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Solve : Partition or not to partition?? |
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Answer» Hey all, Once I install XP, should I go online and download the latest various drivers (which ones?) or should the software come with all the latests? I should probably check for Windows update to, right? 1. Immediatly after (Preferably before) connecting to the Internet run Windows update. Once that is done, install the following programs: AVG Free -- Anti virus scanner Adaware SE Personal -- Anti spyware scanner Microsoft Antispyware -- Anti spyware scanner. Windows XP Home and Professional only. Spybot Search & Destroy -- Anti spyware scanner ZoneAlarm Free -- Free firewall - more user friendly Sygate Personal -- Free firewall - more configuration options And take the time to configure them properly. Windows XP will most likely autodetect and autoconfigure all your hardware. Unless you wish to use specific drivers for certain hardware, it is not necessary to install drivers. Although you may need to install the drivers that came with the motherboard. Thank you all so much ! I will probably begin installation again in a few days (Father's day stuff to do TODAY). I will let you know how the install goes. By the way, Happy Father's day to those who are Dads!yep got the cards from the kids back to the plot......what winxp was asking you to do was dual boot......winme/winxp.......like winxp would be drive c/winxp d/winme....... more info on installing here>http://www.windowsreinstall.com/Hey Merlin_2, Thanks so much for the site - fantastic! Now, I feel more confident in installing. Marlene, after you install your various add-on programs (adaware,spybot,avg,zoneAlarm) and rebooting as needing during the installs do this: Make sure ZoneAlarm (or whatever firewall you installed) is running, then start your antivirus and try to update it, your firewall should alert you that it is trying to connect to the internet, make sure you select to always allow it to connect. Then go ahead and do the same for Adaware, SpyBot etc, make sure to try to update them WHILE the firewall is running so you can configure it to always allow those programs ACCESS to internet (so they can auto-update without probs). Hope this helps. CheersExcellent advice Cary_GRant! BTW, love your ID. I'd never have thought to start the firewall first - good precaution advice. Wish me luck! MarleneD......Just a tip ......theres a firewall built into SP2 which by default is set on .......you can shut it off if you wish ......so once you have sp2 installed you have a firewall. ( it wont do as good a job as zone alarm , but it willl do a decent job preventing things comming in . dl65 Quote Excellent advice Cary_GRant! BTW, love your ID. ....Break a leg Good News ! Just installed Windows XP and love it! Even though icons look rather "cartoonish", it's much more intuitive. I'm still getting to know it but so far, I'm very happy with the change. The website www.windowsreinstall.com really helped tremendously. All the advice from all, as to what to do first before and after installation ,was great advice. Thanks to all of you !Partitioning is the best way to go. Now that you have installed it is a bit late but can you tell us what you did? How big is the drive and how big are the partitions? How much RAM does your system have? 512 Mb or more is great for XP as XP needs to have plenty of RAM. So here are a few 'extras' for you to make a note of... XP Clean Installing XP Compatability Test XP Partition Management XP Installing Recovery Console RAM Knowledge Base RAM And What it Does RAM Virtual Memory Paging RAM Reseating & Fitting PDF File Processor Temperatures Service Pack Slipstreamer Power SUPPLY Wattage Calculator Everest Home Edition Computer Diagnostic Program EmpTemp CCLeaner File Cleaner And here is a cleanup program which you will need as you use XP... "Run Disk Cleanup and remove all but the last restore point. See if your System Restore cache and Recycle Bin size is set at a reasonable level (Say 1024Mb) on each drive, and reduce the IE Temporary Internet Files cache and History cache to the minimum. Install CCLeaner and clean out all of the junk files. Unhide all files and folders and remove the hotfix uninstallers ( $NTUninstaller$ ) from the hidden C:\Windows folder and remove their entries from Add-Remove programs. Then remove the contents of: The C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations folder The C: WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder The C:\WINDOWS\Temp folder The C:\Windows\pchealth\Datacoll folder, and... The C:\Windows\Prefetch folder (You can add these folders to EmpTemp if you have this program installed.) Then run chkdsk and defrag." TweakUI is useful to have on your system for certain repairs... Powertoys/TweakUI And you shoud install the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service to ensure that your shut down works cleanly. This is a really handy program if you can afford it... If you download Diskeeper 9 Professional (not home) 30 day evaluation copy and use the inbuilt Frag-Shield program to see if the MFTs are in need of adjustment. You can then defragment them, and the paging file, using a boot-time defragmentation. If the MFTs are not big enough then you increase the likelihood of fragmentation and performance can suffer as a result. IN DK9 open "Change your settings" then choose Configure MFT/Paging file. The program will tell you if the MFTs need to be padded (made bigger) and I suggest you use the advised setting. If it doesn't respond to the change then set a higher value manually in the box. After re-boot the program should take over and adjust the MFTs automatically from then on. When you come to uninstall DK9 PRO it will revert to your normal XP Defrag. Both the XP Defrag and Diskeeper 9 Professional are made by Executive Software. I have had to pad the MFTs on a number of drives as they were too small and not allowing sufficient addressing on the drive. This seems to be a recurring problem when rezizing partitions. TuneUp Utilities is a good program for MAINTAINING the registry too. Now that you have a fresh install you should condider making a drive image and also backing up your data. I use the Partition Resizer which comes with BootIT NG from TeraByte Unlimited (see link below). If you get the full BootIT NG SUITE, you also get Image for Windows and Image for DOS so you can resize partitions, make drive images and backups to CDRs or data DVDs and restore them. So add these items to your Christmas Present list! |
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