XP Pro SP2, Vista & Vienna -- A Useful Progression?

Jerry,

I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power brownouts or
blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here... the one my wife
uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.

As a sidebar, I've been using Diskeeper 2007 (10) for a while now and it's
pretty cool. Has "new" technology called "Invisitasking" that replaces the
old "set it and forget it" stuff which could really bring a seat to its
knees if DK kicked off while one was using the PC. The new version is, to my
eyes, completely unintrusive; I have never detected a system lag due to the
DK service running.

And... my comment was not directed at you... you appear to be someone who
actually contributes assistance in this NG. Unlike the OP.

Lang


"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE441B1B76ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...
> Today, Lang Murphy made these interesting comments ...
>
>> Why would he not want to schedule a defrag and backup
>> overnight? Easy... Can you say "paranoid malcontent?"
>>
> I'll reply just for myself: I do not schedule ANYTHING at night,
> even though I have an APC UPS for battery backup. The battery is
> only good for about 20 mintutes, then it will attempt to shut the
> PC down gently. In my city, we have several, sometimes many, very
> short hits during the day or at night. Some are very short duration
> brownouts and the others are very short duration blackouts. Usually
> the power is off only 100-200 ms, just enough to blink the lights
> and make the APC boxes on my 2 PC beep a warning. But,
> occasionally, we will get 5, 10, 20, minute total blackouts and
> very occasionally 1,2 6 hour jobs. I partially lost a partition
> doing a defrag during one of the longer ones before I had UPS and
> lost my entire C:\ partition from a mutli-hour blackout that it was
> very difficult to even get the XP install CD to FDISK and format
> the drive.
>
> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.
>
> Now as to monitoring or not. One builds judgement not only from
> doing things right, but from learning from things done wrong. In
> fact, GOOD judgement cannot be formed without making some mistakes,
> but learning from them. So, those of us who are paranoid to a
> lessor or greater degree have had their fingers burned in the past
> and didn't like it. To them who've been successful, I congratulate
> you, and to each his/her own! <grin>
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry

I do see a marked performance bump.

DSH
---------------------------------------------------

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE42D6860E1ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...

> Today, D. Spencer Hines made these interesting comments ...
>
>> Defrag and Backup on the machine I'm currently using take all
>> of 30 minutes.
>>
>> I initiate, control and monitor those processes.
>>
>> I certainly don't sit there and watch the screen all the time.
>>
> I only defrag C:\, about every 4-6 weeks. It takes hours, I don't
> watch the grass grow, I do other things or watch TV. It ain't a
> biggie, I never see a performance bump, so I think it is both
> pointless and dangerous to schedule them often, especially
> unattended, but that's me, YMMV.
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry

Why is it called _Troy_ and what UPS boxes do you use?

Aloha,

DSH

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE4F5C9E57EReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...

> Today, made these interesting comments ...
>
>> In the east of Sydney I've had one blackout in 30 years. Maybe
>> you could apply to immigrate here?
>
> It's a little far for me, mate! Was born and raised here, worked
> here, retired here. Troy, MI, where I live has almost 100%
> underground powerlines and is served by the better of the two
> electrical utilities in SE Michigan, yet the number of power hits
> is far, far larger than when I lived in the same county with the
> same utility. Go figure! But, thanks to some good luck and the
> smarts to buy those UPS boxes, not had a problem since.
>
> BTW, in 2003, a dummy at a major power distribution center
> somewhere in NW New York incorrectly interpreted what his gauges
> were telling him, let some major grids stay on but turned others
> off, and within minutes, had created a cascading HUGE blackout from
> SE Michigan to southern Ontario, Canada, to all of New York, and
> much of the western part of New England. And, the power was 100%
> off for the better part of a day-and-a-half! Our house is on high
> ground so my basement didn't flood when the sump pump quit, but
> lots of my neighbors did have a mess. Everyone lost food, including
> the supermarkets, and there was very little choice as to where to
> eat, because no one had power during the blackout, and when the
> powerr slowly came back on, they had to restock their food. I
> didn't starve, there were just enough restaurants around if I drove
> a bit.
>
> --
> HP, aka Jerry

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE4299DA03BReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...
> I've done software and I know the car biz pretty well. Both are
> similar in this way: future "models" are ALWAYS under development
> in a staggered schedule depending on the make and model being
> updated or completely redone, meaning MS has many products, not
> just Windows, and it must keep its own product offerings in synch
> with anything that might partially or completely obsolete them. I
> would expect that the business decisions can get pretty dicey. But,
> back to the car biz, the trend is to stop completely redoing an
> entire vehicle line with all-new everything including drrive-train
> every 4-5 years because it is so expensive and quality suffers on
> every all-new launch - that's true for ALL car makers, BTW. So,
> most of the world's car makers are angling for what are being
> called decade platforms, meaning the basic stuff that is so
> expensive will be somewhat static and the cosmetics will change,
> along with feature and drivetrain upgrades as needed. I would
> speculate that MS is thinking along similar lines for its software.
> But, eventually, anyone making anything soft, firm, or hard HAS to
> start from a clean sheet of paper ...

The only problem I see with this analogy is that every vehicle I've been in
has a steering wheel, gas peddle, brake peddle, gear shift, common seating,
standard set of 4-6 tires..... I think you get the drift. They chisel out
new models, they don't reinvent the entire wheel. More times then not, they
even use the same old frame. With the exception of some new trucks hitting
the road soon (and now) have they made updates to the frame. However, even
when they do update the frame they TWEAK IT, make it better.

"HEMI-Powered" <none@none.sn> wrote in message
news:Xns98EE41CD341E3ReplyScoreID@216.168.3.30...
> Challenger R/T or SRT8 or the rumored 500hp version, so ...

Nice! Haven't heard about that. I can't imagine the gas mileage on that
one!

HEMI-Powered wrote:

> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.


I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a defrag
except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern defrag
programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a sudden loss of
power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune to them.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Lang Murphy wrote:

> I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power
> brownouts or blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here...
> the one my wife uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.


Even without a high-level of power problems, why run any risk at all? A
decent UPS can be bought for only $60 US, or even less. My advice is that
everyone should use them all the time.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

HEMI, Ken:

I'm sorry that HEMI learned his lessons the hard way.

Backing up before making important changes to a hard disk and using a
UPS are second nature to most experienced users. And yet the newsgroups
are filled with posts from people who are unaware of these and other
precautions.

Somehow we as a user community need to be better at getting the word out
that a relative handful of simple steps consistently followed can spare
us from a lot of grief and frustration.

---
Leonard Grey
Since no one was buying 'Earl Grey'

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
> HEMI-Powered wrote:
>
>> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
>> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
>> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
>> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
>> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.
>
>
> I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a defrag
> except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern defrag
> programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a sudden loss of
> power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune to them.
>

That's a wise precaution.

Blake roots up an acorn.

Backup THEN Defrag...

Well Done.

DSH
-----------------------------------------------

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:OIJoG%23nYHHA.1240@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> HEMI-Powered wrote:
>
>> The catastrophic failure was actually due to Partition Magic 8.0
>> being about 30-40 minutes into what should have been a 2-3 hour
>> change when the power went out. You can imagine what happened. I
>> learned two valuable lessons from that: never run PM on a drive
>> without an image backup and don't run the PC anymore without UPS.
>
>
> I'm with you entirely. I go even further than that. I won't even do a
> defrag except immediately after doing a backup. Yes, I know that modern
> defrag programs are much less sensitive to problems resulting from a
> sudden loss of power, but I can't imagine that they can be totally immune
> to them.

Which UPS do YOU use?

DSH
-----------------------------------------

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:uTlrXBoYHHA.2448@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

> Lang Murphy wrote:
>
>> I guess those of us who don't experience a high level of power
>> brownouts or blackouts are lucky. I've got a UPS on one PC here...
>> the one my wife uses... but my other PC's are not protected by a UPS.
>
>
> Even without a high-level of power problems, why run any risk at all? A
> decent UPS can be bought for only $60 US, or even less. My advice is that
> everyone should use them all the time.