Windows XP

Apart from a few proven items below, and you have trouble with XP there are hundreds of sites far more qualified than I to get you going again, nevertheless I can recommend the items below.

Image Re-sizer this little program is indispensable, Digital Camera Photo files are too large to send in Emails etc. so you must get this program, it simply adds am Image Resize option to the Right Click (context sensitive) Menu, it is so easy to use. It is available as a Powertoy from the Microsoft Site, or you can simply download the Zip file from here.

BootVis.exe Here is a proven Utility to improve the performance and reliability of XP, it's purpose is to speed up the BOOT UP process and it can be found here, by the way it is an official Microsoft product but it is not supported by Microsoft anymore, clicking on that will download it from this Site.

Recovery Console I have had a bit of grief with Win XP, so let me let you know something they don't tell you on the Box!

On the Win XP CD Rom there is a Recovery Console, you can install this by running this file :- Start/Run and type this   d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons  into the box, or better still Copy and Paste it, please adjust the drive letter to your CD Drive and insert your XP cd rom.

After installation of the recovery console you get a Menu when you Boot Up, just press enter to boot into XP as normal, otherwise scroll down to select the recovery console if you have any trouble with WindowsXP at all, you will now find it a lot easier than booting up with the XP CDRom.

Otherwise if you are really desperate you could try pressing F8 just before you start Windows.

Here is a list of Commands that you can type in from the Recovery Console (its like DOS really !)