[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Mr Snrub, on Aug 22 2008, 11:34 AM, said:

I feel that Black Viper's list is a collection of such statements that people often follow blindly and acts as a placebo.

Performance needs to be measured accurately, with a baseline and changes being made individually to observe their impact - also as Zxian mentioned "startup times" are nowhere near as important as "operational speed" - with S3 sleep mode boot times become completely irrelevant for workstations and I see this being the future, and for most applications once they are loaded into memory their performance is unlikely to be affected by other consumers of virtual memory (as unneeded ones will already have been paged to disk anyway).

Trying to measure how optimized a system is based on the amount of memory (physical or virtual) is committed, how long it takes to start up or where CPU cycles are being spent (when not at 100% for long periods of time) can turn out to be inaccurate, so a false economy to try to "fix".

I don't follow BlackViper's guide blindly. Actually, when i first messed up with services i had no idea that such a site existed.

Okay, let me give you a real-world example. My dual-PIII used to take over 2 minutes to boot, and most of that 2 minutes the bar just scrolled and scrolled, with no HDD activity. I opened up Device Manager and disabled the onboard SCSI controller that i wasn't using since i have a SATA card. Now it takes 40 seconds, half of which are the hardware checks - Windows itself boots in 20 seconds.

In your opinion, should i be so nice to let Windows handle it, and enable the SCSI controller back so i have time for a snack till my computer boots? And unfortunately S3 doesn't work on this machine.

@ jcarle: If everything i've been doing was wrong, i couldn't have been able to type this post since a lot of people would be chasing me and trying to kick my butt.

Lack of education huh? Well, i still have a lot to learn, but i wouldn't put it that way.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: 22 August 2008 - 03:45 AM

[Ponch]

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 21 2008, 11:58 PM, said:

Me and Poolsharkzz gave on-topic advice. You come and say something that translates into "he should just get a new computer".

At this point you should stop asking people if they read the thread. Honestly, out of the blue statements and derailing totally off topic.

Zxian, on Aug 22 2008, 02:45 AM, said:

If you want to disable services on your own computer, go for it. If you're doing work for others, chances are you'll end up disabling something that's going to cause them problems later. While this might end up giving Poolsharkzz more customers in the long run, I think it's just wrong, and isn't worth the "OMG 3 seconds faster boot" that you get.

I said it first but I still back you up.
As also stated by Zxian and by the OP (read the thread ?) the computer we are talking about is more than acceptable on the hardware level. People talk about their experience "from the times of Win3.11"... have you ever ran a properly installed XP on a PIII 800 with 256 RAM, sent mails or surf the internet with it ? Exactly, no problemo. So say "fairly under-powered computer" for this 1.2GHz-512, not at all.
I'm sure Black Viper knows an awfull lot about services, but I'm also sure he formats his PC at least 10 times a year. This is not what the OP is planning to do. This computer needs to be properly reinstalled, in a few hours, not 12-14, have a drink with the family up North. And maybe come back in 4 years and do it again.
Microsoft makes Windows XP the best they can to
1) make it look good so it sells (that's the unneeded bit for not so "hard core tweakers")
2) make it work out of the box for 99.99 % of buyers, this implies unneeded components, but does not translate in "making a bad product".
And it sure doesn't mean anyone replying here knows "the" uncle best than Bill Gates knows the uncle. None of us knows the uncle, only the OP, but maybe MS has a little understanding of their users and of their product.

I'm going off topic as well. I wonder why this thread is turning almost emotional for some posters. I'll stop here.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I don't see where i got emotional... Anyway, i'll be leaving. See you later.

[techywiz2007]

nvm... had a post written, but didn't read the whole topic, rendering my post irrelevant.

This post has been edited by techywiz2007: 22 August 2008 - 04:54 AM

[Mr Snrub]

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:41 AM, said:

Okay, let me give you a real-world example. My dual-PIII used to take over 2 minutes to boot, and most of that 2 minutes the bar just scrolled and scrolled, with no HDD activity. I opened up Device Manager and disabled the onboard SCSI controller that i wasn't using since i have a SATA card. Now it takes 40 seconds, half of which are the hardware checks - Windows itself boots in 20 seconds.

In your opinion, should i be so nice to let Windows handle it, and enable the SCSI controller back so i have time for a snack till my computer boots?.

In your situation I would have gone into the BIOS and disabled the unused hardware so it is not even presented to Windows when it comes to device enumeration.

The example you gave was machine-specific, and if there isn't an option in the BIOS to disable the onboard SCSI controller then sure, Device Manager would be the way forward - but that has zero impact on system performance and I would say the delay is down to the driver or BIOS, not the OS.

Any post-install customization takes you further from the "out of the box" configuration and into territory where all sorts of issues (possibly way, way down the line) can occur - disabling devices in Device Manager to me is a last resort, and disabling Windows services via the Services Control Panel applet is something to look at for servers to be deployed in DMZs or secured environments as a security hardening procedure, not for performance.

Yes, you can eke out a relatively small decrease in startup time and virtual memory consumption with knowledge of the OS, your system and what you have changed - but I wouldn't do this for other users' systems (only 3rd party service tweaking when they are causing problems, like someone who had Norton and Norman anti-virus installed at the same time which deadlocked the system ~30 seconds after startup and neither would uninstall properly).

[jcarle]

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 05:41 AM, said:

Okay, let me give you a real-world example. My dual-PIII used to take over 2 minutes to boot, and most of that 2 minutes the bar just scrolled and scrolled, with no HDD activity. I opened up Device Manager and disabled the onboard SCSI controller that i wasn't using since i have a SATA card. Now it takes 40 seconds, half of which are the hardware checks - Windows itself boots in 20 seconds.

In your opinion, should i be so nice to let Windows handle it, and enable the SCSI controller back so i have time for a snack till my computer boots? And unfortunately S3 doesn't work on this machine.

@ jcarle: If everything i've been doing was wrong, i couldn't have been able to type this post since a lot of people would be chasing me and trying to kick my butt.

Lack of education huh? Well, i still have a lot to learn, but i wouldn't put it that way.

This is further proof that you simply don't know what you're doing. It took me about 90 seconds to find page 4-27 of the manual for your Gigabyte GA-6BXDS. That includes the time it took for me to download it. After which, I saw that Mr Snrub had already beat me to my point, set "Onboard PCI SCSI chip" to "Disabled".

There are a several dozen ways you can increase a system's performance without doing anything to affect end user experience. Disabling services is not one of them.

Disabling un-used devices in the BIOS. Moving the pagefile to a 2nd physical drive if available. Changing the XP theme to Classic. Defragmenting. Those go a lot further than any service you can disable and don't change the end user experience.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Mr Snrub, on Aug 22 2008, 03:01 PM, said:

The example you gave was machine-specific, and if there isn't an option in the BIOS to disable the onboard SCSI controller then sure, Device Manager would be the way forward - but that has zero impact on system performance and I would say the delay is down to the driver or BIOS, not the OS.

Any post-install customization takes you further from the "out of the box" configuration and into territory where all sorts of issues (possibly way, way down the line) can occur - disabling devices in Device Manager to me is a last resort, and disabling Windows services via the Services Control Panel applet is something to look at for servers to be deployed in DMZs or secured environments as a security hardening procedure, not for performance.

Well, of course it was machine-specific. Are there any "generic" computers out there? As a matter of fact i had the SCSI controller disabled in the BIOS, but XP was still detecting it. And of course tweaking services takes you away from the "out of the box" configuration, it lets you set up your system the way you want it, and use only the parts that you really need.

Mr Snrub, on Aug 22 2008, 03:01 PM, said:

Yes, you can eke out a relatively small decrease in startup time and virtual memory consumption with knowledge of the OS, your system and what you have changed - but I wouldn't do this for other users' systems (only 3rd party service tweaking when they are causing problems, like someone who had Norton and Norman anti-virus installed at the same time which deadlocked the system ~30 seconds after startup and neither would uninstall properly).

I don't exactly tweak a lot on other peoples' systems, i said so above. I don't have time for that anyway, but i ask what they run and only turn off a couple of things they really don't need, and also leave batch files for re-enabling them, named "click here if you have trouble with (wifi, lan sharing, blah blah blah). Simple, fast, and effective.

It's basically the same reason why people tune cars. Some tune them for performance, some tune them for better fuel savings. If all cars would've been perfect, no one would need to tune them, and the ones who would try would eventually revert them to stock configuration as they ran better that way. Exactly the same goes for computers as well, regardless if it's software or hardware.

When you need to use all those services or have resources to waste, you just leave everything as it is (and install Norton ). Honestly, i had to disable more than half of Vista 64's "features" (retail copy, not pre-tweaked in any way) to have it feel right. I kept Aero (actually Aero and DX10 are the only reasons i run Vista), but disabled all its animations and stuff. And then i found myself doing half of my stuff in a 32-bit XP VM, because just about everything except Crysis, Opera and Solitaire, crashes under Vista. And no, it's not due to my tweaking, i reverted to out-of-the-box configuration yet it still does the same.

I don't mind a pretty interface as long as it's still functional and doesn't slow down my work. But when it does, it's time to trim it a little.

Edit: jcarle, i know my boards' BIOSes like i know the palm of my hand. Onboard SCSI IS set to Disabled yet XP still picks it up. Want a photo of that? And if you mention the classic theme, why shouldn't one disable the themes service entirely? The Classic theme is still sluggish compared to disabling the service. Please tell me a piece of software that explicitly requires the Themes service enabled.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: 22 August 2008 - 09:22 AM

[jcarle]

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:19 AM, said:

As a matter of fact i had the SCSI controller disabled in the BIOS, but XP was still detecting it.

I think there's a higher chance that you didn't disable the right items in the BIOS more then there are that XP was detecting disabled items.

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:19 AM, said:

i ask what they run and only turn off a couple of things they really don't need, and also leave batch files for re-enabling them, named "click here if you have trouble with (wifi, lan sharing, blah blah blah).

I'm willing to bet if we interviewed any of those people, they'd pretty much say anything because they probably don't even know what they need or not in terms of windows components. I'm sure that if asked today they neither know what a batch file is nor do they remember where or what those icons you told them about are.

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:19 AM, said:

It's basically the same reason why people tune cars.

People tune their OWN cars, not their neighbour's. I don't walk around the neighbourhood trying to see if I can help one guy get an extra 2 miles a gallon on his drive to work. I'll help when something's BROKEN and I'll help repair it to it's original working state but that's nowhere near the same as what you're doing to other people's computers. People like cars because they open the door, they start the car and they drive. People want to do the same with they computers. People want to be able to go to the store, buy a webcam, plug it in and talk to their grandkids on MSN. They do NOT want to sit at their computer and get frustrated because their webcam doesn't install or doesn't work because of some service that you thought was wise of you to disable since they "didn't need it".

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:19 AM, said:

Honestly, i had to disable more than half of Vista 64's "features" (retail copy, not pre-tweaked in any way) to have it feel right. I kept Aero (actually Aero and DX10 are the only reasons i run Vista), but disabled all its animations and stuff. And then i found myself doing half of my stuff in a 32-bit XP VM, because just about everything except Crysis, Opera and Solitaire, crashes under Vista. And no, it's not due to my tweaking, i reverted to out-of-the-box configuration yet it still does the same.

Vista does a fine job of adjusting itself to your hardware configuration but it can't make miracles if you're running it on underpowered hardware. People such as yourself always want to have all the latest and greatest but don't want to invest in the hardware needed to run it properly. It's funny, on my machine, I run Vista 64 Ultimate that has more "features" then any other version of windows. On top of that, I usually multitask to the point where I have over a hundred something processes running simultaneously. Not to mention that while I'm doing all of that, I'm often doing things like transcoding DVDs in the background. Yet, even with all that going on, Vista is faster on my machine then XP was. You take a F1 driver, throw him into a Pinto and expect him to win the world cup.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

jcarle, on Aug 22 2008, 06:40 PM, said:

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 11:19 AM, said:

As a matter of fact i had the SCSI controller disabled in the BIOS, but XP was still detecting it.

I think there's a higher chance that you didn't disable the right items in the BIOS more then there are that XP was detecting disabled items.

Fine, genius. BIOS shots coming right up. Point out what i did wrong.

jcarle, on Aug 22 2008, 06:40 PM, said:

I'm willing to bet if we interviewed any of those people, they'd pretty much say anything because they probably don't even know what they need or not in terms of windows components. I'm sure that if asked today they neither know what a batch file is nor do they remember where or what those icons you told them about are.

You know what, i was lying about the batch files. I rarely do things like that, and only do them to people who know what this stuff is about. And if you leave a big "CLICK HERE TO MAKE THAT WORK" icon, you can be sure everyone's gonna notice it.

jcarle, on Aug 22 2008, 06:40 PM, said:

People tune their OWN cars, not their neighbour's. I don't walk around the neighbourhood trying to see if I can help one guy get an extra 2 miles a gallon on his drive to work.

I don't walk around my neighborhood tweaking XP installs either. On the other hand, if someone asks me to, i do it.

jcarle, on Aug 22 2008, 06:40 PM, said:

Vista does a fine job of adjusting itself to your hardware configuration but it can't make miracles if you're running it on underpowered hardware. People such as yourself always want to have all the latest and greatest but don't want to invest in the hardware needed to run it properly. It's funny, on my machine, I run Vista 64 Ultimate that has more "features" then any other version of windows. On top of that, I usually multitask to the point where I have over a hundred something processes running simultaneously. Not to mention that while I'm doing all of that, I'm often doing things like transcoding DVDs in the background. Yet, even with all that going on, Vista is faster on my machine then XP was. You take a F1 driver, throw him into a Pinto and expect him to win the world cup.

Look at my sig, first computer. Do you think that is underpowered for Vista Ultimate 64? I don't have money for Raptors, but shouldn't a 3.5GHz dual core and 6GB RAM be enough? I'll get an E8400 soon and will take it over 4GHz, maybe that will be better. But other than this CPU upgrade i really haven't got money for Raptors, SSDs or the like. I REFUSED to upgrade to Vista till i got the extra 4GB RAM, i ran XP SP2.

I don't multitask to the point that i have 100 processes open (i suppose more than half of that are Windows processes in your case) but i do run a few BIG apps at the same time (Photoshop + Sound Forge + XVI32 on 20-200MB files), and 3 virtual machines. They work fine, but stuff like AVIPreview or VirtualDub (even the x64 version) or OllyDbg crash mysteriously, so i run them in the XP 32 virtual machine, which is considerably slower.

I didn't say Vista 64 is slower than XP. With all that RAM (and yes it is dual channel, 2x 1GB + 2x 2GB) it runs faster than XP 32-bit which would only be able to see half the RAM anyway, however it's much more buggy.

Edit: Here are the BIOS shots from my dual-PIII. If you'd kindly show me what i did wrong, i would really appreciate that.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: 22 August 2008 - 11:14 AM

[Poolsharkzz]

Wow-whee, Zow-whee!!!

Sorry guys, I am on a different time zone than most, so I tend to get behind in all this discussion - Sooooooooo exciting!

For the record - Yes, we are all "professionals" here, some more than others - this is a very "healthy debate" - with different points of view - which is good - keeping an eye on the temperature is indeed quite prudent - keep sharing - but keep that in mind...

I agree with Th3_uN1Qu3 - older systems are fine - if you know how to take care of them. I ran for 9 years with Win ME on a Intel Celeron 633 Mhz with 256mb PC 100 Ram and a 14 Gig Hard Drive that I orginally purchased in 1998 with Win 98 - it did okay - a few BSOD evey now and then, lock ups, crashes, and the like that was all part of having Win ME - and Yes - super-tweaked and tuned for max performance and speed!

"Remove the entire A/C system from the car" - That would be like removing the spare tire out of the trunk - come on, now! I think you stretched that quite a bit farther (say from New York to LA) than I usually go - or tweak - or remove - for that matter...

Besides, do you really NEED the A/C system? No!

Do you really need the A/C system in a car for it to run properly? No!

By removing the entire A/C system from the car, will the car be a little bit lighter and thus you might get a little better fuel economy? Yes!

Would I remove the entire A/C system from the car without the owner's permission?

Do you see where I am going with this? You not compairing apples to apples.

All Operating Systems since Win 98 come "out of the box" with dial-up settings as the default internet connectivity settings standard - check it out next time...

MTU, TTL, MaxConnectionsPerServer, MaxConnectionsPer01Server, etc. - if I have DSL or a Cable broadband connection, I would want my system setup to handle such.

How about simply removing the registry key that calls out to the network looking for any shared folders or printer? Or changing the system's memory usage settings from "Programs" to System Cache"? Or removing most of the Visual Effects, DNS errors caching, enable smooth scrolling, Clear Type, and a whole hosts of things...

Properly tuning up an engine is a far cry from removing the entire A/C system.

nLite/vLite - Don't use them, I know very little about them, and don't see the need for them, and was never part of the original topic. At a later date, maybe I'll research.

"EVERY time I nlited my system or started tweaking services, something broke"

Again, I have to agree with Th3_uN1Qu3 - read the service descriptions - learn about them and what they do and how they fit together into the bigger picture.

* Microsoft has this amazing website stocked full to the rafters with all kinds of data that pertains to services, the registry, drivers, updates, Kbs, - the whole ball of wax...

Do you need the website address? It's www.....

Spelling it with a $ just proves your lack of education - Do you really want to go there? I really hope not - it would be quite silly on your part - you need to think about what you say before you say it - you will make yourself look like a fool...

Just because you cannot recognize what "Micro$oft" means does not give you the right to throw a punch...

Computers 101 - It's an "old school" saying in certian circles, meaning that at the time because Micro$oft was rolling out a new OS, what, every 6 months it seemed?, it would get expensive to keep up - and it did for some - and some got angry - thus the dollar sign.

Half way down the page: http://en.wikipedia....itical_spelling

Not too common to see it spelled that way any more - My hope was that there were a few "old schoolers" here at the forum.

"You want proof that there's nothing wrong with XP as it is?" Nobody said nothing was wrong with a default install setup of XP - nobody.

* Update: The XPize & Vise Projects

"For $450 you'd get quite an upgrade (or an entire new computer even)."

Oh Yes - you are correct - I totally agree - a substandard, under-powered processor, very minimum amount of Ram that's under-quality, MAYBE last year's HD Drive model - weak speed, FSB, and storage capacity - weak Optical Drive: CD read / burn maybe, no DVD Burn, no HD, no Flat Panel Monitor included, crap Video Card, crap Sound Card, crap Graphics Card, crap Network Card, no Speakers, just a 101 keyboard, a roller ball Mouse and Pad - and a whole lot of spyware / trialware...

call eMachines today!

To purchase a home system to run Vista correctly and properly you will pay in Chicago anywhere from $950.00 - $1,250.00 plus tax complete - or for a couple of hundred more for a few "extras" - this is a far cry from simply a tune-up or an upgrade...

Foobar to the so-called "Minimum System Requirements" for Vista - I know better, so should you.

Again, we have another person posting who cannot take 5 minutes and read the very first post - or understand the reports given in the first post - HE CANNOT UPGRADE HIS SYSTEM - it would not be in his best interest to do so $$$$$ - wise, the hardware is too out-dated - he would have to purchase a brand new one.

I would not recommend this to anyone, especially when they have everything they need sitting right in front of them. Will I sell a memory upgrade for an older system? Yes! If it's possible to do. Here you cannot - read the first posts!

"Those specs are exactly what XP was originally designed to run on." Yes - XP - before SP1 - we are at SP3+, the key word is "originally" - today is a different story.

"I suggest you check again / DNS lookup from a web server" Okay - if I lived 100,000 miles away from that server - it's located two blocks away from my shop.

Never had any problems with slower page load times - whether I use my ISPs or OpenDNS - I use OpenDNS for proactive security reasons - please read and learn:

http://www.wildersse...ad.php?t=214446

My ISP isn't patched yet - still, I haven't noticed any difference in page load times.

"Wow... you charge people half the cost of a modern computer... to make their old computer slightly faster, if not more broken?" - Again, you really need to read ALL the posts before becoming part of the peanut gallery...

What I do to a system is nothing more that what has been described at this forum:

http://www.msfn.org/...Tweaks-f10.html

I have never had a customer come back into my shop and complain that their system is screwed up or "broken" as you put it. In fact, most of my customers are referrals - meaning they liked what I have done and are happy enough to tell someone else to use my services...

"Broken" TELL ME what I have broken? Describe in detail what I have broken for my review and our peers....

Can you? I doubt it. In fact, I know you can't. Case closed. Feeling a bit silly yet?

"Please tell me if I've been rude or off-topic" Your past that - which again shows that you have not read ANY of the past posts - or know what you're talking about.

"debunk several myths" Do I have to debunk the debunker again? Take a few minutes to READ the past posts! If you do not understand something - try learning!

"I tend to use this a lot lately... are you guys drunk?"

Th3_uN1Qu3, I couldn't have said it better! I have 1GB Ram in my system - I use only a little more than half at any given time - maybe 600mb max? Again - well, Th3_uN1Qu3 said it all!

"Do you think everything that Microsoft makes is perfect?"

Zxain, your response is the only thing you said last night that made any sense!

"Disable those "unnecessary" services" I have already discussed this - I am still looking for someone to answer whether his Uncle NEEDS any of the services I listed.

"is your browser that much faster at responding to your typing" Yes - because I installed a nifty little program called: Prio - Process Priority Saver

http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html

I have the base priority of iexplorer.exe set at "High" and believe it or not there is a very noticable performance improvement all around - try it sometime!

Besides, I use all my systems in a multitasking environment: for word processing, invoices, payroll, taxes, accounts receivable / payable and the like...

I bought my system to run the best it can - so why not improve on what Micro$oft did?

I agree with Mr. Snrub execpt for a few points:

1.) We are not talking about the "corporate world" or "workstations" - this is a home-based system hooked directly into the internet that is very weak on CPU processing power and the Ram itself - not the amount - but the quality...

Which is key here - and I have said this all along - less is sometimes more!

2.) Yes - some folks just take BlackViper's word for it without research - that is why I gave him "The Elder Geek's" website which has detailed explanations - check it out.

In closing, forget all of these posts for a minute and look at the title of the very first post:

"Trimming down a less than reliable XP system"

I've made my point.

poolsharkzz

This post has been edited by Poolsharkzz: 22 August 2008 - 02:28 PM

[jcarle]

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

And if you leave a big "CLICK HERE TO MAKE THAT WORK" icon, you can be sure everyone's gonna notice it.

You still don't get it... if you need to leave an icon to make something work chance are the person doesn't understand what "THAT" is.

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

and 3 virtual machines

You can't expect your system to fly like a rocket when you have multiple VMs running concurently...

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

stuff like AVIPreview or VirtualDub (even the x64 version) or OllyDbg crash mysteriously

I hope you understand that it has nothing to do with Vista and is strictly due to the way those applications are written.

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

I didn't say Vista 64 is slower than XP. With all that RAM (and yes it is dual channel, 2x 1GB + 2x 2GB) it runs faster than XP 32-bit which would only be able to see half the RAM anyway, however it's much more buggy.

Vista is not buggy. That's the biggest misconception about Vista. Vista itself is incredibly stable. The problem are the drivers and the software. You can't blame the highways when your car breaksdown because of poor design. The same applies with Vista. As rock solid as it is, if the software people write are unstable and aren't respecting the guidelines defined by Microsoft then obviously the software's not going to work properly. The same goes with drivers. Companies aren't used to writing drivers in 64-bit and some of the driver guidelines have changed for Vista, especially in Video. So it's going to take time for companies to adjust just like the transition was difficult between 98 and XP.

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

Here are the BIOS shots from my dual-PIII. If you'd kindly show me what i did wrong, i would really appreciate that.

Page 4-27 of your manual not only shows that "Onboard PCI SCSI chip" must be set to "Disabled" but also that "Channel A Termination" must be set to "None" to "Disable SCSI Device Support." (which you haven't done). It might also be a good idea to set "Channel B Termination" to "Disabled".

[CoffeeFiend]

jcarle, on Aug 22 2008, 04:19 PM, said:

Th3_uN1Qu3, on Aug 22 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

stuff like AVIPreview or VirtualDub (even the x64 version) or OllyDbg crash mysteriously

I hope you understand that it has nothing to do with Vista and is strictly due to the way those applications are written.

Actually, I'm a very big user of VirtualDubMod myself (I've used it a few hundreds times on this box), and so far I had 0 crashes. None with avipreview either. I didn't see anyone else mention those apps crashing on Vista before either. Sounds like he has codec problems or something along those lines.

Some people are VERY quick at blaming Vista for their hardware vendor's buggy drivers or for every little app glitch they've seen...

This post has been edited by crahak: 22 August 2008 - 02:29 PM

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

crahak, on Aug 22 2008, 11:26 PM, said:

Actually, I'm a very big user of VirtualDubMod myself (I've used it a few hundreds times on this box), and so far I had 0 crashes. None with avipreview either. I didn't see anyone else mention those apps crashing on Vista before either. Sounds like he has codec problems or something along those lines.

It has nothing to do with codecs. I admit i haven't tried VirtualDubMod, i'll try it when i get home, thanks.

jcarle, that was not my point. I rarely run all 3 VMs at the same time. And with this you're also contradicting yourself, you said that Vista runs well on your system even with a hundred processes running. My point is - i shouldn't need to do half my work in the XP 32-bit VM.

About the BIOS thing, i'll try that. And shall i hope that the Adaptec SCSI controller magically vanishes from my Device Manager? Edit: No it did not. And it still takes over 2 minutes to boot if i enable it.

And since i first learned what Windows is, i've always heard this. The problem is with the drivers and the software. It's never, ever, ever Microsoft's fault. Well, what would Vista, and as a matter of fact, any other OS not just Microsoft's, be without drivers and software??? It'd be nothing. I'm not quick to blame everything on Vista. It's just that these programs worked just fine in XP, and still work fine in the XP VM.

PS. If you lived in Romania you would've known how you can blame the highways for your car troubles.

Poolsharkzz, i agree with most of what you said so i won't lengthen my post anymore. Besides, can anyone blame you for making some fair $$$? I'd love to be in your place.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: 22 August 2008 - 03:45 PM

[Poolsharkzz]

Thanks, hey, maybe one day you will?

The bottom line is that we helped speedemon86 as best we could and supplied him with more than enough information to put him down the right path to solve his Uncle's problems - whatever he decides to do with that system.

Nobody debated that - some got picky on the details, some got hung up on services, or tweaking, or slimming down, or couldn't read, and some crossed the line - and now feel a bit silly they did.

I wonder what speedemon86 is going to think when he comes back to these posts and reads all the hell he caused? LOL

Hey, I got one for you - can you help me out?

On the desktop / right-click / new / shortcut - and the new shortcut wizard should pop-up, right?

Well, I get a error dialog box that reads:

"rundll32.exe is not a valid Win32 application"

I hit "Okay"...

Then I get another error dialog box that reads:

"Unable to create file 'new shortcut'

File system error (16389)

As the second error dialog box appears, I get an system icon on the desktop named "new shortcut".

I ran the system file checker, googled my brains out, I checked Doug Knox's website, Kelly's corner, Microsoft's and tried what little I found but no luck fixing it...

No error codes listed in the Event Viewer. No other problems present.

Got any ideas?

I found this:

"You are missing a registry branch key. Export the branch from a working XP machine and import it on yours. The key-branch details are:"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile

What does your look like?

Mine is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile]
@="Application"
"EditFlags"=hex:38,07,01,00
"TileInfo"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion"
"InfoTip"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion;Create;Size"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\DefaultIcon]
@="%1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open]
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\Scan with Icon Catcher...]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\Scan with Icon Catcher...\Command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Icon Catcher\\IconCatcher.exe\" \"%1\" /single_instance"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\XQSHP]
@="&Boost with Advanced WindowsCare"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\XQSHP\Command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\cmd.exe /c start \"XQSHP\" /high \"%1\""

Could you compare with yours and tell me what I am missing?

poolsharkzz

This post has been edited by Poolsharkzz: 22 August 2008 - 04:48 PM

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Well, let's see if it'll be of any help. Here's how my registry key looks like:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile]
@="Application"
"EditFlags"=hex:38,07,00,00
"TileInfo"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion"
"InfoTip"="prop:FileDescription;Company;FileVersion;Create;Size"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\DefaultIcon]
@="%1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open]
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\runas\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\CmdLineExt]
@="{9869EFB4-18E9-11D3-A837-00104B9E30B5}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{882565E4-41BC-4D85-80DF-CBB0099B07AF}]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\DropHandler]
@="{86C86720-42A0-1069-A2E8-08002B30309D}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\PifProps]
@="{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\ShimLayer Property Page]
@="{513D916F-2A8E-4F51-AEAB-0CBC76FB1AF8}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\{B41DB860-8EE4-11D2-9906-E49FADC173CA}]
@=""

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: 22 August 2008 - 05:22 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

Oh boy, I had missed that post...

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 04:00 PM, said:

Oh Yes - you are correct - I totally agree - a substandard, under-powered processor, very minimum amount of Ram that's under-quality, MAYBE last year's HD Drive model - weak speed, FSB, and storage capacity - weak Optical Drive: CD read / burn maybe, no DVD Burn, no HD, no Flat Panel Monitor included, crap Video Card, crap Sound Card, crap Graphics Card, crap Network Card, no Speakers, just a 101 keyboard, a roller ball Mouse and Pad - and a whole lot of spyware / trialware...

call eMachines today!

To purchase a home system to run Vista correctly and properly you will pay in Chicago anywhere from $950.00 - $1,250.00 plus tax complete - or for a couple of hundred more for a few "extras" - this is a far cry from simply a tune-up or an upgrade...

Wow. You almost sound like you even believe what you're saying! Amazing.

One quick example: $324 will get you: a Dell Vostro 200, with a e2180 processor and 2GB of RAM. 16x DVD writer, a 80GB SATA drive and everything else. Everyday's normal price, no rebates or anything like that.

Substandard, under-powered processor? The E2180 would be a huge upgrade here. Very minimum amount of RAM? There's 2GB standard (4x what he's got). No HD? It has a modern SATA HD. No DVD burner? It has a perfectly good DVD writer. Yep, you're wrong on *all* counts, and on a box that's 3/4 of the price you'd charge. That box will run Vista just fine too, and it's not an eMachines (and it even includes Vista). It's vastly better in every aspect than his current box. Yet, you'd charge $450 to tweak that P3 instead? Either some customers are absolute morons (don't mind paying WAY too much for "tweaks" that take 5 minutes to apply), or you just like ripping them off big time. There's no way you need to spend "$950 to $1250" for a box that can run Vista well (and certainly not in the USA), unless the case has to be made of solid gold or something.

Also, you say they wouldn't get a monitor, speakers, keyboard and such out of it, but do you include those for free when you "tweak" one of those ghetto old P3's? Right, I didn't think so either. Yeah, others should feel silly

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 04:00 PM, said:

Again, we have another person posting who cannot take 5 minutes and read the very first post - or understand the reports given in the first post

Again, we have another person posting who cannot take 5 minutes and understand the point had nothing to do with the first post, but just charging people a LOT for doing them a disservice.

[jcarle]

Here's another one, straight off of NewEgg...

• Case : CoolerMaster Elite 330 - $39.99
  
• Power Supply : Antec EarthWatts 380W - $29.99
  
• Motherboard : Foxconn P45A-S - $119.99
  
• Processor : Intel E2180 - $69.99
  
• Memory : 2GB OCZ DDR2-800 - $42.99
  
• Video Card : EVGA 7200GS - $29.99
  
• Optical Drive : Pioneer DVR-216D - $29.99
  
• Hard Drive : 320GB Western Digital SE16 - $64.99

Total cost : $427.92

More then enough for anyone's average use.

This post has been edited by jcarle: 22 August 2008 - 07:20 PM

[Poolsharkzz]

You really have to stop, you are embarrassing yourself!

The Dell Vostro series is for small businesses ONLY - meaning that unless he has a State Tax ID Number on file that's already been confirmed with Dell's Small Business Sales Division, he could not purchase a Vostro from Dell.

Besides, what your describing is junk:

http://www.pcworld.c...vostro_200.html

Quote: Price When Reviewed: $1198

http://www.pcmag.com...,2165031,00.asp

Quote: $899 Direct

I would suggest going to Dell's website, clicking on "For Home - Desktops and All-In-Ones" and then click on the Inspiron 530 Icon - and then on the right - click the green button - "build yours" - starting at $749.00 - (after $200.00 Instant Savings) and learn a little something 'bout a little something!

Even if you started on the left with the cheaper $279.00 setup - which is still junk if you want to run Vista correctly - you can easily get it up to $850.00 - plus tax - not including a printer.

Don't forget to add the 22 inch Flat Panel Monitor with the Webcam and Mic - that way he could have a few extra background services running!

Let me guess: You want to replace his current junk that is still usable today and will be still usable for a while longer (with the proper attention and care) with junk that is bottom-line barely usable today in which that junk will become outdated unusable junk sometime in the near future?

I've proved my point again.

Stop while you're ahead.

poolsharkzz


PS. Microsoft's Advice on How to Speed Up Vista - Direct from the Horse's Mouth:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

* Yes - There's even a section or two in there about disabling unnecessary services and shutting-off visual effects to speed up system performance! Wow!!!!

Th3_uN1Qu3 - Thank you for the registry entries - I'll look at it more closer tomorrow!

[CoffeeFiend]

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 09:21 PM, said:

You really have to stop, you are embarrassing yourself!

I see you enjoy talking to yourself!

Like I said, that was just an example. There's plenty of decent PCs from pretty much any company out there for dirt cheap. And you can build yourself one for cheap too, like jcarle said.

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 09:21 PM, said:

Besides, what your describing is junk

No it's not (nevermind you don't say how). It's certainly a million times better than those poor P3's you tweak.

And if one looks for deals like most OEMs and stores have year-round, or buy parts taking advantage of weekly specials, it can be even cheaper.

There's tons of sub-$500 PCs that will run Vista just fine -- including jcarle's example. No need to spend crazy amounts like you like to pretend. Besides, who said it had to run Vista in the first place?

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 09:21 PM, said:

Don't forget to add the 22 inch Flat Panel Monitor with the Webcam and Mic

More nonsense (we're getting used to that by now). You charge them $450 for 5 minutes of work, to make their P3 perhaps 5% faster. Whereas if they spend that same $450 on hardware, they'd have like a 1000% boost in speed. In either case, you're not getting a monitor (again, unless you give those for free?).

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 09:21 PM, said:

I've proved my point again.

We got us a comedian! You're only proving one thing here (also by constantly using "Micro$oft" like most 15 year olds), as jcarle already stated before.

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 09:21 PM, said:

Stop while you're ahead.

Talking to yourself again eh?

If I could, I'd give you the "most wrong ever" award. I've NEVER seen someone spout so much nonsense on this forum before in any thread... I very much doubt you work with computers, even at the A+ level (especially when your story doesn't even sound plausible, charging $450 for 5 minutes of "tweaks" that every 15 year old knows, especially when you look at the average IT wages these days)

This post has been edited by crahak: 22 August 2008 - 08:37 PM

[Zxian]

I'll give you an example of how "tweaks" are costing a company more money and time (i.e. my time).

I've been asked to run IT for a small decor company (they do the decor for conferences, weddings, etc etc). They've got four systems around the office, of varying age and performance. I'll start with the "slowest" since it's most relevant to this discussion.

Remember all those people who swore that FAT32 was faster than NTFS? Look back to threads from when XP was first released and people migrated from Win98 to XP. You'll find countless reviews, threads, and articles saying that NTFS is slow and "bloated", etc etc. The previous IT setup the partitions on this system as follows:

C: - 1GB FAT - for pagefile
D: - 4GB FAT32 - for Windows installation, some programs
E: - 8GB FAT32 - for data and programs that didn't fit on D:

Now... the main problem - there's a measly 200MB of free space on D:, since the twit wasn't smart enough to allow enough space for the system. Secondly - why would you put the pagefile on a separate FAT partition? You're increasing the disk head travel time, slowing things down greatly. Finally, they're FAT/FAT32 partitions.

The guy had disabled the Network Location Awareness service, bringing up this exact problem for computers connected to the network. Honestly - why would you disable this?

Poolsharkzz, on Aug 22 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

I would suggest going to Dell's website, clicking on "For Home - Desktops and All-In-Ones" and then click on the Inspiron 530 Icon - and then on the right - click the green button - "build yours" - starting at $749.00 - (after $200.00 Instant Savings) and learn a little something 'bout a little something!

Even if you started on the left with the cheaper $279.00 setup - which is still junk if you want to run Vista correctly - you can easily get it up to $850.00 - plus tax - not including a printer.

Sure, I could also start taking any computer hardware and max out the specs to raise up the price. Let's all go configure Apple Mac Pro's to over $20K!!! jcarle's setup is still less than half of what you're suggesting, and would still blow it out of the water performance wise. It's pretty much exactly what I built the above mentioned company to replace one of their reception computers. Oh, and dispite the "low end components", it's possible to run Vista on that without too much hassle. My mid-line Inspiron 6000 from two and a half years ago runs Vista without a hitch.

@Th3_uN1Qu3 - If your programs don't work properly in Vista, you should also be talking to your devs to update their software. You're talkingabout making it all Microsoft's fault, like ZA tries to do here. Filezilla is one of the examples that I give to all my friends. The XML settings version threw up UAC warnings left right and center, since you're trying to write files to the Program Files directory. There are countless documents out there, direct from Microsoft to developers, telling them to save settings in AppData or in the user's registry (HKCU - not HKLM). Poor programming is the cause for most UAC prompts out there.