Administration

Readers at several forums and websites posted some pictures of what they saw a plane flying over the Dell headquarters in Texas with a banner from Sun, warning Dell of their new X86 servers.

Thanks, Blake.

Here are a selection of advertisements that we all love but have been rejected by several publications including the Wall Street Journal. Sun is claiming that their X86 servers are way much better than Dell’s.

Click here for more.

arstechnica has revealed the SEVEN editions of Microsoft Vista, the next operating system line-up from Microsoft.

Microsoft will not allow corporate licencing to diminish piracies of their Ultimate Edition.

I’ve always believed in this principle when it comes to doing a fresh install of Windows. If you start out right, you’ll have great results at the end. There are a few steps I follow (Dell Inspiron 510M) in order:

1. Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2
2. Multilingual User Interface (MUI) for Microsoft Windows XP (optional)
3. Video Drivers
4. Sound Drivers
5. Mobile Chipset Drivers*
6. Touchpad Drivers*
7. 56k Modem Drivers
8. Network Interface Drivers - don’t configure anything.
9. Wireless Network Interface Drivers (optional)
10. Wireless Network Interface Support Applications (optional) - don’t configure anything.
11. Microsoft DirectX (if not preinstalled with Windows)
12. .NET Framework Runtime v1.1
13. .NET Framework Runtime v1.1 Service Pack 1
14. Java 2 SDK/Runtime v1.5 Update 4
15. Microsoft Office 2003
16. Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1
17. Antivirus (Darryl prefers Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition v10.0)
18. Update to latest antivirus signature
19. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 (optional)
20. Microsoft MSDN Documentation (optional)
21. Junction, Microsoft’s version of symbolic links (optional)
22. Install startup batch scripts (clean up temporary folders, clear Run MRUs, etc.)
23. Modify registry to increase system performance (SuperPrefetch, NtfsReserveZone, etc.)
24. Configure settings in My Computer **
25. Norton Ghost v9.0
26. Do a compulsory restart and defragment your root partition.
27. Make an image of the entire drive, including MBR! Store in a DVD/Removable Drive.

* applicable whenever necessary
** remove unnecessary services, uncheck Remote Registry, swap file settings, auto-updates, system restore, etc.

Of course the process does not stop there. The reason why I chose to make an image at step 25 was because I believe these preinstalled applications from step 1-25 are going to be here for some time (maybe about 1 year or so). I could very well include Lavasoft’s Ad-aware Professional SE v1.06 in step 24; but I did not - because Lavasoft updates its flagship software about every 6 months.

After imaging is complete, configure your LAN/Wireless/ADSL/T1/T3/56k. For wireless, ensure you have your 128-bit WEP key ready. What? Your wireless network do not need any network key? For goodness sake, make one! If you’ve locked yourself out of your wireless network, don’t sweat. Connect a network cable from your PC to the wireless router. Login and check the settings. If not, reset your wireless router.

The first thing to do is always to install Ad-aware and Ad-watch. Ad-watch monitors your start-up registry sections. Some applications will conveniently put little “tracking” or “speed-up” applications to start up whenever your computer boots (Adobe Acrobat Reader v7.0 is one of the culprits). Ad-watch allows you to block their actions - I assume you know what processes to block in the first place. But please, after Ad-aware installation is complete, update its signatures before proceeding. Standard procedure.

Then I’ll follow up with the codecs I swear by (DivX, XviD, OGG and Windows Media). Then I would go with WinRAR (or WinZip). Oh yes, I like to ensure all the applications I install next are registered, serialized, or cracked/patched (the least favorite). So take a look at Astalavista to find your application’s latest key generators, serials and cracks.

In case anything goes wrong, (this is the part I love most) restart your PC. Boot to your Norton Ghost CD. Do a system restore (including MBR and set partition active) with your previous image.

Because of my need to visit mother nature, I will continue tomorrow with an entry to help you configure and tweak your system. Don’t do anything as yet! Wait until tomorrow and you’ll be the pro!