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Technical Notes

Your NEW computer!

You did it. You bought a new computer. Here's what you do.

  1. As soon as it is up and running on the Internet, run Windows Update and get all the critical updates (don't be surprised to find 15 or more of them).Install and update a good commercial Anti-Virus product.Now install your applications (you have the CDs and license keys, right?).
  2. Make a set of recovery CDs (or DVDs). Most new systems don't come with them, and you'll want them if you ever have to replace the system hard drive (unless you use image saves). Check the system documentation (help).
  3. If the system is Windows Vista or 7, get a simple NVRAM USB drive (jump drive) and create a password reset disk from the control panel, user accounts, forgotten password wizard. Do this even if you don't set a password. Some visitor could put a password on your only account with administrator privileges.
  4. What about your files? See below.

Before you decommission the old system, you need to consider 

  1. Your regular folders and files, usually found under My Documents
  2. Databases for key applications such as Quicken or QuickBooks
  3. Your address book and calendar if you are using them
  4. Your saved local e-mail folders, if any
  5. Settings for e-mail and Internet access
  6. Your favorites from your browser, if you care

Often the Import and Export functions, typically on the File menu, can help you get things into the new system properly.What? you don't have backups for everything? and your old system is basically dead? Often the old system disk ('C:' drive) is still readable even if it doesn't provide a running system. So, if you can't network the files over on your Local Area Network or restore from CD, external hard drive or NVRAM drive, there is an alternative. Open up the old system box and remove its disk drive. Open the new system and install the old drive in the spare disk cavity. There are cable connections for it and when you boot up, it will magically appear (we hope) as another disk that you can browse and use to copy over everything you need. Your new computer is a notebook, you say. No problem...

The easier way is to use an external enclosure that just plugs into one of the USB ports. I have these for both desktop and laptop disk drives and routinely use them to recover files for my clients.

Finally, go to my page on Security and review the suggestions you will find there.

See now why so many people use a geek to help them with this?

My computer is SLOW

Generally there are 5 things that can cause the slowing you experience.

  1. With changes, software gets ever larger and needs more memory to maintain a reasonable speed. Memory isn’t very expensive $50-70 is typical.
  2. If the disk drive has not been defragmented in any recent time (like in the last year), it can cause this. It is easy to do but runs for a long time. I usually try to start it and let it run overnight.
  3. If you haven’t kept up with updates to Windows and/or your security software, you may have one or many malware programs running and tying up your computer and network connection, creating spam for other people, typically.
  4. The security software you are using is bloated, overly conservative and slows the computer. I prefer ESET, which can be purchased at Micro Center in Cambridge, but is more readily bought and downloaded on-line. I would recommend this for a new PC, too. ESET will clean your computer of any of the malware that might have been missed. You do need to first remove all other security software first.
  5. Routine maintenance activities are often the cause. This needs a little explanation.

Assuming you are running Windows XP, it is usually set to update itself automatically, at 3:00 a.m. But, to be ‘green’ we are encouraged to turn off our computers, esp. at night. This prevents the automatic update. Also there are some updates that are so large that Microsoft will not have them install automatically—they require your permission to install. In particular, you may need to install SP2 or SP3 and probably Internet Explorer 8 or later. All are considered critical by Microsoft.

Also, security software is often set to scan the whole system, typically once a week. This may start running when you power on. If it fails to complete before you turn it off, it will start next time you turn it on.

If you are set for installing automatic updates, and you don’t click on the balloon that says updates are ready to be installed, the next time, and each time you start your computer the following happens. Windows goes to Microsoft, compares what you should have as updates to what you do have, and downloads the updates you need. Then it shows the little yellow shield and gives you  that balloon message. Meanwhile, your computer runs like a runner in deep mud.

Even when you keep up with the updates, and for security reasons, it is important to do so, the anti-virus scan will run some days (since it couldn’t run at night). Also, your security software is busy updating itself.

There are other packages that look for updates (Adobe and Java are good examples). Taken together routine maintenance can exact a frightful performance price.

I like to be green, but still, I advise my clients to do what I do.

  1. Get caught up on all Microsoft Updates. Click on the install balloon, if you see it. When that’s done, go to Microsoft Updates (Google it or look in All Programs). Run Express install and, do it again and again until it finds nothing to install.
  2. Be sure Windows is set to automatically install updates at night.
  3. Leave your computer turned on, all the time. Turn off the monitor and speakers, that will help and not interfere with the overnight maintenance. The computer will automatically go to a low power use state, anyway.

Second Level Support

Here is a fact that you may find useful. Virtually every technical support organization has one or more individuals they call 'second level support'. These are the really knowledgeable people. They have graduated from the front lines and are kept in reserve for the tough questions. 

An example may help. I was fighting with my e-mail. A professional IT person like myself hates to be stumped by his own system problems. But it happens. We came back from a weekend away, and we couldn't get any e-mail to go out. Received it fine, but couldn't send it. Tried all the usual tricks but was forced to call my DSL provider. After two rounds of doing all the stuff they could think of we hadn't made any progress. I was getting pushed off on Microsoft, and wouldn't buy that brush-off. So, I very nicely asked if they had any 2nd level support. He agreed to bring them in and what do you know, the problem was immediately identified. The fix wasn't easy, I had to download and install new firmware on my old cable router to get at the configuration setting that needed to be set. They never did tell me what they changed that broke my service. Maybe they don't even know.

Suspect mother board

Sometimes the computer is not booting at all. You check and the little indicator on the power supply is green, so it may be working. What about the mother board. A simple test is to remove all memory modules. Power the system on and listen. If you hear a repetitive pattern of beeps, continually, then the motherboard is probably passing its Power On Self Test. I don't replace mother boards. Time-consuming and costly, a repair that has yet to seem merited in cases I've seen.

Removing a printer driver

It is easy enough to remove a printer from an XP system, but this doesn't remove the printer driver. Sometimes you want to do this. The trick is to right click on the blank background of the window that displays all your printers and choose server properties. I haven't tried this with Vista, but it probably works there, too.

RAID Storage

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. There are at least 6 types of RAID, called "levels". Only 0, 1 and 5 have proven to be generally useful.

RAID 5 means you have 3 or more separate disk drives being treated as one large disk. Nice if you have a really large database. Its real advantage is that if one of the disks in the 'array' fails, the database can normally continue to run, because of the redundancy that is in each of the remaining disks. Moreover, the failed disk can be replaced and the system will reconstruct the replaced (failed) disk. Should a second disk in the array fail before the reconstruction is complete, it's unrecoverable. Also, updating data on the RAID 5 array is slower than updating data on a non-RAID disk. You don't use RAID 5 on a system (C:) disk. Also, you have to be able to determine that one has failed and which one it was. The best systems implement all this fancy stuff in hardware for greatest speed.

RAID 1 is sometimes called mirroring. Normally you have two disks that are 100% copies of each other. Each time a write is made, it must be made to both devices and completed successfully before the write is considered complete. Smart disk controllers know which of the two disks has less distance to move its read head to get to a desired record, so reading can be faster than non-RAID disks. Of course, the system can run on one disk and fairly quickly bring a replaced disk back on-line. Again, you have to know which one failed.

RAID 0 is sometimes call striping. The data is spread across all the disks of the RAID array. It is a misnomer, since there really is no redundancy. The zero is a reminder of that. Mind you, it can be very fast. The software will optimize the transfers from or to all the disks in the array. It is an ideal setup for your system disk. I worked on one system like this and it was much faster than any similar PC I have seen. But, it is far more vulnerable to system outage. When any one of those disks fails, the system is down, period. You probably want to keep it for the operating system and its dynamic files, in particular the swap files. Don't put your data on it, and try to put your applications elsewhere, as well.

RAID has been in use by big companies for years. It is basically technology used by servers, those fast system hidden in datacenters. Done right, it is rather expensive. Some serious geek types are beginning to use it, too. But, most normal users should avoid it, in my opinion.

Browser Frame

Sometimes I accidentally hit the F11 key and my browser window goes weird. Actually, the frame disappears and the window fills the screen. Press F11 again and it goes back to normal. There might be times you'd prefer it this way, who knows.

System Restore and Microsoft Recovery Console

System Restore is useful at times and I won't try to add to the information that is widely available except this tidbit. If you are trying to restore a non-booting system and the best you've been able to get is an MS-DOS prompt, try %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe.

There is a procedure that can be used to recreate the initial boot files. It is based on the command BOOTCFG /Rebuild but has some other necessary steps.

Using a PC remotely

There are a number of ways to operate a computer remotely. All require you to first set them up on the machine running it locally. Here are some that I have seen and used:

PE Boot

For those who are serious about being able to fix broken PCs, you will really want to have a way to do a PE boot. I use Ultimate Boot CD, and it has saved me on more than one occasion. Like the registry editor, this is not a tool for the normal user.

Testing your connection speed

There are various ways you can test your speeds you are getting with your Internet connection. A good one is at myspeed.visualware.com

Hackers, Viruses and other Malware

It is getting ugly, isn't it? Any computer that is connected to the Internet needs at least two levels of protection. Don't confuse them. A firewall tries to keep intruders from gaining access to your computer and its files. Firewalls are useful and particularly important if your access is provided by a cable TV operator. The reason is that some of your neighbors are on the same local network as you are. A simple hardware firewall in the form of a cable router (Linksys is a popular brand), is sufficient for most people. If you don't use a router, you need a software firewall on your computer. I use both. You can get a free one from Zone Alarm, for example. Software firewalls take a little effort to get working properly. Commercially available ones, typically sold with Anti-Virus programs as a Security package, may be a little more friendly to get running. The major 'security' packages tend to be overly protective. The more you turn on, the more it will slow your computer.

Keeping out nasty software is harder. The firewall doesn't protect you from this. The two most common ways for a virus, worm or other piece of 'malware' to invade your system is by e-mail or software download from a web site. There simply is no alternative but to use a good anti-virus program to scan e-mail and regularly scan your system. But it is essential you update the 'virus definition/signature' files at least once a week--more often is better (at least daily is best). Pay me now or pay me later--it is time consuming, at the least, to disinfect a machine. And that's when you are lucky. If it is too much for you to try to deal with, get someone to set it up for you. Really. This is important. While I'm on a soap-box. (You probably know all this, right?) Don't trust any e-mail that appears to come from Microsoft telling you to download some fixes. Microsoft doesn't send out such e-mails, and the files you download are almost certainly not anything you want installed on your system.

And one other useful tip. Some of the more persistent malware attaches itself to the browser. You should go to the advanced settings tab and remove the check box that  enables 3rd party browser extensions. Please see my page on security for more on this topic.

RTFM (Read The Flaming Manual)

It comes down to this. Be patient, be logical, keep emotions out of it, pay attention to what you are doing. Above all, read. Yes, read. Read the 'help' files and 'readme' file, for starters. Always be certain you are running the latest drivers. A friend called last week. He is really skilled with managing his Windows system. He told me the mess he had managed to create. How much would I charge to unravel it? I told him and he wasn't ready. Being the helpful sort I am, I told him just what I would do.This week he called back. He had tried to follow my guidance but was still stuck. How long would it take me?  Okay, it sounded ugly, I have to admit. But I decided I'd carry the risk and offered to fix him up but not charge him for more than an hour, however long it took. Hey, sometimes in business you take a calculated risk. I spent an hour working through it with him, cleared the jam and he is a happy client. I did just what I had told him to do. The step that he passed over was fundamental. Get on the vendors web site, go to the support area and search for anything that looks rather like the problem you have.  Most techies aren't geniuses.

It's like anything else, with experience you get faster and more skilled. When you finally decide you really have better things to do, call me or someone like me. My mechanic is infinitely better at keeping my car running than I ever was. He isn't smarter, but he does it all the time. I know him and trust him. He has earned my trust and never, ever abuses it. I like that. I'm trying to deliver that kind of service to my clients. 

Documentation

It seems to be a natural law, like the second law of thermodynamics. You remember that one, everything moves inexorably towards chaos and randomness. We don't have a name for it, that I know of, but computer programmers hate to do documentation. They just do. In the modern world, a ton of documentation gets produced anyway. If you are very lucky, you might find some that is relevant, reasonably accurate and up to date. The authoritative source is always the source code, precise instructions to tell a computer (in excruciating detail) exactly what to do under all conditions. Hard core geeks like to get their hands on the source code. This gets us into a question of ownership. Unless one is using Open Source software, usually only the persons (company) owning the code can see it, much less change it. So we live with documentation, for all its warts.

It always amazes me that there are people that will read the strangest things (like this page), but not open the Help system on their computer. The developer wants you to take full advantage of what you bought and thereby love and depend on it. They also want to avoid paying customer support reps to hold your hand. So, they invest heavily in providing you with everything you need to know. Quicken has gone to the extreme of providing you videos. And don't forget, there is plenty to read on the Internet.

When things aren't right

We call them 'bugs'. Bugs are never documented in the Help system. At best you will find some documented in the release notes for a software package. Every product has thousands of 'bugs'. I'm sorry, forgive my tendency to understatement. It is orders of magnitude worse than that. If it weren't for the demands of customers and pressure of competition, we would eventually see all the important bugs stamped out, by the steady stream of patches and updates. But, this world moves too fast. There are two kinds of bugs, those that are known and documented, and those that aren't. Thousands of smart people make their livings by chasing after new and old bugs. One response is to decide to live with the critter. Then it is described as an 'undocumented feature', and may eventually find its way into the formal documentation. Otherwise, they try to come up with a workaround and add it to their 'to do' list with a code indicating its level of criticality. Most never get fixed, and it really doesn't matter as the conditions that cause the bug to appear are very unlikely to occur and/or the pain caused is minimal. The worst case is that the combination is declared 'unsupported'. I had to retire my scanner because it isn't supported on XP. That is why you want to check carefully on the 'system requirements' before putting down your money. I haven't seen an actual bug list in decades. It was a simpler time and you could actually print out descriptions of all the bugs in an operating system in a two inch thick stack of paper. You are no more likely to get access to the full known error database than you are to get your very own copy of the source code. But the people who have access and maintain these files, see to it that the most important distilled information is available in searchable files under their Support web pages. Typically, these are available publicly, in order to reduce the cost of Customer Support.

Call Corzine IT Consulting at 1-781-690-0992