Number 246 - November 2003

PC Madness
By Les J. Kizer, Greater Tampa Bay PC Users Group
The causes for insanity are only recognized by looking backward at one's tracks in the snow. What contributed to such a state? Would insanity have occurred if one didn't experiment with various application programs and even the operating system itself? Or is Microsoft the cause? I'm not sure. In looking back, however, I discovered madness. Possible Causes of Madness     Top of the list is the Microsoft Windows operating system. I like stability, to do a job once and know that it is finished. Since the children left home, this fool operating system is the most unstable thing in my life. Each version promises improvements. Yes, it improves, but it continues to act as someone who is sick or changed their medication by breaking in new ways. When will they really fix the darn thing?     Another contributor to insanity - the ever increasing insecurity of the Internet with its e-mail. We have viruses and threats of viruses that go beyond amusement to sabotaging our lives. Just for protection, we need several applications, such as: credit card protection, GRC leak tests, Kookaburra's Cookie Pal, Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, McAfee's Antivirus, a pop-up stopper, SPAM protection, SpyBot checker, Symantec's Norton Antivirus, Web-link validators, and a ten dozen others. When will they really fix the darn thing? And all these protection programs must be kept constantly up to date, like we have nothing else to do with our time.     As a generality, most application manufacturers produce higher quality products than Microsoft; however, all applications have bugs. Bugs require us to occasionally check for updates to those programs. Most of these programs are so much better.     And then there is that huge thing within Windows called a "registry." Almost every action passes steps through this giant table. Every time an application program is installed, the registry becomes larger. Uninstalling the same application might reduce its size, but never to the smaller size it was before. Just using an application may grow the registry still larger. As the registry grows, response time slows. So, now we need iv16 Power Tools, Microsoft System Tools to monitor what is happening, Symantec's Norton System Works, and a host of other small programs to shrink the registry - and still it contains useless junk. And if you edit the registry yourself, your system is in mortal danger. When will they get rid of the darn registry?    In just maintaining the PC, the operating system and its application programs, how do we manage to have time to use it for something useful. Is there any wonder that for an experimenter, like me, madness lurks in the wings? Operating System    Early in the Justice Department monopoly suit against Microsoft, Justice proposed breaking Microsoft into five companies along product lines. Myron Kandel, CNN, suggested an alternative breakup: Yes, setup five companies; however, give each company the entire product line and let the five companies compete against each other in the market place. (Can you imagine what our automobiles would be like if they were all made by the same company?)    There is nothing I, as an individual, can do about the operating system because there is not yet an alternative desktop operating system of merit. I'm stuck, you are stuck, we all are stuck with whatever Microsoft gives us. Mad Logic    By compartmentalizing the usage, I could reduce the size of the registry, eliminate some of the Internet and e-mail problems, and have a place to experiment.    Ah! My kingdom for more than one PC. That's it! When I buy a new PC, I'll keep the old PC for a toy. But then all of the latest hardware is	on the new PC, and, shucks, I wanted to experiment with the latest stuff. In addition, I do add and change hardware as the spirit moves. Well, at least it sounded like a good idea. Initial Stages of Madness    About then I saw an ad for swappable disk drives. Why not have several swappable C drives: one for very stable bread and butter applications that never see the Internet, one for Internet and e-mail, and one for experimenting. To swap a disk requires a power-off reboot; that is, it is necessary to turn the power off, physically swap the disk drives and then turn the power on. What Needs to be Shared    To share data, a few applications need to be common among the three systems. This was accomplished with another physical disk drive, installed as the D disk.    On this D disk are installed the applications common to all three C disks, not many: Corel Office, Juno e-mail (because it is not an Internet exposure as some other Internet products are), and several testing programs. This installation allows data produced while using a program from one C disk to be available when using another C disk. To easily accomplish this feat, I designed a base operating system with the applications that are common to all three disks. This base operating system is stored on another disk drive. Since I expect the operating system to fail, on failure or even slowness, I simply copy the base operating system over the failing operating system, add the few applications that are unique to that PC, and continue. Backup    As you know, there are many ways to backup a system. I choose to install a third disk drive to contain a mirror of my data. This third disk drive also contains the base operating system. Since it is so easy to replace an operating system with the clean base operating system, and there are so few applications running on each operating system, I no longer backup the actual operating system. Upgrades    Each time I replace a defunct operating system with the base operating system, the latest Microsoft upgrades are installed on the base operating system. It is done by copying the base operating system to the C disk, doing the upgrade, and then copying the upgrade C disk to the base operating system.    Because of all the problems Microsoft has with the Internet, I upgrade the Internet C disk religiously. As for the other two C disks, unless there is a problem, I don't upgrade. Experimenting    Experimentation has become a delight. The most positive thing - I can install a program on the experimental PC, learn the program, play with it, and only then decide if I want the program installed on the bread-and-butter PC or the Internet PC. If the experimental system blows up, the base operating system is installed immediately on the experimental PC. Conclusion to Madness - Not Really    In this example, the latest hardware is available to all three systems. Since fewer applications are installed on each PC, registry problems are drastically reduced and performance is good. This combination has worked well for several years. The End to Madness    No way. An inventive mind can always do more. Stay tuned.    This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which TBCS is a member. Les Kizer is a member of the Greater Tampa Bay PC Users Group, the Mid-Hudson Computer Users Group, and SeniorNet PC Users Group - University of South Florida, Tampa.
Number 246 - November 2003