Recent Posts

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Living Room / Re: give sticky topics another background color!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 17, 2005, 03:58 AM »

I like the way this has worked out - much better and really clear ... excellent.

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 04:50 PM »

Thanks for letting me know .... now it's time for arm wrestling with Fred

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Living Room / Re: Partitioning hard drive - any point?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 04:48 PM »

Because the comparison is only done when data is written reading it is actually faster with RAID 1.

OK nuff said ... personally I think any speed difference for RAID 1 is going to be very marginal (either faster or slower). But you aren't going to get 2x, you don't get near that with RAID 0 ....

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Living Room / Re: Partitioning hard drive - any point?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 02:35 PM »

Err... smiley let me quote the page:
Quote
Advantages: Twice the Read transaction rate of single disks. 100% redundancy of data means no rebuild is necessary in case of a disk failure, just a copy to the replacement disk.

I still think it's good for home users - it's more safe and speeds things up and HDs are not that expensive anymore if you don't 'need' to buy the very latest model on the market to compete with friends or neighbors.

I think that website is wrong there.

The whole point of RAID 1 is data integrity not speed. As I understand it RAID 1 reads the whole file from both hard discs to confirm data integrity by comparing and writes to two to maintain a mirror copy. There is therefore no speed improvement since you read the data from one place. RAID 1 actually causes a minor degradation in speed because all data has to be read and compared from both drives. To improve speed there would need to be some very clever sharing of reading between the drives by random access to the files - this in itself would slow things down, and would provide no data integrity checking - which defeats the object of RAID 1. When you load a file from RAID 1 you want the system to tell you if there is a single bit difference between the two files - chunk loading from multiple sources would undermine this design principle.

RAID 0 (striping) gives speed improvement because when you save a file it is spread in chunks across all drives in the array so that it takes a fraction of the time to read and write the data because all discs can be accessed simultaneously. Even with this system speed improvements are limited. In theory a 2 drive striped array should be twice as fast as an equivalent single IDE drive, but a few years ago I took part in a speed test on the MSI website to compare theoretical to actual performance. If memory serves correctly RAID 0, the fastest for of RAID, only acheived about 1.6 x normal disc speed because of the overheads and extra cycles involved in addressing multiple drives and assembling data streams in memory.

RAID 0 is great for speed critical applications, but given that SATA drives are inherently fast there are very few situations where a home user would use RAID for this purpose. Even the most disc intensive real life processes would show very small improvement over a standard drive since disc access isn't the sole function of any program.

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Living Room / Re: Made me chuckle ... how's the upgrade Mouser ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 10:57 AM »

The forum seems to be working fine to me. Haven't checked the rest of the site yet.

Seems a tad quicker too ...

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Living Room / Re: Partitioning hard drive - any point?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 10:56 AM »

Err, you seems to be confusing RAID 1 with another RAID: http://www.bytepile....om/raid_class.php#02
I like my RAID 1 a lot

-brotherS (October 16, 2005, 06:18 AM)

No that is exactly what I was thinking ...

RAID 0 (Striping) is great for faster access as two or more drives are used simulatneously to spread the reading/writing. Trouble is the way that is acheived varies from controller to controller (even within a manufacturer) and so a hardware failre in the RAID interface could render your array unrecoverable. A single error on any one of the discs could similarly do likewise.

RAID 1 (Mirroring) is great but it requires two drives to store one data set which is saved to both. This is great if you like to guard against drive failure, but that is quite expensive for home users because you use two drives to effectively do the job of one! If you like this security great - but there is no performance benefit over a normal single drive.

I suppose the best solution is RAID 0+1 where you have both - but then you really need 4 (or more) discs to benefit since half the discs are used in RAID 0 mode, and the other half produce a security mirror. It gives you speed benefit and security but at a price!

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Living Room / Made me chuckle ... how's the upgrade Mouser ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 05:04 AM »

http://news.yahoo.co.../cx_zi_uc/zi20051016

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Finished Programs / Re: Fun games from Mikes Software Co

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 04:59 AM »

Thanks for the nice comments ... no I haven't heard of Nine Morris Men ... how does that work?

I have found this web version but there don't seem to be any rules ....

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Living Room / Re: Partitioning hard drive - any point?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 16, 2005, 04:54 AM »

Partitioning has numerous benefits, and a few pitfalls:

1) PageFile ... if you stick it in a separate partition on the same volume as windows it can slow down your system - constant seeking backwards and forwards across the drive introduces delays - especially if the partitions are separated by a large distance. A separate pagefile on a separate partition works much better and increases system throughput. If you have standard drives and a striped array putting your system on the RAID array can make a big difference to.

-CarolHaynes (October 15, 2005, 05:10 AM)

Yes, you should use a tiny partition next to the OS partition.

-brotherS (October 16, 2005, 03:44 AM)

If you onlyhvae one physical hard disc this is true, if you have two or more then putting it on a completely separate hard disc is much better as you can access your page file and other system files simultaneously. Same is true for Linux Swap partitions.

2) Separating system and data makes backing up less of a chore - you only need to backup the system occasionally, and you data can easily be backed up regularly. A tool such as Acronis TrueImage is good for this sort of thing as you can schedule regular incremental backups which are really quick. A seperate har disc is good for this - but don't use RAID for backups, they will be more easily damaged in a hardware failure and may be totally unrecoverable. As drives get bigger and bigger it is becoming essential to plan for backups otherwise they become so unwieldly that they are never done!

RAID is PERFECT, be it for backups or not If you want to be on the safe side you just should use RAID 1, no risk there
Too bad Acronis True Image seems to not recognize RAID controllers for backup purposes

RAID 0 is FAR from perfect for backups. If anything goes wrong at all with your system you stand to lose everything on a RAID 0 system as it is very difficult to retrieve RAID 0. With a backup on a standard IDE or SATA disc you can simply move it to another computer, so long as it isn't your backup disc that is damaged. With RAID 0 you would probably have to have an identical RAID controller - and given lots of systems now have integrated RAID controllers this is unlikely to be possible (unless you can find an old motherboard identical to your own).

RAID 1 is fine, but it costs twice as much and has no speed benefits whatsoever so for consumer level systems it seems a bit like overkill!

Strange Acronis recognises my RAID controller ???

3) I also move Temporary file folders and Temporary Internet files to a separate partition. These are quicker to access (esp. if they are on a separate volume) and easier to clean out when you want to. They also reduce fragmentation on the system drive.

I see no need for doing so, instead I recommend the great CCleaner!

The main benefit in my system is I have one PageFile and one Temporary file cache for all my Windows installations - that saves quite a lot of space.

As I said though it is still a good idea because it really reduces fragmentation on your system drive. System files and programs are constantly writing stuff to your Windows drive, and if Temp/Web caching is also stored on that drive everything competes for space and is interleaved on the disc. Files rapidly become fragmented and deleting small files means that new larger files are instantly fragments. Keeping Temp/Cache files away from C: allows Windows to manage its space better on Drive C: so that when I run a defrag program (PerfectDisc) I find that the majority of the disc (labelled infrequently accessed in PerfectDisc) have not fragmented at all, and only directories and recently written files need any defragging at all. This is one of the reasons I moved from DiskKeeper back to PerfectDisc as it consolidates all the rarely modified files in one place on the disc, decreasing access time and reducing defrag time.

4) I run separate multibooting Windows installations (in neighbouring partitions) for some specific applications. For example, video and audio editing can really benefit from having a clean system with a minimal extras installed (not even networking/internet access).

I fully believe you, but personally I prefer to boot my system only every few weeks

I'm afraid I switch my machine off when I go to bed - I already feel a bit guilty leaving it on all day (even when I am not sitting at it - but I believe there are sound hardware reasons for that) because of the growing cost to the environment and global warming (not to mention the UKs ridiculous fuel costs - inc. electricity). I have even started to unplug my TV/DVD/Video etc. unless I am leaving it to record something - did you know these appliances all use 80% power in standby mode!

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Living Room / Re: Want to wet my beak with Linux,need suggestions on distro.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2005, 03:35 PM »

Linux tends to be behind the times with hardware, and because it is OpenSource it doesn't seem to matter too much which distro you use.

If you have broadband why not download a few basic distros and try them before deciding?

RedHat is probably the most widely used distro for business and I have tried SUSE with some success.

I tried numerous versions of Mandrake and found there was always a problem getting something installed - usually networking and/or printers.

I can't say any are easy to get working if something doesn't install properly but I had best success with SUSE.

I don't know about other people around here but I have had numerous attempts to use Linux over the years but always find myself back with Windows to run software I want/need that just isn't available for Linux - or only has limited support. I know there are Windows runtime packages for Linux, but to me it seems to defeat the point if you are trying to run Windows software on Linux!!

Also support for NTFS filing system is pretty shonky in most Linux distros (or was last time I looked) and ReiserFS is not supported in Windows so there is little easy cross over of data.

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Living Room / Re: What did your first computer's hardware consist of ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2005, 03:15 PM »

Sinclair ZX81 ... 1Kb of memory ;-) Most progs had to be written in machine code and 'poked' byte by byte into memory!!

A good computer was the BBC Micro - 32Kb of memory and 100Kb or 200Kb floppy discs but you could still desktop publish and run MIDI music systems.

A remember managing a Prime MiniComputer System with 25 terminals. Had rather lower abilities than even Pentium III processor though, and only 4Mb of memory! Still managed to teach with all the major languages of the day (inc. C, Basic, Pascal, COBOL) and all the usual apps running concurrently.

Computers have come a long way - but surprisingly what can be done hasn't improved as greatly - it is just a bit simpler to achieve !!

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Living Room / Re: Partitioning hard drive - any point?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2005, 05:10 AM »

Partitioning has numerous benefits, and a few pitfalls:

1) PageFile ... if you stick it in a separate partition on the same volume as windows it can slow down your system - constant seeking backwards and forwards across the drive introduces delays - especially if the partitions are separated by a large distance. A separate pagefile on a separate partition works much better and increases system throughput. If you have standard drives and a striped array putting your system on the RAID array can make a big difference to.

2) Separating system and data makes backing up less of a chore - you only need to backup the system occasionally, and you data can easily be backed up regularly. A tool such as Acronis TrueImage is good for this sort of thing as you can schedule regular incremental backups which are really quick. A seperate har disc is good for this - but don't use RAID for backups, they will be more easily damaged in a hardware failure and may be totally unrecoverable. As drives get bigger and bigger it is becoming essential to plan for backups otherwise they become so unwieldly that they are never done!

3) I also move Temporary file folders and Temporary Internet files to a separate partition. These are quicker to access (esp. if they are on a separate volume) and easier to clean out when you want to. They also reduce fragmentation on the system drive.

4) I run separate multibooting Windows installations (in neighbouring partitions) for some specific applications. For example, video and audio editing can really benefit from having a clean system with a minimal extras installed (not even networking/internet access). They can share PageFile partitions and Temp folders with the other installations, reducing the overheads. I also find Adobe apps, such as PhotoShop, really appreciate a faster clean environment - and given most of these use scratch discs it is worth giving them their own partition for scratch work too. Adobe scratch disks should not be on the same volume as PageFile though.

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Official Announcements / Re: Web site may act insane for a little bit

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 15, 2005, 02:56 AM »

We'll all start praying for the forum .... 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Getting ready to fresh install of Windows,concerned about activation scheme.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2005, 09:59 AM »

If you haven't activated WindowsXP Pro in the last 90 days then there will be no problem. The activation systems resets every 90 days so it should just be a case of online activate (about 3 mouse clicks).

If it is less than 90 days then you will probably be OK, but if you have installed more than once in the last 90 days you will probably have to phone MS. It is a toll free call and it takes a few minutes btuit shouldn't be a problem.

I have activated my copy of Windows about 10 times now, last times 4 times in one day - and it never caused any problems!

When I activated 4 times in one day I installed 4 copies side by sude on my computer. I called the activation line and they activated three copies at once for me when I explained what I was doing!

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Why Miranda might blow you away (do you use IRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google.tal

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2005, 08:39 AM »

Thanks, I'll carry on playing ...

The link now works - must have been a site glitch

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2005, 06:51 AM »

Trying Miranda - your link doesn't work by the way (either page doesn't display or I am told connection was refused).

It is certainly minimalistic - perhaps a bit too much for me, but it is nice to have different networks in one interface.

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2005, 03:49 AM »

Take a look at the free FastStone Image Viewer here: http://fileforum.bet.../detail/1106292852/1 It has LOTS of great options, including easy image editing. WOW! It's better than ACDSee IMHO... just install it and move the mouse cursor to all 4 desktop borders in fullscreen mode! I love that! 

-brotherS (October 13, 2005, 03:21 AM)

I don't really use ACDSee that often these days. I find their Canon RAW handling sucks (colours even with colour management are awful). Trouble is I have so many different viewers installed that I really don't want/need any more ... I'll take a look though.

I don't know if remote controls are supported too but everyone with a Creative soundcard should know about http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/intro.php - way better drivers with way better options.

I have tried kxproject a number of times on various cards and keep coming back to Creative's own drivers (even though they are a bloat fest and usually full of bugs). KX never seems to support all the options of these cards - there is always a long list of things still to be implemented.

Now that I have various devices which link into the same software suite I am reluctant to try different drivers (esp. as digital rights management is an issue).

If you don't need those 'kiddy features' you may want to try Miranda for Yahoo, IRC and stuff - see my signature

Trouble is I have few friends who only use Yahoo (and won't swap). Plus my ISP (BT Broadband) allows free phone calls via a plugin for Yahoo Messenger called BTCommunicator.

Actually I suspect it is that plugin that is causing all the hassle!

Cheers

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Finished Programs / Re: Next Big Coding Snacks Weekend October 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2005, 03:36 AM »

Howdy lanux. Interesting. I learnt my variant from my grandfather, he called the game pennies and nickels. I've seen it included with pegboard type games as well. Nothing new under the sun it would seem. Thanks for sharing.

-Mikes Software Co (October 11, 2005, 12:46 AM)

I used to teach outdoor eduction, and this was a puzzle I used to do with kids using carpet tiles.

I have also seen a version called Frogs (jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad).

Many years ago I coded (though goodness knows where it is) a 'Towers of Hanoi' puzzle which you may want to add to your collection:

Three posts and a pile of tyres on one of them. The tyres are different sizes stacked largest on the bottom to smallest on the top. The puzzle is to move all the tyres to another pole with the rules: you can only move one at a time, you cannot put a larger tyre on a smaller tyre. Different numbers of tyres make the puzzle easier and harder. An extension is can you predict the minimum number of moves possible for any number of tyres ...

Here is an online Java vased version  and if you want the mathematical background to the problem click here (but don't cheat - see if you can work it out

Again this is a good physical puzzle - especially if a group of kids have to do it in silence!

Another classic one is Nim ... see here for an online Java version (seems to work best in Internet Explorer)

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 13, 2005, 02:57 AM »

OK to prove a point I have been doing some experimenting.

I did a full system backup (using Acronis TrueImage 9) and also a full registry backup so that I can do an instant restore of all registry settings if things go reall pear shaped, I also added a system restore point.

I now ran jv16Power Tools 2005 registry cleaner. I used aggressive mode (simply because the only difference between the normal mode and aggressive is it looks at ActiveX controls).

As I said it found over 1400 High risk errors and quite a few of lower priority. This reflects the amount of installing and uninstalling I think more than anything else.

Deep breath - hit FIX and wait for a bout 10 minutes while it chunters about.

Reboot - and run jv16 PowerTools again - no further errors (which was impressive).

Everything at first sight appears to work fine and maybe marginally quick boot up.

I now ran a registry defragmenter (included in Resplendent Registrar). This reduces the size of the registry by removing space previously used by now deleted entries and does a bit of reorganisation to make the registry access more efficient.

Reboot again - definitely an increase in boot speed, and system seems a bit ore responsive. In particular an annoying glitch where Windows Explorer would occasionally go into dormant mode for a few seconds seems to have disappeared.

I have now been running the system for a couple of days and have been quite impressed that there have been no crashes. And I have been very good and not installed anything much new.

Now any gotchas .....

Surprisingly few, but so far these are problems I have found ...

• I could not link to websites from within OutlookXP any longer. annoying but not life threatening. I ran Office Detect and Repair and that got things working again
• I couldn't change my default browser to Internet Explorer or Firefox ... hmmm
• ACDSee PowerPack 7 started behaving oddly (I noticed there were lots of entries in the faults list). A repair install (from Add/Remove programs) fixed the problems.
• I have a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Pro soundcard setup. The sound still works OK but the remote control no longer works and some of the controls on the external module are behaving oddly. Also links to my Creative Zen Micro MP3 player have become unstable. Fixed by running the webupdate for my creative hardware at their website. This involved over 140Mb of download and about an hour of clicking installation boxes as 19 packages were reinstalled from scratch.
• All extra keyboard buttons ceased to function (I have an MS Internet Keyboard with a row of extra function specific buttons)
• Various things have gone missing from my add/remove programs applet ... notably Microsoft IntelliType and IntelliPoint software which won't reinstall until it has first been removed - which I can't do. Luckily I wasn't running the latest versions so I simply installed the latest version which overwrote the current drivers and reinstall the missing applet entries
• Yahoo Messenger keeps crashing on startup - I have reinstalled it but it is still behaving badly, not sure how to fix this yet.

I haven't noticed anything else yet (but it is early days).

So far what I have experienced have been little more than minor niggles but if some drivers (keyboard/mouse) have been visibly affected what might be going on in the background?

Should I restore my backup to mitigate against future problems. I'm not too sure at the moment ... I am going to give it a while.

Any further cleaning related problems I will report back.

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Living Room / Re: Website for Cats!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 12, 2005, 05:01 PM »

Well my cat hate it (or at least feign total indifference).

They do however like my RSPB Wildbirds DVDROM, and bird videos !!!

They actually quite enjoyed Garfield The Movie too

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Living Room / Ham fisted cleaning ....

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 12, 2005, 07:33 AM »

I have just spent an hour cleaning my computer.

One of the joys of having cats is the volumes of fur that collect around the house (and my person).

I had noticed my CPU was running hotter than usual and figured it was time for a clean out. What I hadn't banked on was pratically an entire cat hiding inside!

If you are like me your computer looks a bit like a porcupine with bits of wire poking out all around, so the first thing I did was get some sticky labels and label all the cables so that the connectors all went back in the correct places - last time I took the system apart I forgot to do this and quite a few USB devices decided they needed new drivers. This time I was prepared!!!

'De-quilled' the box was taken to the kitchen and all external covers taken off result ...  not being able to breathe for the dust and volume of cat hair setting all over me, the worktop and the floor.

Every possible crack in the case, and vent hole was completely encrusted with grot. I started with the case parts and a sponge and got all that clean. Next step inside ...

All the drives were removed and dusted with kitchen towl. The front fan casing (I don't have a front fan) was removed and the furry creature in there removed. Then the front filter (yes there was a filter - not that you could se it!) dusted and blown through.

I then set about around the motherboard and plugin cards and the floor of the box with a vacuum cleaner. Yes I know they can produce static but I earthed myself and kept one hand on the components being sucked at.

The case fans and PSU fan were clogged up and they had to be removed to clean manually (guess who forgot to note which way round they fitted!). The CPU fan was also dusty but I was shocked at the amount of crud that had found its way in between the heatsking fins.

And so all sparkly and clean I put everything back together ... realising I hadn't labelled my 7.1 surround sound speaker cables - trial and error time at low volume!

Plug in switch on and look at the temperature (using SpeedFan). the CPU started to get warmer, warmer , warmer .... When it reached 65C I thought I had better have a look, slid of the case side and the CPU fan wasn't going around.

From past experience I new this sometimes happened if you over tighten the screws when refitting so I got out a screwdriver and loosened each screw a tiny amount. The fan started - but I caught it with the screwdriver tip. Next thing there were fan blades lying on the floor ...

As luck happens I had an old heatsink and fan for an ancient PIII so I canibalised that for the fan. It was a different size, but I have managed to rig it temporarily and seems to work OK.

Net result ...

• Clean computer 
• CPU running temperature down by 10-12C (even with a dodgy fan) 
• Knackered fan 
• Bill for new fan 
• Feeling stupid 

Oh well you live and learn.

Since I am ordering a fan, I have decided to splash out an extra £8 (about $12US) on a couple of silent case fans - so now I can have a front fan pumping air into the case and and new silent fan pumping air out of the back, plus a super high speed (but quiet) replacement fan for my CPU !!

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 12, 2005, 03:39 AM »

That's very, very strange! It's rated 4.6/5 on http://fileforum.bet...gSeeker/1035382760/1 for a reason.

I never had a problem, using the options you see below and, as you said, it automatically creates backups. I convinced hundreds of newbies (no kidding) to try it and only one had a problem. Turned out later his PC was totally malware-infested (plus he had nasty problems before), so I don't blame RegSeeker at all.

-brotherS (October 12, 2005, 02:30 AM)

One of the problems is there cannot be a truly automatic way to clean the registry without some unknown effects.

Some software adds registry entries that appear to be wrong - these will be deleted by most registry cleaners on automatic, breaking in the application.

Some software adds dummy registry entries that appear to be obsolete - if deleted you will at best possibly lose your application settings and at worst stop the software working.

Every cleaner I have tried on automatic tries to fix missing files by searching your hard discs for them ... this can lead to all sorts of unexpected results - examples:

* one silly example is linking to missing "readme" files and help files.

* A brilliant example of this was when I double booted my system with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 a few years ago. The cleaner I was using (Norton Utilities IIRC) did a beautiful job of finding lots of missing files in my W2k system. Trouble was it linked all the missing files to W98 versions - took me ages to work out what the heck was going on.

* Another example is I have a piece of software which has a bug in the installer in that a file reference has a spelling mistake. I know this to be the case and edit the entry manually after the app is installed. Any cleaner would simply remove the "missing file entry" rendering the software completely unusable.

* Some of the most widely used software uses the registry in unorthodox ways ... MS Office is a prime example where it installs all sorts of links and dummies into the registry for addons and extras to latch onto when installed. You only find these problems when you try and use them - this may not be for weeks or months and the problem won't be associated with radical registry cleaning. I once had to do a complete format and reinstall of my system because of this as it broke MS Office 2000's installation functions - stopping me from installing, repairing or uninstalling Office at all.

NO registry cleaner is (or can be) perfect in automatic mode. You may not have experienced problems (in which case you are very lucky in my experience) or, more likely, you may have only experienced the problems some time later and lost the association with registry cleaning.

Granted having good backups (even just of the registry tweaks you have made) makes cleaning safer and reversible.

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 12, 2005, 03:21 AM »

Any recommendations on what to use (preferably donationware and EASY to figure out how to use) for doing hard drive backup? I admit that I am guilty of never doing back ups in windows. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

-rrtwister (October 11, 2005, 08:22 PM)

See https://www.donation...ckUpGuide/index.html

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Registry Cleaning Software

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2005, 07:14 PM »

A better link to Fred's article (avoids formatting problems in Firefox) is http://www.informati...?articleID=171203805

I must say I have abused my system with many registry cleaners over the years and have had many sad tales and total reinstalls as a result.

Golden rules I would use for registry cleaners are:

• Full system backup (preferably an easily restored image type) before using a cleaner - then when your system won't reboot you can get back to square one quickly.
• Only use a cleaner that has a built in backup and restore utility to manage changes made
• NEVER use automatic fixing - if you use Custom Fix settings and look at some of the suggestions for automatic fixing you will soon find out why

I really respect Fred Langa (if you haven't subscribed to his newsletter you should, www.langa.com) but Registry Cleaners are to be used with extreme caution.

Fred comes down in favour of one tool in the article (jv16 PowerTools) and this is a very good tool which as he points out has the merit of consistency. However even this one has its limitations - be prepared to spend a long time checking its Custom Fix options, especially if you haven't cleaned your system for a while and enjoy installing and unistalling programs a lot.

My bad instalation/uninstall habits meant when I ran jv16PT I have over 1400 High Risk registry errors. Closer inspection showed huge numbers of missing files (most of which turned out to be applications recording recently access files) - many of which did not need fixing, and some of the suggested fixes would silently have introduced very odd effects in my system.

Out of curiosity I backed up my system, and also did a quick full registry backup so thatI could just restore the registry if my system booted but exhibited odd behaviour. I then ran jv16PT and just hit fix. The first odd effect I noticed was that I could no longer click on URLs in programs and get them to open in a browser window !!!

FWIW use ... but with caution, and extremely conservatively!

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Living Room / Re: Who said life isn't fun ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2005, 11:17 AM »

too ...