mr don

Are you really trying to say Microsoft isn't a virus? LOL! Microsoft has never been secure! Every week, there is always holes, bugs, bad driver blue screens, holes in the patches that have to be fixed (patch to fix patches), buffer overrun vulnerabilities. I have never known MS OS not to have bugs. Of course, 95% of the problems is the bug called IE. Using Internet Explorer exposes your pc to drive by downloads (malware? scareware? fake av? popups? etc) Just use Firefox & you won't have to worry about fixing the malware that can't get installed in the first place! In working on computers, just switching users to Firefox with the reason why cut my calls about malware down to 5% of the normal calls. You do have to spend a few minutes to educate them on types of web dangers, what to watch out for, but it is worth it. Internet Explorer users are just asking to be tormented with any number of problems. Use a good firewall, antivirus, & DON'T EVER use Internet Explorer!

You do make a good point. But services are a kind of startup item that can cause problems. Hope it is included one day though because I hate using more programs than I have to to do things.

- Similar to Windows Recycle bin, but only in same folder as CCleaner. - Auto backup to a "recycle bin" folder for registry entries. - Allow users to select entries to delete/restore from CCleaner GUI, or manually. Users with tons of ccleaner entries in My Documents are confusing & cluttered. It would be nice to auto backup to a folder right in CCleaner's dir, I think. What do you all think?

+ 1 from me. I agree, messing with services can be dangerous. But then again, so can cleaning the registry or deleting startup entries. Service management would be nice!

+ 1 from me as well + 2 if it can load the right click shred function from stored .ini file... Edit: After thinking about this some more, it may be difficult to have the right click option perfected from running from a portable location. The user would have to click something first for something to even happen, which would kinda defeat the purpose of a portable right click... What about the option for right click shredding for installed versions of CCleaner, & then the option to load CCleaner with a "shred box" where you can just drag & drop files to shred into this box area at the bottom of CCleaner in addition to having normal CCleaner functions. Either that, or have a portable "shred mode" where the whole window is for dropping files to shred. CCleaner would remember shred type, & you just click shred files to begin! Shows progress bar while shredding, etc...

If firefox does kill it off, there is always Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, etc. So many choices. Plus, a lot of installers merely block you from installing based on the OS you have. The support is still there in many cases, they just use a script to block you from installing it. A simple install to the updated machine, copy to the older, back in business. Easier still, UniExtract can extract installer files in most cases... You just have to know the tricks they pull. Kind of deceptive to claim "it no longer is supported" when all they really do a lot of times is simply block it's use on an older machine at the install level. Install Shield & other companies support these kinds of tech.

I already did. MSDN is a well respected website. Here is an example of another user & the way Windows 7 kills the process. The older one I listed earlier was only 1 example. But it affects new programs too. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowscompatibility/thread/23ade66a-f5c8-441f-813c-de9e20b9aa6a Additionally, please read this MSDN feature about active X problems http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2009/07/15/internet-explorer-s-activex-security-mitigations-in-use.aspx Active X is still present in IE 8, so despite "updates", it still is vulnerable due to the ability that Active X leaves a big hole on your system waiting for some malicious process to auto install. Using a secure browser like Firefox eliminates 95% or more of drive by malware types. To be honest, whether in XP, Vista, 7, just by switching users to Firefox alone, the drop in malware infection calls has been astounding. Check this website out while you are at it. I find it appalling that IE not only seems to get worse with each generation at passing the acid tests, but it gets more buggy. Meaning, 12 out of 100 on acid test 3 for IE 8 (The latest other than the 9 they are working on?) is just awful! Firefox gets a much better 93 out of 100, with some browsers doing even better. The newer versions of Firefox get 96 or higher, I believe. I tested IE & found that on version 8, it ranged from around 4 to a max of 20 tabs depending on what websites I had loaded before it would endlessly loop or crash claiming it was trying to recover the tabs. Firefox? I have had up to 1611 tabs open at one time before without it crashing. Not saying it never crashes, but as you can see, definitely far more stable. Here is the site. Scroll down to see the graphs. http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687738/Big-browser-comparison-test-Internet-Explorer-vs-Firefox-Opera-Safari-and-Chrome-Update-Firefox-35-Final/Practice/ Here is a cool website to check browser compatibility for a ton of browsers at once http://browsershots.org/ All of these should be recent enough to be considered modern, new, whatever. It is not a program age problem. I already researched & tested this. Microsoft just shortens the time to kill a hung app in 7 to an unacceptably quick time. Note that this does not happen on every program, & it is dependent on the type of program loading. Certain kinds confuse 7 worse. Even newer programs have been killed off, programs say, in August 2010 that were just released. If you need any other information, just let me know. I will be happy to provide documentation/links/hard references/examples.

This is interesting. I know under the XP GP group policy editor, you can configure a new rule to block say, the Avira Antivirus process for loading ads from loading. The ads never appear. Sometimes in Yahoo, Avira, other programs, the ad loader or updater is an entirely separate executable process that you can block. Haven't tried in Zone Alarm yet, but wonder if it would be possible to create a manual block list rule for the "reminders to update"? Perhaps I will test later!

I never had it mess up anything just by doing the Live CD. I have had Linux flavors of Live CD's that load from CD when Windows disk fails. Meaning, I have had XP, Vista, & 7 machines, all 3 of those on different machines that people brought to me that would each fail to load to a disk prompt, or boot from the CD/DVD so you can do a repair. Ultimate Boot CD would not load (Blue screen). If I am correct, windows uses a registry for most system settings while Linux is free from that method of data retention. Was able to view, see the files on the drive when all forms of windows based boot loaders failed. I am not 100% certain if this was a registry problem, bad driver problem, or what just yet. Perhaps it could be a lack of the right sata drivers on certain machines, or the hardware configurations used. I was able to fix the machines, but I would sometimes (horrors?) have to use a combo 95/98se upgrade/me upgrade all in one disk with scandisk/format etc to delete the partition & then I could use XP/Vista/7 etc to set windows back up. The reason I had to use it in some cases, is especially in cases where they do not care if you back up their data because they don't have important music/docs/games etc to backup, then it is faster to just use dos to do what all 3 other disks would fail to do. I have bootable XP, Vista, 7 disks, & on some machines, not any of them could load to a place you can perform repairs or type commands because it would blue screen when it got to a certain part in the load process. I have noted that sometimes on laptops with certain kinds of sata drives, regular AHCI mode would blue screen. I will test later to see if it is a missing sata driver issue, but for now, I know others on the web have those problems in forums, & it can be worked around fairly easily usually by setting the drive to compatibility mode for the drive in the bios. I was concerned that this may impact performance, but upon checking after load into windows, it seemed to run at normal DMA 5 or 6 mode with no problems. My understanding is AHCI is supposed to relieve a slight burden off the CPU, increasing the performance, but when I tested, the gain was so minimal that it wasn't noticed at all. Peppermint/Ubuntu etc are really good for seeing what files are in windows, or perhaps even formatting the drive. Of course, using a 98 utility called fdisk can work as well. 98/me won't format as large of a drive as newer versions of windows, but they won't blue screen getting to your CD to run the harddisk partition tool either. In fact, you can just fdisk with 98, reboot, then use the XP/Vista/7 partition & install like normal. I thought this would be interesting for you all to read.

That looks interesting. Downloaded it to try it yesterday. I also downloaded Ubuntu, Ebuntu, Kubuntu, Puppy Linux, etc etc. I am going to try them all one day. Mandriva, etc. One that I find more interesting at the moment, is React OS http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html It is an attempt to run make an OS that is simpler than windows, but is similar to windows & runs windows apps while being free. Screenies look nice. Have downloaded it but haven't tested yet. Anyone tried it yet? If so, let me know how it goes!

It does seem to happen that the boot loader can be corrupted running a dual boot configuration like that involving linux + windows. It may not happen to everyone, but it seems in my testing it does happen fairly often over time & multiple reboot scenarios. Have you tried a clean install? They seem to work better.

I know about the compatibility mode, but there is a game called Fire Fight by Epic Mega Games. However wonderful 7 is, it will not run that game no matter which compatibility mode you choose, 98/me, xp sp2, etc, while it will run it under XP 98 compatibility mode. 7 may be newer, but they need to test it more before releasing it because compat mode under 7 just doesn't seem to work all too often while it does work around 95% of the time in XP. Just sayin... I test thousands of programs.

Thanks for the replies from everyone. I am checking the wiki link above to see what it is about. I know the registry lists a lot of the variables, but in testing them, it seems they are not picked up if you try to import them & use them for an app. What I mean is, I can set it to the right relative path, & it works with files, but when I try the same thing for the registry, it seems to fail unless I type the exact path. I didn't know if anyone knew a workaround/bat file/multi-step process to call up something to change to the right drive letter depending on the drive windows is on, say, C:\, D: etc. I think I will try moving the files directly to C: & see if the "relative path" of just listing them will work. Whew! If I can find out how to do this, it will be great! I will keep researching & try some of the ideas here. If you think of anything new, just let me know!

Or, in the case of some commercial vendors like Apple, they build confusion into using their product as part of a feature. - Back up music? Tough! Gotta use Itunes! - Can't have multiple profiles on your Ipod? Tough! It's a feature! - Itunes getting bigger? Tough! They include their apple movie player bundled with it... And it is big! - Etc, etc... Apple is confusing, but it is a feature, because it is part of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) Echo? Goodbye Apple! Your killing me! My Phillips MP3 player auto installs in XP or higher, drag & drop music, no libraries or 200 MB downloads required just to "access" it. No worries that I have too many users, I can use it how I want, immediately after adding, no creation of playlists necessary!

I have a question about relative paths. I can use relative paths in windows for installers/shortcuts, but not in the windows registry. I normally avoid using the registry, but sometimes I have to. One of the problems I have with Windows, is Windows supports relative paths, but the registry doesn't & has to be exact path to work. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I will give you an example of the type problem I am having to see if anyone has a potential solution to it. I like to make programs that can be "swept away" after use, or cleared with CCleaner from the temp folder after use. I use WinRar to pack files together because it makes them smaller on the flash drive, + has advantages using Rar SFX. - If you make your files smaller, you can fit more on your flash drive - On launch, they extract to the user harddrive & run from there (less wear on flash drive) - After being run & closed, they auto cleanup after themselves First, for those who do not know, here are some examples of some relative paths I use occasionally. - %tmp% (user temp folder... combined with %tmp%\file folder\exe to run, you can do a lot) - %windir% (user windows directory) - %programfiles% (program files folder) There are many more, but those are some. An exact path would be like C:\Windows\Temp ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ My problem is that normally I have no problem creating a program to run in the temp dir, then cleaning up, but the problem that I have is on some things I make, I have to use the registry. Normally, I use relative paths to make things easier, but if I have to have a registry key imported before I run something that lists the location of the file in the temp folder (Example: C:\Windows\Temp\Folder\Exe to run), then I have to use the whole entire path instead of using a relative directory. Normally, this works ok, except in cases where you need to run it on multiple machines. Not everyone installs to C:\Windows. Some people dual, triple, or even quad boot windows. In such cases, sometimes Windows may be on D:\Windows, E:\Windows, etc. Is there a way to make it work with multiple drives on situations calling for an exact location registry key? I wondered if you can somehow make a script that will auto detect the drive letter & substitute it into the reg file before importing it, or Instead of importing a key, create a registry value to import on the fly by detecting the drive letter & then importing the value. If there is a way to run things relative path wise in the registry that I am missing, please let me know! Anyone have any good suggestions/ideas on this? I know some installers check before installing, then create a "new" registry key based on the drive letter of the computer being installed to, but I don't need to use their installer when doing this on my machines, because I need something that can do similarly, but "on the fly" if needed. Having to "install" each time would be painful, when there is no-one there to do things I need done on the machine while away! If anyone knows, please post here some of the registry tricks you use. Thanks!

Your post has been removed MrDon. It had nothing to do with the topic we are discussing. Please keep on topic instead of rambling on about your own experiences of something else completely. ~moderator

Hazel, I used Zone Alarm before, & it is no picknick. It can work great. I say it can, because it also can't! If you have problems, that is... I have run the official Zone Labs Uninstaller back when I used it, only to have it lock down my machine where I had no web access whatsoever. System restore? Glad I have it! The problem I had was not in running it, but when I removed it, it killed programs from accessing the web. So I would have to re-install it & grant all programs access, then remove it, basically turn it all "on" for the web softwarewise first! Hazel, please be careful advising someone to totally remove something like this, because playing around with a firewall can be dangerous & using a program like Revo Uninstaller to attempt to "remove it all" can be ahem, less than perfect! You usually have good advice, but I just wanted to inform you of the potential problems of your advice. P.S. There was also another program that did the same trick as Zone Alarm. Ashampoo firewall. I don't use those for now, so I am going to be testing other firewalls later on such as Lavasoft/Online Armor/Tiny/Kerio/etc, etc, etc. I do have a long list to go through... Anyway, take care now, & have a good day! I am tired, but in the meantime, lol, just remember, trying to completely remove a firewall (using it's own un-installer?) is what gave me problems in the first place. I would suggest that you have a working backup image of your OS before playing with firewalls, because some of them work good while others will lock all internet access on removal & require you to nearly be a computer tech to get it back! Always be sure you have a working complete backup using something like Drive Image XML, because when you are working with firewalls, even uninstalling them can cause problems! I don't normally post such warnings, but I just wanted to let you know what I have found out through personal experience, because I do not want other users to make the same mistakes I did. Night!

After making sure you have a backup of all the things you need, uninstall your Antivirus so it does not interfere, then try to system restore back to before you had the problem. System Restore is included in Windows ME/XP/Vista & 7. Additionally, try to remember what you may have installed/used that could have caused the problem. CPU 100% use is not normal. Try cleaning your computer of dust from the processor fans, video card fans, case fans, power supply fans. Dust buildups can cause inadequate cooling & make your computer run slooooowww or even power off to protect it from ruin. Watch out for startup processes & auto updaters like google in the system tasks folder, or the BHO/Startup items. Apple is known for mass slowdowns & BSOD with it's ipodware. Check out your other programs you may have installed or used since then, & even try checking your updates. Sometimes a system update causes a BSOD or high CPU use. Temporarily disable updates if you have to after you restore back, till you figure out what is causing the problem. Let us know what you find!

Oh well, never really cared about MS bloat. IE is a walking malware invitation with it's active X vulnerabilities. I'd never use IE for web surfing anyway. Firefox is much more secure. Office? There is Open Office & it is free! I can't think of a reason to update. Anything you can do in 7, you can do in XP faster, leaner, & prettier! Of course, the default Visual Style with XP is ugly, but that is why Royal Visual Style in addition to 3rd party ones exist to make XP any way you want. 7 is a joke, & kills programs off with that dreaded error that a program stopped working, blah, blah, then it terminates the program instead of just letting it load. XP never had this problem.

Are you kidding? Driver backup programs exist for XP. You can run High Def Audio in XP. You can Visual Style XP. XP works with programs that 7 dies on. What programs are you thinking they will have to upgrade XP to 7 because of? I can't think of any...

Aethec, lol! Windows 7 is better than Vista. But that isn't saying much. I have thousands of programs I test. XP does the best job of compatibility, NOT Windows 7. For example: There is a game called Fire Fight by Epic Mega Games that runs fine in XP. When you try it under Vista, OR Windows 7, it will not work. Not even under compatibility mode for XP SP2 or the other options such as Windows 2000, Windows 98/ME etc. There are lots of other programs that are the same way. Additionally, XP search is a lot better than Windows 7. Windows 7 is a lot harder to search through files on your flash drives or external drives than XP. Sure, it may be possible if you go through countless clicks, but why? Windows 7 is pretty garbage compared to XP. Plus, I have a 3,200 MHZ dual core with 2 GB ram & 7,200 rpm harddisk. Runs XP great! Windows 7 lags behind XP in many things it does, which is well documented on websites. Let us just call 7 the dinosaur of the 3 OSes. Security? What? Having a "prompt" before installing does nothing to stop malware on computers. All that happens now, is when you grant a program admin, the malware bundled with it gets admin rights too if it is part of the same program! Yippee! So, back to square 1? I have seen malware on XP, Vista, & 7. 95% or more can be killed by not surfing with Internet Explorer because it has the Active X vulnerability that even if you update IE, it still can happen you surf to a website that can automatically download & install malware. This does not happen on Firefox. Speaking of which, Firefox had a problem with Vista at first. Vista was built around Trusted Computing & Digital Rights Management. Great! You buy, they control! Just what you want/need? Don't believe it? Google it sometime. There are reams of documentation on the fact. I had a friend who "updated" to windows 7, but even with the latest Sound Blaster X-Fi + Windows 7 drivers for it, it sounded kinda brittle & un-crisp because of the way Windows 7 automatically volume levels everything & kills the tone. XP does not have this problem. Additionally, with SP2 of XP, the firewall is decent, & AVG is a decent Antivirus. XP SP3 is buggy & drops wireless internet connections among other well documented failures including causing certain AMD machines to bluescreen if you don't include a certain file to support AMD on certain configurations such as HP OEM machines. SP3 does, however, have the 10% overall speed boost. What does Windows 7 do that XP can't? DX 10? DX 11? Just extract those files to the right area on windows & you have DX 10 or 11 for XP (Yes it works!). I like the Media Player 11 skin much better in XP than the 11 in Vista or the 12 in 7. So I downloaded a skin & the nice thing is, it will update the media player on windows 98 to look like XP WMP 11, or also Vista & 7 to look like it too. Sure, XP isn't normally as "pretty" as 7, but download the Royal visual style & it works in XP because it is released by MS so doesn't need patching or other tricky manuevers. It really doesn't matter where you run it from, but the C:\Windows\Resources\Themes folder allows it to be detected by the right click on desktop/properties/appearance tab. I love the way that one looks, although they have a lot of 3rd party themes that make it look better as well. Windows 7 doesn't do a good job of finding all the files you need to cross reference in their combined search launcher, while their launcher fails to launch some files unless you go to run to do it. XP finds them, but Locate32 is waaaay faster & has Win 98 style, find files containing text option that really helps to find what file was saved with your name in it, or other info! Bottom line is: Is Windows 7 faster than XP? No. In most cases, it goes slower. It may look overall better, but it is still slower to do the same tasks. Does Windows 7 offer any compelling reason to upgrade? No, it does look good, but looking good & being easier to use are 2 different things. Windows 7 & Vista also often tell you a program has stopped responding, then try to kill it because a program was "a little slower loading". In XP, this does not happen! Does Windows 7 have better support for programs? XP works better, even it's compatibility mode (while not perfect) is still better than Windows 7 is! The run in Vista mode is a joke, because Windows 7 is so close to Vista, it isn't even hard to see how they could pull off running something for Vista in 7! To put it plainly, Windows 7 is the dinosaur, not XP. There are hundreds more reasons why XP is better, but I am keeping this short up here. What I have learned though, is: You like Windows 7, which is: - Slower than XP in most things - Looks better, although I have visual styles to make it look, in my opinion, as good or better than 7 - Costs more - Loaded with DRM + TCP elements - Does a worse job handling the timing of programs (the kill period is too fast) - Is definitely not as compatible with the programs out there (problems running/loading/using that XP doesn't have) - Comes with sidebar (Google Sidebar from the looks of it, which also works in XP) - Comes with notes (Which Hott Notes & other notes like Pin Notes work in XP as well...) - Uses more disk space (Why? What is 7 doing that XP is not?) - Have noted that no matter what version of windows (XP, Vista, 7) users can still have bluescreens & Vista & 7 are a laugh to restore the system in some cases! - XP can boot to a screen to fix boot or MBR, or even do other things, but forget it on Vista or 7. Dumbed down user interface with of course, options that do not always work. The memory checker is nice. Great! But you can use Memtest for XP. Some say that they use 7 because it supports more memory. WRONG! It is not the operating system that supports more memory. It is whether they are 32 or 64 bits! XP, Vista, 7 all suffer from being unable to address more than 3.5 GB mem in a 32 bit OS. Move to 64 bit, & you can handle much more. Sure, 7 can show all the mem in it's 32 bit mode, but it just can't address it all! Vista & 7 have 64 bit systems. Haha! Time to kill the dinosaur XP! Ok, not so fast! They also make 64 bit versions of XP! See what I mean? There seems to be nothing that Windows 7 truly can do that XP cannot do faster, better, leaner! 'Scratches head... Nope! Can't think of anything 7 does better!' Oh, I did think of something! IP 4 addresses may be running out, so it is time to use IP6! Good reason to upgrade! Wait, XP includes that too! Right in your networking components, haha! Just install it & seconds later, good to go!

Plus if they use an auto updater, it would conserve around 50% of the normal bandwidth used by people to download, since the normal installer is far larger than the CCleaner file...

This would be almost impossible. There are too many versions of OS types for phones, & the work it would take to constantly update the program across all platforms would be nearly unbearable. Thanks!