Since I ran the comparisons on the service pack updates for Windows Vista and Windows XP I thought it might be interesting to combine those results into one brief article comparing the two and see how they stand up against each other. I had a few comments and emails about comparing them so I thought why not, and besides I was curious myself…

I’m using Vista presently as my main OS because it just seems quicker and snappier than XP does, but there are a few things that I’m still not happy with about Vista.

However, there are two main things I hate about Vista, the first is the new picture viewer, gone is Windows Picture and Fax Viewer which I really liked. I’ve read that I can get it back if I install Office 2003, but I’ve got 2007 installed and really don’t want to downgrade, honestly I don’t even use it I use Open Office for everything office related but it’s nice to have the functionality of Microsoft Office if I need it. The main problem I have with Windows Photo Gallery is the fact that each time I click on a picture it opens a new instance or window of it, doing reviews I take and look at hundreds of pictures and go through and delete those not needed or wanted. With Picture and Fax Viewer it opened in the same window for each picture I clicked and I truly liked that about it, but now I end up with numerous windows open and after a while the system actually slows down because of it. If anyone knows a fix for this please let me know it would be greatly appreciated.

The second complaint is renaming files, in XP I can sort through my pictures, re-arrange them in the order I want, select them all and hit rename, XP renames them sequentially for me the way I want them. When I do the same thing in Vista for whatever reason it decides to rearrange them as well, and it’s in no logical order from what I can see, it will move the last picture to the number one space and move a few others around as well. I can’t figure out what it’s doing or why it’s doing it, again here if anyone knows a fix for this please let me know…

Other than that I’m happy with Vista, so let’s just continue on to the comparison of the two in terms of performance in benchmarks and tests…

Read the Full Article HERE

TechwareLabs has published XP vs. Vista: An Objective Comparison. Here’s a clip from the article:

Quote: Are you in a toss up making a decision to stick with Windows XP, or go with Vista which is newer? We have a helpful objective comparison between these two operating systems from the Redmond giant. Take a glance at out 30,000 foot view of these two which may help make things clearer.

LINK: http://www.techwarelabs.com/articles/editorials/XP-vs-Vista/

Title: XP vs. Vista: An Objective Comparison @ TechwareLabs

Title: Vista vs Vista SP1 Comparison @ DragonSteelMods

Review Link:
http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8389&Itemid=39

Review Snipit:
” So I was curious as to what enhancements or improvements to Vista came
with the Service Pack 1, and to satiate my curiosity I ran a bunch of
benchmarks just like I would with any ‘official’ review that I do to see
what if any differences there are between Vista and Vista with SP1
installed. I figure why let all of that work go to waste, why not make a
nice little article about it for my site to share with everyone.”

PC Review have a new article on how to run Linux in Windows, by emulating a Virtual PC :

“Many users of Windows XP and Vista will want to try Linux at some point, often just to see what all the fuss is about. There are many different Linux distributions and it isn’t convenient for a non-technical user to set up dual booting alongside an existing Windows install. Thankfully, there are tools available which mean you can play with a full Linux install inside the familiar surroundings of Microsoft Windows.”

Article URL : http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Windows/Run_Linux_in_Windows/

InsideHW.com has posted review about Windows XP SP3 vs. SP2 . You can
read a clip from review:

…”Microsoft came out with latest service pack for XP, four years
after SP2 was released. XP itself is very stabile system with SP2 installed,
so SP3 is considered as not so innovative like it was SP2. The essence of
this service pack is to bring all patches for XP that are released until
now. Beside patches attended for safety of your OS, SP3 also contains few
new additions that should provide better network collaboration, easier
administration etc. “…

If you are interested to read some more, we present you link:

http://www.insidehw.com/Software/Operating-System/Windows-XP-SP3-vs.-SP2.htm
l

Title:
Windows XP SP3 vs. SP2 @ InsideHW

TweakPC has posted a new article.

Titel:
Windows Vista Tuning & Tipps

Teaser:
We have updated our article about Windows Vista Tuning & Tipps.

Link:
http://www.tweakpc.de/tweaking/windows_vista_tuning/s01.php

Please note the little flag on the site for an automatic translation.

NEW CONTENT (Software) - ATI Catalyst 8.5 Analysis - XP & Vista

QUOTE: “We’re not far away from going ‘out with the old and in with the new’ as the launch of the 4k series of AMD graphics card close in upon us. This month, looking through the release notes for the latest incarnation of Catalyst drivers we see that a few performance increases have been promised.

Maybe AMD are hard at work on the 4k series of cards and have figured out how to extract some more power out of the aging 3k ones in the process. We’ll see if these performance increases translate to any of the games we use.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1437/ati_catalyst_8_5_analysis_xp_vista/index.html

Best Regards,

The TweakTown Team
http://www.tweaktown.com

So Service Pack 3 for Windows XP has come and gone with not much really said about it, sure there was plenty of talk before it came out but you don’t hear much after the fact. Of course I installed it I was curious as to what if any differences there were between them, from what I can recall Microsoft said that the Service Pack didn’t include any performance enhancements or anything like that to the core of the OS, and honestly if doesn’t fell much different to me. It does actually ‘feel’ a bit slower though to do things, like load thumbnails for instances, I’ve got tons or pictures on my computer and they just seem to load much slower now, also I noticed when I click ‘My Computer’, click a drive to open it or pop in a USB drive it seems slower there as well to react, maybe it’s me as I haven’t really heard anyone else mention it.

So for my own purposes I decided to run a bunch of tests to see if there was any real differences, after all Benchmark and testing software is designed to pick up very small imperceptible differences in things that we normally wouldn’t notice. We wouldn’t notice a few nanoseconds or milliseconds most likely but the software will as that’s what it’s for, to measure things like that. So I ran SiSoft Sandra, Cinebench, 3dmark06, SuperPi Mod 1.5 and TmpgeNC before and after the upgrade to SP3, I decided instead of just keeping it all to myself, why not share the results, and well there is a difference between SP2 and SP3 and it’s a mixed bag of results really, in some cases SP2 is better and in others SP3 is, but there is obviously something going on, something changed and I’m not sure if it was for the better…

So continue on to see the results…

Read Full Article HERE

NEW CONTENT (Software) - ATI Catalyst 8.4 Analysis - XP & Vista

QUOTE: “Another month, another set of Catalyst drivers. Last month we saw some issues with the HD 3870 X2, but hopefully this month we see those problems disappear. There isn’t much in the read me file and the majority of adjustments seem to be related to bug fixes.

With the same test system that we’ve been using for the last few months, we’ll just get straight into it and see what the latest Catalyst release brings us.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1395/ati_catalyst_8_4_analysis_xp_vista/index.html

Best Regards,

The TweakTown Team
http://www.tweaktown.com

There are a few shell and desktop enhancements for Windows Vista. These third-party shells run in place of Explorer, which sometimes require registry edits or other tweaks to get working. Did you know what you can kill Explorer and test a new shell without rebooting Vista?

Many people just to go Task Manager and kill explorer.exe, but if you do this then Explorer may start up automatically again. There is also a quick and dirty way of exiting Explorer, allowing you to test a few shells before deciding which one to install.

This tip can also be handy if your system is just acting “wonky”. If a file copy is hung, or your network is slow, then a reset of Explorer may be just what the doctor ordered.

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1092

As storage has gotten more expansive, Microsoft has gotten very good at unnecessarially using up this extra space. One of the biggest storage hogs is System Restore, which was rather easy to modify in Windows XP. In Windows Vista, there is no easy way to change the amount of space that System Restore uses, so Vista is likely keeping the restore point from the time you wiped your butt with a new roll of TP.

In Windows Vista, the storage problem has gotten even worse, because Vista now has found a way to bloat even System Restore. The new feature is called Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), which enhances System Restore by making backup copies of deleted or changed files. Most of these “shadow copies” cannot be deleted: they just take up space for no reason whatsoever.

Fortunately, there is a command line utility that will allow you change the amount of space Windows Vista uses for Restore Points and Shadow Copies, and is called the vssadmin.exe (Volume Shadow Copy Service Admin).

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1105

Newsflash: Windows Vista SP1 is here!

The much anticipated release of Vista SP1 is slated for release today, and
while many are waiting for that to pop up as an optional download on Windows
Update, the full standalone installer is now available for 32-bit and 64-bit
editions of the OS.

http://www.techspot.com/news/29408-windows-vista-sp1-is-here.html

Just wanted to drop a word about the latest additions to our downloads section.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (x32/x64)

Microsoft claims that Windows Vista is the most stable version of their OS yet… so stable that you may not ever see the dreaded BSOD (or Blue Screen of Death). Some of the development staff may have been so nostalgic over their lost Blue Friend that they included a hidden way to raise it from the depths.

Before you begin thinking that this is an awesome trick to play on your co-workers (and it is), there actually is a legitimate use for this “feature”. Developers can use this trick to artificially creat a memory dump for testing purposes. But it’s much more fun for Linux and Mac evangelists to “demonstrate” how fragile Windows can be.

Once you enable this feature, you’ll be able to create a BSOD at any time by pressing a certain key combination on your keyboard.

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1100

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Trend Micro Incorporated , a global leader in Internet content security, announced today the release of a version update to its 2008 consumer products: Trend Micro(TM) Internet Security Pro, Trend Micro(TM) Internet Security 2008 and Trend Micro(TM) AntiVirus plus AntiSpyware 2008. The latest versions take full advantage of Windows Vista(TM) Service Pack 1 (SP1).
“Trend Micro has worked closely with Microsoft to ensure our security products are optimized for Windows Vista SP1,” said Carol Carpenter, vice president of consumer marketing and product management for Trend Micro. “Our goal is to protect consumers who use Windows against identity theft, malware and the latest Web threats.”

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a power-user, then you like to execute tasks in the quickest way possible. One of Vista’s tools that is greatly under-used is the Address bar, and it can do alot more than just search Indexed locations. It can be used as a Run dialog, Search, as well as a browser.

If you have a high-resolution display (and who doesn’t nowadays), then you can make full use of this multi-purpose tool, and it can take up as much or as little desktop space as you want. Having it always available saves you from having to click on the Start button, and you can browse through your history of previous web pages, searches, and commands.

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1103

NEW CONTENT (News) - Vista update KB940510 detects “bad” OS

QUOTE: “We were just sent some details by a reader who said that he just installed Windows Vista update KB940510, which seems to have appeared just this last week or so.

This update is a “sniffer” which detects activation exploits that bypass product activation such as Paradox OEM BIOS Emulator and TimerStop grace period stopper.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9133/vista_update_kb940510_detects_bad_os/index.html

Best Regards,

The TweakTown Team
http://www.tweaktown.com

NEW CONTENT (Software) - ATI Catalyst 8.3 Analysis - XP & Vista

QUOTE: “The first thing we did when we obtained the latest driver release from AMD was to test out the Crossfire X capabilities with a pair of HD 3870 X2 cards. With that out the way it’s time to test the latest driver in the typical fashion.

This is a pretty good driver as far as performance increases go for Vista users. Crysis sees a very nice bump in performance and so does UT3. CINEBENCH also sees gains but the OpenGL increase isn’t carried over to our OpenGL based game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1327/ati_catalyst_8_3_analysis_xp_vista/index.html

Best Regards,

The TweakTown Team
http://www.tweaktown.com

There’s lots of little files accumulating on your computer… like bacteria. Every time you browse the interenet, little bits of data are saved onto your hard drive.

Every browser has an interface to clean up all of these files, but you have to go to several differnent places to clean them all up… which is very tedious if you like to clear this out frequently. Fortunately, all of these functions are available via the command line, which means you can automate all of these tasks. You can integrate this batch file with your existing logon or logoff scripts, or just have the file on your desktop for one-click cleanup!

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=907

NEW CONTENT (Software) - ATI Catalyst 8.2 Analysis - XP & Vista

QUOTE: “We’re running a little late again this month, no thanks to the new test system needing a whole lot of changes. We’re here now though, and we’re ready to check out the latest Catalyst drivers from the team over at AMD.

With the new test bed in hand and a new graphics card line-up we’ll check out the latest drivers. We’re now using the HD 3650 for mid-range performance, the HD 3870 for high-end and the HD 3870 X2 for high-end Crossfire performance.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1302/ati_catalyst_8_2_analysis_xp_vista/index.html

Best Regards,

The TweakTown Team
http://www.tweaktown.com

Technibble.com has now posted an article titled “Collection of Computer Repair Tools”.

“Technibble has posted a list of all their favorite freeware computer repair tools that computer Technicians use. There are tools for recovering data when Windows wont boot, virus/adware/spyware removal tools, hardware monitoring tools (specs, speeds and temperatures), password/cd-key retrieval and much more”

Direct Link:
http://www.technibble.com/categories/computer-repair-tools/

Review Spring have a new article on 7 Things You Should Know About Windows Vista, which will surprise some people. Did you know Windows has a built in Memory Checking tool for example?

Quote : “Many PC users will have taken the plunge and either bought a new PC with Microsoft Vista or upgraded their old machine. Although this operating system debuted with a mixed reception, it is the default operating system for many systems.As with any operating system there are a few tips and tricks that you may not know, but probably should. This guide lists the top advanced tricks to get the most out of your Windows Vista installation. Some of these things are items that you might miss from Windows XP, others are new features that Vista hides away.”

Link : http://www.reviewspring.com/7-things-you-should-know-about-windows-vista-a73.php

Title : 7 Things You Should Know About Windows Vista @ ReviewSpring.com

PC Review have a new article on Windows Vista Codecs which recommends the best options available to get maximum video compatibility on your system:

“The K-Lite Codec pack is the most popular codec pack available at the moment and works flawlessly on Windows Vista. The main benefit of this package is that you can choose the broad type of pack you wish to install (either Basic, Standard or Full). Most users will want to install the standard package, as this should play almost any video file available. If you find a video format that is not supported, it is easy to re-install the full pack at a later date. The full pack is primarily designed for people that need to encode as well as decode (for example, in a movie making package), so is overkill for the vast majority of users.”

Article URL : http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Windows/Vista_Codecs/

Quote: “The NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver is a modified version of the NVIDIA ForceWare driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with better performance, image quality and compatibility. The NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver can enhance your experience in games, multimedia and general usage. This project is especially suited for enthusiasts and gamers that want to have the best gaming experience. This driver includes NVIDIA’s new Control Panel. We’ve preferred to include the new Control Panel over the old one due to flexibility and stability reasons. The Driver has support for all GeForce/Quadro cards – including mobile series (Go) as well.”

Link: http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=nvidia2

Calgary, Alberta  – January 28th, 2008 -  Right on the heals of AMD announcing the availability of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 earlier this month, CoolIT Systems debuts the third installment in the Reference Series line of liquid cooling systems designed to quietly and effectively cool Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.’s highly anticipated performance graphics cards, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2.   In recent testing, the liquid cooled cards were stably clocked up to over 900MHz core clock speed and the memory pushed to 1GHz with no thermal issues.

Read the rest of this entry »