Yeah, this HP I'm using right now is going back to Sam's, anyway, as soon as the new Dell I just ordered comes... HP has BURNED ITS BRIDGES with me... after 35 months as a customer with first one, then two computers registered in their database and me ALMOST ordering a replacement for this defective piece of DISPLAYWARE I unfortunately walked out of Sam's Club with, I flaked out of the sale in the middle of the "Checkout" process the other night because I had a couple "issues" I couldn't resolve online (primarily a LONG buildtime I couldn't understand) -- at which point their system popped up a little window asking if I was having a problem I couldn't resolve online and would like someone to call me, and if so, to leave my first and last name, and a phone number and click continue, which I did... then I made sure my "cart" was saved so I wouldn't lose the configuration I had set up, as it takes a few minutes to get one like you want it if you don't just want a stock system (and if I wanted that I'd buy the cheap junk they sell pre-built, like what I'm taking back, lol)... and then I closed the HP window and went about my business... When I hadn't had a call from HP by Monday night (that was Sunday night), I logged on last night to see what was going on, and it showed my cart was EMPTY (of course NAV ran in the interim, so my cookies probably got cleaned, but I DID have an account using my email address and a password, for like 3 years now), so I tried logging on, and my password didn't work... Well I have a few different ones, so I figured maybe I FORGOT which one I was using with HP, so I clicked the "forgot my password" link and plugged in my email address and they HAVE NO RECORD of my email address... So I called them up and talked to one of their sales people, and he searched the computer, and they have NO RECORD OF MY EMAIL ADDRESS, NAME, OR PHONE NUMBER (the primary ways they would have me referenced), which means they likely don't even have my current computer and monitor (the ones that are going back to Sam's and still have 10 months fo warranty left -- supposedly) in their database with my name on them any more. Well, THAT DID IT -- Dell got the sale... But now it's been more than 24 hours since I closed THAT sale, and although I immediately got an automatic email from THEM "acknowledging" the order, I've yet to get the "order confirmation" email, with the "order number" and my "customer number," etc. I just KNOW you folks didn't care about all this jazz, but I'm just SO freakin' frazzled and frustrated with these #$%^&* computer companies right now I could EAT A BULLFROG!!! :-P Somebody PLEASE "pass me a Coke and a smile" or SOMETHING! :) At any rate, with this HP Media Center that's going back to Sam's (not ONE, but TWO defective CD drives, and a cordless mouse that eats batteries like CHEESE), the FIRST THING I did when I got it was create the System Restore disks and Restore it to factory condition (considering it had been a display model for like 8 months, I thought that was QUITE PRUDENT, huh?)... So that's happening AGAIN before it goes back to Sam's, so they don't get anything I paid for, lol, and in the case I.E. 7 DID cause any problems, they'll all go bye-bye... And I'm guessing if this new Dell system EVER DOES "confirm" and ship, it'll COME with I.E. 7, so I really won't have to worry about it, since I really won't have a choice, lol. Ummmmmmmmm, anyone wanna give me a ride to the funny farm so I don't have to leave the car there? :-P

I can't use the back arrow more than twice in a row without having IE6 close. Java can't update, and I can't copy or paste or use my email tools from Charter. It does crazy things like bring up infinite search windows from time to time (until I manually turn the computer off). I have to delete my temporary files manually, the buttons don't have any results under Internet Options. My FTP site is not accessible. IE6 is closing increasingly, yet I have less trouble with software than I've ever had before. Morrowind is a CDTer and most people get anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of play before a CDT, but I can play for hours. The problems are all centered around this IE6 rollback from IE7. All my virus scans are negative, as well as searching for rootkits. This IE6 never did work as it was supposed to...I can't get rid or it unless I start over, and I don't have the time! Who does? marf

Comcast is advertising many things but I'll probably leave well enough alone for now. It is your choice to go for IE7 but I understand that many who chose IE7 wanted to go back to IE6. Comcast offers McAfee Security Suite without cost but I'm content with such free stuff as Zonealarm and AVG, along with Spybot, AdAware, and some others that have kept me free from bad guys so far. I do not normally use IE but choose to use the Firefox browser. It will do just about anything I need. Occasionally I must use IE because the websites that I sometimes visit require IE, but it's IE6 that I'm using.

A long time ago, I did a Mint Mate install(actual install, not live) onto a 16GB Gigaware USB flash drive. It booted slow as molasses and the first time running apps was just as slow. It ran fine afterward though. I considered getting a faster flash drive such as a SanDisk Extreme, but it wasn't it my budget at that time. I seem to remember playing around with bcd.exe but my memory is short. Some day I'll have to give EasyBCD a try. In the meantime, GRUB works for me. An extraordinarily boring (and embarrassing, mostly because I flubbed customizing GRUB2 because I'm too lazy to learn to use it properly right now) video of my installing Mint Mate alongside Windows 10 in a virtual machine... I suppose the point is that they can, at least sometimes, live happily beside one another. I was really expecting Mint Mate to offer to "install alongside windows" and auto-partition but it did not. Don't some other Ubuntu based distros do that? Or is it just full blown Ubuntu? Anyway, after all my stumbling, doing it incorrectly, redoing etc., Grub now reads exactly the way I want, remembers the previous boot choices etc. ... That's just a virtual machine though. I wouldn't suggest others try it on their real machines. I suppose if one were to practice setting up a dual boot system, a virtual environment would be the safe place to learn, right? BTW, I used Oracle's VirtualBox in the above videos. Free and open source. Oops, I just read the warning on the VirtualBox download page: "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!" Oh well, seems to run fine for me.