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Does Flash Fragment?

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:44:30 -0500

I recall that Maximum PC advises against defragmenting flash drives, such as the ones in an iPod. Does that include solid state drives, like in the Eee PC?

—Aaron

Defragmenting is a process developed for standard magnetic hard drives. Defragmentation tries to put all the data sectors for a file physically near each other on the disk, so the drive doesn’t have to seek all over the platter to find the whole file. Flash memory has different architecture, with no moving parts, and defragmenting doesn’t help it. In fact, because of the way NAND flash memory stores data (data is stored in blocks, and the whole block must be erased and rewritten to store any data on it), regular defragmentation can decrease the life span of the drive.

So, if your Eee PC has solid state memory, don’t defragment it. Diskeeper sells an SSD optimizer, but we haven’t yet tested its effectiveness.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

June 2008: Upgrade Your Old Retail PC!

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:13:32 -0500

In the PDF archive of the June 2008 issue, you can find:

Upgrading your OEM Machine
The MaximumPC Guide to Home Automation
The Vista Defrag Challenge
How To: Create a Personal Internet Radio Station
Awesome Product Reviews, including the Alienware Area-51 m15x
Ask the Doctor
Rig of the Month
The Watchdog
And a whole lot more!

Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!

The Disk Defrag Difference

David Murphy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:32:29 -0500

In a perfect world, the data on your hard drive would line up on the platters like little soldiers, all in perfect rows and grouped by class, frequency of use, and size. But modern-day Windows operating systems don’t behave in such a way, leading to data fragmentation—and, by necessity, the rise of defragmentation routines.

As for how this happens, we’ll offer a simplified version of a typical file-system architecture. Envision a blank drive. When an operating system writes a series of files to the drive, it might place them in sequential order—say, five different chunks of data lined up one after the other with each chunk taking up 20 blocks of space. Removing one of the files creates a hole that the operating system can then fill either completely or partially with new information.

Now suppose the new file needs to get bigger. Since the existing data takes up space immediately following the file that needs to grow, the operating system is forced to continue the file elsewhere on the drive. Take the large number of files on a typical hard drive and the massive number of writes and deletions that happen constantly and you get a perfect storm of file fragmentation.
Fragmentation forces the drive head to jump all over the place to find the bits and pieces of files whenever you access them. Defragmentation, then, is the means by which these files are realigned into contiguous chunks. Windows Vista does this automatically, only the slow speed at which it defrags makes us wonder: Is the time spent worth the supposed performance payoff? And do third-party defragmenters, free or otherwise, do a better job?

Designing the Experiment

Fragmenting a hard drive is harder than you think, thanks to Windows Vista

The System

HP’s TouchSmart IQ770 Desktop isn’t the speediest of rigs, which forced us to measure our defragmentation runs in hours rather than minutes.

For our tests, we’re using an HP TouchSmart IQ770 Desktop machine that has been in constant service as a security-monitoring webcam workstation for the last several months. Due to the amount of use (and abuse) this poor 1.6GHz AMD Turion-based machine has endured, we expected it to be fragmented beyond belief. And it would have been, were it not for the fact that Vista’s automatic defragmentation utility is scheduled to run every week.

Unlike Windows XP, which uses a stripped-down version of Diskeeper to defrag drives, the Windows Vista application has been redesigned from the ground up. Microsoft claims that the new defragger makes for faster, less processor-intensive defragmentation. While it’s true that the Vista defragger doesn’t hit our system as hard as the XP defrag process, it takes much, much longer to complete, making Microsoft’s claim of faster performance baffling.

Because Vista’s defragger runs automatically every week, it would be extremely unusual to find a heavily fragmented Vista drive in the real world. That said, prior to testing, we disabled Vista’s defragger, uninstalled a few apps, and then filled the empty space with a collection of MP3s and other newly installed applications to replicate a busy week for a power user.

The Defraggers

We’ve chosen four products for this challenge, starting with Vista’s built-in defragmentation program. Against that, we’re testing the free Auslogics Disk Defrag, as well as two commercial defragging utilities: Raxco’s PerfectDisk 2008 and Diskeeper 2008. This healthy mix of free and paid-for defragmentation software will allow us to determine if there is any benefit to using a third-party defragger, and if so, just how much the commercial apps can improve our rig’s performance.

The Benchmarks

So that each defrag utility operates on an identical machine, we captured a complete image of the original drive using Norton Ghost 12 and then reloaded it onto the machine prior to running each program. To measure the performance impact of each utility, we looked at the machine’s startup times, shutdown times, and PCMark Vantage scores before and after the defrag. We chose Vantage as our primary benchmark because it represents a number of real-world performance scenarios one would encounter during an extended period of computer use. We also factored in the time each utility took to perform its defrag to test our theory that Vista’s defragger—low priority though it may be—still takes an inordinate length of time to complete.

Prior to making the Ghost image of our drive, we ran PCMark Vantage’s hard drive performance script 20 times. Since typical defragmentation programs reorder data based on frequency of use, we wanted to make sure they take our benchmark into account.

The command-line version of Vista’s defragger provides much more information than the GUI version.

Vista’s built-in defrag program reported a fragmentation level of 11 percent prior to the defragmentation process. We were able to obtain this information only by using the command-line version of the app—the standard interface doesn’t provide any information about your drive’s state, nor does it report on the defragmenter’s progress. It took Vista’s app three and a half hours to defrag our test drive. Vista’s lengthy defrag times are due largely to the fact that it runs as a low-priority process. The application won’t make full use of your processor unless the computer sits idle for several minutes.

While the program reportedly reduced fragmentation on our drive to zero percent, we saw negligible performance gains in our PCMark Vantage tests. The startup time improved by 39 seconds, but the process added an additional 14 seconds to our shutdown time. Regardless of whether the culprit is our slow test rig, Vista itself, or the insignificance of drive fragmentation on performance, Vista’s built-in defragmentation application did little to improve the real-world performance of our computer.

BENCHMARKS
	Fragmented Vista Drive	Window Vista Defrag
PCMark Overall	3,114	3,162
Startup (sec)	172	133
Shutdown (sec)	20	34
best scores are bolded.

Next: The Contenders! >

Auslogics Disk Defrag

It’s free and fast but doesn’t improve system performance

Auslogics’s Disk Defrag skimps on features, but it still offers more than Vista’s native defragmentation client—including a graphical interface.

Auslogics’s Disk Defrag (free, www.auslogics.com) is a no-frills entry point into the world of defragmentation. It offers just what the name implies: a disk defragger, plain and simple. From a drop-down menu you select the drive you want to defrag and then press a button to start the procedure. (An upcoming version of the app will reportedly feature a scheduler, as well.)

We love the program’s graphical analysis of the drive’s fragmentation level—it’s interesting to see what’s being done to your computer (which allows you to estimate how long the procedure will take). Disk Defrag doesn’t come with a pre-defragmentation analysis tool, though a results screen following the defrag shows what the program “improved”; still, it wasn’t clear to us in our benchmarking that Disk Defrag actually did anything.

The program quoted an initial fragmentation level of 4.21 percent, the lowest figure of the four programs we tested. That said, Disk Defrag still took two hours, 45 minutes to complete its run on our drive. Our test rig’s shutdown time improved by three seconds compared to the shutdown time after a Vista defrag (although it was still slower than pre-defrag), but this was offset by a dramatic 45-second increase in our startup time.

Stranger still, we saw a 5 percent drop in performance as measured by our PCMark Vantage benchmark. There were no noticeable negative effects during normal usage, but we didn’t see a benefit from running the defragmentation either. The only true positive this program offers is speed—it completed the defrag process 45 minutes faster than the built-in Vista client.

BENCHMARKS
	Fragmented Vista Drive	Window Vista Defrag	Auslogics Disk Defrag
PCMark Overall	3,114	3,162	2,979
Startup (sec)	172	133	176
Shutdown (sec)	20	34	31
best scores are bolded.

Diskeeper 2008

For all its options, Diskeeper did nothing to increase our rig’s performance

Diskeeper’s drive analysis provides plenty of information about the fragmented status of your drive, but no estimate of how long the defragmentation will take.

Diskeeper 2008 ($30, www.diskeeper.com) comes with a few features that are above and beyond anything you’ll find in a free defragmentation application. For starters, the utility’s built-in automatic defragmentation option negates the need to ever run a manual defragmentation of any sort. The program makes full use of underused resources on your computer by defragmenting your drive in the background. You can let the program figure out your typical computer use and run accordingly or dictate when you want the full use of your processing capabilities.

Since Diskeeper runs inside the operating system, it includes a boot-time defragmentation option which manipulates files that would otherwise be locked by Vista. The program will even lock off your master file tables and paging files to prevent any future fragmentation, a feature unique to Diskeeper. Considering these would be handled by a boot-time defragmentation, it’s nice to see the program making even its own workload easier.

Diskeeper reported a fragmentation level of 14 percent on our test drive, the highest of any program we tested. Of the third-party programs, Diskeeper took the longest to finish its defragmentation routine, but at two hours, 48 minutes it still took less time than Vista’s built-in program. However, we saw no improvement whatsoever in Vista’s startup or shutdown times. In fact, it took an additional minute for the computer to boot compared to boot times after Vista’s defragger ran. Our PCMark Vantage test showed a negligible loss of performance, and we didn’t’ see any differences in speeds when running common Vista-based tasks.

BENCHMARKS
	Fragmented Vista Drive	Window Vista Defrag	Diskeeper 2008 Defrag
PCMark Overall	3,114	3,162	3,102
Startup (sec)	172	133	186
Shutdown (sec)	20	34	36
best scores are bolded.

Next: PerfectDisk 2008 and Final Thoughts >

PerfectDisk 2008

PerfectDisk defrags the fastest, but fails in the subsequent benchmarks

You won’t see all of PerfectDisk’s available defragmentation options unless you first run an analysis of the drive.

PerfectDisk 2008 ($40, www.raxco.com) sports a similar feature set to Diskeeper 2008. In fact, the programs are nearly identical in basic functionality. But PerfectDisk does tweak a few of our favorite features just a bit. For example, PerfectDisk, like Diskeeper, allows you to establish an automatic defragmentation that runs whenever your computer is idle; however, it also lets you tie defragmentation runs to your screensaver. When your screensaver starts, PerfectDisk starts. We like this additional flexibility and would welcome even further customization in future editions of the software.

For the time conscious, PerfectDisk 2008 does a great job of estimating exactly how long the defragmentation process will take and provides approximate CPU usage info and fragmentation level at the beginning and end of the run. After a thorough analysis of your drive, the program suggests ways to improve performance. In our case, we needed a boot-time defragmentation. But we couldn’t select it from a menu—we had to run the analysis first, which then gave us that option.

The program reported that our test drive was 7.5-percent fragmented. Following a two hour, 24 minute defragmentation, our startup times increased by approximately 40 seconds compared to the startup times following Vista’s defragmentation and increased by two seconds when compared to the fragmented drive. PerfectDisk was the only defragger that improved our original shutdown time, albeit by just four seconds. But it also netted us a minor loss of performance in the PCMark Vantage benchmark—a decrease of 6 percent over the measured performance following a defragmentation by Vista’s built-in application.

BENCHMARKS
	Fragmented Vista Drive	Window Vista Defrag	PerfectDisk 2008
PCMark Overall	3,114	3,162	2,952
Startup (sec)	172	133	170
Shutdown (sec)	20	34	16
best scores are bolded.

Don’t Waste Your Money or Time!

You shouldn’t break the bank for negligible performance gains

With all of the benchmarking completed, we find it rather suspicious that disk defragmentation did nothing to improve the performance of our machine. However, we must note that our test drive was not terribly fragmented to begin with due to Vista’s auto-defragger running on our test bed. Even the paid-for programs were unable to yield any positive gains—quite the opposite, in some instances.

We had high hopes for Diskeeper at first. Given the relatively high level of fragmentation it quoted compared to Vista’s built-in app, we assumed the program’s analysis routines were seeing fragmentation that Vista couldn’t. In turn, we expected Diskeeper to do a better job of moving files around and ultimately give us better benchmark numbers than the Vista client.

That was wishful thinking on our part, as Diskeeper didn’t trump the Vista defragmentation routine at all. While it did beat PerfectDisk by 150 points in our PCMark Vantage test, we hardly consider this a trouncing. We even fired up both programs’ boot-time defragmentation options to see if these additional features would make any difference on our benchmarks. Zilch.
We like the Vista defragmentation program for the simple fact that it’s, well, there. It comes with Vista and is enabled by default and runs its defragmentation routines during the wee hours of the morning. And even if you alter this time or run your own manual defragmentation, the program runs at a low processor priority, so you can easily multitask without hampering your computing experience.

That said, we hate that Vista gives you no estimated time of completion. You also get no way to see what the application is doing, any graphical representation of how fragmented your drive is, or any of the other features we’ve come to expect in even the most entry-level of defragmentation applications. Even if the pretty moving colored blocks don’t correspond to the actual data on our drives, at least they give us something to look at during the interminable two-hour-plus defrag process. You even have to run a command-line version of the application just to see an analysis of your drive’s fragmentation level.

If you don’t mind manually running your defragger and you can’t live without a visual representation of the fragmentation level of your drive, try Auslogics’s Disk Defrag. It doesn’t outperform Vista in our tests, but it runs faster than the operating system’s built-in defragger, and it displays a pretty picture to let you know that it’s working. Even if disk defragmentation ultimately does nothing for your computer—as our benchmark numbers would have us believe—you don’t need to spend money on a third-party program when Auslogics’s Disk Defrag is a serviceable free solution.

Make Vista Liveable

Christopher Null — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:39:55 -0600

We’re a year into Vista’s reign of terror, and by now most average users have resigned themselves to the fact that they’re stuck with Microsoft’s bloated, pokey, buggy OS. People simply feel powerless to fight the software juggernaut and PC vendors that happily play along by preloading Vista on everything that goes out the door.

Well, you’re better than that—you don’t have to take this nonsense lying down. Vista may never run as smoothly as good ol’ XP, but we’ve compiled an extensive collection of tips that will help you improve the OS considerably. We’ll show you how to enhance performance, ease frustrations, and turn Vista’s eye candy into something that at least does you some good.

No, Vista still won’t be perfect when you’re done, so we’ve got a special treat in store for you if, after you’ve finished reading our tips, you still aren’t satisfied. Flip to page 48 and you’ll find complete instructions for downgrading to XP or setting up a dual-boot machine with both XP and Vista. See? Happy days are here again!

Throttle User Account Control

Spare yourself the headache of endless pop-ups.

You won’t get far in Vista before you start losing hair thanks to UAC, Vista’s overbearing security pop-up system. If you’re an even remotely sophisticated user, turning off UAC should be job one. It’s easy to do: Visit the User Accounts control panel and click “Turn User Account Control on or off,” then uncheck the box on the following screen. If you just want a little more control over UAC (without turning it off altogether), download TweakUAC (www.tweak-uac.com), which suppresses UAC messages whenever you’re logged in as an administrator.

End warning pop-ups with a single click.

Run Vista Command Line as Admin

Don’t let the OS limit command-line rights.

Typing cmd in the Start menu’s search box will bring up the familiar command-line window, but depending on your machine’s configuration, you might be stuck in a restricted mode even if you’re logged in as an administrator. To launch an unrestricted Admin command line, type cmd at Start, then press Ctrl-Shift-Enter. You can also do this by right-clicking the CMD.exe result in the search box and selecting Run as Administrator in the drop-down menu. You’ll notice you’re in Admin mode by the Administrator prefix in the window’s title bar. Now you can move and copy files and folders from the command line and run system tools such as msconfig; by default these privileges are locked out.

Two extra button clicks let you run the command line unrestricted

Refine the Registry with TweakVI

Give your PC a modest speed boost.

Look, we know you’ve been promised repeatedly that if you just tweak this one registry entry, your computer will never crash and it’ll run three times faster. And then you did it and nothing happened, right?

TweakVI, a downloadable application designed to fine-tune Windows registry settings, won’t turn a Celeron into a Core 2 Quad, but in our tests it did modestly improve general benchmark performance, in the range of 5 to 10 percent. Download and install the free version of the app from http://tinyurl.com/24yz6q. When you run it, you’ll want to focus your energy on the System Information and Tweaks section, then the CPU Tweaks... subsection under that.

Don’t expect miracles, but try running your usual benchmarks before and after installing TweakVI—you might be surprised. That said, a $50 yearly subscription to unlock all of TweakVI’s features is pretty much out of line; the free version should provide most everything you need.

Additional TweakVI fixes let you optimize IE, Firefox, and even font smoothing.

Next: Fix Vista Networking, Essential Hotfixes, and more!

Fix Vista Networking

Get PCs talking seamlessly

In the name of security, Vista wholly revamps the way networking operates. The Network and Sharing Center (part of the Control Panel) can be daunting and confusing when you want to share files on your local network. Here’s the easy way to get the job done.

First, make sure you use the same workgroup name on all PCs. In Vista, this setting is in the System control panel. Click Change Settings on the main page to join another workgroup.

Second, you’ll have a far easier time if you use the same username and password on all PCs you want to network. In Vista, you set up users in the User Accounts control panel. Administrator rights make this considerably easier, though it’s officially discouraged.

Now you’re ready to set preferences in the Network and Sharing Center control panel. Here’s how it should look:

• Network discovery: On This makes your PC visible on the network.

• File sharing: On The equivalent of installing File and Printer Sharing on XP. You need it to do anything.

• Public folder sharing: Up to you The Public folder is a special folder Vista creates in which you can put data you know you want to share across the network with multiple users. You might store your pictures, videos, and music here, for example. It’s just like any other folder, except it can be simply managed and shared with one click here. Turn it on (either read only or read/write) and you’ll see the Public folder in the Computer view directly under the Desktop folder.

• Printer sharing: Up to you Only if you want to print across the network.

• Password protected sharing: On This is the setting that lets users with a valid login on the Vista PC reach shared folders on that computer. Turn password-protected sharing off and users can do just about anything. Leave it on for better security.

• Media sharing: On This is largely useless, unless you stream music to your Xbox or another UPnP device, but leave it on, why not?

Your last step is to select and share folders. This process is much like it is in XP. Just right-click any folder and select Share. If you followed the above instructions, you can accept the defaults at the following menu: “Share to your username only and with owner rights assigned.” Click Share again to seal the deal!

When finished configuring the Network and Sharing Center, your interface should look about like this.

Add Tabs to Explorer

Browse multiple folders in a single window

Your web browser has tabbed browsing, so why not your file browser, too? Add tabbed browsing to Explorer with the free QT TabBar (http://tinyurl.com/2r9yj8). Download, extract, and install (right-click to run as administrator), log off and on again, then hop into Explorer. Right-click the menu bar and add both QT TabBar and QT Tab Standard Buttons to the display. Tabs work much like they do in Firefox, with some new tricks available: Dragging a file from one window to another tab in order to move it to another folder is an especially nifty convenience.

Tabbed file browsing puts an end to cascading Explorer windows.

Essential Hotfixes

Make Vista crash and burn less often

Don’t just twiddle your thumbs waiting for Service Pack 1 to arrive. Take matters into your own hands: One or more of these fixes may solve problems you’ve been having with Vista. None of the fixes has been publicly announced or delivered via Windows Update, so you’ll have to install them manually.

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929451: A Vista machine may register old IP addresses if certain changes are made to the networking setup.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931671: Errors may occur when trying to put your PC to sleep with a live PPP connection.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932649: Poor video quality in interlaced mode.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940646: Slow performance with 3G WWAN connections.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941542: Connecting to a network printer may fail.

As well, all users will benefit from a couple of general Vista performance and reliability hotfixes that have been pushed out through Windows Update (as recommended updates) and can provide dramatic improvements on some PCs. Check in the Installed Updates section in the Programs and Features control panel to make sure they are installed (look for the KB numbers in the URL). If they aren’t already installed, install them manually.

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979

You can also find additional early fixes, including a prototype of Vista SP1, at www.thehotfix.net.

Upgrade the Sidebar

Turn Vista's eye candy into a useful tool

A selection of intelligent upgrades turns the Sidebar from eye candy into brain candy.

Sure, you thrill at the sight of the weather report and that analog clock, but how about putting some genuinely useful apps into the Vista Sidebar? Here are a few power-user favorites:

App Launcher: It’s just like the Quick Launch toolbar, but considerably more manageable.

ClipboardManager: Gives you quick and easy access to current and recent clipboard contents.

Memory Meter: A simple look at how full the ol’ DIMMs are and how well your CPU cores are clocking along.

Mini Outlook Inbox: Outlook junkies can keep tabs on their inboxes without clogging up the screen.

Network Utilization: Keep an eye on your bandwidth with this simple graphical display.

Next: Delay Vista Activation, Maximize Nvidia Performance, and more!

Delay Vista Activation for a Year

That's 25 fewer characters that you have to type

When you install Vista, you don’t actually need to input a license key. Vista will give you 30 days before requiring the key before throttling down to Restricted mode. But you can extend that eight times with this simple fix, allowing you to make major hardware upgrades without having to reactivate the OS.

This simple registry hack will give you a year of no-license-key operation.

To reset the timer to 30 days, open a command-line window in Administrative mode (see tip on page 40), then type slmgr -rearm. This starts the 30-day countdown anew, no matter how much time is left on your first countdown. You can do this three times (for 120 days total) before it won’t work any more.

You can give yourself another 240 days by making one registry tweak. Type regedit in the Start menu search box and press Enter; then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\SL. In the right pane, right-click SkipRearm and click Modify. Change the 0 to a 1. You should now be able to do the rearm trick above eight more times.
Note: We make no promises that Microsoft won’t patch this behavior before day 360 rolls around.

Fix Nvidia-Specific Performance

Upgrade your GeForce gaming

Running an Nvidia GeForce 6, 7, or 8 series videocard? If you’re seeing abnormally low frame rates or system crashing while gaming (especially noticeable in Battlefield 2142, Half-Life 2, and Rainbow Six Vegas, among other titles), a patch can help considerably. Grab it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105. A similar fix is available for Vista users running SLI rigs at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710. This hotfix improves (or enables) the use of a secondary graphics card under DirectX 10.

Gaming under Vista might choke with late-model GeForce cards, but a quick download can fix you right up.

Keep Tabs on Vista Via Email

Get instant alerts when something’s amiss

Rather than manually checking the boring old Event Viewer, how about getting Vista to email you when something’s gone wrong? To set up email logging, open the Event Viewer (it’s in the Administrative Tools control panel), open a log, and find an event for which you want to be notified. In the pane on the right, click “Attach Task to This Event...” and walk through the wizard, specifying the server from which email should be sent and the address it should go to. (Be careful with this, you might end up spamming yourself.)

The security log is likely the most useful source for logging via email.

Boost SATA Drive Performance

Enable SATA’s latest high-test features

Risk-takers can get a little hard drive performance boost by turning on two options in Vista that are disabled by default. In Device Manager, find your hard drive (under Disk Drives), right-click it, click Properties, then click the Policies tab. Select “Optimize for performance” and check both “Enable write caching on the disk” and “Enable advanced performance.” Be warned: With the latter two options turned on, you may risk losing data if you lose power or have a catastrophic crash, so make sure you use a universal power supply and run regular backups. The specific performance boost depends on the make and model of your drive; don’t expect the moon.

Vista doesn’t automatically take advantage of some of SATA’s performance features.

Kick Vista Defrag to the Curb

Upgrade your defragger to something less useless

Vista’s disk defragmenter is a giant leap backwards. Run a defrag manually and what you get isn’t the helpful, animated progress window you know from XP, but rather that evil, spinning, blue wheel and the notice “Defragmenting hard disks... This may take from a few minutes to a few hours.” Wow, informative!

Reclaim the visual look at your hard drive's fragmentation with Diskeeper.

To get a better defrag system, you’ll have to install third-party software. Without a doubt, the best is Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier ($100, www.diskeeper.com), which offers an exhaustive collection of defragging options, including file sequencing based on usage patterns, boot-time defragging, and barely noticeable background operation. The $50 Pro (non-Premier) edition is exactly the same, sans the file-sequencing feature.

Next: Fed Up? Downgrade to WinXP

Downgrade to WinXP

Head back to what actually works

You saw this one coming. After all that work, you may very well find that Vista still isn’t your cup of tea and you’d like to go back to Windows XP. We don’t blame you; we pretty much feel the same way.
If push comes to shove, here’s how to return to XP.

1. Sadly, you can’t just pop in an XP disc while you’re running Vista and hit Install. Your first step is to determine whether you want to dual boot Vista or simply wipe out Vista and replace it with XP. If you’re going to dual boot, use the DiskPart tool on the Vista installation disc (details here) to create a second partition, or use a third-party tool such as GParted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) to do the same thing. If you’re wiping out Vista, you can use the same tools to erase the Vista partition and start with a clean slate or just reformat while booting and installing from the XP setup disc.

2. If you’re using a bleeding-edge PC, XP will likely choke when it comes time to start copying files, as it won’t be able to see your hard drive. Why? XP can’t handle AHCI mode on SATA drives, which most newer PCs have enabled. In your PC’s BIOS, turn off AHCI mode (which should turn on ATA emulation) to make your installation easier. Or just load the drivers via floppy F6 drivers at boot. Alternately, you can slipstream AHCI drivers into a Windows XP installation disc, but this is a huge hassle.

3. With a blank partition ready and AHCI turned off, boot from an XP setup disc, preferably one with Service Pack 2 preloaded on it. Install the operating system normally. (If dual booting, Vista will remain on the C: drive; XP will show up on E: or another drive letter. The two OSes will be able to see each other, so be cautious when selecting the proper drive when installing apps.)

4. If you plan to dual boot, you’ll need to repair the Master Boot Record, as XP overwrites the Vista-created MBR, which prevents Vista from loading. To fix it, boot from a Vista DVD and select “Repair your computer” on the Install Now screen. Select Startup Repair to finish the job.

5. Last step: Set up dual booting. Any boot manager will do the job, or try the free (and Vista-friendly) EasyBCD. Boot into Vista (you won’t have a choice), install and run EasyBCD, then click Add/Remove Entries. Change the drive letter to E: (or whatever drive letter you set up in Step 3), and then change Type to Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3. Click Add Entry, then Save. Reboot and the bootloader will now automatically appear.

Your final step in setting up a dual-booting Vista/XP machine with EasyBCD should look like this.