Slicking the hard drive and other fun stuff.....

[c-aris]

Hey all!
Just thought I'd make a little idle chat.....

I've decided that its time to slick the hard drive and reload all the programs.....big fun! :shock:

My computer has just gotten slower and slower lately, mostly from 2 years of loading and removing programs...plus Windows ME just sucks and I'm upgrading that also, to Windows 2000....should make my home network with the hubby run smoother since that's what he is running.

I'm very exited to say I'm going to get a second hard drive to use as backup. After a long look at tape drives and about 15 cd's of backup (not including the stuff I have already taken off the hard drive and put permanantly on cds) it seems that the 2nd hard drive is the easiest and most cost effective back up solution. Not to mention the quickest....this cd backup took me half the day!

I'm also getting more RAM - I only have 256, going to double it - wahoo! :D So that I can run photoshop, dreamweaver, outlook, trillion....etc, etc, etc, - all at once!

I'm looking at browser downloads again....older versions that is. Why is this such a difficult task? Can anyone help with this? I have dreamweaver that of course tells you if something doesn't work in a specific version of a browser, but I like to actually see it. Firstly it's difficult to find the downloads (of older versions), it would also be nice to be able to have more than one version of IE or Netscape on my computer....I'm just not sure how to do it without screwing it up. (For some reason one overwrites the other without giving you any choice as I remember) Maybe I shouldn't be as worried about this as I am?! :wink:

Anyway.....done rambling on now! If you all don't hear from me over the weekend it'll be because I screwed everything up (knock on wood!). Wish me luck! :P

[CK]

I have

p4 1.4 GHZ, with 256 MB RAM thinking of upgrading 512 MB, Windows 2000 professional with Philips 17" monitor. Not great but nice machine...


However, you call me crazy that i re-install OS for about every 4-6 months. It takes just 4 hours to install ALL if you have a second drive or (splitted drive) and have all install softwares on that one

This will leads that all unused registry entires be cleared. Then i install what i need just.

These are some must softwares, just experience.:

IMAGES
Photoshop for photo image edit
GIF Animator for GIF creation
SmartSaver for best JPEGS in KB size

WEB APPLICATIONS
PHPED for php applications
Apache
MySQL
PHP

ARCHIEVING
WinRAR

SECURITY
Norton Antivirus 2002
ZoneAlarm Pro ->be carefull, install norton first, then zone alarm and disable email security control of zone alarm. Otherwise your full system may corrupt, really not a joke!

BROWSER
Opera browser

FTP
Smart FTP
Leech FTP

USEFULL
A local smtp server
A scanner and software
Getright
Frontpage

If you ask me how much all cost, i can easily tel you: SO MUCH

[c-aris]

[quote:c4d188f713="CK"]I have

p4 1.4 GHZ, with 256 MB RAM thinking of upgrading 512 MB Windows 2000 professional with Philips 17" monitor. A great machine...[/quote:c4d188f713]

sweet.....I only have 800mhz......thought I had 900....really would like a new computer. That'll have to wait!


[quote:c4d188f713]i re-install OS for about every 4-6 months [/quote:c4d188f713]

REALLY? :shock: Looks like you've got a good system and know what you need each time! I'm realizing that I have tons of extra's downloaded that I have to back up.....good thing I remembered, I'd be bummed if I didn't have all my fonts and Adobe plug ins! :( I have a nice collection now! :D

[quote:c4d188f713]WEB APPLICATIONS
PHPED for php applications
Apache
MySQL
PHP[/quote:c4d188f713]

What's this??? Do you have your hard drive split up? Or do you not use windows? Or is there another way to run Apache? I'm guessing that what you mean by MySQL and PHP is that you have backed up your website?? Is PHPED an application for writing PHP (sorry....don't know PHP...YET! :wink: ) Do you like PHPED?

So what do you use to back up all your stuff?

[KualoCraig]

Well - I format all the PCs in the house every 6-8 months, and like CK, it usually takes me 3-4 hours per machine.

I have a network running, which makes my life easier :) All files are accessed from the server, so backing up each machine is not an issue :D Having said that - I haven't formatted the server for 18+ months now. It just sits there, and works (usually) away.

Backup is something I really should do more of though. I used to, but got very fed up with writing CDs once a fortnight :( Infact, - now you've brought it up, I'll go and do one now, while I'm thinking about it :)

[CK]

>>REALLY? Looks like you've got a good system and..

It depends on how you regard your computer... I install many many softwares on my computer as trial and then uninstall again. However some files can not be removed including (and most important) DLLs under system32 and system folders and also Registry keys.

What does this mean?

Your system becomes like a waste of files while time passes and full system performance be affected negatively.

There is no way to delete or edit these files. Do not try to edit or delete. Your full system may (probably) corrupts.

>PHPED for php applications
>Apache
>MySQL
>PHP

Go to php.net, mysql.com and apache.org, there are windows version of hese softwares which enables your computer to serve as local server so that you can run your php and mysql based applications locally. A long subject. That's my real job also. Thats why phptalk.com exists.

Phped is my preference for creating and designing php files.

And second hard drive or splitting hard drive...

I just mean that i splitted my hard drive to 2 parts virtually (this is possible while formatting hard drive) and installed windows 98 into first part (C:) and windows 2000 professional to the second part. (D:)

So win98 part is like my first backup space. Time to time i backup important files from D: --> C: and then monthly C: --> CD (i have CDRW drive)

[KualoDennis]

I'm not usually one for using those cleanup your hard drive types of software but my daughter had tried: Ashampoo WinOptimizer Suite and said it worked good and it does. It even has a free trial version:

http://www.ashampoo.com/

It will even clean out registry files and dll files if you are brave enough!!!
:shock: :mrgreen:

Dennis

[CK]

Good... The fact that she is brave and also either really lucky or it's a good shampoo!

When i tried one of the software in the past, program files registries corrupted, i was luck operating system not, but i again formatted my hard drive and re-installed all the things.

Oh, one more note...

Re-instaling OS on existing OS is not a solution unless you modifyOS type such that from win 98 to win2000 which means from one of home edition to NT (server) family. In other words upgrade is not a solution to clean DLLs and registries. You should format the hard drive and re-install.

[c-aris]

[quote:49b8c6ca62="DPerley"]It even has a free trial version[/quote:49b8c6ca62]

Thats what got me into trouble in the first place :lol: LOL

Well....I'm happy to say that I'm back in business! :!: :D :D :D

And yes CK, that's exactly what I did.....formatted the hard drive and started from scratch! Even partitioned the hard drive - one for programs one for documents, etc. .....ok, I should give credit where credit is due....actually the hubby did most of this :D

Hey, still wondering if anyone has any idea how to have several versions of IE or Netscape on the computer for previewing purposes?

:D :D :D Wahooo! So glad to be back :!: :!:

[CK]

Impossible...

You just have achance that you can install different versions on different hard drives if these hard drives has installed unique OS. Like mine. I have IE 5.0 for win98 and 6.0 for NT

[c-aris]

impossible? Come on...nothings impossible! :D

[KualoDennis]

I tried installing an older version of IE over my current version and it wouldn't let me. It just gives you one of those nice windoze messages and gives you the one option to exit.

Maybe if you had your hd partitioned you could install different versions on the different hd partitions. That might work, but I've never felt the need to try it out.

Dennis

[Stora]

[quote:ba5de1c715="DPerley"]I tried installing an older version of IE over my current version and it wouldn't let me. It just gives you one of those nice windoze messages and gives you the one option to exit.

Maybe if you had your hd partitioned you could install different versions on the different hd partitions. That might work, but I've never felt the need to try it out.

Dennis[/quote:ba5de1c715]

The problem with IE is that it is part of the OS.

[c-aris]

[quote="Stora
The problem with IE is that it is part of the OS.[/quote]

hmmmm....I don't think that IE is "part" of the OS, but they are certainly very very closely linked! :D

[KualoDennis]

[quote:be3616ab15]="Stora
The problem with IE is that it is part of the OS.[/quote:be3616ab15]

Don't let Bill Gates hear you say that. That's part of the problem that got him into hot water in the first place. :lol:

Dennis

[MacGirl]

ON a Wintel machine, from what I understand you can't run 2 version of IE on the same hard drive or partition. You should be able to run version of Netscape, Opera, etc. along side of IE. And I [i:6308e992ae]think[/i:6308e992ae] you can run different versions of IE as long as they're on separate drives or partitions.

Of course, on a Mac, you can run any browser, anytime, anywhere :)

[c-aris]

[quote:7fa2152343="MacGirl"]ON a Wintel machine, from what I understand you can't run 2 version of IE on the same hard drive or partition. You should be able to run version of Netscape, Opera, etc. along side of IE. And I [i:7fa2152343]think[/i:7fa2152343] you can run different versions of IE as long as they're on separate drives or partitions.

Of course, on a Mac, you can run any browser, anytime, anywhere :)[/quote:7fa2152343]

How cool for you! :D Since I have the hard drive partitioned I will probably try to do that - thanks for the hint.

I have installed Netscape, Opera and IE and have no problems with that.

:D

[KualoDennis]

Forgot about Opera. Thanx for reminding me. Been a while since I've used that but it seemed pretty good.

Dennis

[c-aris]

Opera is excellent! My personal favorite! :D