I don't have an issue there. My resolution is FHD 1920 x 1080 and I don't run the browser maximised but set it to around 1024px width as most fixed-width websites fit well.

I have a 19 inch LCD monitor and Win 7 is limiting me to max resolution of 1024 x 768. Under XP Pro I could set the resolution to anything I liked. Seems Microsoft is now telling me how it's going to be unless I buy a bigger screen -- which I don't want to do.

This is one of the reasons I hung onto XP for so long.

I'll take this up with Resurrection Harry tomorrow -- he may have given me an el cheapo screen driver.

I'm running 1920 x 1080 here with win7.

I'd say you need to upgrade your video driver.

The only backup I make, other than data, are entire hard drive clones complete with installed operating system and installed programs.
That way if anything goes bad, or even remotely suspicious, another hard drive is literally ready to boot from.

Another way is to set up two discs in a RAID array, though most run of the mill computers can't do it because there are only two SATA sockets on them, one for the hard disc and one for the DVD drawer. You pretty much need to build your own to achieve it. In a RAID array, if one disc carks it, the other keeps things going until the dud is replaced. When the replacement is installed the good disc writes a parallel copy to it.

It's been a commonplace set up on servers for a very long time and this contributes to the longevity of the server's uptime.

Having been involved with a large number of large-terabyte video servers, when you've got 500 or so simultaneous users all streaming video files, as well as background transcoding happening, these things flog their disks HARD and failures are common. Raid controller card failures are just as common, even with fans blasting air through these machines.

There are different levels of Raid, which in its lower incarnations isn't the panacea it's touted to be. You can still lose data.

I use RAID1 here. It's just a matter of the likelihood of a failure and the impact it'll have versus the ease of set up. VR's first server's RAID driver only supported RAID0 and RAID1 so I just kept what was in use the first time. RAID5 or RAID6 is probably a better choice for a video server with millions of customers.

A few years ago I managed to totally hose a PC running XP when I tried to restore the registry to a saved backup a week older. Computer then would not boot up, but would get hung at some point.

The registry is a temperamental SOB at the best of times and it definitely pays only to make changes if one has to. I'll admit it is a file I've never backed up when tinkering but I triple-check everything I've done before closing. Is starting in safe mode still an option for that computer? If so a rescue attempt could be made through that. If not you may have to make the C: drive on that computer a D: drive on another one and do any repairs manually - making sure you are editing the right registry of course. You don't want two non starters.

I only use it for changing ports that other programmes like Remote Desktop listen on. The default port (3389) can only be changed in the registry unfortunately.