Andrew, Yes you can make XP boot off of a USB stick, but you will need two things...
1. you will need a USB drive that is 10gb or bigger in size
2. You will need a machine that supports the boot from USB feature..

NOTE: They recommend that you use a 256mb or bigger stick, but in my past experience i would go 10gb or bigger..

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5928902.html

I had windows 7 installed on a core2duo 3.06GHZ with 3gb DDR3 but it was slow compared to XP, and really slow compared to ubuntu... so i just wiped it and virtualized it...

If you get a chance check out www.tweakwin7.com

They have some great mods you can make to speed it up.. or manage it..

Andrew,
You may want to dual boot it, or setup VM on it.. only reason why is LARGE files on Windows has a tendency of slowing things down greatly..
Indexing etc..
Check out ESX-I from VM-Ware you have to setup a profile on their site but ESX-I is free... Also look at SUN microsystems VirtualBox which is a VMWare freebe that runs on Ubuntu, and you can Run Windows 2k8 server and exchange virtually... Might be easier..

Im all for microsoft.. Im MCSE, MCITP and working to MCM.. but Linux still is a much better file server... and Apache is also Killer compared to IIS.. Damn DCOM issues... HA!

Andrew,
Let me know if XP works.. Id be interested in seeing what the issue is, if it is with 7...
I am getting ready for a project, which is gonna suck.. I got myself into a migration of 600+ desktops from XP to 7..
Only issue is their is no direct path.. SO im trying to automate it from 2k8 server... Funny that Beta 2k8 R2 has the process, but 2k8 R1 does not have the migration process built in.. No plans on it either according to microsoft... Further, they are running hardware which i think is gonna be crushed, but hey its their money.. "what do i know im just IT" LOL..

Andrew,
It will still work, but you would need to call Microsoft on its failure and tell them that it wont work.. Just state you reformatted the machine to clean up viruses, and they will give you another code... Or what you can do is run a program called Magic Jelly bean, and it will tell you all of your Serial key number/registration codes, then just write them down, you would need to do this prior to reformat..
They also fixed it with vista and windows 7, but with Xp you had a multi-processor key, the key could work on 2 processors.. well the only issue with that back when xp came out,(which is why Quad cores don't show up that way in XP) is that their was only hyper-threading which didn't show as 2 processors, as a dual core will..
So as their license was written, if you have a P3 or P4 processor, single core, you could legally install the OS on two machines using a single key. They later rewrote this and now it is different in licensing and being legal... "technical Loophole"

Andrew,

I want to start with, i don't get involved in any web based development or database issues, the last database i worked with was AS400... As that is the case, i dont want to give you wrong information, but i did speak to my friend.. And this is What is Noted as an issue right now..

(IE8 will not work correctly with Expression 2, you will get pages that state to be compatible but you will see header information and missing links in published pages, this is NOTED by microsoft and they are working on a solution to the issue, The issue has been fixed with Expression Version 3, in publishing, but has not been fixed in IE8 yet... This was Noted as an issue with Windows 7 as IE8 is native to it Microsoft says if you are not running Windows 7 you should downgrade to IE7 till the issue is resolved)

I would try to view your published pages with IE7 or with Firefox to see if you still have the issue...

I dont know if this helps, but my buddy told me that their are to many possibilities to cause your issue, but he said the most recent has to do with Windows 7, or IE8, and i am uncertain as to what you are running, but figured if you are using IE8 you may want to start their to see if you are really having your publishing issue, or if you think you are because of IE8.

As for your other issue, he said that it is possible you are having these issues due to IE8 and how it ties into the OS..

If you are running Windows 7, you may want to contact Microsoft directly as they may be able to provide you with a clean install disk without the IE pre installed, then you can run IE7.

Option 1.
With dell, get the service tag, call dell, ask to purchase a replacement recovery disk, they will charge you (don't quote me on this) 25 bucks for the disks and the shipping.. The machine would need to be licensed for windows XP in order to get this... as 2k is no longer supported..

Option 2.
Find a friend who has a netbook, take their XP home disk and reinstall the OS using the key stamped on your dell desktop, Find a friend with an HP or Dell machine who has the Windows XP pro install disk, and reinstall the OS with the key stamped on your dell desktop.
Download the NIC drivers from dells website, install them on the desktop, then just run a custom update from windows website to install all the other drivers and windows updates..
(NOTE: if the key fails you may have to call microsoft, make sure to just tell them you reformatted, if they ask you got a virus, DO NOT MENTION you used software borrowed from a friend)


Andrew,
Definitely correct, Dell, Hp, Gateway all did that partition crap..
(Also, no gruff on the installing drivers from Microsoft's website, I know all about that, but for the sake of ease.. well ya know?)

Def dont shell out that much for a test machine..
Go to www.microcenter.com they have used AMD based machines, and usually for a sub 200.00 price.. thats where i got mine... although im fairly possitive at this point you can ebay a new Athalon 64 and buy a new board for less then 200 bucks anyway...
Just a thought..
If you are looking new, you can get a Turion 64 for about 500 bucks in a toshiba laptop with 2gb of ram.. just toss the Vista crap out, and through on 2k8 server and 2k7 exchange..
I really dont know how well it will run, but hell my athalon 64 runs good, so how bad could it be? Toshiba laptops are great, but their LCD's seem to crap out prematurely, they don't die, they fade.. and they have cooling issues, which will light your nuts on fire, but aside from that, they really use some high end hardware... Board is MSI, Memory is Kingston, HD is western digital, LCD is Toshiba... which if anything tells you, you may wanna stay clear of their LCD TV's, odd thing is the processors in their laptops are the same as the Desktops processor, and have huge heatsink and cooling fans.. (flat and wide) They are the only ones i have seen like that.. which may be the reason for the LCD death, heat ya know?

IBM,(lenovo) did make solid machines... Their laptops have had issues with the power connector, (dubbed the name stinkpad) however since they have become Chinese they have terrible support... I would definitely stand clear of them at this point... (aside from their servers, which retain the US support on tier 2 or higher)

Exchange supports the old skool AMD64 processors.. Just to save you some money, you may want to just buy a used AMD64 athalon machine..
You can get them pretty cheap, Im running one now with a 2k7 exchange setup.. (paid 150.00 for it, and 100.00 for an additional 2gb of memory)
Just dont go IA-64 as exchange wont run on them..

Well, recently Dell was taken back over by the Dell family and has shifted main support back to the US... Now whether or not their employees are heavy Indian or not.. They are in the US, in TX.

I just wont buy HP anymore because a company during the Recession that shifts 24k+ jobs to other countries, not to mention right before the holidays putting all of those people out of work doesn't sound like a company i would want to spend money on...

Well it sucks but your kinda out of luck..
I mean you could spend months trying to find the correct sequence of software that you need to update your machine to the point where things work... The error you got was due to the version of opera, IE as it is native to windows will not allow you to upgrade to a version that isn't supported. Opera as it is native to Apple doesn't know the difference between windows or any other OS. This is why i usually just stick with IE.. Now if you didn't restore i could easily have walked you though repairing the machine, but since you did restore back to factory settings, AKA recovery; you are now missing updates that havent been around in a long while..
You can try to...
Go to google and search installer 2.0 for windows ME, you should get a link for microsoft, you will need to download and install that...
then..
you should be able to install IE6 then IE6 sp1,
You will need to download them first, then install them as windows updates will not work...
which can be found on www.oldversion.com
aside from that, their are no other available updates anymore. I searched around through my Files too, to see if i had them, but i no longer do...

FYI: Unicode compatibility layer OUniAnsiDLL
Unicode to ANSI conversion is for Windows 95/98/ME to run Opera, they took out that support when windows 7 was released, the last version is 10.01 that supports Windows 95-ME.
Nice of them to tell you right?

Totally agree,
Best defrag utilities i have found, maybe you know of a better one, which i would love to try if you do..
But free O&O defrag 2000 which runs in XP but not Vista, is a rip off of the one found in NT4 which was a great Defrag utility, they seem to have gotten a little more crappy as the generations of windows have gone..

DiskKeeper 2007 was also a great one, since you could increase your MFT file, and defrag at boot, they changed the 08 and 09 versions and it is no longer as good, but if you go to Oldversion.com you can download 07 and try it, the trial is very good..

Also,
You may want to run in the command prompt a Baseline defrag, which will push the data to the outside of the disk and also increase performance...
(NOTE: Solid state disks should never be defraged as it will damage the drive, this is important because a bunch of new Netbooks have these drives)

To baseline..
Click Start
Click RUn
Type in CMD press enter
in the command prompt type in defrag c: -b and press enter..
their is no function to show it working, it will apear to freeze, just let it do its thing..
Then run your normal defrag, i.e. Defrag C: -f

Id go with dell since HP has laid off 24,600 US employee's last week, and honestly i will be boycotting them for that...

Ultimately all your machines, dell, sony, gateway, hp, compaq, whatever all use the same internals...

Really what you want is to go for cost, Acer is generally cheap, but if something breaks, i am not sure what kind of support you will get..
Dell has Decent support and i am typing this on a dell laptop that i have owned for over 10 years without an issue, and yes the original Battery still works, and lasts about 4 hours... (Can explain battery maintenance if needed to help yours last forever too)

If you are going to do heavy video, MP3, Or heavy photo work on it... You are going to have to spend more then average, as they all require you to have some decent hardware, if you are going to just watch movies, then you can get away with a no frills cheaper machine.. If you are going to watch movies downloaded to your machine you will want to make sure you have a fast video card, memory, and hard drive...

Best specs for watching downloaded movies..
1. Hard drive, 7200RPM SATA mandatory, if not you will notice skipping.. Also keep in mind size, and weigh out the cause and effect. If you are running windows, windows will index the movies, and movies especially in HD are HUGE, the smallest i have seen is roughly 5gb in size typically 1-1.5hrs long 480P-ED "enhanced Definition", Blue ray movies are 25gb, which means you could have 9 movies and your OS on your machine with a 250GB hard drive before it was full, if you buy a desktop you can get TB (tarabyte) drives cheap, which will hold 36HD movies and your OS, but they are expensive on a laptop.. Your machine will index, which will cause you to be really slow, that is why most downloaded movies should be stored on an external drive, the more space you have filled on a machine, the slower the machine will run, unless you disable indexing, or you use an external drive.
2. 128MB video card Minimal (NOTE:512mb required for HD 1920x1080)
3. 4GB memory PC5200 DDR2 minimal (NOTE: 32bit will not see more then 3.96GB of memory, but laptops share video memory with RAM)
4. Intel Core2duo, speed doesn't much matter, as you will be relying on physical speed, rather then processing power for watching movies stored locally, if you are going to watch them from an external drive make certain your next machine supports USB2.0 or better.
5. 1GB Nic card, or N-Speed wireless, with a supported Router, if not it will take forever to download a movie, this will also help for speed if you are streaming from Hulu or whatnot..
6. Most important, ask yourself if you need this to be portable, because desktops, connected to your HDTV are generally cheaper, and usually are much better at this..
7. Check your contract with your ISP, (Internet service provider) they may charge for bandwidth over a certain amount, and if you are downloading 25+GB's of information daily, you will be paying a ton..

Andrew,
I will ask my colleague this one, as i am not a programmer, or a website developer, however bare with me about 24hrs on this and i will see if i can get a "how to" on this issue, or if you are gonna have to reload dream weaver.

Thanks for the question..


Andrew,
In the mean time, you might want to go here..
http://social.expression.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/categories
This is a microsoft based forum, that will have better information, also, from what i have read their, it seems that you are not alone in this issue, however they may be better suited to answer your question.
I will still ask my Colleague about this and as soon as i get some kind of response i will post it on here...

FYI.. PayPal alternatives and write up's can be found here..

http://www.screw-paypal.com/alternatives/alternatives_general_recommended.html

Id just take the drive apart and smash the crap out of the hard drive.. Also you might want to note, that memory, Ram, stores data in its banks, to remove it, make sure you pull the sticks out of the board, also remove the battery from the board to clear the bios.


If you want to wipe the drive, the legit way, to meet compliance you need to do a multi-pass drive clear via software or a process called degaussing..
Honestly the easiest safest way is to just crush the drive with a mallet or hammer..

NOTE: You cannot just through away a computer as the boards contain Lead.

Product: software, it will take a few hours if not days to run,
http://www.dban.org/

Degausser
http://www.garner-products.com/harddrive.htm

http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs-Xubuntu/9.10/release/xubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso


Direct link to download Xubuntu


Requirements;

P2 500Mhz
64MB ram
2GB of hard disk space..

Note the Link is for 32Bit Intel/Amd processor machines Only!

To be completely honest, with ME, their isnt much you can do, your issue with you running the different browsers sounds like you are missing needed MS windows updates, and since it is no longer supported you are really stuck, i assume you can download them off the net somewhere, but i haven't touched ME since 2000.

I would recommend that you download and install Xubuntu
you can get it here www.xubuntu.org it is a free OS, it is supported, and should run on your hardware, however, if you need windows in order to run certain programs, unfortunately you are kind of out of luck.

you will need a CD burner, and will need an ISO burner,
I would suggest downloading and using ActiveISO which if you search on google you will find it, its free..

As for printers, if the printer is the age of the machine, you will need to look for drivers on the net, download, save AS do not download or open from the site, save to a folder, or your desktop, and if needed you may need to get winzip to run the folder, also all-in-one printers will not work, as you will need .net framework for your machine, but you will not be able to get it without windows updates, you can download it but it will most likely not work due to various different updates needed.

Ultimately you need a newer machine, you dont need to buy brand new, you can get a new-er refurb machine from microcenter for about 99 bucks.. with windows xp. www.microcenter.com

AV for old machines.. Stinger from McAfee should work, so should Malwarebytes.
They are both free, neither will do automated scans...
If need be i can give you instructions as to how to make a simple program to automate the scans with malwarebytes.

Well this one is difficult to tell since i have no idea as to their network structure, but on a guess, i would say it is like this..


You get mail here...
Their is an automated message logger that checks for mail every 15min.
The message is logged, and sent to queue, the que sends the mail,
the mail hits yahoo's server.. the server sees if it matches any of the qualitys of spam, checks your settings, checks the list, and delivers the mail.

Now if you are connected to the mail via outlook add in an additional 5-15min time to check the mail..

Again this is just a hunch since i have no clue what either networks run, or if you use a client..

it has taken me a day to get mail from here, so 45min is not that big of a delay...

Thanks for the question

OK Windows ME, it will not run IE8, IE7.. I cant help you with Opera, since that is Mac owned i wont get involved with that. I will say you can run IE6 with SP1 you can find that here:
[html] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1E1550CB-5E5D-48F5-B02B-20B602228DE6&displaylang=en [/html]
you can also run Firefox Version 3.0.13
[html] http://www.oldversion.com/download_Mozilla_Firefox_3.0.13.html [/html]

If you need other software it can be found here
www.oldversion.com
This will also have AIM and YIM for ME..
Note you will need to google what versions will work.. or just ask here...
You will get prompted to update both Firefox and IE, but just say no, or disable, since if you update you will have the same issues.

Hope this helps..