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Dear lord, I bought a PC
- Thread starter thechidz
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KítscheñÇinqµe
macrumors regular
go back to xp (or 2k) if you have it. (what i've read
vista needs 4gb to do anything heavy (seems an exaggeration, but...). but meanwhile, 32bit win os is limited to slightly higher than 3gb. So quality 3d rendering (or vid editing?) would be somnambulent (? subjective i suppose). OTOH, you can do a lot of modern stuff on xp with 512mb, 1ghz ("single core").
Partition the drive and reinstall Windows. Avoid installing anything in "program files"., because space char in path sometimes causes headaches (for other apps or batch). So in general, avoid the space char in any folder name.
setup backup or imaging (or raid?)
Turn off the "eyecandy" (doh). more: http://www.google.com/search?q=XP+Tweaks+Guide+Explorer+|+Desktop+|+Control
http://www.google.com/search?q=+Bes...owPost+|+inurl:lofiversion+|+~Phpbb+|+Forums+
msfn.org, neowin.net/forum/
Prophyllaxis: limited user might work on vista. (limited user doesn't work well on xp, ime).
Connect to broadband thru a spi router. disable upnp cuz it's useless. (you should already be doing this.)
KIS (av+firewall) is about the best. 3seat KIS is FAR (free after rebate) including "competitive upgrade" rebate. else, $30 or $40 with regular rebate.
if children and other naives will not access your computer, then freeware is lighter:
Avira AV (includes some rootkit scan, can be set more paranoid, need to kill the nag), Alwil Avast.
A whole bunch of free app firewalls. Kerio2.15 is popular (begin with import of Bz ruleset from dslreports). Jetico 1 is supposed to be good. unfortunately it's tortuously bewildering (though iirc, i eventually got it settled down even while torrenting. also i've read that torrenting makes some firewalls use lots of cpu, etc.)
I've not yet tried Winpatrol, but it seems to be unique.
if mail app lacks filtering, use k9 or other.
(Proxomitron+) privoxy+tor when desired.
Some people use separate ids/hips. i have not tried them. You can run spyware s&d or adaware se (update the defs manually), but they've never found anything on my computers.
Proxomitron w/sidki or grypen (don't know of any other maintained full sets).
AumHa/mvps, HOSTS file manager (your choice)
Don't use IE. But other apps will use parts of ie, so open "internet options" (inetcpl.cpl). Review the settings for "restricted sites". Imitate those when resetting "internet zone" (i also reset the "trusted zone" to almost the same level).
Browser: Shutoff java, cookies-by-default, and other standard silliness in whatever browser you use.
FF3 (mozillazine), opera9(newserver or google), kmeleon(sfnet km forum) are best, ime, but i want to try safari someday...
Can get Portable versions of all 3. You may like Noscript with FF. FF does smoother major upgrades. KM has the older (better) type of moz "general" cookie settings. Opera has image toggle and convenient per-site settings, dragndrop crippled. Overall, you choose convenience vs hardware usage.
Either 1) use the win updater (set to notify, so you know why firewall pops up). 2) or IE to the winupdates site (put the domain into trusted zone, if it is not there by default?), or 3) use belarc advisor.
Brute-force resistant passwords. (google: Years Brute-Force Password)
wilderssecurity, castlecops
services.msc
Check task manager or procexp for possible bloat. Run hijackthis.
Choose services depending on your hardware (lan or not, etc or not). Research: 1) google for guides, eg famous: blackviper.com/Articles/OS/OSguides.htm, blackviper.com/WinXP/customREG_Home.php#Custom_Home
2) Make list of running services to open in browser for swipe'n'google:make then run this "shortcut"
Target: %Windir%\system32\cmd.exe /k net start>>%HomeDrive%\CmdSvc%date%%ComputerName%.Lst &echo.%date%_%time%_%ComputerName%>>%HomeDrive%\CmdSvc%date%%ComputerName%.Lst &explorer.exe /e,%HomeDrive%&Exit
Start in: %WinDir%
( I found that, but may have embellished...)
Set many "useless" services to Disable or Manual.
Check urls in paragraph by "justsayin'" tech.yahoo.com/qa/How-can-I-improve-my-PC's-performance-/20070815064141AAsa23X
Tweaks taster: pctools.com/guides/registry/
Best freeware/oss apps: snapfiles, betanews, softpedia, acf/pricelessware, nonags, and GOOGLE
Email seems inherently pita. i keep returning to oe6. Koma, Popcorn, and another (I forget) look "promising", but will likely disappoint if i get round to trying. "Choose your poison".
others, unique +|or all round best:
Irfanview (basic raster edits, views|plays almost all formats thru plugins)
Isobuster (LFWV, aka "Last Freeware Version")
ImgBurn (cd/dvd)
EruNT, NTRegOpt
files:
Agent Ransack (regex find files)
7zip
WinMerge
Doublekiller
fsum
Foxit (pdf)
PdfCreator
other net:
Wget (or your choice)
text editors (your choice)
TopStyleLite
CseLite
browser addons/ext/custom ini
btw, i'd like to find similar info for noobz running os 8, os9, and (someday) for osx (and, do OS 10.1 thru 10.5 vary enough to cause their basic security/cfg guide to vary?)
Finally, send me a few hundred dollars for saving you months of research and (some) of your experimentation
vista needs 4gb to do anything heavy (seems an exaggeration, but...). but meanwhile, 32bit win os is limited to slightly higher than 3gb. So quality 3d rendering (or vid editing?) would be somnambulent (? subjective i suppose). OTOH, you can do a lot of modern stuff on xp with 512mb, 1ghz ("single core").Partition the drive and reinstall Windows. Avoid installing anything in "program files"., because space char in path sometimes causes headaches (for other apps or batch). So in general, avoid the space char in any folder name.
setup backup or imaging (or raid?)
Turn off the "eyecandy" (doh). more: http://www.google.com/search?q=XP+Tweaks+Guide+Explorer+|+Desktop+|+Control
http://www.google.com/search?q=+Bes...owPost+|+inurl:lofiversion+|+~Phpbb+|+Forums+
msfn.org, neowin.net/forum/
Prophyllaxis: limited user might work on vista. (limited user doesn't work well on xp, ime).
Connect to broadband thru a spi router. disable upnp cuz it's useless. (you should already be doing this.)
KIS (av+firewall) is about the best. 3seat KIS is FAR (free after rebate) including "competitive upgrade" rebate. else, $30 or $40 with regular rebate.
if children and other naives will not access your computer, then freeware is lighter:
Avira AV (includes some rootkit scan, can be set more paranoid, need to kill the nag), Alwil Avast.
A whole bunch of free app firewalls. Kerio2.15 is popular (begin with import of Bz ruleset from dslreports). Jetico 1 is supposed to be good. unfortunately it's tortuously bewildering (though iirc, i eventually got it settled down even while torrenting. also i've read that torrenting makes some firewalls use lots of cpu, etc.)
I've not yet tried Winpatrol, but it seems to be unique.
if mail app lacks filtering, use k9 or other.
(Proxomitron+) privoxy+tor when desired.
Some people use separate ids/hips. i have not tried them. You can run spyware s&d or adaware se (update the defs manually), but they've never found anything on my computers.
Proxomitron w/sidki or grypen (don't know of any other maintained full sets).
AumHa/mvps, HOSTS file manager (your choice)
Don't use IE. But other apps will use parts of ie, so open "internet options" (inetcpl.cpl). Review the settings for "restricted sites". Imitate those when resetting "internet zone" (i also reset the "trusted zone" to almost the same level).
Browser: Shutoff java, cookies-by-default, and other standard silliness in whatever browser you use.
FF3 (mozillazine), opera9(newserver or google), kmeleon(sfnet km forum) are best, ime, but i want to try safari someday...
Can get Portable versions of all 3. You may like Noscript with FF. FF does smoother major upgrades. KM has the older (better) type of moz "general" cookie settings. Opera has image toggle and convenient per-site settings, dragndrop crippled. Overall, you choose convenience vs hardware usage.
Either 1) use the win updater (set to notify, so you know why firewall pops up). 2) or IE to the winupdates site (put the domain into trusted zone, if it is not there by default?), or 3) use belarc advisor.
Brute-force resistant passwords. (google: Years Brute-Force Password)
wilderssecurity, castlecops
services.msc
Check task manager or procexp for possible bloat. Run hijackthis.
Choose services depending on your hardware (lan or not, etc or not). Research: 1) google for guides, eg famous: blackviper.com/Articles/OS/OSguides.htm, blackviper.com/WinXP/customREG_Home.php#Custom_Home
2) Make list of running services to open in browser for swipe'n'google:make then run this "shortcut"
Target: %Windir%\system32\cmd.exe /k net start>>%HomeDrive%\CmdSvc%date%%ComputerName%.Lst &echo.%date%_%time%_%ComputerName%>>%HomeDrive%\CmdSvc%date%%ComputerName%.Lst &explorer.exe /e,%HomeDrive%&Exit
Start in: %WinDir%
( I found that, but may have embellished...)
Set many "useless" services to Disable or Manual.
Check urls in paragraph by "justsayin'" tech.yahoo.com/qa/How-can-I-improve-my-PC's-performance-/20070815064141AAsa23X
Tweaks taster: pctools.com/guides/registry/
Best freeware/oss apps: snapfiles, betanews, softpedia, acf/pricelessware, nonags, and GOOGLE
Email seems inherently pita. i keep returning to oe6. Koma, Popcorn, and another (I forget) look "promising", but will likely disappoint if i get round to trying. "Choose your poison".
others, unique +|or all round best:
Irfanview (basic raster edits, views|plays almost all formats thru plugins)
Isobuster (LFWV, aka "Last Freeware Version")
ImgBurn (cd/dvd)
EruNT, NTRegOpt
files:
Agent Ransack (regex find files)
7zip
WinMerge
Doublekiller
fsum
Foxit (pdf)
PdfCreator
other net:
Wget (or your choice)
text editors (your choice)
TopStyleLite
CseLite
browser addons/ext/custom ini
btw, i'd like to find similar info for noobz running os 8, os9, and (someday) for osx (and, do OS 10.1 thru 10.5 vary enough to cause their basic security/cfg guide to vary?)
Finally, send me a few hundred dollars for saving you months of research and (some) of your experimentation
The way it goes, if I had the cash to get the PC hardware I would like (HP Blackbird) I would. If I could get it past the wife as well.
Nothing wrong with the Mac counter parts, but the gear head in me doesn't mind that amazing power that PC machines do have. The only thing I would need to do is find a reason to have all of that power... since all of my media stuff is done on the Mac, and I don't game that much.
p.s. CS4 may have be dumping FCS2, so just maybe....
Nothing wrong with the Mac counter parts, but the gear head in me doesn't mind that amazing power that PC machines do have. The only thing I would need to do is find a reason to have all of that power... since all of my media stuff is done on the Mac, and I don't game that much.
p.s. CS4 may have be dumping FCS2, so just maybe....
Don't waste your money on EFIX. The same thing is available for free, and its actually EASIER than efix. Its called Boot-132-Chameleon and it lets you insert a retail OSX dvd and install OSX exactly the same way as EFIX, except its not limited to certain motherboards.
hmmm, a little too complicated for dumb ole me
but hopefully someone will make an easy GUI and I'll be all over this
It wasn't much better, but in many ways it was better. It has multiple user support, the keychain (a first), software update and a pretty decent system wide search tool in Sherlock. It also had disc burning utilities built in and improved overall stability on OS 8. It was well regarded at the time. It served the very useful purpose of giving users a solid classic system to make the transition to OS X.Yes because we all know Mac OS9, which was ME's competitor, was so much better
ME was a poor product. Most people were wither better of sticking with 98, trying 2000 or waiting for XP.
Even Microsoft poke fun of ME. From the XP transition site:
Completely agree with this one Win 2000 was an exceptional piece of work.
You shouldn't telling us, go to confession.
Here we are a bit more harsh ...
hahaha so funny
no seriously, enjoy your purchase man
who cares if it's not a mac, just enjoy your new baby
while i like this method as i use it personally, there is most definitely motherboard limitations lol.
so far the things I dont like:
windows mail doesn't seem to work
downloading things needed to make flash sites work properly hasnt worked as easy as it does in osx, for instance havent been able to utilize mlb.com yet
windows mail doesn't seem to work
downloading things needed to make flash sites work properly hasnt worked as easy as it does in osx, for instance havent been able to utilize mlb.com yet
Check your port and encryption settings.
It's a self installing package. Just like OS X.
I believe that Internet Explorer and Mozilla use different plug-in repositories as well. If you install one version of it, it won't work in the other browser. There's also a self test that launches after installing Flash that takes you to an Adobe website that confirms a successful installation.
Since it's Vista make sure you run as administrator.
that worked but for some reason my work IMAP email address doesnt have an inbox, lol. it only has my other folders. weird
EDIT: nm, figured it out.
I dont think its flash that isnt working. its something else. the pictures are all there but the scoreboard on the left side dont show up and gameday doesnt work
and actually video isnt working either
edit: ok so I guess Ill have to use explorer because it works on that, not ff or safari though
First thing you do is put linux on it, leave a small windows partition or add a second drive for those things that you just need windows for, Im sure there will be something. Seriously though save yourself the headaches and use windows as little as possible.
Seriously though save yourself the headaches and use windows as little as possible.
I've had more headaches with Linux than I've ever had with Windows
regular defrag, I highly recommend Diskeeper, a good free Anti-Virus is Avast, also recommended. I also defrag the registry, but I don't recommend YOU go there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vista Defrags its self on a scheduled basis. Eliminating the need to buy software for it.
Just downgrade to Windows ME, then you will have the world's greatest computer.
I'm using Windows ME now... and have been for nearly 8 years.
