Digsy

I recently tried to sell a watch which cost about £1k new but I literally couldn't give it away at any local jewellers. They were only interested in Rolex and such as viable for reselling second hand.

To be fair I did some reading up on UAC and as you say it doesn't do what I thought it did, so if I hadn't fixed the root cause I would have turned it off. Ian, some day I shall show you the Corel tech "support" e-mail thread. Today's installment told me that in fact ALL Windows programmes have to be run with admin rights, because of "Windows policy". I wrote back explaining how I fixed the problem myself, and am now awaiting them to close the ticket and send me the auto-generated customer feedback form. Corel actually charge $20 per query for support tickets raised after the initial 30 day period! Maybe they put better people on the paid-for tickets, eh? WinDVD Pro isn't really bloatware - it just does one job which is to play a relatively narrow list of media files. The only other real competitor is PowerDVD which by comparison tries to take over your entire media experience, but I found it to be slow and really unstable. Its a case of being stuck betwen a rock and another much bigger rock. Sadly HTPCs have been rendered largely obsolete by smart TVs and on demand services like Netflix, and relatively cheap, user friendly hardware. Judging by the user reviews on Amazon, the next trial will be when it needs updating to keep the DRM stuff up to date - that frequently seems to break it.

WinDVD Pro plays Blu Rays, which is why I need it.

OK, I seem to have fixed this myself. Went through the registry and removed as many references to WinDVD as I could, then re-installed. The installer asks for two file locations, one for the main programme which goes in C:\Program files (x86)\Corel\WinDVD and the other which normally defaults to C:\Program data\sMedio... which is a hidden location. I changed the latter to go in my user home area. Either there was a borked registry setting, or one of the default file locations was protected somehow. Anyway - it works.

I too am the only user of the PC, but ths kind of consumer-oriented software is precisely what should not require admin rights. i.e. its aimed at people who just want to watch a video. Not sure about the crappy software comment. I've installed plenty of crappy software on my PC but nothing that isn't concened with security or changing the PC configuration in some way, has ever demanded admin rights just to launch. As I mentioned above, the free trial version runs fine under a standard user account. I want to play native Blu-ray discs, legitimately, without ripping to MKV first and without all the faff that goes along with using seperate freeware or payware decoders (like Slysoft AnyDVD). I want a solution which integrates with my existing HTPC and is as close to using a stand alone player as possible, with a proper 10' GUI. There are currently only two software players which do this: WinDVD Pro and PowerDVD. I tried both as time limited demos and plumped for WinDVD Pro. Total Media Theatre used to be the Blu player of choice for HTPCs but they stopped selling it a while back.

I recently bought (yes!) and installed Corel WinDVD. This software gets a LOT of bad reviews for instability, updates that permanently break it, poor aftersales support and so on, so I Was very wary about getting it. However the PRE-sales support was very good and I even managed to secure a discount once the free trial version expired. HOWEVER: The fully paid verison only wants to run under an admin account which I find very strange as it is only a glorified media player. I have a support ticket open with Corel about this but the guy handling it simply does not understand my problem. Hopefully someon on here will. Here is what happens: I have two user accounts on my PC. One with standard permissions and once with admin permisisons. The admin account requires a password. 1) Starting from within the standard account. 2) Launch the installer. 3) Windows UAC asks for the admin password to allow installation of the software (totally normal behaviour). 4) Winstaller runs and closes. 5) Click icon to launch WinDVD. Nothing happens, but if you watch what is going on with Task Manager, the WinDVD.exe process runs for about 1 second before closing. 6) Run with admin rights (right click, run as administrator): The UAC admin passwrd box pops up and then WinDVD launches properly. 7) Log out and log back in as admin 8) WinDVD launches normally. I though that maybe I should install WinDVD from the admin account and make it available to all users, but it behaves exactly the same. The trial verison does require the admin password to install it, but not to launch it. The plonker I am speaking to at Corel support says that the programme needs admin rights otherwise "some features might not work". This is clearly cobblers bacause (a) the trial version is fully featured, just time limited and (b) it won't run at all under a standard account, so in fact "no features" are working. Also its ridiculous for a media player aimed at consumers to require unrestricted access to my PC. I am not going to disable UAC. Also, Windows 7 does not not allow you to specify permanent permissions for individual user / software cobminations. Its either UAC on or Off. Setting the WinDVD.exe file to "always run as administrator" still requires me to type in the admin password, so that's clunky and still a security risk, so not a solution. I even downloaded the Windows Compatability Toolkit from Microsoft and attempted to create a permanent patch following the instructions for a different bit of software that suffers a similar issue, but it didn't work. Any thoughts? I have 30 days free after sales support remaining and the option to request a refund if I get no joy but I'd really like to get this to work.

I've already suggested to Rosie that she comes to Norfolk to go for a spin in Brian's new 'vette. She could do the same in Ian's car. It always goes smoothly when the Norfolk crew get together for a quiet meal out with their cars...

Your nickname is genius

Does anyone on this board use this software to play media on their PCs, especially Blu-rays? I'd be interested to hear your experiences.

Not likely Mine puts a red warning light up on the dash if it judges I am too close to the car in front. If the gap starts decreasing above a certain rate the light starts to flash and beep. Apparently then next stage if for the car to start braking.

How different is this to the "citybrake" or similar systems that many cars have now? My new Merc says it will stop me smacking into the back of another car in a queue. Not sure if its as aggressive as that, though. No, I haven't tested it yet!

Entirly depends on the horse. Some are born escape artists, others wouldn't move from their paddocks if you let a lion loose in there with them. Some respect electric fences, some don't (depends a lot on the quality of the fence and how much they have been zapped in the past). I've seen horses lean on a live electric fence until it falls over just to get a few mouthfulls of grass from the other side. Presumably the amount of current going to it at the time was quite low. My boy used to need a good zap about once every three months to refresh his memory When grazing gets low in their own feild, a horse will reach over or through a fence to nibble a bit further if they can. What sometimes happens in these situations is that the fence gives way and the horse wanders through and gorges itself, unaware that they have done anything wrong. Horses and ponies who will actually leap a fence specifically to get to grazing are relatively rare in my experience. Much more common to do it to get to another horse for company. Leaping out of a paddock with company means leaving the security of the herd and horses usually put safety before everything else. Horses that do escape are easily spotted by the Stalag Luft IV grade fences and wire that their owners have erected around their fields in a desparate attempt to keep them in Short version: If you see a horse in a field with a low fence, then the owner already knows it won't jump out (or there were two horses in there originally and one has already scarpered).

On a side note, I believe that you have to get planning permission now if you want to change your driveway surface, as it will affect drainage. Can someone confirm this?

This, this and thrice this. Where this idea about putting copper grease on wheel mating faces came from, God only knows.

This.

It'll be the alternator. Don't put any more new batteries on it until its checked out or you will just knacker them. Lead acid batteries don't like being run completely flat.

My ex's neighbour did this with used oil from the trucks he used to service for a living. One day the fence was taken down and replaced, and we had a bonfire with it one summer night. It burned well. I mean REALLY well. Unfortunately, the ex and I fell asleep in front of it and woke up with red eyes, streaming noses and sore throats. We didn't put to and two together until much later when he told us what he had treated the fence with. I often wonder how many years that bonfire has taken off my life...

It probably costs a tenner to manufacture

Might be worth banging your room dimensions into this calculator to see which frequencies the room will naturally enhance. If you can route your PC through your audio setup with all the EQstuff set to flat then you can play each predicted resonant mode and see which ones boom. http://amroc.andymel.eu/amroc_andymel_eu_calculator.php

G&W turn out some cracking stuff. Always spot something interesting on the shop floor if I pop over there.

I had the car chassis that predated that one. The red four seater with the inline four engine and two speed gearbox. I later got a book which suggested a body that could be built to go on top of the chassis. Turns out it was a Volvo http://www.thecreativebrick.co.uk/2013/01/car-chassis-technic-set-853/

Drop Supragal a PM.

Come on guys, SW isn't even remotely "hard" SciFi - it is and always had been a Space Opera. And I stand by that even though EP4 is my second fave film of all time. You're not meant to over analyse it. Not everything has have a watertight backstory and for pity's sake stop asking for everything to be explained!!! I love films where its like you have just walked through the door into a story part way, and you just have to accept the "universe" for what it is. In EP4 Han Solo could say he did the Kessell Run in less that 12 parsecs in his "peice of junk" and you just had to accept that without knowing what it was, how he did it, why it was so important or why it's even relevant when a parsec is a measure of distance, not time. I saw Mad Max: Fury Road a few days back and loved that too. Completely bonkers, explains pratically nothing. Mr. Lucas freely admits that the entire SW saga is aimed at children. He says its "not his fault" that adults love it too. However for me EPs 4, 5 and (to a certain extent) 6 were films that could be enjoyed on an adult level, whereas the prequels were more childISH. EP7 marks a return to a more mature approach.

I'm right on the limits of my knowledge here but when you say "web based interface" do you mean you are accessing the NAS directly over your LAN but just using a web browser, or actually over the internet? Since it was a cloud access package you installed, could this have changed the ports that you access the NAS on, and maybe your router has got to be set up to lest these ports through? I run a min web server on my NAS and I had to set up port forwarding on my router to get access to it from the outside world.