CoffeeFiend

Perhaps 10 pages of it are that, but there's certainly some information there (there's even several posts by you that say more than that, so you should know). My point still stands (no point in duplicating that post here, that thread's already for that, and that whole discussion/argumentation thing already happened there... Opening a new topic for it/debate over that is useless) I have tried all versions of DK (including v11, build 608, server ed). Hell, I gave Internet Explorer a second chance with version 7. If that's not getting a undeserved second chance, I don't know what is Mostly irrelevant. I didn't code most of the software I've used, and I can certainly tell some of it truly sucks. Actually, I'd say it's much the inverse. Those who've worked on it are most often too biased to start with to give balanced opinions (I'd like to see the CEO of DK say that another defragmenter is better, like there's a chance of that ever happening, even if it was true) Yeah, sit there and stare at it defragmenting. That's like loading up your dishwasher or laundry and sitting there while it washes and complaining you have to wait. Or perhaps you can schedule things. The average person working 8h/day 5days/week, plus around the same sleeping everyday, that means almost a hundred hours of time off that computer every week (not counting overtime, time out doing activities/shopping/etc). One would hope that's enough time to do the weekly defrag thing (not counting most can do background defragmenting too or use the screen saver mode). I certainly don't sit there and watch 'em defrag. It might be for you. Actually, it is for me too: it likely means higher ASIO latencies, intellisense lagging and such, slower DB queries (and inaccurate benchmarks), errors in DVB streams (very sensitive), and all kinds of such nice things, likely dropping some frames when capturing or even choppy HD playback and such. Yeah, the choice is painfully obvious alright. Actually, I've never seen a movie open seconds later on any machine. Fragmentation is mainly a non-issue here (it needs very few parts to start - so additional delay should only be a few ms at worst, and when playing mpeg4 around 1mbps it's irrelevant). It would take some VERY extreme fragmentation to make a difference of several seconds (if even possible). The main thing would be a matter of directshow filter configuration (what codecs handle what FourCC codes, priority flags, etc) and player choice if anything. Until it actually does a BETTER defragmentation job (DK v2007 still doesn't place MFT where it really belongs - and it truly does a big difference in speed, it still needs more free space to work, it still doesn't defrag all metadata, hibernate file and such), and has decent management options (PD Command Center rocks and is free) preferably at the same price points as the others and such (why not drop artificial limitations like the 768GB limit on the pro ed? If someone has any recent RAID array, they need the version that costs twice as much), I have no plans to spend a penny on it. I consider it to be a considerable downgrade from my existing defragmenter, why spend money on that?

Why delete it all? Something could go wrong (necessary entries not restored, missing some PCs during the "restore" phase, etc). I see 2 main ways to do this: -making a .reg file that will delete the usual useless/unwanted startup entries. Should be easy enough for HKLM entries. Simple and fast, but doesn't address the run entries under each HKCU... -using a program or script that will iterate through each entry, comparing against the list of junk to remove (and do so if it matches), if no match, then compare against list of keepers (if matches, don't remove - you can arguably do this as a first step instead), and if still no match, why not show details and ask if it should be removed (and memorize what to do next time it sees it) - or plain leaving it alone if you prefer. It can parse each user's HKCU entries. Lists of good/bad entries are loaded in memory at startup, and updated lists are written once finished. Powerful and efficient, but far more complicated and time consuming (it's only a time saver if it takes you less time to write this than going across all PCs and doing it manually). You could run the script via logon script/GP or whatever, but you can also just spawn the process remotely using WMI.

Could be, but either ways, pretty much anything will be better than the current outdated installer, which has been one of my main gripes about windows... I mean, the useless text mode part (using short filenames no less), press F6 to load a driver from a floppy (not from usb memory stick or something useful), etc. And either ways, no matter what you select, it copies pretty much the whole thing to your HD (not like that much storage is expensive nowadays either), it's kind of pointless (might as well copy it all), all it really needs to do is configure the system properly. And the new deployment solutions also means no more need for ghost et al.

What do you mean, "still"? There's like a whole hour between your 2 posts. That's not exactly a long time to wait for an answer, is it?

Couldn't care less if it needs scheduling or not. And personally I don't want something defragging in the background all the time, so I wouldn't use that (I'm very suspicious at how good it is at telling how "idle" a machine is - especially WRT I/O, not CPU-bound stuff). As for the API. They didn't write an API for windows (just like Citrix didn't write the TS API). They wrote a defragger that hooked directly into the kernel (replaced it). And MS licensed some old version of that to make their own dumbed-down useless defragger from it. MS made their own API (on request of Executive Software) for NT4 to accomodate defraggers so they wouldn't have to keep doing that. Again, they didn't write any such API. And being first means absolutely NOTHING about being good, much less the best. It's about how good of a defragmenting job it does, and we've argued that over and over again (I'm sure there's plenty of talk about all this in that 13 page long thread). PerfectDisk and O&O are far better/more thorough (DK being pretty much dead last). I'm not going to get into that old "which is better" argument all over again. Again, it's been discussed for more than 10 pages already. It would be just as pointless as another "which is best IE/FF?" thread. People can look into it and decide what's best for them. I certainly wouldn't recommend DK though.

Bah. Anything but diskeeper PerfectDisk or O&O. BTW, there's already a topic with 13 pages just for this.

Yeah, that's pretty sad (can't wait for IIS7). Just like Orcas (the next Visual Studio). Almost all the good stuff is coming out in a year or so. I guess meanwhile we'll still have the .NET framework 3, but then again they're already planning on 3.5 (includes things like LINQ) along with Orcas!

Tarun: you're 100% right. And very good FAQ (lots of people disable services they shouldn't too, and just because their computer still runs, they think it must have been useless). Using the hosts file for such purposes is a kludge at best. And definitely not for ad-blocking. (Lots of good apps made for this, from filtering proxies to extensions like adblock).

Same here. It wasn't too obvious until I decided to combine what seemed like the best 3 or 4 hosts files one could find on the web, merging them together and removing duplicates. The final version was a little over 1MB. The network service would peak CPU usage to 99% for a few minutes. Opening the web browser and such things did the same. The only fix that actually worked was to get rid of the said hosts file. Disabling DNS client didn't help one bit. Since then, I haven't used one at all, and still haven't caught anything regardless. The idea isn't so much to make it impossible for your computer to reach places that host bad things (as you can't make a complete list) as to make it not become infected if it ever does (you will come across some sites with crap eventually). As long as someone uses common sense, doesn't use IE, uses reasonably patched software, has a firewall of some kind (router, nat/fw software, or personal firewall), and preferably has an antivirus, there shouldn't ever be a problem (be it spyware, viruses or otherwise).

Yeah, I'm not surprised honestly. While DEP sounded like a good idea at first, the implementation seems horribly broken. First time I've seen DEP in action was when a friend bought a new laptop with hardware that supported it. His Windows XP that came with it would crash in apps like notepad or the calculator... Turned DEP off, all problems gone.

Nov 30th for business customers (along with Exchange 2007) Jan 30th for everybody else see article It's a bit of a shame that I've hardly had time to play with the betas at all (only tried it like twice on vmware), and it's out in under a month. Might as well delete the betas now. Really got to get around to order all these new PC parts already... Now the real question is, when's Longhorn server out (AFAIK in second half of 2007), and when will it all be included in the Action Pack? I really can't wait!

Also look at log files. They usually have enough infos to find the problem. And likely not the case, but make sure you're not running out of disk space (I've had that problem once in vmware with a default 8gb partition which filled all too fast and made the .net framework install mysteriously fail, which it never had done before). Could be countless things.

They're likely trinitron tubes (common in nice large monitors). You eventually get used to it and don't really see them anymore. And yes, it's because it uses an aperture grill instead of shadow mask. As for #1, cheapo cables are more prone to ghosting and such things (poor shielding too, so prone to interference as well). Easy to see with cheap KVM cable sets. It shows especially at high resolutions, so nothing surprising here. But as far as #3 goes, I've NEVER seen that before. Weird!

Zxian: strongly agree on all points. And diskeeper is pretty much the very last defragmenter I'd use...

Sys admins are hardly the only users for a server (likely a minority). And Win 2003 Standard is more like 400$ - less than that if you get the action pack instead (somehow that's cheaper than most "nice" editions of Vista are going to be). Some people have a genuine need for win2003 (not for gaming or such). Not that I really care or have a use for WMP mind you.

Yet, the WinXP drivers for the 3 modems I have work 100% fine on my Win2003 box (for fax purposes). I'd be tempted to blame your hardware manufacturer...

If you use it in terminal server mode, you need CALs, but there is a grace period (which seemingly just ended). Otherwise, you don't need CALs to just administer it (but simultaneous connections are limited). Under Terminal Services Configuration (in administrative tools), go under server settings, licensing, then pick "Remote Desktop for Administration". You're done.

That very much sums it up, couldn't have said better. If you're happy with low paying entry admin jobs with little job security, and are sure you'll always be happy about that, then nobody's forcing you to do anything. One day you might tire of that repetitive job. Or might have to make mortgage payments, support a family and such (it all happens VERY quickly). Then more education (notice I didn't say "certs") will definitely help, and you might as well take care of that while you have the time and are still into it. People skills, networking (talking about people here, not ethernet), and business sense can't hurt either.

Out for XP only (no version for 2003). Not that I'd use it anyways...

Nothing has been stolen from anyone. It's been written from scratch in C#. And there is no price, as it's not about to be released or sold anytime soon, it's just a research project. No need to bash them pointlessly. And about points like "Micro$oft and OpenSource don't go together", that might be true, but then again, so is the case of basically ~99% of companies selling software out there.

I believe you're talking about Singularity. It's built from the ground up, and is not related to windows (and it's the ONLY other OS they make besides windows). However, it's not open source, nor can you get it anywhere or in any way, unless you're a programmer on the microsoft research's OS team perhaps. Not like you'd have a use for it either...

Yeah, no need for static IPs or anything like that. Just use a service like dyndns, no-ip or the like (it will "follow" your IP). There are clients that will automatically update it for you (some routers have this built-in too). It's easier to remember (words) than an IP too.

Bah. 7.1 is very overrated. I have a 6.1 system, and I wish I hadn't bothered. Most people can't afford a 5.1 systems with decent speakers. Spending basically the same amount on a system with 2 more speakers means you get cheaper speakers leading to lesser sound quality, and very little more. There are very few movies with 6.1 audio (a dozen or so), and none in 7.1 AFAIK. I'd much rather have a 5.1 system with good speakers than a 7.1 system with so-so speakers. Sometimes less is more. And having more speakers to place sometimes is a real PITA (I counted for fun, there's already 22 speakers at my place not counting the ones in storage - the crappy ones that came with the 6.1 system, I don't think we need more). But the card has very good specs, it has a good set of connections, they have very good drivers (unlike Creative), it has features like Dolby Digital Live which every decent sound card should have (again, not on Creative cards), etc.

That's one way, but I doubt most people want to use cracks to get it to install. If I still cared about IE7 at all, there's an old iecustom.dll "floating around" that will make it install regardless. Redmond doesn't want ppl to install their [sucky] browser apparently. One has to install the WGA spyware or use cracks. I'm getting real fed up with them pushing that WGA thing down our throats so bad. Blocking useless downloads was one thing, but this is getting ridiculous. I DON'T want that POS, even if my copy is 100% legit. Activation was already a real PITA, but it's getting ridiculous. You can only treat your customers like criminals for so long. If they keep pushing this thing (thinking about Vista and Office), it will lead to mass exodus to "penguin land" (hopefully Sun can make Java match C# eventually, then I could mostly drop Windows). Personally, I'm just not going to install it at all, there's so much better browsers out there without all that BS.

Nice, I SO want one. Better than all the junk Creative will ever make