Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

The question of how much ram should I have in Windows XP has been around as long as Windows XP. Truthfully, the answer has changed as memory has come down in price.

Originally I installed a lot of new computers with Windows XP and 512MB RAM installed. Later on, I increased this to 1GB as that became more affordable.

Some tech gurus always seemed to indicate that 2GB was the sweet spot for XP and quite honestly, I’m not sure basic users would really see too much difference between 1GB and 2GB RAM.

It seems, either because of Windows updates or whatever, that as a Windows operating system ages it needs more RAM. Sit down at a machine with 512MB that used to be pretty spunky but no longer is and you will know what I mean. And it isn’t just garbage collecting; because the same goes for a PC with Windows XP freshly reinstalled.

My point today is that I had to “borrow” some RAM out of my Windows XP computer and my assistant’s Windows Vista PC. Both had 2GB (2 x 1GB) and after “borrowing” had 1GB each.

I noticed it. My assistant noticed it.

I couldn’t get my Crucial order off fast enough!

Memory is cheap, your time and frustration isn’t. Head over to Crucial.com and get yourself a memory upgrade. Crucial makes it easy, their product and service are exceptional. I highly recommend them.

For all of you out there using Windows Vista (I know, small audience), I thought I would pass along three tricks that I read in a blog over at InfoWorld.

The tricks are these:

1. Navigating Shortcuts
2. Multiple local GPOs (yeah, I know, what’s a GPO you ask)
3. CompletePC backup creates .vhd file that is mountable - I prefer Acronis True Image

If you use Windows Vista, it’s probably worth your time for the quick read about Windows Tricks from the Vista Masters over at InfoWorld.

I have recently complained about Microsoft requiring a floppy drive to load a driver on Windows Recovery and installation. Well, though I haven’t had reason to try it yet, Windows Vista now allows one to load a driver from something other than a floppy drive - FINALLY!

Microsoft never misses a chance to really torque me off with their “home” versions of Windows. Windows Vista Home Premium is fine for most people - at home, but it lacks two features that I see no justification in leaving out.

Vista Home Premium does not allow remote control via remote desktop. This is an exceptionally handy feature, especially for someone trying to help you out (potentially) and becomes a real advantage if you buy a Windows Home Server.  Why leave this feature out (other than to torque me off)?

And Windows complete backup and restore. Come on, even if you don’t like it as a tool, doesn’t it sound good to say that you have included a complete backup and restore utility in your product? Seems like good PR to me.

If it weren’t for the price issue, and it is an issue - you don’t get much extra for the price, I would just load Ultimate on everything. Ok, so Bitlocker is a valuable feature; most won’t use it anyway, so why not just give it to them?

Microsoft needs ONE version of Windows for the workstation. Price it to sell, not be stolen. Then watch your customers line up to buy it with a smile on their face. That would be something new for Microsoft, wouldn’t it?

Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) is being released in stages, which is good. Otherwise we would have to wait until the entire service pack is ready before receiving certain fixes.

Many IT professionals will refuse to use a new release of Windows until SP1 is available - as it’s always needed it seems.

One aspect of Vista has received perhaps more angry accusations than any other. WGA (Windows Genuine Authentication) is touted by Microsoft as being anti-piracy, but is really more of an anti-fair-use policy.

True software pirates have ways of making their pirated software work long enough to collect the money. It’s the people who own legitimate copies of Vista who are being hurt the most.

WGA in Vista as it stands can potentially “kill” or severely limit Vista if it feels you don’t have a genuine version. Usually, a waste of time call to Microsoft in India will get you going if you truly own your software. But forcing that phone call justifiably angers many honest Microsoft customers.

Customers who then look for alternatives to Windows.

Microsoft says it has done away with the “kill switch” in Vista SP1 in favor of a more friendly message telling the user how to get genuine or at least appear like it to Vista.

At the same time, they say they have plugged a couple of holes that let hackers fool Vista into thinking it doesn’t need to check.

It’s a good thing. Too bad so many honest customers have had to pay the price for Microsoft’s draconian policy.

Windows Live OneCare is a $49.95/year security suite from Microsoft. And Performance Tune-ups. And Backup and Restore. And I think I’m gonna be sick.

I was reading an e-newsletter this morning detailing that Live OneCare was turning on Windows Update to download, install and, if necessary (isn’t it always?) reboot the PC at the default time of 3am. Live OneCare was doing this without telling the user. Some users had wisely turned off auto download and auto install.

Even if you had DISABLED the appropriate services, Live OneCare was turning them back to “automatic” which means they startup when the PC boots.

People who had been finding this out (the hard way - they wondered why their PC’s were rebooting) seemed shocked.

The average user I will give a small break to; maybe they don’t read much - or watch any news. But any PC professional using Live OneCare instead of a competent security suite (no, not McAfee or Norton) like Trend Micro or ZoneAlarm needs to stand back and think for a moment.

Microsoft? Security Suite?
Microsoft? Performance?

Isn’t that an oxymoron of some type? Multi-Oxymoron?

Here is my email that I sent to the writer of the e-letter:

Why anyone would trust Microsoft for a security package is beyond me.
Microsoft cares about themselves only, and to find that they make changes to your PC that you don’t want made does not surprise me one bit. And their security reputation is so tainted, nay bludgeoned, that it just doesn’t make sense to pay them almost $50/year to screw up your PC.

Do you want me to tell you how I really feel?

Most people use Windows because it’s defacto, or because they can’t afford a Mac.

More people are moving to Linux (like Ubuntu) everyday. I don’t think that trend is going to change, and Vista is just speeding it up.

A lot of people are frustrated with Windows bloatware, and Vista seems to share a quality with Hillary Clinton - Love / Hate relationship. It is said with Hillary that you either love her or hate her and I’m hearing the same about Vista.

For those of us who know what we are doing, we are frustrated by all of the “security” pop ups of Vista. (And no, I can’t just turn them off on other peoples computers.) Some find all of their applications to work just fine under Vista, others find that few work without a lot of legwork finding patches and drivers.

InfoWorld has a nice write up called “Windows to desktop Linux in three easy steps”. I think it’s pretty well done.

I think Ubuntu has a lot of promise. Many people want everything on their PC; and most of them suffer for it.

Others just want to get their work done. And done quickly, please.

At least one person at Microsoft gets it and is trying to change the perception of Windows as bloatware, starting with Windows 7 due in 2010. Here is another InfoWorld article about that here. It’s apparently being referred to currently as MinWin.

Windows Vista is so secure, you can’t use it. At least not without Microsoft’s permission.

On August 24th and 25th, 2007, a software failure in Microsoft WGA caused many Windows Vista users, including myself, to receive a message like this when booting up:

Beautiful, eh?

With Microsoft, paying for the software just isn’t enough. You have to keep proving to them, over and over, that you paid for it. (In the first revision, I wrote own it. But we all know you don’t own any software, right? You license it.)

In current internet parlance: This SUCKS!

I don’t know to what degree this may have hampered businesses, but I hope that if it did a class action lawsuit against Microsoft ensues.

For me it was on a dual boot machine where I had been in XP for a couple of weeks testing some Axis Camera software and I didn’t feel like being a beta tester by using Vista. Since it’s only a test machine it had no real ramifications for me, I just booted back to XP. My time available to screw around with Microsoft problems is limited, you know.

Apparently the fix comes from entering slui.exe -4 at a command prompt and calling a phone number to manually validate Vista. I repeat, this sucks.

Microsoft should eliminate WGA (Windows Genuine Authentication) immediately and guarantee that nothing of this sort will ever happen again.

Email Steve Ballmer (steveb at microsoft dot com) and tell him what you think.

Then check into Ubuntu.

Windows Vista can be ignored by people who use their computer only at home for very limited purposes. Shoot, I think Gary North (a prodigious newsletter writer) still uses an old PC with WordPerfect on MS Dos with a 1983 IBM keyboard.

But if computing is in your career, whether self employed or working for someone else; or if you really want to get the most out of your PC at home, I think you should take a look at Windows Vista. I’m not saying dump XP now and upgrade to Vista immediately, but take note that Vista service pack 1 is due out soon (I hope) and Vista and its technological changes from XP are NOT going away.

My point is that many people put off learning XP because Windows 2000 Pro worked great. I certainly encouraged most of my clients to save their money and stay with W2K Pro for some time. But then the somewhat killer app of Remote Desktop started showing some real value for them and the migration began.

The problem with waiting too long to explore the new Operating System is that when you do decide (or someone decides for you) to upgrade, you feel behind and are playing catch up. That’s no fun.

If you have the chance, load Windows Vista on machine in a dual boot configuration and start taking it for a spin.

A lot of people have written extensively on ways to get Vista on the cheap, so I won’t repeat all of that here.

For those of you in the United States, be warned. Many of your jobs are at risk of going overseas. Don’t encourage your boss to send your job there because training you would cost too much and you would give him/her too much grief. Learn on your own and put yourself at the head of the pack - then get paid accordingly.

If your XP Pro or W2K Pro machine is being updated with all of the latest Microsoft “security” patches, etc, then your PC is likely starting to slow down. Maybe it’s too much patched code, maybe something else. All I know is that it’s become very noticeable.

Just do yourself a favor and don’t fall too far behind on Vista and other coming changes. Your financial wellbeing could depend on it.

After 646-204, many professionals who are not interested in 70-620 or 220-601 instead settle for the much easier 70-649.

I know a lot of people are hesitant to move to Windows Vista; there are some good reasons. But you don’t want to fall behind either.

Dual Boot systems are easy to do and make a lot of sense so you can keep your production Windows XP Pro up and running, yet try out Vista (at least so you can complain about it at the watering hole).

In the past, controlling dual boot was pretty easy; just a text file you could open and manipulate. However, Windows Vista ushers in a new paradigm designed to be more secure and machine/firmware independent. It’s call the Boot Configuration Data Store.

Now, to cynical me, Boot Configuration Data Store sounds like something else to get corrupted and complicated when a plain old text file did us fine for years. But progress is essential, let not me stand in the way.

What I do want to do is make you aware of a cool, FREE utility that can make working with the BCD store a whole lot easier. It’s call VistaBootPro.

With just a few clicks of a GUI interface you can change or rename an OS entry, change timeouts, change the boot drive, even limit CPU availability to the OS.

Now, as usual, I recommend you backup your current Boot Configuration Data Store before you start messing around. Conveniently, VistaBootPro will prompt you to do just that.

With VistaBootPro you have one less reason not to try out Windows Vista if you want. I think it’s pretty slick. Get a free copy at http://www.vistabootpro.org.