Microsoft has taken authentication of the Microsoft Validation to a whole new level. Starting now, they will be checking your operating system every month. Now, I'm not saying this development is bad or good. I'm just wondering what impact this has on our daily lives. Ever since I received an email stating this new policy I've been wondering why Microsoft felt the need to validate each copy of Windows every month and have come up with a couple of reasons why...
First, I'm sure that each month they uncover more and more previously activated Product Key's and therefore as they find out about them, they deactivate the key codes that look like they're pirated. What this means to you is that you need to be vigilant to follow Microsoft's license agreement and only have one computer running one license at a time. If you have two computers and activated the second computer by calling Microsoft to get around the online activation failure, they will be able to detect that 2 different computers are running off of one license and shut both down. There go any critical updates and extras you would otherwise get by staying legal.
Second, it gives Microsoft the opportunity to poll your hardware configuration each month. This allows them not only to see if your license is running on different computers but also gives them a general idea of what Windows users use hardware-wise. They'll know when you change video cards, motherboards, CPUs, add memory, etc. Is this a big deal? That's not for me to say. I don't mind but I'm sure there are people who would mind. With this information they can aggregate the data and sell it to companies who use that type of information and/or build new software programs that can take advantage of new hardware once they know there is a greater number of users who can run the new software, thus optimizing their ability to sell software.
One of the potential impacts I see is bandwidth. If Microsoft is checking every Windows user every month then that is however many millions of checks that get sent to Redmond, WA. Doing it once per install is one thing but now this number of checks gets multiplied by 12. Could have an impact on their bottom line at the very least, and they'll of course pass this cost on to it's customers...meaning a higher cost of software in the future.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Turn off Indexing to speed up XP
Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then I suggest turnning this feature off:
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services
Top 15 Ways to Extend Your Laptop??™s Battery Life
1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it??™s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.
2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn??™t crucial when you??™re on battery.
4. Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.
5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.
6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.
7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery??™s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
8. Take care of your battery - Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)
9. Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn??™t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC??™s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.
10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it??™s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.
11. Set up and optimize your power options - Go to ???Power Options??™ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ???max battery??™ for maximum effect).
12. Don??™t multitask - Do one thing at a time when you??™re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3??™s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don??™t you??™ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!
13. Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you??™ve got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.
14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.
15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you??™re using a very old laptop, you??™ll want to prevent the ???memory effect??™ - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.
Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word??™s and Excel??™s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.
Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks - Thanks Andrew
Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1 to give caution about turning off autosave, tip #8 to change information about discharging batteries - thanks to all who pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1 about the spinning of hard drives - thanks to all who pointed it out
2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn??™t crucial when you??™re on battery.
4. Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.
5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.
6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.
7. Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery??™s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
8. Take care of your battery - Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)
9. Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn??™t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC??™s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.
10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it??™s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.
11. Set up and optimize your power options - Go to ???Power Options??™ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ???max battery??™ for maximum effect).
12. Don??™t multitask - Do one thing at a time when you??™re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3??™s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don??™t you??™ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!
13. Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you??™ve got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.
14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.
15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you??™re using a very old laptop, you??™ll want to prevent the ???memory effect??™ - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.
Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word??™s and Excel??™s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.
Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks - Thanks Andrew
Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1 to give caution about turning off autosave, tip #8 to change information about discharging batteries - thanks to all who pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1 about the spinning of hard drives - thanks to all who pointed it out
Increase DSL Speed
This tweak is for broad band cable connections on stand alone machines with WinXP professional version - might work on Home version also. It will probably work with networked machines as well but I haven??™t tried it in that configuration. This is for windows XP only, it does not work on win2000. I use 3 Com cards so I don??™t know how it works on others at this point. It does not involve editing the registry. This tweak assumes that you have let WinXP create a connection on install for your cable modem/NIC combination and that your connection has tcp/ip - QoS - file and print sharing - and client for Microsoft networks , only, installed. It also assumes that WinXP will detect your NIC and has in-box drivers for it. If it doesn??™t do not try this.
In the ???My Network Places??? properties (right click on the desktop icon and choose properties), highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose ???Advanced??? then ???Advanced Settings???. Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK
1. From the windows XP cd in the support directory from the support cab, extract the file netcap.exe and place it in a directory on your hard drive or even in the root of your C: drive.
2. next, open up a command prompt window and change directories to where you put netcap.exe. then type ???netcap/????. It will list some commands that are available for netcap and a netmon driver will be installed. At the bottom you will see your adapters. You should see two of them if using a 3Com card. One will be for LAN and the other will be for WAN something or other.
3. Next type ???netcap/Remove???. This will remove the netmon driver.
4. Open up control panel / system / dev man and look at your network adapters. You should now see two of them and one will have a yellow ! on it. Right click on the one without the yellow ! and choose uninstall. YES! you are uninstalling your network adapter, continue with the uninstall. Do not restart yet.
5. Check your connection properties to make sure that no connection exists. If you get a wizard just cancel out of it.
6. Now re-start the machine.
7. After re-start go to your connection properties again and you should have a new connection called ???Local area connection 2″. Highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose ???Advanced??? then ???Advanced Settings???. Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK.
8. Choose connection properties and uncheck the ???QOS??? box
9. Re-start the machine
10. After restart enjoy the increased responsiveness of IE, faster page loading, and a connection speed boost.
Why it works, it seems that windows XP, in its zeal to make sure every base is covered installs two separate versions of the NIC card. One you do not normally see in any properties. Remember the ???netcap/???? command above showing two different adapters? The LAN one is the one you see. The invisible one loads everything down and its like your running two separate cards together, sharing a connection among two cards, this method breaks this ???bond??? and allows the NIC to run un-hindered.
In the ???My Network Places??? properties (right click on the desktop icon and choose properties), highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose ???Advanced??? then ???Advanced Settings???. Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK
1. From the windows XP cd in the support directory from the support cab, extract the file netcap.exe and place it in a directory on your hard drive or even in the root of your C: drive.
2. next, open up a command prompt window and change directories to where you put netcap.exe. then type ???netcap/????. It will list some commands that are available for netcap and a netmon driver will be installed. At the bottom you will see your adapters. You should see two of them if using a 3Com card. One will be for LAN and the other will be for WAN something or other.
3. Next type ???netcap/Remove???. This will remove the netmon driver.
4. Open up control panel / system / dev man and look at your network adapters. You should now see two of them and one will have a yellow ! on it. Right click on the one without the yellow ! and choose uninstall. YES! you are uninstalling your network adapter, continue with the uninstall. Do not restart yet.
5. Check your connection properties to make sure that no connection exists. If you get a wizard just cancel out of it.
6. Now re-start the machine.
7. After re-start go to your connection properties again and you should have a new connection called ???Local area connection 2″. Highlight the connection then at the menu bar choose ???Advanced??? then ???Advanced Settings???. Uncheck the two boxes in the lower half for the bindings for File and Printer sharing and Client for MS networks. Click OK.
8. Choose connection properties and uncheck the ???QOS??? box
9. Re-start the machine
10. After restart enjoy the increased responsiveness of IE, faster page loading, and a connection speed boost.
Why it works, it seems that windows XP, in its zeal to make sure every base is covered installs two separate versions of the NIC card. One you do not normally see in any properties. Remember the ???netcap/???? command above showing two different adapters? The LAN one is the one you see. The invisible one loads everything down and its like your running two separate cards together, sharing a connection among two cards, this method breaks this ???bond??? and allows the NIC to run un-hindered.
How to check which version your PC has
If a system has been patched in the past few months, the nine executables in Windows\System32 will either show an earlier version number, 7.0.6000.374, or the stealth patch: 7.0.6000.381. (The version numbers can be seen by right-clicking a file and choosing Properties. In XP, click the Version tab and then select File Version. In Vista, click the Details tab.)
In addition, PCs that received the update will have new executables in subfolders named 7.0.6000.381 under the following folders:
c:\Windows\System32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\wups.dll
c:\Windows\System32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\wups2.dll
Users can also verify whether patching occurred by checking Windows??™ Event Log:
Step 1. In XP, click Start, Run.
Step 2. Type eventvwr.msc and press Enter.
Step 3. In the tree pane on the left, select System.
Step 4. The right pane displays events and several details about them. Event types such as ???Installation??? are labeled in the Category column. ???Windows Update Agent??? is the event typically listed in the Source column for system patches.
In addition, PCs that received the update will have new executables in subfolders named 7.0.6000.381 under the following folders:
c:\Windows\System32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\wups.dll
c:\Windows\System32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\wups2.dll
Users can also verify whether patching occurred by checking Windows??™ Event Log:
Step 1. In XP, click Start, Run.
Step 2. Type eventvwr.msc and press Enter.
Step 3. In the tree pane on the left, select System.
Step 4. The right pane displays events and several details about them. Event types such as ???Installation??? are labeled in the Category column. ???Windows Update Agent??? is the event typically listed in the Source column for system patches.
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