Anybody who has used Windows for very long has probably heard the terms “fragmentation” and “defragmentation”. I won’t go into what these are, as I’ve written another blog post explaining it. I’ve tried literally dozens of defragmenters over the years, both free and paid (free trials) in search of “the one”, and have found most of the free versions lacking in some way or another. Continue reading »
Defragmentation is one of those often forgotten tasks on a Windows machine until it gets so slow that it’s unusable. Linux or UNIX users are spoiled in a way; they don’t have to worry about it nearly as often because Linux/UNIX file systems are much smarter with file management. Microsoft never really made a big deal of it, and it is a definite performance stealer if not done frequently. Maybe the reason Microsoft didn’t make a big deal of it is because the built-in defragmenter isn’t very good? Oh it works, it’s just not very user-friendly, and most users probably dread the experience after their first go-round. Fortunately there are some free alternatives that are fast, do a good job, and are user-friendly. The graphical interface on the built-in defragmenter isn’t designed very well; the interface is somewhat confusing, and it doesn’t give you much information about the fragmentation level or condition of your drive. The most you’ll get out of it is “You should defragment this drive” or “This drive does not need to be defragmented”. The defragmenter in Vista and Win7 is much improved; not only does it give meaningful feedback, but it can be run on a schedule, which is something that was sorely lacking in Windows XP and 2000. It can be scheduled in Windows XP but it requires some command-line voodoo in the Task Scheduler to make it run right, and that’s not something the average Windows user wants to do, or should even have to do. Continue reading »
In the previous installment of this story, I had spent some time with Windows 7 beta build 7000. Due to some video driver troubles, it was necessary to go back to Windows Vista. These problems have been fixed in this latest RC build.
Since May 7, I have been using Windows 7 Release Candidate build 7100, which has so far proven itself rock-solid. As far as drivers go, Vista drivers install without a problem, with the exception of the Intel Management Console driver for my machine, which failed with a “This operating system is not supported” error. I was directed to this driver by the “Fix Problems with your computer” wizard. This is no real surprise though, because this is so new.
More often, though, a trip to Windows Update will locate more up-to-date drivers and install them. In fact, in checking just now, I discovered that there is an updated driver for my nVidia 8500-series video card. Nice! Drivers can also be installed for unrecognized devices by initiating a search inside the Device Manager. Continue reading »
**Edit 5-14-2009: I’ve decided to do a two-part review of Windows 7, mainly because I’ve become more familiar with it over the past few months. It’s true I went back to Vista for a while, but lately I’ve been using the Release Candidate build 7100, and it has not given me any trouble at all. And a visitor (thanks Scott!) wrote to let me know that the window display issues I was having were due to a video driver; Microsoft released an updated driver not too long ago, and it has been included in build 7100, which is good to know. In a few days I’ll do a completely new review of Windows 7, build 7100.
**Edit, 3-19-2009: After a solid month using Windows 7, I had to go back to Vista. I didn’t really want to, but 7 just got weird all of a sudden, and since I had work to get done, I couldn’t afford to waste a lot of time baby sitting and troubleshooting an OS that wouldn’t behave itself. Yes, I know, it’s beta software, and that’s to be expected, and I probably shouldn’t use beta software on a production/work machine. I get it. The issue was that the window borders would become invisible after a short time, and that made it difficult to close them or even minimize them. The video just got weird in general. I Googled for an answer but really couldn’t find anything definitive on the Web, so I made the decision to pull the plug on my Windows 7 experience. I’ll be back though. Presumably there will be another beta release this May, and I’ll be in line for that one as well. And if the price isn’t too high, I might even ask Santa for a copy this Christmas! That is, if the economy doesn’t tank too far by then. Santa may have to sell the reindeer and take up chimney sweeping.
Anyone who spends much time in web forums that follow the latest developments from Microsoft has probably read dozens of Windows 7 reviews by now. Why add another one? Continue reading »