In January 2009, Internet Explorer had almost 70% of the browser market; well down on its 2008 average, partly because of the poor take-up of IE7 in the unpopular Windows Vista operating system. The introduction of IE8 along with the Windows 7 Retail Version, in October, and also the previous beta and RC releases of Windows 7, was promising; but Microsoft didn’t really provide anything earth-shatteringly amazing with IE8, which, after all the what seemed like aeons of development and promises, turned out to be a bit of a damp squib after all the hype: There was not-a-lot in it that didn’t appear in any other browsers. The main thing about IE8 was that it was a part of Windows 7, and would therefore make at least some impression.

Meanwhile, Firefox was still slowly gaining in popularity during 2008, and things were looking promising for Mozilla in the coming year, thanks, in part, to Vista’s failure.

Google hit the headlines with Chrome, and the Google browser instantly soared in popularity, and then made more gains on top of that.

Let’s look at some figures: The chart on the left is from March 2009, and the chart on the right is from November 2009.

Chrome, Firefox, and Opera appear to have done rather well during 2009, while Apple continued to fail to supply a browser that works as well with Windows as it does on Mac OS. Internet Explorer and Safari had combined losses of 7.48% while Chrome, Firefox and Opera had combined gains of 7.35%.

In the coming year, development and implementation of HTML 5 and IE9 promises to make browser-development even more exciting.  Microsoft, particularly, need to up their game, or they’re going to find that they are in danger of getting relegated to the “Third World” of browser-popularity unless they can stop the rot. What surprises will they bring us in IE9, and will they have it ready in time to lead the way, rather than copy the pack? Time will tell.

If you’ve just built or bought a new PC to run Windows 7 on; you might want to run all the programs that you ran in XP or Vista. Some of these may be programs that you purchased from online vendors which have a setup program which requires an installation key. In some cases the user may have retained both the installation program and the installation-key. Guess what: You’ve lost the key.

Vista to 7

When moving up from Windows Vista to Windows 7; you can do an in-place upgrade and take all your programs from Vista to 7, and they’ll work “perfectly” without any problem – At least that’s the idea. In reality, though, any errors/corruption or whatever that appeared on your previous Vista installation will most likely appear on your Windows 7 installation if you use this method; and any problems you encountered running things in Vista may recur in 7, or worse.

I’m an advocate of reformat/reinstall: I don’t advise an in-place upgrade for the reasons mentioned above.

XP Dead-End

With Windows XP as your previous operating system, you’ll have to go the reformat/reinstall route anyway: There is no way of doing an in-place upgrade anyway in such a case.

Drive-Transplant

You might think that it would be an idea to take the old machine’s hard-drive and install it in your new machine. The added drive will appear as a second hard-drive, and you’ll be able to access all the data on it. As for the programs on it, though; that’s a different matter: –

If a program was installed using a setup program initially; then there’s a 999/1000 chance that it’ll require the setup program again to make it of any use to the new machine… And, of course, you’ve lost the key, even if you still have the setup program.

A lot of programs, rely on configuration and registry settings that are made within the operating system by the installer-program. Without having run setup, those settings are not in place, and the programs will not run.

There are a few, smaller, programs that don’t require a setup at all, but usually anything in the way of programs that are either large or purchased will require their specific setup programs to be run before they can be used.

Get Set-Up

The first place to look would be the website where you originally purchased the program from. In some cases the vendor will no longer be providing the setup program for your particular version of the program, as it has now become “obsolete” and new versions have since been issued. In cases such as these you should probably buy the latest version anyway, as the old program you were using may contain incompatibilities with your new operating system, as well as security vulnerabilities which have been patched in later versions.

Think Ahead

I personally have a way round the “lost-key” scenario: I hold on to a copy of the installation-program wherever possible, and I send all of my installation emails containing installation-keys to one of my Gmail accounts, so that any time I want to reinstall a program I find its setup-program on the relevant storage-media, and I look up the installation-key online on the relevant Gmail account: Target neutralised.

Scrooge Isn’t Just For Christmas

At the end of the day, then, in most cases, if you don’t have a setup program and a key, if one is necessary, you’re screwed: ‘Simple as that. – But stop being so tight-fisted: shell out a few bucks for the latest version of the program in question: It’ll be compatible with your new operating system, it’ll be secure, and it will possibly save you time and hassle by avoiding any of the problems which would have arisen had you eventually installed the old version, having got hold of a setup program and a key, by whatever means.

I myself am a cheapskate, and I’ll be a freeloader as well as a paying consumer if it’s a viable proposition to do so: In many cases, however, it isn’t a viable proposition to be a freeloader and/or to try and do it all on the cheap. The above is one of those situations: One where shelling out a little, rather than avoiding doing so in any way possible, is actually going to save you time and money at the end of the day: It’s a situation where you spend money in order to save money.

Lastly; if you use hacked or pirated software in its place then you’re asking for trouble, and if you end up screwing-up your operating system completely because of that then I have no sympathy for you whatsoever: You got exactly what you deserved, and hopefully that’s taught you a lesson.

Summary in Midwinter

In summary, then, if you’ve lost your product installation key and/or your installation program and the program doesn’t work when you try to move it between operating systems; buy new: It’s the most sensible and cost-effective way to go when all’s said and done.

‘So Much Hardware!

You’ve no doubt noticed the frankly amazing rate at which new hardware, particularly motherboards, is being produced at these days: It’s like there’s a race on to produce better and better hardware. The leading players appear to be motherboards in first place, closely followed by graphics cards, and processors aren’t far behind.

When a new processor begins manufacture, every motherboard manufacturer makes a variety of motherboards initially to accommodate that processor and get the very best from it. They also utilise the latest chipset designs, many of which are purposely designed to operate in tandem with a particular type of processor. The production run continues with more specifically-designed boards, possibly utilising newer chipsets; tailing off as the processor in question, and/or its socket designation, becomes less utilised in favour of something newer.

Graphics cards are more in a league of their own; with the onus on the manufacturer to use one of the recently-introduced graphics chips from the graphics-chip manufacturers to give the best performance on screen in high resolutions and fast frame-rates, from complex multi-processor-core-utilising games software.

Unique Drivers

…And with each new hardware design comes a new set of software in the form of drivers; although having said that; recently companies such as Via Technologies, in the case of motherboard chipsets; and nVidia, in the case of graphics cards, have done fairly well in producing an all-in-one driver software package that fits pretty well all of their recent products. An example of this is Via Technologies’ site Viaarena; where a driver package of this sort, one-size-fits-all, cab be used to drive pretty much any recent Via chipset.

- But that’s not the case with every manufacturer; and even a number of the products manufactured by such companies as mentioned above are so particularly specialised that they have their own individual driver.

The good thing is that, in the case of motherboards and graphics cards, the manufacturer usually provides a CD or DVD with the product that has all the necessary drivers on it. When you install the board or card, you just simply install all the necessary other drivers from the disc. You’ll also find that the manufacturer provides a download for these drivers on their website also: This is a subject that we’ll be returning to later in this article, as there is something particularly important about that fact.

Motherboard drivers mainly relate to the chipset used on that particular type of board, as well as to the onboard soundcard and any other chipset-associated graphics-circuitry if included. Also the SATA and PATA controllers, and the RAM controllers, need a driver – as does the processor itself, in relation to the specific motherboard build as well as a unit in its own right too.

Windows in the Equation

Operating systems such as Windows, particularly Windows XP onwards, were designed to cater for drivers to some extent, and, when installed, attach a driver to each device to allow it to at least function something like correctly and identify itself, so that the operating system can be properly installed. – But that doesn’t always happen.

Windows XP was launched in 2001, and contained compatible drivers for most if not all of the technology in use in 2000. With a bit of forethought, Microsoft also created basic drivers that would at least run future hardware to some extent also. – But this doesn’t mean that Windows XP will install every driver necessary to run your system proficiently and optimally on install: As years have gone by, technologies have appeared which, although largely backwards-compatible with XP, are built for Windows Vista, or more recently Windows 7; which uses a very similar kernel to Vista anyway.

- So when you install no-frills Window XP and nothing else on your box, it runs. – Perhaps the functionality of a number of devices is impeded; for instance the graphics card is only able to work with a couple of screen resolutions, at a set monitor frequency, but nevertheless it runs. The reason for this is that it installs drivers to your devices that make them work with the XP kernel. These drivers, however, aren’t specially designed for the hardware that they’re driving in most cases, and they’re old.

-She’s Boasting Again…

I’ve just installed the RTM version of Windows 7 64-bit, after previously running the 64-bit RC version. – Both versions instantly recognised all of the hardware in my self-built computer, and so it should: the hardware I used was a Gigabyte motherboard that had been around a few months, as had the Gigabyte 256MB GDDR3 graphics card, the 8GBs of DDR2 800MHz RAM, the AMD triple-core Phenom processor, and so on. – All fully 64-bit capable, designed for use with Vista, and therefore Windows 7… – Except for two pieces of hardware in particular: The Realtek onboard sound-card needed a Realtek High-Definition Audio driver, which even Windows 7 didn’t carry in its arsenal: Result = no sound. Also there was no decent driver for the chipset: While Windows installed one that made it work, it didn’t have the necessary custom-designed driver that was required: The nVidia nForce System Management driver. – Both of these I had to install from the CD that came packed with the motherboard.

Soon Windows 7 will start initially installing only make-do drivers that allow the hardware to function very basically with the kernel. – The good thing about Windows 7 is that if it can’t immediately find a decent driver for a piece of hardware, then it will, after installing the best  driver it can find that works, go straight online to Windows Update to try to find a better driver there.

Another thing is that even Windows Update isn’t always that accurate: Yesterday, for instance, I was offered a replacement driver in Windows 7 for my Realtek ethernet connection as an optional update. The replacement driver was a year older than the one that was already installed, which was installed from the motherboard driver CD, and it didn’t work: result = no ethernet connection. I rolled back the driver and the ethernet port instantly started working again.

On that note; there are some automated driver-update services out there, which are supposed to always keep your computer up to date with the latest drivers. – These are also rather fallible: One of them that I used to use told me that my then Via chipset’s drivers were old, and it replaced them with Intel chipset drivers, so that it wouldn’t start. – ‘Not good.

In short; automated driver update services such as this, like most AI of this point in time time, occasionally have a brain-fart, and mess up big time.

(Windows XP will also go to Windows Update and find drivers; but not by default: You have to set the operating system to do this manually after installation; and even then XP will only chase down a better driver than the one already installed if you ask it to. If a piece of hardware doesn’t have a driver that isn’t available on the XP CD, or that piece of hardware has just been installed without a driver, XP will go to Windows Update to look for a better driver, sometimes automatically if set right; sometimes only if you prompt it to do so.)

Windows Update doesn’t have every type of hardware driver, though, so there’s a 50/50 chance that the operating system will have no luck there. Also, Windows Update doesn’t have all the latest versions of the drivers that it does have ready to be used: If it has a newer version of the driver that you have installed, then it’ll upgrade it; but just because it’s newer doesn’t mean that it’s the newest applicable driver.

‘Time for an Update?

This is where the manufacturer’s website that I mentioned earlier comes into play: –

If you look in Device Manager, then you’ll see details of the driver version that you currently have installed, who made the driver, the date that the driver was released, the hardware that it’s driving, who made the hardware, the hardware’s model number, etc.

Every now and then a hardware manufacturer’s research and development team will discover a flaw in a driver that was previously unnoticed. They’ll rewrite the driver to eradicate that flaw and improve performance of the product. – Either that or they’ll discover a security vulnerability in it and write it out. Having rewritten and tested the new driver version, they’ll release it to the public, so that their customers get better performance from their product.

Unless you keep a lookout for new drivers you could miss out on such performance-gains. – Which is where an occasional visit to a manufacturer’s website can be very helpful. If you rely on Microsoft Update then you’ll get the odd update; but it won’t be anything like new, and you’ll probably miss out on many new driver versions.

The above paragraph applies particularly to chipset drivers and graphics drivers; so keep a lookout for new versions of the drivers that you’re using especially in the case of those devices.

- So in the best geeky tradition, always keep your drivers up to date, and you’ll always get more from your box.

Have you checked your drivers recently? Do you keep an eye on your drivers?

I have been running Windows 7 64-bit RC since May on my other box. On the one I’m typing this on I’m running XP Professional 32-bit. Both boxes are capable of running Windows 7 64-bit and have multi-cored processors. – But I’m going to keep XP on this one for now; possibly right up to 2014 if the box lasts that long. – It should do as I built it, and the only ones I’ve ever had faults with that I built were a couple with a Shuttle mobo with a weak processor socket surround: Basically the AM2 cooler tensioniser lugs snapped off, and the cooler fell off the processor causing the machine to shut down when the CPU’s thermal trip activated. I RTM’d them and rebuilt. Also an AsRock mobo’s chipset died right in front of me as I booted up… This is going well off topic already.

There is a reason why I’m keeping XP for so long; which I’ll share with you further down.

For the time being; let’s take a look at Windows 7: -

When Windows 7 was subjected to benchmarking tests; the Office benchmark took more than 70% longer to complete with 7 than in Vista.

In the 2D multi-application test, this had a knock-on effect on the overall score. – Otherwise Windows 7 did prove faster than Vista – by around 2%. How, then, bearing that in mind, does this constitute a proper performance increase over Vista?

Windows Display Driver Model 1.1 is a new device in Windows 7 which allows multiple applications attempting to access screen-memory to draw and update their graphics at the same time. With the the 1.0 version in Vista only a single process could draw to the screen at any point in time, which was one of the reasons that Vista’s interface could sometimes seem uncooperative and sluggish.

Applications can update their windows as soon as you press a button in Windows 7,  Hence the system therefore appears to be much faster, while actual benchmarked performance is similar.

“But that doesn’t explain anything.”

In short, it’s all down to WDDM 1.1. : In Vista, display elements were stored in graphics RAM and system RAM at the same time. – Yet another waste of resources.

In Windows 7 with  WDDM 1.1 the data sets are stored in graphics RAM only. Therefore whilst this leaves more system memory free for applications, the down-side of it means that if the OS wants to draw graphics without going via the GPU, various data sets must be copied from video RAM to system RAM and back; thus wasting time.

This is the main downfall of Windows 7’s 2D performance in an office environment is actually worse than Vista’s, which we already know is slower than XP’s in that area. – Do you see where I’m going with this?

Everything else about Windows 7 is better, snappier, better laid-out and more functional with increased practicality. You’ll benefit from increased battery-life with 7 on your laptop or netbook. Yes even a netbook with 1GB RAM and a 1.6GHz Atom processor can run 7: It’s no gaming rig; but it does the business, and resuming from standby or hibernate is no longer a lottery as to whether it will actually start properly again when you do.

On your desktop, if you use 3D apps, games, memory-intensive processes, whatever, you’ll notice benefits immediately.. Office work, however, which I do a lot of on this particular box, pretty much to the exclusion of all else besides watching a video now and again, appears to have no benefits from 7, in fact quite the reverse by all accounts. – Which is way I’m keeping XP on this one.

What happens in 2014 when XPs extended product-lifecycle runs out? – Well if my calculations are correct we’re due another new OS around that time; so wait and see. I doubt this box will last that long in all honesty, talking from reality’s perspective: It’s in use one hell of a lot. – But even if it makes it to then; I’ll probably retire it on Linux, and build new for the next OS after 7.

Conclusion

So back to the question: Should I upgrade: –

Yes if possible; because Windows 7 has more snappiness and functionality than Vista or XP: It feels as if it’s working for and with you rather than begrudgingly for you as with XP, or against you as with Vista.

- But for your office computer; well there’s no rush. – Let’s leave it at that.

One thing for sure is that Microsoft have saved themselves from the looming pit of oblivion this time round.

Are you intending to upgrade to Windows 7? What machine do you have, and what is your current operating system?

Oh, and, when you upgrade, try to upgrade to the 64-bit version: There is just so much more to 64-bit computing – It really is “Life without walls”; such as not being restricted to 4GB RAM maximum for starters…

“Patch Tuesday” is the day every month when Microsoft released their Security Bulletin Summary for the respective month.

This month (October 2009) there are important updates for Windows 7 (RC) and Windows 7 64-bit (RC), as well as security patches for Windows XP and Vista (32 and 64-bit) – So whatever Windows operating system you’re running, you’ll need to download and install the relevant free updates ASAP, if you haven’t already done so.

Why should I patch my system?

Read more

What’s the difference between the chkdsk function in Windows XP and the chkdsk function in Windows 7?

Not a lot and quite a bit. I haven’t seen the chkdsk in Vista as I’ve never used Vista myself, and I don’t remember ever having run chkdsk in Vista on a customer’s machine either. – So if it’s exactly the same as it is in Vista then you’ll understand my ignorance of that fact.

To test this I installed 2 hard-drives, a Hitachi 150 GB and a Seagate 150GB, into a box on which I installed Windows 7 RC. I knew that there had to be errors on the Hitachi disc, which I’d installed as the C: drive. The type of MFT error that chkdsk found; free space allocated as used space, would send XP tits-up and make it BSOD. Not so with Windows 7, which appeared to object somewhat, inasmuch as it didn’t appear to run as smoothly as it should, but nothing borked nevertheless. This might be a further indication of the increased resilience of Windows 7 – ?

First I ran chkdsk on D: (The Seagate.) from inside Windows, and it reported no errors. I then asked for a full disc check for C:

As with XP, a chkdsk session was scheduled the next time I rebooted, which I did. A black screen with white text told me that a disc check had been scheduled, and it gave me a 10-second countdown in which to cancel. I ignored his and chkdsk started doing its stuff: -

I apologise for the lousy picture: I was using a CRT monitor, and the curved glass screen isn’t easy to photograph with a camera-phone.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the blue background of XP has been done away with, and replaced with plain black. This is good, as white text on a black background is much easier to read. Added to this was the fact that chkdsk, rather than just giving the user a basic idea of what it was doing, telling how far it had got with doing it in %, and making the user wait without much of a clue until it was finished, as it does in XP; actually specifies more precisely what it’s doing, gives a live textual readout of the process, and count of files processed. After each stage it’ll write details of any corrections that it’s made on the screen, rather than waiting until it’s finished, flashing up the report for a couple of seconds, blanking the screen, and booting into Windows. – It does, however still do this as its finale’, which I found a bit disconcerting after seeing all the improvements previously.

Another thing that I noticed was that the percentage-count covered the entire chkdsk operation, rather than just the stage’s progress. This isn’t a big problem, but the bloody thing is so inaccurate: Half way through Stage 4 (File data verification.) it was reading 22%, at the end of stage 4 it was reading 25%, and the disc was 75% full of files. During stage 5, (Free space verification.) as it processed nearly 17 million free clusters in just over 1/4 hour, it caught up and finished that stage on 99, 100%… And up scrolls the text. – The report is displayed, the user gets to read the first sentence, and it vanishes. – They really should get that fixed.

My verdict: A lot better than the XP chkdsk; but still virtually partially pointless if the user never gets a chance to read the end report.

Any opinions to add, anybody?

Anytime what?!

It’s late October 2009, or maybe later: You have your new Windows 7 installation in your computer and you’ve already seen the benefits gained by upgrading to 7. You bought the Home Premium edition because you were told that’s all you needed, or maybe that’s all you could afford at the time. Now need more: Now you want the XP Mode and the Network Domain Support feature of the Professional edition, also you’ve decided that you’d like to be able to use the Bitlocker Drive Encryption feature of the Ultimate edition too.

- But you bought Home Premium. You just don’t want to face the prospect of having to reinstall the OS or go through the palaver of buying a new disc, with all the associated time and expense added to your computer’s downtime while you upgrade…

You’re in luck; because with Windows 7’s Anytime Upgrade, you can upgrade to a higher version of Windows 7 instantly without having to reinstall any software, lose any files, or anything like that.

All you need to do is to buy a new license key. You can upgrade Home Premium to Professional or to Ultimate, and you can upgrade Professional to Ultimate in this way also.

FINANCIAL-PITFALL WARNING: 

Upgrading from Home Premium to Professional, then from Professional to Ultimate  will incur extra unnecessary expense: To upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate costs £125GBP, while to upgrade from Home Premium to Professional costs £120 GBP, and then from Professional to Ultimate a further £85 GBP. Resultant extra expense = £80GBP.

Why can you do this with 7 but not with Vista?

The short answer: Vista was/is crap. – And that’s all you get on that question.

OK. How do they manage to work this upgrade thingy?

When you buy a Windows 7 disc, you buy all the files, the Ultimate edition in other words, but when you enter your licence key, it tells the installer which edition you actually paid for, and, unless you actually paid for Ultimate and received and entered a corresponding licence key, the installer will lock out some of the features, corresponding to which version your licence key says that you bought. – Easy really isn’t it?

They should have done this with Vista; but Vista was a mess from day 1: It had a hotch-potch of different versions that weren’t directly upgradable to the next version up: For instance, every version of Vista except for the Business version had Media Center built in…

So how would I go about performing this Anytime Upgrade?

OK; first click on the Start thingy (You’ll always get the best technical terms on this blog.) and type “Upgrade” into the Search… thingy. (This is becoming a habit.) Select “Windows Anytime Upgrade”, and follow the prompts from there. It’s fairly simple. – Just that you need to know where to start; and, as usual, Microsoft appear to have kindly buried the starting-post again.

I apologise that this article is a bit vague towards the end; but this sort of information wasn’t that easy to get hold of at the time of writing. As a little compensation I’ll reveal to you the pricings for Windows 7 in the UK: -

Home Premium has an upgrade price of £80GBP and a retail price of £150GBP.

You save £70GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

Professional has an upgrade price of £190GBP and a retail price of £220GBP.

You save £30GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

Ultimate has an upgrade price of £200GBP and a retail price of £230GBP.

You save £30GBP by upgrading from XP or Vista.

I can see that Microsoft’s crazy pricing technique here is put in place to stop people from working the system: For instance; if you were to get Home Premium at its upgrade price of £80, it would cost you £5 extra to then upgrade to Ultimate than it would to have bought Ultimate at its upgrade price in the first place. If I remember correctly; Microsoft have been caught out like that before, and aren’t going to let it happen a second time.

- Do you think this pricing is fair? How does it compare to the pricing of Vista in your opinion? Please comment.

I’ve just read an article written by an author who is currently running 32-bit versions of Windows on hardware that is capable of running 64-bit versions. He says that his major concern is about compatibility were he to go 64-bit when he installs Windows 7, although he would find the vast amount of RAM that he could use most useful. He’d nevertheless, until recently, been planning to stick to 32-bit because one of his most-used applications didn’t have a 64-bit version available. This situation has recently changed; and therefore he is now considering running 64-bit Windows 7, although still with some trepidation as far as hardware compatibility is concerned:

To quote: “Hardware vendors need to update their drivers for 64 bits, and some have not. Hopefully, more and more will over time, but it’s the most likely area of concern, particularly for older machines. Hardware vendors will of course focus their efforts on newer hardware and are less likely to provide updated drivers for their older equipment.”

That is to my mind a defeatist attitude: It’s saying that since hardware vendors can’t be bothered to update their drivers for their hardware; we have to stick to a 32-bit operating system, with its memory limitations, and put up with it, because it makes things easier for existing market forces.

I think that’s totally the wrong way to look at it:

If we’d have said “OK; we’ll stick with 32-bit single-core processors because it’s easier on Intel and AMD,” then we’d still all have slow computers, incapable of running multiple programs efficiently, with less than 4 gigabytes of memory, to this day. The gaming industry’s innovations would have been snubbed, and people would be getting fed up with computers by now due to technological stagnation and blockage.

- So why, then, should we say die on moving to 64-bit just because the hardware manufacturers and vendors can’t be arsed to write 64-bit drivers for their products? IF, rather than lying down and accepting it, we refused to buy any piece of hardware that didn’t have a 64-bit driver accompanying it; and I’m talking about secondhand as well as new here, then the hand of manufacturers and vendors would be forced into action; and they’d have no choice but to provide 64-bit drivers with their products.

The same goes for programs: If everyone who owns a computer capable of running a 64-bit operating system did so; and those whose computers were incapable of doing so bought or built new machines capable of doing so and did so, then 32-bit would be no more: This would make all 32-bit drivers, and, to a large extent, 32-bit programs also, virtually worthless to anybody: Therefore industry would start turning out all 64-bit application software and all-64-bit drivers for hardware. 64-bit Windows is backwards-compatible with 32-bit applications; so where there is no choice but to use a 32-bit program or driver, it could be done in secret, while at the same time rallying and hassling manufacturers and vendors to hurry up with their new 64-bit drivers.

- Remember; under this plan, nobody would buy any hardware that didn’t have a 64-bit driver available. Existing hardware, however, would continue to be used in 32-bit-mode if at all possible until a compatible 64-bit driver was released. – So unless a device was sold with a 64-bit driver; the manufacturer or vendor wouldn’t get a sale at all. If something was so old that it just wasn’t worth writing a 64-bit driver for it, then with the low-price of hardware these days it wouldn’t hurt the owner to recycle the old unit(s), or donate them to a museum, and upgrade their hardware to something newer.

I realise that this plan would hit secondhand hardware traders such as eBay and the like rather hard in a number of departments. I realise that it would also hit a number of users too; and force them to dump old but working hardware and spend a little cash to buy new; but isn’t it worth a little sacrifice in the name of progress?

Here I’m going to do something unusual for a Wintard and praise the Mac: Macs are all 64-bit. The Mac OS and all the related software are 64-bit, as are pretty much all the new Linux distros which are being produced these days. Windows is probably the only operating system which is encouraging hanging on to 32-bit. That is not acceptable; especially in the light of the fact that Windows has the largest market share, and should be leading the progression; rather than dragging behind.

But that’s the way things are: Microsoft; for reasons best known to themselves, have always been a little slow on the uptake recently. Perhaps if they did but realise that they’ll never be able to keep up with the running pack if they keep shooting themselves on the foot; they’d be able to be the true market leaders that they should be.

-For example: They do what they should have done ages ago finally and ask their customers what they’d like in the next operating system. (It took Vista to teach them that; and as a result they probably lost billions of potential dollars in revenue as a result.) When it comes to pricing it however, they use the same type of system that they used with Vista; various “versions” with x number of features disabled in proportion to the level of cost. That is a stupid marketing strategy; and I’ll explain why:-

All the various versions are sold on an almost identical disc. That disc contains a full-featured Windows installation of Ultimate edition; regardless of which “version” it is. The only difference between the Ultimate disc and any other is the number of features disabled: It costs them exactly the same to produce the most disabled version as it does to produce the Ultimate version. By disabling certain features they’re cutting the sale value of the product.

If, instead of doing as they are, charging $300 for the ultimate version, and say, $75 for the most-disabled version, they instead sold nothing but Ultimate and charged $188 for it; then they’d make exactly the same sales revenue, yet not have to spend a bit extra to produce discs with features disabled.

If my information is correct they’re packing both a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of 7 into a single DVD case also. – Again this is counterproductive: If they sold nothing but 64-bit Ultimate for $188 they’d cut their production costs dramatically. – PLUS anyone who is still running a 32-bit processor/motherboard setup wishing to run 7 would have to get a new setup or upgrade their existing system by necessity: Think of all the benefits to hardware manufacturers plus the extra number of sales of preinstalled Windows 7 installations!

- But Microsoft aren’t that good at thinking ahead, as can be seen here.

“Wait a minute…” You interject. “Not every computer is capable of running Windows 7 Ultimate: What about netbooks, for example?”

You would be mightily surprised: Rich Menga of PC Mech.com recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate RC (32-bit) on his Dell Inspiron mini 10v. I can’t link to the article really, as it’s in the PC Mech Premium section, so it’s not free to view. (What I will say; however, is that it is well worth joining PC Mech Premium. I won’t advertise too heavily here; but that is a fact.) I’ll give away a couple of tiny snippets of information from the article, and I do hope the guys at PC Mech won’t be too annoyed by my doing so: -

“Problems encountered[:]

None.”

- No word of a lie: That is directly copied & pasted from the article. – As is the following:

“System Performance[:]

Shockingly good. You’d think with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom mobile processor and 1GB of RAM with a 5400rpm hard drive that Windows 7 would run as slow as molasses. Not true. In fact it runs about the same speed XP did. In some instances even faster.”

- I don’t see any problems there, do you? These “versions” appear unnecessary; they’re just marketing hype. – A load of BS with the intention of making more money? Probably; but despite the intention, it doesn’t appear to be working. Agreed that some comps won’t be able to run certain features perhaps. – Even in the light of the above. There’s a simple enough solution to that: If your computer can’t run something then don’t try to run it. – Easy, isn’t it?

Microsoft must be a centipede or a millipede; as it still manages to stay upright despite repeatedly shooting itself in the foot.

- So a draconian plan has been hatched to kick-off the 64-bit revolution. ‘Too radical? Well it needs to be; or Microsoft will have us lagging back in the 20th Century for the rest of this century.

Backwards-compatibility is never a bad thing: In fact it’s probably one of Microsoft’s leading qualities. – But backward-thinking and everything associated with it is something that technology could well do without.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Windows 7 is due to be released soon: On the 22nd October 2009 to be exact. On and after that date I foresee many people buying new pre-built computers with Windows 7 installed on them. Why do I pre-empt this happening? The reason is that many people didn’t rush out to buy Vista after it was released to manufacturing (RTM) simply because it sucked at first, and has taken almost until its successor is released to get working at least something like it should with the release of 2 Service Packs. – This means that a lot more people are still running XP rather than Vista. My blog’s visitor statistics bear this out, and they indicate that approximately four times more of my readers are still running XP compared to those running Vista. XP will run on pretty much any hardware available new or secondhand today. Vista, and more importantly Windows 7, will only run on hardware designed to run Vista and 7.

- This means that a large number of Windows users are probably still running old equipment, designed in the pre-Vista era.

<nag time> I know for a fact that some Windows users are still running equipment built in the Win 9x era, pre-XP, with the original copy of Win 9x operating system still in use too. – Well those people deserve everything they get: Their system will always be slow, but more importantly it will always be improperly patched against critical threats. As a result it will be infested with malware and taken over by criminals using botnets to run DDOS attacks, relay and generate spam, and relay illegal porn, among other things. If the legal authorities discover that they’re doing this and throw the book at them then I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for them. </nag time>

Those Windows users running fully-patched XP operating systems on old hardware are going to be needing new computers rather soon I would imagine, as their old hardware must be showing signs of age by now; and a new machine with Windows 7 preinstalled would be just the thing for them. – So as soon as 7 is released they’ll be in the stores buying brand new shiny computers.

I’m sure that many of those people will still run XP in addition to Windows 7, even on a new machine; whether it be in a VM environment inside windows 7 itself, or as a dual-boot on their new computers. – Good for them: I intend to do just that myself on the machine that I built for Windows 7 use, which currently is running the Win 7 64-bit Release Candidate, up until 2014 – when the XP Support Lifecycle ends and no further security patches are issued for XP. – I’ll then remove it from my machines totally: I don’t want to become an online security-risk to myself and others.

(I was rather chuffed the other day when the O.S. used up over 7 of the 8GB of RAM I’d fitted, while transferring over 30GB of files across my home network. – I knew that there was a point to installing all that memory somewhere. )

If you’re one of those people who are buying a new machine with Windows 7 pre-installed, then ensure that you get an accompanying Windows 7 installation DVD from the retailer; even if it costs extra, (Although it shouldn’t.) because you are definitely going to need it some day; and if you can’t get to it or an image of it, then you could find yourself screwed, big time. make sure that the copy of the pre-installed operating system has the same key-code as the preinstalled operating system: If it hasn’t then it’s not a proper copy.

Why am I writing about this in particular?

When XP was RTM’d, a lot of manufacturers took the shortcut of not including installation CD media with their computers sold with XP preinstalled, in order to save on costs. This was all very well; but it left many people in a strange predicament when their operating system or other software asked for the Windows installation CD and there wasn’t one. I myself bought a cheap computer with an Intel Celeron in the days before I built my own, and discovered that there was no Windows CD packaged with it when I got it home and had used it a while: Just a manufacturer’s CD with a ghost-copy of the drive as it was when it was sold to me.

How did I get round that?

The manufacturer and the retailer were no help whatsoever; yet I needed the CD as I needed to do a format and reinstall, as the operating system had become corrupt and crashed, and I had a buyer for the machine after putting it up for sale locally.

What did I do? I booted with a Linux distro and found the CD image on the hard-drive, copied it to CD, and reinstalled from that.

I looked for a folder containing 2 particular files; one of which was winnt.exe; the DOS setup file, and winnt32.exe; the protected mode setup file. – Both of which were needed to do the full reinstall after the reformat. It had some coded name rather than a name plainly stating that it was the CD image file. – In fact not even the manufacturer’s helpdesk nor the retailer knew that it was there on the disc! – How’s that for useless?!

This was an less usual case, however; in that I needed to do a full reinstall, and luckily the entire CD image had been copied to disk in this case. It isn’t always though. – So what do you do, having no XP CD, when Windows or another program asks for it?

You tell it to look in the largest of the directories called “i386”: When it asks you to insert your CD; just press the OK button. It’ll fail; but the next dialog should ask you to tell the computer the location of the installation CD. Instead of telling it the location of the CD, because there isn’t a location for the CD; (The CD doesn’t exist as far as you know.) you point it towards the largest i386 directory.

There’s a bonus: The bonus is that Windows remembers the location of the files. The next time a program wants to look at the installation media, Windows will look in i386 first. – Sweet!

A good idea is to copy your installation CD to your hard-drive. The first time that a program asks for the installation CD; just point it at the copied image: Point it to the i386 folder in the copied image if it wants to be pedantic. That way you’ll not have to worry about having your installation CD to hand again.

- That’s Windows XP: What do you do if the operating system in question is Windows 7?

Well; you’ll find out in part 2. – Coming soon.

(Yes; I will write it before 22nd October 2009.)

In this article we’ll take a look at installing Windows 7: This article deals mainly with moving from XP straight to 7, bypassing Vista. Upgrading from Vista to 7 is quite a doddle in comparison.

With Microsoft’s proposed launch of Windows7 only a couple of months away at the time of writing; I thought it a good idea to write a piece on installing it; for those who’ve never done it yet. Microsoft have been fairly good this time round: They’ve asked their customers what they want included, they’ve given us a beta version to try, and also a Release Candidate following on from that, which sends telemetry back to Microsoft as you use it; therefore giving the makers the perfect statistics from millions of computers to tweak the release to near perfection prior to Release To Manufacturing (RTM).

How to install it depends on which operating system you were running prior to installing. I’m assuming you were running either Windows XP or Windows Vista. If you were running Windows 2000 then it’s time to change it fast: Its support lifecycle is ending. The same applies to Windows XP and Windows 2000 users – That being: No upgrade is available. – More on that later. If you were running Windows 9x then shame on you: Anything from Windows ME backwards is obsolete; meaning that Microsoft no longer issue patches for newly-discovered critical vulnerabilities that exist in the operating system, and your best bet is to reformat your hard-drive instantly, as your machine is probably crawling with malware and part of a botnet. – You’re also an unprotected propagation haven for it, you’re assisting in the spread of it, and the criminals who wrote and use it love you. – So much so that they’ll probably empty your bank account when it comes up on the massive list of accounts they’ve harvested from people like you who can’t be bothered to get a decent secure operating system, as they process that list. – I’d change your account password fast if I were you, but don’t use that old computer with Windows 9x on it to do so: For all you know someone could well have sneaked a keylogger onto it via a port opened by malware that got in through an unpatched vulnerability.

Back to the subject in hand: -

First; if your machine is capable of running a 64-bit operating system then I do suggest that you install Windows 7 64-bit. There is no reason, other than restriction by your machine, for you or anyone else to be running a 32-bit operating system with all its restrictions in this day and age. – None whatsoever. Let’s all work to kill off 32-bit computing once and for all. You can go from 32 to 64-bit straight off in a change of operating system without any problems; provided that your machine will run a 64-bit operating system. If your machine was built before 2005 then it might not be able to do so. If it was built after 2006 then it almost definitely can. (Although you might have to upgrade the processor on a few models – ?)

You might consider building or buying a whole new setup to run 7 on, as I did; leaving your old machine to run XP while your new box runs 7. There is a utility on the Windows 7 installation disc called The Migration Wizard (Windows Easy Transfer). This can extract your files and settings from your old machine and transfer them to your new machine, just like the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FASTWiz; as I call it (Even though it was slow. – It’s faster in 7; though still a bit sluggish.).) did in XP: -

Navigate through the Windows 7 DVD to the \support\migwiz folder. Run the migsetup.exe program. The migsetup.exe program will scan your Windows XP installation drive for files and settings that can be migrated and show you a list of them. You can de-select and re-select items that you do or don’t want to migrate, and you can even add things from other drives. When you’re ready, the wizard compresses and stores all the items selected in a single file on a drive of your choice. (You should choose a drive other than the one to which you plan to install Windows 7 for this purpose.) You can even have migsetup.exe write to an external hard drive, flash drive, or writable DVD if you prefer.

If you’re installing Windows 7 having previously been running XP then you can’t do an in-place upgrade: You’ll have to either: -

• Back everything important; reformat, and install Windows 7.
• Dual-boot Windows 7 with XP.
• Upgrade XP to Vista, and then upgrade to 7.
• Install 7 on top of XP.

Back everything important; reformat, and install Windows 7. Remember to ensure that you have backed up everything important/irreplaceable if going the first route: This is in my mind the best route to take when upgrading from XP to 7.

If you own a "full" version of 7, then it’s safe to format the drive first before you attempt to install 7. If, on the other hand, you have an "upgrade" version of Windows 7, Windows XP must be running when Windows 7 is installed, otherwise the product activation will fail, unless you have the original Windows XP CD with you.

Insert your Windows 7 DVD and run Setup. When you’re asked if you want to format the target drive say "yes". The "Quick Format" option is faster than a full format, and it’ll do the trick. If you want to be pedantic then a full format will be fine too; if you have the time to spare. Setup will erase everything on that particular drive before it starts to install Windows 7. Now re-install all the things you saved with Migration Wizard if you wish to do so, or reinstall from your backup(s). – Target neutralised!

Dual-boot Windows 7 with XP. The dual-boot (Or triple-boot.) option is worth considering; particularly if you already run a dual-boot system; such as Windows XP and Linux. – Particularly if you want to keep your Linux installation; but triple-booting with Linux is beyond the scope of this article. I prefer to stick with Windows.

You may find that some Windows XP applications will not run under Windows 7. You can either do as this linked article suggests, and run XP inside a Virtual Machine inside 7, or you can partition your drive if you have lots of space, and install a separate OS per partition: – A “dual-boot setup”. – When you boot up you choose which OS to run. You’ll need to create a new partition on your hard drive, and probably  resize the existing partition also. Paragon Partition Manager and similar programs will do this for you, as will a number of free and demo-version disc-management programs, such as  Bootit NG from Terabyte Unlimited.

Once you’ve created your new partition, insert the Windows 7 DVD and run Setup and install to the new partition. When you restart your box after installing 7, you’ll have the option to start Windows XP or Windows 7. – ‘Good eh?

You might, alternatively, install a new, second, hard-drive and install Windows 7 on that after formatting it and getting it recognised by the operating system. This would be an alternative idea for a dual-boot setup if your existing disc is getting rather full and doesn’t have a lot of room on it to install 7.

Upgrade XP to Vista, and then upgrade to 7. The double-upgrade seems a crazy idea to me; and I can say with some near-certainty that something somewhere will go tits-up; even though you might not at first notice it. Myself I wouldn’t risk that. Do it if you must; but on your own head be it. I refuse to advise on this. – Sod that for a laugh!

Install 7 on top of XP. If you attempt to install 7 on top of XP the following will happen: Windows 7 installer will gather up all your XP operating-system files; including the My Documents folder, your profile folder, the lot, and stick them in a folder called “Windows.old” on your system drive. Windows 7 installer will then install Windows 7 in the space remaining. If your hard-drive is rather full prior to this I would suggest that you use the first method instead, or your new installation won’t have a lot of room to operate in. If you have more than 1 hard drive then Windows 7 installer will leave any secondary and subsequent drive untouched: It’s only interested in your system drive (C:, or whatever drive letter you choose to install to, only).

Although the Windows 7 installer will preserve most if not all of your files inside the XP installation intact inside Windows.old, there is no guarantee that it will preserve every file in a working condition, exactly as was before. You will not be able to run XP from inside of Windows.old either. The machine will boot into Windows 7 when started. Windows XP as an operating system is lost.

If you’re installing Windows 7 on a machine running Vista, then you can either use the first method, above, to do a clean reinstall, or simply upgrade your operating system with an in-place upgrade. I’m not sure why Microsoft have punished those people who didn’t upgrade to Vista in this way to be honest. – But they have, for whatever reason.

Have you installed Windows 7 yet? Do you have anything that you’d like to add to the above?

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.

Some computer users go overboard in trying to save money: Fact.

- ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with trying to save money: After all, why should you pay more than you need to with one retailer if you can get exactly the same product cheaper elsewhere? I myself am always looking for ways to reduce costs; especially when it comes to building computers, both for myself and for my customers. Let’s be realistic about this; whatever it costs me will be passed on to the customer.

I’m starting to wander off the point here; so back on track: There’s saving money and there’s theft. Running pirated software, which is a common way of saving money, is theft. – There it is in black and white. – But hey I’m no moralist or divine authority who has any right to tell you not to do what you may or may not be doing. That’s your choice and your responsibility if you wish to run illegal pirated software: You accept the consequences if you get caught. that’s between you and the law-enforcement authorities. – ‘Not my concern; ‘not my problem.

I’ll tender a little advice on the matter, though, from my own experiences: -

Somebody contacted me because their computer wasn’t working properly and wanted me to overhaul their software. They said that someone had upgraded their box to Vista during a hardware upgrade, in which this person had fitted a dual-cored processor and changed the graphics card. Since then their box had never been right and was getting progressively worse.

I took their box in and had a look at it: Firstly I noticed that they didn’t have a graphics card. – The machine was running on the motherboard’s onboard graphics. They also still had the original single-core processor fitted which had never  been replaced since the DDR motherboard was new.

To cut a long story short I got the order to rebuild the box and install XP in place of Vista. Using the original case, PSU, and hard-drive, I rebuilt the box; fitting a new and better motherboard with a better onboard graphics capability, new dual-core processor, DDR2 RAM, all professionally put together and delivered. Normally I don’t do rebuilds – I usually only build new. Normally I don’t do software overhauls either; but in this case I did. – Well I completely wiped the hard-disc and installed XP. – As this box was the worst bodge-job of pirated-software I’d ever seen and I wanted the chance to examine it. – Yes the Vista installation was pirated, as was almost every installed program bar the free software.

The hard-drive was crawling with viruses and malware too. – Because they were unable to install any patches and updates. They were actually running as an active member of at least two botnets, and I was surprised that they still had any identity or bank balance to themselves. Antivirus was installed, numerous times, all of which had reported thousands of malware incidences in various coloured boxes at the foot of the screen, and were asking ridiculous sums in payment to clean up the damage caused. Vista crashed regularly, behaved slowly and oddly, and half of the programs either didn’t run at all, or only partially worked.

What flabbergasted me most, though, was the fact that they’d payed some “technician” (hacker) to set up their computer so that they could have free computing: Several hundred pounds for a graphics card that didn’t exist, a dual-core processor that was the original single-core processor, and installation of pirated software which put their machine, their bank balance, and their identity, in danger of being stolen. – Also the privilege of being recruited into a number of botnets so that they could participate in a distributed-computing initiative too! If they’d paid for their software rather than tried to get something for nothing then they’d probably never have had to pay me to put the damage right in the first place. They now run a legitimate copy of XP, purchased via myself. I installed free and open-source alternatives to most of their pirated software, and I now have another happy customer.

Look at it this way: You buy a car; a diesel. It’s new. Would you top up the engine oil with used cooking fat to save money? Would you fill up the tank with cheap red diesel (Illegal in the UK for road vehicles, as well as corrosive on the engine.)? When the time came to service it; would you take it to a notorious criminal firm who run a breaker’s yard?

If you answered “Yes” to any or all of the questions in the last paragraph above, then you’re either insane, a redneck, or a fugitive from justice.

- So why would you want to run hacked software on the computer you payed for that instantly renders your computer unsafe? Hacked and cracked software is supposedly free; but it’s full of security holes, unpatched vulnerabilities and known exploits, added to which it’s illegal and you run the risk of prosecution. It’s full of unresolved bugs that will affect the running of your machine; plus the fact that poorly-written malware routines are often used to defeat the keycode on installation.

It’s just not worth the hassle; yet people are doing it nevertheless. Perhaps you’re one of those people? Here’s the bottom line: If you run pirate software it’ll save you money in the short term; but in the long run it’ll end up costing you more than if you’d bought legitimate software in the first place. – And if you get busted and fined for running pirate software it’ll cost you even more than that.

Is it really worth it? You decide.

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.

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?

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.

What is DNS?

The term DNS stands for Domain Name System. DNS allows a server to be addressed by a domain name. – For example kkomp.com is the domain name of this blog. The DNS nameservers connect the IP address of a server with a domain name in order to make this possible.

When you type http://kkomp.com into your browser bar; the connection request is sent to a DNS server, which translates it into a request for connection to the appropriate IP address. The computer/server at that IP address is then sent the request that you made and responds by sending the data that you asked for.

Using DNS means that you don’t have to refer to every server by its IP address directly: If you had to address this blog as 213.171.218.220 then you’d have to write it down somewhere along with a note that it’s the IP address of kkomp.com. The DNS server does this for you; so that all you have to remember is kkomp.com.

*This article has no pictures. It’s difficult to know how one might go about getting pictures of DNS.*

What is a DNS cache?

When you visit a website, your computer may store a snapshot of what it finds there in the DNS cache of the DNS Resolver in your local operating system. This allows your computer to display a picture of what it last saw from that location at that IP address; therefore speeding up the time it takes to display it in your browser. Although the image in the local computer’s cache is only a temporary file, you might be viewing a cached image of the website in question rather than the actual content; which could have changed since then.

Flushing the Local DNS Cache

If you flush your local DNS cache; your computer is forced to make another DNS lookup when you request to see a website, as in flushing the DNS cache the locally stored image is deleted, and the computer has to store another one. This is useful if the website content has changed but your computer is still displaying the cached image of how the site looked previously.

Here’s how to flush your local DNS cache: -

(¬ = return.)

In Windows XP:

Click Start>Run.

Type “cmd” and click OK.

Type “ipconfig /flushdns” at the command prompt. (Note the space between “ipconfig” and “/flushdns”.) ¬

The message of confirmation will appear.

Type “exit”. ¬

In Windows Vista:

Right-click the Command Prompt icon and select “Run as Administrator”.

Type “cmd” and click OK.

Type “ipconfig /flushdns” at the command prompt. (Note the space between “ipconfig” and “/flushdns”.) ¬

The message of confirmation will appear.

Type “exit”. ¬

In Mac OSX 10.5.1 or below:

Open a terminal session.

Type “lookupd –flushcache”. ¬

After confirmation that the cache has been cleared; close the terminal session.

In Mac OSX above 10.5.1:

Open a terminal session.

Type “dnscacheutil –flushcache”. ¬

After confirmation that the cache has been cleared; close the terminal session.

Target neutralised.

“System File Checker?” You possibly repeat, inquisitively.

“Wasn’t that something in Windows 98?”

Yes it was; and I’m not encouraging you to use Windows 98 either. (Far from it: Windows 98 is now a significant security risk.) It still exists in Windows XP, and even in Windows Vista too.

“It is? I’ve never seen it in XP or Vista…”

Oh it’s there; ‘just that Microsoft buried it deep in the operating system.

We’ll talk about how to get it going in a while. First I wanted to explain a little bit about it:

There are certain files in Windows that are critical components of the operating system. If they weren’t there or they became corrupted, (As they might do from time to time.) then Windows doesn’t function properly; usually with the result that it crashes with a BSOD. These files are known as ‘protected’ files, and are hidden by default from all users. (They’re easy-peasy to unhide; but that’s for a different article perhaps.) At times if you inadvertently attempt to replace one of the protected system files; by installing crappy software maybe, or accidental deletion, Windows may respond with an “Are you sure you want to do that? You’re attempting to replace a protected system file.” type-message, and/or will put the original file back in place afterwards on some occasions.

- But as I said; these files can get corrupted; causing Windows to behave strangely, to malfunction, and even crash in a resultant blue-screen. Also – And even I’ve done it in the past; so there’s no need to feel ashamed of it – if you click ‘Yes’ when Windows asks ‘Are you sure you want to do that? You’re replacing a protected system file…’ – Because you’ve just paid for the piece of software you’re installing, so there’s surely nothing wrong with it or harmful to your computer. – and a protected system file gets replaced with one that’s almost identical, but probably has spyware in it too: Windows doesn’t always notice the difference at first, if it’s well coded.

System File Checker reads the digital signatures of all the protected files and checks their parity. If it finds something not quite right it replaces the file with a new copy. System File Checker will use the on-disk i386/cache if possible; but it prefers to take the relevant files straight from the installation disk if it can; and in some cases it might have no alternative anyway.

How to start System File Checker:

In Windows 98 you just clicked on a sub-menu item on the start menu.

– But in XP it’s easier to do it from a command-prompt. Click Start and type sfc /scannow.

In Vista; according to  Microsoft Help and Support: -

Type the following command, and then press ENTER:

sfc /scannow

 

If you don’t have an installation disk but you need to run the System File Checker, and the System File Checker asks you for the installation disk, don’t panic. There should be a partial disk-image on your C: drive containing all the files you need. It’s called i386. There are probably several; but the one we’re looking for here has close to 7,000 files in it and contains the files winnt.exe and winnt32.exe. (You won’t actually need these files for System File Checker; but if you find them in the i386 directory then you’re looking at the right one.)(C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles may be a good location to start looking for it.)

When the System File Checker tells you to insert the installation disk, just click OK. It’ll bring up a dialog box asking you to provide the location of the installation disk. Just browse to the i386 folder you’ve located or type in the path to it.

Not only will Windows use that directory at the time; but it’ll also remember it and it’ll be the first place it looks in a similar situation. ‘Handy eh? – Especially if your installation disk has been chewed up by the dog or accidentally used as a coaster when you forgot to put it away safely.

It doesn’t say this in any Microsoft documentation; but I’ve heard it from MVPs and others in the know, and I agree that it’s a good idea: After running SFC; reboot. It’ll set any file replacements in stone as it were.

There’s more on SFC in more detail here at Microsoft’s knowledgebase; so if you think I’ve missed something out; click this link for Windows XP and Server 2003, or this link for Windows Vista.

And that’s yer lot. Please comment.

You what? – You want pictures with it too? Do you want me to come over and run the thing for you too? Jeez!

Scroll down…

            

Here:

‘Satisfied?

 

Microsoft have released a security update which affects all their operating systems from 2000 to Vista; but they only offer it to Vista and Server 2008 users. Is this a forerunner of a return to the old days of the secret update?

An alert has recently been issued by The National Cyber Alert System of US-CERT (part of the Department of Homeland Security): Flaws in Microsoft Windows’ AutoRun functionality.

AutoRun is a feature of Windows that automatically reads the contents of mapped drives. These mapped drives could be anything: An optical drive, a network share, a USB stick, a memory-card reader, an external hard-drive…

You’ll notice probably that if you insert a CD into the optical drive, the first thing that happens is that it is recognised by the operating system, and AutoRun reads its contents. If that CD should contain malware then that is also read and it instantly infects the system in a lot of cases. – Malware is designed to do just that usually.

The advisory states that the AutoRun and NoDriveTypeAutorun registry values don’t work as advertised in Microsoft’s literature. Even setting the NoDriveTypeAutorun registry value to 0xFF can still result in problems.

There is, however, a fix: -

Microsoft has provided support document KB953252, which describes how to correct the problem of NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry value enforcement. After the update is installed, Windows will obey the NoDriveTypeAutorun registry value. Note that this fix has been released via Microsoft Update to Windows Vista and Server 2008 systems as part of the MS08-038 Security Bulletin.

Windows 2000, XP, and Server 2003 users must install the update manually.

Tests have shown that installing this update and setting the NoDriveTypeAutoRun registry value to 0xFF will disable AutoRun.

- Unless Server 2003, XP, and 2000 users know about it, how will they know about it?

Do Microsoft think that only Vista and Server 2008 customers are likely to be compromised via AutoRun? Clearly not. – So why only offer the update to the 2 groups containing users of the latest of their operating systems only? Suspicions would lead one to believe that Microsoft are being favouritistic towards users of the operating systems they’re pushing.

So Microsoft are guilty of favouritism; but on the other side of the coin they’re also guilty of stopping users of older operating systems from installing an important update which will protect their computers.

Having said that though, not even all Vista and Server 2008 customers are competent when it comes to editing the registry. (I myself try to avoid doing so if at all possible.)

In the light of the above; wouldn’t it have been better for Microsoft to include the registry fix in their update; therefore setting the AutoRun-related key to 0xFF by default, and then to make the update available across the board to all customers via Microsoft Update?

This is a rather bad case of Microsoft inefficiency in combating malware attacks. It’s been badly handled without any real foresight whatsoever. In fact it’s reminiscent of a return to the old days where Microsoft would publish a security update and wait until and if the customer discovered it and decided to install it.

‘Sorry Microsoft; but this just isn’t good enough on your part. We your customers have come to expect more from you.

Am I starting to have vision problems in my middle-years, or has OSX suddenly begun to look attractive? What do you think? Have Microsoft gone soft on safe-computing here?

The Vista blacK Screen of Death, or KSOD, (BSOD is already taken.) has been appearing rarely and at random since November in systems located here, there, and everywhere.

Let’s get straight to it. Yes I snagged this lot; but what the —- ? Let’s fix it: -

"There is a fix, courtesy of Mark from the SBSC & MSP Buzz Blog. He says the problem is related to the RPC service running under the LocalSystem account as opposed to the NT Authority\NetworkService account, and I quote:

• On the affected machine, boot using the Vista Media and Select "Next" and then in the bottom left you will see "Repair your Computer"; select Next and then Select Command Prompt.

• At the command prompt, launch regedit.exe and load the SYSTEM hive, follow the below steps.
  • a. Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

• b. On the File menu, select Load Hive.

• c. Browse to %WINDIR%\System32\Config Folder and select "SYSTEM"

• d. Select Open.

• e. In the Load Hive dialog box, type in "MySYSTEM" box for the registry hive that you want to edit.

• After the hive is loaded, modify the following key value per the instructions below: You will need to know what ControlSet the machine is currently running on, this can be determined by going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\MySYSTEM\Select and find the "Current" value in the Right hand side. (Example: Current value is 1 then the ControlSet will be ControlSet001)

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet00X\

• Services\RpcSs (X is the Number from the Current Key from above)
  Value Name: ObjectName
  Old Value: LocalSystem
  New Value: NT AUTHORITY\NetworkService

• Unload the SYSTEM hive by selecting the key "MySYSTEM" and then select "File->Unload Hive" menu item.

• Exit regedit.exe

• Reboot the system normally "

Something is changing the ObjectName key value, but nobody is yet sure what.

I thought I’d make a quick post; additional to what I had planned, just so that Vista users experiencing this problem have an extra reference – point for a solution. …As well as a chance for me to put up some more adverts:-

In an unexpected turn of events, Microsoft have become rather chivalrous by aiming to provide a free tool, code-named "Morro," that will provide a basic anti-malware service; protecting against viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.

This will be offered at the same time, June 30th 2009, as they discontinue their Windows Live OneCare consumer security service.

Morro will have a small footprint and use only a few system resources. The idea is that it will run on low-power PCs and low-bandwidth networks. As a stand-alone download it will support Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Existing OneCare customers will be directed toward using Morro instead when it becomes available. If you are currently and/or up to June 30th 2009 a OneCare user you will continue to be able to use the online backup feature as normal until that date; probably with the same charges attached.

The Windows Live OneCare blog says that this is not due to a poor sales figure, but rather a tactic aimed at bringing protection to millions world-wide who have none. Personally I think it’s probably a bit of both – Oh please; Microsoft aren’t known generally for being that public-spirited, despite being nowhere near as tight and money-grabbing as Apple. I very much doubt that they’d drop a product line that was making them a fortune.

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In the headlines today are 2 new ads from Apple. The first of the "I’m a Mac and I’m a PC"-style ads slam Microsoft’s advertising spending on Vista and highlight the problems people have had with M$’s latest operating system:-

Do people really care about Microsoft’s advertising budget though? OK the money has to come from somewhere, usually from the customers. In general, though, people don’t consider that when going out to buy a Microsoft product.

"Oh I don’t think I’ll buy Microsoft’s product because they’ll just spend any profit they make from me on advertising Vista."

Was it actually slamming Microsoft’s advertising budget though; or was it just emphasizing the problems associated with Vista?

The second ad pokes fun at Vista in a bleep-out; again highlighting the issues that people have faced with the operating system:-

The question is: How does any of this kind of negative-advertising actually promote Apple or the Mac? None of what I see makes me think "Wow; I should go out and buy myself a Mac."

I have 2 PCs; each running XP. Why XP? Because Vista has too many issues for my liking and I really don’t think it’s worth upgrading. When Windows 7 is released, if it’s much better than Vista, I’ll build a new PC for myself and install Windows 7.

I see a Mac as an expensive PC running Unix. Granted the OSX operating system hasn’t had the number of issues that Vista has had; but ME was another of Microsoft’s mistakes and I’m running the operating system that they released after ME. Why do I want a Mac? I can’t build a Mac; I’m not allowed to. I have to buy one ready-built. I can’t upgrade a Mac myself: I have to take it to Apple to be upgraded with what components they say I can have in it.

A ready-built PC will cost me slightly more than a self-build PC and it won’t be built as I want it to be built. A Mac will cost me even more than that, and it will be built as Apple and the Great Jobsweh; god of all things Apple, has decreed it shall be built – So saith the LORD.

I’ll continue building my own PCs, and I’ll continue to install Microsoft software. Why? Because I’m not allowed to install OSX on my home-built PCs. Apple can knock Microsoft all they want; but I’ll still buy Microsoft’s products. I’ll skip Vista, just like I skipped ME.

Apple should be addressing the fact that I don’t want their Mac for the reasons stated herein, rather than slagging Microsoft off.

If I could build and upgrade my own Mac I’d probably have one. OK I’d have to abide by the limited choice of components that Apple say I can upgrade it with probably, and I may have to build it according to certain specifications and conditions, granted; but I’d have my own personal Mac rather than Steve Jobs’ computer.

If I could run OSX on one of my PCs I would do just that; and Apple would sell me the operating system: But they won’t, so I lose out and they lose out.

If I could repair a Mac that I’d purchased when it went wrong then I would and I’d buy one in the knowledge that I could do just that. I don’t want to have to take it to an approved Apple stockist to be mended for 3 or more times the price I’d otherwise pay. I have the capabilities to do it on site, and I’d want to do it on site.

So Apple can spend as much money as they like on slating Microsoft and telling me how much better a Mac is then a PC, (Although there is very little difference in my mind: To me a Mac is a sturdy regulated PC running Unix.) but I still don’t want to buy a Mac because it’s not in essence my computer when I do: It’s Apple’s computer which I’ve hired indefinitely! I’d rather have my own computer that I own fully and can do what I want with.

Wouldn’t you too?

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?

When Microsoft launched Vista it was to fanfares and promises of a new age of excellence dawning: The problem was that they missed the boat by a mile and landed in dangerous waters.

To read more on the current latest news on Windows 7; see what Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet has to say about her latest preview of 7 at the ‘Milestone 3′ stage; Build 6780.

What do you think: Has Vista doomed Microsoft to an uncertain future dependant upon the success or flop of Windows 7; or will the current downturn in the software giant’s fortunes be just a blip in an otherwise gently-upward trace of success? Please do leave a comment.

Today is a “Bank Holiday” in the UK; which is Brit talk for “skive”: That applies to the employed-only populous though: I’m continuing much as usual here, although I did get a chance to finally see a few people I’ve been meaning to see for a while earlier.

It’s been a bumper weekend as far as hits are concerned on this blog; and my thanks to all who made it so: I hope you found the information that you were looking for and that it was useful to you.

In this blog entry I’m going to be focusing on operating systems and browsers with regard to the statistics of this blog from the last six days, and try to give my perception of exactly what this means for their respective markets.

Let’s look at some figures in terms of overall percentages for the operating systems used:

I apologise for the fact that the illustration’s not that clear: Nevertheless it can clearly be seen that Microsoft Windows XP is by far the leading o.s. at 75.8% (Of just over 1000 original hits.) ; beating Windows Vista into an un-commanding second-place at only 8.8%. To me that shows a big failure notice for Microsoft’s latest operating system and confirms the fact that people are sticking to XP for the time being, or downgrading their Vista installation to XP where possible. If this graph were to be taken as a representative sample it would indicate that for every person using Vista, there are 8.61 people still using XP.

What of the rest? Unbelievably in third place behind Vista is the obsolete Windows 98 at 4.3%: This also speaks volumes about Vista, as this says that nearly half as many people as those who currently use Windows Vista would rather use an obsolete operating system than Vista.

Let’s tot up the percentages of all Windows usage excluding Vista: We’ve already got XP at 75.8% and Windows 98 at 4.3%. Also there’s Windows 2000 in sixth place at 1.7%, NT4 at 1.1%, Server 2003 at 0.7%, ME at 0.6%, 95 and CE at 0.1% each.

I make that 84.4% of everybody, using Windows but avoiding Vista. Total Windows usage including Vista = 93.2%.

What of the others? Well there are two Linux groupings on this graph: “Linux” and “Ubuntu Linux”. I’m going to add those two together and call them “All Linux”; giving 2.4% of total: That’s not that bad a representative score for Linux in all honesty, and indicates some growth in the usage of Linux; I think somewhere in the region of 0.5% growth of market share.

Now Apple: There’s Mac OS X coming in at 2.9%, and the iPhone at 1.5%. I’m going to add those together and call them “Apple Platforms”; giving 4.4% of overall usage. This shows significant growth for Apple too; somewhere in the region of a whole percent if I remember correctly.

Obviously this isn’t an official survey, and the statistics gleaned from this are only representative of my viewers. If it were an official survey of a small cross-section of users, and there must be at least some parallel with the official figures, it would indicate that:-

• XP remains the prominent OS of choice.
• Vista is a failure.
• Linux usage is growing fairly fast.
• Apple usage is growing even faster.

To clarify; with apologies for the non-clarity of the graph again:-

• Internet Explorer 6: 50% (!),
• Internet Explorer 7: 23.7%,
• Firefox 2: 8.4%,
• Internet Explorer 5: 6.1%,
• Firefox 3: 4.5%,
• Safari: 3.8%,
• Opera: 0.9%,
• Firefox 1: 0.9%
• Konqueror: 0.7%

The other categories are “Firefox” (No number) 0.6%, Firefox 1.5 0.3%, Generic Gecko 0.1%, and Internet Explorer (No number) 0.1%.

I think what I’ll do is group Firefox, Firefox 1.5, and Firefox 1, together and call them “Not Firefox 2 or 3″, giving 1.8%.

Also I’ll group Internet Explorer and IE5 together and call them “Not IE6 or 7″, giving 6.2%.

OK; so IE6 appears to be a clear favourite: Strange that; I thought that since M$ were distributing IE7 as an auto-upgrade then everyone would start using it. I certainly do, and I prefer it to IE6 – I’m in the minority there it seems. IE7, which I use in XP, comes in second with less than half as many users as IE6. If we assume that all Vista users use IE7, then only 14.9% of XP users have adopted IE7. Fair enough.

Firefox 2 in third. Hmm: Although Firefox 3 was a record download it certainly isn’t a record Firefox; 2 still being the prevalent choice out of the Firefox versions.

Strangely enough IE5 with all its many vulnerabilities and its funny GUI has more users than Windows 98, indicating that people are using it with other Windows versions such as ME and 95.

Firefox 3 with just over half as many users as Firefox 2 eh? : That should be a concern to Mozilla perhaps?

Safari at 3.8% – Well there’s the iPhone accounting for some of it, though I’m surprised its usage is that high.

Even more surprising to me is that Opera’s usage is so low at just 0.9% in comparison to Safari’s beating it by more than a factor of 4 times: Maybe some people know something I don’t?

The rest is pretty much academic anyway – So; in conclusion:-

• IE6 is still the most popular browser.
• IE7 isn’t a failure, but it appears that most people would choose IE6 rather than IE7.
• Firefox as a whole has gained a good foothold and is becoming popular.
• Firefox 3 didn’t go down as well as anticipated.
• IE5 seems to have a cult-following.
• Opera is, in my opinion, underrated.
• Safari is, in my opinion, overrated.

I found that statistical analysis quite exhilarating: I hope you found it interesting and maybe in some ways useful.

What do you think? Are you at all surprised by these results? Do you think that this study is a fair analysis that could be used as a representative cross-section poll of users? Do you think these results are typical? What would you expect the results of an official poll to be; similar, or different? Please feel free to comment.

Update: September 1st 2008:-

I’m getting some good hits from loads of Open-Source browsers all of a sudden: Keep ‘em coming! (IE6 is still in the lead.)

 I’m now going to have to review some of these and blog about them. Excellent!

Click Here 

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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‘Time for another freebie – It’s been a while.

This program is written in dos; but it will run on XP in normal circumstances without the user doing anything other than clicking on the .exe file. (I’m not sure about Vista though: ‘Never tried it with Vista.)

This program is so small it will fit on a floppy, and it’s very much like the original 1970s arcade game in looks when it’s running. I wish I could remember who the program’s author is but I can’t: Neither can I find it on Google any more.

I discovered this program in 2001 and I’ve been playing it occasionally ever since: When you activate it it’ll take your entire screen but it won’t erase anything that’s on it. Press “Esc” to leave the program and return to normal Windows. It should also be OK running in Linux too; though once again I’ve only ever used it in Windows.

You can download it FREE from this link.

The controls are quite simple: Press return to start the game. To move left press the “Ctrl” key, to move right press the “Alt” key. To fire the canon press the shift key.

I was unable to get a screenshot in the time I had available to write this article; and anything I could find on the web didn’t do the program justice; so excuse the lack of my usual illustrations.

I hope you enjoy playing this relic from the 1970s: It was probably in vogue before a lot of you were even born. At the risk of showing my age I used to play it at the arcade in my teens.

*Disclaimer – This software is supplied as is; without warranty, guarantee, or any charge. I refuse to accept any responsibility for any problem that it causes you or that you may have with it: If you can’t accept that then don’t download it: Having said that it’s never given me any problems whatsoever. Please virus-scan the file before you run it so that you can be sure that I haven’t sent you malware, spyware, or a virus. (I haven’t; but do so anyway as it’s good practice.)

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“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!

http://www.kace.com/about/releases/systems-management-appliance/computer-management-software-alternative/07_23_08.php

 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.”