By January 2011, all hard drives must shift from the older 512 bytes blocks to 4K format as an agreement with Idema (International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association). Although this change only means good news while producers will deliver more reliable and “greener” hard drives, for Windows XP users might become a problem.
For 30 years, developers format hard drives’ space into blocks sized 512 bytes, this method becoming a standard due to IBM which used it on FDDs. Using this standard was great when hard drives capacities where up to a small amount of megabytes, but lately producers can deliver hardware which seizes 1-2 terabytes and due to this old technology there are is lot of space loss.
Eight times less lost space – that is what producers say moving on to 4K sectors will mean, and also faster, more reliable and less power consuming drives.
Hard drive developers started a promoting campaign for educating people about this move to an advanced standard and to inform about possible conflict problems between this format and older OS like XP.
While Vista, Windows 7, Leopard, X Tiger are all aware about this 4K movement and are prepared to embrace this new technology, Windows XP hit the markets before this decision was taken. Although producers have discovered a method to help XP manage this new standard, performance will take a hit when writing data.
This new drives will simulate that are still using 512 bytes sectors so that when reading data this “trick” will go unobserved, yet when writing data a five milliseconds delay will emerge, producers say.
It is time that will show how this issue will be solved while a lot of Windows XP users are still using this operating system and might encounter problems when this standard will be fully embraced.
According to a BBC report, computer users in UK are buying less PC:
Personal computer (PC) shipments in Western Europe between July and September fell slightly compared with a year earlier, a report has said.
But compared with the previous quarter, shipments increased by almost a third, reflecting “seasonal growth” patterns, computer research group Gartner said.
Acer held on to the top spot, with 28.3% market share, followed by Hewlett-Packard, with a 21.5% share.
PC shipments totalled 16.7 million during the three months.
Germany and France saw shipments increase, while the UK saw shipments decline, but at a slower rate.
Another advantage with Windows 7 is its ability to run smoothly on net books. Vista was a bit too bulky to run on such laptops and Microsoft was losing ground rapidly to Linux. They seem to have corrected that with the launch of Windows 7 and you will find that despite a slow processor, it is able to run much faster than some of the high powered Vista desktops.
If you have the XP on your notebook and want to do an upgrade, then it is better to do a clean install along with the Easy Transfer process. The process will take just a bit more than an hour and there would be no compatibility problems. You can make use of an external DVD drive to load the Windows 7 DVD if you wish rather than the USB flash drive as it can be time consuming and would require a lot of involvement from you.
You will find that the installation is not only smooth but all applications and software along with set profiles, Mozilla passwords, Open office templates, extensions and user accounts are all in place and this is confirmed through the “Easy Transfer Report” of Windows 7.
Any other utilities such as the Samsung ones that have not yet been released along with Windows 7 can also be addressed through helpful hints on the internet. You will find that they work very smoothly and are much faster than XP. The only compromise would be on one hour of battery life. You can also replace the 1GB RAM of the net book with a 2GB one to enjoy a significant improvement.
It is now well known that the more you use Vista, the PC slows down over time. So if you want to upgrade to the Windows 7 on your desktop, you only need to use the Easy Transfer route along with the guidelines suggested by Microsoft as mentioned earlier in this article and you can have even your old PC springing back to new life with the Windows 7. You will notice that the start up is much faster and all old applications also start up and run better.
Broadly to summarise, Windows 7 has the following advantages:
1) It is easy for usage and much faster than Vista.
2) The “peek” along with the “taskbar preview” functions makes life much easier to locate things on very crowded desktops.
3) The search box option is pretty fast as compared to the Vista Google Desktop route in order to locate programs and documents.
4) It is much easier to transfer files between computers in the same location.
Do ensure though that you use the clean install route as it can benefit your old computer and lead to an improvement in your net book functioning. Windows 7 is compatible with many of the old hardware as well as software and that definitely gives it the edge at the moment.
c) Transition of the applications
Once the upgrade is done, all necessary applications will remain as they are. If you are opting for the clean install, then you need to make use of the original disks related to each application or the relevant file that you had downloaded from the internet the first time of that particular application. Some of the applications may be downloaded again from the internet and the advantage is that you will get the newest version. In other cases, you will need to keep the license numbers of the applications handy to prove that you are indeed the legitimate user of those applications.
d) Be prepared to allocate time for the process
Though the upgrade is a smooth process, it is the back ups and the transfer of files that is time consuming and there is nothing you can do to speed it up. If your internet connection is WI-FI enabled then you will do well to keep an Ethernet cable handy to be able to connect it into the modem if there is a need for the Wi-Fi card to have a fresh driver.
Though this appears to be a relatively simple process of just inserting the Windows 7 CD and wait for the process to take over, it is not that simple. The advisor anticipates possible problems with the printer drivers as well as with the Wi-Fi card that needs to be reloaded once the upgrade is complete and it therefore prompts you to uninstall the anti virus program, Open Office and the IntelliType Pro as well.
You can now do the back up and transfer everything important through the Easy Transfer facility to the external hard drive. Insert the Windows 7 disk and you will be faced with a second check about system compatibility. It will tell you to uninstall any iTunes and “de-authorise” the PC. Any toolbar applications like Google and other software running the ATI Radeon video card also need to be uninstalled till the upgrade is completed.
It is possible that the installation may apparently start and you would think that everything is smooth till you get a message saying that the upgrade was not done fully. This could be due to the Wi-Fi card and printers and it is better to make use of the Ethernet cable and do a wire line internet access to solve the Wi-Fi problem. You need not panic though as your earlier Windows version will be restored and everything will be as it was.
This roll back feature is thus a very good facility as it does not create any untoward damage to your system in the event of the up gradation failing due to any reason. Upgrade duration is also a function of any extra application or file that you may have on your PC when the upgrade is in progress and it is therefore important not to have any such surprises as it can prolong the process.
A successful upgrade ensures that all applications – whether freeware or not along with any device works perfectly. The different user accounts work fine and any settings that had been in place continue their functions seamlessly. The PC is now able to work much faster and applications do not take time to function. Moreover, you will no longer face crashes of the kind you had with the Vista.
