Anyone tried duplicating their system partition under windows XP ? I cloned mine onto a new disk with Norton Ghost 9.0 DiskCopy but am unable to boot from it . It hangs on the welcome screen without displaying the user login options . I've searched the web, and tried everything - disabling indexing/system restore; booting as master/slave and so on, without success . Could it be an issue with XP OEM/retail box (mine's OEM), path mapping, data corruption during cloning ... ? Ghost 9.0 installs with .Net framework 1.1 which introduced a a bunch of system processes that slowed down PC bootup . I'm beginning to regret taking this course of action as it also appears that XP's System Restore is as good as Ghost's Disk Imaging . And the DiskCopy doesn't seem to work . Heeelp, any ideas, anyone ?

After getting the service pack 1 update from Mighty Mike for .Net framework, things worked fine - I'd at least have expected some documentation on it from Symantec, instead of finding it out by trial and error . For developers, the .NET Framework 1.1 makes it easy to rapidly create powerful software that maximizes performance, scalability, opportunities for integration, reliability, security, and the end-user experience, while minimizing the costs of deployment and management. Not to mention a whole bunch of security holes and application bugs - Sheesh ... looks like .Net framework is here to stay, at least on my system .

Weird. The .NET framework should only start processes when a .NET application is started, at least, that's the way it works on my systems. I don't have Ghost 9.0, I use 7.0, works for me, no need to upgrade. Might be a Ghost 9.0 issue, I don't think MS is to blame (this time).

My previous experience with Ghost was a console based product that came with an old motherboard . I got the newer Ghost to manage the numerous partitions I'm using . .Net framework creates an additional security setting in the MIE browser with .Net framework reliant components ! I'm not sure, but there seems to be a bunch more of Svchost.exe (5 in all) running in Task Manager . After installing .Net 1.1, the XP bootup jumped from 5 to 13 progress bar cycles at the bootup screen . It remained the same after removing Ghost from the system tray but returned to normal after appying the patch (service pack) . The patch, according to the documentation, is to address some customer and security issues . Anyway, all's well that ends well; touchwood; fingers crossed . Maybe yours is .Net 1.0 . BTW, there's a 2.0 beta for download from Mighty Mike .

I run .NET Framework 1.1 with Visual Studio 2003, with .NET service packs applied. Then again, I've never run .NET 1.1 apps without that service pack. I like the .NET framework. It's like the Java VM, but modernized, it's conceptually a very good way to make applications. Those who say MS has copied the Java paradigm are absolutely right, you could say .NET is Java for Windows. And it's definitely here to stay, many parts of Longhorn are coded in .NET.

Javanese Longhorn ... Bring me the beef . :)