Computer advice please

[Nigel Goodwin]

They could sort out the security problems and probably will with the introduction of Windows Vienna in 2012 or so but I'd rather not have to upgrade to a 64-bit 4GHz machine with 100GB of disk space, a 1GB graphics card and 4GB of RAM and have to put up with all the DRM software bundled with it.

I thought that was the minimum spec for Vista?

By 2012 the system requirements to play Minesweeper will be a LOT higher!.

BTW, an ActiveX control, or a macro - is a program - and by running it you are vulnerable to virus's. It's yet another security flaw by MicroSoft!.

 

[ljcox]

Thats what I can say too.I used to install a clean copy of windows for every 6 months but this also too long

@ ijcox
How many HD in your PC?
& how they are partitioned? Also there is a latest SATA HD series which is reducing their rated RPM from few months than earlier IDE HD series.

It has 2 HD. I don't know anything about partitioning.

I don't know how to install a clean copy of XP or how to download the drivers.

So I'll pay an expert to do it for me.

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[ljcox]

Just install Linux on it.

So what you can't play some silly games and you'll have to find alternatives for some of your other software but at least you won't have the inconvenience of having to reinstall everything every six months.

I would like to use Linux but know very little about it.

Can the Microsoft programmes such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook, etc. work under Linux? I have many files stored that were created under these programmes, I don't want to have to start from scratch.

And what about programmes such as Switcher CAD, MPLAB, etc.?

I don't waste my time playing games on the computer.

 

[Omar.M]

There are many programs out there that do not work for Linux-- i.e are not cross-platform. Those MS applications will not work on Linux. However, there are open source, and free suites that do the things you want, for free.
A popular one (that comes with Ubuntu Linux) is Open Office.

I'd download Ubuntu, or another Linux OS, and then try it out to see how you feel with a Live CD. Then, once you get a bit more comfortable, try installing and get rid of Windows fully.

-O
Edit:

So what you can't play some silly games...

Actually, if I may add, Ubuntu had some pretty awesome games I had no problems getting on the system with just a few clicks. Even better, good Linux software (and those games) were found in the "add / remove" section.

 

[Sceadwian]

ljcox, if you don't know how to partition a hard drive and re-install windows installing linux is the last thing you want to do.

 

[Omar.M]

ljcox, if you don't know how to partition a hard drive and re-install windows installing linux is the last thing you want to do.

Perfect time to learn.

 

[Krumlink]

Ive been looking for that exact picture!

 

[Sceadwian]

Omar, if you want to spend the next month learngin the in's and out's of running linux on every piece of hardware and software you took for granted using windows. Nothing wrong with linux, it has it's advantages, but not to the 'lay person' that just wants their software to work. If you want to play with linux download the free GSX server version of VMWARE and install it on a virtual machine, no cost, no muss and not fuss.

 

[Omar.M]

I dual-boot with Windows 2000 and Ubuntu. I've played around it a bit, but obviously not as much as I would like to. However, I did manage to install it fairly easily and have had it for about half a year now.

Currently am scouring for old computer parts and thinking of getting together a junk-old computer together. Then will try running Linux Server OS on that and see how that works.

-Omar

 

[Styx]

A webserver running on a Windows machine (and there are plenty of those) wouldn't catch a virus either - that's NOT how you catch them. To catch them you have to run an infected program, and doing so under Linux would be no different than doing so under Windows.

To catch a virus maybe, but a worm... that relies on a vulnerability existing within an application and if said application was running and it was connected to the net with a program flying around that can exploit that then BOOM you have it!

remember the MSblaster virus/worm that hit a few years back? it exploited a SERIOUS flaw in how MS coded their RPC stack (effecting all MS operating systems to that date). The worm used a buffer-overflow technique to gain a root-shell to which it then downloaded the main payload virus from the host machine to now infect a new machine. The now downloaded virus would then run and search out other machines.

This effected web-servers running windows, data servers running windows, home PC's running windows.... so you see it ain't a simple case of "run an infected program"

I doubt Linux's 'virtually virus free' status, but many Linux based machines aren't at risk - because they are running servers etc. Another obvious advantage is that Linux users (on average) are probably far more 'geeky', and have more sense about what they do or don't run. Plus Windows is an easier target - many more machines out there, mostly in the hands of computer novices.

again not true!. Linux is virtually virus-free, in fact at this moment there is no virus's documented that can infect a linux machine. Even if one was because linux is designed to be a multi-user OS and a network OS (multi-user & network was bolted onto Windows and its only with Vista & active-directory that MS finally have an almost multi-user OS). It means that a user can run as a restricted user an if they were to get a dodgy program (I can write a virus for linux in a few min in: bash,python,C,...) it is limited to their home and NOT the system and also can't spread

Then we come to the server

jrb@Fluid-Server ~ $ ps axu | grep httpd
nobody    5066  0.0  2.2  22176 10788 ?        S    Sep04   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5068  0.0  1.8  20924  8928 ?        S    Sep04   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5069  0.0  1.8  20924  8928 ?        S    Sep04   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5070  0.0  1.8  20924  8916 ?        S    Sep04   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5089  0.0  2.2  22048 10732 ?        S    Sep04   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5313  0.0  1.8  20924  8768 ?        S    Sep05   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5314  0.0  2.1  22056 10628 ?        S    Sep05   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5315  0.0  1.8  20924  8760 ?        S    Sep05   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5318  0.0  1.7  20788  8540 ?        S    Sep05   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
nobody    5319  0.0  1.7  20788  8544 ?        S    Sep05   0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd -k start
jrb       5507  0.0  0.1   3184   796 pts/2    R+   13:19   0:00 grep httpd

THIS is the output of doing a process search for the Apache binary (httpd) as you can see there are multiple instances and they are all run as user nobody
The thing is "nobody" has less then no rights on my server. If some hacker managed to over-ride my apache to get a root prompt they would end up with a shell of: /bin/false... ie none (not to mention apache also runs in a chroot)

On a windows server IIS (or Apache) runs as Administrator, and thus if an exploit is found a hacker can gain a console prompt as... you guess it Administrator BOOM!!!

Linux is suseptable to worms (since these rely on flaws in applications) and one of the biggest worms to hit the net was one that attached apache-linux servers (it exploited a flaw in openssl). This was patched very quickly, but still the worm got far!. There have been something like 5 worms in linux operating systems (one taking advantage of a flaw in the 2.0 kernel years ago) and all patched very quickly due to it being open-source.

Also the statement abt "more geeky" would be using linux and thus they have more sense is a load of bull! some of the worst security oversights have been done by "geeky ppl" who were being to clever.

Linux by default is locked down. BUT you can open it up
Windows by default is open. BUT you can lock it down


Likewise the whole "many more machines "is a load of BS! Windows is a target cause it is an easy target. In 2005 >70% of the internet ran on Apache+Linux (as opose to ~20% windows) so are you telling me that 50,000,000 machines isn't a viable target.

These days the share has evened out a bit with
Apache having 65,000,000 and MS having 43,000,000

But still 65million linux machines is NOT an insignificant number, throwing your "many more machines out there" out the window

 

[Krumlink]

If all else fails, Backup your important files via a external hard drive or whatever and get a nuke disc. It wipes the computer absolutely clean, even the XP software. Then re-install your stuff via the external hard drive and upload XP again (DO THIS FIRST). Bam there you go you should have a clean computer.

 

[ThermalRunaway]

I can offer the following advice.

Firstly, right click your start-menu button and click explore from the list. For all users, go into the startup folder and delete all the shortcuts or icons from it. This will stop programs from starting automatically when you boot up. If there are any you specifically want to start automatically, then leave them there.

Secondly, click on Start, Run..., and then type "msconfig" in the command line that appears. Press enter and a config box will appear. Be careful what you mess about with in here because you can prevent some of your applications or Windows itself from working properly. Go into the startup tab and browse through the list of programs.
Again, be careful here because you don't want to remove essential programs from the list. But, if you see any that are obviously NOT essential and you DONT want them to be run at boot-time, untick the box next to them.

When you restart your computer up a little message will appear warning you that you have changed settings in MSConfig. I normally tick the box that says "don't show me this warning again" and continue.

This can speed up your computer quite substantially because it means less programs will have to start each time you boot your machine, and as a direct result less memory will be used by the machine so the PC won't be using virtual memory so much (which can really slow things down)

There are a couple of things to be aware of, and that is some programs are a bit of a bully when it comes to things like this. You can remove them from the startup folder, remove them in msconfig, but they create a registry entry which automatically re-enters them afterwards. I usually uninstall these types of programs and refuse to use them, on general principal.

Last time I messed about in msconfig I managed to google to a site that gave me a list of things that were recommended to be removed from the startup tab and more importantly, a list of things NOT to remove. I'd recommend you have a look around for this yourself.

Have you also considered upgrading the RAM in your machine? I suspect Windows is gobbling all the system resources for itself and now you're running on virtual memory all the time which is SLOW. This might not have been happening previously because you had less applications installed on the machine. Taking my advice will help, but installing extra RAM will help a lot too.

Hope this helps,

Brian

 

[Krumlink]

Thats a good idea to upgrade the ram. I have 1G in this computer and 512MB in the other. I would upgrade it to AT LEAST 1G for good performance and somthing that will make you happy

I have a 3G+ processor and It runs quite good. You may want to just upgrade your computer. 3G+ Motherboards are cheaper than they used to be, so you may want to upgrade.

If you dont want to upgrade, you can Overclock your processor by cryocooling it with liquid nitrogen like these guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzfrKQMrRHI