Had to get a Windows XP Pro install down to as small as possible to deal with a small hard drive. The smallest footprint I could get it down to (without going to heroic lengths) was 3.6GB. This includes all Windows updates through today 3/25/08. I turned off system restore. Removed all unneeded Windows programs, and removed the update temp files. Basically the only thing usable is Internet Explorer 7.
I realize Microsoft’s goal is not efficiency, but compared to Knoppix Linux at less than 650 MB and DSL (Damn Small Linux) at 50 MB; What’s all the bloat?
In the first years of the decade we did a brisk business with upgrades to XP and Server 2003. I could easily find compelling reasons for clients to upgrade. So far with Vista, I am at a complete loss. Everyone at our office switched to Vista last year and (almost) everyone switched back to XP. I had Vista on my laptop and my desktop for three months. It was the most inefficient three months of my working career. Between long boot and hibernate times, and slow processing times, I couldn’t take it. This with fast dual core processors, 4 gigs of ram, and state of the art video cards. What kind of horsepower do you need to run this beast? Then the constant frustration with all of the settings being moved. Microsoft says that they moved things to make more sense, and that it is what their customers wanted. I’m wondering who these people are, because it just seems like change for changes sake.
What about features? Can anyone fill me in on what your average business user will gain by a Vista upgrade? I would love to be able to tell all of our clients that they need to upgrade, but I can’t come up with reason one. Sure, the aero glass is nice, the widgets are cool, and the new wallpaper is very slick. I’m serious here, I would love to be missing something.
An upgrade to XP, Office XP and Exchange 2003 got you RPC over HTTP. The holy grail in my mind. The ability to seemlessly sync your phone, laptop, office desktop and home desktop pc email. All of your contacts, mail, and tasks, constantly sunk, with whatever machine you happened to be at. Outlook Web Access even took care of you when you were at someone else’s pc. This feature I could sell, even if it was more complex than necessary to set up. Remote desktop of your XP Pro pc was also a very strong salable feature.
Unified Messaging with Exchange 2007 seems to hold some promise. Just don’t install any updates. Everytime we install any of the updates, someone has to spend the next four hours figuring out what the updates messed up. Of course, this has been my experience every time I have delved into a Microsoft 64 bit product.
Can anyone clue me in? Bill?
How to quickly access Network Connection properties
When you’re looking for the Network Connection Properties and you get the Network and Sharing Center, don’t throw your computer on the floor and stomp on it. There’s is an easy way to find it and make a shortcut to it!
1. Click the Start button and in the Search box, type ncpa.cpl (This opens the Network Connections window where you can manage your connections.)
2. To create a shortcut on the desktop: Right-click on the desktop and click New > Shortcut.
3. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type C:\Windows\System32\ncpa.cpl (substituting the drive letter if not C:).
4. Click Next.
5. Type a name for the shortcut (such as Network Connections).
6. Click Finish.
Here are a couple of questions from clients regarding Windows Vista this past week.
“Im having trouble getting connected to wireless out in public (coffee shops, libraries and some airports). I have a relatively new router at home that works fine. What can I do?”
If you’re having problems connecting to public wireless, it may be because the router or access point is an old one that isn’t compatible with the tuning feature in Vista. That happens a lot with public Wi-Fi spots. If you disable the autotuning feature, you may get better wireless connectivity. Don’t worry, it’s a pretty easy fix:
- Open the command prompt with administrative privileges (see our past post on how to do this)
- Type: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable
- Press ENTER
- “OK” message will appear
- Restart Windows (of course) to apply the change
To check to see that it disabled, type: netsh interface tcp show global at the command prompt.
To set back to the default (aka turn it back on), type: netsh interface tcp set global autotuningl=normal at the command prompt.
“I have 4 GB of memory (RAM), but the system only shows something like 3410 or even 2813 MB. What’s going on?”
Lots of people are confused about the RAM limitations in the 32 bit versions of Vista. The problem is that the 32 bit Operating System can only address a total of 4 GB of physical address space. That includes not just your RAM, but also peripherial devices (video cards, etc.) that are memory-mapped. Those devices get their address spaces first, and whatever is left over goes to your RAM.
If you have ever seen the Mac commercial were PC has upgraded to VISTA and has to go through his security guard for every request, then you know how true that is with VISTA’s UAC. It is relatively easy to disable this feature, and can help cure that sense of panic when the screen starts to darken and you think “Oh no what is wrong?”
The first thing you need to do is to go to the start menu and choose Control Panel.
In the Control Panel choose User Accounts.
In the User Accounts window choose User Accounts again.
Once on the “Make changes to your user account” window, choose Turn User Account Control on or off.
This takes you to another window where you uncheck the “Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer” and press OK.
That should do it! You may need to restart Vista for the changes to take effect. Good luck!
Back in the “good old days” of XP, you could open the Task Manager by pressing the Control + Alt + Delete keys on your keyboard. In Windows Vista, you’ll open what’s known as the Secure Desktop with that key combination.
If you want to open the Task Manager directly, press Control + Alt + Escape (CRTL+ALT+ESC). Presto!
How to create an administrative command prompt shortcut
In Windows Vista, if you are logging in to your computer using a limited user account (which is great for security reasons) and you want to run something from the command prompt that requires administrative credentials, you have to open the command prompt as an administrator. You could right click the command prompt executable and select Run As Administrator but if you are a heavy command promt user, there’s another way: you can create a shortcut and modify it so you won’t have to right click and select Run As every time:
- Create a command prompt shortcut on the desktop.
- Right click the command prompt shortcut and select Properties.
- On the Shortcut tab, click the Advanced button.
- Check the box labeled Run As Administrator.
- Click OK.
Now whenever you click this shortcut, it will open the command prompt with Administrative privileges.
