Format advice
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30 Nov 2010, 14:15
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Journals
time to format, making some preperations & need some advice.
first of all, OS.. I've been using XP since forever on my stationary computer and I easily prefer it over the newer windows OS like vista & 7. My specs are a bit outdated so does it matter? Windows 7 or XP? and if I would stick to XP, 64 or 32bit? I read that there are plenty of problems on 64 bit XP, any truth to that?
also, making a bit of a list of software I need, anything that could be useful? Best anti-spyware software and something else to speed the computer up and keep it clean? Any instant messaging software combining IRC & MSN greatly?
and finally; partions, I've never bothered making partions on my harddrives, anyone got experience with doing this? think I should do one partion for windows and one for files so I can easily format? or even do specific partions for games, movies etc? any recommendations?
thx crossfire, help a nub out <3
first of all, OS.. I've been using XP since forever on my stationary computer and I easily prefer it over the newer windows OS like vista & 7. My specs are a bit outdated so does it matter? Windows 7 or XP? and if I would stick to XP, 64 or 32bit? I read that there are plenty of problems on 64 bit XP, any truth to that?
also, making a bit of a list of software I need, anything that could be useful? Best anti-spyware software and something else to speed the computer up and keep it clean? Any instant messaging software combining IRC & MSN greatly?
and finally; partions, I've never bothered making partions on my harddrives, anyone got experience with doing this? think I should do one partion for windows and one for files so I can easily format? or even do specific partions for games, movies etc? any recommendations?
thx crossfire, help a nub out <3
for os use windows 7
adobe creative suite 5 or just photoshop cs5
for browser, I prefer chrome for the speed and interface
Go for 32bit 7, shouldn't have any problems running it, way more enjoyable to use than xP
also I've heard so many problems from friends/brother with 7, always when we're trying to install some shit there's a problem. XP feels more reliable to me belive it or not but I guess that might change over time.
I still use NOD32 and update the key from some random blog when it runs out, otherwise AVIRA is good.
64bit sux, because you always need spaciel programs.
firefox e.g. doesn't work with 64 bit, you need its 64 bit version "firebird" or so.
gl
have not had any (software-related) problems with 64-bit win7 so far. just some crappy coded stuff that troubles.
afaik MS is going to cease updating XP next year - one more reason for win7.
as for IM you could use miranda or pidgin. both work fine for ICQ + MSN. you don't really need anti-spy/firewall software (especially useless if you're using a router anyway), regcleaners or the like. stick to windows firewall and get antivir. other stuff unnecessarily slows your system down (just defrag every once in a while)
don't get chrome, its TEH spybrowser. firefox is fine, if you don't need command line FTP it offers nice addons aswell (FireFTP for instance).
"or even do specific partions for games, movies etc? any recommendations?"
don't do that. 2 partitions suffice (for convenient formating), more are bad decision (performance-wise) on a local single disk system.
Tried Opera? seems sleek imo
ah, good info, thanks
Benefits of multiple partitions
Creating more than one partition has the following advantages:
Separation of the operating system (OS) and program files from user files. This allows image backups (or clones) to be made of only the operating system and installed software.
Having an area for operating system virtual memory swapping/paging.
Keeping frequently used programs and data near each other.
Having cache and log files separate from other files. These can change size dynamically and rapidly, potentially making a file system full.
Use of multi-boot setups, which allow users to have more than one operating system on a single computer. For example, one could install Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows or others on different partitions of the same hard disk and have a choice of booting into any compatible operating system at power-up.
Protecting or isolating files, to make it easier to recover a corrupted file system or operating system installation. If one partition is corrupted, none of the other file systems are affected, and the drive's data may still be salvageable. Having a separate partition for read-only data also reduces the chances of the file system on this partition becoming corrupted.
Raising overall computer performance on systems where smaller file systems are more efficient. For instance, large hard drives with only one NTFS file system typically have a very large sequentially accessed Master File Table (MFT) and it generally takes more time to read this MFT than the smaller MFTs of smaller partitions.
"Short Stroking", which aims to minimize performance-eating head repositioning delays by reducing the number of tracks used per hard drive.[1] The basic idea is that you make one partition approx. 20-25% of the total size of the drive. This partition is expected to: occupy the outer tracks of the hard drive, and offer more than double the throughput — less than half the access time. If you limit capacity with short stroking, the minimum throughput stays much closer to the maximum.
For example a 1 TB disk might have an access time of 12 ms at 200 IOPS (at a limited queue depth) with an average throughput of 100 MB/s. When it is partitioned to 100 GB (and the rest left unallocated) you might end up with an access time of 6 ms at 300 IOPS (with a bigger queue depth) with an average throughput of 200 MB/s..
Which you might upgrade if going to win7... :)
Get Pidgin, Chrome/IE9 (IE9 preview is doing very good in the benchmarks!)
if I would continue using XP, worth downloading one of these custom modified versions? a "performance edition" or whatever with unnecessary shit removed?
especially interested in this since i'm gonna do a format on my laptop as well (which is even slower)
performance edition is way to go, running quite smooth on 1.2 ghz @ 448mb ram , also doesnt seem that much stuff missing ?
I found UltraDefrag to be a good alternative (in fact a better one, my HDD is running way faster) (it's opensource :))
I strongly recommend 2 partitions. 1st just for OS and 2nd for music, games, movies etc.
The OS partition should be equal or more than 30gb.
What Windows? it also up to U. If U like XP - stay with it.
32/64bit ver? U have 2gb RAM - installing 64bit OS has only sense if U have 4gb RAM or even more.
Windows 7
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WinRAR
Use windows firewall
Use windows antivirus (ms security essentials)
Word 2010
Photoshop CS5
f00bar2000 for music
vlc for videos
visual studio 2010 for any programming
notepad++
cuteftp pro for ftp
soulseek for music
utorrent for torrents
firefox for inet (essential plugins: flashgot + adblock plus, developer plugins: firebug, fireftp, web developer)
diskeeper for defrag & maintanance
daemon tools lite for image mounting
flash, dreamweaver, after effects, premier cs5 all useful if you do that kinda stuff
thats all you need
OS: XP 32bit
Motherboard drivers (Ethernet + Audio)
Graphic card drivers (Omega drivers or normal)
Avira Antivir Personal
ZoneAlarm
Firefox/Chrome
Gom Player (+ ffdshow) (beats VLC cause u can adjust subs if there is no right subs available)
Adobe (Flash Player/Reader)
WinAmp
mIRC
Vent/TS
GameBooster
CCleaner
Daemon Tools Lite
W:ET (":D")
didn't know it was a legit mediaplayer, will have to consider it I guess.
will check it out, thanks
Also:
- Raxco's PerfectDisk for defragmenting
- TuneUp Utilities for general clean-up
- Exact Audio Copy for ripping
- CDBurnerXP for burning
- uTorrent for torrents
- GrabIt for usenet
- QuickPar for fixing broken .rars
- HLSW for scanning servers
as for torrents I've always used uTorrent, but thinking about trying Halite.
will check the other programs out, thanks
Stay at 32 bits if you use win xp because I had win xp x64 before and it sucks:
-not all games working
-no update support
-not all drivers
Take x64 if you want Win 7.
32bit also has no support anymore or it's really soon that they will stop it.