Windows 7 for XP users – How to find your way around

For XP users who have skipped Vista and are either using the Windows 7 Beta or plan to migrate to 7 when it is released here is how to transition smoothly.

Navigating your way around could be a problem at first but once you know where to find things it’s not all that bad.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/win7forxpuserspart1.html

Windows XP Service Pack 3 – Part 3 “Installing SP3 Using Windows Update”

Part 3 was not planned but came about based on a question posted to one of the Microsoft Windows XP newsgroups.

For Parts 1 and 2 I manually downloaded the Windows XP Service Pack 3 .exe file named:(WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe) and used it to install SP3, skipping the more commonly used Microsoft Windows Update site

In part 3 of this series will identify where Windows Updates downloads the SP3 update files to on your hard drive and how much disk space does it really take to install SP3.

I will also cover what gets cleaned up during and after installing SP3, what is left behind on your hard drive, a trick on how to free up some drive space before you install SP3 and what you can safely delete after installing SP3 to gain back even more of that lost disk space.

At the end of this article I’ll make some suggestions on how to optimize your chances of installing SP3 successfully.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/windowsxpsp3p3pg1.html

How to optimize your chances of installing Windows XP SP3 successfully:

Verify that your disk drive has the free space required to install SP3:
I recommend at least 2GB for a PC that is fully loaded with applications. Use ‘Disk Cleanup’ to free up additional space on your hard drive.

Laptop users tip:
If your laptop is a few years old and only has a 20 or 30GB hard drive and you have been saving drive space by reducing the amount of space available for System Restore points, be aware that a during the installation of SP3 a new restore point will be created and the size of the restore point could exceed 850MB. So you may need to change your restore point setting to increase the space available for restore points.

Do not use the Windows Update web site

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/windowsxpsp3p3pg8.html

Slipstream and Install Windows XP Using SP3 – Two roads to success

For this article I will be creating two Windows XP SP3 slipstreamed CDs using AutoStreamer. The first CD will be created using a previously slipstreamed SP2 CD (that I originally created from a Windows XP Gold CD). The second CD will use my Windows XP Gold (the original release of XP and therefore has no service packs) as a starting point.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/slipstreamsp3.html

Windows XP Service Pack 3 – Part 2

Why was SP3 taking 12 minutes to shutdown:
As mentioned in Part 1, only a few small applications were installed on an otherwise clean machine. Below are the trouble shooting steps I took and the results which are somewhat surprising and puzzling.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/windowsxpsp3p2.html

Windows XP Service Pack 3 – Part 1

In this article I discuss the two different methods I used to install Service Pack 3 (SP3) and if the results are the same. The first method will use a clean install of Service Pack 2 (SP2) and then applying the security updates using Windows Update and then applying SP3. The second method will once again start with a clean install of SP2 and then I will immediately apply SP3 using the SP3 download file. A comparison of the files installed using both methods will then be made.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/windowsxpsp3p1.html

Your Internet Cable Service may be running at Half Speed

About 18 months ago I started receiving email notices from my internet cable service provider which mentioned that download speeds had been increased to 6.0Mbts. Being excited about this I decided to check my actual speed by using one of many web sites that test and report your speed. To my surprise my speed had actually gone down and not up. The best numbers I could get at any time of the day or night where about 2.2Mbts (Mega Bits Per Second), which is about one third of the advertised speed. I’ll include a list of several test sites at the bottom of this article.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/slowcablespeed.html

Is it safe to delete the $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$ folders

Example: C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB948881$
A number of people have asked this question. Most often in an attempt to reclaim some space on their hard drive. My standard answer is yes as outlined below.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/ntuninstall.html

Verizon Redirects Search Request (Updated July 29, 2008)

I recently switched my ISP to Verizon. Shortly thereafter I had a need to use one of my favorite software utilities Process Explorer. Basically PE has far better abilities than Windows Task manager when it comes seeing what processes are running on your PC and what application that process is associated with. I’m not going into the detail of Process Explorer’s features in this article just the recent problem I encountered with PE’s ability to allow you to select a process and then use PE’s built in web search to find what information is out there on the web about a process that you may not recognize.

Read the entire article: http://www.pagestart.com/verizonredirects.html