OS questions

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Exactly what experience would I need from NT and ME?

 

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I believe NT (was named NT after *New Technology* originally) came out around 1995 or about the same time as Windows 95.

NT workstation was primarily used for businesses whereas Win95 was used in the home and in businesses.

Windows 2000 which was built on NT technology was launched about 5 years later, just prior to XP.

 

So what should I familiarize myself with concerning NT and ME?

 

For A+ current exam you need familiarity with Win95, 98, ME, NT, win2k and xp. Win3.x is fortunately not required AFAIK.
(You also need to know DOS.)

This means that you should recognise the (slightly) different terms for the same abilities, and the different places stuff is put.

The above can be put in families:
1) 95 and 98 are somewhat similar, and ME can be thought of as '98 third edition'. However ME includes lots of things that turned up in XP, such as restore points and the installable filesystem.
2) NT, Win2k and xp is the other family. You should (for the OS part of the exam) be aware of the differences between the NTFS versions as well as other things.

Harry.

 

Alright, great, thanks, that's a start, to compare the similarities and differences of each, I will load the ME and NT on a PII computer just to get a feel of things with those 2 OS.

Next question, when do you use the forward slash [/] from the backward slash [\]?

 

Depends on the OS.

In the deep depths of time there was only Unix - and Unix uses / for directory separators and - for switches.

For some weird reason CP/M used / for switches - but as it didn't have directories all was good.

Fast forward to the upstart 'MSDOS' which was ripped off from CP/M. When, in MSDOS 2, directories appeared they used \ for directories as / was already taken. But lots of other things in MSDOS copied Unix. And there was a seting called 'switches' that changed these to match Unix.

What we have today in Windows (AFAIK the switches setting has faded away) is the same. Use \ for directories and / for switches. Of couse Unix hasn't changed from it's usage.

Little known facts:
1) Quite a few utils taken from the unix world and ported to windows recognize - for the switches.
2) If you are programming to the Windows/MSDOS API you can use / for directories and it will be recognized.

Harry.

 

Forward slash is usually used in Linux/Unix terminal sessions and web URLs - the backslash is usually used in DOS as a folder/directory separator but there are exceptions.

 

ummm i came across the term hyperthreading, anyone knows wot that is??

 

It's explained in full here..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthreading

 

Hmnn, I've always thought that Hyperthreading meant that you can run 2 diffferent OS at the same time with the same processor or am I thinking of something else, maybe "Dual core" processing?

 

Riaz, instead of asking an unrelated question on a thread that seems to have dried up, why not start a new thread?

 

You're thinking of virtualisation. Hyperthreading and Dual Core processing are both similar in that, as far as the OS is concerned there are two processors in each case. However, in reality, with HTT, there is actually only one processor so the perfomance increase wouldn't be as great as for a dual core processor. A dual core processor is physically equivalent to having two separate processors in a PC (although you can argue against that if you start getting into shared caches etc.)

To sum up HTT simply, in a single core standard processor, the processor works on one task for a certain amount of time, moves on to the next task, then the next. This gives the effect of multitasking but in actuality, it is not. Say the task the CPU is working on is only using 50% of it's resources, in a standard processor, 50% of its capabilities are not being utilised. In a HTT processor, it can use the other 50% of its resources to simultaneously work on another task. That's a basic simplified overview.

 

On the subject of setting Virtual Memory....

The only thing I don't like with allowing the OS to have free reign with the swap file settings is because it causes so much more disk fragmentation than the swap file does if you set the minimum and maximum sizes to the same size.

I've done that for years now and have never run into a memory problem yet, and if I've seen performance problems from it they have been pretty minimal. I've never done this on a heavily loaded server, but that's the one place where I could see manual settings on the swap file causing a real problem.

 

good advice Baba

 

The wife installed a new soundcard on her pc last night, the soundcard's software apparently came with a bunch of oog music files and the folder they are in opens at every startup, as long as the soundcard's software is open this folder opens, what can we do to prevent this folder from opening on it's own, that folder BTW is not needed at all. I don't want to risk simply deleting the folder in case this should cause a problem with the software so I am asking here first?

oh, the oog files show as "winamp media files".

 

Why have the soundcard software open? Soundcards usualy work without having to open any extra players they may install. And I suspect it is the player that is opening the folder.

(As an aside - are these ogg files rather than oog ones? )

(and also - this really ought to be 1) a new thread, and 2) in the right section! <giggle>)

Harry.

 

Well yes, if she disables the player [sorry I said "soundcard software"] the folder does not open, what we are looking for is to have the player open without loading that particular folder.

I always liked th idea of creating new threads for different questions mainly so I will know in the fututre at a glace which thread contains the info I had forgotten, reason I don't do this on this board as much is becuase of having being accused in the past on other boards of creating too many threads.

 

What player have they supplied? It sounds as if it is Winamp - which is a pretty configurable player. If so you should be able to configure it to the folder of your choice, and not open it if you don't want to.

However - IMHO it is not a good idea having things like this loaded if you aren't going to use them immediately - they take resources that might be used by other apps.

And if you just want to play a file just double-click the file (assuming you have associated Winamp with that file type).

Harry.

 

As long as you don't create a new thread for every response to another one, it's not a problem

Look at it like this, this thread has now had two completely irrelevant posts asking unrelated questions - hijackings - the original poster's request is completely forgotten so no one will bring any more ideas to the table to help them.

 

ok got it on the new threads issue. Just looked on my wife's pc, yes, the player itself is winamp and most likely came loaded together with her soundcard's software, so will take care of this for her, thanks.