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The Rife Report December 2009 |
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Diskeeper 2010; News of Win 8, IE9 Some of you will recall my discussion at the club's November meeting with guest speaker, Damir Bersinic, senior IT advisor from Microsoft Canada, regarding Windows 7 compatibility problems. It came during the many audience give-and-take sessions that enlivened his presentation on the new operating system.  This new sticker appears on devices that officially "have passed Microsoft designed tests for compatibility and reliability with Windows 7." It purportedly indicates the device will be able to run ALL versions of the new OS, including 64 bit. I'd suggest that's a starting point. To assist users, Microsoft has established a useful Windows 7 Compatibility Center. I was among the majority (according to reports) who moved to Windows 7 with no (zero) compatibility problems. Mind you, I did check each targeted system beforehand with Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (check this site) and found no likely snafus. However a few have suffered - I've responded to email trouble requests. Some were solved using XP mode which is only available for Win 7's Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate versions (see this site). Microsoft says XP mode is a virtual XP environment (once called Virtual Windows XP or VXP) where users can run older XP apps, beside native Win 7 applications.  In case you did not catch the details about my specific query on application compatibility problems, I'm including additional information Damir kindly emailed me about the ACT utility. Admittedly it is geeky, but some readers may be interested in referring to the URL to get the free toolkit he used when showing how it can create "shim" solutions to such issues.
 The Application Compatibility Toolkit Version 5.5 can be downloaded free from its Microsoft web page. Damir says: "Once you install the toolkit you can create a shim to allow the application to run on Windows 7. Please review the docs (also downloaded from the same location) to get a complete understanding of the process." At the meeting, he and I talked only of a situation involving Windows 7, however to be precise, ACT's supported operating systems also include - Windows 2000 SP4; Windows Server 2003 SP1; Windows Vista and Windows XP SP3. Later in his demo Damir was queried by one member about the possibility of making a clean install of Windows 7 using the Upgrade version of the software, rather than the "full" version (a purchase saving of about $ 80 US according to the Microsoft site). Damir gave a vague no. I suggested: "Why not use the old double install?" Damir gave no response, turning to the next questioner. For the record, double install DOES work on Windows 7. I've completed the exercise not once, but twice and, of course, did not enter the licence key as I began each time. That is vital- when you start installing Windows 7, you MUST, leave the Product Key field blank. You can activate whenever you wish, BUT not now. Numerous online blogs, including Paul Thurrott's Windows Supersite outline in detail this, and other methods, to do a non-activated install.  I'm using this hack (if you will) to test different things in Windows 7 on older machines with different configurations and, in the process, NOT tie Win 7 by activation to that machine. This allows me time to assemble a newer test bed, (Core i7, i5 or maybe i3 GPU, matching motherboard etc., checking for the best bang for the buck). Delay is the watch word before finally making the activation decision, tying it to a specific machine. After the club meeting, a member asked me to publish details on the SLMGR method. So here they are - First off, if you install Windows 7 and don't enter an installation key, the 30-day activation clock starts. To see how many days you have left, click Start, right-click Computer, and choose Properties.
 At the bottom of the dialogue under Windows Activation, you'll see (above) the number of days left in your trial period. When that number gets close to zero, you can extend the free period another 30 days by means of three steps:
1: Click Start, All Programs, Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator. Enter your administrator password if you have one set up..
2: Type the following command: slmgr -rearm and then press Enter  NOTICE the space after slmgr and the hyphen in front of rearm. 3: Restart Windows 7. Once your system restarts, the Properties dialogue ( see above) will show Windows 7's activation grace period has been reset to a full 30 days. As I said before, you can run the -rearm code three times - thus getting 120 days of Win 7 use without supplying an activation key. Although Damir seemed to know little about yet-to-be-released software, he did say, enigmatically. that: "Yes, they're moving on Windows 8." But the news has leaked onto the web - someone always lets something slip.
For example, Windows watcher Mary Jo Foley on her ZDNet blog says at one point: "Anders Vindberg, a Microsoft Technical Fellow in Microsoft's Management and Services division acknowledged that planning sessions were well underway for Windows 8. And of the 12 working groups created, "eight or nine revolve around management." Foley speculates that Windows 8 is unlikely to launch until 2011, at the earliest.
She also mentions Stephen Chapman, on his Windows Kitchen site devoted as he says to "remain on the bleeding edge of Windows 8 news, rumours, speculation et al." There's reams of copy, with this conclusion: "It looks like Windows 8 is shaping up to be a pretty ambitious release."
 On day 2 of the conference (Nov 18), Scott M. Fulton, III of Betanews wrote that new Windows president Steven Sinofsky said: "the team is only three weeks into the Internet Explorer 9 project." Fulton finds the three weeks "difficult to believe" adding he expects IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch, "to contradict that bit of information. He and his team haven't been lying dormant."
 Paul Thurrott, on his Windows Supersite (see here ) reports that the early IE 9 preview build he and other attendees saw at PDC was "just a bare window frame that's designed to let the rendering engine do its thing and show off the few bits of functionality Microsoft is now publicly committing to."
He adds that Hachamovitch told him: "This is just . . . an early look at where we are with IE 9 for developers. We're focussing on three very specific areas: Performance, interoperability standards, and hardware acceleration."
Thurrott concluded: "I'm heartened by Microsoft's decision to move quickly in improving IE." He expects he says, "based purely on speculation, that Microsoft will deliver a beta version of IE9 at the MIX conference in March and then deliver the final version sometime around October 2010, which is the same time I expect the company to ship Windows 7 SP1. "
Big promise, just words? Well, to be exact Diskeeper 2010 put it this way, Intelliwrite, its new technology "prevents the majority of disk fragmentation from ever occurring, dramatically improving Windows system performance."
Note that "majority" and "ever happening" and that bit about "dramatically improving performance." The Diskeeper November 17 press release, when the software was released, says that IntelliWrite technology is the "ONLY" way to prevent disk fragmentation before it happens.
After installing the new software - it went in smoothly, no hitch - I found no real surprise in the interface EXCEPT for the Intelliwrite section which was quite active as it immediately showed what I'll call second-by-second graph waves as it went about its work.
I have DK 2010 installed on both Vista and Win 7 and it works quickly and reliably in the background, keeping watch on my hard drives.
Most of my readers will recall how in the earlier days of PCs, disk fragmentation was a major concern - it not only gradually slowed your system, but many times resulted in hard drive crashes and loss of vital documents. In those days fragging was something one attempted manually and regularly to help keep your sanity.
Now with automated software defragmentation, many users know little of the problem, its possible results, how the software works - even whether they have defrag software or if it is doing the job efficiently. I've used Diskeeper for years and am constantly amazed at the way it does the job. No attention from me.
 Here's what others say: Joseph Marion of Healthcare Integration Strategies, LLC - "I am very impressed with Diskeeper 2010, particularly the IntelliWrite feature. I do a lot of speech recognition, and noticed a big difference, as IntelliWrite addresses fragmentation pro-actively. . . I noticed a significant shift within one day."
David Yohn of Marchi Thermal Systems in Redwood City, Calif., says: "There are several interesting and useful improvements in Diskeeper 2010, the most important of which is speed . . .
Every function seems faster, especially those that use large disk files like PhotoShop or AutoCAD."
Something to consider, Diskeeper 2010 also optimizes file placement for fast access utilizing its I-FAAST technology. That improves system performance from faster file reads and writes. Don't forget that wear and tear on the drive is greatly reduced, so you get longer hardware life. And all this with zero impact on system resources. For more information, or free 30 day trialware check this site.
Having had time to play with the Office 2010 Professional Beta which was released November 18, the Lifehacker site is now sharing thoughts and images on what's new and useful inside Microsoft's suite.
Then there's Microsoft's Office 2010 site where you can watch a video or download the free public beta to make your own decisions. Check it out.
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