name brand base-unit plus a cheap screen came to £345-360 plus delivery. If they really want the new machine I shall probably recommend spending £26 on 2Gb DDR2 from crucial if it works too slowly and sell on their 1Gb (although its only worth about £13 new!). [ aside: amazed how disposable DDR2 now is - DDR1 is getting expensive ]. They only really use email and browser. They could have probably got away with a memory upgrade on their old Win-ME PC. No-one ever asks first.

My brother in law just got tempted by an Acer machine running vista home premium. Sadly this only has a Celeron 430 (1.8MGhz) and 1gb DDR2. Am I correct in thinking that this is going to suck quite a lot. Should he take it back...?!!?