Dual-Booting Windows 98/Me with Windows XP

A good choice for those who wish to add Windows XP to an older system is dual-booting. Windows XP is incompatible with a variety of older programs and hardware. By using a dual-boot system, the functionality of these legacy applications and equipment can be preserved until the time comes for a new computer or a complete system overhaul. Dual-booting with XP is basically very straightforward but there are a few points that are worth pointing out and I will mention them here.

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It is not a good idea to install XP on the same partition with another operating system. A second empty partition should be created first. Although partitioning can be done from the XP disk using the modern version of Fdisk, everything on existing partitions will be destroyed. Unless you are going to completely reinstall your older operating system you will need something like Partition Magic. If using Partition Magic, create a data partition and do not use the option “this partition will contain an operating system” unless you plan to use a boot manager other than the one that comes with XP and you want to hide the two operating systems from each other. Hiding one operating system from the other was necessary when dual-booting Windows 95 with 98 or dual-booting Windows 98 with Me. It is not necessary with XP and my personal preference is to be able to see the entire system from each operating system. Windows XP can also be hidden from the Windows 98 system by formatting the XP partition with NTFS. Windows 98/Me must have a FAT partition. More advanced users may prefer this setup. Any FAT32 partition will be visible to Windows XP but Windows 98/Me cannot read NTFS volumes. (For more on the different types of file systems, see this article.)

The older operating system must be already installed before starting the XP installation. Installation is very easy with only one thing that has to be carefully watched. Do NOT use the default choice of an upgrade installation. Ignore the message that this is “recommended”. That choice will over-write the older existing Windows operating system. Choose “New installation, advanced.” (See figure below) The installation will then go in automatically onto the empty partition. If you have more than two partitions, there is an Advanced setting that will allow you to pick which partition you want XP to be on. More details are at this Microsoft article.



After XP is installed, a boot menu will appear whenever the computer is first turned on. By default Windows XP will be at the top and will be the operating system that boots unless Windows 98/Me (called Windows on the menu) is highlighted by using the down arrow key. The default setting has a 30 second delay period in which to make a choice. Both the order of operating systems in the boot menu and the delay time are controlled in a hidden file boot.ini that is located in the root of the C: drive. It is a text file and can be edited with a text editor (after removing the attributes) but it is a better idea to do any editing from Windows XP. One way to adjust settings is to go to Control Panel-System-Advanced-Startup and Recovery- Default Operating System (See figure below.) The details are given here



One final point is that the early stages of booting XP actually involve the C: drive even when most of the operating system is on another partition. XP installs three files in the root of the C: partition. These files are hidden, read-only, system files and include the aforementioned boot.ini, and two others, ntldr, and ntdetect.com. Dual-boot systems also have a file bootsect.dos. If these get corrupted, the system will not boot so I suggest making a backup diskette with copies.

Removing Dual-Boot Entries from Boot Display Menu
After using a dual-boot system for a period of time, many PC users then want to remove the older operating system and use only Windows XP. One annoyance is that after removing the older system, you still get a boot display menu listing both operating systems. Removing the boot display menu involves editing the boot.ini file and is described here.

How Computer Viruses Work

- Strange as it may sound, the computer virus is something of an Information Age marvel. On one hand, viruses show us how vulnerable we are -- a properly engineered virus can have a devastating effect, disrupting productivity and doing billions of dollars in damages. On the other hand, they show us how sophisticated and interconnected human beings have become.
For example, experts estimate that the Mydoom worm infected approximately a quarter-million computers in a single day in January 2004. Back in March 1999, the Melissa virus was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and a number of other very large companies to completely turn off their e-mail systems until the virus could be contained. The ILOVEYOU virus in 2000 had a similarly devastating effect. In January 2007, a worm called Storm appeared -- by October, experts believed up to 50 million computers were infected. That's pretty impressive when you consider that many viruses are incredibly simple.­
When you listen to the news, you hear about many different forms of electronic infection. The most common are:
Viruses - A virus is a small piece of software that piggybacks on real programs. For example, a virus might attach itself to a program such as a spreadsheet program. Each time the spreadsheet program runs, the virus runs, too, and it has the chance to reproduce (by attaching to other programs) or wreak havoc.
E-mail viruses - An e-mail virus travels as an attachment to e-mail messages, and usually replicates itself by automatically mailing itself to dozens of people in the victim's e-mail address book. Some e-mail viruses don't even require a double-click -- they launch when you view the infected message in the preview pane of your e-mail software [source: Johnson].
Trojanhorses - A Trojan horse is simply a computer program. The program claims to do one thing (it may claim to be a game) but instead does damage when you run it (it may erase your hard disk). Trojan horses have no way to replicate automatically.
Worms - A worm is a small piece of software that uses computer networks and security holes to replicate itself. A copy of the worm scans the network for another machine that has a specific security hole. It copies itself to the new machine using the security hole, and then starts replicating from there, as well.
In this article, we will discuss viruses -- both "traditional" viruses and e-mail viruses -- so that you can learn how they work and understand how to protect yourself.

Thank writen by : Marshall Brain

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Check Your Computer Frequently

If your PC’s not powering up, don’t immediately panic and run around the room while you’re shouting and tearing your hair out (obviously I’ve done this before). Here are some basic tips on how to seal with this problem before you call your local (and expensive) PC repair man.Check if your PC’s plugged in. Yes, boys and girls, there’s been a lot of situation where the the computer gets unplugged when your electric-bill-crazy-mom would pull it out while you’re away from keyboard to save on the utility charges. Or you forgot that you pulled it out last night.Have this ever happened to you? You go to the office on a Saturday morning to email a document to your boss (who just absolutely need to have it that same morning: on a SATURDAY) and you power on your computer. It goes through the same routine and then you wait….and wait…and wait until all the Windows program end loading. By the time it stops loading the morning is over and your boss is pissed. If this never happened to you, you’re lucky—it happened to me. Anyway, enough about me, let’s see what we can do for you.

It’s not only start-up that you’d like to speed up; you can also make sure that your system shuts down faster. If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown process:Don’t have XP clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data, but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times significantly, so if extreme security isn’t a high priority, you might not want to clear it.

A-Data DDR3-1600X

A-Data has entered the high-end DDR3 memory fray with a new line of memory kits that fall under its X Series brand, which is targeted at overclockers. The A-Data DDR3-1600X memory kit is one of many available based on Micron’s popular chips. It comprises a pair of 1GB sticks (2GB total) rated for operation at a speedy 1,600MHz with CAS latencies of 7-7-7-20. At that speed, the kit requires a relatively low 1.75 to 1.85 volts.

Although 1,600MHz system memory is nothing to sneeze at, we still spent some time overclocking this kit and found it to be a pretty good overclocker. With a bump in voltage to 2V, the DDR3-1600X kit had no trouble running at 1,804MHz at stock timing, and we suspect that it could have gone higher if we had relaxed the timings a bit. On a related note, the modules are outfitted with basic, flat heat spreaders that remained fairly cool to the touch, even while overclocking. Also note, this kit does not support EPP 2.0 or XMP, so you’ll have to do all of the overclocking the old-fashioned way.

When running at its rated frequency of 1,600MHz on an Asus X48-based motherboard, the DDR3-1600X kit put up a respectable 7.8GBps of memory bandwidth in SiSoft Sandra XII SP1’s bandwidth benchmark. And when we pushed the kit to 1.8GHz while overclocking, that number jumped up to 8.5GBps. Those aren’t the best numbers we’ve seen from a DDR3 memory kit, but they were good nonetheless.

At this point, DDR3 memory is still much more expensive than DDR2. But with an expected street price of about $250, A-Data’s DDR3-1600X kit will debut at a price roughly half of what competing DDR3-1600 kits commanded upon their initial release. Although still pricey in comparison to DDR2, the DDR3-1600X kit is relatively good value in the DDR3 space.

by Marco Chiapetta

AMD Phenom X3 8750

Test system specs: Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6; 2GB Super Talent DDR2 (dual-channel); Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7

Specs: Socket AM2+; Clock speed: 2.4GHz; HyperTransport Link: 3.6GHz (full duplex); 65nm process; 95W max TDP

Although PC enthusiasts generally clamor for the fastest, most powerful processor, AMD is attempting to satisfy a different group of computer users with the Phenom X3 8750 triple core processor. The 8750 (and its 8650 and 8450 brethren) are designed to be the basis for multicore systems that can be built for under $500.

You can do the math: a multicore 8750 for $195, an AMD 780G-series motherboard for about $100, and plenty of scratch left over for a decent graphics card (or two?) and a handful of other upgrades.

A sub-$500 system is an interesting idea, but can such a budget-friendly processor pull its weight? The short answer is yes. Although the 8750 didn’t blow anybody’s socks off in benchmark testing, its scores are certainly nothing to sneeze at. And when you consider the price-for-performance you get from this processor, it starts looking like an awfully good deal.

If you’re looking for the Next Big Thing in performance, the X3 8750 is not for you. If, however, you’re one of the millions of computer users who want a machine that is fast and powerful enough to knock out virtually any normal computing task at a rock-bottom price, this triple-core thing is probably right up your alley.

by Seth Colaner

What is RAM

RAM operates much like a human being's short-term memory. Much like the human brain RAM is able to draw upon the computer's long term memory for information. This is often necessary when short term memory becomes full. Most computers come equipped with at least 256 million RAM bytes plus the hard disk which has the capability of holding 40 billion bytes.

Anyone who works as their own tech geek on their computer system may be highly concerned about what is ram? It is a very important piece of a computer system. It is Random Access Memory which is the location where the application programs, the operating system, and data presently in use are stored. This way the computer's processor has the ability to reach them momentarily when needed. RAM is head and shoulders above the other various types of storage inside a computer system. It's even faster than floppy disk, hard disk, or CD-ROM. The information stored in RAM is only accessible for the length of time that a computer is begin run. Information previously stored in RAM disappears when a computer is shut down. When the computer is turned back on, information from hard disk is retrieved to bring RAM back to the forefront again. RAM is much like main memory that is accessible by programs.

How Does it Work?
RAM operates much like a human being's short-term memory. Much like the human brain RAM is able to draw upon the computer's long term memory for information. This is often necessary when short term memory becomes full. Most computers come equipped with at least 256 million RAM bytes plus the hard disk which has the capability of holding 40 billion bytes. Data is placed on a magnetized area that resembles a record. Computer printers also hold bytes of RAM as well. Each byte of RAM has the ability to be ascertained separately without the other bytes being accessed.

Types of RAM
RAM comes in dual forms. DRAM which is Dynamic Random Access Memory and SRAM which is Static Random Access Memory. DRAM is the most typical of the two types. DRAM requires refreshing at a rate reaching in the thousands each second. DRAM's times for accessing information are 60 nanoseconds. SRAM is more costly, but does operate at a much quicker pace than DRAM. The interlocking of a capacitor and a transistor produces a memory cell. This is one bit of data. Also, SRAM allows access at times as quick as 10 nanoseconds.

Thank : Robert Thomson