Information Technology Solutions

Role And Contribution Of Information Technology In Rural Markets In India

2010-03-19T09:33:00.001+05:30

RURAL MARKETS IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION:

A large number of studies have shown that even today approximately 70% of Indian Population lives in Rural Areas. Today, Rural Development is essential for the development of the Indian Economy. Indian Government has realized the role of the rural development and the contribution of I.T. in the development of Rural Markets. A large number of projects are introduced in the rural area with many upcoming projects in pipeline; which are likely to be introduced by the Government in the short span of time. Rural Literacy is ranked at the topmost position of priority. Trends indicate that rural markets are coming up in big way and growing twice as faster as urban markets. According to a study by NCAER (National Council for Applied Economic Research), the number of middle and high-income households in rural India is expected to grow from 80 Million to 111 Million by the end of year 2007 as compared to Urban India that is nearby 59 Million.

The Rural Market of India is showing an impressive growth largely due to changing lifestyle patterns, better communication network and rapidly changing demand structure of consumers of rural area. With the changing patterns of Rural Market, the role of I.T. has increased from providing only the Networks to set-up the basis of updated technological programs in the rural area. It is seen that the people living in the rural area have strong purchasing power and have more openness for new technology as compared to the past. Evidence of the increase in purchasing power can be drawn from the statement of Mr. D. Shivakumar (Business Head - Personal Product Division, Hindustan Unilever Limited) who said that the money available for spending on the FMCG by Rural India is 63,500 Cr., which is much more as compared to Urban India that spends the amount of approximately 49,500 Cr.

In Rural India, Government has already provided Info-kiosks (a rural version of cyber café) which provide basic communication facilities like internet connection and telecommunication services. Modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's) were found to have great potential to contribute. The projects of Info- Kiosks are very popular in the region of Andra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujrat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madya Pradesh, Rajasthan Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and have shown a positive response in the development of the rural area.

Government is taking serious steps for the development of the rural market, under which the activities related to the development of the rural infrastructure, subsidized food availability and rural employment schemes are at the priority. I.T. plays a major role in accurate implementing these developmental programs in the rural area. Government has set up various centers which are spreading the I.T. web in the rural area through which people can be benefited and exploit the resources available efficiently.

I.T. AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT:

I.T. has varied applications in it, through which the development of the rural area can be possible accurately. Government had introduced a number of programs through which the people of rural India can come forward and use the I.T. enabled services and work more systematically. Some of the programs run by the Government are:

b E-Mitra:

This service is launched by the RAJASTHAN Government for the first time for its rural citizens, so that they can deploy the I.T. enabled benefits to its fullest. E- Mitra is State Government started projects, which soon become highly popular in the region. In year 2002, two projects came into existence namely; Lok Mitra and Jan Mitra.

Where Jan Mitra is an integrated electronic platform through which the citizens of Rajasthan can avail the benefit if getting the desired information regarding any Governmental Department at kiosks which is very near to there doorstep. These Initiative program of Rajasthan government have not only helped the Government by reducing the burden of attending every call, it has reduced the waiting time for the service and has lead to provide comfort to the citizens also, as with the inception of this service they can easily get the information required at their doorstep.

Lok Mitra is an urban electronic Governance Project which was launched in Jaipur city in year 2002, which helps the citizens of Jaipur (now other cities also) to pay their bills online (land, Water, Bus Tickets and BSNL) leading the citizen to save the waiting time. This service also ensures people that their money is going directly to the Government and provides a feeling of security related to their bills payment.

b Community Information Centers:

The program is designed especially for providing the internet access and I.T. Enabled services to the citizens through which the interface between the Government and the Citizens can be setup. These centers connect seven northeast states namely; Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Mehalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. The center helps to gain the connectivity at the time of unsuitable environmental conditions. The centers are commonly termed as CIC which are generally situated at the school, college or any governmental office. People can come for the Internet access, and for accessing the internet, a nominal amount is charged from the people through which the daily expenses of the centers are maintained.

b wi-fi Projects:

One of the wi-fi project under which few villages (of UTTAR PRADESH) are connected to internet is Digital Gangetic Plan (DGP). Through the use of DGP wireless network connectivity is created, this program helped the people residing in villages of India to have the access of internet through which the information on various issues can be collected ad used, at the same time the people living in rural India can be updated with the new technological changes and the innovative changes taking place in the national and the international markets. For instance; Bimari Jankari is a portal through which the information regarding every disease and health related issues is available and Digital Mandi is available as one of the portals where all the information regarding the agricultural commodities are available. This portal provides the information regarding the prices of the commodities and their relative value.

b Drishtee:

Drishtee is present in 5 States and is currently available in six districts. It is a private company, which was previously named as Cyber Edge, which has the main work of developing the modules. It is present in Bihar, Haryana, Madya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. It is generally suited in the Panchayat or in the bazaars. They prepare the module for the poor section of the society who cannot understand the international language. The modules are designed for the rural and semi-urban areas especially.

b Gyandoot:

It was established in January in year 2000. It is an e-governance based module designed for the rural citizens. The project was initially initiated by the Government of MADHYA PRADESH. Gyandoot caters the need of the villagers by providing the information related to the prevailing rates of the agro-based commodities and the rate of land. Each Gyandoot Info kiosks caters to approximately 15 panchayats and 30 villages. The module is designed with the aim to provide cost effective and sustainable delivery model to the people.

b TARAhaat:

It was developed by an NGO (non-government organization); with the vision to bring internet facility to the rural India. It is a franchisee based business model that attempts to generate revenues by focusing on the marketing services through the module (especial focus on the local applications). It was initiated in the region of PUNJAB with the introduction of different centers called as Kendra's which are connected to each other through the dial up internet connection facility. These Kendra's have power backup also; in case, the electricity supply is interrupted. The info kiosks provide online and offline services information on education, prevailing opportunities in the market and other useful information for the villagers. TARAkendra's are very popular in between the local population as it provides the information in the local language and the portal is designed in such a pattern that semi literate population can also understand it without any difficulty. Different services that TARAkendra's provide are:

O TARABazar (for product information)

O TARAdhaba (for providing connectivity)

O TARAdak (connect to relatives at distance)

O TARAgyan (educate rural youth on various issues)

O TARAguru (helps in mentoring and consultancy)

O TARAvan (delivery of orders at remote areas) and many other services are also provided.

b Rural e-seva:

It was initiated by ANDRA PRADESH Government. It was initially implemented in West Godavari District to deliver e-governance facility. The centers are designed with the view to provide better governance facilities to the people of the Rural India. The popularity of e-seva can be estimated from the fact that in the year 2003, more than 400 million rupees was collected only for the electricity payment. With the success of the e-seva in electricity bills payment, Government is looking forward for introducing it in the areas of collection of telephone bills and local Governmental Bills. E-seva is gaining popularity with passing days as it helps the citizens to avail the benefit of getting the certificates at their doorsteps; which is both relaxing and reliable.

b Bhoomi:

The KARNATAKA Government for maintaining the records related to the land introduced it. The Department of Revenue in Karnataka has computerized 20 million records of land ownership belonging to 6.7 million farmers of the state. With the introduction of the program, the farmers are free from giving the bribe and are protected from the harassment. Framers can easily get the Records of Rights, Tenancy and Crops (RTC) by depositing a minimal fee of Rs. 15.

National Informatics Centers (NIC) through which the software online copies of the land records are available developed the software of Bhoomi. By giving an online request, farmers get an online enrollment number through which further processing can be done. In the software, the connectivity is through the LAN through which all the clients are connected to the hubs.

With the increasing popularity of the project, Government of India has decided to introduce the project in other parts of the country also, namely: Kerala, West Bengal, Sikkim, Tripura, Punjab, Haryana, Madya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Gujrat, Assam, Orrisa, Rajasthan and Pondicherry.

b e-choupal:

It is designed especially for the farmers of India. Through e-choupal, farmers who are living in the remote area of the country and cannot manage to have direct contact with the consumer can come forward to have a direct contact. It provides an e-procurement system through which the farmers can access the latest and updated information (local, national and international) related to different farming practices. It provides real time information and customized knowledge to the farmers through which the farmer can take better decisions and can have direct contact with the customer, reducing the amount wasted by moving through the distribution channel of intermediary.

E-choupal has already become the largest initiative among all internet-based interventions in Rural India. E-choupal is present in 36,000 villages through nearly 6,000 kiosks across nine states. ITC (Indian Tobacco Company) is planning to expand the concept of e-choupal further in 15 states of India.

b Aksh:

It is mostly active in Northern India, it is a fiber optic cable company with its core competence in lay down and maintenance if cable. Aksh has the license to lay down the cables in the rural areas. It initially has collaborated with Drishtee for maintenance of kiosks, but with the changing times; Drishtee and Aksh have separated in different service offerings. While Urban Area has witnessed a penetration of cable T.V., rural areas have left un-served. The fact behind the low level of cable T.V. proportion in rural as compared to urban area is due to the fact that in rural area there are a limited number of houses which can afford cable T.V. The bandwidth delivered by Aksh supports a large variety of services (including video interactions) which will lead to increase the level information exchange in between the people living in several areas of rural India.

b n-Logue

N-Logue is activated in South India and due to its advantages is entering into the northern areas. The main impetus came from IIT -Chennai. It is a non-profit organization with the responsibility of providing rural IT based services (including hardware and software) through connectivity and application all around the rural area. It is functional with WLL Technology whose construction and maintenance is costly and the connectivity is also limited to a certain area, but has the facility of providing connectivity with a range of services as it provides the voice call facility and overcome the problem of dial up connection errors. N-Logue is further supported by IIT-Chennai, which prepares a variety of local language software for it in short time for convenience and comfort. It has also added the facility of web-cam through which the remote diagnosis of various problems can be done. Tamil Nadu Government has supported the functions of n-Logue (especially in its Madurai and Nellikuppam district). N-Logue charges for connectivity and is relatively popular in the southern region due to its easy connectivity functioning and training of handling the applications.

INCLINATION OF SECTORS TOWARDS RURAL INDIA:

Income generation from Rural India has increased dramatically from past few years. Trends have witnessed twice growth rate of the rural market as compared to the urban markets. According to a McKinsey survey conducted in year 2007, Rural India, with a population of 627 million, (approximately 74.3 per cent of the total population), would become bigger than the total consumer market in countries such as South Korea or Canada in another twenty years. Moreover, it would grow almost four times from its existing size in 2007, which was estimated at US$ 577 billion. Several sectors are showing their inclination towards the rural market area due to the increased possibility of opportunities.

1. FMCG

According to Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the number of rural households using fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products has grown from 136 million in 2004 to 143 million in 2007.

In a report by market research firm AC Nielsen, in April-May 2008, it was observed that rural market has shown a rapid rate of growth. The FMCG sector in rural areas is projected to grow by 40 per cent against the 25 per cent growth in urban areas.

2. Insurance

According to a report, 'Insurance in Next 2 Years', by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), in May 2008, the insurance sector size was estimated at US$ 12.8 billion, and it is likely to see an unprecedented growth of 200 per cent, touching US$ 51.2 billion by 2009-10. Rural India may offer a business opportunity worth US$ 23 billion for the insurance companies if the segment can be wooed with innovative saving schemes at affordable premiums

3. Retail

According to a study, conducted in September 2007, by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on the Indian rural retail sector, opportunities in Rural Retail were estimated to be over US$ 34 billion in year 2007. This figure is expected to touch US$ 43 billion in 2010 and go up to US$ 58 billion by 2015. The rural markets in 2008 have grown at 25 per cent compared to the 7-10 per cent growth rate of the urban consumer retail market.

4. Automobiles

The Indian Automotive Industry currently has a turnover of US$ 34 billion. However, the automobile market remains untapped in rural India that has a strong purchasing power. Nearly 50 per cent of the Indian rural market, which includes 220 million households, is potential car buyers. Two-wheeler penetration in rural belts is still very low with less than 10 per cent households owning a two-wheeler.

5. Pharmaceuticals

The Indian Pharmaceuticals Market is regarded as one of the fastest growing in the world. In 2006-07, this market was valued at over US$ 7 billion with the rural segment having a remarkable share of this market. Industry estimates observed that while small towns contribute 20 per cent to the country's pharmaceuticals market, rural areas account for 21 per cent. In 2006-07, the rural Indian market was estimated at around US$ 1.4 billion, having grown at about 40 per cent in 2006-07 against 21 per cent in the previous year.

6. Consumer durables

A survey carried out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), indicated that the consumer durable goods sector is all set to witness 12 per cent growth in 2008. The rural market is growing faster than the urban markets, although the penetration level in rural area is much lower. The rural Indian market, which accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the total number of households, witnessed a 25 per cent annual growth while the urban consumer durables market reflected an annual rate of 7 to 10 per cent.

* Source: IBEF Report, August 21, 2008

CONCLUSION:

The face of Indian rural market can be transformed only with the deployment of I.T. The paper has provided the brief description of the various services offered in the rural areas of different states of India and simultaneously the advantages these services have. All the services have difference in degree of connectivity, level of service offered and basic organizational structure. It is clearly seen that the range of I.T. enabled service proportion is increasing at a rapid rate in the rural areas of India. The fact behind it is the increasing interest of the organizations (profitable and non-profitable) to capture the rural markets and the increasing level of the education and market interface of the rural people. I.T. enabled services are growing at a fast rate and are providing several services to rural people with the common motive of having increase in the connectivity and thus creation of bigger market in the rural areas.

The increase in the services provided to the rural people (in terms of various services offered) will result in the overall betterment of the society on one side by enriching the people with updated market information and providing latest technological developmental news and organizations on other side by creating more market opportunities for them and adjustment of the market prices.

For development of the rural areas proper development of the IT Communication and Infrastructural services are essential along with the utilization of the fiber optic networks. I.T. services need to be developed in reference to the present rural infrastructure. Internet based services blended with customer support services should be provided in the rural areas, which can increase the acceptance rate of the services by the rural people.

Business Benefits Of Cloud Computing And The Dynamic Data Center

2010-03-19T09:23:00.000+05:30

The benefits of deploying applications using cloud computing include driving down run time and response time, minimizing the purchasing and deployment of physical infrastructure. Considerations for energy savings, flexibility, simplified systems administration, consumption-based pricing, and maximizing the footprint of the data center make the case for cloud computing even more powerful.

Pay-by-use cloud computing

For smaller organizations in particular, where tighter budget, floor space issues and less specialized IT staff are common, pay-by-use, or public, cloud computing yields significant business advantages. Layered service providers offering cloud computing solutions can be adjacent to company's equipment leases. Public clouds are run by third-party service providers and applications from different customers are likely to be mixed together on the cloud's servers, storage systems and networks.

•Expense-based, reduced capital outlay

•Up to date software licensing

•Automated software and security updates

•Robust, automated DR policies

•Reduced IT asset management issues

•Less hardware to dispose of

•Eliminates depreciable expenses

•Add/reduce capabilities and capacity as required

Private and hybrid cloud computing

Private cloud computing can be provided using an enterprise data center's own servers. Private clouds are built for the exclusive use of one client, providing the utmost control over data, security and quality of service. These clouds can also be created and run by a company's own IT staff. The combination of virtual machines and virtual appliances used for server deployment objects is one of the primary features of cloud computing. Also, organizations can merge a storage cloud that provides a virtualized storage platform and is managed through an API, or web-based interfaces for application data deployments and file management. Hybrid clouds combine both public and private cloud models, and may be used to handle planned workload spikes or storage cloud configurations. Dedicated audits for security policies are a must.

•Greater data security and control

•Manage quality of service

•Leverage existing infrastructure and staff

•Allows use of hybrid cloud services to suppliment private cloud capabilities.

To learn more about how cloud computing can positively affect your organization's IT budget, productivity and physical resources, please visit http://shopricom.com.

Cloud computing utilizes virtualization, data and application on-demand deployment, online delivery of services and open source software to yield considerable business benefits. With virtualization, cloud computing enables a dynamic data center where servers are utilizied based on demand. As demand changes, resources ramp up or down dynamically in order to meet the growing or shrinking workload. Applications in the cloud may replace traditional IT services, such as file serving, messaging, CRM, storage and more. The benefits of deploying applications using cloud computing include driving down run time and response time, minimizing the purchasing and deployment of physical infrastructure. Considerations for energy savings, flexibility, simplified systems administration, consumption-based pricing, and maximizing the footprint of the data center make the case for cloud computing even more powerful. Pay-by-use cloud computing For smaller organizations in particular, where tighter budget, floor space issues and less specialized IT staff are common, pay-by-use, or public, cloud computing yields significant business advantages. Layered service providers offering cloud computing solutions can be adjacent to company's equipment leases. Public clouds are run by third-party service providers and applications from different customers are likely to be mixed together on the cloud's servers, storage systems and networks. •Expense-based, reduced capital outlay •Up to date software licensing •Automated software and security updates •Robust, automated DR policies •Reduced IT asset management issues •Less hardware to dispose of •Eliminates depreciable expenses •Add/reduce capabilities and capacity as required Private and hybrid cloud computing Private cloud computing can be provided using an enterprise data center's own servers. Private clouds are built for the exclusive use of one client, providing the utmost control over data, security and quality of service. These clouds can also be created and run by a company's own IT staff. The combination of virtual machines and virtual appliances used for server deployment objects is one of the primary features of cloud computing. Also, organizations can merge a storage cloud that provides a virtualized storage platform and is managed through an API, or web-based interfaces for application data deployments and file management. Hybrid clouds combine both public and private cloud models, and may be used to handle planned workload spikes or storage cloud configurations. Dedicated audits for security policies are a must. •Greater data security and control •Manage quality of service •Leverage existing infrastructure and staff •Allows use of hybrid cloud services to suppliment private cloud capabilities. To learn more about how cloud computing can positively affect your organization's IT budget, productivity and physical resources, please visit http://shopricom.com.

Information Technology Explored as a Corporate Asset

2010-03-19T09:21:00.000+05:30

It is a significant fact that we are in the focal point of a deep-seated change in both technology and its application. Any institutions in our day expect to get more value from their investments in technology. In the "Post dearth era of calculation" the user-friendliness of dispensation power is not a check where cost of platform technology has become a minor factor in selecting among alternatives to build the business solution and as such the constraining factors are the managerial impact of reengineering the business process and the costs and time required for system development. Additionally, the need to re-educate personnel to the compulsory level of expertise can be an extremely expensive scheme. Open systems enable organizations to buy off-the-shelf solutions to business problems. Open systems standards set apart the design in which data is swapped, remote systems are accessed, and services are attracted. The receipt of open systems standards supports the creation of system architectures that can be built from technology components. These standards enable us, as follows:

• To build reusable class libraries to use in object-oriented design and development environments.

• To build functional products those interact with the same data which are bedded on object oriented as well as bedded on full integrity.

• To modify a correspondence at an individual desktop workstation to include data, addressing and graphics input from a word processor, a personal spreadsheet, a workgroup database, and an existing project host relevance to be propelled by electronic mail to someplace in the world.

It is worth mentioning that opposing to the claims of groups variety from the Open Software base to the user consortium Open User Recommended Solutions, open systems are not exclusively systems that conform to OSF UNIX specifications. The client/server model makes the enterprise available at the desk. It provides access to data that the previous architectures did not. Standards have been defined for client-server figuring. If these principles are understood and used, a society can rationally expect to buy solutions today that can grow with their business needs without the constant need to revise the solutions. Architectures based on open systems standards can be implemented throughout the world, as global systems become the norm for large organizations. While a supportable common platform on a global scale is far from standardized, it certainly is becoming much easier to accomplish. From the desktop, enterprise-wide applications are indistinguishable from workgroup and personal applications. Powerful enabling technologies with built-in conformance to open systems standards are evolving rapidly. Examples include object-oriented development, relational and object-oriented databases, multimedia, imaging, expert systems, geographic information systems, voice recognition and voice response, and text management. These technologies provide the opportunity to integrate their generic potential—with the particular necessities of a business—to create a cost-effective and personalized business solution. The client/server model provides the ideal platform with which to integrate these enabling technologies. Well-defined interface standards enable integration of products from several vendors to provide the right application solution. Enterprise systems are those that create and provide a shared information resource for the entire corporation. They do not imply centralized development and control, but they do treat information and technology as corporate resources. Enterprise network management requires all devices and applications in the enterprise computing environment to be visible and managed. This remains a major challenge as organizations move to distributed processing. Standards are defined and are being implemented within the client/server model. Client/server applications give greater viability to worker empowerment in a distributed organization than do today's host-centered environments.

Prospects are accessible to society and populace who are equipped and capable to compete in the global market and there is no denying the fact that a competitive global economy will ensure obsolescence and obscurity to those who cannot or are unwilling to compete. All organizations must look for ways to demonstrate value. We are in conclusion bearing in mind that an enthusiasm has to rethink upon existing managerial structures and commerce in putting into practice. Organizations are aggressively downsizing even as they try to aggressively expand their revenue base. There is more willingness to continue improvement practices and programs to eliminate redundancy and increase effectiveness. Organizations are becoming market-driven while remaining true to their business vision. To be competitive in a global economy, organizations in developed economies must employ technology to gain the efficiencies necessary to offset their higher labor costs. Reengineering the business process to provide information and decision-making support at points of customer contact reduces the need for layers of decision-making management, improves responsiveness, and enhances customer service. Empowerment means that knowledge and responsibility are available to the employee at the point of customer contact. Empowerment will ensure that product and service problems and opportunities are identified and finalized. Client/server computing is the most effective source for the tools that empower employees with authority and responsibility. The following are some key drivers in organizational philosophy, policies, and practices. Competitiveness is forcing organizations to find new ways to manage their business, despite fewer personnel, more outsourcing, a market-driven orientation, and rapid product obsolescence. Technology can be the enabler of organizational nimbleness. To survive and prosper in a world where trade barriers are being eliminated, organizations must look for partnerships and processes that are not restrained by artificial borders. Quality, cost, product differentiation, and service are the new marketing priorities. Our information systems must support these priorities.

Contesting demands that information systems organizations justify their costs and it is evident that business are in the way to question the return on their existing investments and as such Centralized IS an operation in particular are under the microscope. Manufactured goods obsolescence has never been so vital a factor. Purchasers have more options and are more demanding. Technology must enable organizations to anticipate demand and meet it. Quality and flexibility require decisions to be made by individuals who are in touch with the customer. Many organizations are eliminating layers of middle management. Technology must provide the necessary information and support to this new structure. If a business is run from its distributed locations, the technology supporting these units must be as reliable as the existing central systems. Technology for remote management of the distributed technology is essential in order to use scarce expertise appropriately and to reduce costs. Each individual must have access to all information he or she has a "need and right" to access, without regard to where it is collected, determined, or located. We can use technology today to provide this "single-system image" of information at the desk, whatever the technology used to create it. Standardization has introduced many new suppliers and has dramatically reduced costs. Competition is driving innovation. Organizations must use architectures that take advantage of cost-effective offerings as they appear. Desktop workstations now provide the power and mainframe capacity that mainframes did only a few years ago. The challenge is to effectively use this power and capacity to create solutions to real business problems. Downsizing and empowerment require that the workgroup have access to information and work collectively. Decisions are being made in the workplace, not in the head office. Standards and new technologies enable workstation users to access information and systems without regard to location. Remote network management enables experts to provide support and central, system-like reliability to distributed systems. However, distributed systems are not transparent. Data access across a network often has unpredictable result sets; therefore, performance on existing networks is often inadequate, requiring a retooling of the existing network infrastructure to support the new data access environment.

Standards enable many new vendors to enter the market. With a common platform target, every product has the entire marketplace as a potential customer. With the high rate of introduction of products, it is certain that organizations will have to deal with multiple vendors. Only through a commitment to standards-based technology will the heterogeneous multiple vendor environment effectively service the buyer. Workstation power, workgroup empowerment, preservation of existing investments, remote network management, and market-driven business are the forces creating the need for client/server computing. The technology is here; what is missing is the expertise to effectively apply it. Organizational pressures to demonstrate value apply as much to the information systems functions as to any other element or operating unit of the business. This is a special challenge because most IS organizations have not previously experienced strong financial constraints, nor have they been measured for success using the same business justification "yardstick" as other value-creating units within the business enterprise. IS has not been under the microscope to prove that the role it plays truly adds value to the overall organization. In today's world, organizations that cannot be seen to add value are either eliminated or outsourced. It has been found out on a survey that about 1000 companies, on average, spend 90 percent of IS dollars maintaining existing systems. Major business benefits, however, are available only from "new" systems. Dramatic reductions in the cost of technology help cost justify many systems. Organizations that adapt faster than their competitors demonstrate value and become the leaders in their marketplace. Products and services command a premium price when these organizations are "early to market." As they become commodities, they attract only commodity prices. This is true of both commercial organizations wishing to be competitive in the market with their products and of service organizations wishing to demonstrate value within their department or government sector. "It only took God seven days to create the world because he didn't have an existing environment to deal with."3 Billions of dollars have been invested in corporate computing infrastructure and training. This investment must be fully used. Successful client/server solutions integrate with the existing applications and provide a gradual migration to the new platforms and business models.

To meet the goals of the 1990s, organizations are downsizing and eliminating middle-management positions. They want to transfer responsibility to empower the person closest to the customer to make decisions. Historically, computer systems have imposed the burden of data collection and maintenance on the front-line work force but have husbanded information in the head office to support decision making by middle management. Information must be made available to the data creators and maintainers by providing the connectivity and distributed management of enterprise databases and applications. The technology of client/server computing will support the movement of information processing to the direct creators and users of information. OLTP applications traditionally have been used in insurance, financial, government, and sales-related organizations. These applications are characterized by their need for highly reliable platforms that guarantee that transactions will be handled correctly, no data will be lost, and response times will be extremely low, and only authorized users will have access to an application. The IS industry understands OLTP in the traditional mainframe-centered platforms but not in the distributed client/server platforms. Organizations do (and will continue) to rely on technology to drive business. Much of the IS industry does not yet understand how to build mission-critical applications on client/server platforms. As organizations move to employee empowerment and workgroup computing, the desktop becomes the critical technology element running the business. Client/server applications and platforms must provide mainframe levels of reliability. Executive information systems provide a single-screen view of "how well we are doing" by comparing the mass of details contained in their current and historical enterprise databases with information obtained from outside sources about the economy and competition. As organizations enter into corporation with their customers and suppliers, the need to integrate with external systems becomes essential in order to capture the necessary information for an effective EIS. Organizations want to use the EIS data to make strategic decisions. The DSS should provide "what if" analyses to project the results of these decisions. Managers define expectations, and the local processing capability generates decision alerts when reality does not conform. This is the DSS of the client/server model. Information is now recognized as a corporate resource. To be truly effective, organizations must collect data at the source and distribute it, according to the requirements of "need and right to access," throughout the organization. Workgroups will select the platforms that best meet their needs, and these platforms must integrate to support the enterprise solution. Systems built around open systems standards are essential for cost-effective integration. Los Angeles County issued a request for information stating simply that its goal was "to implement and operate a modern telecommunications network that creates a seamless utility for all County telecommunications applications from desktop to desktop. The United States government has initiated a project—the National Information Interchange that has the simple objective of "making the intellectual property of the United States available to all with a need and right to access.

"Computers will become a truly useful part of our society only when they are linked by an infrastructure like the highway system and the electric power grid, creating a new kind of free market for information services. The feature that makes the highway and electric power grids truly useful is their pervasiveness. Every home and office has ready access to these services; thus, they are used—without thought—in the normal course of living and working. This pervasive accessibility has emerged largely because of the adoption of standards for interconnection. If there were no standards for driving, imagine the confusion and danger. What if every wall plug were a different shape, or the power available on every plug were random? If using a service requires too much thought and attention, that service cannot become a default part of our living and working environment. "Imagine the United States without its highways. Our millions of cars, buses, and trucks driven in our own backyards and neighborhood parking lots, with occasional forays by the daring few along uncharted, unpredictable, and treacherous dirt roads, full of unspeakable terrors."7 The parking lot analogy illustrated in Figure 1.1 represents the current information-processing environment in most organizations. It is easy and transparent to locate and use information on a local area network (LAN), but information located on another LAN is almost inaccessible. End-user access to enterprise data often is unavailable except for predefined information requests. Although computers—from mainframes to PCs—are numerous, powerful, flexible, and widely used, they are still used in relative isolation. When they communicate, they usually do so ineffectively, through arcane and arbitrary procedures. Information comes with many faces. As shown in Figure 1.2, it can take the form of text, drawings, music, speech, photographs, stock prices, invoices, software, live video, and many other entities. Yet once information is computerized, it becomes a deceptively uniform sequence of ones and zeros. The underlying infrastructure must be flexible in the way it transports these ones and zeros. To be truly effective besides routing these binaries to their destinations the infrastructure must be able to carry binaries with varying degrees of speed, accuracy, and security to accommodate different computer capabilities and needs.

Because computers are manufactured and sold by vendors with differing views on the most effective technology, they do not share common implementation concepts. Transporting ones and zeros around, however flexibly, isn't enough. Computers based on different technologies cannot comprehend each other's ones and zeros any more than people comprehend foreign languages. We therefore need to endow our IS organizations with a set of widely understood common information interchange conventions. Moreover, these conventions must be based on concepts that make life easier for humans, rather than for computer servants. Finally, the truly useful infrastructure must be equipped with "common servers"—computers that provide a few basic information services of wide interest, such as computerized white and yellow pages.

Technological innovation proceeds at a pace that challenges the human mind to understand how to take advantage of its capabilities. Electronic information management, technological innovation in the personal computer, high-speed electronic communication, and digital encoding of information provide new opportunities for enhanced services at lower cost. Personal computers can provide services directly to people who have minimal computer experience. They provide low-cost, high-performance computing engines at the site that the individual lives, works, or accesses the service—regardless of where the information is physically stored. Standards for user interface, data access, and intercrosses communications have been defined for the personal computer and are being adopted by a majority of the vendor community. There is no reason to accept solutions that do not conform to the accepted standards. Most large organizations today use a heterogeneous collection of hardware, software, and connectivity technologies. There is considerable momentum toward increased use of technology from multiple vendors. This trend leads to an increasingly heterogeneous environment for users and developers of computer systems. Users are interested in the business functionality, not the technology. Developers rarely are interested in more than a subset of the technology. The concept of the single-system image says that you can build systems that provide transparency of the technology platform to the user and—at the largest extent possible—to the developer. Developers will need sufficient knowledge of the syntax used to solve the business problem, but will need little or no knowledge of the underlying technology infrastructure. Hardware platforms, operating systems, database engines, and communications protocols are necessary technological components of any computer solution, but they should provide services—not create obstacles to getting the job done. Services should be masked; that is, they should be provided in a natural manner without requiring the user to make unnatural gyrations to invoke them. Only by masking these services and by using standard interfaces can we hope to develop systems quickly and economically. At the same time, masking (known as encapsulation in object-oriented programming) and standard interfaces preserve the ability to change the underlying technology without affecting the application. There is value in restricting imagination when you build system architectures. Systems development is not an art; it is an engineering discipline that can be learned and used. Systems can be built on the foundations established by previous projects.

Within the single-system image environment, a business system user is totally unaware of where data is stored, how the client and server processors work, and what networking is involved in gaining connectivity. Every application that the user accesses provides a common "look and feel." Help is provided in the same way by every application. Errors are presented and resolved in the same way by every application. Access is provided through a standard security procedure for every application. Each user has access to all services for which he or she has a need and a right to access.

• The security layer is invisible to the authorized and impenetrable to the unauthorized.

• Navigation from function to function and application to application is provided in the same way in every system. New applications can be added with minimal training, because the standard functions work in the same way, and only the new business functions need be learned. It is not necessary to go to "boot camp for basic training" prior to using each new application. Basic training is a one-time effort because the basics do not change.

The complexity of a heterogeneous computing platform will result in many interfaces at both the logical and physical level. Organizations evolve from one platform to another as the industry changes, as new technologies evolve that are more cost effective, and as acquisitions and mergers introduce other installed platforms. All these advances must be accommodated. There is complexity and risk when attempting to interoperate among technologies from many vendors. It is necessary to engage in "proof of concept" testing to distinguish the marketing version of products and architectures from the delivered version. Many organizations use a test lab concept called technology competency centers to do this "proof of concept." The TCC concept provides a local, small-scale model of all the technologies involved in a potential single-system, interoperable image. Installing a proposed solution using a TCC is a low-cost means of ensuring that the solution is viable. These labs enable rapid installation of the proposed solution into a proven environment. They eliminate the need to set up from scratch all the components that are necessary to support the unique part of a new application. Organizations—Merrill Lynch, Health Canada, SHL System house, BSG Corporation, Microsoft, and many others—use such labs to do sanity checks on new technologies. The rapid changes in technology capability dictate that such a resource be available to validate new products. The single-system image is best implemented through the client/server model.. Our experience confirms that client/server computing can provide the enterprise to the desktop. Because the desktop computer is the user's view into the enterprise, there is no better way to guarantee a single image than to start at the desktop. Unfortunately, it often seems as if the number of definitions of client/server computing depends on how many organizations you survey, whether they're hardware and software vendors, integrators, or IS groups. Each has a vested interest in a definition that makes its particular product or service an indispensable component. Throughout this book, the following definitions will be used consistently:

• Client: A client is a single-user workstation that provides presentation services and the appropriate computing, connectivity, and database services and interfaces relevant to the business need.

• Server: A server is one or more multi-user processors with shared memory providing computing, connectivity, and database services and interfaces relevant to the business need.

Client/server computing is an environment that satisfies the business need by appropriately allocating the application processing between the client and the server processors. The client requests services from the server; the server processes the request and returns the result to the client. The communications mechanism is a message passing interposes communication (IPC) that enables (but does not require) distributed placement of the client and server processes. Client/server is a software model of computing, not a hardware definition. This definition makes client/server a rather generic model and fits what is known in the industry as "cooperative processing" or "peer-to-peer." Because the client/server environment is typically heterogeneous, the hardware platform and operating system of the client and server are not usually the same. In such cases, the communications mechanism may be further extended through a well-defined set of standard application program interfaces (APIs) and remote procedure calls. The modern diagram representing the client/server model was probably first popularized by Sybase. Figure 1.4 illustrates the single-system image vision. A client-user relies on the desktop workstation for all computing needs. Whether the application runs totally on the desktop or uses services provided by one or more servers—be they powerful PCs or mainframes—is irrelevant. Effective client/server computing will be fundamentally platform-independent. The user of an application wants the business functionality it provides; the computing platform provides access to this business functionality. There is no benefit, yet considerable risk, in exposing this platform to its user. Changes in platform and underlying technology should be transparent to the user. Training costs, business processing delays and errors, staff frustration, and staff turnover result from the confusion generated by changes in environments where the user is sensitive to the technology platform.

It is easily demonstrated that systems built with transparency to the technology, for all users, offer the highest probability of solid ongoing return for the technology investment. It is equally demonstrable that if developers become aware of the target platform, development will be bound to that platform. Developers will use special features, tricks, and syntax found only in the specific development platform. Tools, which isolate developers from the specifics of any single platform, assist developers in writing transparent, portable applications. These tools must be available for each of the three essential components in any application: data access, processing, and interfaces. Data access includes the graphical user interface (GUI) and stored data access. Processing includes the business logic. Interfaces link services with other applications. This simple model, reflected in Figure 1.5, should be kept in mind when following the evolution to client/server computing. The use of technology layers provides this application development isolation. These layers isolate the characteristics of the technology at each level from the layer above and below. This layering is fundamental to the development of applications in the client/server model. The rapid rate of change in these technologies and the lack of experience with the "best" solutions implies that we must isolate specific technologies from each other. This book will continue to emphasize and expand on the concept of a systems development environment (SDE) as a way to achieve this isolation. Developer tools are by far the most visible. Most developers need to know only the syntax of these tools to express the business problem in a format acceptable to the technology platform. With the increasing involvement of minicomputer professionals, as technology users and application assemblers, technology isolation is even more important. Very few—perhaps none—of an organization's application development staff needs to be aware of the hardware, system software, specific database engines, specific communications products, or specific presentation services products. These are invoked through the APIs message passing, and generated by tools or by a few technical specialists. As you will see in Chapter 6, the development of an application architecture supported by a technical architecture and systems development environment is the key to achieving this platform independence and ultimately to developing successful client/server applications.

As organizations increase the use of personal productivity tools, workstations become widely installed. The need to protect desktop real estate requires that host terminal capabilities be provided by the single workstation. It soon becomes evident that the power of the workstation is not being tapped and application processing migrates to the desktop. Once most users are connected from their workstation desktop to the applications and data at the host mainframe or minicomputer, there is significant cost benefit in offloading processing to these powerful workstations. The first applications tend to be data capture and edit. These simplify—but still use—the transaction expected by an already existing host application. If the workstation is to become truly integrated with the application, reengineering of the business process will be necessary. Accounting functions and many customer service applications are easily offloaded in this manner. Thus, workgroup and departmental processing is done at the LAN level, with host involvement for enterprise-wide data and enforcement of interdepartmental business rules. In this "dumb" terminal (IBM uses the euphemism nonprogrammable to describe its 327x devices) emulation environment, all application logic resides in the minicomputer, mainframe, or workstation. Clearly a $5000 or less desktop workstation is capable of much more than the character display provided by a $500 terminal. In the client/server model, the low-cost processing power of the workstation will replace host processing, and the application logic will be divided appropriately among the platforms. As previously noted, this distribution of function and data is transparent to the user and application developer.

The mainframe-centric model uses the presentation capabilities of the workstation to front-end existing applications. The character mode interface is remapped by products such as Easel and Mozart. The same data is displayed or entered through the use of pull-down lists, scrollable fields, check boxes, and buttons; the user interface is easy to use, and information is presented more clearly. In this mainframe-centric model, mainframe applications continue to run unmodified, because the existing terminal data stream is processed by the workstation-based communications API. This protects the investment in existing applications while improving performance and reducing costs. Character mode applications, usually driven from a block mode screen, attempt to display as much data as possible in order to reduce the number of transmissions required to complete a function. Dumb terminals impose limitations on the user interface including fixed length fields, fixed length lists, crowded screens, single or limited character fonts, limited or no graphics icons, and limited windowing for multiple application display. In addition, the fixed layout of the screen makes it difficult to support the display of conditionally derived information. In contrast, the workstation GUI provides facilities to build the screen dynamically. This enables screens to be built with a variable format based conditionally on the data values of specific fields. Variable length fields can be scrollable, and lists of fields can have a scrollable number of rows. This enables a much larger virtual screen to be used with no additional data communicated between the client workstation and server. Windowing can be used to pull up additional information such as help text, valid value lists, and error messages without losing the original screen contents. The more robust GUI facilities of the workstation enable the user to navigate easily around the screen. Additional information can be encapsulated by varying the display's colors, fonts, graphics icons, scrollable lists, pull-down lists, and option boxes. Option lists can be provided to enable users to quickly select input values. Help can be provided, based on the context and the cursor location, using the same pull-down list facilities. Although it is a limited use of client/server computing capability, a GUI front end to an existing application is frequently the first client/server-like application implemented by organizations familiar with the host mainframe and dumb-terminal approach. The GUI preserves the existing investment while providing the benefits of ease of use associated with a GUI. It is possible to provide dramatic and functionally rich changes to the user interface without host application change.

The next logical step is the provision of some edit and processing logic executing at the desktop workstation. This additional logic can be added without requiring changes in the host application and may reduce the host transaction rate by sending up only valid transactions. With minimal changes to the host application, network traffic can be reduced and performance can be improved by using the workstation's processing power to encode the data stream into a compressed form. A more interactive user interface can be provided with built-in, context-sensitive help, and extensive prompting and user interfaces that are sensitive to the users' level of expertise. These options can be added through the use of workstation processing power. These capabilities enable users to operate an existing system with less intensive training and may even provide the opportunity for public access to the applications. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is an example of this front-end processing. EDI enables organizations to communicate electronically with their suppliers or customers. Frequently, these systems provide the workstation front end to deal with the EDI link but continue to work with the existing back-end host system applications. Messages are reformatted and responses are handled by the EDI client, but application processing is done by the existing application server. Productivity may be enhanced significantly by capturing information at the source and making it available to all authorized users. Typically, if users employ a multipart form for data capture, the form data is entered into multiple systems. Capturing this information once to a server in a client/server application, and reusing the data for several client applications can reduce errors, lower data entry costs, and speed up the availability of this information.

There is no delay while the forms are passed around the organization. This is usually a better technique than forms imaging technology in which the forms are created and distributed internally in an organization. The use of workflow-management technology and techniques, in conjunction with imaging technology, is an effective way of handling this process when forms are filled out by a person who is physically remote from the organization. Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) technology can be an extremely effective way to automate the capture of data from a form, without the need to key. Current experience with this technique shows accuracy rates greater than 99.5 percent for typed forms and greater than 98.5 percent for handwritten forms.

Rightsizing and rationalizing are strategies used with the client/server model to take advantage of the lower cost of workstation technology. Rightsizing and upsizing may involve the addition of more diverse or more powerful computing resources to an enterprise computing environment. The benefits of rightsizing are reduction in cost and/or increased functionality, performance, and flexibility in the applications of the enterprise. Significant cost savings usually are obtained from a resulting reduction in employee, hardware, software, and maintenance expenses. Additional savings typically accrue from the improved effectiveness of the user community using client/server technology. Eliminating middle layers of management implies empowerment to the first level of management with the decision-making authority for the whole job. Information provided at the desktop by networked PCs and workstations integrated with existing host (such as mainframe and minicomputer) applications is necessary to facilitate this empowerment. These desktop-host integrated systems house the information required to make decisions quickly. To be effective, the desktop workstation must provide access to this information as part of the normal business practice. Architects and developers must work closely with business decision makers to ensure that new applications and systems are designed to be integrated with effective business processes. Much of the cause of poor return on technology investment is attributable to a lack of understanding by the designers of the day-to-day business impact of their solutions. Downsizing information systems is more than an attempt to use cheaper workstation technologies to replace existing mainframes and minicomputers in use. Although some benefit is obtained by this approach, greater benefit is obtained by reengineering the business processes to really use the capabilities of the desktop environment. Systems solutions are effective only when they are seen by the actual user to add value to the business process. Client/server technology implemented on low-cost standard hardware will drive downsizing. Client/server computing makes the desktop the users' enterprise. As we move from the machine-centered era of computing into the workgroup era, the desktop workstation is empowering the business user to regain ownership of his or her information resource. Client/server computing combines the best of the old with the new—the reliable multi-user access to shared data and resources with the intuitive, powerful desktop workstation.

In view of the above it is evident that object-oriented development concepts are embodied in the use of an SDE created for an organization from an architecturally selected set of tools. The SDE provides more effective development and maintenance than companies have experienced with traditional host-based approaches. Client/server computing is open computing. Mix and match is the rule. Development tools and development environments must be created with both openness and standards in mind. Mainframe applications rarely can be downsized—without modifications—to a workstation environment. Modifications can be minor, wherein tools are used to port existing mainframe source code—or major, wherein the applications are rewritten using completely new tools. In porting, native COBOL compilers, functional file systems, and emulators for DB2, IMS DB/DC, and CICS are available for workstations. In rewriting, there is a broad array of tools ranging from PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, and Access, to larger scale tools such as Forte and Dynasty. Micro Focus has added an Object Oriented (OO) option to its workbench to facilitate the creation of reusable components. The OO option supports integration with applications developed under Smalltalk/V PM. IBM's CICS for OS/2, OS400, RS6000, and HP/UX products enable developers to directly port applications using standard CICS call interfaces from the mainframe to the workstation. These applications can then run under OS/2, AIX, OS400, HP/UX, or MVS/VSE without modification. This promises to enable developers to create applications for execution in the CICS MVS environment and later to port them to these other environments without modification. Conversely, applications can be designed and built for such environments and subsequently ported to MVS (if this is a logical move). Organizations envisioning such a migration should ensure that their SDE incorporates standards that are consistent for all of these platforms.

These harvests, pooled with the economical processing power available on the workstation, make the workstation Local Area Network an ideal expansion and maintenance environment for existing host processors. When an organization views mainframe or minicomputer resources as real dollars, developers can usually justify offloading the development in only three to six months. Explorers can be effective only when a proper systems development environment is put in place and provided with a suite of tools offering the host capabilities plus enhanced connectivity. Workstation operating systems are still more primitive than the existing host server MVS, VMS, or UNIX operating systems. Therefore, appropriate standards and procedures must be put in place to coordinate shared development. The workstation environment will change. Only projects built with common standards and procedures will be resilient enough to remain viable in the new environment.

The major reserves come up to from new projects that can create apposite values at the initiate and do all development using the workstation LAN environment. It is possible to retrofit standards to an existing environment and establish a workstation with a LAN-based maintenance environment. The benefits are less because retrofitting the standards creates some costs. However, these costs are justified when the application is scheduled to undergo significant maintenance or if the application is very critical and there is a desire to reduce the error rate created by changes. The discipline associated with the movement toward client/server-based development, and the transfer of code between the host and client/server will almost certainly result in better testing and fewer errors. The testing facilities and usability of the workstation will make the developer and tester more effective and therefore more accurate. Business processes use database, communications, and application services. In an ideal world, we pick the best servers available to provide these services, thereby enabling our organizations to enjoy the maximum benefit that current technology provides. Real-world developers’ make compromises around the existing technology, existing application products, training investments, product support, and a myriad other factors. Key to the success of full client/server applications is selecting an appropriate application and technical architecture for the organization. Once the technical architecture is defined, the tools are known.

The ultimate pace is to accomplish an SDE to categorize the principles desirable to use the tools in actual fact. This SDE is the collection of hardware, software, standards, standard procedures, interfaces, and training built up to support the organization's particular needs. Many construction projects fail because their developers assume that a person with a toolbox full of carpenter's tools is a capable builder.

In view of the above, it is evident that in order to be a successful planner, a person needs be trained to build according to standards. The creation of standards to define interfaces to the sewerage, water, electrical utilities, road, school, and community systems is essential for successful, cost-effective building. We do not expect a carpenter to design such interfaces individually for every building. Rather, pragmatism discourages imagination in this regard. By reusing the models previously built to accomplish integration, we all benefit from cost and risk reduction. Suffice it to say that the preamble of a whole new generation of Object oriented Technology based on tools for client/server development demands that proper standards can be put in place to support shared development, reusable code, interfaces to existing systems, security, error handling, and an organizational standard "gaze and think." As with any new technology, there will be changes. Developers can build application systems closely tied to today's technology or use an SDE and promote applications that can progress along with the expertise podium.

Managing files and folders in the Windows XP operating system

2010-03-19T09:16:00.002+05:30

Windows XP supports both the FAT as well as the advanced NTFS file systems. NTFS-formatted volumes support several features that facilitate users in managing files and folders. These features are described as follows:
Compression

Compression is an NTFS attribute of files and folders. It increases the amount of available hard disk space by reducing the size of the files or folders. Compressing files and folders on a computer allows users to store more data on the computer's hard disk. NTFS supports compression on volumes, folders, as well as on the files that are compressed on an NTFS volume. A user can read a compressed file located on an NTFS volume without decompressing it. The file is decompressed automatically as soon as the file read process starts. On a volume that is running low on the available disk space, the compression proves to be a very effective means of increasing the empty space on the hard disk, thereby managing the disk space. A user can control the compression attributes on the files or folders individually.

In order to enable compression on a file, folder, or a complete NTFS volume, a user has to follow the steps given below:

Right-click the volume, file, or the folder, and select Properties.

On the General tab page of the Properties dialog box for the file, folder, or volume, click the Advanced button.
In the Advanced Attributes dialog box, select the Compress Contents To Save Disk Space check box in the Compress or Encrypt attributes section, and click the OK button.
Moving and copying compressed files and folders: When a user moves or copies compressed files and folders in Windows, these files and folders are affected in the following manner:

When the files and folders are moved within the NTFS volume, the compression attribute remains the same in the new location irrespective of the status of the destination folder (i.e., whether it is compressed or uncompressed).

When the files and folders are copied within the same volume from one location to another, the original compression attribute is lost and the files inherit the attributes of the new parent folder (destination).

When the files and folders are copied or moved to a different volume, the compression attribute is lost and the files or folders inherit the attributes of the destination folder.

Copying or moving compressed files and folders from an NTFS volume to a FAT or FAT32 volume does not sustain the compression because FAT or FAT32 does not support compression of files or folders.
Windows XP supports a new feature called compressed (zipped) folder. This feature can be used on volumes with either the FAT or NTFS file system, or both. The compressed (zipped) folder can be easily shared with other users even if they are not running Windows XP Professional or using a drive formatted with the NTFS file system.

Supporting File Encryption

File encryption is a file attribute that allows a user to protect files and folders. It is a way of making data illegible to protect it from unauthorized users, especially during network transmission. Windows XP Professional allows a user to protect the files and folders by using the Encrypting File System (EFS). EFS encodes a file in a manner so that a user cannot read the file's data even if he gets access to the file. Only an authorized user can read the file. When an unauthorized user attempts to access an EFS-encrypted resource, the user receives the Access Denied message. EFS implementation consists of two restrictions. First, an EFS-encryption can be used only on volumes formatted as NTFS, and secondly, a user cannot use EFS to encrypt a file that has been compressed by using NTFS compression. By default, Windows XP displays the names of encrypted files with a green color. A user can also change the color as per his requirement.

Managing Disk Quotas

Disk quota is a very efficient disk management feature of Windows XP Professional. The administrators on NTFS-formatted volumes can use this feature. It allows administrators to limit or fix the amount of disk space for multiple users on an NTFS volume. Disk quotas provide system administrators with a powerful tool for managing storage growth. Administrators can set both soft and hard limits, i.e., when a user exceeds a warning level (soft limit), an event is logged; when a user exceeds the hard limit, they receive an Out of Disk error. Disk quotas apply to the entire volume. It cannot be configured on a folder-by-folder basis. When a user reaches or exceeds the assigned quota limit, he will have to delete files to create empty space, transfer the ownership of some of his files to other users, or ask the administrator to provide more disk space. Compression does not work when the limit is exceeded. Merely by compressing some of the folders, a user cannot increase the available disk space in his assigned quota.

Managing Security

Windows XP provides an excellent way of securing the shared files and folders across a network by properly assigning the standard NTFS permissions. There are six basic NTFS folder permissions and five basic NTFS file permissions. In addition to these standard permissions, an NTFS-formatted volume also provides advanced files and folders permissions that an administrator can assign in a more specific manner. The system or network administrators on both files as well as folders can apply all of these permissions. The entire assigned standard as well as the advanced permissions can be viewed on the Security tab page of the File's or Folder's Properties dialog box.

Another way of managing security is to control the permission inheritance. When an administrator assigns some NTFS permissions on a folder, all the files and subfolders within the parent folder automatically inherit the parent folder's permissions. This is called permission inheritance. An administrator can stop such inheritance either at the parent level or child level by configuring the Security tab page of the Parent folder's dialog box. Therefore, Windows XP with the NTFS-formatted volume provides a very effective and efficient way of managing the files and folders both locally as well as in a networked environment.

Lost Windows Administrator Login Password? 6 Ways To Recover / Reset / Crack Password In Windows 7/vista/xp/2003/2K/nt

2010-03-19T09:15:00.000+05:30

What should you do when you've lost the password to connect to Windows? Ask an administrator to reset the password to access you. If you are a director yourself, and you can not remember your administrator password, the problem of having a little 'difficult, and probably difficult to find the "forgotten password" again. Before launching a search on the recovery CD or DVD for Windows format and reinstall Windows on your computer, here are some ways to unlock the groped for Windows to access the new system, at least to reset the password password.
Method 1: Take a rest, and try hard to remember the forgotten password
Sometimes, human beings are a bit "strange. You will not get the thing you need for urgency. Thus, a cafe, take a glance or even return after a few days, you may find that suddenly "remember" your Windows password.
Method 2: Try Blank Password Administrator Login Backdoor
In Windows XP (not Windows Vista as Administrator account is not enabled by default), is built in Administrator user account that has administrative rights, enabled by default, and no word password to protect access of the account was. If you have not changed the administrator password, and then try to connect to Windows XP without a password.
Method 3: Reset password from another user account with administrator credentials
If you can not connect to Windows using a special user account, but you can access another account that has administrative credentials, follow these steps on how to do the trick:

Log on to Windows by using another administrator account that has a password that you remember. You may need to start Windows in the safe mode.
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type "control userpasswords2″, and then click OK.
Click the user account that you forgot the password for, and then click Reset Password.
Type a new password in both the New password and the Confirm new password boxes, and then click OK.

Method 4: Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0

Download and burn the ISO file on to a CD or USB flash drive
Boot from the CD or USB flash drive

NOTE:
To reboot your PC with a CD/DVD disk, it's necessary to change your computer's setting to make it boot from the CD/DVD.
When the CD/DVD or USB disk boots, you'll see Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 is initializing .
Select Windows installation to be processed
Select the user name whose password you want to reset and click "Reset" button to reset the password.
A message is displayed. Click "Yes" to confirm your action. Or, click "No" to undo your selection.
"Success" message is displayed after the user's password has been successfully reset.
You have changed your forgotten password to a blank one. Remove the Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 bootable CD/DVD or USB Flash Drive and click "Reboot" button to reboot the computer. Now you are able to log into your computer without a password! .
Remove the CD or USB flash drive and reboot the computer.

Method 5: Windows Password Key 8.0

Download and burn the ISO file on to a CD or USB flash drive
Boot from the CD or USB flash drive

NOTE:
To reboot your PC with a CD/DVD disk, it's necessary to change your computer's setting to make it boot from the CD/DVD.
When the CD/DVD or USB disk boots, you'll see Windows Password key 8.0 is initializing .
Chose Windows installation to be processed
Look the user name whose password you want to reset and type its number to reset the password.
A message is display. Type "Y" to confirm your action. Or, type "N" to undo your selection.
"Success" message is displayed after the user's password has been successfully reset. You have changed your forgotten password to a blank one. Remove the Windows Password key 8.0 bootable CD/DVD or USB Flash Drive and click "Reboot" button to reboot the computer. Now you are able to log into your computer without a password! .
Remove the CD or USB flash drive and reboot the computer

Method 6: Windows Password Recovery 6.0

Windows Vista Boot Process Overview

2010-03-19T09:12:00.000+05:30

The Windows Vista™ boot process differs from Windows® XP in the way the operating system is located and initialized. Start-up begins with the BIOS loading the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the bootable disk. The MBR in turn loads the Partition Boot Record (PBR) on the active partition. So far, Windows Vista remains relatively unchanged.

Windows Vista is different from XP starting by the fact the PBR code written by Windows Vista no longer looks for Ntldr. The new boot loader in Windows Vista is Bootmgr. This component loads the Boot Configuration Database (BCD), which in turn loads an OS loader boot application (Winload.exe, in the case of Windows Vista). Finally, the OS loader application is responsible for initializing the kernel. This process is illustrated below.

You can think of this change in two elements:

The two key actions performed by Ntldr in previous Windows versions have been divided between two components:

1. Bootmgr reads the boot configuration, including device and path locations.

2. WindowsSystem32Winload.exe initializes the kernel.

The boot configuration stored by Boot.ini in previous Windows versions is now stored in an extensible database, BootBCD, the Boot Configuration Database (BCD).

These changes are significant because of the impact they have:

1. The boot process can be extended to support other applications, such as other operating systems or other versions of the OS.

2. Only nonversion-specific components are stored in the root of the active partition. This means that theoretically Windows Vista could be installed on a machine running some future Windows version with the same boot structure, and it would not break the boot process for that future version. With legacy Windows, installing an older Windows version last causes the newer version to fail on start-up. This is due to version-specific code improvements in Ntldr.

3. Tool-oriented boot entries can be supported to offer maintenance options on boot when a previous start-up failed. In the past, Windows supported an menu provided by a target operating system. This new structure can make tools available earlier during the boot process, meaning that they are available even if all OS-specific boot entries are damaged. The Windows Memory Diagnostic tool is provided in the boot menu in this way.

BCD Store
The Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store contains boot configuration parameters and controls how the operating system is started in Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. These parameters were previously in the Boot.ini file in BIOS-based operating systems or in the nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) entries in Extensible Firmware Interface-based operating systems. You can use the Bcdedit.exe command line tool to affect the Windows code which runs in the pre-operating system environment by adding, deleting, editing, and appending entries in the BCD store. Bcdedit.exe is located in the WindowsSystem32 directory of the Windows Vista partition.

The BCD is a database used by Bootmgr. It contains the functions of Boot.ini and is located in the {ActivePartition}boot folder

Bcdedit.exe
You can use Bcdedit.exe to modify the Windows code which runs in the pre-operating system environment by adding, deleting, editing, and appending entries in the BCD store. Bcdedit.exe is located in the WindowsSystem32 directory of the Windows Vista partition.

Boot.ini Compared to BCD
BCD eliminates the need for Boot.ini in Windows Vista, although Boot.ini is still present on dual-boot systems for backwards compatibility. Because the BCD boots to the boot environment first instead of Ntldr, the location of Ntldr is not verified unless a legacy operating system is chosen.

Configuration Tools
The BCD store can be modified or repaired using several tools:

System Properties in Control Panel
SystemPropertiesAdvanced.exe
Msconfig
Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) Startup Repair
Bcdedit.exe

Bootrec.exe
Most of these tools enable you to perform simple tasks, such as setting a boot menu timeout, setting a default operating system, or configuring boot options such as /SOS and /SAFEBOOT. Others are repair-oriented tools; Startup Repair and Bootrec.exe, in particular, provide automated mechanisms for fixing problems in the BCD.

Bcdedit.exe is the main tool for detailed BCD store modifications. You can use Bcdedit to change Bootmgr options; add boot, delete, and edit boot entries; import and export the BCD store; and create a new store if it becomes significantly damaged. Bcdedit.exe is located in the WindowsSystem32 directory of the Windows Vista partition and is also available in WinRE.

BCD Store Location
The BCD store is a registry hive, stored as BootBCD on the active partition. This hive is loaded but hidden from view in Regedit.exe within Windows Vista. The store is loaded to the following registry location: HKLMBCD00000000.

You can also view the store manually in WinRE by loading the hive from the Boot folder. To obtain a copy of the hive on a running system, use the Bcdedit /export filename command to export a hive file for offline examination. This command exports the BCD store to a file called filename in the current directory.

Related Components
Msconfig
Msconfig is the preferred PSS UI tool for managing boot settings. The tool supports BCD and allows the user to enumerate all BCD objects in the system store. It allows certain elements to be altered for each OS object, including debug settings, safe mode settings, and other popular PSS options. It cannot be used with the WinRE console; Bcdedit needs to be used in these cases.

Bcdedit.exe
Bcdedit.exe is a command line tool that can be used to manage BCD settings. In summary, Bcdedit.exe is a replacement for Bootcfg.exe. However, it is enhanced for better scripting and to expose some of the more powerful features of BCD that bootcfg.exe did not expose for manipulating Boot.ini. Bcdedit.exe is designed to work on previous operating systems and in recovery environments.

Fix Vb6 Runtime Error 10 - How To Fix Vb6 Runtime Error 10 Efficiently With Registry Cleaner

2010-03-19T09:10:00.002+05:30

Does your computer often keep freezing without obvious reason and come with VB6 Runtime Error 10? Are you frustrated by the infamous VB6 Runtime Error 10 due to the fact that it often comes with Blue Screen of Death errors, hard disk crashes or system errors? If you really want to get rid of VB6 Runtime Error 10, I sincerely suggest you use the way below you to get rid of VB6 Runtime Error 10.

What causes VB6 Runtime Error 10? How to Fix VB6 Runtime Error 10 Instantly and Efficiently?

Windows Registry serves as a central hierarchical database that is built to hold and retrieve information that Windows continually references during running, such as system setting, browser setting, installed application files information, kernel data, property sheet settings for folders, application icons and hardware data. Due to its crucial role in computing, an invalid or corrupted registry will lead to system crashes, Blue Screen of Death errors, mysterious system errors, VB6 Runtime Error 10, application removal failure and annoyed crucial data loss.

Overtime, the registry errors, such as runtime errors besides VB6 Runtime Error 10, empty registry keys, embedded registry keys, invalid uninstall entries, sound sections, Help Sections, invalid shortcuts and invalid file extensions, suffer a considerable accumulation and result in variety of computer problems.

How to Fix VB6 Runtime Error 10 Easily and Safely? Are there any methods that can efficiently fix VB6 Runtime Error 10 within minutes?

The best way of fixing VB6 Runtime Error 10 within minutes and optimize your system to peak performance is to install an advanced and high- engineered registry cleaner. An advanced, reliable and good- quality registry cleaner can provide you with absolutely helpful and professional solution to eternally, instantly and thoroughly fix the various kinds of VB6 Runtime Error 10 and registry errors, such as empty registry keys, embedded keys, invalid uninstall entries, sound sections, help sections, invalid shortcuts and invalid file extensions, in Windows Registry on purpose to speed up computer and completely help you out from the VB6 Runtime Error 10 problem.

If you want to find out more tips to fix VB6 Runtime Error 10, you can click: Fix VB6 Runtime Error 10

Are you tired of searching how to fix VB6 Runtime Error 10? Do you want to fix VB6 Runtime Error 10 within few mouse- clicks? I highly recommend you to install the Best Registry Cleaner with a free scan on purpose to efficiently and instantly fix VB6 Runtime Error 10!

Configure an Authoritative Time Server in Windows Server 2008

2010-03-19T09:07:00.000+05:30

Time synchronisation in modern computer networks is essential, all computers need to know the time as many applications, from sending an email to storing information are reliant on the PC knowing when the event took place.

Microsoft Windows Server from 2000 onwards has a time synchronisation utility built into the operating system called Windows Time (w32time.exe) which can be configured to operate as a network time server.

Windows Server 2008 can easily set the system clock to use UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, the World’s time standard) by accessing an Internet source (either: time.windows.com or time.nist.gov).

To achieve this, a user merely has to double click the clock on their desktop and adjust the settings in the Internet Time tab.

It must be noted however, that Microsoft and other operating system manufacturers strongly advise that external timing references should be used as Internet sources can’t be authenticated.

To configure the Windows Time service to use an external time source, click Start, Run and type regedit then click OK.

Locate the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\Type
In the right pane, right-click Type then click Modify, in edit Value type NTP in the Value data box then click OK.

Locate the following subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config\AnnounceFlags.
In the right pane, right-click AnnounceFlags and click Modify. The ‘AnnounceFlags' registry entry indicates whether the server is a trusted time reference, 5 indicates a trusted source so in the Edit DWORD Value box, under Value Data, type 5, then click OK.

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is an Internet protocol used for the transfer of accurate time, providing time information along so that a precise time can be obtained
To enable the Network Time Protocol; NTPserver, locate and click:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpServer\
In the right pane, right-click Enabled, then click Modify.

In the Edit DWord Value box, type 1 under Value data, then click OK.

Now go back and click on
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer
In the right pane, right-click NtpServer, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value under Value Data type In the right pane, right-click NtpServer, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value under Value Data type the Domain Name System (DNS), each DNS must be unique and you must append 0x1 to the end of each DNS name otherwise changes will not take effect.

Now click Ok.

Locate and click the following
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient\SpecialPollInterval
In the right pane, right-click SpecialPollInterval, then click Modify.

In the Edit DWORD Value box, under Value Data, type the number of seconds you want for each poll, ie 900 will poll every 15 minutes, then click OK.
To configure the time correction settings, locate:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\config
In the right pane, right-click MaxPosPhaseCorrection, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value box, under Base, click Decimal, under Value Data, type a time in seconds such as 3600 (an hour) then click OK.
Now go back and click:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\config
In the right pane, right-click MaxNegPhaseCorrection, then Modify.

In the Edit DWORD box under base, click Decimal, under value data type the time in seconds you want to poll such as 3600 (polls in one hour)
Exit Registry Editor
Now, to restart windows time service, click Start, Run (or alternatively use the command prompt facility) and type:

net stop w32time && net start w32time
And that’s it your time server should be now up and running.

Linux Vs Bsd

2010-03-19T09:05:00.001+05:30

What is a BSD Unix?

BSD family of Unix systems is based upon the source code of real Unix developed in Bell Labs, which was later purchased by the University of California - "Berkeley Software Distribution". The contemporary BSD systems stand on the source code that was released in the beginning of 1990's (Net/2 Lite and 386/BSD release).

BSD is behind the philosophy of TCP/IP networking and the Internet thereof; it is a developed Unix system with advanced features. Except for proprietary BSD/OS, the development of which was discontinued, there are currently four BSD systems available: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS X, which is derived from FreeBSD. There are also various forks of these, like PC-BSD - a FreeBSD clone, or MirOS, an OpenBSD clone. The intention of such forks is to include various characteristics missing in the above BSD systems, on which these (forks), no matter how well they are designed, only strongly depend. PC-BSD, for example, has more graphical features than FreeBSD, but there are no substantial differences between these two. PC-BSD cannot breathe without FreeBSD; FreeBSD or OpenBSD are independent of one another.

What is Linux?

Albeit users like to use the term "Linux" for any Linux distro including its packages (Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, etc.), for IT professionals Linux is only the kernel. Linux started in 1991, when its author, Linus Torvals, began his work on a free replacement of Minix. Developers of quite a few Linux system utilities used the source code from BSD, as both these systems started parallelly in about the same time (1992-1993) as Open Source.

Today, there are a few, if not many developers of their own kernels/operating systems (FreeDOS, Agnix, ReactOS, Inferno, etc.), but these guys simply missed the right train in the right hour. They did not lose anything except for the fact that they may be even better programmers, but without the public opinion acknowledging this at large. Linus built his fame also from work of many developers and he went on board in the right time. Linus deserves a credit as a software idea policy maker and he helped very much in this respect.

(Open)BSD vs Linux

It is often difficult to say what is better if you compare two things without regarding the purpose of their use. Mobile Internet may appear better for someone who travels often, but for people working at home such mobility is not necessary. In this view, it is a stupid question when someone asks: "What is better, a mobile or static Internet?" It all depends...

If you compare Linux and OpenBSD in their desktop environment features, Linux offers more applications than OpenBSD; but in a server solution BSD systems are known to be robust, more stable and secure, and without so many patches distributors release soon after their new version of Linux slithered to light.

BSD systems are based upon real Unix source code contrary to Linux, which was developed from scratch (kernel).

Differences between BSD and Linux

1) BSD license allows users/companies to modify a program's source code and not to release changes to the public. In other words, BSD licenses allow commercial use and incorporation of a code into proprietary commercial products. This is how Microsoft incorporated BSD networking into their products and how Mac OS X earns money through muscles of FreeBSD.

Linux uses GPL license for most of the time (applications in Linux can also have a BSD license - or any license; it is up to developers how they decide). With a GPL-licensed program anybody can change the source code, but he or she MUST share it with the Open Source community to make sure that everybody will benefit from such a change.

2) BSD has the so-called "core system" (without packages). The core system consists of basic utilities (like ssh, fdisk, various commands like chmod or sysctl, manual pages, etc.) and anything beyond this is strictly seen as an add-on. Linux (not only the kernel, of course) is usually packaged as the whole system where this difference is not seen.

3) On BSD systems, all add-on packages are strictly installed into the /usr/local directory: documents to user/local/share/docs/application_name; themes and other things to /usr/local/share/application_name; binaries to /usr/local/bin/application_name. By application_name we mean a program's name, so if you install IceWM, for example, its binary will be here: /usr/local/bin/icewm. With Linux, on the other hand, all applications get mostly installed into the /usr/bin directory.

4) BSD systems use the system of "ports", which are fingerprints of applications in the /usr/ports directory, where a user may "cd" and execute a make command, which will download, via a directive contained in such a fingerprint's code, the application's source and the system will compile it as well. "Ports" are actually add-on packages for BSD systems and they are also packaged in packages repository of a concrete BSD system. They can be installed as binaries, too, with use of the "pkg_add" either directly from the Internet or locally. But "ports" have that advantage that if an author of any package makes a new version, a user can immediately get its newest/updated version. Packages released for a particular BSD version (like OpenBSD 4.1) are not updated and users have to wait for a new BSD release (like OpenBSD 4.2).

5) BSD systems have also their stable version. With FreeBSD, for example, you have a FreeBSD-Release (a version that can be used normally), FreeBSD-Stable (system more profoundly audited for bugs and security holes), and a development version - Current, which is not stable and not recommended for a regular use. Some Linux distributions started to imitate this philosophy, but with BSD systems this way of making distributions has become a rule.

6) Of course, the kernel is absolutely different.

7) BSD has FFS file system; it is the only file system on BSD's contrary to Linux, where you can use dozens of file systems like ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, etc.

8) BSD systems divide their partitions internally. This means that after installing a BSD system to a hard disk, programs like fdisk, Partition Magic, Norton Ghost and many others will not see this internal division of a BSD (FFS) disk; thus, repartitioning of a disk is not such a pain when administrators require a rigorous partitioning (for /home, /tmp, /var, /etc directories). As a consequence, the naming convention also differs a little: a disk - /dev/ad0s3b in FreeBSD indicates that you deal with "slice" 3 ("s3"), which is the equivalent of Linux /dev/hda3; the internal "partition" has the name of a letter: "a", "b", "e", etc. ("b" is a swap partition). BSD systems also use different naming conventions for devices (disks, etc.).

9) Unless you make a good kernel hack, BSD systems can only be installed into the primary partition. This is not the rule with Linux. However, as BSD systems offer the above-mentioned internal division of partitions, this is not any pain. PC architecture for disks (IDE) follows the rule that you can have only four primary partitions. We will illustrate this on Linux: /dev/hda1 (note: first partition on master disk on first IDE channel), /dev/hda2 (second partition), /dev/hda3 (third partition), /dev/hda4 (fourth partition). PC architecture allows creation of the so-called logical disk on a physical disk (/dev/hda5, /dev/hda6, etc.). You can have as many logical disks/partitions as you wish and you can also install Linux into these "logical disks". On the other hand, installing a BSD OS into such a "logical partition" is not normally possible.

10) System configuration is manual for most of the time, but various clones like PC-BSD break this convention. The manual approach is a very good thing, as administrators have everything under control without being pushed to waste time in a labyrinth of bloated configuration menus. A good comparison is to imagine a car mechanic repairing the car's engine covered by a thick blanket. To give you even a little better example - you will hardly find a Linux distro that does not have a default X startup (graphical environment). Of course, you can switch off the X environment during the installation configuration, but if you keep forgetting like me and forget to switch this off, or you have difficulties to find it in the menu somewhere, you realize that most Linux distributors do indeed impose on us only one approach - to put our fingers first on the thick blanket, then on the engine. If you are a good administrator, you do not usually trust vendors who program you how to use Linux - you are the boss and you must have your own freedom. However, in most cases you lose few hours instead by deactivating various services, which are, unfortunately, not even necessary but almost always activated by default. Linux is praised both for being a good desktop and server, but administrators of a good server do not need X. The more software is stored on your hard disk, the more security problems you will face, because it is impossible to audit every package in every unthinkable situation. Good and secure systems are always tight, light and simple.

11) All BSD systems have a Linux emulation support. Running BSD binaries on Linux is a little harder.

12) BSD systems have less support from driver vendors, thus they lag behind in this view (they are not worse, but many vendors support only Microsoft and Linux). With a BSD system you must carefully research the Internet for supported products/chipsets before purchasing any hardware.

13) BSD systems do not use the Unix System V "runlevel scripts" (initialization startup scripts) like Linux.

14) BSD kernels can be set to several security levels. This is also possible with Linux, but BSD's have taken a very good care of this kernel-tuning feature, which makes it even impossible to change something in files in higher security levels - you cannot delete them.

15) BSD's have everything under one ROOF. Various Linux programs are often not even compatible with other Linuces. For example, if you install a SuSE RPM package on Mandrake, it may not work. BSD's have one solid crown of power. If you move from Linux to FreeBSD, you will soon find out that you got out of this chaos. Do you want a package? Just visit: http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ and download it. Unless its developer made some programming errors, it will always work.

16) Generally, BSD systems boot and reboot faster than Linux. Linux can do this, too, but it must be tuned. It is very surprising that Linux is shipped, on the one hand, on huge DVD's and, on the other hand, it has a compressed kernel. BSD systems do not use (but they can) a default kernel that is compressed, thus the system boots always faster. As I mentioned earlier in this article, Linux vendors program users to use various, often unnecessary services. I do not need SAMBA (file and print services) and many other things as well. Linux reboot process takes longer because various services running on Linux need time for deactivation. Many Linux users do not even know what is the purpose of these services.

17) In comparison to BSD, most Linux distributions are overbloated. Few good users noticed this some time ago and a new trend in the Linux world started with ideas to get closer to a BSD-style use. One of such distributions is Gentoo Linux, but also Slackware Linux, which has preserved a very good shape since its first release (1993). The Gentoo "About" page (http://www.gentoo.org) says that, "Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD..." Therefore, if you use Slackware or Gentoo, these Linuces will always reboot faster than any other Linux.

18) If you compile programs from ports, you will not stumble into compilation errors. BSD packagers prepare their packages carefully, so that users will always compile them successfully. This does not always happen with Linux.

Conclusion

I am the author of One Floppy CD Audio and MP3 Player, and a single floppy OpenBSD router. I really like all BSD systems. If you are interested, look into FreeBSD documentation, which is one of the best. It will give you a very good overview of history and hard work done in the development of these robust systems. Today, BSD Unices are the only quality alternative to Linux in the Open Source world.

Configure Windows Server as a Ntp Server

2010-03-17T07:19:00.000+05:30

The Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 2000 onwards has a built-in time synchronization service – ‘Windows Time’. This article describes how to configure the Microsoft Windows 2003 and Windows 2000 time service as a NTP time server. It shows how to modify registry entries to configure the Microsoft Windows Time Service. The Windows Time service allows a Windows network to provide synchronisation of all machines within a domain.

Windows 2003 Server Configuration

Windows 2003 has expanded on the original Windows 2000 time service by providing a true NTP implementation. The time service, installed by default, can synchronise to a NTP Server. Indeed, by manipulating registry settings for the service it can act as both an NTP server and client to synchronise other network clients in the domain.

The 'Windows Time' service should be present in the systems service list. The application executable is 'w32time.exe'. The parameter list for w32time can be found in the registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time

Before modifying registry entries it is good a dood idea to backup the registry settings. The registry can then be restored in the event of problems being encountered.
To configure a Windows 2003 machine to synchronise to an external NTP server, edit the following registry entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config\AnnounceFlags
Set the ‘Announce Flags’ registry entry to 5, to indicate a reliable time source.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NTPClient\SpecialPollInterval
The ‘Special Poll Interval’ registry entry defines the period in seconds that the Windows 2003 machine should poll the NTP server. A recommended value is 900 seconds, which equates to every 15 minutes.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer
The ‘NTP Server’ parameter is used to provide a list of IP addresses or DNS names, separated by a space, of NTP servers that the Windows 2003 machine can synchronise to.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NTPServer\Enabled
Changing the ‘Enabled’ flag to the value 1 enables the NTP Server.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\Type
Change the server type to NTP by specifying ‘NTP’ in the ‘Type’ registry entry.

Windows 2000 Time Service Configuration

Windows 2000 has an integrated time synchronisation service, installed by default, which can synchronise to a NTP Server. Indeed, by manipulating registry settings, the service can act as both an SNTP client and SNTP server to synchronise other network clients.

Before modifying registry entries it is good a dood idea to backup the registry settings. The registry can then be restored in the event of problems being encountered.
The 'Windows Time' service should be present in the systems service list. The application executable is 'w32time.exe'. The parameter list for w32time can be found in the registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters

Windows 2000 can operate as an NTP client and synchronise to an NTP server by setting parameter 'NTP Server' to the IP address of a NTP Server.

By default, the Microsoft Windows 2000 machine will synchronise to the specified NTP time server every 8 hours (or 3 times a day), which may not be enough to maintain accurate synchronisation. The period can be reduced by setting the 'Period' parameter to how many times a day synchronisation is required. Setting the period to 48 will activate synchronisation with the NTP server once every half hour.
Windows 2000 can also be configured to act as an NTP server by setting the 'Local NTP' parameter to '1'.

After editing any of the registry entries for the windows time service, the service must be restarted for the settings to take effect. The services can be started or stopped from the service control applet in 'administrative tools'. Alternatively the service can be controlled via the DOS net command thus:

net start w32time
net stop w32time

NTP Troubleshooting

A number of problems can be encountered when configuring the Windows Time Service. NTP operates using the UDP protocol over TCP/IP. Therefore the TCP/IP network infrastructure must be operational for NTP to be effective. Synchronisation issues may arise when NTP attempts to synchronise to an inaccurate time reference or if network delays are excessive.

Synchronising Time on Network Devices

As well as synchronising Microsoft Windows servers and workstations, NTP can also be used to synchronise network devices, such as hubs, switches and routers. Any network device that can synchronise to a NTP server can be pointed to the Windows server to achieve time synchronisation. In this way the whole network and accompanying infrastructure can be synchronised.

An Insight To Scada Systems

2010-03-17T07:08:00.002+05:30

While you might not really have heard of SCADA Systems before you sure have got experienced the advantages of them in your own everyday lives. SCADA systems are usually the majority of commonly found within commercial environments wherever it is vital that certain process's are monitored closely. One frequent way that most people will come into contact with a SCADA system is of their electricity provider, SCADA systems are used by them so they can notice where electrical power is being used and then redirect more energy into the actual areas which it is necessary.

SCADA Systems & Telemetry systems are usually closely related due to the need for the actual SCADA Systems to talk to each other. Because of to the remote nature of SCADA systems it is possible for them to work throughout not only Nations but whole Continents. The introduction of the digital age and especially the world wide web has seen a huge uptake in the actual usage of SCADA systems through smaller oraganisations for monitoring processes, this is due to the cost of entry becoming far less now due to the ease of communications which the world wide web offers.

SCADA systems connecting together using the Web leads to an additional issue such as security. It is said that everything connecting to the web can have security issues. The popularity in the use of SCADA Systems over the World wide web has lead to a good deal of worries over whether any terrorists might strike these types of SCADA Systems. Obviously the idea is very not likely that such a thing could end up being done but in principle it is possible. SCADA Systems although they will be developed to be secure SCADA Systems could also grow to be the victim of one of the several virii and similar issues that are widespread on the Web these days.

Even though the possibilities of these things taking place is actually there, we should not steer clear of using them because the likelihood of such things are slim to probably none within the area of present day software program security. To be truthful the benefits significantly out weigh the concerns.

Although the actual advantages of SCADA systems are usually huge for large businesses and Governments that does not imply that smaller sized companies will not get the benefits of using SCADA technology in fact they could be just as effective when the monitors are only a few yards apart as they are 100s of miles away. This area as mentioned before could be over continents, countries or even simply across sites which will certainly permit process monitoring from different locations. As you may understand from what we have said thus far that the special problems and difficulties of SCADA systems need a thorough and extensive understanding to develop looking around for a recognised professional would save you a lot in the long run.

Whilst mondern SCADA systems use the Internet to transfer the data we now know that there are several issues with doing this, although present day software and hadware development means that they are usually extremely unlikely to take place. I am certain you will concur that the risks are small when compared to the benefits that process monitoring through SCADA Systems will bring to a company no matter how large or small.

Why Outsourcing Is So Much Similar To Marriage

2010-03-17T07:07:00.000+05:30

Outsourcing is so much similar to marriage. Like marriage, outsourcing is a partnership between two entities – the customer and the vendor. Like marriage, outsourcing has its ups, downs and in-betweens and it’s a serious long-term commitment. Here are 8 reasons why outsourcing is so much similar to a marriage.

1.It’s a long-term commitment:
Like marriage, outsourcing works better if both parties agree to go the long haul. Like in all relationships, it takes time to understand each other’s vision, ethics, strengths and weaknesses. So, outsourcing is a partnership that reaps better dividends when both the customer and the vendor are prepared to work together towards common goals over the years. Both partners gain a lot from a business relationship that focuses on long-terms goals and not short-term profits.

2. Like marriage, outsourcing is a roller-coaster ride:
Don’t expect to sail smoothly with your outsourcing partner to distant shores. Like in a marriage, there are bound to be several ups and downs in your relationship with your outsourcing partner, as well. There may be issues raised due to miscommunication or financial constraints. And then, there are the highs that may include improved productivity and greater profitability.
Some of these highs can strengthen your relationship with your outsourcing partner; while some of the lows may drive a wedge between your company and your outsourcing firm. The trick to a successful relationship is to balance the highs and the lows, while focusing on your long-term goals, together.

3.Communication is the key:
This is something that every other certified marriage counselor and every self-proclaimed marriage guru will tell you. Communication is the key –in a marriage and in an outsourcing partnership, as well. It’s important to keep the communication channels open especially when you are dealing with an off-shore outsourcing partner in India. Several glitches may occur due to miscommunication, as you are dealing with two different cultures, two different lifestyles, two different time zones and two different work environments. Clear out any misunderstandings, right away and keep communication transparent. It’s a great way to build a strong foundation for your business partnership.

4.Compromise works wonders:
Most marriages fail because either or both partners are unwilling to come down from their pedestal and work out a compromise. Similarly, outsourcing partnerships work best when partners are willing to be more flexible and compromise to accommodate each other’s needs. This does not in any way mean compromising on productivity or quality. It simply means fine-tuning processes and systems to accommodate each other’s requirements.
Most outsourcing partnerships fail within the first three years and the reason in most cases is unrealistic expectations from either partners. Reaching a compromise and working together to fulfill reasonable expectations is the best way to make outsourcing a successful experience.

5.Trust is earned the hard way:
In most off-shore outsourcing scenarios, spanning continents, it takes time to build a relationship of trust between partners. Like in a marriage, it takes a lot of time and effort to reach a level of comfort where they can understand each other’s needs instinctively. Trust is built over several years of delivering quality work, on-time, every time. It’s built by going the distance and exceeding customer expectations. It’s built by working hard to improve each other’s business. Building trust is a slow and gradual process in outsourcing, as it is in a marriage.

6.Both require continuous effort to make it work:
Marriage is hard work. So is an outsourcing partnership. Both require continuous effort to make it work. Partners need to take time to address differences and grievances, re-align processes, re-focus on new goals, conduct regular trainings, and build a spirit of camaraderie between employees at both ends – in order to make the outsourcing partnership work. A successful outsourcing partnership, like a successful marriage requires constant efforts from both partners to make it work.

7.Divorce is a possibility
Not all marriages work. Similarly, not all outsourcing partnerships work. Failure is a part of life in the outsourcing world, too. In rare instances, outsourcing partners may not be able to see eye-to-eye on many issues. Expectations may not be realized. Financial issues may come in the way. Promises may not be adhered to. In such cases, the outsourcing partners may decide to go their separate ways. As in a marriage, divorce is a possibility in outsourcing partnerships, too. But it’s an extreme that should be avoided till the very end.

8.Eventually, it’s all worth the while!
May be there are a few major differences, maybe there are a few heart breaks, may be there are a few broken promises – but most couples when they look back say that on the whole, their marriage with all its ups and downs was worth the while. This holds good for a successful outsourcing partnership, too. In spite of all the differences, in spite of issues like miscommunication or differing viewpoints, outsourcing, too, is worth the while in the long run with both the customer and the vendor gaining heavily from the partnership – in terms of productivity, quality, timely delivery and greater profitability.

Lotus Notes To Microsoft Application Migrations

2010-03-17T07:06:00.000+05:30

In the recent years, due to the increasing popularity and user demand of Microsoft messaging and collaboration environments like Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Active Directory; companies are looking into migrating their messaging and application infrastructure from other platforms, like Lotus Notes to the Microsoft Messaging and Collaboration environment.

SharePoint and .Net provide key integration benefits with Exchange, Active Directory, Outlook, and Microsoft Office “out of the box” allowing the development of better collaborative business applications while being standardized on a Web based architecture and having a relational databases as the data store for reporting, scalability and disaster recovery. SharePoint and .Net applications can also integrate both structured content from enterprise applications and unstructured content from intranets, file folders, etc. due to the many utilities provided with the development environments. Also, given the large Microsoft developer community; extensive online support and the ease of rapid application development in the .Net environment it is easier for Lotus Notes based development groups to translate their skills into a Microsoft based environment.

Since Microsoft SharePoint and .Net are web based environments they provide many benefits in being able to centralize administration and management while reducing client based administration. Also, given that they have robust integration frameworks and methodologies, organizations can extend their ERP, MRP, Supply Chain and CRM platforms by providing easy access and integrations from those platforms into the SharePoint Portal and .Net environment.

Given that the goal of any migration is to reduce disruption to the business and the users of the systems, it is critical to come up with standards and best practices to make the adoption of the new platform easy in the end user community and reduce support requests after the migration. The following are some of the standards and best practice areas –

1. User Experience –
• To facilitate the transition of business users from the Notes platform to the Microsoft platform, it is necessary to keep the essence of the user experience and the navigation scheme to be similar to the one the designed in Notes.
• Any changes in the UI elements [for example differences in the behavior of multi-select boxes between Notes and SharePoint/.Net environments] should be done in a standardized format.
• A guide for UI changes should be developed to highlight the differences in the navigation in the converted applications.

2. Database Design –
• Given that the databases in Lotus Notes are non-relational while SQL Server is a relational database certain standardization is required during the conversion –

• Standardization of Unique identifiers for entities within the database and mapping scheme from the Lotus Notes ID scheme to the entity ID scheme in the relational database.
• Parsing attachments from rich text fields to be stored in separate relational tables with BLOBs.
• Transforming multi-values from a single string to a set of entries in a relational table
• Analyzing and converting relationships from hierarchical to relational

3. Development –
• Forms – Forms and sub-forms in Lotus Notes can be translated into ASP.Net forms, SharePoint lists, or InfoPath forms dependent on the complexity of the forms/database. The more complex forms should either be targeted for ASP.Net or InfoPath while the simpler forms can be targeted for the SharePoint environment.
• Validations – Complex logic based validations can be achieved using VBScripts in .Net forms or InfoPath forms while simple validations can be achieved in SharePoint without any code.
• Lookup data – Single level lookups are easily possible in SharePoint while multi-level dependent lookups can be accomplished in either InfoPath or ASP.Net
• Application Security – A common framework for application security should be developed so that both authorization of roles based security can be handled within all of the converted .Net applications.

Converting Lotus Notes applications to the Microsoft environment can be a very systematic and manageable project. The project needs upfront planning and dedication of the right resources, tools, frameworks, and processes. The converted applications provide for greater standardization, accessibility through a web browser, greater scalability, along with the ability to do comprehensive reporting using standard commercial tools like SQL Reporting Services, Crystal reports among others. Additionally, the applications provide for integrations with Microsoft office, Microsoft Outlook & Exchange along with the integrations with the company Active Directory infrastructure leading to better sharing of information, collaboration and utilization of the resources within the organization.

Three Important Testing Services Offerings

2010-03-17T07:04:00.000+05:30

According to the Gartner Research Report, ‘Market Trends: Application Development, Worldwide, 2008-2013’, the global software testing market equals $13 billion and the global market size of outsourced QA & Testing services is around $6.1 billion.

Software testing is an important part of software product development. Today, test outsourcing services that provide service offerings like process improvements and accelerated reach to market are widely used in order achieve high productivity and growth. Testing services offer the following services to software companies.

1. Test Process Improvements

Test teams are usually caught up with day-to-day activities that prevent them from taking up process improvement activities. By outsourcing, professional service consultants will assess and determine the best combination of custom-fitted processes that will yield substantial improvements overall. They can suggest process improvements in areas related to test planning, test coverage, test creation, test execution, defect tracking & analysis, end-to-end traceability, risk analysis and distributed/offshore test management.

2. Accelerated Time-to-Market

Most of the time test teams are expected to cover backlogs in a short period of time because even a single testing day shaved off from the project schedule results in delay of the product or service getting to market faster. With shrinking development cycle times, testing cycles times are also getting squeezed even more. Using test automation tools provided by testing services helps to get products faster to market through improved productivity and efficiency enhancers, appropriate tools and best-fit product methodologies.

3. Quality Program

Test teams require knowledge and expertise from best practices, processes, methodologies, systems, tools and resources in order to achieve high efficiency in their operations. Testing services also offer quality improvement programs that allow companies to expand their offerings and services.

Building Reporting Solutions And Dashboards With Sharepoint

2010-03-17T07:03:00.000+05:30

Comprehensive reporting solutions and dashboards provide the busy executive a quick snapshot of the right information, at the right time, in the right format, in real time. SharePoint based reporting solutions and dashboards leverage SharePoint’s intrinsic features like extensibility, integration capabilities, flexibility, and collaborative framework to facilitate building robust, secure and tailored solutions that virtually become the one stop shop for all the critical information requirement of business users.

Issues with the current state of the Enterprise

• Business systems are in multiple technologies, with specific processes that take too much time and money to make changes
• Information within Business systems are not easily extended to use in the content of the user with documents, websites, or to be shared with customers, business partners, suppliers and others securely
• Licensing models of enterprise systems make it cost prohibitive for enterprises to licenses all users who need to be casual users or consumers of information from these systems
• Lack key features like Workflow, Forms, Self Service, Document Management, Web Publishing, Integrated reporting and Search functionality
SharePoint in the Enterprise
Benefits
• Leveraging existing investments in SharePoint software to deliver more functionality and solutions in SharePoint
• Reduced training costs
• Integrated systems with Microsoft Office, Outlook, Active Directory, Exchange
Furthermore, SharePoint will also allow creation of applications that will be put together in portable, manageable components called “web parts” that can be targeted to customers, employees, and partners
• My orders, My Invoices, My Benefits, My Inventory, My Supplies among many quick to add features that pull together information from multiple places within an organization
SharePoint can be the single source, collaboration platform to access the various information and services from all areas of the organization
• Allows for seamlessly accessing information pan enterprise in a secure, personalized and centralized fashion.
Some Facts as to why SharePoint can be used as the Target Platform for Building Business Applications for the Enterprise
• SharePoint with its business user friendly and self service driven application model reduces the need for business to cultivate their own independent “IT shops”
• Reduces the need for custom software development by making many of the common forms, workflow and collaborative applications configurable based on a “point and click” model.
• Enterprise wide adoption of SharePoint could lead to reduced licensing costs of other software by being the 80% solution for various Content Mgmt, Document Mgmt, Reporting and Collaboration needs across the Enterprise
• The Web architecture of SharePoint lends itself to developing collaborative infrastructure nationwide, overseas, and with Business partners
• Native integration and collaboration features with Outlook, Active Directory and Microsoft Office making it the platform of choice upon adoption of Exchange/Outlook for Email
• The new feature of SharePoint allows for easy integration of the ERP systems and centralization of the Document Management, Reporting applications etc.
• The fastest growing product platform for Microsoft and is predicted to be adopted by 90% of the companies in the next few years –Aberdeen Group.

An Insight To The World Of Sharepoint

2010-03-17T07:02:00.000+05:30

Information is vital for organizations, whether it’s about the organization or the customers; the competition; or the market. Organizations can’t work in silos and collaboration is a key result area for improving performance efficiency. SharePoint from Microsoft is an answer to the several questions rose by the industry to resolve the issue of information silos & improving collaboration. SharePoint can be seen as an intranet used for streamlining data collaboration within organization more effective information sharing with secured access. It provides a centralized storage repository to make data access faster, easier and in a much safer way.

SharePoint emerged as a solution for many organizational issues in concern with Document management, Enterprise content management, Social applications, Project Management, Forms and workflow management and many more industry wide challenges. SharePoint provides an effective mechanism integrates organizations irrespective of their capacities i.e. it provides solutions to organization ranging from startups to fortune 500 companies.

Enterprise Content Management: With the amount of content that is being created daily by users within Enterprises, no wonder that there is a need for more and more sophisticated Enterprise Content Management solutions to organize, manage and search content within the enterprise. SharePoint Content management enables all users to participate in a governed, compliant content management lifecycle. SharePoint Content makes it possible to expertly balance user experience with policy and process.

Workflow & Form Management: Forms and workflow automation provides an IT independent self service mechanism allowing for automation of eforms, process and approval workflows like those one comes across in HR, IT services and the like. Leveraging Window’s workflow foundation, highly flexible, secure and scalable form and workflow solutions can be implemented in SharePoint that allow business users to configure the forms and process flow, set alerts and reminders, and change various parameters as needed, in a centralized self service fashion without having to depend on IT developers continuous

Social Application: Organization’s are striving to reach to customers in a much more extensive manner in a cost effective way. With user communities, blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS feeds, surveys and other facebook like social applications, pan enterprise communication, information sharing and collaboration has reached a whole new level, helping organizations harness synergies, and reduce process and project turnaround times making them more nimble and efficient

Project Management: Organizations across the world are striving for global reach and hence scaling up their project volume. With multiple ongoing projects the challenge to deliver on time being profitable becomes tremendous. The challenges organization face are Managing task and resource allocation, handling internal and external communication, team management, disparate workflows and teams involved, language/cultural barriers etc. To meet all of these challenges in a comprehensive fashion, one needs a complete project collaboration solution that allows for centralized web based collaboration, document and content management platform, and provides phase wise project monitoring and reporting dashboards, event triggered alerts, metadata and tagging driven process workflows, and secure access, all in a configurable, seamless, scalable and extensible format.

Document Management: With a plethora of documents- both paper and digital, scattered across your organization, information discovery becomes very important to provide the right information at the right time for your users. To meet this specific challenge, a comprehensive document management solution is preferred which centralizes all of your enterprise documents and provide ease of access along with a workflow, meta-data and security to seamlessly manage your document management solutions. SharePoint provides plenty of control over your data it allows managing access

Conclusion: SharePoint solutions have defined the new paradigms for Enterprise collaboration which is very effective in connecting the dots within organizations. SharePoint allows you to share information across groups, departments and teams by bridging the gaps and making information flow more effective and efficient across the broad spectrum of users.

Why Choose India For Application Development Services?

2010-03-17T06:59:00.002+05:30

For the modern business world, application development has become an essential. No matter in whatever category a business belongs to, every organization needs some software or applications in order to accomplish some of their essential chores efficiently. But, when it comes to effective application development then people often get confused about where to go and which company to choose. So, here we will discuss about the most profitable way of application development for your organization.

According to a recent survey it has been known that among all the countries which have established their positions in the global arena for their outstanding contribution in the application development, the name of India comes on the top. There are literally thousands of software and application development companies exist in India which offer a wide range of application development services to their clients worldwide. According to majority of the big corporate and the MNCs, the Indian application development companies offer one of the most high quality and effective application development services which ultimately proof beneficial for them.

Well, truly there are certain distinct aspects associated with the Indian offshore application development service providers and now we are going to discuss those below:

• First of all, the Indian offshore application development companies offer their services at much cheaper costs than the companies of the other countries. If you take the quotations of certain application development services from some companies like US and UK and on the contrary take the quotation from an Indian company, and you will find out the difference.
• India is a land that is worldwide popular for its intellectual property and the same reflects in application development services as well. The Indian application development companies employ highly skilled and experienced software professionals who are capable enough to create high quality and effective software and applications for their clients, no matter whatever is the requirement.
• Indian IT managers and the software personnel are qualified enough to speak with the foreign clients. So, if you belong to an English speaking country then you need not to worry in this regard.
• The Indian companies have several modes of communication, like voice chatting, video conferencing and so on, so you will be able to communicate with them efficiently.
• In order to serve you in the most efficient way the Indian application development service providers are available 24/7/365. So, whenever you will face any problem while operating the application made by an Indian company, just make them a call, they will be there to help you in every possible way.

So, when you are such wonderful facilities from an Indian application development company then why go for others?

Tips To Keep Your Computer Safe From Malware Attacks

2010-03-17T06:58:00.000+05:30

Malware can do a lot of damage to your computers and hence, you need to protect your computer from such attacks. In general, malware refers to all forms of malicious software. Just like viruses, a malware program gets downloaded to your computer without your consent and it starts creating problem on your system. Today due to easy access to Internet, your system can get attacked by malware in various ways. However, the biggest problem is that most of us don’t recognize the effect of a malware attack until it is too late.

Here is a list of major symptoms of malware attacks:

Computers start running slower than when it was new.

You can’t get to the website you want to or your home page keeps changing.

Monitor fills up with pop-up windows containing different types of advertisements for diet pills, sex aids and other junk stuffs.

Browser settings get changed automatically.

You are noticing overwrite code, delete files, or corrupt data in some way.

Use up available system memory and bring the system to a halt.

Your system gets crashed, experience data loss, or incur irreparable damage.

Damaging system files resulting in computer malfunction.

Redirecting the computer to a specified destination such as a dial-up connection.

If your computer is showing signs of any of the above symptoms, then your computer is definitely infected by some malware. Well, these symptoms are tough to recognize initially if you are using a super-fast processor in your computer. Computer without any anti-virus software and other protection have higher chances of getting attacked by some malware. Today, there are many types of software available in the market that can used to protect your computer from such attacks. For instance the NoAdware V5.0 review is very good and users are satisfied with the software.

Spyware and adware are two popular malware. Spyware is software that performs certain tasks on your computer without your consent. Whereas, adware is any software that automatically displays advertising material stored on your hard drive or uses your Internet connection to download advertising materials to your computer.

Usually, a spyware or adware program gets installed in your system during the downloading and installation process of software products from various websites. Plus, they get installed on your computer when you install shareware and freeware.

Interesting, there is a new form of malware known as “root kit” that get installed on your computer's hard drive and remain there hidden from detection. It functions secretly underneath the computer's operating system. Even there are many anti-virus programs that are not able to detect root kits. However, the NoAdware Review says that this latest anti-virus software is able to provide full protection to your computer.

Once your computer get infected by Spyware and adware, it is difficult to remove them. Unlike legitimate programs, these malware programs usually do not appear in the list of installed programs in your operating system. Hence, finding and removing adware and Spyware infections requires special programs and it is better if done by experts. As far as the NoAdware V5.0 review from the users is concerned it is quite good in removing virus from your system. Plus, NoAdware V5.0 is one of the fastest and most effective anti-virus software available in the market.

Well, you can easily buy NoAdware V5.0 software for your computer. Try the free version and once NoAdware Review satisfies you invest in the full version.

Modifying As400 Database Character Large Objects From A 64k Rpg Variable

2010-03-17T06:56:00.002+05:30

With most of us as400 developers working with huge volumes of XML data in our interfaces between applications on our as400 systems and between other systems, or with data coming from interfaces to web services running on other platforms or systems, we hit the problem of finding a way to store this data in our db2/400 database. As of now DB2/400 doesnt allow us to store or manipulate XML documents natively in the database (although this is earmarked for i5/os V7R1).

This is a simple issue to solve when we are accessing the database from java using jdbc and can manipulate CLOBS, but if we are using RPG to access the database, we are restricted in our access to the as400 database and CLOBS. Another issue is the record length on a db2 file is restricted to just under 32K.

We can storing large amounts of data in the database, in the form of LOBs(Large Objects). The type we can use for our XML storage purposes is the CLOB, which can hold character data including XML.

We can use embedded SQL in our RPG programs to put our XML data into a database clob fields, but we have some difficulties. We can store up to 2Gb of data in a CLOB. RPG has a field size maximum of 64K on V5R4 (16M on V6R1), but there is not an easy of getting our 64K of data in an RPG field into a database CLOB.

The example below, based on one from Scott Klement, shows how you can get data from your as400 RPG field into the CLOB.

The X/Open SQL Call Level Interface is a standard for direct access the a systems SQL Engine without a precompile, we will use this by calling the SQL CLI apis from RPG rather than using embedded SQL. It allows access to SQL functions directly through procedure calls to a service program provided by DB2 on the as400. Using the SQL Call Level Interface procedure calls allows you to prepare SQL statements, execute SQL statements, fetch rows of data, and even do advanced functions such as accessing the catalogs, and binding program variables to output columns.

So using the CLI, we can bypass the limitation of as400 embedded SQL, and pass our 64K of data as a host variable using a pointer. An example that shows how to update a CLOB using this method is shown below

/include *libl/qtxtsrc,MGSQLCLI_H
************************************************************************
* updateClob - Update Clob
************************************************************************
P updateClob B Export
D updateClob pi 10i 0
d Id 10i 0 const
d msg 65535A const

D id s 10s 0
D ptr s *
D rc s 10i 0
D msgLen s 10i 0
D msgSize s 10i 0
D env s like(SQLHENV) inz(SQL_NULL_HENV)
d xmsg s 65535A
/Free

xmsg = msg;

// Create an SQL environment & connection handle
SQLAllocEnv(env);
SQLSetEnvAttrI(env:SQL_ATTR_OUTPUT_NTS:
SQL_FALSE:%size(SQLINTEGER) );
SQLSetEnvAttrI(env: SQL_ATTR_ENVHNDL_COUNTER
:SQL_TRUE: %size(SQLINTEGER) );
SQLAllocConnect(env: conn);

// Set Naming Format
SQLSetConnectAttrI(conn: SQL_ATTR_DBC_SYS_NAMING
:SQL_TRUE: %size(SQLINTEGER) );

// Set Commitment Level to *CHG
SQLSetConnectAttrI(conn: SQL_ATTR_COMMIT
:SQL_COMMIT_CHG: %size(SQLINTEGER) );

// Connect to Database
SQLConnect(conn:'*LOCAL':SQL_NTS:*NULL
:SQL_NTS:*NULL:SQL_NTS );

// Create an SQL statement
SQLAllocStmt(conn: stmt );
rc = SQLPrepare(stmt
: 'UPDATE FILE SET mymsg =? WHERE myid =?'
: SQL_NTS );

// Assign statement parameters
ptr = %addr(xmsg);
msgLen = %len(xmsg);
msgSize = %size(xmsg);
rc = SQLBindParam(stmt:1:SQL_CLOB:SQL_CLOB:msgSize
:0:ptr:msgLen);

rc = SQLBindParam(stmt:2:SQL_NUMERIC:SQL_NUMERIC
:%len(id):%decpos(id): %addr(id):0);

// Execute Statement
rc = SQLExecute(stmt);

// Free up SQL Resources
SQLFreeStmt( stmt: SQL_DROP );

cleanup();
return rc;

/End-Free
p E
*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* Cleanup(): Deallocate/Disconnect SQL CLI handles
*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P cleanup B
D cleanup pi
/free
if (stmt SQL_NULL_HSTMT);
SQLFreeStmt( stmt: SQL_DROP );
stmt = SQL_NULL_HSTMT;
endif;

if (conn SQL_NULL_HDBC);
SQLDisconnect( conn );
SQLFreeConnect( conn );
conn = SQL_NULL_HDBC;
endif;
/End-Free
p E

So using the example above it should be fairly straight forward for a developer to updating an as400 db2 CLOB from a 64K RPG Variable using the SQL Call Level Interface

Be Sure With Backup And Restore Solution

2010-03-10T03:40:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time the backup and restore process on any computer was better left for an expert, but nowadays there are some solutions that allow you to operate your own backup and restore program with ease. This provides you, the end user, some great peace of mind and security knowing that regardless of any unwanted occurrence your backup is safe – in some cases, and it is advisable if you have precious data, you can even make more than one copy of a backup and store them in separate places, then you have even more knowledge that should your system require a restore you have the data at hand.
The ability to backup and restore your data and system files has become a paramount part of using computers, especially now we all access the web and view hundreds of web pages daily – each and every one of these pages has the potential to cause damage or loss to our precious files stored within our hard drive. Knowing we can simply backup and then if required restore all within a few minutes gives us the reassurance to enjoy browsing the web without unnecessary worries.

So far we have mentioned how easy it is to backup and restore, and also how quickly it can be done – this are two new factors to be seen in backup solutions with some extremely user-friendly programs available with a host of great features that will allow any of us to utilize the software to its full potential instead of to our potential, which is how backup and restore solutions were once seen to be.

A simple but effective backup and restore solution is more than sufficient and can save your crucial data and precious files in very little time. Finding a backup and restore solution that allows you to set the backup on a schedule is also a great thing as this will allow you to set the backup at a time that is convenient with you as well as being sure not to forget to backup - to find that you don’t have the latest information to restore can be frustrating.

Now you understand the importance of backing up and also that the backup and restore process doe not have to be complex, confusing and time consuming you can now take the next step to see how you can easily be benefitting from running your own backup and restore system at home.

Great Network Support Services

2010-03-10T03:38:00.002+05:30

Role of computers and internet has become indispensable in modern times. There is practically no field which has been left out of their influence be it education, sports, media, science, fashion, telecommunication etc. They have not only simplified life in terms of convenient, fast and reliable services. However, there have been some issues of concern which need to be addressed from time to time when in comes to computer and internet technology.
Network maintenance, network security and support services, remote network support and monitoring services etc are some matters of utmost concern which should be catered to by every organization dependent on such technology. Cyber crime is constantly on the rise as a negative outcome of e-business. Multi national corporations not only have to update and upgrade their online business operations with a reliable network security & support services but also procedures related their network maintenance. To beat the stiff competition in the era of globalization, entrepreneurs also have to strive to maintain quality for which Remote Network Support and Monitoring Services have come to play a significant role to sustain the enterprise for long run.

Most of the reputed BPO, KPO and other outsourcing firms have a strong infrastructure regarding Network Security and Support Services as well as Remote Network Support and Monitoring Services. Firewalls, Password Protection, Personal Identification Marks Scanners etc. are the most widely used Network Security & Support Services. Innumerable security protocols are developed by software professionals to meet the challenges arising in business houses of today.

Technology is fast changing the phase of how the business activities are performed, managed and controlled. For e.g. Finger print scanners or signature readers are some ways to check unauthorized access to confidential records or information in Defense or Investigative Agencies. Entrepreneurs can opt for the suitable Remote Network Support and Monitoring Services that best suit their enterprise in terms of cost effectiveness, utility and efficiency.

The same goes for network maintenance, Network Security & Support Services. Before opting for one of these services, businessmen need to carefully analyze the needs and nature of their business operations and then evaluate the available options in terms of their budget and the benefit that can be drawn by use of these services. If the benefits far exceed substantial investment, then it is definitely worth going ahead with high end services such as in the case of MNCs. However, small business units could consider installing regular programs to manage their Network Security and Monitoring Services effectively.

The bottom line is optimum utilization of resources without having to block the capital. And last but not the least, hiring competent staff to manage processes related to Network Maintenance, Network Security & Support Services as also Remote Network Support and Monitoring Services
. To sum up, a potent combination of both human resources and material resources are essential to ensure smooth running of business operations. Once a businessman decides on the right kind of network maintenance services and manpower for his firm, he or she can move to make it profitable enterprise in no time.

Tweaking Dns Setting - A Way To Speed Up Internet Connection

2010-03-10T03:34:00.002+05:30

Mostly people expect a fast response when they browse the internet, but it doesn’t always run as mostly people expect. Typically there are many factors that contribute a slow internet connection such as: a bad line from the customer premises to the nearest central office of the service provider, Central office problems, buggy software, and mostly due to the Web farm servers you browse to at the other end of the connection. So how do you speed up internet connection?
Generally when you sign-up the internet connection, there should be such kind of a service level agreement at least we know the bandwidth rate they provide the services to the subscriber. If you use traditional dial-up connection the maximum bandwidth will be 56Kbps. You cannot speed up internet connection exceeding the

architecture limitation. DOCSIS 3.0 Cable architecture probably can provide you faster speed up to 300 Mbps – but depends on the infrastructure the ISPs have built.

Definitely it is beyond our control when the bottom lines of the problems come from the ISP, the central office equipment, and slow web servers. But basically you can tweak the computers to get them in high performance in browsing the internet. The following guidelines will help you manipulate the computers to speed up internet connection.

How to tweak DNS setting to speed up internet connection

When you type in the hostnames in the browser such as www.Cisco.com, the DNS resolver needs to translate it into the corresponding IP address such as 55.125.102.113. DNS servers provide that name resolution automatically and behind the scenes as you surf the Web.

Editing Host File
A very simple way to speed up internet connection regarding the DNS setting is by editing the computer local hosts file. It takes time to send your request to a DNS server, have the server look up the proper IP address to resolve the name, and then send the IP address back to your PC. You can eliminate that delay by creating or

editing a local HOSTS file on your own PC that contains hostnames and their corresponding IP addresses.

Windows will first lookup the entry in the HOSTS file to see if there's an entry for the hostname, and, if it finds it, it will resolve the address itself. That way, you won't have to go out to a DNS server and wait for the response before visiting a web site. You can edit the HOSTS file with the notepad editor and you can create lists of most frequent web sites you visit.

You'll find an existing HOSTS file in C:\System32\Drivers\Etc\HOSTS. Open it in Notepad and enter the IP addresses and hostnames of your commonly visited web sites with the following format:

65.301.110.37 sysneta.com #example of the entry
67.101.200.107 computer-network.net

Each entry in the file should be on one line. The IP address should be in the first column and the corresponding hostname in the next column. At least one space should separate the two columns. You can add comments to the file by preceding the line with a hash (#),

Adjust the Computer DNS Caching Settings
You can also adjust the DNS Caching setting to help speed up internet connection. When you visit a site, Windows puts the DNS information into a local DNS cache on the computers. When you browse a website, your Computer first looks in its local DNS cache, called the resolve cache, to see whether the DNS information

is already in there. If it finds the information locally, it doesn't have to query a remote DNS server to find IP information. The cache is made up of recently queried names and entries taken from your HOSTS file.The cache contains both negative and positive entries that we can hack to help speed up internet connection.

Positive entries are those in which the DNS lookup succeeded, and you were able to connect to the web site. When XP looks in the cache, if it finds a positive entry, it immediately uses that DNS information and sends you to the requested web site.

Negative entries are those in which no match was found, and you end up getting a "Cannot find server or DNS Error" in your browser. Similarly, when the computer looks in the cache and finds a negative entry, it gives you the error message without bothering to go out to the site.

Negative entries can lead to problems. When you try to make a connection to a site that has a negative entry in your cache, you'll get an error message, even if the site's problems have been resolved and it's now reachable.You can solve this problem to speed up internet connection using a Registry hack. By default, XP caches

negative entries for five minutes. After five minutes, they're cleared from your cache. But if you'd like, you can force XP not to cache these negative entries, so that you'll never run into this problem.

Edit the registry using registry editor (Regedit from the Run command) and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters.
Create a new DWORD value with the name NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0. (The value may already exist. If it does, edit its value to 0.) The DWORD determines how much time, in seconds, to keep negative entries in the DNS cache. If you like, you can have the entries stay alive for one second by giving it a value of 1. After you're done editing, exit the Registry. To make the change take effect, restart your computer, or flush your cache by issuing the command ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt.That command will flush your DNS cache - all the entries, both positive and negative, will be flushed, and it will be empty until you start visiting web sites. Negative entries, however, will not be added to the cache if you've given the DWORD a value of 0.

To help you speed up internet connection you can also reduce the Web Cache as small as possible. The less disk space in your computer Web Cache for internet temporary files is less data the computer needs to search through. How to do that?

From your Windows, do the following:
Click Start => Select Control Panel => double click Internet Options => and then click Settings under Browsing History. Reduce the Disk Space to Use to the minimum amount the system recommend or as low as you want. Clear Internet Temporary Files

Another good way to speed up internet connection is to clear your internet temporary files. Many files in the web cache are active such as cookies are loaded in the browsers and constantly update themselves when you are surfing the internet. The computers always search the temporary files to match the latest version of a web page. To speed up internet connection you can clear the web cache to cut down the works the computer needs to do. The following steps can be tried to delete the web cache, make sure to shutdown the browsers prior performing the steps.

Click Start => Click Control Panel => double click Internet Options => Click Delete Files under Temporary Internet Files on the General tab. => check the Delete all offline content box and then click OK.

Spyware and viruses
Spyware and any types of Internet threats can cause the computers to slow down the internet response. Some Trojan viruses can also causes slow internet connection; scan the virus regularly to help you speed up internet connection. Make sure the computers are well protected by the antivirus software.

T3 Internet Has Huge Requirements From All Over The Industries

2010-03-10T03:33:00.000+05:30

Internet T1,
T1 is a high speed telephone line connectivity which is employed to send signals with date rate of 1.544 megabit per second as well as can provide connectivity to 24differt telephone lines with 64 kilobit to each of them. These lines can be used to send and receive voice or date traffic. It can bypass your local telephone company and can provide you direct connectivity to your long distance service provider.
Internet T3
Today, T3 internet has huge requirements from all over the industries. The feature that has created it such demanding is its unique date transfer capacity, allowing the date transfer at the rate of 44.736 megabit per second. This internet connectivity is very powerful as thousands of users can access the internet at the same time. DSC is used in many large corporate for its advanced technology. Its payload allows it to transports 28 DS1 signals without any problems.

DS3 broadband
When there is a need of high bandwidth connectivity at a large level, then the solitary solution comes in the form of DS3 that is the most advanced broadband connectivity you have experienced till now. The DS3 has data transmit rate up to 44.736 megabit per second that can provide connectivity to thousands of users at the same time. DS3 is capable of running over 20 times faster than a T1 connection. Once you have such broadband speed, you can deploy it to a wide variety of applications.

OC3,
OC3 is network line that works like a backbone to large internet requirements. Its most advanced technology allows it to deliver the date transmit rate up to 155.52 megabit per second. It is considered as abbreviated term for optical career level 3 which can be used to particular speed of fibre optic networks. It has a wide scope to be used in organisation where voice/date/video traffic always remain in requirements at a large extent

Some Tips And Tricks For Your Windows X

2010-03-09T02:42:00.000+05:30

STOP NOISE IN COPYING AUDIO CD
When using 3rd party burning software (eg, Nero Burning Rom) to copy audio CD,some noise may be heard at the end of each track. To prevent this,try the following method:
1. Enter System Properties\device manager
2. Select IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
3. Double click on thee CD writer IDE channel
4. Select advance setting
5. Change the transfer mode to 'PIO Only'
6. Restart Computer

DISABLING THE 'UNSIGNED DRIVER' DIALOGS
This option wll disable the screen wich keeps popping up when you try to install 'digitally unsigned drivers'. Normally you can choose to continue the install anyways, but I have had situations where you cannot continue the install.. very annoying.. This is how to fix it:
Click Start - Run
then type: gpedit.msc
then hit enter.
Browse the folder tree to the following location:
User Configuration - Administrative Templates - System
now right-click Code signing for Device drivers and select Properties.
On the Settings tab, either select
- enable, and then select ignore from the appearing listbox..
- or click the disable option. Click apply and Ok and your set!
Alternatively especially for XP Home users:
Open "System" properties (Windows key + pause or Right click 'My Computer' - properties or Control Panel - System).On the Hardware tab click the "Driver Signing" button. In the dialogue that comes up choose "Ignore" to install the new driver anyway.

DMA MODE ON IDE DEVICES VIEWS
Just like Windows 2000, Windows XP still fails to set the DMA mode correctly for the IDE device designated as the slaves on the primary IDE and secondary IDE channels. Most CD-ROMS are capable of supporting DMA mode, but the default in XP is still PIO. Setting it to DMA won't make your CD-ROM faster, but it will consume less CPU cycles. Here's how:
1. Open the Device Manager. One way to do that is to right click on "My Computer", select the Hardware tab, and Select Device Manager.
2. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and double-click on "Primary IDE Channel"
3. Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, check the "Device 1" setting. More than likely, your current transfer mode is set to PIO.
4. Set it to "DMA if available".
Repeat the step for the "Secondary IDE Channel" if you have devices attached to it. Reboot.

RESTORING MEDIA PLAYER
To restore Windows Media Player insert the the XP CD into the CD drive (if it autostarts click exit). Open a command window and type the following :
rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection InstallWMP7 132 c:\windows\inf\wmp.inf

RESTORING ACCESS TO CD ROM'S
If you removed CD Burning software, or for some other mystical reason, can not longer access your CD ROM's, in most cases following registry keys needs to be deleted: Locate and delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values under the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

DELETING THE INDEX.DAT
Del "C:\Documents and Settings\aeon\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat"

CONTROL PANEL ON THE DESKTOP.
On The Desktop, Right Click Your Mouse Then Choose "New | Folder". Name The Folder As "ControlPanel. {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Without The "Quote Things. And Now You Can Access The Control Panel More Faster Then Before.

CHANGING INTERNET EXPLORER ICON NAME.
Open Registry Editor Then Go To : "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID". You Can See A Few Key Below It.

Now Go To This Key {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}, Double Click At The Default Value On The Right, Enter Whatever Name You Like.

REMOVING USERNAME IN THE STARTMENU
Open Registry Editor Then Go To : "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer".
On The Right, Make A New Entry With Right Click On Your Mouse Then Choose "New | DWORD Value" Change The Entry's Name Into "NoUserNameInStartMenu", Double Click In The New Entry And Fill The "Value Data" With "1". Press OK, Exit From The Registry Editor. Restart Your Computer.

INTERNET EXPLORER LIGHTING-FAST STARTUP.
Isn't it annoying when you want to go to a new website, or any other site but your homepage, and you have to wait for your 'home' to load? This tweak tells Internet Explorer to simply 'run', without loading any webpages. (If you use a 'blank' page, that is still a page, and slows access. Notice the 'about:blank' in the address bar. The blank html page must still be loaded..). To load IE with 'nothing' [nothing is different than blank]:
1. Right-click on any shortcut you have to IE
[You should create a shortcut out of your desktop IE icon, and delete the original icon]
2. Click Properties
3. Add ' -nohome' [with a space before the dash] after the endquotes in the Target field.
4. Click OK
Fire up IE from your modified shortcut, and be amazed by how fast you are able to use IE!

INTERNET EXPLORER SPEED UP.
Edit your link to start Internet Explorer to have -nohome after it. For Example: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -nohome
This will load internet explorer very fast because it does not load a webpage while it is loading. If you want to go to your homepage after it is loaded, just click on the home button.

SPEED UP BROWSING WITH DNS CATCH.
when you connect to a web site your computer sends information back and forth, this is obvious. Some of this information deals with resolving the site name to an IP address, the stuff that tcp/ip really deals with, not words. This is DNS information and is used so that you will not need to ask for the site location each and every time you visit the site. Although WinXP and win2000 has a pretty efficient DNS cache, you can increase its overall performance by increasing its size. You can do this with the registry entries below:
************begin copy and paste***********
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters]
"CacheHashTableBucketSize"=dword:00000001
"CacheHashTableSize"=dword:00000180
"MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000fa00
"MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit"=dword:0000012d
************end copy and paste***********
make a new text file and rename it to dnscache.reg. Then copy and paste the above into it and save it. Then merge it into the registry.

START IEXPLORER WITH EMPTY BLUE SCREEN.
Set your default page to about:mozilla and IE will show a nice blue screen upon startup.

SPEED UP DETAILED VIEW IN WINDOWS EXPLORER.
If you like to view your files in Windows Explorer using the "Details" view here is a tweak to speed up the listing of file attributes: Viewing files in Windows Explorer using the "Details" mode shows various attributes associated with each file shown. Some of these must be retrieved from the individual files when you click on the directory for viewing. For a directory with numerous and relatively large files (such as a folder in which one stores media, eg: *.mp3's, *.avi's etc.)

Windows Explorer lags as it reads through each one. Here's how to disable viewing of unwanted attributes and speed up file browsing:
1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Navigate to the folder which you wish to optimize.
3. In "Details" mode right click the bar at the top which displays the names of the attribute columns.
4. Uncheck any that are unwanted/unneeded.
Explorer will apply your preferences immediately, and longs lists of unnecessary attributes will not be displayed. Likewise, one may choose to display any information which is regarded as needed, getting more out of Explorer.

WEB PAGES SLOWS DOWN, FIX.
The tweak is simple. Beside the QoS and others around the Internet for the new XP OS, I found out that native drivers sometimes slow you down (cable and xDSL users). So if you have applied all tweaks and you are still having slow downs try reinstalling your NICs drivers. The difference is noticeable. My web pages now load almost instantly where they used to take even a minute!

FIX IE 6 SLOWDOWNS AND HANGS.
1. Open a command prompt window on the desktop (Start/Run/command).
2. Exit IE and Windows Explorer (iexplore.exe and explorer.exe, respectively, in Task Manager, i.e - Ctrl-Alt-Del/Task Manager/Processes/End Process for each).
3. Use the following command exactly from your command prompt window to delete the corrupt file:
C:\>del "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat"
4. Restart Windows Explorer with Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del/Task Manager/Applications/New Task/Browse/C:\Windows\explorer.exe[or your path]) or Shutdown/Restart the computer from Task Manager.

SPEED UP WEB BROWSING.
Iv'e personally found a dramatic increase in web browsing after clearing the Windows XP DNS cache. To clear it type the following in a command prompt: ipconfig /flushdns.

ALLOW MORE THAN 2 SIMULTANEOUS DOWNLOADS ON IEXPLORER 6.
This is to increase the the number of max downloads to 10.
1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2. Locate the following key in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
3. On the Edit menu, click Add Value , and then add the following registry values:
"MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"=Dword:0000000a
"MaxConnectionsPerServer"=Dword:0000000a
4. Quit Registry Editor.

IPV6 INSTALLATION FOR WINDOWS XP.
This protocol is distined to replace the Internet Protocal Version 4 used by Internet Explorer it uses hexadecimal ip addresses instead of decimal example (decimal ip 62.98.231.67) (hexadecimal IP 2001:6b8:0:400::70c)
To install To install the IPv6 Protocol for Windows XP:
Log on to the computer running Windows XP with a user account that has local administrator privileges. Open a command prompt. From the Windows XP desktop, click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt. At the command prompt, type: ipv6 install
For more information on IPv6, visit the site below:
CODE
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/administration/ipv6/default.asp

ANOTHER WAY TO FIX IEXPLORER 6 SLOW PAGES LOADED.
Here's an easier way to get to index.dat file as addresse in another tweak submitted here.
1. click on Internet Explorer
2. go to to your root dir (usually C:)
3. open Documents and Settings folder
4. open "your username folder"
5. open UserData
6. **close IE if you have it open**
rename index.dat to index.old
logoff and log back on (don't need to restart) open up IE and go to a web page or site that always seemed to load slowly. It should load a lot more quickly now. NOTE. Always rename or backup .dat or other system files before deleting.

EASY WAY TO ADD THE ADMINISTRATOR USER TO THE WELCOME SCREEN.
Start the Registry Editor Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList \
Right-click an empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD Value Name the new value Administrator. Double-click this new value, and enter 1 as it's Value data. Close the registry editor and restart.

DRIVE ICONS.
To set the icon of any drive (hard disk, cd rom or anything else) with a letter (C:\ etc.), run REGEDIT (Start -> Run -> regedit)
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
If one doesn't already exist, create a new KEY called "DriveIcons". Under this key, create a new key with the letter of your drive. I.e. C for your C:\ drive.
To change the icon for that drive, create a key inside that one called DefaultIcon and set the path of (Default) to the location of your icon
eg C\DefaultIcon\ then (Default) = D:\Documents\C Drive Icon.ico
To change the name of that drive, create a key in the drive letter one (eg C\) called DefaultLabel and set the (Default) to what you want the drive to be called. This is useful if you want to assign a long name to the floppy drive.

CHANGING OEM REGISTRATIONS.
Have you used someone's new Hewlet Packard with their OEM version of Windows XP? You've seen that HP has their own icon in the Start Menu, underneath Run, that goes to their Help Site. Now, you can have your icon that does anything you want (website, program, etc) and says anything you want. Basically, you are "branding" Windows XP (Home or Pro), great for if you are a computer builder and sell them, or you just want to make Windows XP your own. It involves Regedit.
1. Start up Notepad and creat a new registry file (*.reg) and copy and paste the following into it:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@="YOUR COMPANY NAME"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\DefaultIcon]
@="YOUR ICON HERE"
00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,68,00,70,00,6c,00,69,00,\
6e,00,6b,00,2e,00,69,00,63,00,6f,00,00,00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,73,00,68,00,\
64,00,6f,00,63,00,76,00,77,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance]
"CLSID"="{3f454f0e-42ae-4d7c-8ea3-328250d6e272}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\Instance\InitPropertyBag]
"CLSID"="{13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000}"
"method"="ShellExecute"
"Command"="YOUR TITLE HERE"
"Param1"="YOUR FUNCTION HERE"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}]
@=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{2559a1f6-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000
2. Edit where it says YOUR ICON HERE to a path to an icon (ex. c:\\icon.ico), it must be 24x24 pixels and in *.ico format. Use double back slash for path names.
3. Edit both places where it says YOUR TITLE HERE to what you want it to say in the Start Menu (ex. Elranzer Homepage).
4. Edit where it says YOUR FUNCTION here to what you want it to do when you click it, it can be anything... your website, a local HTML document, a program, a Windows funtion, whatever your imagination can provide (ex. http://www.shareordie.com).
5. Save this file as brand.reg, double-click it to enterin your information, and refresh Explorer (log off/on) to see it in the Start Menu!! This works in both Home and Professional (and probably 64-Bit Professional) Editions!

ORIGINAL WALLPAPERS.
This is more of a fun tweak than it is useful. Go to run, type regedit press ok. when that comes up go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Control Panel>Desktop
Now find the orginalwallpaper, right click and select modify.In the text box type the path to the file you want to be your orginal desktop wallpaper.

DELETING My eBooks AND SPECIALS FOLDER IN MY DOCUMENTS.
Click Start, then Run and type: regsvr32 /u mydocs.dll
then delete them.

DISABLE WINDOWS PICTURE AND FAX VIEWER.
By default, Windows XP opens all picture files (gif,jpg,...) with the included Windows Picture and Fax Viewer no matter what other picture viewers you have installed. To disable the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, unregister shimgvw.dll. This can be done from command prompt: regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll

REMOVE PAST ITEMS ICONS IN TASKBAR.
Some times When you check your TasKbar properties or when you hide or unhide icons you can see old icons from Uninstalled or old programs you dont have anymore. This Tweak will help you how to get rid of this problem Thanks to leobull of Xperience.or How To clear the Past Items or Icons list in the TaskBar, perform the following steps:
1.Open Regedit Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify
2.Delete the IconStreams and PastIconsStream values
3.Open Task Manager, click the Processes tab, click Explorer.exe , and then click End Process .
4.In Task Manager, click File , click New Task , type explorer , and then click OK .

LOCKING COMPUTERS.
To lock a computer in XP, as you probably know, you press "L" while holding down "Windows Logo" key on your keyboard. However, if you would like to lock a computer remotely, for example via "Remote Administrator", you don't have this ability. What you can do instead, is to create a shortcut on remote computer's desktop where Target %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation Start In %windir%

ADMINISTRATOR IN WELCOME SCREEN.
When you install Windows XP an Administrator Account is created (you are asked to supply an administrator password), but the "Welcome Screen" does not give you the option to log on as Administrator unless you boot up in Safe Mode.
First you must ensure that the Administrator Account is enabled:
1 open Control Panel
2 open Administrative Tools
3 open Local Security Policy
4 expand Local Policies
5 click on Security Options
6 ensure that Accounts: Administrator account status is enabled Then follow the instructions from the "Win2000 Logon Screen Tweak" ie.
1 open Control Panel
2 open User Accounts
3 click Change the way users log on or log off
4 untick Use the Welcome Screen
5 click Apply Options
You will now be able to log on to Windows XP as Administrator in Normal Mode.

BUGFIXES.
This is a strange bug in Windows XP Pro but it can and does happen to everyone. When you open the My Computer screen and your Documents folder is missing but all the other users folders are there try this tweak.
STEP 1:
START > RUN > REGEDIT > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / Software / Microsoft / Windows / Current Version / Explorer / DocFolderPaths
Once you click the DocFolderPaths folder you should see all the user's folders.
STEP 2:
Add a new string value
Value Name: your user name
Value Data: the path to your docs folder ( ex. C:\Documents and Settings\your docs folder )
Exit Registry editor and open my computer, your docs folder should now be visable.

MOUSE POINTERS.
It seems that even without pointer precision disabled, the mouse under XP is still influenced by an acceleration curve. This is especially noticeable in games. To

completely remove mouse acceleration from XP, you will need to go into the registry and adjust the SmoothmouseXYCurve values. Here is how its done.
1. Click Start button
2. Select Run
3. Type 'regedit' in the open textbox
4. Open the tree 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER', select control panel, then select mouse
5. Right clicking, modify the SmoothMouseXCurve and SmoothMouseYCurve hexidecimal values to the following:
SmoothMouseXCurve:
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,a0,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,40,01,00,00,00,00,00
00,80,02,00,00,00,00,00
00,00,05,00,00,00,00,00
SmoothMouseYCurve:
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
66,a6,02,00,00,00,00,00
cd,4c,05,00,00,00,00,00
a0,99,0a,00,00,00,00,00
38,33,15,00,00,00,00,00
If done correctly, you will notice you are holding a markedly more responsive mouse.

HIDDEN WINDOWS XP ICONS.
Windows XP Pro and Home contains icons for folders and files that cannot normally be seen, you can select to view hidden files from the folder options menu, but there are still some that remain hidden.
You can set windows to view these files as normal hidden files, so that when you use the view hidden files and folders toggle from the folder options menu that these will be turned on/off along with the normal hidden files.
These files are usually system files and should not be altered/deleted unless you really know what you are doing, if you don't yet still wish to change them I might suggest that you create back-ups of your system first.
I will personally accept no responsibility for any damage caused by using this tweak. To view the hidden files you need to open up regedit, if you are not sure how to do this, select run from the start menu and type in 'regedit' without the apostrophe's. In the regedit window, expand out the groups by clicking on the '+' next to the name in the left hand column of regedit, and navigate to the below address.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \SOFTWARE \MICROSOFT \WINDOWS \CURRENTVERSION \EXPLORER \ADVANCED
when you have clicked the advanced folder on the left pane, look down the list at the titles in the right hand pane, one of those titles is 'ShowSuperHidden'
double click the title and in the window that appears set the value to equal 1 to show the super hidden files and 0 to hide them.

XP HOME ADVANCED FILE PERMISSIONS.
This is actually an addition to my previous post entitled "Get XP Pro file security with XP Home". In the aforementioned post I outlined how to access
*Advance file Permissions* on NTFS file systems for XP Home simply by booting into *Safe Mode*, rt-clicking any file or folder, and navigating to the *Security tab*. This gives the user the ability to allow or deny read, write, execute, read & write, display contents, full-control, iheritance, and take ownership permissions, with many more options available to apply to different users and groups stored on the computer. Well, you don't have to do this in *Safe Mode* (XP Home). Although it is a little less intuitive, you can simply go to your command prompt - Start>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt. Now type "cacls" in the window (without the quotes). This gives you the ability to add, remove or modify file permissions on files and folders through the command prompt. Type "cacls /?" for help on different options and variables. You do not need to be in safe mode to use this so it makes it a little quicker than using the safe mode security tab GUI. Remember - this only applies to NTFS. Here also is a very useful link to find a lot of extras and tweaks straight from the horse's mouth - the Microsoft Resource Center. You will find a lot of very useful web-based extra's here, most of them left unknowing to the general public - such as, "Online Crash Analysis" - a site that looks like Windows Update but you can upload your crash "dump logs" (when you get those system or application crash error reports). Microsoft will then analyze the log file and tell you some more info about WHY the system crashed (ie. faulty hardware/software/conflicts, etc).

FLASHGET :BYPASSING 8 MAX SIMULTANEOUS JOBS.
Users of Flash get will notice that the maximum number of file splits is 8. This number can be increased by the tweak below:
1. Run regedit.
2. Navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JetCar\JetCar\General\]
3. Right Click -> Add String Value.
4. Name as MaxSimJobs -> Set the value as what ever number you want.
After a restart you should be able to download with more file splits.

OUTLOOK EXPRESS WINDOWS TITLE TWEAKS.
Change the window title of Outlook Express to anything you want!
In regedt32 and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{EE383506-901D-43C6-8E40-9A61901DF7CC}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0. Add a new string key called WindowTitle and make its value the desired window title. Then close the registry editor, and restart Outlook Express (if it's running.) Your new title now shows up in the title bar!

WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 9.
When installing WMP 9 it leaves a watersign on your desktop. You can easily remove this with: regedit:
HKey_Local_Machine\SOFTWARE\microsoft\system certificates\CA\certificates\FEE449EE0E3965A5246F00E87FDE2A065FD89D4
HKey_Local_Machine\software\microsoft\system certificates\ROOT\certificates\2BD63D28D7BCD0E251195AEB519243C13142EBC3
Remove both lines and restart computer.

CHANGING THE WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER TITLEBAR.
This is a per-user tweak. Open RegEdit.
Browse to the following key:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-xxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxx\Software\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsMediaPlayer
(the x's will vary from computer to computer , it's the key without the "_Classes" at the end) Create the following String, "TitleBar" , the value of this will now become the TitleBar of Windows Media Player.

AUTO DELETE TEMPORARY FOLDER.
First go into gpedit.msc
Next select -> Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Terminal Services/Temporary Folder
Then right click "Do Not Delete Temp Folder Upon Exit"
Go to properties and hit disable. Now next time Windows puts a temp file in that folder it will automatically delete it when its done! Note from Forum Admin: Remember, GPEDIT (Group Policy Editor) is only available in XP Pro.

CLEANUP STARTUP ITEMS IN MSCONFIG.
Do you ever uninstall programs and they are still listed under startup items in msconfig? Personally, I found myself with 30 such items from old installs. Microsoft leaves you no way to clean up this list, but have no fear, I have figured it out for you.
1. Open MSconfig and click on the startup items tab
2. Open Regedit and naviate to HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Sharedtools/MSconfig/startupreg
3. Compare the list of registry keys under startup reg with their counterparts in msconfig.
4. Delete the keys which are no longer valid.
5. Voila! You've cleaned up msconfig.

REMOVING SERVICES DEPENDENCIES.
This will allow you to disable a service or uninstall it from your system without effecting another service that depends on it. Here's how you do it
1. After you have set your services the way you want them and you have disabled/uninstalled something that another services depends on, run "regedit"
2. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\find the service that will not function, do to another service being disabled/uninstall (found in ControlSet001\Services, ControlSet002\Services, and CurrentControlSet\Services)
3. Once you have found the service right-click on the string value, "DependOnService,"and modify
4. You should now see a list of services that it is dependent on. Simply delete the service that you have disabled/uninstalled
5. Restart your computer and your ready to go Disclaimer REMEMBER TO BACKUP YOU REGISTRY FIRST I'm not totaly sure if this will have any negative effects on your system. I used this method after uninstalling "Netbios over Tcpip" from my system completely, so that my Dhcp service would function and I have had NO negative effects on my system.

ANOTHER WAY TO DELETE HIDDEN DEVICES.
You can view and delete or modify hidden devices by:
1. Openning Device Manager. (I usually right-click on My Computer, select Properties, select the Hardware tab, then select Device Manager.)
2. Select View and check "Show hidden devices"
3. Hidden devices will appear below with the others and can be modified.

HOW TO GET "My Briefcase" IN WINDOWS XP.
go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache. look for a file named "syncapp".
double click it. an icon should appear on your desktop that says "My Briefcase". double click it. it will come up with this window that tells you how to use it.

TURN NUMLOCK ON AT LOGON.
NumLock does not toggle on by default (system-wide), even if you have it set in your PC's BIOS, because of XP's multi-user functionality. Guess Microsoft doesn't know everyone actually turns it on, which should be reason enough for what acts as "default"...
Anyway, you can hack the Windows Registry to change this behavior, or run a script at logon to turn NumLock on.
1. To enable NumLock through the Registry:
* Open Windows' Registry Editor (START > RUN, type "REGEDIT").
*. Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard.
*. Change the value for InitialKeyboardIndicators from 0 to 2.
2. To enable NumLock using a script, see this MS Knowledgebase article for complete instructions:
CODE
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q262625

Option 1 is the quicker method, but if you have more than one user on your system and one or more don't want NumLock on (stranger things have been known of), then option 2 is the way to go since it allows you to only attach the script to specific users.

FREE DISK SPACE BY DELETING RESTORE POINTS.
Start button-all programs-accessories-system tools-cleanup-more options. You will have the option of deleting your restore points.When your done creat one
restore point as a back up.

HOW TO REAL GET RID OF UNNECESSARY SOFTWARE
to uninstall things like msn messenger and other hidden installs thru add remove programs, do this: find sysoc.inf (you might have to enable "show hidden files" and "show hidden/protected system folders" in explorer) and open it in notepad replace all ",hide" with "," (both with out quotes) which is easiest to do with the replace all command under edit then in add/remove programs under add/remove windows compnents and whole new list of things to uninstall and add are now listed (such as internet explorer)

HAVING PROGRAMS RUN WHEN WINDOWS LOADS SLOWS DOWN YOUR STARTUP.
There are two ways do disable programs that may be in your startup (like icq, messanger,) The easiest is to do the following:
1. start --> run --> msconfig
2. Click on the "startup" tab (furthest right)\
3. Unclick any items you don't want to load when windows starts.
The second is by deleting registry entrys, this can be done the following way:
1. Start --> run --> regedit
2. Navigate to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
3. Delete any entry's that you don't want to load up

TURN OFF INDEXING TO SPEED UP XP.
Windows XP keeps a record of all files on the hard disk so when you do a search on the hard drive it is faster. There is a downside to this and because the computer has to index all files, it will slow down normal file commands like open, close, etc. If you do not do a whole lot of searches on your hard drive then I suggest turnning this feature off:
1. Control Panel
2. Administrative Tools
3. Services
4. Disable Indexing Services

HALF LIFE AND WINDOWS XP.
1. How to recover from incompatible drivers
Before you install new drivers set a system restore point. Start>All programs>Accessories>system tools>system restore
After your new drivers don't work reset your computer. Press F8 repeatedly as soon as the BIOS screen disappears, and before the Windows XP screen appears. Select safe mode. Use system restore again to undo your mess.
2. Video Drivers
The NVidia drivers that come with XP do not allow you to run Half Life in OpenGL. Update to the newest drivers.
Despite the fact that they are not official drivers, 22.50 was the only set which worked
3. Sound Drivers
Use windows update to update Creative drivers.
4. Fixing screen flicker
Windows XP defaults to 60Hz for games. A fix is available here:
CODE
http://www.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?/planetquake/ztn/nvreffix-setup.exe

Select "set: ev ery resolution to monitor's maximum supported rate"
5. Fixing lag
If you are having trouble with lag, try disabling the windows XP firewall. Go to control panel>network connections. Select connection, right click, properties, advanced, untick the firewall.
6. Mouse
You can improve your mouse smoothness for games.
Control panel>mouse>hardware>properties>advanced
Change the sample rate to a higher one, eg. 200

REGISTRY METHOD FOR REMOVING STARTUP ITEMS.
I prefer to use MSCONFIG selective startup to troubleshoot. To remove entries for good, open the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RUN
Delete entries of unwanted startup daemons and tray procedures.

DISPLAY MESSAGE ON STARTUP.
Start regedit, if you are unfamiliar with regedit please see our FAQ.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Modify the key legalnoticecaption with what you want to name the window.
Modify the key legalnoticetext with what you want the window to say. Restart.

REMOVE THE DEFAULT IMAGE VIEWER IN WINDOWS ME/XP.
This tweak works in Windows Me/XP, I have not try it in Windows NT/2000 yet, because i don't have that OS, you can try it if you have.
*This tweak does not work in Windows 95/98
To remove the Windows default Image Viewer, first:
Click Start Menu
Select Run menu
Type "cmd", (for Windows Me, type "command")
Then type "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" to unregister this dll. This will stop it from previewing any picture that it support, e.g. JPEG, Bitmap, GIF....
* Before perform this tweak, make sure that you have the alternative Image Viewer installed in you windows e.g. ACDsee, FireGraphics... because once you do this tweak without that application, you can't open and view your image anymore! So, to undo it, type "regsvr32 shimgvw.dll" in command prompt.

SPEED UP BOOT BY DISABLING UNUSED PORTS.
You may have tried many tweaks like modifying windowsXP start-up applications, prefetches, unload DLLs method,etc. And yes those methods do work for me.
I have just accidentally found out another way to give you an extra boost in windowsXP's boot performance. This is done by disabling your unused devices in
Device Manager. for example, if you don't have input devices that are connected to one of your USBs or COM ports, disabling them will give you an extra perfromance boost in booting. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab -> device manager Disable devices that you don't use for your PC and then restart.

CLEAR UNWANTED ENTRIES FROM ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS.
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT).
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Uninstall Remove any unwanted keys under "Uninstall."

CLICKING * .AVI FILES ON EXPLORER CAUSING 100% CPU USAGE.
Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer, it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height, etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully downloaded AVI file that doesnt contain this info, Windows will scan the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage. To solve this problem all you have to do is the following:
1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"
Voila! Please not that this will no longer provide you with the windows properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height, bitrate etc. But its a small price to pay for saving you resources.
NOTE: Please use caution when using regedit. Improper usage may cause windows to behave imcorrectly. Also, I cannot be held resposible. Backup your registry first.

CD ROM STOPS AUTOPLAYING/AUTORUN.
And the AutoPlay Tab has disappeared in My Computer, Devices With Removable Storage, Right Click on CDROM, Properties.
Solution: The service: "Shell Hardware Detection" has been set to Manual or Disabled. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Return this service to "Automatic".

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 1.
Like previous versions of windows, it takes long time to restart or shutdown windows xp when the "Exit Windows" sound is enabled. to solve this problem you
must disable this useless sound. click start button then go to settings -> control panel -> Sound,Speech and Audio devices -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Sounds, then under program events and windows menu click on "Exit Windows" sub-menu and highlight it.now from sounds you can select,choose "none" and then click apply and ok. now you can see some improvements when shutting down your system.

SHUTDOWN XP FASTER 2.
Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Click on the "Control" Folder.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right click on it and select Modify.
Set it a value lower than 2000 (Mine is set to 200).

EASIEST WAY TO DELETE PREFETCH.
1. Open notepad.exe, type del c:\windows\prefetch\*.* /q (without the quotes) & save as "delprefetch.bat" in c:\
2. From the Start menu, select "Run..." & type "gpedit.msc".
3. Double click "Windows Settings" under "Computer Configuration" and double click again on "Startup" in the right window.
4. In the new window, click "add", "Browse", locate your "delprefetch.bat" file & click "Open".
5. Click "OK", "Apply" & "OK" once again to exit.
6. Reboot your computer.

SPEED UP MENU DISPLAY.
When using the start menu the you will notice a delay between different tiers of the menu hierarchy. For the fastest computer experience possible I recommend changing this value to zero. This will allow the different tiers to appear instantly. Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Select MenuShowDelay from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 0.
Reboot your computer.

16 COLOUR ICONS.
If you select 16bit mode for graphics your icons will revert to using 8bit (16 color) icons. Yuck! Change the following registry setting to:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] "Shell Icon BPP"="16" "Shell Icon Size"="32" Setting the BPP to 16bit will yield 65565 colors for icons.

DE-CRYPT ENCRYPTED FILES ON WINDOWS XP.
1. Login as Administrator
2. Go to Start/Run and type in cmd and click OK.
At the prompt type cipher /r:Eagent and press enter
This prompt will then display:
Please type in the password to protect your .PFX file:
Type in your Administrator password
Re-confirm your Administrator password
The prompt will then display
Your .CER file was created successfully.
Your .PFX file was created successfully.
The Eagent.cer and Eagent.pfx files will be saved in the current directory that is shown at the command prompt. Example: The command prompt displays
C:\Documents and Settings\admin> the two files are saved in the admin folder. (For security concerns, you should house the two files in your Administrator folder or on a floppy disk).
3. Go to Start/Run and type in certmgr.msc and click OK. This will launch the Certificates Manager. Navigate to Personal and right click on the folder and select All Tasks/Import. The Certificate Import Wizard will appear. Click Next. Browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\admin folder. In the Open dialog box, change the Files of Type (at the bottom) to personal Information Exchange (*.pfx,*.P12). Select the file Eagent.pfx and click Open. Click Next. Type in your Administrator password (leave the two checkboxes blank) and click Next. Make sure the Radio button is active for the first option (Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certifcate). Click Next. Click Finish. (You'll receive a message that the import was successful). To confirm the import, close Certificates Manager and re-open it. Expand the Personal folder and you will see a new subfolder labeled Certificates. Expand that folder and you will see the new entry in the right side column. Close Certificate Manager.
4. Go to Start/Run and type in secpol.msc and click OK. This will launch the Local Security Policy. Expand the Public Key Policies folder and then right click on the Encrypted File System subfolder and select Add Data Recovery Agent... The Wizard will then display. Click Next. Click the Browse Folders... button. Browse to the C:\Documents and Settings\admin folder. Select the Eagent.cer file and click Open. (The wizard will display the status User_Unknown. That's ok). Click Next. Click Finish. You will see a new entry in the right side column. Close the Local Security Policy.
You, the Administrator are now configured as the default Recovery Agent for All Encrypted files on the Local Machine.
To Recover Encrypted files: Scenario #1
If you have completed the above steps BEFORE an existing user encrypted his/her files, you can log in to your Administrator account and navigate to the encrypted file(s). Double click on the file(s) to view the contents.
Scenario #2
If you have completed the above steps AFTER an existing user has already encrypted his/her files, you must login to the applicable User's User Account and then immediately logout. Next, login to your Administrator account and navigate to the encrypted file(s). Double click on the file(s) to view the contents.
*Warning Do not Delete or Rename a User's account from which will want to Recover the Encrypted Files. You will not be able to de-crypt the files using the steps outlined above.

DUMP FILES TWEAK & DISABLE DR.WATSON.
"Dump file. A dump file stores data from memory during a system crash and can be helpful when diagnosing problems, but like a swap file, it can also expose a lot of sensitive, unencrypted data. To prevent Windows from creating the file, go to Control Panel | System. Click on the Advanced tab and then the Settings button on the Startup and Recovery pane. Set the drop-down menu under Write debugging information to (none). "Similarly, the debugging program Dr. Watson saves information when applications crash. To disable it, go to:
HKEY_local_machine\software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ AeDebug and set the Auto string to 0. Then use Windows Explorer to go to Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\DrWatson. Delete User.dmp and Drwtsn32.log, the insecure logs the program creates." Heed related advice from 'microsoft' regarding 'Disable Dr.Watson' first before the preceding Dr. Watson advice (go Google search.) Back up with System Restore, and go ahead. As cautious as I am, I have gladly applied these tweaks, and followed related microsot advice on Dr. Watson.

Precaution: Backups All Of Your Data Before Tweaking, Not All Of The Tips I've Mentioned Above Were Tested. I Don't Responsible For Any Damages. Happy Experiments

Virtual Memory Optimization

2010-03-09T02:40:00.000+05:30

Virtual Memory

Back in the 'good old days' of command prompts and 1.2MB floppy disks, programs needed very little RAM to run because the main (and almost universal) operating system was Microsoft DOS and its memory footprint was small. That was truly fortunate because RAM at that time was horrendously expensive. Although it may seem ludicrous, 4MB of RAM was considered then to be an incredible amount of memory.

However when Windows became more and more popular, 4MB was just not enough. Due to its GUI (Graphical User Interface), it had a larger memory footprint than DOS. Thus, more RAM was needed.

Unfortunately, RAM prices did not decrease as fast as RAM requirement had increased. This meant that Windows users had to either fork out a fortune for more RAM or run only simple programs. Neither were attractive options. An alternative method was needed to alleviate this problem.

The solution they came up with was to use some space on the hard disk as extra RAM. Although the hard disk is much slower than RAM, it is also much cheaper and users always have a lot more hard disk space than RAM. So, Windows was designed to create this pseudo-RAM or in Microsoft's terms - Virtual Memory, to make up for the shortfall in RAM when running memory-intensive programs.

How Does It Work?

Virtual memory is created using a special file called a swapfile or paging file.

Whenever the operating system has enough memory, it doesn't usually use virtual memory. But if it runs out of memory, the operating system will page out the least recently used data in the memory to the swapfile in the hard disk. This frees up some memory for your applications. The operating system will continuously do this as more and more data is loaded into the RAM.

However, when any data stored in the swapfile is needed, it is swapped with the least recently used data in the memory. This allows the swapfile to behave like RAM although programs cannot run directly off it. You will also note that because the operating system cannot directly run programs off the swapfile, some programs may not run even with a large swapfile if you have too little RAM.

Swapfile Vs. Paging File

We have all been using the terms swapfile and paging file interchangeably. Even Microsoft invariably refers to the paging file as the swapfile and vice versa. However, the swapfile and paging file are two different entities. Although both are used to create virtual memory, there are subtle differences between the two.

The main difference lies in their names. Swapfiles operate by swapping entire processes from system memory into the swapfile. This immediately frees up memory for other applications to use.

In contrast, paging files function by moving "pages" of a program from system memory into the paging file. These pages are 4KB in size. The entire program does not get swapped wholesale into the paging file.

While swapping occurs when there is heavy demand on the system memory, paging can occur preemptively. This means that the operating system can page out parts of a program when it is minimized or left idle for some time. The memory used by the paged-out portions are not immediately released for use by other applications. Instead, they are kept on standby.

If the paged-out application is reactivated, it can instantly access the paged-out parts (which are still stored in system memory). But if another application requests for the memory space, then the system memory held by the paged-out data is released for its use. As you can see, this is really quite different from the way a swapfile works.

Swapfiles were used in old iterations of Microsoft Windows, prior to Windows 95. From Windows 95 onwards, all Windows versions use only paging files. Therefore, the correct term for the file used to create virtual memory in current operating systems is paging file, not swapfile.

Because both swapfiles and paging files do the same thing - create virtual memory, people will always refer to swapfiles and paging files interchangeably. Let's just keep in mind their innate differences.

Do We Still Need A Paging File?

Even today, when the average home user's computer comes with at least 256MB of RAM, the paging file is still very important. While the large amount of RAM in the average user's computer makes the risk of memory shortage much less of a worry with single applications now than it was back then; the paging file is essential when multi-tasking.

Note that over the years, the emphasis has changed to multi-tasking. No longer will people be solely stuck to using one application at a time. In fact, it is common to have 10 or more applications running simultaneously!

For example, I normally have the following applications running at the same time :-

                + Microsoft Outlook
                + Internet browsers like Maxthon and Firefox
                + An FTP client
                + Instant messengers like Trillian and MSN Messenger
                + A download manager like FlashGet
                + Macromedia Dreamweaver
                + P2P clients like ShareAza
                + An antivirus software
                + Adobe Acrobat Reader with a few PDF documents opened

That's a total of 10-12 applications running simultaneously!

Even with 256MB of RAM, it would be impossible to load everything into memory. A paging file is needed to store the least used data in the memory so that I can open up all those applications I need. And let's not forget the disk cache.

Operating systems like Windows 98 and Windows XP allocate a sizeable portion of the RAM to the disk cache. This speeds up accesses to hard disk data by caching the most frequently used as well as data that are most likely to be accessed next by the computer. This cuts down on the amount of available RAM. So, without a paging file, you won't be able to open many applications even if your computer has 256MB of RAM.

Finally, some programs require the use of a paging file to function properly. It may be to store sensitive data on something less volatile than the RAM or to ensure the computer will have sufficient memory to run it. But whatever the reasons, a paging file is needed in order for these programs to run.

Why Optimize The Paging File?

Unless your computer is truly loaded with RAM, it will almost always use the paging file. As such, its performance affects the performance of the whole computer.

Now, using a paging file may sound like a really cheap way to run memory intensive programs without the expense of buying more RAM. However, even the fastest hard disk is more than an order of magnitude slower than the slowest RAM.

Even the fastest hard disk is currently over 70X slower than the dual-channel PC2700 DDR memory common in many computers. Let's not even start comparing the hard disk with faster RAM solutions like PC3200 DDR memory or PC2-4200 DDR2 memory.

So, paging file is only a stopgap solution for the lack of sufficient RAM. As long as you use the paging file, there will always be performance degradation. The ideal solution for insufficient RAM is always more RAM, not more Virtual Memory. But since we can't afford all the RAM we want, a paging file is necessary for us to run today's memory guzzling programs.

As you can tell, more isn't better for the paging file because more paging file space will only give you the ability to run more memory intensive programs at once. It will not speed up your system. But what we can do is to optimize the paging file so that the performance degradation when using it is minimized.

So How Do We Optimize The Paging File?

There have been many theories on how to optimize the paging file. The most important ones are listed below :-

                + Making the paging file contiguous.
                + Moving the paging file to the outer tracks of the hard disk.
                + Creating a huge paging file.
                + Moving the paging file to a different partition in the same hard disk.
                + Moving the paging file to a different hard disk.
                + Creating multiple paging files
                + Moving the paging file to a RAID array
                + Moving the paging file to a RAM drive
                + Reducing reliance on virtual memory

We will examine those methods and see what will work and what won't.

Virtual Memory Then And Now

Windows 3.1

Back in the good old days of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1, everyone knew that creating a permanent swapfile was the key to optimal swapfile performance. This was because Windows 3.1 only creates permanent swapfiles that are contiguous.

A contiguous swapfile is a swapfile that consists of an uninterrupted block of hard disk space. When a swapfile is contiguous, the read-write heads of the hard disk can read and write data on the swapfile in a continuous fashion.

In Windows 3.1, if the swapfile was set up as a temporary swapfile which is created every time Windows 3.1 boots up, it will end up at the end of the hard disk and fragmented too. So, every time the swapfile is read from or written to, the hard disk heads have to seek all over the platters to conduct those operations.

Needless to say, this greatly erodes the performance of the swapfile. That's why it was important to make the swapfile permanent in Windows 3.1 - so that the swapfile will become contiguous.

Windows 95 And Above

From Windows 95 onwards, Microsoft encouraged the use of its new dynamic virtual memory system. Of course, there is nothing new about the virtual memory part but the keyword in this new technique is dynamic.

The new dynamic virtual memory system no longer relies on a fixed-size swapfile but a paging file that dynamically resizes itself according to need. When the computer runs out of memory, more memory is created by increasing the size of the paging file. Once the virtual memory is freed up, theoretically the paging file diminishes in size.

Microsoft claims that while its dynamic virtual memory system will create a fragmented paging file, it is still faster than Windows 3.1's static virtual memory system. As a bonus, no hard disk space will be tied up in a permanent paging file.

However, this dynamic virtual memory system does have a big disadvantage - it cannot be moved to the outer tracks of the hard disk platters.

Dynamic Paging Files And Data Locality

There are people who assert that when left alone, Windows XP will actually create virtual memory pages in close proximity to frequently-used data in the hard disk, like documents. In other words, they claim that Windows XP monitors disk usage, maintains a database of frequently-used files in the hard disk and uses that information to create the paging file based on spatial locality.

With virtual memory pages created close to frequently-used data, this apparently allows shorter seeks between frequently-used data and the paging file. That is the premise behind their theory of letting Windows XP handle the paging file dynamically. However, I don't think this is true at all.

First of all, while Windows XP does monitor disk usage and maintain a database of frequently-used files, only disk defragmenting utilities use that database. The built-in Disk Defragmenter, as well as third-party disk defragmenting utilities, use this database to rearrange the hard disk so that frequently-used data.

But as far as I'm aware, the paging file does not arrange the location of the pages according to this database. From my observations, Windows XP simply uses the nearest available clusters for the dynamic paging file.

In fact, Microsoft states that if you create multiple paging files, Windows XP will favour the partition that is least active. This completely refutes the theory of virtual memory pages being allocated according to spatial locality. Here is a quote from Microsoft's Knowledge Base.

            By design, Windows uses the paging file on the less frequently accessed partition over the paging file on the more heavily accessed boot partition. An internal algorithm is used to determine which paging file to use for virtual memory management.

In any case, it doesn't make sense for Windows XP to create the paging file based on spatial locality to work files like your documents. Once opened, Windows keeps the working copy in the Temp folder, not your paging file.

In addition, let us remember that Windows pre-emptively pages out pageable parts of an application in system memory. Windows does not directly load data from the hard disk into the paging file. Therefore, creating virtual memory pages close to frequently-used files will not help at all.

Fragmented Vs. Contiguous

Even though Microsoft asserts that the new dynamic virtual memory system does not benefit much from a contiguous paging file, the fact is maintaining a contiguous paging file will definitely improve the paging file's performance.

A contiguous paging file eliminates the need for the hard disk heads to seek all over the platters while accessing the paging file. The following pictures illustrate my points.

This shows a fragmented paging file (brown)

This shows a contiguous paging file (brown)

See how a contiguous paging file differs from a fragmented paging file? Instead of seeking and reading from a continuous block of hard disk space in the case of a contiguous paging file, the hard disk heads have to seek all over the platters to access the clusters allocated to a fragmented paging file.

As a result, a common operating pattern like the following may emerge :-

Fragmented : seek-read-read-seek-read-seek-read-read-read-seek-read-read-seek
Contiguous : seek-read-read-read-read-read-read-seek-read-read-read-read-read

Of course, the amount of time needed to do the seek operation is different from the time needed to read a block of data off the paging file but the logic remains.

A contiguous paging file allows data to be read with minimal amount of seeks. If the number of seeks can be reduced while accessing the paging file, then more data can be read in less time. This is the premise behind a contiguous paging file.

How Do We Create A Contiguous Paging File?

Now that we agree that making the paging file contiguous will greatly improve its performance, let's figure out how to make it contiguous.

Using A Permanent Paging File

Yes, I know. You are all thinking, "Simple! Just make the paging file permanent!"

True, creating a permanent paging file is usually the way to create a contiguous paging file. A permanent paging file ensures that the paging file will remain in one single block. However, creating a permanent paging file does not mean the paging file will automatically become contiguous.

That may have been true in Windows 3.1 but believe it or not, Windows XP does not force the creation of a contiguous paging file when you make the paging file permanent!

When you create a permanent paging file, Windows XP automatically uses the nearest (to the outer tracks) sectors to create the paging file. This creates a permanent but fragmented paging file. Naturally, this reduces the performance of the paging file.

But that's not the end of the world. To avoid this problem, defragment your hard disk before creating the permanent paging file. That will create a contiguous area for Windows XP to create a permanent paging file.

Using A Dynamic Paging File

But making a permanent paging file is not the only way to create a contiguous paging file. You can also create a contiguous paging file that is also dynamic in nature!

All you need to do is create a separate partition for the paging file. This allows the paging file a contiguous space on the hard disk to freely expand according to usage.

At first glance, the benefits of this method seem obvious. It ensures the paging file is always contiguous and yet have the ability to expand when the need arises. However, this method is really not very desirable when you examine it closely.

The main reason for using a dynamic paging file is to save hard disk space by using it only when there is a need for more virtual memory. But creating a partition to allow the paging file to dynamically resize is really defeating the purpose.

The size of the partition limits the maximum size that the dynamic paging file can expand to and you cannot use the partition to store anything else because that would interfere with its contiguity. If you create a big partition, that wastes hard disk space. If you create a small partition, that limits how big the paging file can expand. Therefore, this method is self-defeating.

What About A Semi-Permanent Paging File?

Although everyone knows about dynamic and permanent paging files, there is a third type of paging file - a semi-permanent paging file.

A semi-permanent paging file theoretically allows you to receive the performance benefits of a contiguous permanent paging file without its main disadvantage - the need to predetermine an optimal size. But what is a semi-permanent paging file?

Well, a semi-permanent paging file is a combination of a permanent paging file and a dynamic paging file. It consists of a permanent part and a dynamic part. The permanent part of this paging file behaves exactly like a permanent paging file. It will not change in size and can thus be moved to the outer tracks of the hard disk.

The dynamic part, however, does not normally appear. In fact, it is only created when the permanent part of the semi-permanent paging file is unable to cope with increased memory requirements.

Once created, it dynamically resizes itself to suit the current paging file requirements. Just like the dynamic paging file, it will use any free space on the hard disk so it will be fragmented.

The Advantages Of A Semi-Permanent Paging File

The semi-permanent paging file offers the advantage of never running out of virtual memory. That means even if the permanent part cannot handle the memory load, the application won't halt with an "Out of memory" error message. The dynamic part will come into action and provide the extra virtual memory required by the application.

With a permanent paging file, the application will just halt with the error message and you would have to close one or more applications to free up more memory. However, this is only true for older versions of Windows.

Newer iterations of Windows like Windows XP do not have a true permanent paging file. Even if you set a permanent paging file, Windows XP will automatically generate more virtual memory when it runs out of memory; by adding a dynamic component to the permanent paging file. In short, when you create a "permanent" paging file in Windows XP, you are actually creating a semi-permanent paging file.

The advantage of creating your own semi-permanent paging file, instead of a "permanent" paging file in Windows XP is that you get to avoid the warning message that appears whenever Windows XP runs out of memory and has to create more virtual memory by adding a dynamic component to the permanent paging file.

The Disdvantages Of A Semi-Permanent Paging File

Unfortunately, a semi-permanent paging file is a double-edged sword. With a dynamic component, it is inevitable that a dynamic paging file's disadvantages would also be applicable to it.

As mentioned earlier, the dynamic part will use any available space on the hard disk. This inevitably means the dynamic part of the semi-permanent paging file will always be fragmented. Naturally, the performance of the paging file deteriorates whenever the dynamic part comes into action.

But just how bad could be the deterioration be? Let's take a look at the disk map below which shows a semi-permanent paging file with both permanent and dynamic components in brown :-

This shows a semi-permanent paging file (brown)

You will notice that the paging file is split into two parts. The permanent part is at the outer tracks of the hard disk in one contiguous block. The lower, fragmented blocks of paging file are the dynamic part of the semi-permanent paging file. As the paging file requirement exceeds what the permanent part can provide, the dynamic part of the semi-permanent paging file will dynamically convert available hard disk space (which is usually on the inner tracks on the hard disk) into virtual memory.

Because the paging file's two components are at opposite ends of the hard disk, the hard disk heads will have to seek up and down the platters while servicing the paging file! Needless to say, that greatly degrades the performance of the paging file. The head seeks required to service a dynamic paging file are already bad enough. The amount of head seeks required to service both the permanent part and the fragmented dynamic part will definitely put a big dent on the paging file's performance.

Permanent Or Semi-Permanent?

Performance-wise, both a permanent and a semi-permanent paging file will perform equally, if the virtual memory requirement does not exceed what the permanent component of the semi-permanent paging file can provide. As the dynamic part comes into play, the semi-permanent paging file gradually loses its performance advantage over the dynamic paging file. Eventually, it may even become slower than a dynamic paging file.

The only way around this is to ensure that the permanent part of the semi-permanent paging file is enough to meet your usual virtual memory requirements. Do not look at the semi-permanent paging file as a way to save hard disk space. Instead, think of it as a permanent paging file with a backup capacity for dynamic expansion in emergencies!

Hard disk space is no longer that much of a premium as it was back in the old days. With desktop hard disks approaching half a terabyte in size, allocating a few hundred megabytes or even a gigabyte or so for the paging file isn't going to break anyone's heart. The performance of the paging file, especially in systems with very little RAM or for people who multitask a lot, is definitely more important than saving a few hundred megabytes of hard disk space.

Is Writing And Rewriting To The Same Area Dangerous?

Creating a permanent or semi-permanent paging file inevitably causes numerous writes and rewrites of information in the same fixed area of the hard disk platters. Compared to other areas of the hard disk, the space allocated to the paging file will be the area where data is most often written, deleted and replaced with newer data.

Some users have expressed concern over this fact. Will the platter media in that area get worn out after continuous use? Like the magnetic cassettes that we used to record our favourite songs? Will bad sectors form in that area like the floppy disks that have been written to once too often?

Well, unlike magnetic cassettes or floppy disks, there is actually no contact between the hard disk read-write heads with the platters. The read-write heads actually fly over the platters on a thin cushion of air. In fact, at the high speed that the platters are spinning at, any contact between a read-write head with a platter would have resulted in a head crash, with disastrous consequences.

Therefore, friction isn't the concern here. What about the effect of changing the magnetic properties of the media during the write process? Will the magnetic properties of the media deteriorate after too many of such changes? Or in the context of this article, will creating a permanent paging file damage the drive in the long run and reduce its MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures)?

To obtain a definitive answer to these questions, I contacted IBM and Seagate. Let's see what their technical experts have to say.

            Seagate

            This should not hurt the drive at all. As you are aware, the heads are actually suspended above the platters on an air bearing, so there is no direct contact with the media. As far as the recording and re-recording of the same tracks, also no problems. What we are dealing with here in order to write the data is simply moving the magnetic domain one way or the other, no wear involved.

            Regards,

            Bob
            Seagate Tech Support

            IBM

            Remember, the heads truly fly above the media. The wear and tear factor only becomes an issue for bearings (heat) and physical damage to the media if the drive is shocked during operation. Performance is best at the outer tracks of the drive, so any recurring access directed there will benefit you in performance. Writing and rewriting data to a drive is good in that it remagnetizes (refreshes) the area every time it is written.

            To answer your question: Your swap file will not affect the MTBF of your drive.

            Don Gardner
            IBM Hard Disk Technical Support/SIT Lab

So, Are Multiple Writes To The Same Area Good?

Well, it appears to be so. From what Don Gardner said, I gather that the signal carried by the media weakens with time and rewriting it refreshes and strengthens the signal strength of the data carried by the media.

I guess that pretty much answers our questions. Creating a permanent or semi-permanent paging file won't harm your drive. In fact, it might even be good for your data!

Creating A Permanent Paging File In Windows 9x

Luckily, Microsoft gave us a relatively painless way to create a permanent paging file though the proper directions were not included. Fear not however. This is what guides like this are for.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties. Once in System Properties, click on the Performance tab and you'll see the following picture :-

Right at the bottom, you'll see a Virtual Memory... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

By default, it is set to Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings. (Recommended). Ignore the Recommended label and select Let me specify my own virtual memory settings.

Now, you will be allowed to choose the partition you wish to place the paging file in. We will touch on this later.

Next up is the minimum and maximum values for the paging file. To create a permanent paging file, both values must be the same. You would think that Microsoft could at least post a notice about that.

Please note that Windows 95/98 will not automatically add a dynamic component to a permanent paging file. If you run out of memory with a permanent paging file, it will halt the application and generate the "Out of memory" error message.

Naturally, you will have to decide on a size for the paging file. We will be discussing this later in the guide but in this example, we will use an arbitrary value of 150MB. Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows 95/98 reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk.

For the curious, do not click on Disable virtual memory. (Not recommended) because that will force Windows 95/98 to use only physical RAM.

Creating A Semi-Permanent Paging File In Windows 9x

Creating a semi-permanent paging file is rather similar to creating a permanent paging file.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Performance tab and you'll see the following picture :-

Right at the bottom, you'll see a Virtual Memory... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

By default, it is set to Let Windows manage my virtual memory settings. (Recommended). Ignore the Recommended label and select Let me specify my own virtual memory settings.

Now, you will be allowed to choose the partition you wish to place the paging file in. We will touch on this later.

To create a semi-permanent paging file, you will need to set both the minimum and maximum values. They must not be the same. If they are the same values, then the paging file becomes a permanent paging file.

The minimum value determines the size of the permanent component of the semi-permanent paging file. The maximum value determines the maximum size of the paging file (both permanent and dynamic components) and thus limits how much the dynamic component can expand.

In the example above, Windows 98 will create a permanent paging file of 150MB when it starts up. But if the paging file cannot meet the memory demands of the computer, it will dynamically expand the paging file, up to a maximum of 6692MB.

It is highly recommended that you create a large permanent component that will meet all of your usual memory needs. Use the dynamic component as a backup for emergencies.

Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows 95/98 reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk. Please note that the dynamic component of the paging file will only become active after the system's virtual memory requirements exceed the minimum value.

For the curious, do not click on Disable virtual memory. (Not recommended) because that will force Windows 95/98 to use only physical RAM.

Creating A Permanent Paging File In Windows 2000

In Windows 2000, it takes a little bit more digging to get where you want.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three options. Click on Performance Options... and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual Memory. Under it, there's a Change... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

By default, there won't be any values set for both the Initial size (MB) and the Maximum size (MB) options.

You can select the partition you wish to place the paging file in by clicking on the list of partitions shown on the screen. Again, the selection of partition will be discussed in detail later in this article.

To create a permanent paging file, both values for the Initial size and the Maximum size must be the same.

Please note that Windows 2000 will not automatically add a dynamic component to a permanent paging file. If you run out of memory with a permanent paging file, it will halt the application and generate the "Out of memory" error message.

Naturally, you will have to decide on a size for the paging file. We will be discussing this later in this article but for now, we will use an arbitrary value of 150MB. Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows 2000 reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk.

You will note that Windows 2000 does not allow a paging file size of less than 2MB.

Creating A Semi-Permanent Paging File In Windows 2000

Again, it's almost similar to creating a permanent paging file.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three options. Click on Performance Options... and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual Memory. Under it, there's a Change... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

By default, there won't be any values set for both the Initial size (MB) and the Maximum size (MB) options.

You can select the logical drive you wish to place the paging file in by clicking on the list of logical drives shown on the screen. Again, the selection of logical drives will be discussed in detail later in this article.

To create a semi-permanent paging file, you will need to set both the minimum and maximum values. They must not be the same. If they are the same values, then the paging file becomes a permanent paging file.

The minimum value determines the size of the permanent component of the semi-permanent paging file. The maximum value determines the maximum size of the paging file (both permanent and dynamic components) and thus limits how much the dynamic component can expand.

In the example above, Windows 2000 will create a permanent paging file of 150MB when it starts up. But if the paging file cannot meet the memory demands of the computer, it will dynamically expand the paging file, up to a maximum of 1422MB.

It is highly recommended that you create a large permanent component that will meet all of your usual memory needs. Use the dynamic component as a backup for emergencies.

Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows 2000 reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk. Please note that the dynamic component of the paging file will only become active after the system's virtual memory requirements exceed the minimum value.

You will note that Windows 2000 does not allow a paging file size of less than 2MB.

Creating A Permanent Paging File In Windows XP

Like in Windows 2000, it takes a little digging in Windows XP to get where you want.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three sections.

Click on Settings in the Performance section and the Performance Options screen will pop up. Click on the Advanced tab and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual memory. Under it, there's a Change button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

You can select the logical drive you wish to place the paging file in by clicking on the list of logical drives shown on the screen. Again, the selection of logical drives will be discussed in detail later in this article.

To create a permanent paging file, both values for the Initial size and the Maximum size must be the same.

Please note that Windows XP will dynamically expand the paging file when you run out of memory, even if you create a permanent paging file. When this happens, you will get an error message telling you that Windows XP is trying to expand the paging file to create more virtual memory.

In this example, we are using an arbitrary value of 512MB. Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows XP reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk.

You will note that Windows XP does not allow a paging file size of less than 2MB.

Creating A Semi-Permanent Paging File In Windows XP

Creating a semi-permanent paging file is rather similar to creating a permanent paging file.

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three sections.

Click on Settings in the Performance section and the Performance Options screen will pop up. Click on the Advanced tab and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual memory. Under it, there's a Change button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

You can select the partition you wish to place the paging file in by clicking on the list of partitions shown on the screen. Again, the selection of partition will be discussed in detail later in this article.

To create a semi-permanent paging file, you will need to set both the minimum and maximum values. They must not be the same. If they are the same values, then the paging file becomes a permanent paging file.

The minimum value determines the size of the permanent component of the semi-permanent paging file. The maximum value determines the maximum size of the paging file (both permanent and dynamic components) and thus limits how much the dynamic component can expand.

In the example above, Windows XP will create a permanent paging file of 512MB when it starts up. But if the paging file cannot meet the memory demands of the computer, it will dynamically expand the paging file, up to a maximum of 768MB.

It is highly recommended that you create a large permanent component that will meet all of your usual memory needs. Use the dynamic component as a backup for emergencies.

Once you set the two values, click on OK and then let Windows XP reboot the system. A permanent paging file will be created on your hard disk. Please note that the dynamic component of the paging file will only become active after the system's virtual memory requirements exceed the minimum value.

You will note that Windows XP does not allow a paging file size of less than 2MB.

Making The Paging File Contiguous

After creating a permanent or semi-permanent paging file, check and make sure it is contiguous. You can ensure it is contiguous by defragmenting the hard disk before you creating the permanent or semi-permanent paging file. However, that does not always work.

In such cases, you will need to defragment the paging file after it is created. Unfortunately, Windows XP's Defrag utility does not have the ability to defragment the paging file. You will have to use a third-party defragmentation utility to do this. I will use Diskeeper as an example.

Windows NT, 2000 and XP does not allow the paging file to be defragmented while it is in used. Therefore, you must set Diskeeper to move the paging file during the next reboot.

Run Diskeeper and click on Change your settings to expand its menu. You will see the screen below.

Look for and click on Set a boot-time defragmentation. That will display this screen.

Now, select the partition where the paging file resides and tick the checkbox of Defragment the paging file option. The option will be grayed out if there is no paging file in that partition.

Then click OK and reboot the computer. Diskeeper will load up during the boot process and defragment the paging file.

Once Diskeeper has completed its operation, Windows XP will boot up and start using the newly optimized paging file that is contiguous.

Please note that Diskeeper requires a certain amount of free space to defragment the paging file. If you do not have the necessary amount of free space in that partition, then Diskeeper may not defragment the paging file.

Wanna Do It For Free?

You can easily do this for free. Just download a trial copy of Diskeeper!

Moving The Paging File To The Outer Tracks

Moving the paging file to the outer tracks is a powerful way of increasing paging file performance. In fact, it will give the paging file a bigger boost in performance than just making it contiguous. Why is that?

Check out this transfer rate graph of a hard disk :-

It shows pretty clearly the transfer rate of a hard disk is highest on the outer tracks and lowest on the inner tracks. In this case, the transfer rate of the inner tracks is only about half the transfer rate of the outer tracks.

The areal density of a hard disk's platters and its spin rate are constant. But the linear velocity at each point of the platter isn't constant. Therefore, the performance of the paging file depends on where it is located on the hard disk.

The time taken for the hard disk head to read from point A to point B is exactly the same as the time taken for the head to read from C to D. But because the areal density of the platter is constant, a lot more data can be read from the outer tracks than from the inner tracks, in the same amount of time.

Now that the outer tracks have been proven to be the fastest area on a hard disk, we can use that to our advantage. By moving the paging file to the outer tracks, we give the paging file a major boost in performance.

As you can see from the example above, the transfer rate at the outer tracks are about 59MB/s while the central and inner tracks have transfer rates of about 49MB/s and 30MB/s respectively. Moving the paging file from the inner tracks to the outer tracks will almost double its performance! Even moving the paging file from the central tracks to the outer tracks will give the paging file a transfer rate boost of 20%.

But please note that this method must be used in conjunction with a permanent paging file. This is because the paging file cannot be moved to the outer tracks of the hard disk unless it is a permanent paging file.

How Do We Move The Paging File To The Outer Tracks?

Before you can move the paging file to the outer tracks, you must first make the paging file permanent. Follow the steps outlined in the previous pages. Once you have a permanent paging file, you can use your favourite hard disk defragmentation utility to move the paging file to the outer tracks.

Unfortunately, Windows XP's Defrag utility does not have the ability to move paging file to the outer tracks. You will have to use a third-party defragmentation utility to move the paging file to the outer tracks. I will use Diskeeper as an example.

Windows NT, 2000 and XP does not allow the paging file to be moved while it is in used. Therefore, you must set Diskeeper to move the paging file during the next reboot.

Run Diskeeper and click on Change your settings to expand its menu. You will see the screen below.

Look for and click on Set a boot-time defragmentation. That will display this screen.

Now, select the partition where the paging file resides and tick the checkbox of Defragment the paging file option. The option will be grayed out if there is no paging file in that partition.

Then click OK and reboot the computer. Diskeeper will load up during the boot process and defragment the paging file. It will also move the paging file to the outer tracks.

Once Diskeeper has completed its operation, Windows XP will boot up and start using the newly optimized paging file that is not only contiguous but also located in the outer tracks of the hard disk! Your paging file will now show a marked boost in performance.

Please note that you cannot actually force Diskeeper to move the paging file right up to the outermost tracks. Diskeeper has an internal algorithm that determines which files are best placed in the outermost tracks for optimal performance.

In addition, Diskeeper requires a certain amount of free space to defragment and move the paging file. If you do not have the necessary amount of free space in that partition, then Diskeeper may not defragment the paging file or move it to the outer tracks.

Creating A Huge Paging File

Because games and applications often list a minimum paging file size, many people equate the size of the paging file with performance, just like they would with anatomy. But at least in the first case, that's not true.

What does a bigger paging file get you? Well, it gives you the ability to run more memory-intensive programs concurrently. But does a larger paging file make virtual memory faster or better? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

Why Not?

First of all, creating a large amount of virtual memory doesn't mean the operating system will use it all. Although Windows will pre-emptively page out parts of idle applications, there are limits to how much it can page out for each application. Therefore, creating an excessively large paging file will just waste hard disk space.

Second, if you ever move the paging file to the outer tracks of the hard disk, an excessively large paging file will take up outer track space that could have been used to store system or application files. Look at these two pictures :-

Hard disk with a 2GB paging file (brown)

Hard disk with a 600MB paging file (brown)

The first one has a huge 2GB paging file while the second has a smaller 600MB paging file. For many systems, 600MB of virtual memory is more than enough to multitask 7 or 8 applications at the same time or run the most memory-intensive 3D games out there. So, anything more is just taking space.

The extra space taken up by an excessively large paging file on the outer tracks could have been used to store system or application files for faster access. The amount of space regained from using a smaller page file can be seen as a red block in the second picture. You can bet on a faster loading time for Windows and other applications if you limit the size of your paging file.

Therefore, the trick here is to gauge the maximum size of the paging file that you will ever need. This way, you will not create an excessively large paging file that wastes hard disk space and takes up the precious space on the outer tracks away from the system and application files.

How Large Should The Paging File Be?

That's a question that has bugged many users. Since the good old days of DOS and Windows 3.1, many users have staunchly adhered to an old rule of the thumb that the swapfile should be 2.5 x the amount of RAM.

In fact, whenever I visit other forums, I still notice many people quoting this old "rule". The question is - is this rule still applicable for today's systems and operating systems? Unfortunately, it's a big NO!

Why Not 2.5 x RAM?

Back in the Windows 3.1 days, computers only came with 4MB or 8MB of RAM. 16MB of RAM was considered a luxury in those days. I remember running Windows 3.1 on an Intel i386SX-16 machine with just 4MB of RAM!

Because RAM in those days was horrendously expensive and only a limited amount of it was available in most systems, a relatively large swapfile was needed. A swapfile size of 2.5 times the system RAM wasn't a lot, considering the fact that most systems came with only 4MB or 8MB of RAM. That would only amount to a swapfile size of 10MB to 20MB, which enabled most systems to run Windows 3.1 applications comfortably.

But today, most computers come with at least 512MB of RAM and many have 1GB of RAM! If the 2.5X rule was applied, that would result in "optimal" paging file sizes of 1.28GB to 2.5GB! That doesn't make sense at all.

The purpose of buying more memory is to prevent the system from using the slower virtual memory. The more memory you buy, the less you need to use virtual memory. It doesn't make sense to increase the paging file size every time you increase the amount of RAM in your system!

Imagine if you have follow the rule when you upgrade to 2GB of RAM in the future... You would have to create a 5GB paging file! That's ridiculous.

The amount of hard disk space you dedicate to a paging file should depend on the amount of RAM you need to use, NOT the amount of RAM you have. The 2.5 x system RAM rule was flawed from the beginning and it is certainly not applicable today.

Do not use the 2.5 x system RAM rule to determine the size of your paging file. Instead, you should first gauge how much virtual memory is actually needed by the system during the heaviest memory load. Then use your finding to set the most appropriate paging file size for your system.

But You Require A Huge Paging File For A Memory Dump!

There are people who actually believe in increasing the size of the paging file following an increase in system memory. That certainly goes against what we have been recommending, doesn't it? The reason is simple.

Whenever Windows crashes, it first writes the memory contents to the paging file. After the computer is restarted, Windows will create a memory dump file using the memory contents stored in the paging file. This memory dump file is used to analyze the cause of the crash.

However, for a complete memory dump to created, the paging file size should be large enough to store all the contents of the system memory. That's why the paging file size has to meet this equation :-

Paging file size = Physical memory in the system + 1MB

So, if you have 1024MB of memory, the paging file size should be 1025MB in size for a complete memory dump to be created successfully.

However, this does not mean you should increase the size of your paging file according to the amount of system memory. Why not? Let's find out.

Why Not?

First of all, there is no need to create a complete memory dump. Windows supports three different kinds of memory dumps. Here is a summary of information from Microsoft's Knowledge Base.
Type Of Memory Dump

Description

Size
Small


    * Small memory dump files contain the least information, but consume the least disk space, 64 kilobytes (KB).
    * Unlike kernel and complete memory dump files; Windows XP stores small memory dump files in the systemroot\Minidump folder, instead of using the systemroot\Memory.dmp file name.
    * Windows XP always create a small memory dump file when a Stop error occurs, even when you choose the kernel or complete memory dump file options.
    * One of the services that use small memory dump files is the Error Reporting service. The Error Reporting service reads the contents of a small memory dump file to help diagnose problems that cause Stop errors.


64KB
Kernel


    * This is an intermediate size dump file that records only kernel-level memory and can occupy several megabytes (MB) of disk space.
    * When a Stop error occurs, Windows XP Professional saves a kernel memory dump file to a file named systemroot\Memory.dmp and create a small memory dump file in the systemroot\Minidump folder.
    * You cannot exactly predict the size of a kernel memory dump file because this depends on the amount of kernel-mode memory allocated by the operating system and drivers present on the machine when the Stop error occurred.


About 1/3 of system memory
Complete


    * A complete memory dump file contains the entire contents of physical memory when the Stop error occurred.
    * The file size is equal to the amount of physical memory installed plus 1 MB.
    * When a Stop error occurs, the operating system saves a complete memory dump file to a file named systemroot\Memory.dmp and creates a small memory dump file in the systemroot\Minidump folder.


System memory + 1MB

Although you may think that it is always good to create a complete dump file. However, that is not true. Even Microsoft recommends creating a kernel memory dump, instead of a complete memory dump. Why? I'll quote them :-

            For most purposes, a kernel memory dump file is the most useful kind of file for troubleshooting Stop messages. It contains more information than the small memory dump file and is significantly smaller than the complete memory dump file. It omits only those portions of memory that are unlikely to have been involved in the problem.

In addition, a kernel memory dump will require the paging file to be only about 1/3 of the system memory. It will also require the same amount of free hard disk space.

Even if you wish to create a complete memory dump, there is still no need to create a large paging file. Even if you restrict your paging file to, for example, 500MB; Windows XP will automatically expand the paging file to store the memory dump BEFORE it is written out to disk on the next reboot.

Therefore, I consider it to be a real waste of hard disk space if you have 2GB of memory and yet create a 2GB paging file, just so Windows XP can write an enormous memory dump the next time it crashes.

How Much Virtual Memory Do I Need?

No one can tell you how much hard disk space you need to allocate to a permanent paging file because every system is different and everyone uses his/her system differently.

If you create a permanent paging file that is too small, then Windows will continuously create more virtual memory via a dynamic extension to the permanent paging file. This reduces the paging file's performance

If you create a permanent paging file that is too large, you are only wasting hard disk space, especially on the outer tracks.

So, the best method would be to accurately gauge how much virtual memory you actually need. This allows you to create a permanent paging file with the appropriate size. To do that, you need to monitor your paging file usage. Let's see how you can do that.

Finding Out In Windows 9x

Give your system a clean boot and once you are in Windows 95/98, load System Monitor. You can get to it via Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools. You will see this screen :-

Go to the Edit menu and click on Add Item...

In the next screen, select the Memory Manager category and add Swapfile in use. Click OK and you will see this screen :-

Now, you can monitor the size of your paging file. Start up and run all the applications that you usually use at the same time. Load several documents and work files. Play around with them and check the peak value for the paging file.

Then play several of the most memory-intensive games you have. 3D games with large textures are good ones to test. At all times, record down the highest value for the paging file size that System Monitor reports.

Once you are done, select the highest value that has been recorded for the paging file size and round it up to the nearest 100MB. For example, if the biggest size your paging file ever went during the tests was 619MB, then 700MB is the ideal size for your paging file.

But always make sure you add at least 40-50MB as a cushion against future memory-guzzling applications or games. For example, if the largest size your paging file expanded to during your tests was 684MB, then 750MB would be an ideal size for your paging file.

How Much Virtual Memory Do I Need?

Finding Out In Windows XP

Finding your optimal paging file size in Windows XP is much easier.

Just give your system a clean boot. Once you are in Windows XP, run Task Manager . You can get to it by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Task Manager. You can also access it through the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl-Alt-Del.

After you load Task Manager, click on the Performance tab. You will see this screen :-

Now, you can monitor the size of your paging file. Start up and run all the applications that you usually use at the same time. Load several documents and work files. Play around with them and check the peak value for the paging file.

Then play several of the most memory-intensive games you have. 3D games with large textures are good ones to test. At all times, record down the highest value for the paging file size that System Monitor reports.

Once you are done, select the highest value that has been recorded for the paging file size and round it up to the nearest 100MB. For example, if the biggest size your paging file ever went during the tests was 619MB, then 700MB is the ideal size for your paging file.

But always make sure you add at least 40-50MB as a cushion against future memory-guzzling applications or games. For example, if the largest size your paging file expanded to during your tests was 684MB, then 750MB would be an ideal size for your paging file.

Moving The Paging File To A Different Partition

Another popular technique proposed by many tweakers suggests moving a temporary paging file from the default first partition to a separate, dedicated partition.

The reasons for this technique are ostensibly two-fold :-

                + to reduce fragmentation of the first partition
                + to ensure that the paging file will remain contiguous even though it is a temporary paging file

This idea looks good because it enables users of temporary paging files to keep their primary partition neat and the paging file contiguous for a speed boost.

However, many users of this technique failed to take into account several things. Let's see what they are.

Cylinders And Partitions

First of all, let's take a look at a hard disk cylinder. A cylinder consists of the same tracks on all the platters in the hard disk.

The first cylinder, nominally called cylinder 0, is coloured in bright green. It is the outer most cylinder and consists of the first track of all the platters in the hard disk. Such groups of tracks have a cylindrical look, hence the name. Cylinder n (in red) is the last cylinder of the hard disk, where n can be any integer.

Partitions are constructed using full cylinders. The first one starts at cylinder 0 and go out to where you specify. The next one starts on the following cylinder, and so on. If you try to create a partition with an end that falls in the middle of the cylinder, FDISK or similar utilities will round it up so that the partition occupies the entire cylinder, instead of a partial cylinder.

Needless to say, the first partition will always start with the first track of every platter. In other words, the first partition will always be the fastest partition in the hard disk, followed by the second partition and so on. Therefore, if you create a second partition and dump the paging file there, you will actually be moving it to a slower part of your hard disk!

As you can see, while the temporary paging file will be remain contiguous using this technique, the transfer of the paging file from the outer tracks to the inner tracks of the hard disk will inevitably reduce its performance.

Need More Reasons?

Creating a dedicated partition for the dynamic paging file also means tying up hard disk space and inviting inflexibility.

Users of FDISK will find it impossible to change the size of the paging file partition when they need to do so. In fact, they will have to remove at least two partitions to create a larger one. If they only have one primary and a secondary paging file partition, then they will have to remove both and recreate two new partitions.

Users of special utilities like Partition Magic will have an easier time as they can easily adjust the sizes of the partitions. But in the end, this method is counter-productive because for all your trouble, you have just slowed down your paging file and orphaned off a portion of your hard disk for the dedicated partition.

The main reason for using a temporary paging file is actually to save hard disk space. Users of a temporary paging file avoid tying up large amounts of hard disk space in a permanent swapfile.

However, this method actually requires you to set aside a large amount of hard disk space and worse, place cordon off this space in an inflexible partition. If you can afford to allocate space for this dedicated partition, you would be better off using the space for a permanent paging file.

In my opinion, this technique is a waste of time and needlessly endangers your data. Messing around with FDISK and partitions can be heartbreakingly exciting, if you catch my drift.

More Partitions = Data Parachute?

Some users advocate using multiple partitions for safety reasons. Their opinion is that in the event of a hard disk crash, corruption to the boot sector or FAT (File Allocation Tables), only the primary partition will be lost, leaving precious data safe in the other partitions.

Unfortunately, from my experience involving hard disk crashes, every partition was inevitably wiped out. When a hard disk head crashes with a platter, I seriously doubt it would politely avoid scoring through the media that has been allocated to other partitions.

Russ Johnson, a Product Support Engineer from Symantec Corporation has this to say, "It's not a substitute for a good backup, but it may save you from having to restore all of your data from a backup. However, if your first partition is taken out, more than likely the whole drive will be lost. The first partition is also the location of the Master Boot Record and the partition table."

Now, I agree that storing your data on a different partition is actually a good practice. It can save your data if the first partition gets corrupted due to a soft error. For example, even if the FAT of one of the partitions gets corrupted, data on the other partitions will still be safe.

So, if data integrity (as well as disk management) is important to you, you should consider using multiple partitions. However, this does not mean you should move the paging file to a different partition... oh no...

When the paging file is permanent, tweakers who advocate moving paging files around will tell you to move your partition to a second hard disk. Why?

As the theory goes, this allows your system to access both the paging file on the second hard disk and data on the first hard disk concurrently. This theoretically improves performance a lot! But does it really work?

Well, it depends.

Hard Disk, NOT Partition!

Many people get confused by drive letters. They assume that moving the paging file from drive C: to drive D: is the same as moving it to another hard disk. However, this is not true.

The operating system does not bother with physical drives. It is only interested in logical drives. By this, we mean properly-formatted partitions that can be accessed by the operating system.

To the operating system, partitions appear as physically-separate hard disks although they may reside on the same hard disk. If you partition your hard disk into three different partitions, your operating system will identify them as three logical drives (Drive C:, Drive D: and Drive E:). But they are still physically on the same hard disk!

Therefore, if you merely move the paging file to a different logical drive, you could be doing nothing more moving it to a different partition. So, please check and make sure you are moving it to a physically-separate hard disk. Preferably, it should be the first partition in that hard disk.

Parallel-ATA

Many tweakers forget one thing when they move their paging files to the second hard disk - only one PATA (Parallel-ATA) device can be active at any one time on the same IDE channel.

Most users slave the second hard disk to the first hard disk on the primary IDE channel and put the removable media drives (CD writers, DVD-ROM, etc.) on the secondary IDE channel. That is theoretically sound practice but it actually negates the purpose of moving the paging file off the primary hard disk!

Because both hard disks are on the same IDE channel, they can't be active at the same time. So, there is no way data can be read from both hard disks at the same time. In fact, because the secondary hard disk is often slower and smaller than the primary hard disk, the performance of the paging file on the second hard disk will actually be worse off.

So How Do We Make It Work?

The only way for this method to work is to put the first and second hard disks on separate IDE channels. That means the first hard disk gets hooked up to the primary IDE channel and second hard disk gets the secondary IDE channel. This allows both IDE channels can be active at the same time, delivering data from both hard disks concurrently.

In addition, the second hard disk needs to be at least half as fast as the primary hard disk. This allows the paging file on the second hard disk to be at least as fast as a paging file on the first hard disk. Otherwise, the performance advantage accessing the paging file concurrently on a second hard disk will be negated by the slower performance of the second hard disk.

Remember, if the first hard disk can serve data to and from both the application in use and the paging file faster than the second hard disk can access the paging file alone, then it is pointless to maintain a paging file on the second hard disk.

But if the second hard disk is more than half as fast as the first hard disk, then it would be advantageous to move the paging file there because the paging file can then be accessed concurrently with data on the first hard disk. In addition, the valuable outer tracks on the first hard disk will be freed up for use by the operating system.

Other Considerations

The trouble with such a setup is that most motherboards usually with only two IDE channels.

If you slave your DVD writer to the first hard disk (on the primary IDE channel), then you may have trouble writing data from the first hard disk to a DVD. This is because the IDE channel has to interleave its operations between the first hard disk and the DVD writer.

You won't have any trouble writing data from devices on the second IDE channel to the DVD writer though. This is because the DVD writer is on the first IDE channel and can thus be accessed concurrently with the devices on the second IDE channel.

However, if you slave your DVD writer to the second hard disk (on the secondary IDE channel), then you may have problems with games running off CDs or DVDs in that drive. Of course, this time you won't have any trouble writing data from devices on the first IDE channel to the DVD writer!

Either way, you will face performance compromises. It is a great idea but implementation is not quite as simple as you might think. The key to making this work is to be aware of such considerations and plan your setup accordingly.

But if your motherboard comes with enough IDE channels to give each device its own channel, then the way is clear - hook the second hard disk to a separate IDE channel and move the paging file there!

Serial-ATA

The beauty of Serial-ATA is that each device is given its own channel. This completely circumvents the issues that Parallel-ATA drives have with sharing the same IDE channel.

So, if you are only using Serial-ATA devices, you can immediately move the paging file to the second hard disk for a big speed boost. Just make sure you move it to a partition that is on the second hard disk, not the second partition in your first hard disk.

How Do I Move The Paging File In Windows 9x?

If you want to move your paging file to a different partition or drive, first open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Performance tab and you will see the following picture :-

Right at the bottom, you'll see a Virtual Memory... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

Select Let me specify my own virtual memory settings. This allows you to choose the logical drive in which you would like to place the paging file.

Click on the pull-down list. It will show you all the available partitions and hard disks in your system. Select the logical drive where you want the paging file to be.

Then set the minimum and maximum paging file sizes and click OK. After rebooting, your paging file will be established in the logical drive you selected.

Again, please remember that each logical drive represents a partition, not a physical drive. So, if you want to move your paging file to a separate hard disk, select a logical drive that resides on that hard disk. Preferably, it should be the first partition in the other hard disk (which should be on its own IDE channel).

How Do I Move The Paging File In Windows 2000?

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three options. Click on Performance Options... and you will see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual Memory. Under it, there is a Change... button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

This is where you manage Windows 2000's paging file settings.

Just scroll through the selection of logical drives available. Click on the logical drive that you want to place the paging file. Then set the initial and maximum paging file sizes and click Set.

To remove the paging file from the default location in the first logical drive, select drive C: and set both initial and maximum sizes to 0 (zero). Then click Set.

After you are done, just click OK and allow Windows 2000 to reboot your computer. After rebooting, your paging file will be established in the logical drive you selected.

Again, please remember that each logical drive represents a partition, not a physical drive. So, if you want to move your paging file to a separate hard disk, select a logical drive that resides on that hard disk. Preferably, it should be the first partition in the other hard disk (which should be on its own IDE channel).

How Do I Move The Paging File In Windows XP?

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three sections.

Click on Settings in the Performance section and the Performance Options screen will pop up. Click on the Advanced tab and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual memory. Under it, there's a Change button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

This is where you manage Windows XP's paging file settings.

You can select the logical drive you wish to place the paging file in by clicking on the list of logical drives shown on the screen.

Just scroll through the selection of logical drives available. Click on the logical drive that you want to place the paging file. Then set the initial and maximum paging file sizes and click Set.

To remove the paging file from the default location in the first logical drive, select drive C: and select No paging file. Then click Set.

After you are done, just click OK and allow Windows XP to reboot your computer. After rebooting, your paging file will be established in the logical drive you selected.

Again, please remember that each logical drive represents a partition, not a physical drive. So, if you want to move your paging file to a separate hard disk, select a logical drive that resides on that hard disk. Preferably, it should be the first partition in the other hard disk (which should be on its own IDE channel).

Multiple Hard Disks

With hard disk prices dropping and multiple hard disks becoming common, this introduces two interesting possibilities :-

                + multiple paging files
                + moving the paging file to a RAID array

Both methods appear to offer better paging file performance. But do they really offer better performance? Let's find out...

Multiple Paging Files

With multiple hard disks in the same system, you can actually split the paging file into multiple paging files!

Instead of just moving the paging file from one hard disk to another, you can actually place a paging file on each and every hard disk in the system. And if each hard disk has its own IDE channel, having multiple paging files will greatly increase its performance.

Because each hard disk with its own channel can be accessed concurrently with the other hard disks in the same system, multiple paging files will allow the computer to access all of them simultaneously. Needless to say, this greatly increases its read and write performance.

However, it is still recommended that you do not place the paging file in the primary hard disk. Leave the outer tracks there for the operating system to use. This will also free up the first hard disk for the operating system's use, instead of sharing it with the paging file.

So, if you have four hard disks in your system, you should create only three paging files. One in each of the other hard disks, leaving the primary boot hard disk without a paging file.

Creating Multiple Paging Files In Windows XP

First, open up System Properties, either through the Control Panel or by right-clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

Once in System Properties, click on the Advanced tab. There will be three sections.

Click on Settings in the Performance section and the Performance Options screen will pop up. Click on the Advanced tab and you'll see the following picture :-

The second section you see is titled Virtual memory. Under it, there's a Change button. Click on it to get the following screen :-

This is where you manage Windows XP's paging file settings.

You can select the logical drive in you wish to create a paging file by clicking on the list of logical drives shown on the screen.

Just scroll through the selection of logical drives available. Click on the logical drive in which you want to create a paging file. Then set the initial and maximum paging file sizes and click Set. Do this for as many hard disks as you want in your system.

To remove the paging file from the default location in the first logical drive, select drive C: and select No paging file. Then click Set.

After you are done, just click OK and allow Windows XP to reboot your computer. After rebooting, multiple paging file will be created in the logical drives you selected.

Please remember that each logical drive represents a partition, not a physical drive. So, if you want to create a paging file in a separate hard disk, select a logical drive that resides on that hard disk. Preferably, it should be the first partition in the other hard disk (which should be on its own IDE channel).

Moving The Paging File To A RAID Array

Before proceeding, you should read our RAID Optimization Guide for a primer on the different RAID levels.

RAID 0

RAID 0 uses striping to achieve better performance. Putting the paging file on a RAID 0 array will greatly improve both its read and write performance because the paging file will be split up between the hard disks in the RAID 0 array.

Although RAID 0 does not offer any data redundancy, that is perfectly alright for the paging file since it is only used for the temporary storage of the system's memory contents.

RAID 1

A paging file on a RAID 1 array may benefit from a faster access time. But because the paging file has to be mirrored on a second hard disk, this greatly degrades the paging file's write performance. In addition, the paging file will not benefit from the additional data redundancy offered by RAID 1.

Therefore, it is recommended that you do not put your paging file in a RAID 1 array. You should place the paging file on a separate hard disk.

RAID 0+1

Although the paging file will benefit from the increased read performance in a RAID 0+1 array, its write performance will be as severely degraded as it would be in a RAID 1 array. In addition, the paging file will not benefit from the additional data redundancy offered by RAID 0+1.

Therefore, it is recommended that you do not put your paging file in a RAID 0+1 array. You should place the paging file on a separate hard disk.

Moving The Paging File To A RAID Array

RAID 5

RAID 5's distributed parity requires a lot of calculations. Moving the paging file to a RAID 5 array will greatly increase the amount of calculations the RAID controller has to do. This greatly reduces its performance. Again, the paging file will not benefit from the additional data redundancy offered by RAID 5.

Therefore, it is recommended that you do not put your paging file in a RAID 5 array. You should place the paging file on a separate hard disk.

JBOD

When the hard disks in a JBOD array, they act exactly like a single logical drive. Therefore, placing the paging file here will not incur any benefits at all. It will just be like putting it on the first hard disk.

Conclusion

Generally, placing the paging file in a RAID array is not recommended at all. The only situation where a RAID array can actually improve the paging file's performance is if the RAID array was created using RAID 0. Otherwise, avoid placing the paging file in a RAID array.

How To Place The Paging File In The RAID Array

To the operating system, the RAID array appears as an ordinary logical drive. Therefore, moving the paging file to the RAID array is as simple as moving it to another logical drive. Just follow the instructions for moving the paging file to a different logical drive.

Moving The Paging File To A RAM Drive

A RAM drive is nothing more than a logical drive created out of system memory.

To the operating system, a RAM appears as a normal logical drive, albeit a very fast one! Because it is created using system memory, a RAM drive is fast. VERY fast, in fact. As I mentioned earlier, even dual-channel PC2700 DDR memory is over 70X faster than the fastest hard disk.

That's why many people actually advocate moving the paging file to a RAM drive. Their reason is simple. Because a RAM drive is so fast, moving the paging file there will greatly improve its performance.

They are most certainly correct. Moving the paging file into a RAM drive will definitely give it an enormous boost in performance. However, that is really counter-productive. Let's see why.

From RAM To Hard Disk To RAM?

The purpose of a paging file is to create virtual memory for situations where there is not enough system memory. Virtual memory serves as an emergency source of additional memory, only to be used when there is not enough system memory.

The RAM drive, on the other hand, is used to create a very fast pool of temporary storage space in the system memory. It ties up system memory, so it is usually created when there is a lot of free system memory. Even then, it is usually kept small and only used to store temporary work files.

Therefore, does it make sense to use limited system memory to create a RAM drive that is used to service the paging file? No, it doesn't make sense at all.

Remember, most paging files are very large, a few hundred megabytes to a gigabyte in size. Most computers even come with enough memory to create such a large RAM drive, much less move the entire paging file to the RAM drive.

Even if you have a lot of system memory, creating a large RAM drive reduces the pool of available system memory. This increases the need for virtual memory which means more data will have to be paged out into the paging file. This increases the size of the paging file which will inevitably be much larger than the RAM drive.

At this point, Windows will automatically create more virtual memory via a dynamic paging file. Because a large portion of the system memory has already been taken up by the RAM drive, this will cause a lot of data to be paged out to a large dynamic paging file on the hard disk. That defeats the purpose of moving the paging file to the RAM drive - improved performance.

If your system has a lot of system memory, don't waste your time creating a RAM drive to service the paging file. If there is a lot of free system memory, Windows will not need to page out data to the paging file. That would produce the best results. Nothing is faster than running the programs directly in system memory.

Reducing Reliance On Virtual Memory

Windows can get too enthusiastic about paging data out to the paging file. This can lead to unnecessary paging, even when there is a lot of free system memory.

Luckily, we can do something about this :-

                + Enabling the Pagefile_Call_Async_Manager service (Windows 98, Me)
                + Stop NTExecutive from paging (Windows NT, 2000, XP and above)

We will take a look at each and see how they work.

Enabling The Pagefile_Call_Async_Manager Service

Microsoft added a Pagefile_Call_Async_Manager feature in Windows 98. This ostensibly forces Windows 98 to behave more like Windows 95 by asynchronously paging out data during periods of inactivity. According to Microsoft, this decreases performance. However, it is actually quite the opposite.

Enabling this feature actually forces Windows 98 to be more conservative about using the paging file. Windows 98 will reduce the amount of paging and keep more data in system memory. This improves performance by keeping more data in system memory than in the paging file.

Needless to say, it is recommended that you enable the Pagefile_Call_Async_Manager service. Just make sure your system has a good amount of system memory.

To enable the Pagefile_Call_Async_Manager service, you will have to edit the System.ini file (usually found in the drive:\\Windows\ folder.

Look for the [386Enh] section. In that section, add the following entry under the [386Enh] section :-

            [386Enh]
            ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1

Save the change you made to the System.ini file and reboot the computer. When Windows 98 boots up again, it will be using a more conservative approach to paging.

Incidentally, this method is said to work with Windows Me although I cannot confirm this. But please note that this method does not work in Windows NT, 2000 and XP.

Stop NTExecutive From Paging

In Windows NT, 2000 and XP, you can prevent pageable drivers and system code in the Windows NT Executive from being paged out to the paging file.

Normally, pageable drivers and system codes are paged out to the paging file to free up memory. Naturally, this reduces the performance of the operating system and affected drivers.

However, you can easily change that and force Windows to keep all drivers and system code in the system memory. But you will need to edit the registry.

Start up Registry Editor by running regedit.exe in the drive:\Windows\ folder or by going to Start Menu -> Run... -> regedit.exe.

Once you have opened up Registry Editor, go to the following subkey :-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

You will see the following screen :-

Look for the DisablePagingExecutive option. By default, it is set to 0.

Double-click on it and change its value to 1. Then close Registry Editor and reboot your computer.

When Windows boots up again, the pageable drivers and system code will no longer be paged out to the paging file. Instead, they will be retained in system memory for maximum performance.

This method works with Windows NT, 2000 and XP. It does not work with Windows 98 or Windows Me.

Conclusion

Optimizing the paging file isn't a very hard thing to do. The main problem is evaluating and selecting the best methods of optimization for your system.

The previous pages have discussed, at some length, the pros and cons of the different methods. By now, you should be able to see a pattern.

Evidently, creating a semi-permanent, contiguous paging file that is slightly larger than what you normally need and moving it to the outer tracks of the hard disk are generally the best ways to optimize the paging file. If you have multiple hard disks, creating multiple paging files will also greatly improve its performance. Needless to say, we should also force Windows to reduce its reliance on virtual memory.

But we should generally avoid placing the paging file in RAID arrays or a RAM drive. It also does not make sense to create a really massive paging file. Needless to say, it is counter-productive to simply move the paging file to another partition of the same hard disk.

I hope this guide has been of great help to you in optimizing the paging file. Let us know if you have any comments or perhaps new tips on further optimizing the virtual memory system!