What Art Thou, Windows?

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Windows is a part of your life, at least in some way. It matters not if you personally use Linux or Macintosh. And unless you barter goods for services even if you don’t use Windows, Someone you are interacting with does. Even then, chances are they are using the venerable operating system.

It is a matter of future history that Windows 8 will land on planet Earth, and it will impact you. Let’s take a brief tour to see what is coming at you, one way or another.

The computers of yesteryear were character-based. Technically, we just didn’t have the spare machine power for a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Xerox had a research center known as PARC (Paolo Alto Research Center). They also had a small investment and a small computer company that sounded more like an orchard. They call themselves Apple Computer. At this research center, they daydreamed up things such as: the mouse, ethernet, and the GUI.

In the time period when Steve Jobs was considered a black sheep the Apple Board of Directors. He was ousted and worked on the NeXt computer. As CEO they had brought in the marketing maven John Scully, who wanted to go directly at IBM. IBM and Microsoft were in bed together. Bill Gates strong-armed Scully for licensing of GUI patents in exchange for MS office on the Mac.

Mr. Gates was having a fight with IBM over what to do with the next-generation operating system (OS/2), which included the GUI. The short story is IBM and Microsoft got a divorce. Windows sitting on top of a character-based operating system (DOS) stayed with Microsoft, while IBM got OS/2.

With hardware technological advances growing by leaps and bounds Gates wanted out of the limitations of DOS. He snagged Dave Cutler from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) to work on NT. To this day Microsoft vigorously denies that stands for New Technology.

NT was created to address a multitude of issues with a DOS-based Windows. The two biggies being segmented memory, and the nonexistent security. Game programmers hated NT. The digital equivalent of checkpoint Charlie, every step of the way, crushed real-time game performance. Microsoft gadfly Alex St. John (an avid game developer in his spare time) solved that with DirectX.

In an effort to slide the consumer over, Microsoft released its last space Windows calling it Windows Me. It looked like NT-based Windows 2000 (really NT version 5) buying game developers a little more time to adopt DirectX. On the server-side Windows 2000 was the first iteration to adopt LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). They called it Active Directory (AD).

Next came NT 5.1 which marketing called XP. It was the first time Microsoft offered Windows as either 32 or 64-bit code.

At this point Microsoft had a challenge. XP was carrying legacy code deep in its bowels from the mid-80s. A great deal of the tribal knowledge had either retired or died. They wanted to clean up NT’s act. The internally numbered NT 5.2 became the disaster known as Vista. While the effort was valiant, it broke a tone of applications. To make matters worse, they wanted to clean up the open door security that made it previously so easy to connect everything together. The challenge was it made it easy for the bad guys too. So Vista became a mother hen, are you sure? End users despised it.

So much so that when Windows 7 came along planet Earth was fearful of Vista: the sequel. That’s too bad because technically Windows 7 modernized security and had considerable improvements in everything from features to actually reducing resource needs by eliminating legacy garbage and have given time for application developers to catch up.

So here we said at the close of the year and Windows 8 is not even yet in beta. Yet there are some of us who have been living in Windows 8 since its release in late August 2011. The verdict?

So far Windows 8 looks like hot stuff. It’s resource needs are less than Windows 7. And they seem to be managing the impossible of addressing the demands of the desktop and a tablet-based computer. Microsoft is even going so far as to support the super low power processors known as ARM. Often these are found in smart phones and tablets.

Clearly they are looking to match Apple, which is merging OS X and IOS. OS X runs on desktops, while IOS is for iPhone, iPad, etc.

Microsoft claims that whatever runs on Win 7, it will run on Win 8. Overall, our experience of that has been true. Only a few applications have really choked. And it’s early in the game.

A word of warning to you. If you’re still on XP, plan for a complete reinstall. There will be no migration path. The underlying code has simply changed too much. It would be easier to convert your car from gasoline to diesel. If you’re thinking of staying on XP, think again. The operating system is over 10 years old, and has security issues that simply cannot be addressed. Forewarned is forearmed.

The worst thing that can happen to someone is a computer breaking down when they are in the middle of an important piece of work. The worst of all is that you stand a very good chance that you might lose all that important information you need for your business, which is very frustrating. Most of the time people do not wait, they immediately take their computer for repairs, ending up with a hundred dollar or more bill.

Saving money and doing general repairs yourself instead is something that not many people know about. In most cases you only need some kind of optimization and computer tools to do it all by yourself. You can fix many problems with no assistance when you for instance use some sort of Windows optimization tools. An example of such a tool is advanced system optimizer 3.

You will be able to fix problems such as no response when clicking on the mouse, a windows program that takes forever to load, certain crashing programs, and an Internet explorer that loads too slow, programs that automatically switch down all by themselves, or a locked application on windows. By fixing these kinds of problems by yourself, you now can spend that extra money on some other important things you need.

Another great thing is these different programs and/or software to help you fixing these sorts of problems is that you will not need as many programs. You need only four special optimization and computer repair tools to fix these kinds of problems whenever you need it. Your anti-virus, desk defragmentation, anti spy and repair utility for registry programs and software are included amongst these kinds of tools.

When someone tries filtering your system in the form of some virus the anti-virus program/software will warn you immediately. Many of these sorts of viruses damage you computer in such a way that it is impossible to repair it at any way. On the other hand, the anti spy tool quickly warn you when someone is busy using your bandwidth without any permission or payment.

The defragment tool is there to help you making more space available on your computer so that you can do important work without worrying about space. The repair utility for registry fixes any errors that might occur on your computer so quickly that you can hardly notice an error. With regular updates and these four optimization tools, you can be sure of a trouble free working experience on your computer.

You might ask the question why you need these kind tools when you will be able to repair such problems all by yourself or get some assistance. Fact is that your computer will be able to work on a more efficient basis while warning you about harmful threats. This is why the optimization tools advantages is far more than the cons.

The Windows website is the first place online that you should access to find these types of software for your system. Now you will be able to download these tools directly from the site and depend on online assistance from consultants.

Often it so happens that people are not satisfied with the speed of their computer though they have a very good antivirus and other protections installed. The system slows down without the presence of any malware such as a virus. One probable reason behind this phenomenon may be hardware drivers that they have forgotten to update. Many times the problem of a sluggish computer can be attributed to hardware drivers that have not been updated.

By updating hardware drivers, it is easy to keep a computer performing at an optimum level. It has been seen that people update their software but forget about hardware. The OS used by a person is connected to the hardware by these drivers. This connection is done with the help of software called “driver”. It is when there is a better understanding between hardware and OS with the help of driver software that the system performs at its maximum speed.

People have this habit of not updating hardware drivers despite it being essential. In a system that operates on Windows, this is a prerequisite as drivers are integral part of the system and hence it affects the performance of the PC. Updates of hardware are as easily available in the market as you get software updates. This is an ongoing process and manufacturers do it to get rid of any bugs and also to make drivers better. Although hardware drivers are usually available by the manufacturers, it is a pain to select the correct driver for your specific hardware system.

People use a plethora of devices with their PC like a camera, scanner or a printer that do not work efficiently as there are bugs in the drivers. Old drivers having one or the other problem make it difficult for your computer to keep performing at a high level. Either because of any invalid response from you or because of the presence of any virus, driver files may be deleted or get corrupted. Single missing or deleted files simply means that the devices attached to the PC may not work at a desired level.

Sometimes your computer itself tells you about any problem present in the drivers but they get unnoticed by you. It normally happens that the sound of the computer may behave abnormally and then the system crashes or the PC goes blank in between a game telling you that there is something wrong with the drivers of hardware. It is not only audio but also video drivers that need updating frequently.

Manufacturers keep updating drivers and they are freely available on the net which means that you can update your hardware drivers whenever you think they have become outdated. Then there are people who become used to an older operating system despite having latest hardware drivers. This mismatch also causes problems and necessitates matching of hardware drivers with the OS.

The problem of outdated problems is unique to systems that are Windows based as Windows it is that offers so many choices when it comes to using devices that leads to a mismatch between hardware drivers and the OS. It is natural for Microsoft to think that users would take care of drivers while using different devices.

Regular update of hardware drivers means that you are always using the most advanced and better drivers. Being available for free, you need not make any effort to get these drivers. Another way to get these drivers is to look for driver databases and “auto-update” tools which go out and find the correct drivers for you. One such tool is driver navigator.

Data recovery software (such as spotmau powersuite) has made it possible to recover deleted data sometimes weeks after a file has been lost. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the potential barriers to successful file retrieval.

Before using a data recovery tool, it is worth pointing out that if files have been deleted as a result of application faults or some form of operating system corruption (e.g. the registry has become corrupted file virus attack) then you are better off fixing a computer issue like this using computer maintenance software prior to attempting to use data recovery software.

Data recovery tools are capable of retrieving deleted documents due to the fact that file deletion will only alter a documents index in the file allocation table so that the document is no longer visible in Windows Explorer, but your files data clusters will still be intact. Your document is stored on the hard drive as data clusters located around the disk, and file recovery software can easily read these and try to reassemble them to form your original file.

Where the process starts to fall over is if you have been continuing to use the hard drive for applications. Any type of new file that is being created when using applications (this includes temporary Internet files) will be stored to the hard drive and can potentially overwrite the data clusters belonging to your deleted documents. While these clusters are not originally wiped from the drive, they are flagged to Windows as free to reuse for saving any new data. Over time, running applications and saving documents will gradually overwrite all your old deleted files.

You will also find that different data recovery tools will have varying capabilities for finding your deleted documents. Each program is developed independently of the next so use different logic to try and piece together data clusters (some are better than others at piecing together this jigsaw puzzle of data fragments). For this reason, you are better off using freeware applications (e.g. Smart Recover) or trying the free trial scans that come with commercial tools before committing to a product.

Problem:
Let’s Say you want to reinstall your system since it is corrupted, but you forgot your Windows 7 product key. Have you been worried that your Windows 7 product key has been lost? Have you been worried that you will have to purchase another product key?

Solution:
Spotmau BootSuite 2011 is the solution for you. One of Spotmau’s BootSuite 2011 highly recommended functions — Password Kit — can help you.

MS Key Finder in “Password Kit” is an effective and powerful recovery tool. It checks a system for all possible MS product keys, and shows you the product keys immediately with the option to select which one you want to recover. With it, you will be able to find out almost all hidden MS product keys including all Windows product keys, Microsoft Office product keys, etc.

Procedure of finding back Microsoft products key:

1. Double click Spotmau icon and enter BOOT SUITE 2011 interface, follow these steps: Self Service —> PowerSuite 2010 Wincare–>Password Kit –> MS Key Finder, then you can see the interface looked just like the following picture.

2. Afterward, you can either write down the Microsoft products key you need (if so, to put them in a safe place is suggested.)

3. Or you can export them as a .txt file by clicking“Export”.A “Save to file” dialog will pop up, and you can specify the destination for the file or rename it.

4. Click”Save”, MS Key Finder will finish its task for you. And the whole process is finished.

NOTES:
With the same procedures you can find out your lost product keys of Microsoft Office(2003/2007) and Windows XP (all versions), Windows 2000 (all versions), Windows 2003 (all versions) ,Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

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