Re: OT: Web runs slow after RAM upgrade

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> The downside of using NTFS is that you can't just boot a floppy and get
> emergency
> access to BootDrive files the way you can with a Win98SE floppy and FAT32;

I think there might be some freeware, "lite" versions of the util.s from
Winternals, System Internals, or whatever that rather expensive emergency stuff was
called . . . but, even if my recollection on that is correct, I expect these are
still going to be hacker tools, not anything for typical users.

> but you can boot off the NT installation CD and drop to a DOS Prompt (the
> installation CD understands NTFS -- although any use of the bloody thing
> trashes IBM Boot Manager, which is a PITA for BM users).

Trying to do some repairs like this is what killed off the two W2K boot partitions
on my desktop system. If your NTFS boot partition happens to inhabit C:, no
problem. But if you have logical boot partitions that are well out there on the
drive, as mine are, and you need to make use of the NT boot loader to boot them,
you are doubly screwed. Not only is the IBM Boot Mgr. easily destroyed, the
ultra-crappy NT boot loader is also easily hosed, and extremely hard to replace, in
my experience. I still have not repaired or replaced those partitions. My
brother, who is rather accomplished with W2K / XP claims that it is totally insane
to attempt to have a multiboot environment coexisting on the same hard drive these
days, because today's 32-bit opsyses keep revising the MBR (like when you apply a
Service Pack), and write unknown things to inaccessible areas of the drive. A
recipe for disaster, according to him. Me, I'm stubborn, and haven't thrown in the
towell yet . . . but I'm seriously thinking about moving to drive trays, one
OS-family per each.

> Apropos of this sort of issue, I'm just beginning to be aware that a huge
> number of users don't partition their disks. All they have is C:.

I'm hard pressed to think of a Windows user I've seen -- ever since W98 was
released -- who does it any other way. Maybe one or two.

> This is simply insane. There's no other word for it.

> Nothing should be on C: except the Operating System. No apps, no user files,
> nothing.

I agree with you, but we're in the small and diminishing minority. This is simply
The Windows Way, as passed down to the masses by the high priests of Redmund.

> When you buy a new computer, the FIRST thing you do is partition the hard disk
> into 3, 4, 5, or
> more logical disks D:, E:, F:, etc. There are so many solid reasons to do
> this. No serious computer user should be without Partition Magic.

Some of this is moot. You can try to insall your app.s somewhere else, but Win
insists on dumping a substantial portion of the files into certain directories on
the boot partition. That's how \Win32\System (or whatever it is) keeps getting
ever more humongous. I was running out of room on my 2G W2K partitions (the now
dead ones), so I thought that maybe 4G partitions would suffice on the new, still
unfinished portable. Wrong ! Those are bulking up too, and the ceiling is very
much in sight. (As far as Redmund is concerned, the answer is always another big
leap in hardware capacity.) The endlessly expansionist C: puts all your eggs into
one basket, and further complicates any backup strategy. After awhile, we'll have
no choice but to image onto DVD (until even that isn't sufficient), or go
drive-to-drive.

Jordan