Andromeda43

I have several options (back up programs) available to me, but being from the OLD SCHOOL, I prefer to make my backups of C: drive (Windows XP) using Ghost 2003, last build (793). I run it from a DOS boot floppy, Flash Drive or CD. When run from a Floppy disk, the way it was originally written to be run, it will offer to put itself on a DVD along with the backup image file, thus creating a bootable C: drive restore disk. If need be, it will automatically span over multiple disks till the backup is complete. Toshiba, uses the same program for its Factory Restore DVD's. Ghost 2003 build 793 works just fine with SATA drives and USB external drives as long as the motherboard is up to date enough to be able to SEE those drives. Ghost will see everything that the motherboard can see. For those who need more than Ghost 2003 can provide, there is Ghost 11.5, which will back up a Vista drive and also restore it with NO problems. I have Ghost 11.5 and I've used it with excellent results, to both back up and restore Vista and Win-7. It runs exactly like Ghost 2003, so there was no learning curve involved in using it. The only drawback is, that 11.5 is way too big to fit on a floppy disk and must be run from either a Flash Drive (my favorite method) or a CD. Within Ghost 11.5 is also another option. It's Ghost32.exe that can be run right from the Windows desktop. It opens a window on the desktop and then can be run with your mouse, just as if it was running from a boot disk. It's Quite ingenious, actually. Recently, I've heard that Symantec is giving away Ghost 11.5 for free. That news really blew me away. Well, they might as well give it away, as it's been all over the internet for some time now. Cheers Mates!

Have you ever tried to set up the HD the way you want it BEFORE ever starting an install? For the 29 years that I've been building PC's and installing OS's of various types from DOS to Win-7, I've never tried to install a new OS on a new HD without first partitioning and formatting the HD to verify its integrity. I just got a new 160 gig SATA2 HD from Seagate and I wanted to put Windows 7 (beta, 7077 ) on it. The first thing I did was boot up my system with my DOS boot disk and I set two partitions with FDISK. Then I formatted the two partitions with the DOS Format command. This takes a while, but it does certify every sector on the HD. Then since I was going to install an OS that demands NTFS, I used Partition Magic 8 on a Boot CD, to reformat the first partition on the drive to NTFS. That was a fairly quick process. I then booted up from the Win-7 install CD and continued with the install. It all went off without a hitch. After a lot of tweaking and tuning, Win-7 runs faster on my PC than any other OS that I've ever tried. Most of the tweaks I use are the same ones that I've used on Vista.

Fire up a command prompt under administrative privileges and type "powercfg -h off" without the quotes then hit Enter. Good luck! Nitro... I've found that when you suggest something, I take it to heart. The command worked just fine. Thank you. I've committed it to a batch file, so I can now use it on other PC's with less time at the keyboard. Thanks again. B)

I'm just curious. So far the only problem I've seen with the beta versions is the things that are missing. Like 'Classic' screens and menu's and a working email client. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Many things that I could easily set or change in previous OS's, just can't be done in Win-7. Hopefully, some of the most excellent Script writers will come up with .reg scripts to take care of those issues. For instance, I'd like to shut off "Hibernate" to get rid of that huge 'Hiberfil.sys' file in my root directory, but unlike previous OS's, I can't find the box to UN-Check. So far, there's no love affair here for Win-7, even though it runs much faster than XP on this system. So for me, Win-7 is just another "Wait and see".

Access Denied, Would you care to share, just where you got your version of Win-7? I'm still using 7048, (64 bit) and I love it. It runs so much faster than my XP-Pro 32 on the same PC. Except for WinMail not working, I've had no real problems with it. The little script to put "Take Ownership" in the right-click context menu makes working with it a lot easier. Has that script been discussed in this forum. I can't remember where I found it.

Brokn------ With the right software and a little knowledge of DOS, what you want to do is about a ten minute job. Starting from scratch...... first you need to make the Flash Drive (FD) bootable. The little program from HP does that in seconds. here it is: http://www.box.net/shared/static/nkibqo9jvs.exe Then you need the DOS boot files. The easy way is to let the program get them from a DOS boot floppy, but hey.... if you don't have a boot floppy or a floppy drive at all, then you can download the three files needed, here: http://www.box.net/shared/q2pe2jetfz Unzip these files into a new folder and point the Format Tool to that folder when it asks you where it should get the dos boot files. I believe the dos files are in a self extracting 7zip file. Just drop it in a new folder and click the file to start the extraction process. OK....once the Flash Drive is bootable to a DOS prompt, you need to write several files. First you need to create an "Autoexec.bat" file, to load a DOS menu. The simplest DOS menu is a text file, like this: 1. Run Memtest86 2. Run NTFS4DOS 3. Run Ghost 4. Run Spinrite6 Type a number and press ENTER key. Each number is a little batch file, that actually runs the selected program and returns you to the menu when the program ends. Then you just need the Menu.bat file to clear the screen and print the menu.txt file to the screen. With all the expertise in this forum, I know someone will come up with something else, but I've been doing these DOS menus since about 1980 and they just work great. Here's the menu from my Windows ME boot disk. I have this on a floppy, a Flash Drive and even a CD. Life is so much simpler when you have a floppy disk drive. To get the above floppy, shown in the color photo, onto a Flash Drive, I formatted my FD using the program linked to above, then I just copied all the files from my DOS boot floppy to the FD and then I could add more programs onto the much larger FD than would fit on the floppy disk. Once the FD was just the way I wanted it, I used NERO to burn the FD to a CD. It's all 'Do'able' ,,,, and once you've done it.....it's so easy to edit your menu.txt file and add more programs. A bank pres. in a small-town bank, showed me how to do this stuff, OH SO Many Years Ago. Good Luck,

But all is "BETA" (smoke and mirrors) so we really don't know what the final release will look like. Do we?

Just like I.E.6 was a part of Windows XP when it first came out, I.E.8 is a part of Windows 7. I'm running Win-7, build 7048, 64 bit and it indeed has I.E.8 installed. I wouldn't even futz around with any of the 32 bit versions. The whole industry is moving into 64 bit as quickly as they can. Win-7 runs much faster on my 64 bit capable AMD 5200+ CPU, than windows XP-Pro, 32 bit. Those who think Win-7 is a new OS, are in for a rude awakening. It's VISTA, with botox and a boob job! Everything I hate about Vista is alive and well in Window 7! I found a neat little script, titled "Take Ownership" that allows me to take the ownership of files or folders, one at a time. Download the .reg script here: http://www.box.net/shared/l1b7hmpyh6 Just run this script and it will add "Take Ownership" to your 'Right Click Context Menu'. That helps some, but Win-7, like Vista, is still a nightmare for the tech, geek or enthusiast. In my version of Win-7, the 'Windows mail" program is there, but completely inaccessible and totally disabled. There is a fix, involving the removal of all the files in the mail folder and replacing them with the files from the same folder in Vista. Rots O Ruck! When you can't get access to a file, you can't remove it. In total disgust, I gave up on that and installed "Thunderbird" so I could get my email when running Win-7. That works! Cheers Mates!

I go way back...... my first CD burner was an external unit, 2X I think that weighed in at about five pounds and required a special driver card to be installed inside the PC. What a dinosaur! Needless to say, that old burner is GONE but not forgotten. Today I try to stay up to date on the best burners, but in NO WAY would I ever try to burn a CD or DVD at full speed. I think that the "Half Max" rule sounds good and about what I do. I may even go down a notch. I've always felt that a "Slower Burn is a Better Burn". Just make sure that the cache on the drive stays full during the burn. If it's running close to empty at any time, you're probably burning too fast. But aside from the speed and media, there is one more thing that no one has mentioned yet...... and that would be "System Resources". Programs running in the background, like Anti-Virus programs can really slow down the data transfer between the HD and the Burner. I used to get lots of 'Coasters' before I learned to Shut Down all running programs before opening my CD/DVD burning software. In reality, what sounds really simple can be really complicated. (shutting down all running programs) Well as good luck would have it, years ago I found a neat little utility to do that shutdown. It's called "End It All 2". (Want it? Can't find it?) Get it here: http://www.box.net/shared/zx9m4r0rj4 It takes only a few seconds to run it, and it shuts down all running programs that you select in the initial setup. I find that things like cd burning and HD maintenance work a lot better without interference from other running programs. Needless to say, I use "End It All 2" a lot. And, I've not had a 'coaster' in years! Cheers Mates!

Have you tried using an intermediary? Like copy them to a CD or DVD on one OS and them read them back into the computer on the other OS? keep trying things till you find something that works for you. B)

The list of bad parts in Dell PC's is well documented. From bad power supplies, to bad motherboards, the list just goes on and on. good luck! B)

Once you've disabled System Restore on all drives and reboot your PC, the contents of the System Restore folder will be GONE. The empty folder takes up virtually NO space so why fuss with it? However, disabling System Restore is like shooting yourself in the foot. It's put there by MS programmers to save your butt if anything goes wrong in windows. I not only use it, but I force a new restore point on every reboot, with a little script in my Startup folder. I have to use it at least once a week, to fix some little F'up. Old restore points can be deleted with Windows Explorer,,,, just not the current days restore points. I only delete my old restore points, when I'm cleaning up the HD prior to doing a full C: drive backup, to save space in the Backup Image File. With a fresh Image of C: safely stored away, I don't need the old restore points. EH? Cheers Mates! B)

First let me "Ditto" the suggestion to go to Black Vipers website and get the list of Services that are SAFE to disable, or put into Manual mode. I did this myself, then I put those Services into a batch file, so that I can shut them down easily for myself and all my customers. What would take a half hour to do manually, one service at a time, only takes about one second using the batch file. Shutting down redundant services takes a huge load off of the CPU and ram. Next, you really need to be aware that the little 2.5" hard drive in a laptop runs much slower and transfers data MUCH slower than the 3.5" drive in a desktop PC. So, taking as much work OFF of the hard drive as possible is very important to good performance. I tweaked my registry, to cause Vista (or even XP) to load the Windows Kernel into ram on boot. This one little tweak greatly improves the performance of the OS. Then, of course, in MSCONFIG, shut down all those redundant updaters, monitors, reminders, etc. Be careful though, on a Laptop and don't shut down your "Pointing Device" drivers, unless, you're using an external mouse. Then never over-load your little PC with Bloatware like Norton AV or McAfee Av programs. A lightweight AV program like AVG 8.0 FREE will keep you safe and NOT overload your little PC. Passive Anti-Spyware programs like Spybot Search & Destroy and Spyware Blaster are good too, because they add a great level of protection, without having to run in the background. I either tune up or install about one Laptop a week, all year long and a full tune-up or install takes about two hours or longer depending on the efficiency of the PC. On the average, a well cleaned-up and tuned PC with Vista should boot up in less than a minute. I include in that boot-up, a batch file to clean out all the basic garbage generated the last time the PC ran, and I force a new Restore Point with a little script. Shortcuts to both are located in the Program Files/Startup folder. Those do take a few seconds to run, but greatly increase the safety and efficiency of the PC. I guess what I'm getting at, is that making a Laptop run better, even with Vista Ultimate, isn't rocket science, but it's possible and also very poorly documented. Good Luck and Happy Holidays! Andromeda43 B)

I do computer tune-ups for a living and have for many, many years. NO, reinstalling windows (any version) is NOT even an option 99.99% of the time. So what to do? I know people hate me when I say "Clean up your mess!" but that's exactly what has to be done. Shutting down all those redundant programs that load into your Startup folder every time you update Adobe Reader or Real Player, etc. can really slow down any PC, so it's mandatory to go into "MSCONFIG, the Startup tab" and uncheck every program not absolutely needed to run your PC. Then APPLY the changes and reboot the PC. That will seriously limit the number of things running in the background and sapping your PC's performance. Then in Add/Remove programs, in your Control Panel, de-install all those old programs that you no longer need. Also get rid of all those demo's, trials and games that came with the PC. Finally, running Windows own "Disk Cleanup" (which almost NO-ONE ever does) goes a long ways toward getting rid of garbage files off of your HD. In Disk Cleanup, check to remove everything but "Setup Log" files. Follow that up with a Defrag of the C: drive. Both of those Windows programs are found in: C:\Program Files\Accessories\System Tools There's a lot more, but without downloading or buying any programs, that's a good place to start. Good Luck and Happy Holidays! B)

You can manually access Services by just running "Services.msc" from your RUN box. Be careful disabling services though! Disable the wrong one and XP may refuse to boot, or refuse to go on-line. For a list of services to disable, most folks, like me, just go to "Black Vipers" web site. Disabling services for just one PC is easily done manually, but if you want to disable the same services on multiple PC's it's advantageous to use a batch file. Here's a Sample of a "Set Services.bat" program. ---------------------------------------------- @echo off cls sc config Alerter start= disabled sc stop Alerter sc config ClipSrv start= disabled sc stop ClipSrv sc config ERSvc start= disabled sc stop ERSvc sc config Messenger start= disabled sc stop Messenger sc config WmdmPmSN start= disabled sc stop WmdmPmSN sc config RemoteRegistry start= disabled sc stop RemoteRegistry sc config SCardSvr start= disabled sc stop SCardSvr sc config SENS start= disabled sc stop SENS sc config Schedule start= disabled sc stop Schedule sc config W32Time start= disabled sc stop W32Time sc config DNSCache start= disabled sc stop DNSCache sc config SharedAccess start= auto sc start SharedAccess rem rem To add other Services: rem Open Services.msc and double-click on the Service to get the proper filename rem rem Syntax: rem Note that you should put the line to set the Service to Automatic, Manual or Disabled rem before the line to Stop or Start the Service rem rem sc - pulls up the Service rem config - make this change rem start= auto - sets the Service to Automatic - note the space after the = sign rem start= demand - sets the Service to Manual rem start= disabled - sets the Service to Disabled rem start - Start the Service rem stop - Stop the Service ------------------------------------------ I can't stress enough, that this is a SAMPLE only. You must decide what services you want to disable or put into Manual mode on your own PC and for your own needs. Good Luck and Merry Christmas! B)

If your DOS boot disk (Flash Drive) is large enough, you can add utilities to your hearts content. I use Windows ME DOS to make my boot Flash Drive and on that drive I have all the Options to run Ghost and some batch files to do extensive disk cleanup on my hard drive. (before actually running Ghost) I've also included all the DOS hard drive util's like FDISK (to partition a HD) and the DOS "Format" program. I also have NTFS4DOS, so I can work on an NTFS drive from a DOS prompt. Add to that Memtest86 and of course "Partition Magic 8" and you've got a very useful boot disk. You can just keep adding programs (to your flash drive) till you run out of space. It's very helpful if you write DOS menus to make running your programs easier. Once you have everything set up on your flash drive, the way you want it, a program like NERO can burn that Flash drive to a Bootable CD for archival storage and use on systems that won't boot from a Flash Drive. Your options are as many and as varied as your imagination permits. Merry Christmas! B)

It's amazing what you can find out, if you just put "Google" to the work for you. On a M$ site, I read all about that log file and found this entry: That would indicate to me that you're not shutting your PC down at the end of the day. That's highly recommended, even by M$. XP was never designed or meant to be run continuously. Many changes to the registry are made during a normal days work on an XP PC. All those registry changes are held in the copy of the Registry that runs in system RAM. They are copied to the master registry on the HD ONLY when the system is shut down, even if it's just a brief re-boot. If your system crashes during the day, maybe due to a brief power failure, all those updates to the registry are lost forever. For systems that absolutely MUST be left on overnight, like to receive faxes, I always suggest putting a reboot command in the task scheduler. XP relies heavily on a reboot to do much of its internal maintenance. Just a thought! Happy Holidays! B)

Don't know about this. However, if a create a dummy autoexec.bat in the root drive. The messages stop recording to the log file; however, Sophos is still accessing the drive and running the bat file every few seconds. The bat file just does an echo command. What a waste of computer time.... I'm running on a fairly recent install of Windows XP-SP3 and I do have an autoexec.bat and config.sys file present in the root directory of C: Those would only be usefull to a DOS bootup, or to running DOS programs. Both are zero files (totally empty of entries) I don't have Sophos on my PC, but I do use AVG 8.0 Pro. I checked my own "Userenv.log" file and indeed I have entries concerning the Autoexec.bat file. ??? However, that file on my PC is only 138k in size. I'm going to zero out that file and see what entries are added as the day progresses. Later! B) PS: There were hundreds of lines in that "Userenv.log" file. It appeared that all the entries concerning the Autoexec.bat file were at the beginning of the file. More lately there were NO such entries. I've zeroed out that file and I'll watch it to see what goes in there from now on. To simplify this, I've put a shortcut to that file on my desktop. If it appeared that THAT file was causing me any problems or growing unnaturally, I'd add it to my XPCleanup.bat program that runs from my Startup folder so it would just be deleted on every boot.

I have always disabled that service as redundant. So I'd be curious as to what apps you need it for. Please inform! B)

But sir,,,,,the question is not what YOU are satisfied with.....the question is what can the original poster do to speed up his VERY SLOW PC. Vista by its very nature is a huge resource hog. It puts demands on CPU, RAM and HD like we've never seen before in any OS. Two gigs of ram is the sweet spot for a system running XP, but Vista needs more. (three gigs at least) Also, Vista comes out of the box with a HUGE number of services running in the background. Check the "Black Viper" website for services that you can either shut down completely or put into Manual mode, to lessen the load on the cpu and ram. From that list, I've written a batch file to shut down almost 40 redundant services in Vista (and about 20 in XP). Then that 5400 rpm (SATA1) HD is definitely a bottleneck to performance.....it's doubtful you're going to change it, so you need to limit how many times the OS has to access it. Getting the Kernel loaded into ram during the boot up process helps a LOT! There's a simple registry tweak to do this. Finally, the glitzy Vista theme "Areo" is a resource hog too. I set all menu's and windows to Classic. My customers upgrading from a '98 or XP machine, appreciate this very much. It makes Vista look much more familiar to them and it also appears to improve performance. All in all, I can make Vista run every bit as good as XP, even on the same PC. I run both on my own PC so I can compare the two. I have three gigs of DDR2 ram. XP experienced a big jump in performance when I went from one gig of ram to two gigs. Going to three gigs made NO difference to XP , but it sure did for Vista. I'm running Vista Ultimate, 32bit. Vista creates a lot of 'bloat' on the HD. So, keeping the HD clean and defragmented is very important for best performance. For years, I've put a Cleanup batch file in my Startup folder for some free HD maintenance every time I boot up my PC. That absolutely precludes the buildup of junk files on my HD. Then once a week, I do a more extensive cleanup, including Windows own "Disk Cleanup" and Defrag. You can run Disk Cleanup in a much more inclusive mode, by using this shortcut to run it. %SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:35 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:35 Copy and paste that shortcut into a new desktop shortcut, for a much better HD clean up, without having to install any additional software on your PC. The first time you run the "Extended" Disk Cleanup, you will need to put a check mark in the boxes next to all the things you want it to remove. I just check everything, except, "Setup Log files". Remove those and you won't be able to UN-Install any programs. So leave that box UN-Checked! After setting up a Vista or XP PC for my customers, I never get that "It's running so slow" comment. There is NO replacement for good system maintenance. Happy Holidays Mates! Andromeda43 B)

Firstly, have you checked to see if that motherboard is on the Vista compatibility list? If NOT, you may have all sorts of problems installing Vista on it. Secondly, Vista comes out of the box with it's own SATA drivers. The days of having a floppy with SATA drivers on it, is long since GONE. That's good too, since NO new computer today comes with a floppy drive installed. Good Luck and Happy Holidays! Andromeda43 B)

In every version of Windows, there has always been an easy way to change the sounds that play on your PC, to anything you wish. The app is in your XP Control Panel, under "Sounds and Audio Devices". When setting up a new PC with Windows, I normally just delete all the g'zillion .wav files that M$ puts in the media folder and replace them with about a dozen from my own Utilities CD. Then I go thru the little process of assigning the proper sound to just a few Windows operations, like Startup and Shutdown. I grabbed the intro sound off of a M$ upgrade disk for my Startup sound. It's really quite GRAND! For my email acknowledgment sound (in Outlook Express) is use a female voice saying "You've got mail" that I gleaned from a PC running "Compuserve". All in all, it's pretty simple to set up the sounds you like, on your Windows PC. Happy Holidays Mates! Andromeda

10-4! NTREGOPT is the only registry optimizer that I will trust with my registry. I've used it on literally hundreds of PC's with NO problems what so ever. It's FREE! You can download it here: http://majorgeeks.com/NTREGOPT_d4824.html As for registry cleaning, there are dozens of so called Registry Cleaners out there and most of them are CRAP and using them can destroy your registry. Some are even "Trojans". Even some Retail programs are NOT GOOD but you have to buy them to find that out. Been there and done that! So don't waste your money or put your registry at risk. For many years and two versions, I've only used "Easy Cleaner" to clean up my own PC and the PC's of my many customers, with Never a problem. Did I mention, It's FREE? I'm currently using "Easy Cleaner II" to clean up all computers from '98 to Vista. It can be downloaded here: http://majorgeeks.com/download414.html Good Luck and Happy Computing! Andromeda43 B)

Making a copy of a floppy disk is probably the easiest in any version of MS Windows. In MyComputer, right click on drive A: and in the context menu, click "Copy Disk.... " Just follow the on-screen prompts to finish the job. Or if you're working strictly in the DOS environment..... Diskcopy A: A: will get the job done nicely. In this age of micro-computers and terabyte HD's, the lowly floppy disk is just as useful as ever. My last computer had twin floppy drives in it and my current PC has just one. My new MSI mobo only supports ONE floppy drive. What a disappointment that was! I sell at least one USB Floppy Drive a month to people with new computers that come with NO floppy drive. Many people still have doc's and family pictures stored on floppy disks, that they need access to. Viva la Floppy! B)

That's actually a "Name" not a speed! 150 is actually 1500mbps and 300 actually means 3000mbps. OK? With all the mumbo jumbo and gobbledegook on the internet, it's hard to just get a straight answer. I did find this on one site talking about the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 series of drives,,,, one of which I have sitting right here beside me as I type this. On the top of the drive it says: DiamondMax 10 Model: 6V160VO 160GB SATA 3.0Gb HDD And in one internet article about the Maxtor drive it says this: Interface choices Offers the choice of parallel or serial interface including the latest 3.0Gb/s SATA II features and performance. When I do a Ghost 2003 backup of my system, I can watch the actual data transfer rate. I do see rates in the 3000 MB/sec range when I'm using my SATAII drive. I was very confused myself, with all the conflicting posts on the internet, till I did my own tests. The labeling from some drive makers doesn't help, when they call a 1500MB/sec drive a 150 and a 3000MB/sec drive a 300. Would it really hurt them to just add the extra zero? Or they could just put the actual speed on the drive like Maxtor does. Thus the 3.0Gb/s like in the above example. It sure would be a lot less confusing. Just my opinion, of course. Cheers Mates! Andromeda43 B)