Tips

Sometimes when you install third party software, it may overwrite important operating system files. This can cause instability - or worse. Windows XP includes a command line tool that you can use if you think this may have happened (for example, if you get a message box warning that there is a problem with a .dll or the system just seems unstable). Here's how to use it:

1. Click Start | Run.
2. In the Run box, type: sfc /scannow Windows will scan all protected Windows files to verify that they are intact and in their original versions. If they're not, corrupt, missing or incorrect files are replaced. You may be prompted to insert your Windows XP installation CD if your Dllcache folder (where Windows keeps a copy of essential system files) has become corrupt or has been deleted.
   
   

vista tips

Microsoft Windows Vista is a major upgrade to the Windows operating system and is both an evolutionary and revolutionary step forward in the progression of the Windows platform. Vista achieves greater levels of security, reliability, and performance than any previous Windows Operating system.

The most visible change in Vista is its new graphical user interface (GUI). Windows Vista's new GUI allows for seamless integration of 2D and 3D vector graphics, images, animations, and video while maintaining the snappy performance Windows users expect. On systems that have older or integrated graphics, Windows Vista will scale back to graphical levels comparable to that experienced on Windows XP or Windows 2000 while maintaining glitch-free performance.

Windows Vista offers many other enhancements and conveniences. New visualization, organization, and search technologies let users view documents without first opening an associated application, organize information in a way that makes the most sense to them, and quickly find the information they need. Spellchecking and enhanced speech recognition are integral parts of the user interface. Real-time communications services like conferencing, application sharing, peer-to-peer, and remote desktop have been enhanced to make it easier to connect to your computer or to friends' computers remotely and have a richer experience doing so.

How to use the System File Checker (SFC)(Tips)

Sometimes when you install third party software, it may overwrite important operating system files. This can cause instability - or worse. Windows XP includes a command line tool that you can use if you think this may have happened (for example, if you get a message box warning that there is a problem with a .dll or the system just seems unstable). Here's how to use it:

1. Click Start | Run.
2. In the Run box, type: sfc /scannow Windows will scan all protected Windows files to verify that they are intact and in their original versions. If they're not, corrupt, missing or incorrect files are replaced. You may be prompted to insert your Windows XP installation CD if your Dllcache folder (where Windows keeps a copy of essential system files) has become corrupt or has been deleted.
   
   

How to Customize the Start Menu(Tips)

Is the XP Start menu too "busy" for you? Don't use Outlook Express and want to remove it from its top left "pinned" position on the Start menu, or even better, replace it with the email program you do use? Want to get rid of the links to My Documents and/or other folders on the right side? Want a permanent link to the Administrative Tools on the Start menu? Luckily, you can easily customize it to fit your own needs and preferences. Here's how:

1. Click an empty space on the Start menu and click Properties.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Here you can select whether to include your Web browser and/or e-mail client on the Start menu, and even better, which program to use for each.
4. Click the Advanced tab.
5. Under Start Menu Items, you can select which items to display on the right side of the Start menu, and you can also control how each is displayed. For instance, you can choose to display Control Panel as a menu instead of just a link.
6. On this tab, you can also select whether you want newly installed programs to be highlighted, whether submenus should be opened when you pause on them with your mouse (a feature that can be very annoying), and whether to list your most recently opened documents.

Stop the Desktop Cleanup Wizard from Popping Up(Tips)

By default, every 60 days the XP Desktop Cleanup Wizard pops up and offers to clean up your desktop. What if you like your cluttered, messy desktop? Here's how to make the Wizard leave you alone:

Right click an empty space on the desktop.
Click Properties.
Click the Desktop tab.
Click the Customize Desktop button.
Uncheck the box labeled Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard

Open XP Utilities from the Command Line(Tips)

Are you the command line sort? Would you prefer to type program names into the Run box instead of clicking through menus? Hey, it takes all kinds. Here are the commands to open some of XP's commonly used utilities from the command line:

• Computer Management: compmgmt.msc
• Device Manager: devmgmt.msc
• Disk Defragmenter: dfrg.msc
• Event Viewer: eventvwr.msc
• Local users and groups: lusrmgr.msc
• Local security settings: secpol.msc

Built-in Backup(Tips)

If you're using Windows XP Professional an easy backup solution is just a few clicks away. The built-in Backup utility lets you make copies of files, settings, or everything on your computer. To use the Backup utility:

• Click Start
• Point to All Programs
• Point to Accessories
• Point to System Tools
• Point to Backup

If you use Windows XP Home Edition, you'll have to manually add the Backup utility. To add the utility to Windows XP Home Edition:

1. Insert your Windows XP CD into the drive and, if necessary, double-click the CD icon in My Computer.

2. On the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP screen, click Perform Additional Tasks.

3. Click Browse this CD.

4. In Windows Explorer, double-click the ValueAdd folder, then Msft, and then Ntbackup.

5. Double-click Ntbackup.msi to install the Backup utility.

PeoplePC Online - more access numbers than AOL

Hide the User Accounts applet from other users(Tips)

Don't want other users to be able to access the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and make changes to user account settings? On your XP Pro computer, you can prevent this by editing the local group policy. Here's how:

1. Click Start | Run.
2. In the Run box, type gpedit.msc. This opens the Group Policy Editor.
3. Expand User Configuration, then Administrative Templates and click Control Panel.
4. Double click "Hide specified Control Panel applets."
5. Click Enabled to check it.
6. Click Show.
7. Click Add.
8. Type nusrmgt.cpl in the box.
9. Click OK.

Note that you can also hide other Control Panel applets. To do so, you need to know their program names. To find the file name of an applet, search for files with the extension .cpl in the System32 folder within the Windows installation folder

Reassign drive letters in XP(Tips)

When you install Windows XP, assigns your drives the lowest letters available (D thru Z) so if you install new drives, the letter of your existing drives won't change. If you already have Windows installed and software installed, here's how to reassign the drive letters.

1. Right-click My Computer.
2. Choose Manage.
3. Click Disk Management.
4. Right-click the drive you want to rename.
5. Select Change Drive Letter or Path.
6. Select your new drive letter

You cannot change a drive letter to a drive letter that already exists, and you cannot change your boot drive.

Clear XP's Page file at Shutdown(Tips)

The Windows page file is a portion of the hard disk used for virtual memory - that is, swapping information in and out of physical memory (RAM) so the applications have more usable memory than is actually installed. The information in the page file is not needed when you shut down, since information in RAo so in Windows XP Pro by performing the following stM is lost when the computer is turned off. The page file can be quite large, so if you want to be sure it's cleared at shutdown to save disk space, you can deps:

1. Click Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Local Security Policy
2. In the Local Security Policy management console, expand Local Policies in the left pane.
3. Click Security Options.
4. In the right pane, scroll down to the policy named "Shutdown: clear virtual memory pagefile." This policy is disabled by default. Right click it and select Properties.
5. Click the Enable option button.

Clear XP's Recent Document List(Tips)

Windows XP remembers your recently opened documents and puts those files in the My Recent Documents menu in the Start menu. This is a useful feature because it allows you to get to stuff you recently opened. Odds are that if you opened a file recently, you're going to open it again! Visiting the My Recent Documents menu speeds up accessing those files you open the most. The problem is other people can see what you've been looking at recently, too! Maybe you opened something recently you don't want anyone to know you've opened. Here's how you clear the list:

1. Right click on an empty area of the taskbar and click Properties
2. In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, click on the Start Menu tab.
3. On the Start Menu tab, click the Customize button. Note that there is a Start menu and a Classic Start Menu option. I'll assume you're using the new Start menu and have the first option selected.
4. After clicking on the Customize button, you'll see the Customize Start Menu dialog box. Click on the Advanced tab.
5. On the Advanced tab, click the Clear List button. This button lies just to the right of the List my most recently opened documents check box. If your computer is like mine, the dialog box will lock up! I hope that your Windows XP computer isn't like mine . Click OK and then click OK again to close all the dialog boxes.

Now when you go to the start menu, you'll see your My Recent Documents folder is gone! Don't worry. It will come back when you start opening documents.

Free Up Space, Control XP's Cache(Tips)

By default, both the Recycle Bin and Internet Explorer's Cache want to consume ridiculous amounts of your hard drive space. Right click on the Recycle Bin, select Properties, and on the Global tab, decide how much space you want the Recycle Bin to consume, either for all drives in your system, or on a per-drive basis. (It's a percentage of the total space. I adjust the slider way to the left, so I'm using "only" a few hundred megs of space for trash.)

Similarly, open Internet Explorer, and select Tools/Internet Options. Under Temporary Internet Files, click the Settings button and select a reasonable size for this cache area. Generally speaking, if you have a fast connection, 5 Mbytes to 10 Mbytes is adequate; 25 Mbytes or so is usually enough with a slower dial-up connection.

Disable Error Reporting(Tips)

By default, XP wants to contact the Microsoft servers to auto-search for patches, downloads, and updates. It also wants to send Microsoft information about any crashes you experience. The former can be an annoyance if the auto-update cycle kicks in at an inopportune time. The latter is a potential security hole, because the crash-reporting information includes a mini-dump of XP's memory contents; it can include snippets of open documents, passwords you've recently typed, and so on.

You can turn off both behaviors by right clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, and first choosing the Automatic Updates tab. Select either Turn Off or, Notify me.

Customize XP's Taskbar(Tips)

Right click on an empty spot in the Task Bar (the bar next to the Start button). Uncheck Lock the Taskbar. This lets you resize various portions of the taskbar the way you want them. Now, explore the other Taskbar settings to see if any will work for you.

One I always select is Toolbars/Desktop. I place the new Desktop toolbar far to the right on the Taskbar, over by the clock area. Whenever I want access to something on the Desktop that's covered with open windows, I can use this new Desktop toolbar as a shortcut to get to the item on the Desktop without having to close or move any open window.

Improve XP's Folder Views(Tips)

You can easily change the folder view to something more restrained, space-efficient, and useful.

Open My Documents. In the View menu, select Status Bar, List, and Arrange Icons by Name. Next, right click on an empty spot in the My Documents toolbar and select Customize. Choose any of the Available Toolbar Buttons you wish and click Add. Exit the dialog.

Now click to the Tools menu and select Folder Options. Under the View tab, tell XP to show you the full path, to show hidden and system files, not to hide any file extensions, and not to hide protected folders--plus any other settings you want. When you have the folder options set the way you desire, click the "Apply to all folders" button at the top of the dialog. This adjusts all windows opened by Explorer, so they'll inherit the visual choices you made for this one window.

Tune XP's Visual Performance(Tips)

Depending on how you set it up, XP may have reserved a substantial amount of your CPU horsepower for things like animating various desktop elements, placing shadows under menus and cursors, and rounding the upper corners of open windows. In the aggregate, these visual effects can slow down screen-drawing operations significantly. Also, XP may have selected a "color depth" for your video system in excess of what you really need; this, too, can slow down screen operations.

To adjust the color depth, right click anywhere on an empty portion of your desktop and select Properties/Settings. For most normal business users, the Color Quality setting should be set to Medium (16 bit). Higher settings do matter in photo/video editing and similar applications, but for mundane things like Web browsing, E-mail, and word processing, the Medium setting is fully adequate, and it's faster.

To adjust XP's desktop animations and visual effects, right click on My Computer and select Properties/Advanced/Performance Settings. You can choose to activate/deactivate individual items or use the general "best performance/best appearance" buttons. When you've made a change, click Apply, and you'll see the effects almost immediately. (By the way: Selecting Best Performance makes your desktop look very much like the classic desktop in Win98/Win2K.) Experiment until you've found the mix of speed and visual effects that works best for you.

Uninstall Windows Updates(Tips)

Windows Update is a handy tool to ensure that you install critical updates to protect or improve the functionality of your computer, but sometimes an update that is installed may cause problems. What do you do then? Here's how to uninstall update packages and device drivers.

To remove updates, do the following:

1. Click Start, Control Panel and click the Add/Remove Programs icon
2. Select Change or Remove Programs.
3. Locate the update that you want to uninstall, click it to highlight it, and then click Change/Remove.

To uninstall updated drivers, do the following:

1. In Control Panel, click the System applet.
2. Click the Hardware tab, then click Device Manager.
3. Double click the device you need to go back to the previous driver.
4. Click the Driver tab.
5. Click Roll Back Driver.

Another way to undo the changes is to use System Restore, if you made a system restore point before the changes were made

Computer performance Tips.

Enable XP SP2's "Show Updates" Option

One change made by SP2 is the new feature that lets you see the updates that have been installed for your application programs. This is handy for keeping up with the patch status of your programs, but you need to enable it. Here's how:

1. Click Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs.
2. At the top of the Add or Remove Programs window, check the checkbox labeled "Show updates."
3. Scroll to the program for which you want to see updates. The updates will be listed under the program name, along with the date when each update was installed.

Turn Off Windows 98 Logon Screen

If you're the only user on a computer, odds are you don't need a logon screen to appear every time you boot up. Eliminate the need to input your user name and password with these steps.

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Double-click on the Network icon.
3. In the Primary Network Logon, choose Windows Logon.
4. Press OK.
5. In the Control panel link the Passwords applet.
6. Click Change Passwords tab.
7. Press Change Windows Password button.
8. Type in your current password in the Old Password box.
9. Leave both the New Password and Confirm New Password boxes blank.
10. Click OK.
11. Select the User Profile tab and make sure the "All users of this PC use the same preferences and desktop settings" is selected.
12. Click OK.
13. Restart Windows.

This tip doesn't work if you use Windows NT or use profiles.

To free CD-ROM Memory

CD-Rom Cache

If you don't use your CD-ROM often you can free up some of your computer's memory to do other tasks. The CD-ROM has something called cache memory that is set aside for the CD-ROM to use. It helps the CD-ROM run more efficiently if it's frequently in use. To free up some of this memory for other programs to be able to use, follow these instructions:

1. Right-click on My Computer
2. Choose Properties
3. Choose the Performance tab
4. Click the File System button
5. Choose the CD-ROM tab
6. Adjust cache memory down as far as 244.

You'll have to restart your computer for the setting to take effect. If you find your CD-ROM runs poorly, just go back in and raise the cache memory until you find an acceptable level.

To speed up startup time of computer.

MSCONFIG

You can speed up your startup time and make your computer perform better by turning off those little system-level tasks you don't need. Every application that launches at startup uses power and memory that your computer needs for other tasks. Windows provides a program to let you choose what loads at startup. To run MSCONFIG, follow these steps.

1. Go to the Start menu.
2. Choose Run.
3. Type in msconfig.
4. Press OK.

Now that you are in MSCONFIG, go to the Startup Tab. Only uncheck any programs that you are familiar with. Otherwise, you may inadvertently turn something off that you need to compute normally. When you are finished selecting programs, click OK. Next time you start your computer, it should launch faster.
If you turn off a program that you need, simply restore it. Open MSCONFIG and click on the General tab. Selecting the box stating Normal Startup - restores all drivers and software.

Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance

You can calibrate your iBook, PowerBook, MacBook or MacBook Pro computer's lithium ion battery for best performance.

The battery has an internal microprocessor that provides an estimate of the amount of energy in the battery as it charges and discharges. The battery needs to be recalibrated from time to time to keep the onscreen battery time and percent display accurate. With all iBooks and PowerBook G4 computers except the aluminum PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), you should perform this procedure when you first use your computer and then every few months thereafter.

iBooks and PowerBook G4s other than the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD)

1. Plug the power adapter in and fully charge your computer's battery until the battery indicator lights turn off and the adapter plug light goes from amber to green, which indicates that the battery is fully charged.
2. Disconnect the power adapter and use your iBook or PowerBook. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen. Continue to use your computer until it goes to sleep. At that point the battery has been sufficiently drained for calibration.
3. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

You have to fully charge and then discharge your battery only once to calibrate it. After that, you can connect and disconnect the power adapter when the battery is at any charge level.

Tip: When the battery reaches "empty", the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond "empty", to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, any open files could be lost. Therefore, it is important that you find an electrical outlet and connect the adapter before the forced shutdown occurs.

PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), MacBook (all models), MacBook Pro (all models), and MacBook Pro (17-inch) (all models)

The battery calibration for the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) and any model of MacBook or MacBook Pro has been updated because of a new battery released with this computer. With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

1. Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
3. Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.
4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

Tip: When the battery reaches "empty", the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond "empty", to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer's memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

Computer Laboratory Performance

y requiring operating systems to be ported to run over Xen, machine virtualization can be achieved considerably more efficiently than schemes that rely on trapping faulting instructions or use an interpreter or JIT compiler emulating privileged operating system code. Of course, the downside is you have to do the OS port, but our experience indicates that this usually isn't too time consuming or difficult.

Operating systems running over Xen execute in x86 privilege ring 1 instead of ring 0, which we reserve for Xen. This prevents guest OSes from using the normal privileged instructions to turn on/off interrupts, change page table bases etc. Instead, they must make a 'hypercall' down into Xen to ask the operation to be performed on their behalf. This sounds expensive, but with a properly designed asynchronous interface the hypercalls are relatively infrequent.

Rather than attempting to emulate some existing hardware device, Xen exports specially designed block device and network interface abstractions to guest operating systems, requiring a specially written driver. The advantage of this approach is that guest I/O performance is excellent: we typically get the same performance on Gigabit Ethernet links running over Xen as we do with the native operating system.

As part of evaluation for our SOSP paper, we subjected Linux 2.4.22 to a number of system intensive workloads, then repeated the experiments with the same version of Linux running over Xen, and a number of other virtualization techniques: VMware workstation 3.2 (the latest version of any VMware product which allows the publication of comparative benchmarks), and User Mode Linux (UML) with the skas host patch. The results below show the performance overhead under a number of different scenarios:

Computer Performance Tips

2) Shutdown Windows Icon.

Want an easy way to shut down Windows? Ryan Pfeifle of Thousand Oaks, California, suggests this approach: Right-click the desktop and choose New, Shortcut. Then type c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows (your path may differ), click Next, type a name for the shortcut, and click Finish. Double-click this icon anytime to exit Windows.

To create a keyboard shortcut for exiting, right-click the icon, select Properties from the menu, click the Shortcut tab, and click in the Shortcut key box. Press the keys you want to use to activate your shutdown shortcut (they must begin with Ctrl-Alt, Ctrl-Shift, or Shift-Alt).

If you want a shortcut that restarts Windows rather than simply shutting it down, change the command line in the Target box to read c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec (your path may differ)

Computer Performance Tips.

1) Fix Video Problems.

One common cause of some maladies (ranging from odd-looking shapes and colors on screen to an unreliable mouse to spontaneous rebooting) is a bad video driver. Troubleshoot for this by replacing your current driver with Windows generic VGA driver. Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, Display, Settings, Change Display Type. Under Adapter Type, select Change, Show all devices, and from the Manufacturers list, select (Standard display types). You may have to reboot. If the problem disappears, you've found the culprit. Its time to get the latest driver for you video card from the manufactures website.

Computer Performance Tips

Introduction
In this article I will clearly spell out the most effective steps you can take to increase the performance of your computer and enhance your computing experience.

More Memory (RAM)
If your computer has less then 256 MB of memory you may want to consider adding more. If you don’t know how much memory you have: right-click My Computer, go to Properties and look towards the bottom of the dialog box.

Memory is where the computer stores open files or programs in order to give the processor quick access. To put it simply more memory means more speed and stability. You can buy memory online or visit your local Best Buy where they can install it for you if you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself.

Defrag your computer
Imagine a filing cabinet that is out of order, you would have to look harder for your files just as a computer would when it is fragmented. Over time your computer will become fragmented. When your computer is fragmented it has to work harder to do just about anything a computer can do. Defragging your computer is essential for computer performance and stability.

Diskeeper is by far the most effective and efficient defrag program I have ever used. With Diskeeper you can defrag your computer without having to close other programs. You also have a “set it and forget it” feature that enables you to set your computer to defrag any time without having to think about defragging ever again. Most notably this defrag program gives your computer a clear performance boost.

Remove adware & spyware
If you frequently receive popups while not surfing the web you may have excessive amounts of adware or spyware on your computer. By removing the adware and spyware you will not only receive a performance boost but you will enhance your computing experience by removing bothersome ads.

Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy are both free programs that will scan your computer for adware and spyware and allow you to remove it with ease.

Take back the web
Firefox is a new web browser that is faster and more secure then Internet Explorer. With Firefox you can download and install extensions which “plug in” and give the browser more functions. For example I currently have extensions that tell me the weather and block online advertisements. Download and install this program today and replace your current browser which most likely is Internet Explorer.

To Speed Up Your Computer's Performance

Free Up Disk Space

By freeing disk space, you can improve the performance of your computer. The Disk Cleanup tool helps you free up space on your hard disk. The utility identifies files that you can safely delete, and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

•	Remove temporary Internet files.
•	Remove downloaded program files (such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets).
•	Empty the Recycle Bin.
•	Remove Windows temporary files.
•	Remove optional Windows components that you don't use.
•	Remove installed programs that you no longer use.

Why Does My Computer Keep Slowing Down?

When your computer comes from the factory with it's default settings, it has been optimized to run properly. Over time, as you add files and software - and just as importantly, remove files and software - your computer gets farther and farther away from it's optimal settings. To put this in perspective, it would be like adding parts to your car, and then removing some other parts and then adding more parts after that. Finally, your car doesn't run very well anymore.
More specifically, there are several primary areas that could be causing your computer to run slow. The most likely reason is that your registry has become corrupt and your system is essentially running in circles with its internal processing.
The second most common problem is that you have too many programs running behind the scenes. In this case, we're not talking about the programs you know about that are running at the bottom of your task bar, such as Outlook Express or your internet browser window. But behind the scenes, there can be literally hundreds of programs of various sizes running in the background. These are eating up your computer's available processing capacity and can bring your system to a literal stand still.
To determine if your system is in fact running slow because of problems in your registry, you will need to run a self diagnostic program such as . This easy to use program will perform a deep scan on your computer and will report back on any issues or problems it finds for you at no charge - which means you can figure out what is wrong without having to buy anything in advance or pay a technician to essentially perform the same function.
Programs such as work by scanning all of your files and hard drives and then creates a cue report of any problems if finds. It's not uncommon to find out that your computer has literally hundreds of irregular settings and errors - in fact when we did a test of the program on a computer in our office, it found 916 errors on the initial trial scan.
The main advantage of using a registry repair program is it will instantly fix the majority of the problems that are slowing down your computer quickly and safely - and is a whole lot cheaper than having a technician look at your computer. It also has a feature that allows you to stop programs from loading when you turn on your computer which is often a problem for older systems with too many start up applications trying to get started every time you boot your machine up. In addition, Registry Patrol will also clean what is called your cache files which will dramatically speed up your internet performance.
For those of you running the Windows XP system, you might also want to consider the program which offers several more advanced features than the Registry Patrol application, including the ability to completely optimize your entire XP operating system.

Diffrence between Window vista and Winodow XP.

The major Differences between Windows Xp & Vista are :


Windows Vista & Windows XP

1. Bitlocker Option available Windows XP has . No Bitlocker option
- Bitlocker drive encryption,
Bitlocker on volume
Prevents hard drive from hackers

2. Windows Vista has Windows Defender tool Windows XP has No Windows Defender tool available
- prevents from spyware & unwanted
S/W installing on computer

3. Windows Vista has Parental control Feature Windows XP has No Parental control Feature
- This option enables parents to restrict
Children’s which sites, games .software
to use & not

There are some notable differences between Windows XP and Windows Vista. NetMeeting has been replaced by Windows Collaboration while MSN Explorer has been removed completely.

The "My" prefix on "My Computer", "My Document", etc. has also been dropped.

Windows Vista also no longer supports older motherboards technologies like EISA bus and advanced power management (APM).

Which is better Windows vista or LInux?

So, which really is better for the desktop: Vista or Linux?

I've been working with Vista since its beta days, and I started using Linux in the mid-90s. There may be other people who have worked with both more than I have, but there can't be many of them. Along the way, I've formed a strong opinion: Linux is the better of the two.

But, now that Vista is on the brink of becoming widely available, I thought it was time to take a comprehensive look at how the two really compare. To do this, I decided to take one machine, install both of them on it, and then see what life was like with both operating systems on a completely even playing field.

My first decision was to acquire a new system. I think almost anyone -- unless they have a loaded gaming system -- will make the same decision. The folks up in Redmond can tell you until they turn blue in the face that Vista Premium Ready needs only a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor, 1 GB of system memory, and a graphic card with support for DirectX 9 graphics, a WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) driver, and 128 MB of graphics memory. They lie like rugs.

You can no more run Vista, with its pretty Aero interface, on a system like that than you can ride a bicycle on an interstate. Yes, you might get on the road, but you're not going to enjoy it and you'll be in danger of getting over run at any moment.

A modern Linux, like SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) or Ubuntu 6.10, runs well on such a system. Vista with all the trimmings? Forget about it. It's not happening.

So, from the get-go, Vista starts with a knock against it. If you own a PC that's over a year old, and haven't upgraded it, chances are you won't be able to run high-end Vista. Last spring, Gartner, the research house, estimated that only half of the PCs then shipping could support Vista Premium. In other words, if you don't have a shiny new machine, you're not going to be running a shiny new Windows operating system.

That said, you can buy Vista Premium-capable systems now for about a grand without too much looking. I managed, I thought, to do it for only $800.

I went to a local Best Buy store after Christmas and I found an HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n PC floor model on sale. This high-end, for early 2006, system had originally listed for $1,200. Now, when you can find this one-time PC Magazine Editor's Choice, since it's no longer being made, you can pick up a brand new one for about a $1,000.

The m7360n comes with a hyper-threaded 2.8 GHz Pentium D 920 dual-core processor, 4 MB of L2 cache, an 800 MHz front-side bus, and 2 GB of DDR (double-data-rate) RAM. It also has a 300-GB SATA hard drive, a dual-layer, multi-format LightScribe DVD/CD burner, a DVD-ROM drive.

For peripherals and multimedia, the m7360n has six USB 2.0, two FireWire, one VGA, one S-Video, and one composite AV port. It also comes with a 9-in-1 memory card reader, 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet, 56K V.92 modem, and 802.11g WiFi. For graphics, it has an NVIDIA GeForce 6200SE video card which takes up 256 MB of the system's main RAM, Intel High Definition audio (aka Azalia) with 5.1-channel surround sound.

Not bad, eh?

I decided to give Vista every chance to strut its stuff, so I decided to install Vista Ultimate -- the top of the Vista line -- on it. For the Linux, I decided to go with SimplyMEPIS 6.01, which is 99 percent Ubuntu 6.06.

I chose MEPIS (the 32-bit version), rather than straight Ubuntu, for several reasons. The first, is that I prefer the KDE interface to GNOME, and I've never developed much affection for Kubuntu, the official KDE version of Ubuntu. Your Linux love affair may vary. The other reason is that the 1 percent that MEPIS adds to Ubuntu includes features that I really like a lot, such as easy interoperability with Windows domain and AD (Active Directory) networks.

You see, I run my computers on a business network that includes the Windows networking infrastructure, as well such old Unix standards as NFS (Network File System) and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). So, I prefer operating systems that can plug and play with Windows networks. Home users, who don't need to worry about such issues, will probably find genuine Ubuntu or Kubuntu fine for their purposes.

So, now it was time to rip out the m7360n's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Update Rollup 2. This was no great loss. But, the story of what happened next will need to wait for Part 2 of my series.

UNIX / Linux Command

access()
Used to check the accessibility of files

int
Access(pathname, access_mode)
Char* pathname;
int access-mode;
The access modes are.
04 read
02 write
01 execute (search)
00 checks existence of a file

& operator
execute a command as a background process.

banner
prints the specified string in large letters. Each argument may be upto 10 characters long.

break
is used to break out of a loop. It does not exit from the program.

Cal
Produces a calender of the current month as standard output. The month (1-12) and year (1-9999) must be specified in full numeric format.

Cal [[ month] year]

Calendar
Displays contents of the calendar file

case operator
The case operator is used to validate multiple conditions.

Case $string in

Pattern 1)
Command list;;
Command list;;

Pattern 3)
Command list;;
easc

cat
(for concatenate) command is used to display the contents of a file. Used without arguments it takes input from standard input is used to terminate input.

cat [filename(s)]
cat > [filename]
Data can be appended to a file using >>

Some of the available options are :
Cat [-options] filename(S)
-s silent about files that
cannot be accessed
-v enables display of non printinging characters (except tabs, new lines, form-

feeds)
-t when used with –v, it causes tabs to be printed as ^I’s
-e when used with –v, it causes $ to be printed at the end of each line
The –t and –e options are ignored if the –v options is not specified.

cd
Used to change directories

chgrp
Changes the group that owns a file.
Chgrp [grou –id] [filename]

chmod
Allows file permissions to be changed for each user. File permissions can be changed only by the owner (s).
Chmod [+/-][rwx] [ugo] [filename]

chown
Used to change the owner of a file.
The command takes a file(s) as source files and the login id of another user as the target.
Chown [user-id] [filename]

cmp
The cmp command compares two files (text or binary) byte-by-byte and displays the first occurrence where the files differ.
Cmp [filename1] [filename2] -1 gives a long listing

comm.
The comm command compares two sorted files and displays the instances that are common. The display is separated into 3 columns.
Comm. filename1 filename2
first displays what occurs in first files but not in the second
second displays what occurs in second file but not in first
third displays what is common in both files

continue statement
The rest of the commands in the loop are ignored. It moves out of the loop and moves on the next cycle.

cp
The cp (copy) command is used to copy a file.
Cp [filename1] [filename2]

cpio(copy input/output)
Utility program used to take backups.
Cpio operates in three modes:
-o output
-i input
-p pass

Information About Chacha

The current implementation of ChaCha offers a combination of automation and people-powered search. The results can be organized by a vertical, like images or news. Also it has a set of related searches. But by far the most interesting and unusual aspect of ChaCha is its people-powered search.

ChaCha employs people to help users sift through the results. This is cleverly done using a familiar chat interface. When you first come to the site, you are presented with a standard search box. Type in a query and you get back a traditional list of matches. In the testing we did, we found both the performance and quality of the results to be quite good.