How do I get in to the registry

[Horace]

Ok, last week, my virus scan found and removed a virus. I didnt write down the name.
But since then, every time I start my computer, I get "unable to locate SBDrvDet.crl"
Today I bought Halo2. When I went to install it, I got "The procedure entry point CreateProcessWith TokenW" could not be located in the Dynamic Link Library Advapi32.dll
Well, I thought the easiest way to fix this was to just pop in my windows disk and let it reinstall the missing files.
Well, norton goback got in the way. So I went to 'add and remove programs" and removed it. Tried again, same message. the add remove took out everything EXCEPT the goback. So I tried again. Well, my start button menu doesnt show it, and I cant find it anywhere else, but when I tried to reload windows, there it was again.
So, I need to know two things.
1, how do I get in to the registry and how do I tell the system works lines from the internet protection lines?
2, is there an easier way to fix the problems so that I can install Halo2?

Thanks
Brian

[Oni no Ted]

Ok, last week, my virus scan found and removed a virus. I didnt write down the name.
But since then, every time I start my computer, I get "unable to locate SBDrvDet.crl"
Today I bought Halo2. When I went to install it, I got "The procedure entry point CreateProcessWith TokenW" could not be located in the Dynamic Link Library Advapi32.dll
Well, I thought the easiest way to fix this was to just pop in my windows disk and let it reinstall the missing files.
Well, norton goback got in the way. So I went to 'add and remove programs" and removed it. Tried again, same message. the add remove took out everything EXCEPT the goback. So I tried again. Well, my start button menu doesnt show it, and I cant find it anywhere else, but when I tried to reload windows, there it was again.
So, I need to know two things.
1, how do I get in to the registry and how do I tell the system works lines from the internet protection lines?
2, is there an easier way to fix the problems so that I can install Halo2?

Thanks
Brian

Editing the registry is not for the faint of heart and DOES NOT have an undo function. Use with care: Start>Run...>Regedit.exe

SBDrvDet.cpl sounds like the Control Panel app for The Creative Sound Blaster Drivers. Maybe a re-install of the SB driver pack is needed?


(I know is sounds stupid, but it has to be said) Halo 2 REQUIRES Vista. There is no way that I know of (yet) to get DX10 (Halo 2, Shadowrun, etc) games to work with XP

[Oni no Ted]

There is no way that I know of (yet) to get DX10 (Halo 2, Shadowrun, etc) games to work with XP

Check here

http://www.fallingleafsystems.com/compatibility/

[Horace]

Editing the registry is not for the faint of heart and DOES NOT have an undo function. Use with care: Start>Run...>Regedit.exe
SBDrvDet.cpl sounds like the Control Panel app for The Creative Sound Blaster Drivers. Maybe a re-install of the SB driver pack is needed?
(I know is sounds stupid, but it has to be said) Halo 2 REQUIRES Vista. There is no way that I know of (yet) to get DX10 (Halo 2, Shadowrun, etc) games to work with XP

Ok, 1, I've done some registry editing before, but only when I knew specifically what to look for. Doesnt look like I have that yet.
2 So, is that what the error I was getting was essentially saying? That I needed to upgrade? (I got vista with my laptop)
3, I kind of figured  the SBDrvDet.cpl was sound board, because all my volumes went whacky. Just forgot about the whole loading the driver software again. Just pop it in and overwrite? OR should I remove the bad driver first and then reinstall?

Worse comes to worse, I will wind up doing like I do every couple years anyway, and just wipe the drive and start over.

Thanks,
Brian

PS, any time something like this happens, I remember when I bought my first computer. I had a two megabyte hard drive in it. And people wondered what I'd fill it up with.....

[Oni no Ted]

Ok, 1, I've done some registry editing before, but only when I knew specifically what to look for. Doesnt look like I have that yet.
2 So, is that what the error I was getting was essentially saying? That I needed to upgrade? (I got vista with my laptop)
3, I kind of figured  the SBDrvDet.cpl was sound board, because all my volumes went whacky. Just forgot about the whole loading the driver software again. Just pop it in and overwrite? OR should I remove the bad driver first and then reinstall?

2. If you upgraded to Vista you may have non-Vista drivers. If Vista came pre-installed, a driver upgrade may be needed

3. Try to uninstall the old drivers first, then reinstall

Also, Norton GoBack has a habit of doing weird things with Vista, you may want to disable it until Symantic gets off their collective butts and fix it's issues

[Horace]

No, I dont have vista on my desktop yet.
As far as norton goes, every time I have to fix stuff, norton gets in the way. It cant even uninstall itself properly like almost every other program out there. So I'm seriously considering letting my current subscription expire, and trying something else.

And now that I'm somewhat more awake, I realize that I actually now know the answers I need. Halo2 needs vista. therefore installing vista should fix the problem I had with installing halo 2. That and reinstalling the sound drivers should therefore have me working perfectly again.
So, this thursday, I get to do my biannual wipe and reload. What a fun day.

2. If you upgraded to Vista you may have non-Vista drivers. If Vista came pre-installed, a driver upgrade may be needed

3. Try to uninstall the old drivers first, then reinstall

Also, Norton GoBack has a habit of doing weird things with Vista, you may want to disable it until Symantic gets off their collective butts and fix it's issues

[Bulova]

As far as norton goes, every time I have to fix stuff, norton gets in the way. It cant even uninstall itself properly like almost every other program out there. So I'm seriously considering letting my current subscription expire, and trying something else.

Something that might be useful to know about Symantec/Norton programs: they have available a  "Norton_Removal_Tool" which has been surprisingly effective in not only uninstalling the various Norton products (they purport to have similar-but-different tools for their products based on the version/year; looking on their support site will clarify which one is appropriate to the situation), but even getting the annoyingly-hard-to-remove registry entries cleaned up, as well.

Paul, who has had to invoke the NRT more than once.

[Oni no Ted]

Something that might be useful to know about Symantec/Norton programs: they have available a  "Norton_Removal_Tool" which has been surprisingly effective in not only uninstalling the various Norton products (they purport to have similar-but-different tools for their products based on the version/year; looking on their support site will clarify which one is appropriate to the situation), but even getting the annoyingly-hard-to-remove registry entries cleaned up, as well.

Paul, who has had to invoke the NRT more than once.

I just switched to McAfee.

No weird security or shutdown issues FTW!

Removal tool here:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

[Dr. Steed]

This comes up about once a year, it seems. OK - time for the 2007 edition of Adam's Guide to Windows System De-Crapification. As always, all the software I recommend is freeware easily available online.


I can back up the above statements - NRT is sufficiently effective at killing Symantec/Norton. Have had to do so many times during my consultancy days. I've seen Norton blow up systems more often than actually assist in fixing problems.

I differ somewhat in opinion as to what should be used. I've used most of the commercial packages and have found them all to be either:

a) horrifyingly unstable: Norton can and will hose your system if you do even the smallest thing it doesn't expect

b) littered with misleading report functions: many commercial packages report low / dangerous security levels if it doesn't detect security products from the same manufacturer - for example, McAfee will pitch a fit over low firewall security even if you have ZoneAlarm or some other third-party app installed

c) extortionately expensive: most of 'em, as you have to re-buy the software yearly in the form of "update subscriptions" without which the software becomes near useless overnight, and that's just for basic anti-virus - full Internet security suites can run into the hundreds of dollars annually

d) difficult / impossible to cleanly uninstall without special tools: Norton is by far the worst offender here, but McAfee and others are also guilty - the idea here is to lock you into their product and keep getting money from you by making it a migraine to get out, similar to what AOL's been up to lately

e) interdependence: Internet security suites tend to be interlinked across their various modules - in my experience, it's not uncommon for a hiccup in your firewall to kill your anti-virus, spam-filtering, and everything else

f) resource-hogging: I've seen vanilla installations of McAfee or Norton chew 25% of the CPU's cycles WHILE IDLE, and spike to the upper 90s during normal operations

g) system capture: McAfee isn't so bad on this count, but Norton is horrifying; it takes over more or less all the security and connectivity capabilities of your computer - if there's even the slightest glitch, say goodbye to your ability to access anything

h) irreparability: when one of these programs breaks, it's next to impossible to fix - the typical reply from their support department is a re-install; see section d above for why this almost never works, requiring a visit from a consultant


So I say stay as far away from the commercial crapware as you can. There are far better alternatives.

Anti-virus: The best free full-function AV packages I've seen are Avast! and AVG. Both are clean, effective, frequently-updated (damn near daily), free standalone AV systems. Avast! is geared toward experienced users and admins who want full control, AVG is targeted on end-users and set-and-forget types. I prefer AVG for its simplicity and slightly faster performance, but Avast! is a very worthy choice if you want more advanced control options.

Firewall: For simple grannycomputing (web, e-mail, IM), Windows Firewall is generally adequate. If you haven't patched XP to SP2 yet, for the love of Ghod do so. If you do ANYTHING outside of basic computing on a straight modem-to-PC dial-up or broadband connection, or have the same pathological mistrust of Microsoft's products as I do, there are free firewalls. I prefer ZoneAlarm. It's trickier to configure than Windows Firewall, but on the other hand, it's a firewall that wasn't written by the crappiest softwarehaus on the planet.

Spyware: Forget Webroot - it has most of the problems of the commercial suites (cost, renewals annually, resource-hogging, etc.), and misses stuff besides. Spybot Search & Destroy not only sounds cool, it's also frighteningly effective. Yes, there were some minor bugs in 1.4. 1.5 is out, and damn it's sexy. It also handles system immunization against tens of thousands of known threats. Download it.

Adware: Spybot is mainly geared to removing spyware threats. It kills some adware, but mainly those which do data-harvesting. For the benign-but-annoying adware, Ad-Aware SE is the right choice.

Crapware: Stuff that comes bundled with a new PC - Dell Support Center, Sonic RecordNow!, etc. - that seems to be there just to annoy you. PC Decrapifier removes the worst of it. And it's fun to tell your boss what you're "decrapifying the computer".

Browser: Internet Explorer is pretty much the biggest security risk in modern computing. Grab Mozilla Firefox - a lightweight, platform-independent, open-source browser with all the fruit. Plug-ins, tabbed browsing pop-up blocking... you name it, Firefox did it before IE and did it right. It's faster than IE, more secure, and easier to use (if you've seen the IE7 interface, you know what I mean). You'll also want to grab some addons from addons.mozilla.org - IE Tab for rendering websites with the IE engine from within Firefox (useful for some sites that require IE), FireFTP as a full FTP client integrated into the browser, DownloadHelper for pulling video and other media files off embedded sites (Youtube, Google Video, etc.), AdBlock Plus to... block ads, and Download Statusbar for a sexy integrated download manager.

E-mail: Outlook / Outlook Express is pretty much the second biggest security risk in modern computing. The problem stems mainly from Microsoft's integration of Visual Basic and HTML into the O/OE rendering system - meaning if someone sends you a macro, a VBScript virus, malicious HTML... you're pretty much going to get infected by something unless your AV system is top-notch. Don't chance it - grab Mozilla Firebird. It looks and feels like Outlook Express, is infinitely configurable, has Bayesian and learning spam-filtering built in, on-board scam-analysis and warning, and DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY RENDER/EXECUTE. Useful addons are TagZilla (which I use in my e-mail and newsgroups for random sigquote generation), QuoteColors to make it easier to read multi-level quoting, jsLib (JavaScript library - required for certain addons), NewsWorthy for added UseNet functions, and FolderFlags for better folder organization.

Instant Messaging: It's not widely publicized, but instant message clients (MSN is by far the worst) can also be a vector for infection. It's hard to stop outright, but selecting a decent client reduces the risk. Don't use anything provided by the operator of the service you're using - backdoor city. The GAIM project (GNU AOL Instant Messager), the Linux AIM client, is available for Windows and supports tabbed chatting and automatic logging right out of the box, as well as being able to interface with most of the IM/chat systems currently used. GAIM got sued by AOL for copyright infringement, so their now known as Pidgin. It also comes with the Aspell system, which adds spellchecking to pretty much anything that doesn't have it already - you don't have to install Aspell for Pidgin to work, but it's a decent tool to have.


And, of course, after fixing all this stuff, you'll want to do some maintenance to get your lost performance back.

Clean-Up: Everybody's pressed the Drive Clean-Up button in Windows, and has been appalled at the crawl of Compressing Old Files. Screw it - with modern hard drive sizes, there's no need. Hack the registry to fix this problem. Start -> Run -> regedit.exe  Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Explorer -> VolumeCaches. Select "Compress Old Files", do a File -> Export to save a backup of the key, then delete the damned thing. Drive Clean-Up will run WAY faster, and actually do useful things.

Defrag: MS' defragger is a joke. Auslogics Defrag for a badly fragged disk. Once Auslogics is done, install IOBit SmartDefrag - it runs in the background and constantly defrags your drives so long as CPU usage is under 10% (or whatever you want to set it as). Also does scheduled comprehensive defragging.

Bootvis: A tool quietly written by some Microsoft programmers - the Boot Visualizer. It's also a Boot Optimizer. Give it a run after a defrag - the project goal was to break the one-minute-boot barrier. MS' spin office says basically "it doesn't work - there are no real gains to be had from running this program some of our back-office guys cobbled together". Bull. It works. You won't crack one minute, but 40-60% improvements in boot time are common. Proof that the problem at MS isn't the developers - it's the management.


Other things I've found useful:

7-Zip - it's like WinZip, but it handles just about all current types of compression. And it doesn't suck!

OpenOffice.org - it's like MS Office, it can read Office's documents, only it doesn't suck!

Foxit Reader - it's like Adobe Acrobat Reader, only it doesn't suck!

PrimoPDF - creates a virtual printer that lets you print Office documents to a file. A PDF file. Screw you, Adobe!

Media Player Classic - a standalone media player. It's basically the media player that was in Windows 98 - you know, before WMP would take over your entire computer. Quick, small, lightweight, and works with all major codec packs.

ffdshow - a filter and codec pack for Windows, allowing basically any media player to play basically any kind of media file, with a few exceptions. Best. Codec pack. Ever.

Real Alternative - a codec that lets basically any media player play Real Media files. Also inter-operates with Firefox. Don't bother with RealPlayer!

QT Alternative - a codec that lets any media player play QuickTime files without Apple's deadweight player. Also integrates with Firefox.

Illiminable - codec pack for Ogg Vorbis media files.

Haali Matroska Splitter - works with ffdshow to enable iPod-type .mp4 playback (as well as several other media types) via pretty much any media player.

Adobe Flash Player - plays Flash files.

Sun JRE - if you ever want to use Java, or a Java-enabled website, you pretty much don't have a choice.

IsoRecorder PowerToy - adds .iso extraction and burning to the Windows desktop.

Unlocker - you know how occasionally Windows says you can't delete or move or rename or look at or breathe on or be in the same room with something because another program is using it? And you can't figure out what? When Unlocker detects this, it automatically tells you what's locking the file, and offers to unlock it for you (as well as other possible functions).

AutoHotkeys - create hotkey combinations for anything. On anything. I mean, you can rig up a joystick for MS Office hotkeying if you really wanted to. A simple but powerful scripting system lets you program any basic interface device to do pretty much anything you can think of (for example, CTRL-ALT-F4 on my machine launches World of Warcraft ;-)).


Now, after all this, you probably have a neat and clean system. No way you're keeping it that way. Back up your install so's you can restore it in the event of a crash. DriveImage XML can take a complete snapshot of a hard drive WHILE WINDOWS IS RUNNING, and it has a near idiot-proof user-interface. Plug an external USB drive in, point DIXML at your C:, and let it run. You can also automate it through Windows Task Scheduler to do routine backups.


So, in summary:

Security: AVG or Avast!, ZoneAlarm, Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware SE, PC Decrapifier
Internet: Firefox with Addons, Thunderbird with Addons, Pidgin with Aspell
Maintenance: Windows Drive Clean-Up (modified), Auslogics Defrag, IOBit SmartDefrag, MS Bootvis, DriveImage XML
Media: OpenOffice, Foxit Reader, PrimoPDF, Media Player Classic, Real Alternative, QT Alternative, Illiminable, Haali Matroska Splitter, Adobe Flash Player, Sun JRE, IsoRecorder PowerToy, Haali Matroska Splitter
Utilities: 7-Zip, Unlocker, AutoHotkey

And stay away from Windows Vista until Service Pack 1 (or as I like to call it, "Windows Vista Do-Over Edition") has been out for a while - release is expected Q1 next year. Stay on XP with SP2, unless you REALLY enjoy reformatting your computer.

[Oni no Ted]

Media Player Classic - a standalone media player. It's basically the media player that was in Windows 98 - you know, before WMP would take over your entire computer. Quick, small, lightweight, and works with all major codec packs.

ffdshow - a filter and codec pack for Windows, allowing basically any media player to play basically any kind of media file, with a few exceptions. Best. Codec pack. Ever.

Haali Matroska Splitter - works with ffdshow to enable iPod-type .mp4 playback (as well as several other media types) via pretty much any media player.

IMO, I've had a few problems with MPC. Nothing really big, just a few annoyances

For true media goobieness, go with the Commie, er the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP)

It includes everything you could possibly need to view video files (AVI, OGM, MKV, and others):

FFDshow
Halli / Matroska
VOBsub (For DVD format files)
a ton of codec files (hence the name )

http://cccp-project.net

[Bulova]

This comes up about once a year, it seems. OK - time for the 2007 edition of Adam's Guide to Windows System De-Crapification. As always, all the software I recommend is freeware easily available online.

All in all, a useful and appreciated Community Service. Thanks.

I can back up the above statements - NRT is sufficiently effective at killing Symantec/Norton. Have had to do so many times during my consultancy days. I've seen Norton blow up systems more often than actually assist in fixing problems.

Thanks for the validation. I was surprised at just how much was NOT left in the registry after an NRT run!

I differ somewhat in opinion as to what should be used. I've used most of the commercial packages and have found them all to be either:

c) extortionately expensive: most of 'em, as you have to re-buy the software yearly in the form of "update subscriptions" without which the software becomes near useless overnight, and that's just for basic anti-virus - full Internet security suites can run into the hundreds of dollars annually

I get around this (especially for clients, who are more comfortable with a "name" product) by stocking up during Rebate Season [duck season! rabbit season...] where the OOP cost except for local sales tax is eventually returned to my (or the client's) pocket. I've had little (but not no) trouble collecting as long as I comply with the jump-through-hoop-la.

d) difficult / impossible to cleanly uninstall without special tools: Norton is by far the worst offender here, but McAfee and others are also guilty - the idea here is to lock you into their product and keep getting money from you by making it a migraine to get out, similar to what AOL's been up to lately

As we've mentioned, for the Symantec/Norton line, NRT (which my SO screams should be THE uninstall routine for those products) cleans up what Add-Remove leaves behind.

So I say stay as far away from the commercial crapware as you can. There are far better alternatives.

Amen.

Spyware: Forget Webroot - it has most of the problems of the commercial suites (cost, renewals annually, resource-hogging, etc.), and misses stuff besides. Spybot Search & Destroy not only sounds cool, it's also frighteningly effective. Yes, there were some minor bugs in 1.4. 1.5 is out, and damn it's sexy. It also handles system immunization against tens of thousands of known threats. Download it.

I've had some really good results using Xoftspy. The free edition only scans, but the activation fee (one-time, I believe) is well worth it.

E-mail: Outlook / Outlook Express is pretty much the second biggest security risk in modern computing. The problem stems mainly from Microsoft's integration of Visual Basic and HTML into the O/OE rendering system - meaning if someone sends you a macro, a VBScript virus, malicious HTML... you're pretty much going to get infected by something unless your AV system is top-notch. Don't chance it - grab Mozilla Firebird. [snip]

Typo here. Correct in the summary below. Thunderbird, not Firebird.

Bootvis: A tool quietly written by some Microsoft programmers - the Boot Visualizer. It's also a Boot Optimizer. Give it a run after a defrag - the project goal was to break the one-minute-boot barrier. MS' spin office says basically "it doesn't work - there are no real gains to be had from running this program some of our back-office guys cobbled together". Bull. It works. You won't crack one minute, but 40-60% improvements in boot time are common. Proof that the problem at MS isn't the developers - it's the management.

MS didn't officially support the incredibly effective TweakUI either. THIS sounds like a treasure.

Other things I've found useful:

7-Zip - it's like WinZip, but it handles just about all current types of compression. And it doesn't suck!

My SO seems to be enamored of AllZIP. Very versatile archiver. Even handles 7-zip files. Give it a look-see.

PrimoPDF - creates a virtual printer that lets you print Office documents to a file. A PDF file. Screw you, Adobe!

And I have

Unlocker - you know how occasionally Windows says you can't delete or move or rename or look at or breathe on or be in the same room with something because another program is using it? And you can't figure out what? When Unlocker detects this, it automatically tells you what's locking the file, and offers to unlock it for you (as well as other possible functions).

Another treasure! Thanks.

Now, after all this, you probably have a neat and clean system. No way you're keeping it that way. Back up your install so's you can restore it in the event of a crash. DriveImage XML can take a complete snapshot of a hard drive WHILE WINDOWS IS RUNNING, and it has a near idiot-proof user-interface. Plug an external USB drive in, point DIXML at your C:, and let it run. You can also automate it through Windows Task Scheduler to do routine backups.

DriveImage was my choice through versions 4 and 5 (both of which had to do a DOS-boot to make a HD image copy, V5 lived a long time, until HD sizes exploded, and BIOSes didn't handle them in DOS mode). Until the evil demon Symantec bought PowerQuest and turned DI into a Ghost of its former self. I'll have to look for this. Free DL?

So, in summary:

Security: [snip] PC Decrapifier

Gotta find this JUST for the name!

Media: OpenOffice, Foxit Reader, PrimoPDF, Media Player Classic, Real Alternative, QT Alternative, Illiminable, Haali Matroska Splitter, Adobe Flash Player, Sun JRE, IsoRecorder PowerToy, Haali Matroska Splitter

Do we need two installs of HMS? Oh, it's a "list-o"!

And stay away from Windows Vista until Service Pack 1 (or as I like to call it, "Windows Vista Do-Over Edition") has been out for a while - release is expected Q1 next year. Stay on XP with SP2, unless you REALLY enjoy reformatting your computer.

And finally, the SO gave a hearty laugh when I read aloud "Do-Over Edition." Well said.

Paul
[/size][/color]

[Number Three]

Thank you very much, Mr. Steed.  This kind of useful info dump should be easier to find on the net, and answered a couple of questions I've found myself asking in the past month.

Crapware: Stuff that comes bundled with a new PC - Dell Support Center, Sonic RecordNow!, etc. - that seems to be there just to annoy you. PC Decrapifier removes the worst of it. And it's fun to tell your boss what you're "decrapifying the computer".

Ooo, I've been wondering what to do with some of the junk I find in the add/remove programs list.  Merci.

Browser: Internet Explorer is pretty much the biggest security risk in modern computing. Grab Mozilla Firefox...

I'm been using Opera with much success.  It's as secre as Firefox, but more for the power users that don't mind mucking with the .ini's to make it their own.  There's not as many addons for it (Mozilla has carved a small empire in the mindshare of the little developers that make them), but the integrated e-mail client is as good as Firebird, and I've found the built in RSS client a godsend (to my webcomics addiction).  Aspell plugs into it, and it's easy to add more search engines to the default search bar that usually parses Google (I've got mine going to L5Rsearch.com.)  Ignore the integrated bittorrent client.

Instant Messaging: It's not widely publicized, but instant message clients (MSN is by far the worst) can also be a vector for infection. It's hard to stop outright, but selecting a decent client reduces the risk. Don't use anything provided by the operator of the service you're using - backdoor city. The GAIM project (GNU AOL Instant Messager), the Linux AIM client, is available for Windows and supports tabbed chatting and automatic logging right out of the box, as well as being able to interface with most of the IM/chat systems currently used. GAIM got sued by AOL for copyright infringement, so their now known as Pidgin.

I've been using the free version of Trillian, which serves a similar purpose, but it's been so long since I've booted it up it might be worth another look at GAIM Pidgin.

Clean-Up: Everybody's pressed the Drive Clean-Up button in Windows, and has been appalled at the crawl of Compressing Old Files. Screw it - with modern hard drive sizes, there's no need. Hack the registry to fix this problem. Start -> Run -> regedit.exe  Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Explorer -> VolumeCaches. Select "Compress Old Files", do a File -> Export to save a backup of the key, then delete the damned thing. Drive Clean-Up will run WAY faster, and actually do useful things.

I just want to make sure I got this right: back up the key, then kill it, and it will no longer try to compress files on a drive clean-up?

Defrag: MS' defragger is a joke. Auslogics Defrag for a badly fragged disk. Once Auslogics is done, install IOBit SmartDefrag - it runs in the background and constantly defrags your drives so long as CPU usage is under 10% (or whatever you want to set it as). Also does scheduled comprehensive defragging.

THANK YOU, $DEITY!!  This as been one of my recent questions.

Bootvis:

Groovy. 

OpenOffice.org - it's like MS Office, it can read Office's documents, only it doesn't suck!

Also exports to PDF (which reminds, I really need to get to work on the RPS flyer...)

Foxit Reader - it's like Adobe Acrobat Reader, only it doesn't suck!

Unlocker - you know how occasionally Windows says you can't delete or move or rename or look at or breathe on or be in the same room with something because another program is using it? And you can't figure out what? When Unlocker detects this, it automatically tells you what's locking the file, and offers to unlock it for you (as well as other possible functions).

O_o  I am intrigued.

[Dr. Steed]

It's the combo-reply!


DriveImage was my choice through versions 4 and 5 (both of which had to do a DOS-boot to make a HD image copy, V5 lived a long time, until HD sizes exploded, and BIOSes didn't handle them in DOS mode). Until the evil demon Symantec bought PowerQuest and turned DI into a Ghost of its former self. I'll have to look for this. Free DL?

Yep - DIXML, as is all other software I recommend, is freeware. I should mention, though - no relation to PQ's similarly-named product.


Do we need two installs of HMS? Oh, it's a "list-o"!

Yep - C&P accident. 


And finally, the SO gave a hearty laugh when I read aloud "Do-Over Edition." Well said.

Thank you.


I just want to make sure I got this right: back up the key, then kill it, and it will no longer try to compress files on a drive clean-up?

Yep. Once that specific key is removed from the registry, Drive Clean-Up will automatically skip the Compress Old Files phase - which, as mentioned, is a) the majority of DC-L's time-suck, and b) more or less pointless in the modern age of large-yet-cheap hard drives. I perform this mod on every computer I'm asked to look at - it turns yet another Microsoft mistake into a fairly useful utility. The backup step isn't really necessary, but it's better to have a backup you don't need, than to need a backup and not have one.

If you're at all hesitant about performing what amounts to brain surgery with a chainsaw on your computer, it's a good idea to back up your entire registry before touching anything - this is done via the Files -> Export... control. Make sure to tell it to back up ALL keys, not just SELECTED keys.

[Bulova]

Bootvis: A tool quietly written by some Microsoft programmers - the Boot Visualizer. It's also a Boot Optimizer. Give it a run after a defrag - the project goal was to break the one-minute-boot barrier. MS' spin office says basically "it doesn't work - there are no real gains to be had from running this program some of our back-office guys cobbled together". Bull. It works. You won't crack one minute, but 40-60% improvements in boot time are common. Proof that the problem at MS isn't the developers - it's the management.

More evidence from Microsoft's Webpage concerning Bootvis.exe (which MS calls "Fast Boot / Fast Resume Design"):[/color]

"...The Windows development team at Microsoft has taken bold steps in making fast startup PCs a reality with the Microsoft Windows XP operating system.

The design goals for Windows XP on a typical consumer PC are:

• Boot to a useable [sic] state in a total of 30 seconds
• Resume from Hibernate (S4) in a total of 20 seconds
• Resume from Standby (S3) in a total of 5 seconds

Boot and resume times are measured from the time the power switch is pressed to being able to start a program from a desktop shortcut.

About Bootvis.exe
Bootvis.exe is a performance tracing and visualization tool that Microsoft designed to help PC system designers and software developers identify performance issues for boot/resume timing while developing new PC products or supporting software.

Please note that Bootvis.exe is [emphasis added] NOT a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system."

Which is all very well and good, if the spin, rather than field results and anecdotal testimony, is to be believed. But then it concludes with:

"The Bootvis.exe tool is no longer available from this site."

"Nothing more to see around here, folks. Show's over. Go on home..."

[Dr. Steed]

"The Bootvis.exe tool is no longer available from this site."

"Nothing more to see around here, folks. Show's over. Go on home..."

Oh, it's readily available around the net. MajorGeeks is where I usually get my tools.