Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion (
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cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:07:45 -0400, "!:?)" <No@Spam.Com> wrote:
>
>>Richard G. Harper wrote:
>
>
>>>Tip #1 is so full of holes that you could drive a truck through it.
>
>
>>Really, they why not explain how, or you don't know and are just Trolling ?
>
>
> Maybe he doesn't have time to write a book?
And maybe he has to brush up on his social skills !
>
>>Simply
>>
>>>backing up the Registry and your Favorites doesn't do anything about
>>>programs or data
>
>
>>WRONG !
>
>
> No, he's right in that while some apps may be OK, not all apps would
> be. That is NOT enough to ensure survival after wiping C:
In over 15 years and several Computers NEVER had a problem with any
program not running or missing !!!
And I got this Idea from Microsoft's Data Base !
>
>>You don't know what the Registry is or what it does do you ?
>
>
> The registry is just one of several face huggers that may prevent
> programs written for Windows from working when their subdirs are
> copied from one system to another. As these face hugger dependencies
> force reliance on pre-install forms of the software and makes opiracy
> more difficult, don't expect sware vandors to do anything to fix this.
>
>>Tell me how the OS knows the Path to your Installed Programs and Data !
>>Lets see,... could it be the REGISTRY ?
>
>
> The app need a lot more than to "know the path to programs and data",
> but since you ask, a number of strategies may be involved:
> - registry AppPaths or private reigstry settings
> - settings in private .ini files that may be in %WinDir%
> - shortcut properties, i.e. "start in..."
IE and OE is not even on the C: Drive !
> - where you last looked for data, remembered in registry
> - where you last looked for data, remembered in private files
> - by dropping shared files in %WinDir%
> - by dropping shared files in Program Files\Common
> - by putting the app in the Path (see Config.sys, Autoexec.bat)
Only old Dos die hards like me still use a Autoexec and Config.
I maybe the only one that still uses them in a Win9x setup.
> - by running bits of itself from startup axis, e.g. StartUp, Win.ini
I've had NONE of these problems and in fact I had expected the problems
in the Win.Ini and "Program Files\Common" to be a problem but it hasn't.
What's more Windows runs much much more stable on it's own HD.
Of course this is after you fix all those errors in the Registry because
Windows don't clean up after itself.
> It you broadened your strategy to include the rest of the settings
> files involved in the startup axis, as well as the registry, you'd
> improve your odds; include Start Menu, Send To, QuickLaunch and
> desktop, the odds would get better.
What ???
Start Menu is fine and list all the programs installed and run.
No I don't view my Desktop as a Web Page or use Quick Launch.
Send To ?
> But there are still private settings files within %WinDir% (uncommon)
> and shared code in %WinDir% (or subs thereof) and Program Files, and
> that's a common problem with several apps.
Don't seem to need them and have never seen a problem in all this time.
Your Personal settings are gone because you wiped the OS.
But having to set a Window to Full Screen or whatever the first time I
run it isn't a big deal, I can reset them easy enough.
It's a small price to pay if I don't have to reinstall ALL those
Programs that takes HOURS !
The Idea is to give a Speed Boost, reduce Crashes and saving having to
reinstall all your Programs when you have to wipe the C: Drive that only
has the OS and Swapfile on it.
>
>>And you say it doesn't do anything about Programs or Data. LOL !!!
>>They don't have to be on the C:\ drive !
>
>
> See above; sometimes program files do, and if you see settings as
> data, then settings can be too. Also, some apps store data in
> Application Data or Local Settings\Application Data, and those tend to
> be on C: as well. This factor becomes bigger for XP-generation apps.
I don't use AOL or any service or Program that Forces me to install on
Drive C:.
XP, LOL !
I wouldn't own that swiss cheese with all it's holes.
It's a nice OS when they finish with it but they always leave each OS
Version unfinished and go on to the next.
Lets see DCOM is a Hole since 95 when Cobra came out and MS didn't want
to be out done.
On Win9x Boxes this wasn't exploited but in XP with RAW Sockets it's a
whole other ball game.
It was overlooked before but now with XP Boxes that can be used as not
only DNS and Web Servers for Spammers but Attack Boxes for DDoS Zombie
Attacks.
> The reason is that most apps duhfault to installing their code in
> "C:\Program Files", and certain XP set-ups (best-practice ones too,
> that do things like run user accounts with limited rights and use NTFS
> as the file system so that permissions can be enforced) don't allow
> user accounts to write to "Program Files".
Win98se.
> So apps that would have had their "real" data somewhere else but
> stored settings (such as where that data is) in files within its own
> subtree - thus surviving when you locate that off C: - may now store
> the latter stuff within one of the user's "Application Data".
>
>
>>The Favorates are all the sites you visit in IE that would be wiped
>>because they are on C:\Windows\Favorites.
>>So if you want to keep em, save em including the Subfolders and Copy
>>them back to Windows\Favorites.
>
>
> There's variability on such locations in Win9x, depending on whether
> user profiles are used and are set to allow unique versions of this
> stuff on a per-user basis. In which cases, you'd want to preserve the
> Profiles subtree under %WinDir% as well.
Now that's something I didn't think of.
I don't use Profiles and don't think anyone else I know does either.
And that would be harder than putting your settings back the way you had
them.
If it does wipe them that would be a problem.
> In XP, this stuff is generally within "Documents and Settings" instead
>
>
>>Combine that with a Defragger like Norton's Speed Disk where you can
>>tell it to see the OS and it's All it's Drivers Files and Folders First
>>before anything else and you'll boost it even more with fewer Crashes
>>and slow downs.
>
>
> Defrag doesn't have any bearing on crashes at all, aside from the
> minor benefit of reducing the period of critical windows by speeding
> things up. It just makes things faster.
Don't tell that to MS it's in their Data base.
And as far as the "minor benefit of reducing the period of critical
windows" is not by far Minor.
The OS is all by itself on the C: Drive so nothing else is trying to
write from that drive.
Smaller Drive is easier to maintain and the Swapfile don't get Fragmented.
Did I mention I NEVER let windows control the Swapfile?
Put it last on the HD and don't let anything else write in that block.
And defragging where you tell it to put Files and Folders First on the
HD so they are the first things it sees.
Putting your OS and Device Drivers first is not a Minor Benefit.
How else do I blow away a 2 ghz with a 233 mhz playing the same game on
a Network ?
> It has no place in
> troubleshooting a flaky system, for another and more serious reason;
> as defrag reads and rewrites potentially all files on the volume being
> defragged, it's a dangerous activity to attempt on a flaky system.
That's the Problem Windows by itself is a Flaky System.
Do any install of Windows on a New HD and you'll find 80 plus errors in
90 categories right out of the box.
The OS don't clean up after itself.
I can't count the number of systems I installed to check that and I
wasn't the only one to find that out.
And with each version I expected them to fix that but they didn't.
A fellow Ham Kh6hz (Amateur Radio) who was Prof. Computer Science is who
clued me in on the errors.
Where I'm more into the Hardware with some Programming he's more into
Software than Hardware.
> It's NOT as simple or foolproof as you make out.
> I agree with you that there are massive benefits in maintaining a
> small C: and keeping data in particular off C:, but the claim that you
> can wipe C:, re-assert saved registry and perhaps some settings files,
> and not have any impact on anything, is irresponsable. YMMV.
I got it from MS's own Database !!!!
> When an app is installed and used, it does a number of things. If the
> app is to be preserved as an atomic unit (i.e. "all in one piece")
> then all of these things must be presereved. If you slice and dice
> those atoms, e.g. by re-asserting settings while losting the files
> these settings point to, then things get broken.
>
> Broken atoms are bad news.
I got 15 plus years where nothing you've said has ever been a problem.
The only problem close to what you describe is my Dos Tools and Dos
Batch Programs that are not installed but placed in the Windows Directory.
>
>>>Tip #2 is similarly flawed ... We refer to this one as the "I didn't have
>>>enough room for an emergency gas tank so I mounted it inside my existing gas
>>>tank. Aren't I smart?"
>
>
>>Ahh, You can't prove it don't work so attack it without proof LOL !!!
>>Gammers have been doing that long before Windows so I don't know where
>>you've been.
>
>
> Gamers do a lot of strange things for good reasons.
Like running the OS in RAM like they do in Super Computers ?
Bill Gates is a good example of a Gamer.
He played poker here at Brown to put himself through School in Ma.
We had set up an Altear on an Amateur Radio TV Repeater and Bill wanted
to check out the set up.
Computers then had no Monitors, Keyboards or Mice.
It was for the Celestial Observers for a remote TV hookup on a Telescope
they put on the highest point in R.I.
And Microsoft didn't exist yet.
>
> For example, you might think that the faster your modem connects, the
> better - and usually, this is true. But a gamer knows that
> maintaining a slow connect with no interruptions is far more important
> for online real-time gaming (say, online Quake duels) than the speed
> of that connection. After all, the only traffic is control info and
> the game's status data, not wads of 3D graphics textures etc.
>
> So savvy games will deliberately force the modem to connect at a slow
> speed, and one particular speed at that. If that speed cannot be
> maintained, then they're dead; the modem may as well disconnect.
Well that doesn't work that well.
Better setting to faster speed like 115k even though connection is
45.333 in and 33.6 out on Dialup.
But since the change in Modems flash software what you say would work
then but the ISP's and Phone Company now play tricks with your
Connection that would be better at 56k or one setting below.
The Phone Company and ISP's play a trick to slow down the through put of
Data to knock you off if your on too long.
It's like the Backbone Routers are being pinged by a 1000 Zombies with
corrupted syn packets.
It slowly goes deaf and so does your Data.
Good example is Netscape.com Registered to AOL who got sued by 3 State
AG's including my State AG for using Idle Bots on Unlimited Service
Dial-up Accounts.
Well guess what Netscape Internet Service has ? an Idle Bot on Unlimited
Accounts.
I cost the Phone Co here over 50 Mil for charging for local phone calls
from MA and R.I. southgate #'s on the Border.
And that didn't include their Fine.
It's a local call from S. Attleboro, Ma. to Providence R.I. but a new
Phone Prefix for Dial-up ISP's had people running up $1000's and the
Phone Company was well aware of it for over 2 years.
They would refund the first time and refuse to the next time.
Also got them for playing with my Internet connection as I just
described at the same time so I'm not popular with them.
Having a fellow Amateur Radio Operator working for the Phone Company who
gave me the info I needed didn't hurt either.
> The reason is that normally, modems adjust themselves to line
> conditions. No errors? Let's try going faster, then. Too many
> errors? Let's identify "difficult" parts of the frequency spectrum
> and exclude those, even if that slows things down.
>
> When the modems retrain (re-negotiate the connection speed), all data
> flow stops for a few seconds - which is a LONG time to be frozen
> motionless in the middle of a splatterfest.
>
> Thus the "force modem to connect only at 14400bps" tip.
That used to work but now things have changed.
They make more $$$ on Broad Band and figure Dial-up will switch rather
than stay with a terrible service.
I started with a 150 baud modem back in the 70's where the service got
better in the 90's but about 2000 it got worse than before the 80's.
Wow, it's 5 am can hardly see screen here.
>
> The point I'm making here is that what works for gamers is not always
> a goodstrategy for the rest of us. Gamers are running one big
> foreground application, whereas the rest of us tend to run multiple
> apps at the same time, as well as other processes underfoot.
Well yes before 1995 and no after 1995 but today much of the other
Programs like Voice Chat, Game Server and other supporting software are
built into some games.
I a good one for running multiple Apps all the time.
And this is where the 2 suggestions really work.
> So what a gamer might do, is override Windows strategies that try to
> make multiple apps run together more efficiently, so that the game
> runs at max speed even if everything else virtually stops.
Yes some do that but that's not a good way to do it.
The OS MUST have First and Priority Access, then your Display, Sound,
Modem and other Drivers Drivers then the Game.
Last thing you want is the OS waiting behind the Game to send data.
This works for Multi-Tasking or Gaming.
> That's great for that particular context, but I wouldn't wave such
> approaches as a general cure-all.
>
>>We used to load Dos into RAM Drives on Bootup to Speed up the OS and all
>>the Programs that benifit from that Speed Bost.
>
>
> Sure, because DOS could not access non-contiguous memory and was thus
> cramped in the lowermost 640k, thanks to IBM's decision to locate all
> the ROMs between 640k and 1M, instead of from address zero upwards as
> home computers generally did.
NO that's why you use a RAM Drive !
We load Dos into the RAM Drive and it's no where near the 640k to 1 meg
memory area.
Instead of looking at the C:\ HD for the OS it looks at the RAM Drive
for the OS and then runs it into 640k to 1 meg.
Look at the Speed of your HD and then look at the speed of your RAM.
Big difference.
If Programs run faster there what do you think the OS will do ?
> If you didn't go out of your way to use RAM over 1M for something, DOS
> would not use it at all - so a combination of RAM disk, Smartdrv cache
> and XMS and/or EMS was the hot setup.
Your right that's not a bad setup.
Add loading Dos on the RAM Disk and assigning Monichrome Memory in the
Autoexec or Config Files and a few other little tricks is better.
> Even within DOS, the goalposts changed as DOS evolved towards better
> workarounds for IMB's screw-up, culminating in the DPMS system that
> allowed games like Doom, Quake etc. to use all RAM as a flat memory
> space (something requiring 386 or later processor).
>
>
>
>
>>---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
>
> Gone to bloggery:
http://cquirke.blogspot.com
>
>>---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Can't keep eyes open.
Hope I didn't type anything to offend in my Typo's and if I did I'm sorry.
Justb to tired to do the spell check.
Good night, or good morning.
!:?)
Kevin
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