The Everything Guide

**tesco** · 05-18-2004, 12:45 AM

Click here to view The Everything Guide (you will be leaving this site).

The everything guide was removed from the forum and added to an external website for ease of maintaining. Please take a look!

UPDATE AUGUST 6, 2006: The site closes today, no more everythingguide (it was getting outdated anyway).

rossco2004.

**Dark Ride** · 05-18-2004, 05:13 AM

Altough I knew already all the stuff you mentioned in your thread, I think there are many users who don't know about most of those things.

Nice thread.

**sparsely** · 05-18-2004, 06:48 AM

Thanks, ROSSCO...that really is an excellent post.
Especailly the msconfig part...many people overlook that.
sparsely would like to steal it

**tesco** · 05-18-2004, 01:01 PM

thanks guys

**clocker** · 05-18-2004, 01:43 PM

Nice start Rossco.

Opinions will obviously vary on the worth of different apps for AV, etc.
Here are some I've found useful....
Anti-virus- TrendMicro's PC-cillin...recently top-rated by PC World magazine.

Defrag- PefectDisk...has a few advantages over Diskeeper IMO, including the ability to rearrange bootfiles ala Bootvis

General cleanup- CrapCleaner...by far the fastest, most comprehensive general system cleaner around...and it's free.

Re: Bootvis...this program seems to be the darling of the tweaking community, it's legend has only grown since it disappeared from the MS catalogue.
Frankly, I don't get it. It was designed so software/OS writers could analyze the boot sequence and rearrange ( to an extent) the order that drivers, etc. load.
To properly use the app ( 3 boots+ driver trace followed by another final "optimise" phase) takes a long time, and it is not particularly chatty about what it's doing. In fact, most of the time it doesn't appear to be doing anything at all and God forbid you interrupt the process cause it will lock up your PC in a heartbeat.
I have used it several times and the end result is only a minimal ( and temporary) decrease in boot times.
I don't bother anymore...too much hassle for too little return.

**tesco** · 05-18-2004, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by clocker@18 May 2004 - 08:51
Nice start Rossco.

Opinions will obviously vary on the worth of different apps for AV, etc.
Here are some I've found useful....
Anti-virus- TrendMicro's PC-cillin...recently top-rated by PC World magazine.

Defrag- PefectDisk...has a few advantages over Diskeeper IMO, including the ability to rearrange bootfiles ala Bootvis

General cleanup- CrapCleaner...by far the fastest, most comprehensive general system cleaner around...and it's free.

Re: Bootvis...this program seems to be the darling of the tweaking community, it's legend has only grown since it disappeared from the MS catalogue.
Frankly, I don't get it. It was designed so software/OS writers could analyze the boot sequence and rearrange ( to an extent) the order that drivers, etc. load.
To properly use the app ( 3 boots+ driver trace followed by another final "optimise" phase) takes a long time, and it is not particularly chatty about what it's doing. In fact, most of the time it doesn't appear to be doing anything at all and God forbid you interrupt the process cause it will lock up your PC in a heartbeat.
I have used it several times and the end result is only a minimal ( and temporary) decrease in boot times.
I don't bother anymore...too much hassle for too little return.

thanks clocker, i do plan to add descriptions\opinions to the programs. probably be here in maybe an hour or so...

btw, can some people please recomend me more programs to add to my lists?

**Wolfmight** · 05-18-2004, 10:41 PM

You should add "spyware cleaning" as well.
Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy should both be used for maximum protection.
Adware finds stuff Spybot misses, whilsts Spybot finds stuff AdAware misses. (it's not they're quartined stuff ether.. i checked that one myself.)

Update them both before you run them each time, and run the "Immunize" on spybot search and destroy to set up some automatic blockage towards certain spyware.

Even the more powerfully skilled PC Users still get spyware accidentally from just about any program. Heh the latest windows media player for example has some spyware.. damn microsoft..

**tesco** · 05-18-2004, 10:51 PM

Originally posted by Wolfmight@18 May 2004 - 17:49
You should add "spyware cleaning" as well.
Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy should both be used for maximum protection.
Adware finds stuff Spybot misses, whilsts Spybot finds stuff AdAware misses. (it's not they're quartined stuff ether.. i checked that one myself.)

Update them both before you run them each time, and run the "Immunize" on spybot search and destroy to set up some automatic blockage towards certain spyware.

Even the more powerfully skilled PC Users still get spyware accidentally from just about any program. Heh the latest windows media player for example has some spyware.. damn microsoft..

i already have that in there...