- But first: -

Unlike most, if not all, other bloggers, I didn’t send out emails to my list wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and clogging up the internet. This was because I was so badly affected by a very heavy flu-like cold, which I believe a large percentage of the UK have also contracted, that I just wasn’t up to doing any writing from Wednesday 23rd until now. Even now I have itchy sniffles, slightly aching muscles, and feel too hot and too cold in sequence, but I have to get this show back on the road. – I think I’m going to do my utmost to avoid colds as much as possible in future: The last one I had, earlier in 2009, knocked me out for a few days too; and I really don’t like feeling mentally-incapacitated due to a microscopic lifeform invading my body and breeding: In fact I felt so much like crap that at one point I had to check that I wasn’t evolving into Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo. (Is that a gypsy violinist I hear nearby?)

I hope you all enjoyed your celebrations anyway; whether or not you’re on my list. If you’re not on my list then you’ve been missing out and will continue to miss out in 2010 unless you join ASAP: You’ll no doubt see that large blue form at the top of the sidebar which promises you a free report. – Well, all you need do is enter an email address at which you’d like to receive communications, and click the “Get it Free” button… And that’s it: I’ll handle all the rest – ‘no need for you to worry about a thing. – That includes your privacy: Read my Privacy Policy.

2010 just a few days away eh? Happy New Year to you all; just in case I get hit by some other disease before then. (X-fingers.) I don’t know about you, but to me it seems like only yesterday that I was down by the river with a friend watching the fireworks herald in the year 2000. In a way I wish it were 2000 now; as this blog, as it is now, would most likely have made me a tidy sum of money already; without really trying that hard. – But things have changed: No longer do a select few “cool” people have their own website. Now pretty much everyone and their dog has a website; and it’s no longer a case of sticking up a few banners and watching the cash roll in. Things have changed, and will no doubt continue to do so in the following decade.

On that note I want to share something with you; yes it’s free – for now anyway, I’m not sure what this’ll be leading on to, but it’ll be good. [I think you may need to act fast if you want to get onto whatever’s happening; otherwise you might have to wait a while. I didn’t get a chance myself to find out exactly what’s going on.] Anyway, no charge; I think this may be useful to you if you have a blog or are thinking of blogging in the coming decade: Click here for more on that.

Now we’ve got that out of the way; I want to talk a bit more about 64-bit and memory: -

On a hardware level, different machines have different physical RAM capabilities. This is usually governed by the processor and/or chipset architecture’s capacity to address x number of memory-locations. Also, of course, the amount of RAM that can be used is governed by the number of RAM-slots, and the capabilities of the RAM-controllers.

On a software level, theoretically, a 64-bit operating system is capable of addressing thousands of terabytes of memory; but in reality this could overcomplicate things and cause development costs to rise out of proportion: Therefore most 64-bit operating systems are only capable of addressing a few hundred gigabytes maximum. Going back to hardware; even this amount of memory would, at the time of writing, take up a lot of space on the motherboard. Generally most motherboards available today will be able to utilise anything between 8 and up to 32 GBs RAM as a maximum.

So how much RAM do I need? How much should I have installed?

That depends on a number of factors: Firstly; are you running a 32 or a 64-bit operating system? If you’re running a 32-bit operating system then you won’t need any more than 4 GBs, and the machine won’t see all of that either. – Having said that; the more the merrier. – Up to 4GBs with a 32-bit OS, that is, and as much as you like/can get with a 64-bit OS.

I have a computer running 32-bit Windows XP Professional SP3 on an AMD Athlon 64×2 dual-core processor, with 2GBs RAM without any problem. I’ve even set the registry to commit all operations to RAM rather than the paging file, and it’s ‘happy as Larry. The most memory-intensive thing I do on it is search through thousands of large files, which sometimes takes it to the wire, but nonetheless, it’s working fine.

I also have a computer running 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium on an AMD Phenom x3 triple-core processor. It has 8GBs RAM installed; although it rarely uses more than 5, no matter what I do on it. I don’t use many memory-hungry resource-hogging, graphics-intensive programs on it though. If I did I might use all 8MBs and need more. I know of someone who has fitted and used all 16MBs of memory on their Mac; so it varies from person to person.

A 64-bit OS should run on tickover quite easily with only 2GBs RAM, and have some to spare. I recommend a minimum of 4MBs, personally though, for normal use, with a 64-bit OS.

Can I have “too much RAM”?

In short, in the case of a 64-bit OS; no: If you have more RAM installed than the computer can use at the time, it simply won’t use it until and if ever it needs it.

Even in the case of a 32-bit OS, you can install 32 GBs if you like, as long as you don’t mind the fact that the operating system will never see more than 4 of those gigabytes.

A 64-bit operating system will see it though; whether or not it has to use it: So install it, why not, if you can and if you can spare a few extra readies: At least you’ll know it’s there for if the machine ever needs it.

Any questions? Anything to add? Come on, don’t be shy; there’s a comment box somewhere below, and it’s there to be used.

This was searched for on my blog: The temptation is just too great, and so, my 64-bit-fixation not yet retired to the back of my mind, I’ll answer it directly: -

Some people think it’s a sign of idiocy to answer a question with a question. Personally I don’t. – Although I myself don’t profess to be a Christian; according to the Christian Bible, Jesus Christ himself often answered a question with a question. Look at the number of followers he has, even after 2000+ years! ( – If only Twitter were around in His day.)

So in answer I’d ask the inquirer posing the question: -

‘Why aren’t new 16-bit, 8-bit, and 4-bit computers available any more?’

Do you remember the days of DOS, when 8MBs of RAM were considered a big-deal? 16-bit-processing was the standard, and DOS, which is still in a way a large part of the framework that Windows is constructed upon, was originally a 16-bit operating system. – Nobody much programs in DOS these days. I used to write the odd batch-file in Windows 98 to freak people out at college, much to my tutor’s displeasure; particularly in view of the fact that I was on an electronics course rather than a computer course – but I think that was the last time I used it.

(‘Remember Fortran and Cobol? – That’s another subject entirely. Going back even further; machine-code: It’s still at the heart of all computing, and is the original computing language… Kind of. ‘Remember that board with one of the first 1MHz processors on it, that you could only program in machine-code? (‘Around 1977/8-time if I remember correctly. – It cost about £600GBP!) – I knew someone who had one; but I still never learned to program in machine-code, to my discredit.)

Did you know you can build your own 4-bit analogue-to-digital/D – A converter from just 4 quad 2-input TTL NAND-gate chips? – Those were the days; eh?

Why does this person want a 32-bit new computer anyway? Do I hear “I have old peripheral hardware that won’t operate in a 64-bit environment.”?

- Run 32-bit XP Pro in a virtual machine inside 64-bit Windows 7. – That’s one way round it. – See this article. ( It was quite astounding to find out that I wrote that article as long ago as 25th June: It seems like only a couple of weeks ago!) – Better still; get new hardware, whatever.

It sounds like our enquirer needs something like an Atari, maybe? : That was actually a very good computer for its time.

Joking and sarcastic quips aside, though; progress rules: Technology moves ever onwards.

On that note I am, actually, looking forwards to the first 128-bit commercially-available operating system’s release. A few supercomputers are already using a 128-bit operating-system; so I very much doubt that it’ll stay in the ultra-geek-world only for that much longer.

Please do use that little-used comments-box and state your opinion.

- Oh and if you’re wondering why it’s so small, and why it asks you to log in: The reason is that I’m using the Disqus comment system – which gives comments a little more social ‘oomph’. – Join Disqus why not: It’s free, and there are many other bloggers using it as well as me.

Don’t be shy; and it’s quite safe.

System Restore was introduced by Microsoft particularly for the sort of instances where, if you load a corrupt or dodgy driver for instance, and something fails to work because of that driver’s installation, you can restore a significant number of settings in your operating system to an earlier point in time; provided that you have created a previous Restore Point, and your computer works properly again without your having to do much but wait for the process to complete.

There are times, though, when that new driver can prevent Windows XP from booting fully (Even in Safe Mode.) and cause it to go down with a BSOD during boot-up, ad-infinitum.

Although there are alternative methods for getting Windows XP to start up and ignore the newly-installed driver that is causing the problem; (Most if not all of them are mentioned in this blog in other articles.) you may wish that you could use System Restore to resolve the error. – Nevertheless it appears that you can’t; because XP won’t boot, and unless it does you can’t get to System Restore… Or so you thought up until now.

This is how to launch System Restore from a command-prompt: –

First shut down your computer and/or switch it off. – This will clear any residual crap from the RAM; just to be on the safe side of cautious. Also we need to get to the Windows Advanced Options Menu; so shutting down and switching off will help there too.

OK; everything’s off: Press your computer’s power button to switch it on, and as soon as you do that repeatedly press the F8 key. One of two things should happen after the initial BIOS screen appears, depending upon the motherboard you have fitted inside your box: – (If anyone tries this and gets something else happening then I’d ask you to comment below. Please give details of the motherboard you have fitted, as well as other system spec.s (Including age of system.), and as good a description as you can of what happens.)

Either it’ll open up a boot-menu screen, or it’ll bypass this step and go straight to the next step. If it does open a boot-menu screen, (Primary Hard drive, CD-ROM, Floppy, etc.) we don’t need that, so don’t change anything there, just hit the Esc key, and as soon as you press the Esc key, repeatedly hit F8 again.

The Windows Advanced Options Menu that I mentioned earlier should appear. This is white text on a dark-grey background. The options open to you are: –

Select the “Safe Mode With Command Prompt” option.

On the next screen you’ll see “Please select the operating system to start.”

If you’ve only installed a single installation of Windows XP then your choice will already be highlighted and you just press Enter¬ again. If your machine has on a dual-boot and/or you see more than a single operating system; use the up and down arrow keys to select the operating system that you were just trying to boot into, (Windows XP.) and then press Enter¬.

Log on to your computer using an administrator account or with an account that has administrator privileges.
At the command-prompt, type the following command, exactly as shown below: -

C:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

When you see the System Restore window, the graphics may not look quite the same as you’re used to, but you can still follow the instructions on the screen and restore your computer to an earlier state’ provided that you have at least one previously-made restore-point.

- Target neutralised.

What if your computer refuses to boot into Safe Mode With Command Prompt? If it does then see this series of posts: “Something To Try If Windows XP Crashes During Boot”.

There’s quite a lot of information below: Some of it might be applicable to you, some might not. I’ve tried to cover this matter as comprehensively as I can; but if you do run up against problems and obstacles that aren’t covered herein; there are many more similar resources online which may or may not deal with your particular issue(s).

I’ve collected data on this subject from a number of leading online resources, as well as contributing to it myself from my own experience. I hope that this article has all the information that you’ll need contained within it. It was quite an effort to collate, write, adapt, and update all of the info from my sources, and I hope I’ve done the subject justice.

The physical act of installation in itself is actually quite easy. It’s the preparation and getting the thing ready for use that may take a little longer; particularly if it’s an IDE (PATA) drive.

If you’re installing an IDE (PATA) hard drive then you’ll first need to set the jumpers on the drive so that it works correctly with your current hardware. IDE hard drives have settings for master, slave and cable select. This is because of the multi-drive-connected ribbon-cable used: The drive has to tell the controller on the other end of the cable how it’s been connected; otherwise confusion will reign. For Serial ATA drives (SATA), you don’t need to worry about jumpers as there aren’t any: SATA drives have a single cable running to a single corresponding port for each drive cable. See your motherboard’s manual if you’re using SATA for more details on how the drives should be connected and if there is a particular special sequence of connections pertaining to certain drives. – More on IDE drives and their jumpers and connections below.

Next: -

Before you do anything else, take a look at the inside of the computer’s case and work out where you want the drive be positioned. If you’re using an IDE hard drive, it would be best to connect the drive on a different IDE channel than your DVD/CD drives if at all possible. Some (older) motherboards have two IDE channel connectors, but most modern motherboards have only one. If you can do so, it’s a better idea to connect your disc drives to IDE2, and connect your hard drives to IDE1.

SATA drives are totally different. Each SATA drive has it’s own channel. It’s usually fairly straightforward to work out the connections; but if in doubt check your motherboard’s manual. Now that SATA optical drives are fairly commonplace, you might not even require an IDE connector, even if your motherboard has one or maybe more: – Providing, of course, that it has SATA capability. If it doesn’t then it’s getting well past its prime anyway, to be perfectly frank, and you may consider changing it: This operation will probably entail, by necessity, also upgrading the RAM and processor too. – So if you do feel that you’d like to have a change of motherboard, then you might consider building or purchasing a new computer. If not; and you’re happy with your existing motherboard, then you’ll probably get anything between 5 minutes and 5 years of life from it yet. – Just don’t expect it to have the capabilities of more modern components.

Back to the subject at hand; and let’s take a look at the materials required: –

• You’ll obviously need a hard drive to fit to your machine.

• You might need a copy of the hard drive manual if you need to set jumpers on an IDE drive: This can be downloaded if your drive didn’t come with one or you’ve lost it.

• You might need a controller card if you’re fitting an IDE drive but don’t have a spare connector on the motherboard, or space on an existing ribbon cable to connect your drive to.  You can also purchase a SATA controller card if necessary. These controller cards will usually fit into a spare PCI slot; although you may find some that fit into a PCIe x 1 port.

• You’ll need a data cable for the drive; unless you’re installing an IDE drive as a slave-drive on an existing cable.

• You might also need a power cable Y-splitter if you don’t have a spare power connector. There are 2 types available; the 4-pin “Molex” connector, and also the standard SATA power connector. Which one you use will depend upon the type of power connector on the drive you’re installing. (If you only have 4-pin Molex connectors, but require a SATA power connector; you cab buy an adapter which is satisfactory for most cases.)

• Drive-cloning software for if you want to clone your old hard drive to your new one, or a recent drive backup of your old drive if you only want to copy some of the files off the old drive.

Whichever drive you’re replacing, if you are indeed replacing a drive, make sure that you back up any data you want to save before you start, or you could well be sorry at a later time. If you don’t want to have to go through the laborious process of reinstalling Windows, you can clone the contents of your old hard drive to your new one using the setup utilities that hard drive manufacturers provide, or you can use any of the specific cloning programs available online. If you intend to reinstall Windows; make sure you have discs for Windows, all your drivers, and all your programs. This will prevent frustrations at a later point in time.

(At least one leading online publication recommends using the “Ultimate Boot CD”in this process. I don’t personally recommend using this, as I’ve had some bad experience with it. (Neither am I going to link to it.) – However if you want to use it then go right ahead. – That’s your prerogative.)

If you’re simply installing a secondary hard drive for storage then there’s no need to make any changes to the configuration of your current hard drive. If, however, you’re installing a second IDE drive, it is possible that you will need to alter the jumper configuration of your primary hard drive. If your current hard drive is set as “Cable Select” (meaning it is the only drive on the channel), then you may need to change it to “Master” which will allow you to add the second hard drive as a slave (see below).

Setting the Jumpers on IDE Drives (if using IDE)

IDE can accommodate two drives per channel. Some computers may have two channels available on the motherboard; but most modern boards will have only one. The primary drive on a single channel is called the Master, and the secondary one is called the Slave. If there are 2 IDE channels on your motherboard, then they’re labelled as Primary (or IDE1) and Secondary (or IDE2). The hard drive that the system boots from is usually the primary master. Generally, if you’re adding a second hard drive you’d set it up as the primary slave. (The secondary master and slave are usually used for optical drives, although they can accommodate hard drives if needed.)

Most IDE drives arrive pre-set to be used as masters: If you want to use one as a slave, you’ll have to change the jumpers, which are located between the power connector and the IDE connector. Each manufacturer has different jumper settings, so you’ll either have to read the diagram on the top of the drive telling you how to set the jumpers, or the instructions in your hard drive’s manual – Which you can download from the manufacturer’s website if your hard drive didn’t come with one.

If you have an 80-conductor ribbon cable, you can use Cable Select as a jumper-setting:  With both drives set to Cable Select, the computer will recognize the drive hooked up to the black end connector as the master and the one hooked up to the middle gray connector as the slave. – Just be sure that the drives are connected to the right connectors if you use this setting.

…And now – having done all the preliminary checks and adjustments; let’s get into actually physically fitting the thing: Here we go: -

Turn the computer off and switch off the power supply’s switch. You might not want to unplug it if you are using a 3-pin plug to plug it in to the AC household electrical supply: Why not? Because the case is earthed properly if you leave the 3-pin plug plugged in to the household supply power socket. – You might want to use the earthed case to discharge any static electricity in your body from time to time, and/or you might want to wear an antistatic wrist strap just to be on the safe side, (*Technician’s Tip: It’s always a good idea to wear an antistatic wrist strap whenever you do anything inside a computer. There are some companies that will sack people for failing to do so.) which you can connect to the computer’s earthed case or its chassis.  Now remove the side-panel and any other panels that you wish to remove. (It might be an idea to take digital photographs of everything inside before you start; especially if you’re new to this. If anything goes wrong at any stage or you forget what goes where, you can refer to these photographs for guidance.)

If you’re replacing an old hard drive, unplug all the cables from the old drive. You will see either a ribbon cable and a small (white) Molex power plug, or a small data connector and a larger power connector in the case of a SATA drive Do not force their plugs out: The ribbon cable connector on an IDE drive is usually fairly easy to remove, as are all connectors on a SATA drive. Sometimes the Molex power connector on an IDE drive (Occasionally on a SATA drive.) can seem hard to budge. Just rock it back and forth (Lengthwise, along the narrow side of the drive), taking care not to rip the connector off the drive (Which can happen.).

Once all the cables are disconnected, remove the mounting screws that hold the drive to the case frame. You might find that you need to tip the case or get into some strange positions to reach all the screws. You may find that the hard drive is mounted in a cage that you’ll be able to take out. Now remove the old drive from the case.

If you’re replacing the old drive, slide the new drive in the slot from where the old one came out. If you’re adding a second drive then just pick an empty drive bay, but remember that hard-drives produce heat; so try not to mount them too close together with other drives if at all possible. If you’re installing an IDE drive than a slot a bit below the current drive might work best, because it will make it easier to route cables. If you’re installing a 3.5″ drive into a 5.25″ drive bay, you may need to add an adaptor or a mounting bracket to make it fit. Screw the drive into place, making sure the screws aren’t going in crooked and cross-threading as a result.

If you need a separate controller card, install it now into a spare motherboard PCI or PCIe slot. You probably won’t need to worry about this; It’s usually only necessary to add a controller card if you want to add more IDE or SATA drives than your computer’s motherboard will support with it’s existing ports. If you are using SATA, your motherboard will probably have enough SATA ports, unless you’re running some huge RAID configuration. If there aren’t enough ports available, however, you should fit a controller card.

Attach the cable plugs to the hard drive, as well as to the motherboard and/or controller card if necessary. There are two cables: There’s the ribbon cable if the drive is IDE, or SATA data cable if the drive is SATA, and the power cable. The ribbon cable goes from the controller to the drive. Most cables are keyed to the connector so they only go in one way; if the cable isn’t going in, try flipping it over. The SATA data cable’s plug also only connects one way round, as does a SATA power plug and a Molex power plug. – Whether or not it appears to be going in – don’t force anything, or you’ll possibly end up in tears.

If you’re adding a second IDE drive, simply choose an unused connector on the same ribbon cable. Most IDE ribbon cables come with three connectors: one on the end (usually black) and one mid-way (usually gray), then one further away on the other end which connects to the motherboard (usually blue, green, or red). In general, the master drive should use the black connector on the end and the slave should use the gray connector in the middle, but if each drive is set either as master or slave, the position is not as important. (With SATA you have only 1 choice: Plug a new cable into a socket on the SATA controller on the motherboard and plug the other end into the SATA data socket on the drive.)

Now check that everything is as it should be, switch the switch on the power supply at the back of the computer on, and power up. It’s best to leave the case cover off for now in case you need to fiddle with something or troubleshoot the installation.

Your new drive may be instantly recognised by the system; but if not try the following: If you didn’t use a controller card, enter the BIOS (usually by pressing the F1, F2, F10, F12, or Delete key when you see the Power-On Self-Test or the manufacturer logo). Check the BIOS to make sure that the drives are all being recognized. If you installed a drive on an IDE connector that was not in use, you may have to set the corresponding drive to “Auto.” If your BIOS has an auto-detect feature, you can use that as well. If you did use a controller card, it will pop up a screen showing the name of the card and any drives it has detected.

If the drives are not being recognized, check that both power and data cables are in tightly (including the motherboard end for the data cables), and that the jumpers are set correctly. Windows may be able to see the drive but may need some help to display it. A reboot may be needed after Windows finds and installs drivers, or if that doesn’t work a little software coaxing may help – But some of that’s beyond the scope of this article.

If everything looks right and is working properly then proceed>.

Finally…

Now that your new drive is installed you can add data to it. If you’re replacing your current drive and cloning it to your new drive, you’ll need to connect both drives. If you’re using IDE drives only, change any necessary jumpers (see above) so that both drives as well as a CD drive are recognized. At this stage it is not important to screw in your old drive; you can just rest it somewhere convenient, but it’s not advisable to leave it hanging in mid-air. Now clone your old drive to the new one and disconnect the old one, reset the jumpers as appropriate if you’re using IDE drives.

If you’re replacing your current primary drive but you’ve no intention of cloning its contents to the new drive, put your operating system’s CD in the drive and boot from it. You’ll be prompted during the first part of setup to partition and format your drive. If you’re installing Windows XP,Vista, or 7; make sure to use the NTFS file system: it’ll make life so much easier for you as compared to FAT32.

If you’re installing a secondary drive for storage purposes, your operating system won’t see your new drive until you format it. To format the drive in Windows XP, right-click on My Computer and go to “Manage”. In the window that comes up, click Disk Management in the left pane. Once it loads, you should see an “Initialize Disk” wizard pop up. Partition and format the disk to your liking, but make sure not to convert it to a dynamic disk, as doing so will probably end in tears eventually.

Other operating systems may vary, but I can’t cover every possible operating system in this article.

That’s about it for this article: You now have a new working hard drive installed. Please see my other articles for more advice on what you can do next. You’ll find a chronological listing of articles on the page called “Blog Contents”, which you can access from the menu at the top of every page and post on this blog. In the same menu you’ll also find “Posts Listing: Computer Hardware” and “Posts Listing: Computer Software Help”; both of which could have an article or two listed on them with regards to what to do next, if you’re looking for ideas.

For more tips, tricks, products, and new content updates, please request to join the mailing list by entering your email address into the appropriate box. – You’ll then be eligible for regular content updates as well as my free members-only updates and newsletters.

A paging file in Windows is an area of the hard-disc that the Windows operating system reserves for operations that it would otherwise carry out using the system’s RAM. The actual amount of this area that Windows uses depends upon 2 major factors: How much of the processor’s capability you are currently using, combined with how many programs you have running, and how much RAM you have fitted to your computer’s motherboard.

With a 32-bit operating system there’s probably always going to be at least a tiny part of the reserved space used, as the maximum amount of RAM that a 32-bit operating system can see at any given point is 4 gigabytes. In practice, owing to operating tolerances as well as taking into account various system hardware caches, the actual amount of RAM that a 32-bit operating system will recognise is around 3.5 gigabytes. – It’s a fair bit of RAM, and enough for most applications, but not many computers running a 32-bit operating system have more than around 2GB RAM. With a 64-bit operating system you can fit up to several exabytes of RAM, so therefore the more RAM you have fitted the less the paging file is used, to a certain extent anyway.

Having said all that, though, I do know that people have turned off their paging file completely whilst running XP Pro 32-bit with a gigabyte of RAM, and as far as I am aware their computer ran something like normally. I don’t suggest you try it for yourself, though.

So why would you want to adjust the size of your paging file? To be honest the only reason I can think of, other than trying your computer out to see if it runs without a paging file, or changing its size following installation of more RAM, (which isn’t compulsory.) is in a case where you’re running so low on disc space that Windows won’t work properly; and you need just that little bit extra before you can get the C: drive to a state in which you can fit a larger hard-drive and all that it entails without Windows going tits-up somewhere in the process. – Therefore you cut down the System Restore area and the paging file allocation on C: to make that bit of extra room, cross your fingers and everything else, pray if you’re religious, and begin.

Without going too far off track; here’s how to get to the necessary adjustments that Microsoft have cleverly buried in XP: -

Right-click on the “My Computer”icon and click “Properties”. In the Performance section at the top of the dialogue box, click Settings. Click the Advanced tab, and click the Change button in the Virtual memory section.

…And you’ll see something very much like this: -

Normally, as you’ll note from the pic, I leave it to Windows to decide the size of it: Windows knows what it’s doing – more or less – and has a rough idea what size paging file it needs. My C: drive on this particular computer is about 79.5 GB in size, and is partitioned off from the rest of the drive. Windows uses a few MBs of that for the paging file and I don’t really worry about it that much if at all. I only have a paging file on C: drive. It’s set to “No paging file” for all the other drives; which means that it’s turned off on all other drives.

You may want to set the size of your paging file however. Indeed it may already be set to some limit. If you get problems with paging file size then you might like to set it as I have done; then if Windows has issues with its current size it’ll pop up a notice on-screen telling you that it’s enlarging the paging file, and do so.

To set your paging file within custom parameters; select “Custom size” by putting a . in the appropriate radio button, and typing in the size you want. There are all kinds of advisories that tell you what size you should set it to; some of which have conflicting advice. – Which is why I let the operating system handle it.

If you select the drive letter by highlighting it, you can set a paging file size for most drives; other than removable drives for obvious reasons. I’ve tried putting the paging file on other drives than C:, on other drives as well as C:, even partitioning a separate drive specially for the paging file alone: In my experience nothing seems to be better than having it on C: drive only and letting Windows manage its size.

Do you have different experiences? If so then please do comment.

- Other than that; that just about rounds it off.

I still build desktop computers – and I love building desktop computers. Some people say that the desktop computer is dying out. I don’t agree. Whilst I do agree that, to a certain extent, desktops are becoming somewhat less popular, in favour of laptops and netbooks, I believe that desktops will always have their place for years to come, if not forever.

- So, to the question posed in the title; what do I think are the minimum specifications required for a desktop computer these days? That’s another multi-pronged question. You see it depends on two major factors; one with a sub-factor: -

1) Is the user intending to run a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system on their desktop?

2)a) Is the user planning to really utilise their machine for all its intended and possible purposes, or b) is the user intending just to use it for email, instant messaging, and general office work?

With the advent of Windows 7 firmly fixed on the horizon and in full view, the need for the latest and greatest hardware in order to run the latest Microsoft operating system is somewhat negated. Windows 7 is a lot less resource-hungry than Vista, as well as being a far better-designed operating system. Nevertheless the hardware that one must by necessity use with it should be in the main Vista compatible; which means a few of the older PCs still working will not be able to run Windows 7.

(I have a friend whose husband has an old computer that I had a hand in upgrading, in that I supplied some secondhand hardware for its renovation. Nevertheless, despite now having 2GB DDR RAM, and other bits, fitted, it doesn’t like Windows 7, even though it now runs XP totally satisfactorily.)

If the user is planning to upgrade to Windows 7; or to run the Windows 7 RC up until either the RTM version appears, or until it starts to reboot every 2 hours on March 1st 2010, then the above should be taken into consideration. I do, however, suggest that anyone who buys or builds a new computer should run a 64-bit operating system on it. All modern processors produced today are 64-bit capable, and it seems a shame to waste available resources and at the same time limit the machine’s capabilities by running a 32-bit operating system.

However, that brings me to question 1 above: If I’m building a computer for a customer I give them what they want, rather than what I think they should have. Whilst it’s true that I do advise the customer; and I can be quite persuasive at times (Ex-salesperson.), at the end of the day it’s the customer’s money and the customer’s choice.

So if they are positive that they are never going to run a 64-bit operating system, despite their processor and the rest of their hardware being fully capable of doing so, then that’s a good excuse to skimp on the RAM: If ‘intending just to use it for email, instant messaging, and general office work only, with a 32-bit operating system, then 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM should be easily enough; whether they’re running XP or Windows 7.

If the customer insists on running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition; whether or not it’s just to try and look “cool”, then the processor will need to have certain features: -

Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate edition have a feature called XP Mode: XP Mode requires your computer to have at least 2GB RAM, which we were intending to fit anyway, as well as to be running a processor that has Chip-Level Virtualisation built into its architecture: In other words you’ll need an AMD processor that supports AMD-V, or an Intel processor that supports Intel VT. – This will need to be taken into account.

Otherwise, just for for email, instant messaging, and general office work only, an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 would appear to be just the job as a processor in this case.

In an identical case where the user intends to run a 64-bit operating system; 4GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM would be an idea; just to give it that bit extra oomph, considering the extra 2GB will only add around £20 to the price at today’s prices.

Then we come to 2)b) The user who wants to do everything possible with their PC:-

A 32-bit operating system is going to be a limitation in this case; so 64-bit is decided by default. Since it’s 64-bit; stick as much of the fastest RAM possible in as the motherboard allows why not? Use a motherboard that will take an Intel Core i7 processor running as much DDR3 as possible.

In the main, 4GB is the most that Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit uses under normal circumstances, but with the price of RAM as low as it is, and even DDR3 is dropping in price slowly, whack a good few gigs in why not? – Even if it’s just to prove that a 64-bit system can see it.

(I have a box running 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate RC with 8GB DDR2 800MHz RAM in it. I’ve only managed to get it to use 5GB under pressure as yet.)

Now to the graphics card: Graphics cards these days shouldn’t be less than 250MB in my opinion. – That’s not just because Windows 7 requires that much for the Aero Interface; it’s because of the demands made on the graphics at some point by almost everything these days. – So a 250MB card as a minimum, 500MB if you prefer, 1GB+/ quad SLI, whatever, if you or your customer are a gamer; depending on whether the machine’s for you or to sell on.

Just a minute… Wait, wait, wait: We have a minimum-spec office or OAP’s machine here, and a gamers’ box too. What if the customer/user isn’t an OAP/office worker or a gamer?

Well for me, for instance: I run a blog. I need at least 2 working computers; just in case 1 goes down. I’m doing most of my work on a dual-core AMD-powered machine with a 32-bit XP operating system and 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM. The other box I’ve already mentioned. It has an AMD Phenom triple-cored CPU, 250MB graphics, and I’ll be using it later in the year with Windows 7 Home Premium RTM as my main box, while the XP box becomes the spare. Yes I’ll keep XP on it until 2014, and if it’s still working/not been dismantled/sold by then I’ll install Windows 7 on it and relegate it to the bedroom. I would imagine that Windows 7’s successor will at least be in beta by then.

To attempt to conclude, then: Anything from an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 upwards, depending upon discretion, is currently acceptable for a processor in my opinion. Single-cored processors are out. I will never ever use another single-cored processor if I can possibly avoid doing so. DDR2 (667MHz) upwards is OK for RAM, once again using discretion. Graphics should never be anything under 250MB.

I use that as a guide at present; although next year (2010) it might be a complete new ball-game? Who knows?

I will say again, though, as a final point, there’s no reason, unless you have a rather old computer, not to run a 64-bit version of the Windows 7 operating system. I positively encourage everyone to do so if they can. It’s time we ushered in the 64-bit computing age. 32-bit is becoming lame and is old-hat. – Maybe that would be a good name for a retro 32-bit Linux distro: Old Hat? The mind boggles…

Whilst I agree that there must be fair legislation with regard to anticompetitive practices, it may appear that the European Union has gone over the top in its latest antitrust probe against Microsoft: -

From Computer Buyer Magazine’s website: -

“The European Commission has told Microsoft that it believes the tying of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system infringes EU antitrust laws.

The Commission has sent a Statement of Objections (SO) to Microsoft which outlines its view that the tying of IE to Windows provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match. This “harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice”.

It EU executive is also concerned that “the ubiquity of IE creates artificial incentives for content providers and software developers to design websites or software primarily for Internet Explorer which ultimately risks undermining competition and innovation in the provision of services to consumers”.

Microsoft has eight weeks to reply the SO and will then have the right to an Oral Hearing. If SO findings confirmed, the Commission may impose a fine and require Microsoft to make changes to Windows that would ameliorate the Commission’s concerns.

In a short statement, Microsoft said it was still examining the SO.

“We are committed to conducting our business in full compliance with European law. We are studying the Statement of Objections now.”

The decision to issue the SO is based on legal principles established in the 2007 ruling by the European Court of First Instance, which upheld the Commission’s 2004 finding that Microsoft had abused its dominant position in the PC operating system market by tying Windows Media Player to its operating system.

That judgement saw Microsoft release a special N version of Windows XP without Media Player, which remained available as a free download. The company was also fined and has to date been ordered to pay fines totalling €1.68 billion for this and other antitrust violations.”

This is just too much: It’s no secret that the EU is a corrupt powerbase of political subterfuge and scam-mongering. This appears to be just another attempt to swell the EU coffers even further. Not content in just charging Britain millions of Euros in membership fees so that European politicians can hire call-girls and throw lush parties, the Eurocrats like to have a stab at Microsoft from time to time; as Microsoft is where the money is. In early 2008, Microsoft was fined 899m Euros by the European Commission for anti-competitive behaviour over bundling in the Windows Media Player and browser into Windows. As if that wasn’t enough loot for them, they’ve decided to have a second snipe and see if they can get some more out of the software giant.

Now this is rather ancient news from Computer Buyer; as on the 16th June I reported on this in the article “Europe Doesn’t want IE8”, and I also reported Microsoft’s solution to the problem: -

“In order to comply with European competition law, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will be removed from the European versions of Windows 7. Microsoft made the decision to drop the web browser in order to stay on the right side of the European Commission and avoid further possible fines. Versions of Windows 7 released in Europe will have an E suffix to show that they are European versions that don’t include Internet Explorer.”

- So if they don’t include IE then what browser do they include?

Internet Explorer is a fundamental software component of the Windows operating system; and it goes a lot deeper than just the browser GUI that IE users see. Without IE, there is, in all reality, no Windows as such. Without IE there are just a number of disjointed codes resembling an incomplete operating system. Conversely, Windows Media Player is more an app than an integral part of Windows.

This becomes puzzling now: How, if there’s no browser, does the customer add a browser so that they can download anything? ‘Beats me!

According to the BBC Website, in an article from 12th June 2009: -

"In terms of potential remedies, if the Commission were to find that Microsoft had committed an abuse, the Commission has suggested that consumers should be offered a choice of browser not that Windows should be supplied without a browser at all," said the Commission in a statement responding to Microsoft’s announcement.

It said Microsoft’s approach of offering the program to computer manufacturers "may potentially be more positive" in terms of remedying its alleged abusive behaviour.”

-Which still doesn’t really answer the question. – I mean if I were to buy a copy of Windows 7 E, post RTM, to install on a computer that I just built: OK I’ve installed it. How do I get a browser onto it? There is no browser. – No wait; I have a choice of browser? – If the EU have their way then yes. OK; I’ll install FireFox. Is that how it’s going to be? That would actually be rather good.

- The Eurocrats are targeting the IE GUI itself perhaps; and maybe they have a point: If the IE GUI is supplied along with Windows then it gives the IE browser an unfair advantage in a way; because many computer users aren’t geeks. -  In fact many (European) computer users are rather clueless when it comes to computers. – Other than instant messaging, browsing to find their family tree, and email, they really don’t have much idea of anything else that the internet has to offer. (I know, it’s a bit of a wild assertion; but if a lot of British users are anything to go by then it’s true.) – Therefore, when they buy the Windows operating system from Microsoft they stick it on their computer as is, if it isn’t preinstalled, and they use it as is: Sucky browser, the lot. Possibly half of them aren’t even aware that there’s an alternative to IE. The other half may have heard of FireFox, Opera, Safari… But are of the attitude: “If it works; why fix it?”

…But Microsoft have even included a function in Windows 7 to deactivate IE – The GUI bit, that is, for people who don’t want IE on their computer at all, even though they run Windows, as a primary or secondary OS. (Linux users come to mind.) Nevertheless the non-nerdy users probably won’t bother to deactivate IE and choose an alternative browser.

So what are the choices? Supply Windows with another browser? That’ll give the new browser an unfair advantage no matter which browser they use; although the Eurocrats may have problems getting any money out of Microsoft for promoting another company’s browser. – But Microsoft themselves probably wouldn’t be too happy about promoting someone else’s product.

What if they supplied Windows with no browser and let the customer make up their own mind which one to install? – The problem then would be that the customer has absolutely no way of downloading any software whatsoever: No browser = no browsing = no downloads.

Email a browser to the customer. – Yeah right. As soon as the malware distributors hear of that they’ll spoof the email and get everyone to download tons of malware into a blind operating system. Forget that straight away: It’s a definite non-starter.

The only option left, then, is to include a copy of every browser available that works with Windows on the installation disc, and let the customer choose which one is to be used from the offing as the operating system installs. As I said before; that appears to be how it’s going to work; but we might have to wait until the RTM to know for certain.

What do you think?

P.S. The next EU antitrust suite against Microsoft will probably be targeting Windows Live Mail, or maybe even Windows itself: -

“The European Commission has told Microsoft that it believes the tying of Microsoft’s Windows operating system with its range of Windows operating systems infringes EU antitrust laws.” 

– The Eurocrats have got to find enough money to continue to live in the lap of luxury somehow. – Those call-girls cost quite a bit!

The internet is probably the most useful place any American can go to for a bargain. In the UK the situation’s slightly different: Yes; UK people can find things at a decent price on the net most of the time and/or cheaper than in most High Street shops; but the way the cookie crumbles favours Americans. I’m not sure whether this is why Americans use the internet a lot more than the British; or whether it’s a result of the British using the internet less, possibly due to the comparative lack of education and abundance of negativity in UK culture when compared with the American equivalent. – ‘Sorry Brits; but honestly we’re going to end up a nation of half-witted moronic thugs and delinquents unless something radical happens, and soon. I’m not going into politics right now: But perhaps I should; as the stuck-up self-interested privileged “elite” currently in UK politics who have allowed this situation to deteriorate over the last few generations seem to hardly be able to run a bath; let alone a country.

The term “Americans” herein refers to those who are resident in the US and Canada. I found it rather, to all intents and purposes, racist, that an overwhelming number of sometimes crazy offers that appear on the internet are only available to US and Canadian residents.

One such offer concerns Microsoft’s up and coming operating system; Windows 7:

An article by Rich Menga on PCMech.com; which is run from Tampa, Florida, by David Risley and others, announces the headline: -

“Windows 7 Home Premium Pre-Order, $49.99 Upgrade, $199.99 Full”

Inside the article; Rich clearly states: -

“Starting today, if you pre-order Windows 7 as an upgrade, the Home Premium Edition (which is what most people would go for) is just a tick under $50. See below.”

Wow; that’s amazing! I can order my own copy at a massive discount!

(The three images below are copied directly from Rich’s article on PC Mech.)

“The full versions start with Home Premium at $199.99. That’s still steep, but it is cheaper than Vista. See below.”

“What versions of Windows qualify you for the upgrade?"

Windows Vista or Windows XP. Yes, XP qualifies be it Home or Pro Edition. Is says so right on the Office Depot sale page for this product. “

Brilliant! I run XP professional and Windows 7 RC. – I qualify!

“A near-60% discount on the purchase of Home Premium means this is the cheapest Windows upgrade we’ve seen in a very long time.

I use Windows 7 RC on a daily basis. It’s stable and solid. And now, thankfully, cheap (at least for the upgrade).

This upgrade offer lasts from today, June 26 to July 11.

Where to get it?

• Amazon
• Office Depot
• Microsoft Store

The links go directly to the Windows 7 pre-order page for the respective vendor.”

I attempted to order from Amazon.com: They are unable to ship this product to my address.

I looked at Office Depot… Office What? ‘Never heard of them. – An exclusively American company.#

I tried the Microsoft Store: The words “United States” were written in the banner at the top of the page. I was asked to  sign in with my Windows Live ID: No problem yet; but it wouldn’t allow me to leave the ‘state’ field blank, neither would it allow me to enter a British postcode in the ‘Zip’ field – So I’m stuffed there too.

I know; how about if I go back and select ‘United Kingdom’ from the drop-down list that appears when I click ‘United States’ in the banner bar?..

-  NO! <stifled scream> :-

I don’t want Vista. I hate Vista; Vista sucks. I’m definitely not buying it just to get 7! Even if you charged me for 7 and gave me Vista free I’d send Vista back.

Hang on a minute: How much?

Unless there’s been a massive devaluation of the UK pound against the US dollar that I missed, then I make that offer about 5 times the cost in the UK as it is in the USA! – + I’ll have a copy of Vista to use as a coaster on my coffee table.

If you’re in the UK and are thinking of going for this offer; my advice is don’t. Microsoft are fully aware that a lot of British people don’t have the brains they were born with, and are too lazy to even browse the internet: That’s why they’re offering you the chance to increase their Vista sales figures, so that they can say “We did well with Vista in the UK; the figures prove it.” In the meantime you’re in reality paying probably full price for Windows 7 and also jointly all buying a backlog of unsold Vista DVDs at a knock-down price just to make some room in Microsoft’s warehouse while saving on their recycling bill.

Yes it stinks: It’s a big con, and if you’ve already fallen for it then Microsoft saw you coming a while ago.

Well Brits: Don’t all just sit there with your stiff upper lip, tutting and murmuring “Terrible!”: Get your arse in gear and complain; to the EU bureaucrats you’ve just elected, (– Let’s see how helpful the BNP can be, eh?) to Parliament, to the European Court of Human Rights, to Microsoft themselves even.

You, me, and every Windows user in the UK who owns a computer and wants an operating system upgrade are being ripped off! Are you going to let them get away with it?

What did you say? – “What’s it worth to me?” – About £120 odd; that’s how much you’re being ripped off for. Are you just going to take it lying down? – No don’t answer that.

You may or may not have heard of the term RAID when applied to hard-drives. RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and is a system where a number of identical hard-drives can be utilised in a number of pre-defined configurations for the purposes of reinforcing data storage and/or extending the capacity of a single hard-drive across a number of drives while the operating system sees them all as one single drive. For more information on the types of RAID configuration available, see this article.

In my opinion; running a RAID array on your home system configured as a workstation isn’t really a viable idea. It can add a considerable amount of cost to your hardware budget; even with the falling cost of larger hard-drives, it is not much less prone to failure than a standard setup in such circumstances, and it can use considerably more wattage, putting extra strain on the PSU and spitting in the eye of environmental campaigners.

I won’t go into all the details of the various types of RAID array and their individual advantages and disadvantages at this point: Time and space constraints don’t allow me to write the eBook that I’d need to write in order to do the subject justice.

Server systems, however; particularly public servers, are a completely different kettle of fish with regard to using RAID; particularly in terms of backup:

As you may be aware, certain RAID configurations, such as RAID 1, automatically copy the data content of one disk to the other/another, in a technique known as “mirroring”. – Therefore, should one of the discs develop a data-error of some kind; the RAID-controller can instantly pick up the fact that the two discs have a data discrepancy, after which it can check the parity of the relevant areas of both discs individually, and discern which of the two has failed; then replace the data on the erroneous disc with the uncorrupted data on the non-erroneous disc. This saves the server system fro  having to call on a probably already busy technician to attend to the issue and run chkdsk or some similar tool to resolve the data error on a single drive.

In addition to this; should there be an error caused by irretrievable bad sectors on one of the drives, the original mirrored data is stored in its original form on another disc, and the server system signals a repair technician to replace the malfunctioning drive, after which the system restores the non-corrupted data to the new drive from the still-working mirrored drive.

The upshot of this is that the system can keep running with minimal if any interruption, and the workload on the technician is minimised. The last thing a server centre would wish for is avoidable downtime where a data error has to be manually repaired by the duty tech.

The above applies, not only to public internet servers, but to a slightly lesser extent to business and home servers; whether connected to serve a domain or as part of a Local Area Network or LAN.

In conclusion, then, a RAID array is a most useful thing to run on any type of server; particularly RAID 1 or similar. – However for a home or office computer used as a workstation I wouldn’t really consider setting up a RAID array as it just gives rise to unnecessary complications.

- Having said that; there may be circumstances where a RAID array on a terminal or workstation might be a good thing. Do you, the reader, have any ideas where this may be applicable? if so then please feel free to comment further to the above.

As a last minute addition, I’ll just add, as I’ve also said elsewhere, Linux is always a better operating system for servers in my opinion. Although I normally use Windows only on my desktop, with my Linux usage being so infrequent as to be negligible in that respect; I would nevertheless recommend Linux (Red Hat and others.) way more than I would recommend Windows for use with a server system.

In short; and you have every right to disagree if you wish, my preference is Windows for workstations, Linux for servers. – And yes it is possible to run RAID in Linux.

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I was going to end this series at Part 3; but having thought further about it, I feel that the Windows Recovery Console is worth a mention: -

First; what exactly is the Windows Recovery Console?

It’s a pre-boot repair tool that allows you to recover from and repair system issues that affect the machine’s ability to boot up.

It’s very powerful and is certainly not to be sniffed at. I encourage users to only use the Recovery Console as a last resort: In fact in some cases a repair reinstallation may be just as, if not more, effective. It has diagnostic as well as repair uses though; so it might be a useful commodity at times.

So how do I access the Windows Recovery Console?

To access the Recovery Console you have to boot from the XP CD. Having done so you’ll eventually arrive at a screen that looks like this: -

Press “R”, as per the instruction on screen, and the Recovery Console starts.

The Recovery Console will check for Windows installations, and list any that are on the hard-drive. Unless the computer has been set up to multi-boot, there will only be one.

Select the operating system you want to repair and press Enter. Windows will then ask you for the administrator password: -

Enter the administrator password, et voila; you’re into the Recovery Console.

It’s a glorified Windows Command Prompt which allows access to the root folder (%systemroot%) and the Windows folder + its respective tree. Once you’ve done the major repair you can boot into Windows, (Safe Mode or normally.) and continue any repair work needed.

Details of how to use fully, and also the commands available for use within the Recovery Console, are available within the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: –

Article ID: 314058 – Last Review: September 22, 2008 – Revision: 5.2

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users

You can access this article by clicking here.

I think I’ve just about touched on everything in this and the other three articles. If your Windows XP installation ever screws up at boot in future; I hope that these articles will give you some ideas as to what to do and how to resolve the issue.

If you’d like to comment then the comment forms are open for around six months from the date of writing.

Enjoy XP; even of you’re soon moving on to Windows Seven. (You could actually run Windows XP inside a virtual environment within Windows Seven…That’s an idea for another article perhaps?)

Warning: The Recovery Console is a powerful tool; and if used incorrectly can further screw up your installation just as much as it can repair it; so use it with extreme care.

On 2nd June 2009 it was stated by Microsoft that Windows 7 will be in the stores and pre-loaded on new computers on 22nd October 2009.

This is a good move on Microsoft’s part; as the sales pace and availability of product will be going at full-tilt by the holiday season. This time they get to cash in on the buying bonanza; such that it might be in these uncertain economic times.

According to a company spokeswoman; Microsoft will be offering discounted upgrades to Windows 7 from Vista to customers who buy a new PC from July 1st 2009, in a program which they’ve named "Windows Upgrade Option".

It’s great to know when this gem of an operating system will RTM. It’ll be interesting to note any further changes they make when compared to the RC1 release; which was released in May.

This is exciting news to me. Microsoft have leaned over backwards to give their customers what they want as far as this new product is concerned; and it’ll be good to see their efforts come to fruition.

The big question is, no matter how good a reception Windows 7 gets; how much lasting harm has Vista done to Microsoft, and how long will it take to recover and eradicate the deficit in confidence that their biggest blunder to date has caused?

What do you think?

This is Part Three of this series.

In Part 1 we went to the Windows Advanced Options Menu…

… And we tried using the “Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)” option. This sometimes, (Usually in my experience.) does the trick, but not always.

In Part 2 we looked at something else we could do if that doesn’t solve the issue: If it doesn’t solve the problem it usually means that one of the drivers is bad/corrupt/dodgy; so we looked at removing that driver by booting into Safe Mode.

What we didn’t look at was what to do if your XP computer doesn’t crash, but rather just boots and goes tits up; to put not too fine a point on it.

If you get a scrambled picture then ‘chances are that your graphics driver is playing up and needs removing and reinstalling, and/or your graphics card is either crap or has developed a fault. Some motherboards just don’t like some graphics cards: I have an Asus mobo that just hates a certain Asus nVidia graphics card. There’s nothing wrong with the graphics card; it works fine in other computers, but it just won’t work properly with this one board.

OK so we’ve covered a lot so far in parts 1 & 2; but there may be a couple more things that’s preventing XP from starting: –

These are operating system/data corruption and/or file system corruption.

Operating system corruption can result from too much buggering about and trying to be clever; – The usual scenario in my case. – or from a phenomenon (specific to Windows – ?) known as “software rot”. For whatever reason, Windows moves things around, writes, copies, deletes, all in normal operation. Eventually it makes a tiny error; which can go unnoticed. – But when a number of tiny errors build up over months of operation, then a big error happens, and things start to go downhill from there: A cascade of errors causing errors, until eventually the system becomes inoperable.

The above can take years and stay unnoticed until the machine simply stops working, or it can happen suddenly. File system corruption is much the same: The NTFS, or in some cases, the FAT32, file system, is the storage medium’s file storage structure on the disc. In short the computer stores tiny bits of data made up of a few bytes in many tiny storage areas on the disk. These are marked out before the data is added to the disk: It’s accomplished by process called “formatting”; which is the first thing that needs to be done if a new hard-drive is installed, or if the old one needs to be wiped. Also in the file system are indexes of these little areas of data; which can also be prone to error.

Since we’re on the subject of the file system; the way to correct a file system error is by using the chkdsk function built into Windows. In Windows XP this can be activated from the command prompt as well as the GUI. Open a command prompt (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /f”. (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for file system errors.) This instructs Windows to run chkdsk on drive C:, and the parameter f instructs the operating system to check specifically for file system errors and repair them.

Similarly; chkdsk can also check the disc for file system and data errors, and repair them. To instruct Windows to do this, open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /r” (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for errors.) Using the parameter r instructs the operating system to repair any errors it finds on the disc: These include file system errors, corrupt data, and bad sectors. As you may imagine; this can be a long process on some occasions.

While chkdsk attends to disc errors, there is another process that checks further for data errors in the essential operating system files. This process is called the system file checker. To run it; first insert your (original) XP CD into the optical drive, then open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “sfc /scannow”. This instructs the operating system to run the system file checker, check the crucial system files that Windows needs in order to be able to operate, check their parity, and, if there are any errors; delete the file and replace it from the files on CD. – Short of performing a repair reinstallation, this is the best way to clear operating system corruption.

So that’s covered pretty much everything. If you’ve done everything suggested and it still won’t boot, then you have a choice of a repair reinstall or a disk-format-and-reinstall.

Before you do that, though, try pulling out all the USB plugs and other peripherals and seeing if the machine boots with no peripherals connected. If it does then you have a faulty peripheral device. Plug things back in one by one and boot after every device you plug in. When your computer fails to boot you’ll know that the last peripheral device you plugged in is faulty.

“ – After I’ve spent hours doing all that, from Part 1, 2 and 3; and now you tell me it’s a faulty peripheral device!”

- Don’t worry: You’ve just given your machine a full software service, and it’ll work a lot better as a result.

Windows XP can be a funny old sod at times:

Sometimes and for no apparent reason it’ll go wonky even while you boot it up; even if your last session appeared flawless. In a lot of cases this is because it failed to load a driver properly. The result can be a number of things: It could fail to boot with a BSOD during boot-up, it could give you a mal-formed or scrambled picture on the monitor due to having loaded the graphics driver incorrectly, it might boot but not work properly – sometimes followed by a BSOD, or numerous other things.

If this happens then shut it down again in the normal manner, if you can, and try booting it up again. In numerous cases it’ll boot-up properly the next time, and everything will be fine. – But what if the same problem occurs again when you try to boot it again? Well, if it’s happened twice then the probability is that it’ll occur a third time; so it’s time to take action.

This solution works sometimes; other times it doesn’t; but it’s the easiest solution of all, so it’s worth a try before you try anything else: -

Press your computer’s power button to switch it on, and as soon as you do that repeatedly press the F8 key. One of two things should happen after the initial BIOS screen appears, depending upon the motherboard you have fitted inside your box: – (If anyone tries this and gets something else happening then I’d ask you to comment below. Please give details of the motherboard you have fitted, as well as other system spec.s (Including age of system.), and as good a description as you can of what happens.)

Either it’ll open up a boot-menu screen, or it’ll bypass this step and go straight to the next step. If it does open a boot-menu screen, (Primary Hard drive, CD-ROM, Floppy, etc.) we don’t need that, so don’t change anything there, just hit the Esc key, and as soon as you press the Esc key, repeatedly hit F8 again.

The Windows Advanced Options Menu should appear. This is white text on a dark-grey background. The options open to you are: -

In this case we want “Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)”, so use the down and up arrow keys to highlight this line. Press enter¬.

Forget the other options for the time being. In this article we’ll deal with that one only.

On the next screen you’ll see “Please select the operating system to start.”

If you’ve only installed a single installation of Windows XP then your choice will already be highlighted and you just press Enter¬ again. It your machine has on a dual-boot and/or you see more than a single operating system; use the up and down arrow keys to select the operating system that you were just trying to boot into, (Windows XP.) and then press Enter¬.

Windows will start to boot; except this time it looks in the System Volume Information folders on your hard-drive for a setting it used before when that driver loaded correctly. If it finds it then it’ll load it into the boot sequence and proceed with boot. If it doesn’t and still encounters the problem then the crash that happened before will probably happen again. – But that’s another article’s reading from that point.

**In light of the paragraph above I’m going to make this a series: This post being Part 1, Parts 2 onward to be written soon.**

- This operation thus far may solve your problem, and then again it might not.

If it does solve the problem then I suggest that you allow the computer to fully boot, and then restart it again, just so that the new settings that work are written to the registry before you do anything else.

Coming up in Part 2: If that didn’t work then we’ll use the Windows Advanced Options Menu to do something else. – Coming soon.

In 2003; AMD introduced the first 64-bit processor targeted at the average consumer, the single-cored Athlon 64, onto the market. Six years later, and now virtually all processors produced at the present moment are 64-bit capable. Also most processors used these days have 2 or more cores, enabling approximately 1.7 times or more of the functionality of a single-cored CPU.

Meanwhile, leaving the minority operating systems, such as Linux, and Mac osX – which only runs well on an Apple computer anyway, aside; between 2001 and almost up to the present day the market leader of operating systems, namely Microsoft Windows, has in reality been fairly stagnant. Despite the release of Windows Vista in January 2007, which in many ways went down like a lead balloon from the offing, most people have been using Windows XP since 2001. (Myself included.(Well, since January 2002 to be exact. – I stayed with Windows 98SE until I managed to afford a new computer. – Things were a bit tighter then.) Back in the days when XP was launched, everyone was using a single-cored processor that was only 32-bit capable. In those days 250 megabytes of RAM was considered a vast amount, a 60GB hard-drive had a massive amount of space on it, the Intel Pentium 4 was the latest cutting-edge CPU, (The new machine I bought in 2002 had a first-generation P4 2.8GHz processor installed.) 32MB graphics were considered the norm, and 64MB were considered leading-edge… Nobody but the extreme-geeks wanted 64-bit operating systems; and therefore most of the XP CDs sold were 32-bit. 32-bit became the norm, became known. It was taught that computers went from 4-bits in the 1960s and 70s, (Commodore Pet) to 8-bits (16-colours!) in the 1980s, to 16-bits (DOS) and then to 32-bits (Windows 95 et al.) in the 1990s. – And from there a general feeling amongst the less-computer-literate that this was the ultimate destiny, that technology had no need to progress further than that. Windows 98SE became replaced by the excuse for an operating system known as Windows ME, and shortly afterwards by Windows 2000, which combined the advances made in ME with the lessons learned from ME: The limited and insecure FAT32 file-system which Microsoft had previously hailed as the way ahead, was falling out of favour, and customers had the choice now of using either FAT32 or the far superior NTFS disk-formats. Not far down the road came XP; which built on the lessons learned from 2000, and XP and 2000 were the in-thing. Many people stuck to using 98SE and ME, in addition to those using 2000 and XP.

Support for 98SE and ME was eventually discontinued; but to this day some die-hards still use those operating systems, despite their now being a massive security-risk both in terms of the user and of the rest of the internet-community as a whole. XP became the principle operating system, even holding out extremely well against the newer Windows Vista, which flopped from launch. – This caused consternation among many of the Microsoft faithful; many of whom switched to Linux and Apple’s Mac in protest.

Despite all this; the remaining Microsoft community – which only shrank in size by a few percent due to defectors to Linux and Mac – stayed in the 32-bit frame of mind. A few took up 64-bit computing with Vista after SP1. Even fewer took up 64-bit computing with XP after SP2 and 3.

Meanwhile; Apples Mac community; its numbers swelled with Vista detractors, was already completely 64-bit. Linux distros appeared utilising the 64-bit potential of modern machines also. Microsoft people either didn’t appear to know or care about 64-bit computing: 32-bit computing appeared good enough so why change? There was and still remains a danger of getting stuck in a rut.

What’s the big deal about 64-bit computing then? Why should I want to use a 64-bit operating system as opposed to a 32-bit operating system?

Let me ask you this: (I know a question in answer to a question may be considered lame; but bear with me here.) Why would you want to use a 32-bit operating system as opposed to a 16-bit operating system? Because 32-bit has more capabilities, right? – Like 32 million colours as opposed to 256 colours…

No I’m not saying that there’s several trillion colours in 64-bit…. Well there may in fact be so; but it’s a bit pointless to use that as a reason to upgrade, as the human eye only sees just over 24 million different colours. The main thing about 64-bit operating systems is that they enable your computer to work with more memory. (RAM) – Vastly more in fact: These days applications are demanding more and more RAM and other system resources to be in use on your computer in order to run them. – But there’s a limit to how much RAM you can use per system. If you’re running a 32-bit operating system you can use up to around 3.5 gigabytes of RAM. In 2001 that must have seemed like a colossal amount of memory. These days 2 gigabytes is standard. – On a computer with a 32-bit operating system that is.

I’m typing this on a computer that I built in December 2008. This computer has 2 GB RAM, an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 dual-core 64-bit capable processor… Yet as with most such computers belonging to most people, it’s currently running a 32-bit XP Professional operating system.

The computer next to it, which I built in April 2009, has 4GB RAM – and today I bought another 4 GB RAM which I intend to fit soon. It has an AMD Phenom triple-cored 64-bit-enabled processor and is currently running Windows 7 RC 64-bit.

My point is that this year a new Windows operating system is going to be launched. – But this is no Vista: This one’s Windows 7. It works almost flawlessly and neither I nor several of my online acquaintances can find anything to complain about with regard to it. – And this is before it’s even been fully released! – OK ‘straight to the point: Which is that 32-bit is so 1990s and 2000s. Next year we’ll be entering the 2010s and, as usual, technology will be moving on at its standard fast-pace.

Windows 7 will be available in both 32 and 64-bit versions. If you have a 64-bit capable computer and buy and/or load 32-bit Windows 7 you won’t be doing yourself any favours. When Windows 95 was released it was possible to run a 16-bit operating system on a 32-bit computer designed to run Windows 95. – Try running one of today’s apps in a 16-bit environment though. It wouldn’t run. Even if it did run; the machines that were around when 16-bit was the in-thing would hardly be capable of running a single app that’s used today. (I tried running XP Home on a computer powered by a Pentium 1 processor. (1996/7 IIRC.) It was 32-bit capable so it ran: Badly and tediously slowly. It took 1/2 hour to boot…)

In a few years your 32-bit operating system won’t be capable of running the applications of the time properly and in multiples, because they’ll need more memory than is able to be utilised by a 32-bit operating system. Remember; a 32-bit operating system can only see about 3.5 gigabytes at one time. A 64-bit operating system can see and use over 16 million terabytes of RAM though. That should be all you need for a few years yet.

Do yourself a favour: When you move up to Windows 7; get a 64-bit version of the operating system (Provided that your system is 64-bit capable.(Most systems built in the last 2 years are 64-bit capable. If unsure ask your retailer or an experienced geek.)) It’s time everyone snapped out of this 32-bit mentality; it’s so yesterday. – It’s like choosing to drive a Reliant Robin in favour of a Porsche.

Let’s all break the mould and go 64-bit. I intend to do so; and it’s in everyone’s best interests to do likewise.

Do you agree?

Microsoft have already said that Windows 7 will ship in 2009. – But when in 2009?

In May 2009, at Microsoft’s annual TechEd USA conference, Microsoft officials confirmed that Windows 7 will be shipped in time for it to be preloaded on PCs by the Christmas holiday season.

Bearing in mind that there is usually a delay of up to three months between the RTM date and the time when the operating system is available preloaded on new machines, we’d be looking at sometime in August or September 2009 for an RTM date. It would be nice for Microsoft if they could accomplish this as a back-to-school release; at least so that the mini-geeks can rush out to buy it so that they can boast to their nerdy school friends that they too are running Windows 7 on their computers.

There are rumours circulating that users buying new PCs with Windows Vista preloaded from July 1st 2009 onwards will be able to get a Windows 7 upgrade for free when it becomes available. As I said; this date is only a rumour and hasn’t been officially confirmed as far as I know: So if you do go out and buy a new PC on 1st July 2009; don’t blame me if you end up not getting 7 for free further down the line.

I don’t think Microsoft will be able to make any targets as far as a back-to-school release goes though, if the truth be known: The timeframe is just too tight. I do, however, consider it a possibility that 7 will be RTM’d in August, or September. I predict that we’re looking at an official launch date of mid-to-late November, or even early December perhaps: Very soon after which Windows 7 will be available preloaded as standard on new machines; well in time for the Holidays.

This is by no means the official word; but I’d wager a gamble on this being fairly accurate.

This is another article on Windows 7: It’s Windows 7 week this week; and since I’ve installed the RC (Release Candidate) of Windows 7 (64-bit) this week, the fact that it is is rather appropriate. – Not forgetting, of course, that Microsoft have officially released the RC to the public this week also.

Below is a listing of all the .msc files in the RC. What are .msc files? According to fileinfo.com, this: -

File Type
Microsoft Management Console Snap-in Control File

Category
System Files

Common?
No

File Description
Additional control added to the Microsoft Management Console in Windows

You’ll notice from the date affixed to the listing that these .msc files were also present in the various beta builds; from build 7000 upwards.

.msc files in Windows are generally useful, as they have a function similar to .com and .exe files: For instance; devmgmt.msc is the device manager, and eventvwr.msc is the event viewer. These files reside in the System 32 subfolder of the Windows folder. The same thing is true of Vista and XP to a certain extent; other than a few of the files might have a slightly different nomenclature in some regards, depending upon the operating system in question.

(Please excuse DS Clock for getting in the shot.)

What I noticed was new in the RC version, and that wasn’t included in the original beta, was the .com (Command) files listed below. As you will note from the listing below; .com files are MS-DOS application files: The 16-bit equivalent of a 32 or 64-bit .exe file. Despite whatever counter-claims may arise; Microsoft are still using DOS in at least part of their operating systems. This may not be a bad thing. – And then again it might? – But no biggie. These files are a throwback to before the days of Windows 95; (Probably revised somewhat since then.) but are still useful to this day.

I don’t intend to teach you DOS at this point. Either you know it or you don’t. If you know DOS then so much the better: You’ll instantly understand what these files are for and what they do. If you don’t know DOS then there’s little point learning it anyway these days. – But if you want to learn it anyway, then there are many online tutorials available. Google is your friend.

However; more than this, Microsoft have added a shedload of .exe files, as well as a gargantuan collection of .dll’s. It’s the .exe files that particularly interest me, and I have to admit that I haven’t even screen-captured all the listings, let alone browsed through them all identifying and comparing them to those of previous operating systems.

(If you’re expecting me to do so and report the results in the next article then I’ll inform you here that it took me many months to do that with XP, during which Vista appeared, and was looked at and ignored by me – along with most of the corporate world including Intel. – In other words I most likely won’t so you’re out of luck. – But no doubt someone will: The internet’s a big place, and with somewhere around 1/4 billion blogs out there it’s unlikely that it won’t happen.)

The first screen of them, and there are many, is pictured below.: -

- And if you think that’s a vast amount, having looked for yourself; wait until you see the number of .dll’s they’ve added. – That’s well beyond the scope of this article.

What drew my attention to these files in the first place was that I transferred some files and settings over from my 32-bit XP setup on the networked computer next door.(As in; the next computer in that row of computers.) Having transferred all of my personal profile over from XP to 7, I noticed that the thing that stuck out like a sore thumb, and that was missing, was the sound recorder icon that I created in XP.

I looked in 64-bit 7’s System 32 folder for a similar file or icon to the sndrec32.exe found in 32-bit XP, and discovered that there isn’t one. There’s an equivalent to sndvol32.exe, the volume controls, named SndVol.exe, but there’s no SndRec.exe, nor is there any equivalent file as far as I can tell.

This is going to cause problems for me if Microsoft don’t include it in the RTM version: I use the sndrec32.exe function in 32-bit XP via a desktop shortcut to call up the sound recorder, on which I record voice tracks, then use software to mix with music tracks, combine and clean them up, convert to mp3 format, and use the finished product. In fact the intro music for this blog was produced in just that manner. Without the presence of the sound recorder I am a bit stuffed, as are other bloggers who also record in this way.

I don’t know if it’s included in the 32-bit version? I strongly suspect not.

…And I’ve just found out, via Twitter, from Rich Menga of PC Mech.com that I suspected right: It isn’t.

Here’s my last-minute appeal. I do know that Microsoft’s Windows 7 Team read this blog from time to time; especially if I write something on Windows 7. (Logically.) – So I ask those geeks in that team to please include an equivalent to sndrec32.exe in the RTM build.

If it isn’t included I’m sure I’ll get by. – But I see no reason why it can’t be so included. (Having said that; I’m not on the development team, so what do I know?) If it isn’t included it’ll be a big pain in the ass at first. – Like the absence of the Address Bar was when I first installed Service Pack 3 to my Win XP Pro 32-bit installations. – But I carried on regardless, and eventually scrubbed round it and almost forgot about the Address Bar in the end.

- But; dear Microsoft, I appeal to you and beseech thee not to cause me any further pain, and to please include a sound recorder file in the System32 folder of the RTM of Windows 7. (It’s like a bloody prayer this. (“Oh great God of the Sacred Redmond, it is with humility and sworn devotion that we come before thee…”) I just hope it has better results than prayer.) I also speak for those others who cannot live without the sound recorder and would like it reinstated.

- In the name of Bill Gates who gave up his position for us so that Microsoft could move ever onward.

Amen.

“Blasphemer…!”

“Oh rock of ages; don’t you crumble or be leaning still.

Ah, magic moonshine now: A little people magick if you will.”

- Queen 1972.

Ah – Egg on face time: There is a sound recorder exe file in System32. It’s called SoundRecorder.exe Why is it so difficult to find? I partially blame Microsoft for renaming it to something unexpected, and also myself for not looking hard enough.

It appears to only recognise a USB microphone though. All attempts to get it to recognise an analogue mic plugged into the sound card appear futile. I did only try with a single analogue microphone though – So there may be a chance that the one I used was faulty (?)

My thanks to my internet stalker Synapse Syndrome commenting under his gay alter-ego of “Sarah Palin” (aka Syphilis Syndrone.) for this information. Unfortunately I won’t publish his comment as it is rude and obnoxious, plus I’ve banned him from publication already due to the rude and ignorant crassness of his rhetoric, as seen in his previous comments prior to the instatement of the ban. No doubt he investigated the case extremely carefully over the course of a number of days before discovering it, so that he could write a comment full of insults and ridicule. – That was a total waste of time on his part in writing it; but it’s good to know that I have my detractors serving at my feet.

I thought it might be fun today to write about the new box I built myself over the weekend. Whilst it’s not exactly the type of thing I regularly put on this blog; I think it might be useful to someone maybe. Whatever the case, doing so will be useful for me in the form of it being a record of my weekend’s activity if nothing else.

On Thursday 16th April 2009 my second computer failed. I’d been doing further maintenance work on it, and I’d inserted a Molex plug incorrectly into a drive’s power socket so that the two ground pins shorted the 12 volt rails: I’d just had a break, and returned without remembering that I hadn’t checked my work before the break. I absent-mindedly powered up the box and the PSU died. Maybe I put it out of its misery?

I’d had so many hardware-related problems with that computer recently that I wasn’t that sad about it. It felt as if that box was jinxed in a way, and as soon as I replaced something another problem appeared. I decided after not-a-lot of thought to replace the machine totally. It was an old model built on a barebones box that I’d rebuilt during 2008 after a BIOS failure.

I’d already made up my mind that I was going to build a box to run Windows 7 on when it was out of beta and the RTM version was released. I decided to bring that forward; and either run XP on it until Windows 7’s RTM, or run Windows 7 beta build 7000 if I could find the key to the 64-bit ISO I’d made earlier in the year.

‘First things first: Let’s get the new box put together:

I’d already decided what components I was going to use: -

For the processor I was going to use an AMD Phenom x 3, 2.3GHz. I’d seat this on a Gigabyte GA-M720-US3 motherboard. (The board with the chipset that isn’t really a chipset in the full sense of the term.) 

That board is different from the ones I usually use, in that it has no onboard graphics, and relies on a separate graphics card inserted into its one PCIe x 16 slot for the output to the monitor. I used the old Asus nVidia 6200LE graphics card from the old box, as that would give me the 250MB graphics I required. (Although this card only has 64MB graphics memory fitted; it “borrows” the rest, up to 256MB total, from RAM if need be.)

I fitted 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800Mhz RAM; which leaves 2 slots clear for another 4GB at a future date. I wasn’t after anything gamey, and had no intention of building a high-performance machine: I just wanted something that worked well and had decent specs. Also I wanted to keep the cost down: I wasn’t intending to spend a small fortune, rather I’d just spend as necessary and use anything secondhand where possible.

I utilised the old HDD from the old box: I wiped it using Webroot System Erase and returned it to as-new condition. I also used the IDE DVD-ROM from the old box and connected it to the single PATA socket via a ribbon cable.

Everything was up and running, and seemingly built properly and well. I was later to discover that I’d improperly connected the front USB sockets; but that took 5 minutes to rectify, following which everything was fine and dandy.

If I need extra storage in the future I’ll add another hard-drive. – After all; there are six SATA II 3mb/s sockets on the board; and currently only 1 is being used. The old HDD from the machine’s predecessor that I used is only 160GB; but that’s plenty big enough for a system-drive. I can always add more; currently up to another 7.5 terabytes storage if I choose to do so.

I found a couple of product keys for 64-bit Windows 7 betas amongst some paperwork I’d filed away, and one of them worked with the copy I installed.

Windows 7 is a very Vista-esque operating system. I have very limited experience with Vista, and until then almost absolutely none with Windows 7. – So if you were expecting a huge write-up on the benefits of Win 7 I’m afraid you’re out of luck, at this time anyway.

I’d been quite keen on the idea of a triple-cored processor since I’d first heard about it prior to AMD’s release of their Phenoms. To be honest I find the triple-core Phenom to be quite a gutsy processor; easily capable of handling anything that Windows 7 throws at it, at the same time running Carbonite online backup, which is rather processor-intensive at times.

The system appears to be using around 1.6GB RAM on tickover with Carbonite and a few other programs, such as Panda Antivirus Pro, Glint system monitor, Google Talk, Twhirl, Windows Live Messenger, DS Clock, and a few others, running in the background. Firefox is also running and has a window open.

Unlike the early reports I heard of Vista taking up 2GB RAM just to produce a blank screen, along with stability issues and driver incompatibilities; this OS appears to be quite stable and neither processor-intensive or resource-hungry. (The one gripe I have with it is that I’m unable to run my Samsung ML-2010 printer with it: It doesn’t like the Vista driver, nor will it work on the XP version.)

Some 64-bit software can be difficult to get hold of. – Such as the Windows Vista 64-bit version of iTunes from Apple (The 64-bit version is required: The OS advises you to install the 64-bit version when you attempt to install the 32-bit version.); but a little perseverance gained a result. Many 32-bit apps such as FileZilla, GMail backup, Glint, Hootech Net Meter, and even Microsoft Office XP Professional, run without a problem on it

Rich Menga of PC Mech.com had already described Windows 7 as “Vista as it should have been in the first place”. – And seemingly so it is. I’m impressed with the effort that Microsoft have put into it, even as a beta. I’m looking forward to seeing the release candidate in the near future. I think I for one will be purchasing a copy of Windows 7 when it is finally released to manufacturing later this year.

If you buy your computers pre-built with the operating system and other software pre-installed, you’ll notice that over time the unit’s operation becomes slower and slower. Eventually things might start to go wrong: Existing programs may crash unexpectedly, new programs that you install may not work properly and/or may affect other programs and/or the operating system itself. Even the operating system itself may seem to start behaving strangely. Why does this happen? In this article I’m going to be looking at the issues from the perspective of a Windows XP Professional user; such as myself.

In a lot of cases the issues arise due to a lack of maintenance. Imagine if you bought a new car but never checked, maintained, or serviced it at all: Eventually it would start to go wrong and eventually break down. A computer is like a car in that it requires constant maintenance. Just like a car won’t work well or long if all you do is fill it up with petrol for a long time, ignoring maintenance; so a computer won’t work well or long if all you do is plug it in and use it for a long time, ignoring maintenance.

In such cases the first thing people normally do is blame their hardware or somebody else. The somebody else is usually a tech; primarily the tech that built it. I once had someone insist that the reason why their machine wasn’t working very fast after they’d been downloading virus-laden files using p2p software and installing pirated software was because I hadn’t built it properly and that it was definitely a hardware fault. – This despite the fact that this person’s computer-literacy was virtually nil, and they had no idea of what went on inside their machine.

Even if the user practices safe-computing to the letter; there’s still a need to maintain the software. If your anti-malware software requires manually updating then do it regularly and routinely; or upgrade the entire program to one that automatically updates. There are free anti-malware programs that update regularly from the internet and will cost you nothing, nada, zilch. The one I recommend is called Avast! .

Even though your anti-malware program may regularly update itself from the web; there are still chances that a new virus might get in before the update occurs. There are also chances that a particular type of malware that’s got into your computer may not be recognised by the program. Always run a full virus-scan at least weekly; using both your installed software as well as an online virus scanner.

There’s also the chance that data residing on your hard-drive, including your hard-drive’s file system itself, can become corrupted. (Especially with Windows.) The more time this is allowed to continue the worse it’ll get; until it eventually becomes noticeable and the user starts suspecting a hardware malfunction after a system crash or some other symptom. I suggest that every month you run the chkdsk program. Although this can be run from the graphical user interface inside Windows; it’s easier to run it from a command line in my opinion: -

Click Start>Run and type chkdsk /r. This instructs the computer to run the chkdsk program which checks the hard-drive for errors. In this case, since you’ve used the /r parameter; it’ll check for any errors that it finds in the file-system and the data, and it’ll do it’s best to repair any errors that it finds. – It’s not infallible but it usually works. If you’re running chkdsk on your primary drive you’ll be asked to reboot so that chkdsk can work while the drive’s not in use.

If you have more than one hard-drive, or a partitioned hard-drive, you may find that you have to specify a drive letter in the command. For example: chkdsk E: /r  This command instructs the computer to run the chkdsk program on drive E: and repair any errors that it finds.

There’s also data fragmentation, which builds up over time. (This only happens with Windows and some Linux distros. It doesn’t happen on a Mac.) What’s going on here?

When Windows writes to disk it writes to the next available space on the disk. If that space is less than the data that it needs to write then it moves on past the data already on the disk to the next available space, where it starts writing again. If it still hasn’t finished writing the file but runs out of space again, then it once again uses the next available space…and so on until the write is completed. As a consequence you end up with several fragments of the file strewn across the disk. Although the system knows where these fragments are, and that they’re bits of a single file; because the information that tells it so is stored in the registry, the read-heads of the hard-drive have to spend longer seeking out and reading all those fragments when Windows wants to access the file again at a later time. If that’s just the one file then it doesn’t make much difference to performance. If it’s lots of files that are fragmented then the hard-drive can take twice as long or more reading them all, and hence performance is slowed down significantly. If it’s a large lot of or all the files that are fragmented them the computer becomes disorientated, sees data errors where there are none due to slow read-times, and crashes. Also the amount of strain on the hard-disk’s mechanisms can vastly increase reading fragmented files; therefore the lifetime of the drive decreases with use.

You can buy programs that automate the defragmentation process. I personally recommend Diskeeper for this purpose. Although it’s paid-software, you can currently use the software free for 30 days trial if you’d prefer to try it out first.

If you’re not using automated defragmentation-software, however, you should manually defragment your hard-drive at least weekly. Failure to do so will result in impaired system performance and eventually a BSOD if you leave it long enough.

Finally the obvious: If you run pirated software you’re breaking the law and are liable for prosecution if found out. Also pirated software might contain corrupted data and/or viruses/spyware/keyloggers. It might also use techniques to bypass the program’s anti-piracy measures that are detrimental to your computer hardware. If you insist on running pirated software than be prepared for anything to go wrong.

If you use p2p software; even if you don’t make illegal downloads, be very careful what you download: There are viruses out there that can get into your system and disable all of its protection; leaving it vulnerable to any and all kinds of attack.

Your computer is a machine: Like any machine; including your body, if you don’t maintain it then it WILL fall into disrepair and eventually break down.

Please comment.

*I am not currently at time of writing affiliated to Avast! or Diskeeper: Therefore whether or not you use these products; I will not gain or lose anything.

When it comes to keeping your computer free of malware; Microsoft do their bit to help their customers out: There’s a regular schedule of update releases from them known as “Patch Tuesday” on the second Tuesday of every month, there’s also an updated Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool released as a critical update along with the other patches every Patch Tuesday. There’s Windows Defender, and there’s also the late Windows OneCare and it’s successor – All from Microsoft.

- But do remember; Microsoft are not an anti-malware vendor. Although the patches issued on Patch Tuesday are released with the intention of enhancing the security of your computer’s operating system that they provided; they are in reality only corrections of errors that could lead to a security-breach that Microsoft missed when they originally designed the operating system: What they’re not is magic bullets that will keep your system safe. The Malicious Software Removal Tool won’t stop malicious software infecting your computer. It’s a post-infection measure, designed to detect any serious malware infection that exists on your machine and warn you about it: Nothing more.

If you want to view the results of previous scans by the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool ; click Start>Run and type:

%WINDIR%\debug\mrt.log

Windows Defender is a defender of Windows against certain forms of malware; but it’s not infallible. Windows One Care was designed to replace an entire security-suite; but its effectiveness was questionable. Personally I’d rather use a rival product any day; but that’s academic now as it’s a doomed product. If you’re still using it, (If you can still use it.) then I suggest that you get rid of it and get a different security suite, as it’ll stop updating soon if it hasn’t done so already.

Get an antivirus/antispyware solution from an anti-malware vendor. You don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want to either: I recommend Avast! for a free one: It’s quite possibly more effective than a few of the paid ones that I could mention. I recommend Kaspersky as one of the best paid ones

Prevention is better than cure; so keep the malware out in the first place rather than letting it in and dealing with the mess it leaves afterwards.

Also; whilst Microsoft have enhanced the Windows Firewall fairly recently; I suggest that you only rely on that alone if you’re running your computer behind a router, which acts as a hardware firewall. – Otherwise I suggest using something with a little more bite to it.

Plus, of course, always practice safe browsing: If unsure then don’t click it.

Nasties can only get in through an open door. Keep as many doors as possible closed and put guards on those that are left open by necessity. – That way nothing nasty will get in.

Has your machine ever been compromised? Please comment.

HP has decided that it won’t be launching its new Mini 1000 Mi Edition netbook in the UK; because, it says, the UK  consumer doesn’t want Linux.

Yes you read that right: HP thinks the average British consumer doesn’t want Linux. – Ubuntu Linux too.

Personally I know of many people who would give their right arm to have a netbook running Ubuntu Linux; but HP either know something I don’t or are just plain dumb.

The company has said that it won’t be launching the netbook in the UK; so not only don’t the British get another chance to learn to use and like Linux, but also they don’t get the netbook either.

HP is launching its new Mini 1000 Mi Edition netbook in the US, and it comes with a custom-made Ubuntu Linux operating system. The Brits, however, have to go without: No notebook and no Linux either.

HP is under the impression that UK customers are happy with the netbooks that are already available to buy in the Brit market, and have decided not to offer the Mini 1000 Mi Edition on this side of the pond.

Contrary to HP’s opinion however, other companies including publishers and retailers have seen a large amount of UK interest in Linux operating systems.

On the evidence of this; HP have shot themselves in the foot and will miss out on a rather good opportunity. – But that’s their problem to some extent. I wonder exactly what the UK Linux-users and prospective-UK-Linux-users are missing out on? There’s one way to find out: Import HP’s netbooks from America and sell them packaged with an AC mains voltage adapter in the UK.

Have I given someone ideas? I don’t even know whether it’s legal to do so under joint US / British trade regulations; neither will I be held responsible for anyone else’s possible contravention of any rules relating to them as a result of my suggested idea. I’m not an international trader and I can’t be expected to know much about it.

Nevertheless I see no reason why the UK should miss out on the product and Linux due to the fanciful whim of the manufacturer.

“Wait a minute there…” You interject: –

“You’re a self-admitted Wintard. What do you care about Linux?”

Yes it’s true that I prefer Windows personally. I also occasionally use Linux at times myself though, and I think that those who prefer Linux to Windows should all have equal rights to use it to the greatest possible extent; just as I think that those including myself who prefer Windows to Linux should also have the same rights; whether they live in the USA, Canada, the UK, Africa, India, Australia, or on Mars even: Wherever. I don’t think it fair that a company should deny a whole group of countries the right to own their product and use Linux on it if they wish to do so.

It’s neither in the interests of the Brits or HP to do so. OK I appreciate that they’re targeting what they believe to be a better marketplace; fair play to them, but in the interests of commerce it would appear as logical to target a market where the need is lesser and create a need, as it would be to serve the marketplace area where the extent of anticipated trade is better known. – Surely I’m right?

‘Anyone disagree? ‘Anyone strongly in agreement? Do comment.

RAM – It’s your computer’s processor’s instantly-accessible working-space. It’s the first place the CPU uses for storing information, notes, formulae, algorithms, data, logs, and anything else that it might want to access in a hurry. If there’s not enough room in the RAM then the processor has to utilise some space on the hard-disk to use in its place.

What’s the big deal with that then? Well to the processor the difference is like popping in to the local store next door – or driving to town, parking up, walking to the supermarket, waiting in a queue at the checkout to pay, walking back to the car, and driving back home again. Disk access takes ages compared to accessing the RAM, and it also causes extra wear and tear on the disk too.

On the evidence of that, then, we can say that the more RAM you have installed in your computer the better… Up to a point: If you’re using a 32-bit operating system then your computer will only see a limited amount of RAM. I know this for a fact. A customer of mine was adamant that he was going to have 4GB RAM fitted to his box that I was building, and that we’d agreed I was going to install 32-bit XP professional on; This despite the fact that I had told him that the operating system wouldn’t see all of the RAM if that much were installed. When completed the computer saw only 3.5 GB of RAM with its 32-bit operating system; and the onboard graphics used 250MB of that, leaving 3.25 GB with 500MB unseen. Click this link for a little more.

I’ll move on to 64-bit operating systems further down.

Both of my computers run 32-bit XP Professional and have 2GB RAM fitted. Only once when I was indexing and viewing a large file of over 2000 pictures; some over 1GB in size, have I ever run out of space in RAM. If you’re using a 32-bit operating system and using your computer for average general computing then 2GB is probably as much as you’ll ever need. With the low price of RAM sticks there days, though, it wouldn’t hurt to fit 3GB RAM if you have enough memory slots on the motherboard.

If you’re using a 64-bit operating system, though, it won’t hurt to stuff as much RAM as you can into your box. Assuming that your motherboard will support it; filling 4 memory slots with 4 x 4GB memory sticks – making a total of 16 GB – is fine. Why waste memory slots? They may as well be used if they can be used.

64-bit operating systems have the capability to address much more RAM. How much? Well it appears that nobody can actually agree on exactly how much: Nobody I know anyway.

I’ve heard one person claim that it can take an infinite amount of RAM – Which is wrong; there is a limit. I’ve heard someone else still claim that it will only see a terabyte of RAM. I personally calculated it at several terabytes. Whichever is correct, it’s fairly academic anyway: I don’t see a motherboard anywhere at the moment that’ll take 250 X 4GB RAM sticks (1TB). Such a board would be rather large: Larger than most people would like anyway, I think it would be safe to assume. The most RAM I’ve ever heard of anyone using in a single box under a 64-bit environment, up to time of writing, is 32GB on a Mac. That is used for doing a shedload of video editing/broadcasting, in addition to running an entire online business. Do you have more than that fitted to your computer? Please say so if you do.

There are a few rules to fitting RAM, other than fitting the right type of RAM, e.g. DDR, DDR2, DDR3, etc. Let’s take a look at some of them: =

Most motherboards these days have dual-channel architecture. This is analogous to the dual-core processor in a way; except for the preference that at least 2 individual sticks of RAM should be used. There should be no problems using only 1, but system performance will be enhanced by using at least 2. It’s a better idea to use an even number of sticks; though I’ve not heard of any major issues in using an odd number of sticks.

As you may or may not know; there are different speeds of RAM: For instance; one of my machines is fitted with DDR2 533MHz RAM, whereas the other one, which I’m writing this on, is fitted with DDR2 667MHz RAM. What’s the difference? The difference is the frequency that they operate at. What difference does the RAM speed make to system performance? A very small and almost unnoticeable difference; but something rather than nothing. If I was using DDR3 RAM in one of them then the difference would be noticeable; and so would the cost, as DDR3 is more expensive than DDR2, added to which I’d need to replace the motherboard to be able to use DDR3, as my memory slots will only accommodate DDR2 sticks.

So what happens if I were to mix up the sticks and fit a 533 and a 667 MHz stick to one of the computers? The answer is that the RAM would run at the speed of the slowest stick; in this case 533MHz. – So yes you can mix the speeds; but the result will be that all the sticks will run at the speed of the slowest stick.

How much RAM can I get away with NOT using?

I’ve run XP Home on a Pentium 1 processor with 32MB PC133 RAM before now; and it worked. – ‘Just that it took half an hour to boot, thrashed the disk like crazy, and ran slower than the UK railways.

I’ve run XP Home on 250MB DDR RAM in a box with an AMD Sempron 32-bit single-core CPU. It was slow, and the hard disk was very busy. I installed a second 250MB DDR stick and everything worked reasonably well; on “tick-over” that is: It wasn’t 100% happy when doing intensive jobs and took its time over some operations.

XP Pro 32-bit works fine with a dual-core processor and 1GB DDR2 RAM. I like to have 2GB installed as there are occasions when the system needs it. I have nVidia turbocharged graphics cards; which borrow up to 186 MB of it if the display needs it too.

Vista loves RAM; and it’ll greedily utilise loads of it just showing the desktop. It’s a well-known resource-hogger; so if you’re running Vista I’d say 2GB minimum for 32 or 64-bit.

Linux – depending on the distro – will run on almost anything. In the case of operating systems like Ubuntu, however, I’d recommend a minimum of 1GB.

Mac OSX – A very versatile *nix – based 64-bit OS. With that one I’d say the more the merrier…And that goes for any 64-bit OS too in all honesty. – It depends what you’re using it for.

That’s about it for this article: I think I’ve RAMmed the message home enough for now. – That’s enough PUNishment. If you have any thoughts, disagreements, views, whatever, then please comment below.

On April 14th 2009 – Which incidentally is also one of Microsoft’s “Patch Tuesdays”. – Windows XP leaves Microsoft’s mainstream support and enters extended support.

At seven-years old; XP is already Microsoft’s most successful operating system, partly due to its enhanced longevity.

Normally Microsoft keeps an operating system in mainstream support for 5 years after its release date, and then puts it into extended support for another 5, before retiring it completely. In the case of XP, however, Microsoft were forced to extend the support-lifetime a further 3 years due to the long delay between the releases of XP and Vista. In reality, then, XP has been already living on borrowed time for the last couple of years and a bit more.

Mainstream support includes security and functionality bug-fixes – Also issuing service packs as an extra, which are a condensed form of a compilation of existing and new bug and security fixes encapsulated into a single package for ease of installation.

Extended support, however, includes critical updates and security-related patches only. From April 14th onwards this is all that XP will have issued.

Does that mean that people should stop using XP? Not at all. There is another 5 years of critical-security related support available for XP from April 2009. This means that XP will not become a security risk, like Win 9x and ME now are due to the unavailability of security fixes, until April 2014. My advice for the moment is if you’re comfortable using XP at present then carry on using it for now.

What of its successors? Well in my opinion Vista was a flop, and at this point isn’t worth worrying about. – Although having said that there are a few people, one of whom is an online-friend of mine, who prefer Vista to anything else Microsoft have ever produced. Those people are nevertheless in the minority.

Then there’s Windows 7:  At time of writing, Windows 7 is available in beta form.

(NOTICE: If people who intend to download the beta haven’t yet done so then I do suggest doing so ASAP as a matter of urgency. Microsoft are closing entries to the beta program in a few days time.)

Windows 7 looks promising; but as I’ve stated in an earlier article, Microsoft have decided to issue 6 versions, allegedly in the hope of maximising their profits by doing so. As I said in a comment I made on PC Mech, if it was a choice between Home, pro, and Business versions; I’d go straight out and buy Pro as soon as it was released in RTM format. Now I’m going to wait to let those with the money who are brave enough to do so jump in where angels fear to tread and test the versions, before reporting what the customer will get with each version. Yes I’m hanging back until I know what I’m letting myself in for, and I advise my readers to do the same, unless they happen to be well-off financially and extremely geeky.

For now I’m sticking to XP; and I may well run XP on one of my comps right up until 2014. I may even use it as a standalone system even after that, until the comp it’s installed on packs up beyond reasonable repair through old age.

Are Microsoft going to do their best to kill off XP from April onward as rumour has it? I don’t think they need to in all honesty. I think Windows 7 will do that before long, although not totally. What’s your opinion? Please do comment.

Is 7 showing a weakness even at this early stage?

- Probably not; but PC Pro magazine’s staff found a problem whilst running Kaspersky’s Windows 7 antivirus. On the Pro Blog they record the event and relate the problems that they were experiencing running Word 2007 in Windows 7 while Kaspersky’s beta was installed.

Click here to read the account from the site.

As the writer points out; “…this is a free security suite running on a beta operating system. Bugs are to be expected.”

- However I don’t advise running any operating system without security software; even if it is only until the Office Manager finds out. There are other anti-virus etc solutions available; even for Windows 7 beta. I do suggest installing one of them, even if this insight has caused you to give Kaspersky’s free Windows 7 Security Suite a miss for the time being.

Are you running the Windows 7 beta? What’s your own experience? Have you found any bugs in it yet? Did you notice the above issue? I look forward to your comments.

“Untouchable” Apple are becoming security-conscious it appears:

Despite the “I’m a Mac” guy sneezing the word Vista at the “I’m a PC” guy in their adverts; Apple have found it not below their demeanour to publish the following page on their website: –

Does the great Jobsweh suddenly feel that his invulnerability is threatened – or is it just the paranoid manifestation of the symptoms of hormone imbalance? Whatever the case, it appears that Apple have woken up to the fact that just because a rival operating system is more targeted, it doesn’t make theirs immune to attack.

It’s in every Mac user’s interests to ensure that your Mac doesn’t become infected with something called “malware”: That’s the nasty malefic mini-programs that only a few months ago the Apple advertising campaigns were insinuating only affect PCs. You might like to click upon this link to be taken from here to a place created by your own kind from whence you might gain the protection that you’ve hitherto been told you don’t need.

The Mac-attack is coming: Prevention is better than cure. Immunity is a myth.

Read This. Don’t end up with a rotten Apple.

There’s an RSS feed to the Apple Networking and Security Downloads page by which you can get notified when new tools are put on the list.

Question: Are Steve Jobs’ kids known as “applets”?

Windows is a good operating system in my opinion; particularly XP at time of writing. (Vista suffers from bloat.) One thing I’ve noticed with XP is how much disk space it allocates by default to System Restore: 12% of available disk space. That percentage can be quite a colossal amount on, say, a 1.5 terabyte disk. – And the more space occupied by the system, including System Restore, the less space available for you to store files.

Of course, the larger the disk, the more space Windows needs to store restore-point information: That is to say where a couple restore points covering all of the files on an 80GB drive could be crammed into, say, 4GB of space; it would take a lot more space to accomplish the same on a 1 terabyte disk. – Somewhere in the region of 50 gigabytes.

By allocating a proportion of the disk by a proportional percentage-value, rather than a given quantity of gigabytes, Windows always has enough available space to create a number of System-Restore points. However the percentage that Windows allocates for this purpose is to my mind overly large, and reserves too much space.

An option is to limit the percentage of the disk-space available to System Restore; which does limit the amount of restore points it can hold, but releases disk space for other things.

To do this:

*1 Right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select the System Restore tab.

*2 In the box select the disk on which you want to adjust the amount of space reserved for System Restore points and click “settings”.

*3 Adjust the amount of space using the slider. The default setting is 12% of your disk, but on disks of 160GB or more I find 6% is quite sufficient and a decent working amount.

If you have a disk below 40GB I don’t suggest changing this to below 10%, although I have got away with 5% before on a 40GB disk.

Do you think 12% is too much space; or do you think it better to sacrifice space to have more restore points available?

A lot of people already know how to do this; in which case this article is not for them. However some newbies or the non-technically savvy may not be quite so up to speed on this. Worry not; if you fit this category then this article’s for you:-

The Device Manager is the place where your identified hardware components are listed, as well as any unidentified hardware. Normally hardware components are fully identified by the operating system after the appropriate driver has been installed. If no driver or the wrong driver has been installed, you may see a yellow ? or an ! accompanying a listing such as "Unknown Device" or "PCI device", "scanner", "PCI multimedia device", or similar.

This can be somewhat unhelpful, as a large number of different classes of device are connected to the PCI bus for instance, and it sometimes takes an amount of expertise to decipher which device the Device Manager is referring to in these cases.

For instance; a PCI multimedia device could be a component of a sound card, or the sound card itself, either built in to your existing motherboard, or separate from it. The identification issue can at times require a knowledge of the computer’s components, as well as a bit of deduction, in order to arrive at the correct conclusion. If you’re unsure I suggest you either embark on some online-sourced detective work, or consult a professional.

Moving on… If your device has a driver, then a brief description of the device and of the driver will be available in the Device Manager:

Some of the listed groups may be fairly obvious as to what they contain; but just for fun I’ll list some of the less obvious ones below:-

At the top you’ll see the name of your computer. (If Windows has named your computer for you, and/or you’re not happy with the current name, and you want to change it, right click the "My Computer" icon, click properties, and select the Computer Name tab.) Below your computer’s name you’ll see a listing of device categories. (In the example above the first of these is "Asus Other Devices": These are extra devices specific to my graphics card. Your computer may not have this category of devices unless you are running a PCIe Asus graphics card.)

Moving down you have "Computer". The information in this section, which can be obtained by clicking on the + sign within the adjacent box, describes what type of computer you are running.: For instance "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" if you are running a dual-core or quad-core setup (A setup using a multi-cored processor.), or "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" if you are running a single-cored setup.

Disk Drives lists all your hard-disks; including any USB or Firewire external drives, disks or flash-keys, whatever.

Display Adapters section lists all your graphics adapters: This can include the graphics adapter built into your chipset on your motherboard, if your computer uses onboard graphics; or can include your AGP, PCI, or PCIe graphics cards that have been installed as extras to improve the graphics performance of your computer.

You may see a section called "Human Interface Devices": This, as its name suggests, is where devices that directly interface with humans are listed. (Although keyboards and mice have their own separate sections in most cases.) It’s not always clear what the devices in this section are, even when properly identified: Some may be listed as "USB Human Interface Device" only, or "HID-Compliant Device". Don’t worry too much about this: It’s just one of the foibles of using Microsoft software; that being that not everything is as user-friendly as it could be.

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers contains devices that directly control the functions of your disk-drives. The settings of these devices in Device Manager can be tweaked to improve the performance of your computer; but unless you know what you’re doing I suggest that you leave them as they are. There’s usually at least one Primary IDE Controller and one Secondary IDE Controller listed. (These appear and are related to your disk-drives even if your computer has SATA drives installed. This is due to the way that the Windows XP SATA drivers produce an emulated IDE environment to the other components, in order to lull the other hardware into the impression that everything’s been just as it is now since the turn of the 21st Century: That saves a lot of hassle in the case of this particular operating system.)

Network Adapters: I don’t know why they didn’t name this section "Network Interface Devices", as basically that’s what the devices in this section are: They interface your computer with external network(s); such as the internet, or such as a bluetooth network.

SCSI and RAID Controllers: Some computers won’t have this section. In short, these controllers allow the computer to run a Redundant Array (More than 1) of Independent Disks, configured to minimise data loss in the event of an internal fault. The fact that the computer has one of these controllers doesn’t mean, necessarily, that it is configured for RAID or SCSI, or that it has more than one hard-disk installed. It just indicates that the machine has the ability to do so.

System Devices: I could write thousands of pages on this section, had I the time and/or inclination to do so. In short this is a listing of the devices on the motherboard that aren’t mentioned elsewhere. Most have drivers that come with the operating system, created by Microsoft in 2001. Some may have a different manufacturer’s name attached to them, and are specific to your particular motherboard.

Universal Serial Bus Devices: USB devices in short. Other than the various USB root hubs on the motherboard, which basically supply power at 5 Volts to each USB socket; and the USB host controllers on the motherboard or on the USB extension PCI card inside the computer’s case (A USB controller indicates a USB 1 or USB 1.1 capable-device; whereas an enhanced USB host controller indicates a USB 2 capable-device.) – This section lists all devices that you have plugged into a USB port.

Right click on a device listing and a number of options are presented to you:-

"Update Driver" will open the Hardware Update Wizard, and can search Windows Update for an updated device driver for that device. Unfortunately not all driver updates from Windows Update actually work in a particular machine. I’ve just, at time, of writing been offered a driver update for my graphics card by Windows Update; which was strange as I already have the latest nVidia drivers installed. That update crashed my machine twice when I tried installing it, so I’m staying with what I’ve got.

The true updated drivers come from the device manufacturers themselves. It’s worth checking their website once in a while for updated driver versions for the devices that you run.

When Windows starts it scans all your hardware and builds up the list that you see in Device Manager. "Scan for hardware changes" scans your hardware again without restarting Windows; and any subsequent changes that it finds are reflected in the Device Manager after the scan. (Nevertheless; after installing a new driver, it is always better to restart Windows in order that the new driver is written to disk and properly activated from startup.)

There are 2 ways to get into the device’s properties dialogue: The first being by clicking "Properties" as shown in the illustration above. The second is to double-left-click on the individual device listing. Either way you’ll arrive at something like this:-

The General tab is as above, and tells you the identity, location, and status of the device.

The Advanced Settings tab only appears on a few of the Properties dialogue boxes depending upon which device is in question. As I stated before; unless you know exactly what you’re doing it’s best to leave anything under this tab as it is.

The Driver tab (Above.) gives details of the device’s currently installed driver with several options:-

Driver Details shows extended details of the driver.

Update Driver opens the Hardware Update Wizard with respect to that particular device.

Roll Back Driver reverts the current driver version installation to the previous installed driver version, should there have been one.

Uninstall uninstalls the device in question from the system until the next reboot or until Scan for Hardware Changes is clicked; at which point the device will be rediscovered by the operating system, and any suitable driver residing on disk installed.

Now we know what everything does; let’s look at some instances where we’d use the Device Manager:-

We hear that the manufacturer of one of the devices that is being used on our computer, a RAID controller in this case, has released an updated driver for their device. We go to their website and read about the driver, following which we upload the driver package to disk. The driver files are not packaged in a self-installing .exe file in this case, so we need to get Windows to install the new files. We go to the SCSI and RAID Controllers section in the Device Manager and select the appropriate device that we want to update. Let’s say that this device is listed as "Acme RAID controller". We right-click on the device’s name and click "Update Driver".

The Hardware Update Wizard appears and we first of all try the easy method of clicking "Install the software automatically" to see if we have any luck with that.

The computer searches the hard-disk but fails to pick up and install the new driver: It didn’t see it and/or it didn’t recognise it. We have to tell the computer where it is now; so we click *Install from a list or specific location". We tell the computer to look at the specific file that we downloaded and it sees and installs it.

BUT after using the device we find that the last driver was in fact better in that the device worked better using it…So we open the properties dialogue, select the Driver tab, click the "Roll Back Driver" button, and the machine dumps the driver that we just installed and reverts to the original driver that we were using before.

OR

We install a new device, a scanner perhaps, by plugging it into the one of the USB ports on the computer. The device is recognised by the computer (As a scanner.) but the operating system is unable to find a suitable driver for it and install it automatically. We browse to the device’s manufacturer’s website and download a driver for it, find the unspecified device in the Device Manager, right-click the entry, and click "Update Driver"… See above.

This isn’t a fully comprehensive guide by any means; but it should go a long way towards helping newbies to understand the Device Manager, and also to help the not-so-tech-savvy to use it if necessary.

Please do comment on this article if you feel that there’s anything you’d like to say.

“Windows 7 basically takes Windows one step closer to the design aesthetic of the Mac, where form is valued over function. I’m not sure this is the right strategy. Simplicity, taken in isolation, may seem like a good idea. But I’m afraid that in Windows 7, Microsoft is sacrificing too much in its bid to be more like Apple. And it’s the users of Windows who will pay the price.”

- So says blogger Paul Thurrott in his article “Windows 7: Simple Vs. Easy” 

Me; I’m not really in the know: I haven’t even seen the pre-beta. – But I want to highlight this suggestion that Microsoft are trying to make Windows more like Mac osX.

ZDnet’s Mary Joe Foley commented in a part of her response to Thurrott’s article:

“If I wanted a Mac-like environment, I’d buy a Mac. I want an computing environment that helps me get my work done and doesn’t require a how-to manual to figure out which icon does what. Maybe Microsoft could introduce “Windows 7 Luddite Edition” for those of us who value function over form?”

I suggest that you read the two articles right through, and then, if you would be so kind, state your opinion by means of a comment below. What I’m asking is; do you think Microsoft are in danger of making Windows too like Mac osX? Also do you think that they are attempting to present Windows 7 as a simpler-to-use operating system by hiding the complexities; in other words sacrificing function to promote form?

I would imagine that, even in 7, it’s possible to access all the usual functions from the command line, even if those functions may be buried. Not all users are actually familiar with the command line though – After all this is Windows, not Linux.

I miss the point maybe; or is there some benefit to be gained by encouraging the stupid and lazy to become stupider and lazier by hiding things they can’t understand and can’t be bothered to learn about?

Apple may not want to admit it, but there is already Mac-malware going around. Security experts have long raised concerns about a Mac-attack suddenly arising from a particularly virulent piece of malware. Meanwhile Apple continue to stress that Macs are invulnerable and don’t require anti-malware protection in order to generate their better-than-a-PC image.

Apple employees at their stores deny any need for anti-malware and anti-virus for a Mac. Apple’s own ads imply that a mac is pretty invulnerable. Yet despite this, even the Apple.com website has links to anti-malware solutions for the Mac running osX. Why would that be if there was no threat?

I’m sorry to say it, Apple-lovers, but you are being conned by Jobsweh and his followers. When the malware-writers have waited long enough to lull you all into a false sense of security while the Apple movement grows, and many more people are conned into getting an "Invulnerable" Mac, they’ll release their malware into the wild.

It’s obvious that Apple know that this is going to happen someday. Windows needs antivirus solutions, despite the fact that many of them are inadequate. At least it’s some protection rather than none. Windows gets targeted a million times more than a Mac; true, but as the number of Mac users grows then so will the target on the Mac osX operating system, and malware writers will strike a totally unprepared and defenseless market sector.

I wonder how Apple will try to worm their way out of it when it finally happens? What do you think?

Next week from the 27th October 2008 onwards, Microsoft is hosting its Professional Developers Conference. On offer at the PDC are sneak previews of the Windows 7 operating system; which is still in alpha, their cloud-based operating system, appropriately nicknamed "Windows Cloud"; at least for the interim, as well as its latest office suite; currently known as Office 14.

Microsoft have so far kept quiet about their latest office-worthy toolkit, other than hinting on a RTM date of late 2009/early 2010 in a leaked Powerpoint presentation.

Back in February 2008 , Bill Gates hinted at it having a greater online presence. Does this indicate an office-in-the-cloud? Maybe after the week is out we’ll know for sure.

Are you still using Windows 98, 98SE, or ME?

Released in 1998, Windows 98 was a MS-DOS-based operating system which used the FAT32 file format only. Windows 98 was pushing the DOS operation close to its limit, and 98SE (Second Edition) released in 1999, fixed a few performance issues that were apparent in the original.

For the sake of convenience I’m going to label those operating systems from 98 to ME collectively as Win 9x. Win 9x was showing its age. Various issues caused it to be somewhat of a liability and it just wasn’t a technology worth continuing with. The release of XP sounded a death-knell for the older MS-DOS system, and XP heralded a new, more secure and more stable modus operandi in its new NT-based technology which had been written from scratch, based in many ways on the design of the older NT system used by Windows 3.1.

Microsoft stopped supporting Win 9x in July 2006; therefore any vulnerabilities in any or all of the Win 9x operating systems discovered since then remain unpatched and will continue to be such. This means that using these operating systems today makes them a possible serious security threat.

Of course upgrading isn’t without its costs: A new Windows operating system such as XP or Vista, whilst preferable to 9x, isn’t free. Add to that the fact that some hardware may need to be upgraded, or in the case of moving to Vista, the entire machine will probably have to be replaced with a new one to meet the rigorous hardware specifications and requirements that Vista operation needs.

In the above case, if cost is a real issue, it might be possible to retain the machine as is, but rather than moving up to a new version of Windows, use a free Linux distro instead. A lot of Linux distros have lower hardware requirements than their Windows counterparts.

A note of caution here, though: When your older hardware components do finally give up the ghost, you may find that newer components are incompatible with your older machine, and that the required components which you need due to compatibility needs might end up costing you an arm and a leg in antique value.

Whether you choose to use Linux or stay with Windows at whatever cost, you may or may not have issues when transferring existing data, depending on which operating system you choose and which method of upgrade you choose also.

My advice here is as follows:-

First, back everything up – Yes everything. Back up your important data to disk as is if you can or as much as you can in addition to backing up the whole shebang using Norton Ghost or similar.

If you’re sticking with Windows then I suggest that you don’t upgrade your existing installation. Rather I suggest adding anything important to a brand new install. Problems that have built up over the years with 9x could transfer to your new OS if you upgrade your old installation. You might even like to try installing your old hard-drive into a new machine as a second drive after checking the file system’s rigidity and ensuring that it’s free from malware.

If you go the Linux route then I suggest you talk further about the move with a tech site such as PCMech in addition to following any relevant advice herein.

In short summary, then; if you use Win 9x it’s time to stop using Win 9x. Do you agree?

In short – Everyone needs them – That includes YOU!

I have seen people using an old computer running Windows ME without any firewall, antivirus, antispyware; totally unpatched. I was so shocked that I commented out loud about having found the local computer virus maternity unit: The owner, who was in the nextdoor room, came scurrying in with a look of puzzlement combined with anger on her face.

This person had been merrily using a totally unprotected computer for years and spreading viruses to all and sundry across the internet for years; totally unaware of any threat to herself or others.

"Oh but I only use it online about an hour a day." She exclaimed.

– How thoughtful of you. NOT!

Some computer users I’ve encountered have no idea what a firewall is. Others have said that they think they don’t need antivirus software because they only have a dialup connection. Still others have antivirus software but didn’t realise that it had to be updated. And yet others even have complained to me that the security bug fix that "Microsoft" emailed to them didn’t do anything but slow their machine down.

The worst instance was a person who had had their machine "upgraded"- Allegedly from a single-core to a dual-core processor, and had supposedly moved from a 32-bit to a 64-bit installation of Windows XP, which they’d paid a sizable amount of money for the privilege of having carried out. On my examination the operating system disk packaging didn’t shed any light on the question of exactly what this person was running, as there was only a clear case with a home-recorded CD inside it. The contents of this CD included a virus that had been rewritten to defeat the Microsoft Genuine Advantage software and reported a legitimate key. It soon became clear that this was an unprotected, non-updated, unpatched pirated copy of Windows Vista, which was being run on a machine that was hardly capable of running it:

The "upgraded" "dual-core" processor was a 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 single-core processor and the RAM it was using was still the old DDR rather than DDR2. The motherboard was a rather ancient Asus board made to run the early 1st generation Athlon 64s, which was what it was still doing. The system was riddled with viruses and malware: In fact I was surprised that it was still running. The operating system was totally unprotected and all the software that they were running was pirated also.

Both the cases I’ve written about lived within 15 miles of me, and are just two worst-case examples of the many similar cases I’ve seen that close in proximity to where I live: The possibilities from those statistics frighten me no end. I would estimate that there are nearly a million internet-connected users in England alone who are not using any online protection and whose computers are virus and botnet nurseries.

On the basis of that estimate alone it should be fairly obvious to you why a computer needs protection.

In general I think that most computer users are too lax don’t take security seriously enough.

I am fairly certain that the number of machines that are still unprotected by any kind of firewall is fairly big.

I am fairly certain that the percentage of machines unprotected by any kind of anti-virus and anti-spyware software is quite high: Higher than you’d imagine.

I am fairly certain that the number of people who have anti-virus and anti-virus software installed, but whose databases have never been updated is quite colossal.

I am fairly certain that the percentage of machines that have not once taken any update to Windows or Windows components is probably in the twenties.

I am also fairly certain that there are a number of people who’ll click on links or open attachments from unknown sources without giving it a second thought.

Owning a computer could be likened to owning a car: Both require maintenance, both need attention, both need care when using them. When you drive a car you don’t just get in and drive off taking any route that you fancy. There are do’s and don’ts; there are things you can do and things you shouldn’t do:

For instance if you don’t stick to the roads and drive cross-country you’re likely to end up stuck in a rut or broken down in the middle of nowhere. If you try to drive through tree trunks you’ll end up with a busted car. (I know this: I didn’t try to drive through a tree, but I lost it on a corner and hit one once. In that instance I discovered that evolution fashioned trees in a stronger design than Ford fashioned cars.) If you drive recklessly you’ll end up hurting yourself financially and/or physically. Maybe you’ll end up hurting others too.

The same is true when using a computer: if you don’t bother to maintain it and just "drive" it in any old fashion you’ll get reputation and you’ll end up with a computer that’s slow, faulty, and full of malware. That malware will spread from your computer to other users because that is what it is made to do. If a person doesn’t use anti-virus then their computer will become a virus nursery and infect other computers: That is carelessness and selfishness on their part. likewise with anti-spyware, firewall, etc.

People do exactly that though: they don’t bother, they don’t care. They might not mind having a machine full of malware; but other people don’t want that. As a result, we have botnets, spam, and constant virus and spyware attacks.

My advice to every computer user – Whether they run Windows, Linux, or Mac; but especially if they run Windows, is:

Windows is a targeted operating system; but other operating systems are by no means immune to attack.

Everyone needs education: That includes computer users. What do YOU think?

After my continuing opposition to Apple’s products; in particular the iPhone; you’ll probably be surprised to hear that I’m glad that Apple have at last brought out a platform-update in the form of iPhone 2.1.

Apple have not only fixed most of the bugs that came with 2.0 but also have added a number of features.

I’m not an Apple user myself; so I’ll not go into all the tech details here; rather I’ll link you to this site for more on that.

But despite this all my previous commentaries still stand with regard to Apple. If you haven’t seen my previous commentaries in this blog you can find them by using the search facility, by clicking on “Apple” in the tag cloud, or through Google/Yahoo by inputting kkomp.com Apple into the search bar.

Apple are becoming the image of Microsoft in my opinion: They produce buggy unfinished software in their rush to get the product onto the market; after which they fix the bugs with an upgrade – Exactly what M$ did with Vista.

(My blog stats show that, despite Windows being the most-used operating system(s); the number of XP users who visit this blog is almost seven times the number of Vista users. (After Vista comes Linux in third place, followed by Mac OSX, and then Windows 98.))

Back in June 2008 I commented in a scoop that Apple had rushed the 2,0 platform through in order to get out ahead of the LG Viewty; which they saw as the major competition at the time. Well that tactic; while being more Microsofty than anything other than Microsoft themselves, worked; and the Viewty didn’t make it as major competition to the iPhone. It wasn’t only that though; the fact is that the Viewty is an excellent camera-phone; and in that respect alone is many times better than the iPhone. However what the Viewty doesn’t have is the ability to run Apps, and neither does it have an App store.

So in the light of the above; was it worth the rush? Was it worth it for Apple to produce a buggy product ahead of time just to beat a partially-competitive product from a rival to market?

Maybe; maybe not: But the proof of the pudding is in the eating – Jobsweh (Steve Jobs) gambled on it and it worked. I can’t knock it. I wouldn’t have done that myself – But that’s probably why Steve Jobs is CEO of Apple and I’m a blogger. No more need be said on that.

Apple have seemingly at last saved face: Good on them; kudos to them. It’s going to boost the Apple image, and no doubt sales figures will be affected in some positive way.

BUT why follow the Microsoft route? Because it works? It does; but there must be a better way; because it’ll end in being tarred with the Microsofty-brush; if that hasn’t started to happen already.

What do you think this move will bring for Apple? Do you agree that Apple are going the Microsofty route? How would you run Apple if you were Steve Jobs? Feel free to leave a comment.

It’s a long time ago; but if I recall correctly there was no media player in Windows 95, (Correct me if I am wrong; it feels like I’ve lived several lifetimes since then.) and the first Windows Media Player was introduced with Windows 98; a player with very basic functionality which was a part of the operating system itself.

To cut a long story short; the good news, as far as this article is concerned is, it’s still there – Exactly as it originally was: Microsoft Media Player 5.1 in all its antiquity.

You don’t believe me? Open a command prompt in XP (Home or Professional.) and type “mplay32.exe”. You see; it is there, hiding away. It can play a certain selection of files, such as AVI, WMA,WMV,MID, and WAV.

Now think; what if you could use this to sample sound files without opening the full media player, such as WMP11? – For instance; if you could just select a .WAV or a .MID file, click on something, and Microsoft Media Player 5.1 appeared and sampled it instantly: Useful or what? No hanging around waiting for WMP11 to load its massive bulk just to play a tiny file.

This is especially useful for people with midi-libraries or who create sound files from prerecorded effects stored on sound files, or even just for sampling your music collection maybe.

And now for more good news: You can do just that – and here’s how:

To use Microsoft Media Player in this way, add it to the SendTo menu by following these steps:

Right-click on a blank area of your desktop, (Where there are no icons.) and highlight “New” in the drop-down menu that appears.

Another drop-down menu appears. Select “Shortcut” and click it. A wizard appears.

Type “C:\Windows\system32\Mplay32.exe /Play” (Without the inverted commas.) in the text box on the wizard and click Next.

Name the shortcut “Microsoft Media Player” (Without the inverted commas.) and click Finish.

You’ll see a clapper-board icon appear on the desktop: Remember where this is on the screen. Now we’re going to find the SendTo folder.

It’s located at:

%windir%:\Documents and Settings\username\SendTo

Where %windir% is your system root directory; usually C:, and username is your account username. e.g. “Jane” or “John” or “Supernerd”, or whatever.

If you don’t understand that, then find it using the search feature. (You’ll need to look in hidden files and folders if you do.)

Once you’ve found the folder SendTo; drag and drop the icon you just created into it and close it. (You might find it useful to create a shortcut to it on the desktop: You’ll understand why from a future post.)

Now when you encounter an AVI, WMA, WMV, MID, or WAV file and you just want to sample it, you can simply right-click on that file and select the SendTo>Microsoft Media Player command. It’ll start playing right away, as soon as the Microsoft Media Player appears.

Target neutralised.

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Microsoft says that it will be giving us a primary view of Windows 7 in October: It will be providing concise technical previews at the Professional Developers Conference on 27 October and also at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference taking place in the first week of September.

Microsoft is reported to be taking an “open and honest” approach to the operating system’s developments; unlike it did with Vista which was cloaked in secrecy and hit an unprepared market. Maybe the softies learned something from the disaster they called Vista? This time round they’re taking an open discussion approach to get as much feedback as they can before the next chapter of the Microsoft o/s saga is released: So much so, in fact, that they even have an Engineering Windows 7 blog.

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In contrast to the Vista fiasco, this time they seem to be taking a different approach with Windows 7, in order to make sure that there is a reasonable degree of confidence in the product.

Windows 7 is expected to be released in 2010; although it would make more sense to release it in November 2009 in time for the holiday season in my opinion.

In the post I made earlier entitled “A Geek’s Toolkit Supplement: Loaded USB Drive ” I spoke of what I described as “branding files”: Files that I add to the operating system to indicate that I am supplier, builder, and maintenance tech for a particular computer.

I can hear your brains whirring; so before you start thinking that I’m up to something naughty I’ll show you exactly what I mean. Oh yes; this only works if you have Windows XP installed, so don’t go trying it with a Linux or a OSX installation and then comment that I’ve messed up your operating system or “I can’t find those files in Ubuntu!” – “It doesn’t work with Leopard!” You’re quite right; it doesn’t – So be forewarned.

If this information has already been added to your operating system by the manufacturer then I suggest it best to just leave it anyway.

(Why are you playing about with your computer like this anyway? What do you hope to achieve? Oh well; your problem, not mine.)

The aim of the exercise is to customise Windows XP’s general tab in the System Properties dialogue box that you call up by right-clicking the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

This customisation involves adding support contract information and a logo. It involves using only Notepad and whatever program you like to use to create a 256-colour bitmap.

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OK let’s start with the details: I won’t tell you exactly what details I put for computers that I build; so for this exercise we’ll assume that these details are regarding a computer built by the Acme Computer Corporation:

The computer is a Datamax, model 55102. Support line is 1-800-ACME…

Open Notepad and type the following text, replacing the example with your company’s details etc:

[General]

Manufacturer=Acme Computer Corporation

Model=Datamax 55102

[Support Information]

Line 1=Call 1-800-ACME for technical support

Line 2=  ">.invalid

Line 3=500 Billion Byte Drive

Line 4=Pixelgraphicsville, USA

Save this file to %windir%\Windows\System32 as Oeminfo.ini

Create a 256-colour bitmap of your company’s logo that is no more than 96X96 pixels in size. Save this file to %windir%\Windows\system32 as Oemlogo.bmp

Yes I deliberately soiled the picture: ‘Better safe than sorry.

To see the results either right-click on the My Computer icon or press the Windows and the Break key simultaneously.

And that’s how it’s done – No registry edits, no hacking into anything. This is a white box system builder’s trick; but it’s no massive secret. The files aren’t permanent anyway; if you remove them or reinstall your operating system the dialogue box reverts to default.

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At times I’m browsing through folders and remember that I need to make a backup to another internal HDD of a particular file or subfolder, or I discover a file in the wrong folder. Sometimes I snag a picture from somewhere and add it to the My Pictures folder. On my computer I store my main picture library on my D: drive; which is a relatively large drive on a separate disk all to itself.

I built my computer myself: As you may have gathered if you’ve spent any length of time browsing my blog; I’m a computer-designer & builder as well as a blogger. This one I built for myself is from a range of a particular baseline design of computer I call INXPense. As an experiment and to use up an old hard-drive I had lying around I used a 40GB Hitachi HDD as the system drive (C:) and I try to keep as much as I can off that drive and store it on the other drive(s).

(The reason for this is that should the system drive fail on me (Which has happened to me at least once already with another computer.) I have a recent backup of C: which I keep up-to-date; and therefore it’s a simple matter of removing the old disk drive and installing a new one; restoring the twenty-something gigabyte backup to it, and I’m ready to go again within the hour; avoiding too much downtime.

Previously on the other computer mentioned above I had a 320GB HDD split into 2 partitions of around 160GB each. The operating system stored all pictures by default to the My Pictures folder…etc. In a short time I had filled up over half of the system drive C: with mainly files that had little or nothing to do with the o/s and I’d backed up everything to an external hard drive – Hence when the internal HDD took a dive I had a backup of all the contents of both drives: So installed a new internal HDD (15 mins.), restored the contents of the C: drive backup onto it, (> 1 hour) then had to partition it ( 1 hour) and install the contents of the D: drive backup onto the newly-formed drive D: (> 1 hour). Altogether the machine was down for about 1/2 day which pissed me off no end.

If it happens again I won’t have that problem. (I could have used RAID 1 instead; but that requires a second identical hard-disk and I just didn’t have the room in the case nor the SATA ports on the motherboard – and those PCIe RAID controller cards come in at nearly £20 ($35-39USD) cost each – Even the PCI RAID cards are almost £15 ($26-29USD) – And although I had all necessary components in stock I didn’t want to utilise resources unnecessarily.)

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This is becoming a little long-whinded admittedly; but I’m getting there: – So you’ll appreciate that I don’t want everything I input accumulating on the relatively small C: drive or it’ll fill up fast. Every now and then I transfer a small accumulation of files, such as pictures, from where the operating system puts them by default – In this case the My Pictures folder, to the Pictures library on the D: drive.

The immediately obvious way to do this would be to open the My Pictures folder, highlight an icon, click Edit>Select All, then cut everything, open the D: folder, browse to the Pictures folder which is in a folder called “Media” on D:, and paste. What a load of hassle! There’s a much easier way – I call it a “portable shortcut”:

Enabling hidden-folder viewing reveals a system-folder called “Send To” in %windir%Documents and SettingsUsername. (Where %windir% is the root-directory of your system drive; usually C: ) Right click on this folder and create a shortcut to it on your desktop. (You might not believe it but that was a major part of the operation.) Here comes the boring bit:

Create further desktop shortcuts to folders and drives that you use a lot; for example a shortcut to D: drive, if like me you happen to have another hard disk or partition of a hard-disk at that location. On that drive you may have, for example, a folder called “Recipes” and another called “Dress Patterns“. (Or even “Motors” and “Porn“.): Create desktop shortcuts to whichever folders you feel like doing so; especially those that you use a lot and transfer files into and out of a lot. Be thorough. I appreciate it’s very boring after a while; but the more decent shortcuts the better.

So that you don’t overlook a shortcut that you create I suggest that you create a new folder and label it something like “New Shortcuts“. Put all your newly-created shortcuts in that folder as you create them.

When you’ve finished creating and rounding up all the shortcuts you like, it’s time to edit them – yes all of them individually. (I know this is getting very boring; but it’ll be time well spent in the end.) What you want to do is shave off “Shortcut to” from the shortcuts name; thus “Shortcut to D:” becomes simply “D:” and so forth.

DO keep the shaved shortcuts in your “New Shortcuts” folder; otherwise if you let them spill onto the desktop you could think that they’re direct-path icons which might lead to some confusion: If you like you could even create a folder within New Shortcuts called “Shaved Shortcuts“; just so that you know where everything is: It’s better to be meticulous and safe than slightly careless and sorry.

Once you’ve done that; copy the contents of your Shaved Shortcuts folder by highlighting a single shaved shortcut, click Edit in the toolbar at the top, and click Select All, right-click a highlighted shaved shortcut and select Copy. Now mouse-over the Shortcut to Send To icon on the desktop, right-click it, and select Paste.

You’re all but finished: If you don’t want to keep the New Shortcuts folder and anything inside it on the Desktop, then it seems a shame to delete it after all that work – So mouse-over it and right- click. Select Send to… – Where do you want to send it to? All those shortcuts you just created are now made available as portable shortcut (LOOK!) places that you can send that, and indeed any other shortcut or file, to in the same manner.

Sending the file to anywhere will not delete it from its original location though; so after you’ve sent it wherever you choose, you can then erase it from the Desktop if you like; safe in the knowledge that your hard work is in the folder that you sent it to.

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Test it out again if you like: Create a new text file on the Desktop and call it “Test“. Mouse-over it, right-click and send it somewhere using your enhanced Send To… menu: Now go where you’ve sent it to and you’ll find it.

So in future anything that you download; you can use the Desktop as the default download location rather than fiddling about specifying the file to download it to, if you like: As soon as you’ve downloaded your file(s) to the Desktop and checked it (them); just mouse-over, right-click, send it (them) to its (their) final destination(s); then delete it (them) from the Desktop. – This can and does save a lot of time – Especially if you’re transferring files from one folder to another:-

Imagine that you have a file in the folder C:My DocumentsFashionTops that you want to transfer to D:PicturesCatwalkModelsTops: If you have a portable shortcut in the Send To folder to Tops that is the destination folder then all you need do is browse to the source folder C:My DocumentsFashionTops and send the file straight to Tops on the D: drive without all the faffing about.

There are many useful enhancements you can make to your Windows XP operating system and this is just one of them. There are others mentioned on this blog-site; as well as at http://www.pcmech.com. Here they’re all free so far at the time of writing; at pcmech.com there is so much content that there has to be a charge for some of it; but what you get for a small fee is well worth it in my honest opinion. Yes I’m a member, and no I’m not currently getting paid for advertising it: This is just a complimentary favour at this point in time.

This site, kkomp.com, is currently at time of writing totally funded by advertising: I don’t currently charge anything for anything: Nil, nada, sweet FA. If you’d be so good as to look at some of the adverts, click a few, even buy something you might like, or give it as a present to someone even, then it will help to fund this site.

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Don’t forget to subscribe to the kkomp.com RSS feed.

“Please give us an o/s that works when you release Windows 7. We, your customers, don’t mind waiting a little longer for a product that has no bugs and no massive security vulnerabilities – Although we would like you to bring it out ahead of schedule ready for Xmas 2009 if possible.”

“You see, Microsoft, you’ve announced a new operating system and we want it; but we want it to be better than XP: You haven’t come up with anything better than XP yet; and Vista was a joke. Even your bosom buddies at Intel won’t switch to Vista – Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

“Are you actually aware that KACE found that 50 percent of people who responded to their survey last November won’t upgrade to Vista? Worse still for you, Microsoft, is that in their recent survey that figure has gone up 20percent of the whole to 60 percent!

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 SP1 only made most things Vista work properly; but even then still not quite as well as XP.”

Whoever is running the mess that you’ve turned Microsoft into should get a medal from Apple: Thanks to Vista, Mac sales have risen dramatically. People are switching to Linux despite all its bad press: They use Vista and say “I’m downloading Ubuntu; it can’t be worse than this!”"

“Yes I know that you’ve sold 180 million licenses. How many of those downgraded to XP I wonder? …And the choice was use Vista or have a computer without an operating system: Even Vista is better than no operating system.”

“Yes I appreciate the fact that Bill’s taken a back seat and now all the top execs want a piece of the pie; yes I know they all want to take Microsoft individually in a particular direction and are all pulling against each other; but Bill should have forseen that. He probably did; but just wanted out, having made enough money to buy a small country for his retirement.”

“So come on Microsoft; get your act together and give us something good: We’re not asking for miracles; we just want something better and more suited to today’s climate than before. I realise you’ve made boobs like this in the past, such as ME; but at least ME didn’t force the user to get new hardware to run an operating system that wasn’t as good as the last one.”

“You know all about bootstrapping – If you’ve forgotten ask Bill for a reminder – So it’s time for you to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and smell the coffee again: I don’t mean have a tea-break either. It’s down to you to carry on without Bill at the helm. Can you do that? I’m watching that space.”

Kind Regards from Sharron. x

“P.S. You shot yourselves in the foot when you stopped all the big companies from selling XP. You hoped it would force people to change to Vista; but people didn’t want Vista; they wanted a change to something better, so they had 2 choices: Mac or Linux.

If Windows 7 isn’t a gem of an operating system that works first time and is better than XP then I’m buying a Mac.”