Installing Windows XP on Dell Optiplex 9010

When trying to install Windows XP from my Professional SP3 CD, I would get a BSOD after it said "Starting Windows" (I think the one before that was loading NTFS). Thinking it was caused by excess newfangled hardware, similar to the DBAN problem, I disabled everything I could in BIOS. Specifically:

• Integrated NIC from Enabled with PXE to disabled
• Serial port from COM1 to disabled
• SATA operation from RAID on to ATA
• USB configuration Boot support and USB 3 to off (remember to plug your keyboard and mouse into the USB 2 ports, not the USB 3)

And it works! Re-enabling SATA to RAID causes a BSOD when Windows XP is starting, so it looks like that's the problem.

More Ways To Disable Automatic Updates

If you run "Task Scheduler", under Task Scheduler Library, you'll find a list of tasks that will run automatically, many of them updaters. Why automatic updates are bad Nice to have all the updaters in one place so you can disable them at once.

While you're at it, you might want to clear up startup programs from the Registry.

The Merging Of Computer And Portable Device OSes

Starting with OS X 10.7 Lion, OS X has begun looking more and more like iOS. I mentioned it in my post on the launch of Lion in 2010, and it's not just my opinion - a cursory search for "iosification of os x" (without ") finds many articles on this topic.

iOS-like features of Lion

• Interfaces of Address Book, iCal and Mail
• Auto-Save
• Autocorrect
• Full-screen apps - this is particularly ironic since this is exactly what the Maximize button in Windows does, yet OS X has always had the maximize button use as much space as the app needs, not the full screen. Here OS X has become more like Windows. Actually as screen sizes and resolution increases, full screen makes less sense. Especially on a computer with proper multi-tasking.
• Launchpad - "an iOS-like icon grid of installed applications". All your applications in one place, i.e. a Start Menu, another thing OS X seems to have lifted from Windows. It's something I've always done by dragging the Applications folder onto the Dock. It works better than dragging Program Files onto the Taskbar because OS X applications are mostly individual .app files, with no other support files in the Applications folder.
• App Store

iOS-like features of Mountain Lion, OS X 10.8

• Notification Center
• Notes
• Game Center
• Address Book renamed Contacts, iCal renamed Calendar
• Most worryingly, Gatekeeper - only lets you install apps from the App Store. You can change it, but how long before this option disappears totally, and you have to jailbreak Macs? It's like that point in Animal Farm when the animals become like humans, or when Anakin joins the dark side. You get the feeling things have taken a turn for the worse.

Anyway, my point in writing this isn't to just talk about OS X, but WINDOWS as well. It seems Microsoft has noticed it was missing out on the tablet market, and wants to make up for lost time with Windows 8. Shunning the gradual approach of Apple, it made Windows 8 an OS for both computers and tablets. I think it's counting on people's familiarity/dependence on Windows to sell tablets. However, I don't think PC users will appreciate having to learn the Metro interface (see Office's Ribbon interface), and usability for PCs seems to be badly affected. See Heisenfeatures - "Heisenfeatures are documented features of Metro the new interface that may or may not work at any given time."

PS: When writing this I discovered the interesting term "skeuomorphism", which is "when a product imitates design elements functionally necessary in the original product design, but that becomes ornamental in the new product design". Seems very common in Apple software.

Windows 7 and the active window

Maybe it's a problem with Windows 7, maybe I only noticed it because I started using dual monitors, but I'm having trouble telling (at a glance) which is the active window. I'm not the only one: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/how-to-make-active-window-border-color-and-taskbar/45ae4d86-b64d-4cf5-bd94-d15bd56c800f This problem is made worse by the fact that you can't choose the colours for active and inactive windows separately, the inactive window is always just a faded/desaturated version of the active. Removing transparency helps a bit, as does changing the default blue wallpaper + blue title bar.

Someone in the link above says, "Did you not see this picture?  It's far more contrast than Windows XP had, ever:" There must be something wrong with my monitor or eyes, because the only difference in Win 7 is a bit of saturation:

But in XP one is in black and white, while the other is in colour. You judge for yourself which has more contrast.

You CAN set the Title bar to custom colours. But, although it says "Colors and sizes selected here apply only if you have selected the Windows 7 Basic theme or an Ease of Access theme.", that is blatantly NOT TRUE and it only works in the Classic theme. http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/176167-title-bar-active-window-colors.html

Update 5 Oct 12

Unfortunately your custom colours won't work for some programs, most notably Microsoft's Office suite. Quick, which of the 3 windows is the active one?

Some Windows tips

Trying to read an OS X harddisk in Windows. I used HFSExplorer. At first it couldn't detect the HDD, but when I ran as administrator, it worked fine. Looks like running as administrator is the first step when troubleshooting programs in Windows 7.

Wondering what channels your neighbours' WiFi networks are using so you can choose an empty channel? Don't download another program, just type "netsh wlan show all" in a command prompt. Right click on the Title Bar and change the buffer size if there are too many to see the first few.

Windows 7 search

Windows may have caught up to OS X in several areas (resume from sleep), but search is still way behind - must manually add areas to index, does not search in pdf files. This is because the extension for pdfs with Adobe Reader only works on 32-bit. You have to install the "Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms" to search pdf file contents.

Also testing search program FileSeek, which has more features.

Update 22 Feb 13

Ok I'm still having problems with Windows 7 search. It's appalling, in some important ways worse than Windows XP's. Let's see what's wrong.

• To find anything, it has to be indexed - you can't even search filenames if they're not indexed
• It indexes ridiculously few locations by default
• Even if it's supposed to be indexed, it isn't always indexed
• You can't force a search in non-indexed locations
• You can't force the index to update, only rebuild
• Cannot search inside pdf files
• It's giving me results for deleted files!

Together, all these mean it doesn't work most of the time. This is mind-boggling since OS X has had almost instant search without having to bother with indexing since Leopard, which is roughly equivalent to XP. 2 versions later, Windows still hasn't got it?

This guide is useful, but it still doesn't fix problems with the design of search i.e. everything depends on indexing.

Windows Photo Viewer

This is one thing about Windows I prefer over OS X.

In OS X, if you want to view a certain number of pictures, you have to select them all before opening in Preview. If you just select one, it'll just open that one and you can't view the others.

In Windows, if you select one picture, you can still scroll to other pictures in the folder - so you don't have to think beforehand which pictures you want to see.
BUT if you're used to the OS X style / just want to view certain pictures in a folder, you can still select those you want to see, and when you scroll in Windows Photo Viewer, it'll only scroll among those you originally selected.

Update 5 Jan 13

Wait, there's something very stupid about Windows - the photo viewer ignores the photo's orientation data! All your photos appear as landscape format! This makes it pretty useless to view photos. It's a bad idea to actually rotate your photos - this makes it very complicated to resize or print (are you changing the width or length of the longest side?). Can't Windows get anything right?

Windows Explorer Tips

In relearning/updating myself to Windows Explorer, these are the tips I've come across:

Deselect files

If no files are selected, the Details pane (at the bottom) displays how many files are in a folder. In Details view, it's hard to deselect files.
Ctrl+space deselects files.

Enable Menu bar

Organize > Layout > Menu bar
Microsoft's idea of making software user friendly seems to be hiding settings :\

Automatically expand to current folder

This way, when you click on a folder in Favorites, it goes to the actual location of the folder - allowing you to navigate to nearby folders.
Organize > Folder and search options > Navigation pane > Automatically expand to current folder

Windows 7: Restore All Windows

Let's say you have 2 Explorer windows you want to compare side-by-side. You switch to another program for a while. Now to switch back, you have to mouse over Explorer on the Task Bar, click on one window, and repeat for the second window. Is there a way to restore all windows from a certain program/group at once? Other people are asking the same question:
http://superuser.com/questions/163342/raise-all-grouped-windows-on-windows-7-taskbar
http://superuser.com/questions/276110/how-to-restore-all-minimized-windows-in-windows-7
http://superuser.com/questions/274763/on-windows-7-can-i-customize-it-so-that-when-i-click-an-app-all-3-windows-of-i
http://superuser.com/questions/113162/bring-to-front-all-windows-for-a-certain-application-in-windows-7

So far, there are only 2 ways, none very good:

1. Shift+right click > restore all windows
2. Ctrl+click several times

At this point, I'm willing to install additional software to change this behaviour.

File/Folder Comparing/Synchronising Software

Looking for software to compare/synchronise files/folders in Windows.

KDiff3
Confusing interface, couldn't figure out how to make it work.

FreeFileSync
Does what I want, doesn't seem too intrusive. Sticking to this for now.

Windows 7: Windows Explorer Favorites and Libraries

Windows Explorer in Windows 7 has 2 places that can be customised: Favorites and Libraries.

• Favorites: seems to be shortcuts to folders. Sorted manually.
• Libraries: displays content from several folders you select in one place. You can designate which single folder files copied into a library are stored in. Sorted alphabetically.

Add to favorites: select folder you want, right click on favorites and select add current location.
Remove: Right click on folder and remove.

Selecting properties of a library lets you choose what folders are included and save location.

Now I'd be happy to use Favorites for everything, but some apps don't seem to support them. Maybe they're too old.

This is the open file dialog from Photoshop Elements 7.0

Acer Aspire 5755 P5WE0

I'm setting up a new computer, so I'm taking the opportunity to catch up with Windows.

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• i5-2430M
• 15.6" LED LCD (1366x768)
• Intel HD Graphics 3000
• 2GB DDR3 RAM (upgraded to 6GB)
• 500 GB HDD
• Card reader
• USB 3
• HDMI
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Intel Wireless Display (I think it has 802.11n)
• It has a numeric keypad, which is nice. It has NO indication of caps/num/scroll locks, except software, which isn't so nice.
• Original price $799 (with 2GB RAM)

Software

• Nice to know Windows 7 wakes from sleep instantly
• Has an easy way to disable autorun (my default changes to Windows are now: disable autorun, uncheck hide file extensions for known file types)
• Paint now has lots more features, and the Ribbon interface as well
• However, Windows (and the pre-installed software) still gives me the impression it's trying to see how much useless stuff it can throw at me before I reinstall it. Especially for the updates, which seem to be deliberately hard to disable.
• Examples: Norton Online Backup, Adobe Reader Updater, and don't even get me started on IE add-ons.
• McAfee deserves special mention. I stopped using it in the past because it was producing more pop-ups of its own than it blocked.

• There was one before this of an "offer" to renew your subscription. That's right, McAfee blocks pop-ups so it can serve up its own. Also, it keeps adding its own icon to the Desktop! How is this different from spyware?

No recovery CDs provided
A major point I must bring up is there are no recovery CDs provided. It's such a common issue that it's the top FAQ:

At least you can burn your own from their software - note this doesn't answer the question of WHY, it just says HOW to get the recovery CDs. I think it's a cost-cutting measure, like software manuals, and this reflects very poorly on Acer.

Speaking of manuals, maybe I can't find the correct one, but the one I found is very poorly written. It does not mention:

• how long is battery life?
• how long does the battery take to charge?
• what are the computer specifications - size, weight etc?

Windows 7 Navigation Pane

Seriously, Windows, a permissions change and regedit to get rid of "Homegroup" from the NP?

1. Homegroup is about as useful as "Network Places". Ok, networks are getting more common, but with people having problems even getting online, I don't think many homes have file sharing set up.
2. Ever heard of customisability? OS X is a clear win here. Right click (yes, OS X has right click), Open Sidebar preferences, everything is there for you to change. There's no complex process to add/remove things from Favourites, just DRAG AND DROP. Categories with nothing to display automatically disappear.