January 18, 2010
Time for an upgrade
The home PC is ill. Trying to keep WinXP running and trojan-free is getting ridiculous - even being properly cautious and keeping everything updated isn't enough. It's time for a wipe and reinstallation.
...and if I'm going to go to the trouble of wiping everything, I might as well install stuff on completely new hardware, right? So I went down to the local Micro Center and dropped quite a bit too much money on some nice gear. I'll get the old machine working one last time, long enough to get any data I haven't already backed up off and onto the external HD, and then it's format and forget for that box.
New machine will be an Intel i7 860 on a Gigabyte motherboard, 4 GB RAM, Radeon 5770 video, 1 TB HD, and the usual bells and whistles (notably, I don't usually do much in the way of audio.) New case with a nice external SATA port if I ever need to go in that direction, and boy don't I wish I had some of those for the office.
I may configure the old box as a file server, but honestly, I don't know if I have the need for one. Another possibility is as an HTPC in the living room, which might be interesting...
I've opted to pass on the Blu-Ray drive on the new box for the moment. I hardly have any of those now, and I've got a perfectly functional player in the PS3.
With any luck, when I get home tonight, I'll be able to get the new box up and running, with everything moved off the old box that needs moving. The real question is... what to name it...
Edit: Especially when it's glowing an eldritch blue! Darned quiet for as many fans as it's sporting, though. I'm posting from the new box now, which needs about three tons of software installed, and I'm still working out getting Win7 configured up.
Comments are disabled.
Post is locked.
...and if I'm going to go to the trouble of wiping everything, I might as well install stuff on completely new hardware, right? So I went down to the local Micro Center and dropped quite a bit too much money on some nice gear. I'll get the old machine working one last time, long enough to get any data I haven't already backed up off and onto the external HD, and then it's format and forget for that box.
New machine will be an Intel i7 860 on a Gigabyte motherboard, 4 GB RAM, Radeon 5770 video, 1 TB HD, and the usual bells and whistles (notably, I don't usually do much in the way of audio.) New case with a nice external SATA port if I ever need to go in that direction, and boy don't I wish I had some of those for the office.
I may configure the old box as a file server, but honestly, I don't know if I have the need for one. Another possibility is as an HTPC in the living room, which might be interesting...
I've opted to pass on the Blu-Ray drive on the new box for the moment. I hardly have any of those now, and I've got a perfectly functional player in the PS3.
With any luck, when I get home tonight, I'll be able to get the new box up and running, with everything moved off the old box that needs moving. The real question is... what to name it...
Edit: Especially when it's glowing an eldritch blue! Darned quiet for as many fans as it's sporting, though. I'm posting from the new box now, which needs about three tons of software installed, and I'm still working out getting Win7 configured up.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at
06:19 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 331 words, total size 2 kb.
Posted by: Andrew F. at January 20, 2010 09:35 PM (if/sI)
2
Not entirely certain, to be honest. Admittedly I haven't really had a chance to play around - most of my time has been spent reinstalling software, pulling the video card that didn't survive the burn-in period, and swanning around in a battleship in EVE Online. I'm also affected by a cursor size bug in the video drivers, which is annoying but not Microsoft's actual -fault-.
I don't find the security controls annoying at all, personally. If I'm doing something to install something, I expect it to pop up, and so eventually when it pops up when I'm not expecting it to, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, I haven't tried using any software that regularly attempts things that set it off.
I'm still busy training it, though. (No, Windows Media Player, I don't want you starting for anything unless I specifically click on you, which I won't ever do.)
Once I get a chance to play with the desktop some, I'll probably do a post or two on it.
I don't find the security controls annoying at all, personally. If I'm doing something to install something, I expect it to pop up, and so eventually when it pops up when I'm not expecting it to, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, I haven't tried using any software that regularly attempts things that set it off.
I'm still busy training it, though. (No, Windows Media Player, I don't want you starting for anything unless I specifically click on you, which I won't ever do.)
Once I get a chance to play with the desktop some, I'll probably do a post or two on it.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at January 21, 2010 05:02 AM (mRjOr)
3
I just leave UAC turned off. No less secure than XP, and I never had any major issues with malware on that OS. It's pretty trivial for malware to circumvent UAC on 7's default setting, anyway.
Posted by: Andrew F. at January 21, 2010 04:37 PM (if/sI)
12kb generated in CPU 0.0849, elapsed 0.2813 seconds.
30 queries taking 0.2753 seconds, 52 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
30 queries taking 0.2753 seconds, 52 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
