Preparing Windows XP for the long haul

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	TOP STORY[/size][/font] Preparing Windows XP for the long haul[/size]
	By Fred Langa Microsoft’s support for Windows XP may be fading, but a loyal horde of XP users plans to stick with this venerable OS for as long as possible. If that’s your long-term goal, there are a number of steps you can take now to ensure a finely tuned XP system for months — possibly years — to come.[/size]

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The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2010/08/12/01 (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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One thing that I always do with any of my systems is to make sure that programs and data are on different drives, either by installing two physical drives or by partitioning. I do this because I can then restrict the C drive to files needed by the operating system or by application programs. Apart from making OS file maintenance and data backup much simpler, it also means that when the inevitable system crash happens, I’m much less likely to use data that I’ve created.

One other personal preference: I don’t use Outlook or Outlook Express. I’ve used Pegasus Mail for more than ten years and I keep the application and all the e mails on a single USB flash drive. I do this because I can then access e mail from any machine, even those of third parties, although I wouldn’t recommend such a practice. I’ve just checked my e mail folder – it’s about 8GB on a 16GB flash drive in total and the oldest e mail was created in February 1999.

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I must add my comment on the info regarding Active@ DiskMonitorFree choice of free HDD monitoring utility. I tried for several days to get the free version, and came to the conclusion that the vendor deliberately misleads the community. Version 2.02 is NOT free, it is 14 days trial version. Any references to the free version with links to the vendor site are incorrect for the following reason: vendor named version 2.02 as DiskMonitorFree.exe, so it is gives impression that is it free program. However, this is still trialware, not free.
========================
I had a short exchange with the support dept, which is pasted below with my email removed:

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY ON THIS EMAIL. IT IS JUST A NOTIFICATION.

Dear Alex ,

Below is the answer to your support request for Active@ Hard Disk Monitor.
You can also check the status of the request and post additional question online in your profile:
https://secure.lsoft.net/clients/
Your login is: XXXX
Your password is: XXXX

——————————————————————
Hello, this is the reply on your email reply to me – pasted below,

I can understand that cnet.com may have misrepresented the license pricing for the HDD Monitor. But the file name is

DiskMonitorFree.exe

this name is not assigned by cnet site. And it says ‘free’. This is confusing…

Below is pasted email text:

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY ON THIS EMAIL. IT IS JUST A NOTIFICATION.

Dear Alex ,

Below is the answer to your support request for Active@ Hard Disk Monitor.
You can also check the status of the request and post additional question online in your profile:
https://secure.lsoft.net/clients/
Your login is: XXXX
Your password is: XXXX

——————————————————————
Hello,

I found your Active@ Hard Disk Monitor Freeware on CNET website, where it is announced as free program. License is described as free, and the filename is DiskMonitorFree.exe.
I downloaded and installed and discovered it is a 14 days trialware.
Why such a difference in licensing policy?

I hope you can help me to understand that.

Thank you.

Alex

————————–

Support [8/9/2010 12:39:16 PM]

Version 1 was freeware, version 2 is not. I do not think we have any control over what cnet says on its website,. Here is our site where the program is not described as free.
http://www.lsoft.net/diskmon.aspx

======================

Now, just few days later, I see Fred Langa includes the same link into his article read by so many readers (no fault of Fred, but due to vendor’s deception), and wanted to let know all the readers about this twist at the vendor marketing effort

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In the article Fred mentions BootItNG is his “personal favorite for non-Win7 systems”. Is there an issue with BootItNG and Windows 7? Vendor’s web site says Windows 7 is supported. I’ve been a longtime user of BootItNG (I purchased it due to Fred’s recommendation years ago) but haven’t used it with Windows 7 yet.

Thanks,

-Dean

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In the article Fred mentions BootItNG is his “personal favorite for non-Win7 systems”. Is there an issue with BootItNG and Windows 7? Vendor’s web site says Windows 7 is supported. I’ve been a longtime user of BootItNG (I purchased it due to Fred’s recommendation years ago) but haven’t used it with Windows 7 yet.

Thanks,

-Dean

Perhaps Fred said “for non-Win7 Systems” because BootItNG may not be required on Win 7 systems because Win 7 has its own capability to create images. At least that’s what Fred said. I wasn’t aware of that.

Regardless of Fred’s rationale for that qualification, rest assured that BootItNG works fine with Win 7.

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Perhaps Fred said “for non-Win7 Systems” because BootItNG may not be required on Win 7 systems because Win 7 has its own capability to create images. At least that’s what Fred said. I wasn’t aware of that.

Regardless of Fred’s rationale for that qualification, rest assured that BootItNG works fine with Win 7.

Yes, Fred does mention in passing that he thinks Windows 7 has a built-in Image Backup utility which is perfectly adequate. Personally, I still prefer Acronis True Image because of all its options and features. Thanks for the reassurance that BootNG will also do just fine with Windows 7.

-- rc primak

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This is one of the best writeups on Windows XP ongoing maintenance that I have seen. Additional points come to mind:

1. If you have not already done so, switch from Windows Update (OS only) to Microsoft Update (includes other Microsoft products like Office). Go to Windows update and follow the link. After switching, be ready for many more updates to appear.

2. I’m just a little hazy on this one: If your machine is not yet at Windows XP SP3, I think it’s best to manually install SP1 and SP2 (as needed) to get to SP3, then go to Windows Update. I’ve seen different descriptions of Microsoft support on this, but basically if you’re downlevel on Service Packs, I find it’s more efficient to download the redistributable for your system and run it. If you download to an external device like a flash drive or external hard drive or CD/DVD, you won’t need to be connected to the Internet while hours and hours of update-reboot cycles take place. See http://windows.micro…t-service-packs and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389

3. From time to time, check Windows Update (Microsoft Update) manually. Do this repeatedly until there are no more required updates. New updates turn up, sometimes the following day. Optional updates require some creative reading to understand which ones to apply. Once this has settled down, I check once a month or whenever I forget when it was the last time I checked.

4. Do something to prevent Autoplay from running when you connect a flash drive or external hard drive. For Windows XP, I use TweakUI (http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe).

5. I love CCleaner. However, be careful. The cleaner (“brush”) tool will, by default, wipe out cookies (including saved website passwords — not a good practice but deleting them can be disruptive if you rely on them), MRU’s (Most Recently Used lists of files, such as in Word and Excel), recently-typed URLs, among other things. Make sure to check the “applications” tab, which lists other browsers.

–Bob Stromberg, Saratoga Springs, NY

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Active@ DiskMonitorFree definitely taking advantage of free publicity. No 14 day trial for me. Good luck to them!

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It seems that no amount of housekeeping can root out all of the accreted junk that XP accumulates under regular use. I suggest that users ensure that they have an XP install disc handy (preferably SP3, as the service pack is a monstrous download) and carry out a clean installation every few years, with an occasional re-formatting as well. Legit full-install discs (and semi-legit OEM discs) are $50-$80 on eBay these days, and I see nothing wrong with using an OEM disc if you already own a legit OEM installation. You’d be amazed at how many gigabytes magically appear on your hard drive after a reformat and clean install. (I had run just about every registry cleaner and housekeeping program known to man, then did a re-install that freed up ~8 GB!) It’s a big job, taking the better part of a day to re-load your software and install all of the accumulated updates, drivers, etc., but I think it’s well worth the time. You can be confident that the OS is free of rootkits and malware, and it may run noticeably more quickly. You might want to image the drive immediately on completion of the job, so you can return to this “virgin” state more easily in the future.

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“Start by deleting old $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files from XP’s C:Windows folder; ”

Yesterday I deleted all the above files dated 2009. To day I was greeted by the fact that my registry now contained 100 errors. So you will need to run a registry check as well after deletion.

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”Start by deleting old $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files from XP’s C:Windows folder; ”

Yesterday I deleted all the above files dated 2009. To day I was greeted by the fact that my registry now contained 100 errors. So you will need to run a registry check as well after deletion.

I’m not sure, but I suspect this was related to the no longer existing ability to uninstall the updates.

When I used to run XP and delete these files, I then always went to Add/Remove Programs and tried to remove the relevant updates. I’d always get a message that the update could not be removed and asking if I wanted to remove it from the Add/Remopve Programs list which I always did.

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For backing up drivers I have seen both of these sources for suggested freeware to simplify the task. (I have not yet tried any of them.)

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-windows-driver-backup.htm

Info Packets Freeware of the Day

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For backing up drivers I have seen both of these sources for suggested freeware to simplify the task. (I have not yet tried any of them.)

http://www.techsuppo…iver-backup.htm

Info Packets Freeware of the Day

Add to that info my favorite driver backup freeware program, Driver Max . (My link is to a CNet Review, so folks can read about the program before deciding to download it.) I especially like the way Driver Max puts all saved drivers into one Folder, then reloads them in a single operation. All drivers, even ones which appear to be incomplete, hidden, or the hardware has been removed, can be backed up. Or, you can select which drivers to restore. Either way, they are all in one place. The backup folder can be copied to an external drive or burned to a DVD for safety.

-- rc primak

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”► Correct driver errors now, while you can. Just as Microsoft is providing less support for XP, third-party vendors are withdrawing support for older hardware. Someday soon, you may discover that the drivers you need are no longer available. Fix problems now!

Boot XP and right-click My Computer. Select Properties, Hardware, then Device Manager. (Or, click Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager.) Click View and select Show hidden devices to make sure you’re seeing everything.”


I’m sure Fred knows that you must create an environmental variable, “devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1” in order to see all hidden devices, including devices that may have been removed.

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I’ve just reinstalled by desktop PC with Windows XP Service Pack 3. In fact most of the important files now exist on a newly installed 500GB drive I installed that is separate of the drive the operating system is installed. Since I perform maintenance on my stuff, I’ve kept the system running silky. I am still getting updates from Windows although I am running Service Pack 3. I would also highly suggest that if you’ve been meaning to install a new hard drive in your older system that you do it now! EIDE PATA drives are getting harder and harder to find, especially big ones! In a year or so, these drives will no longer be available. I have found that in both my Windows 7 laptop and my XP desktop I run the Auslogics Registry Cleaner and I run it once weekly. That file is the one most likely to cause problems with your machine and I suggest you run it frequently. It is amazing how short of a period of time it takes to get errors in that file! My approach to this problem of an outdated system is that I have the original install disks and the Service Pack 3 saved as the original install program. I am hoping all of the updates remain tucked away somewhere on a Microsoft website on the backwaters of the Internet somewhere. I may image my system but for now I depend on backed up original install programs in the event I have to reinstall my system some years in the future.

I do not think Microsoft can abandon XP. In spite of how great Windows 7 is, XP is the most used operating system in the world and is still intensely popular! It is very efficient in use of resources and it can run modern programs just fine, in fact better than Vista can! This operating system will still be viable 5-years down the line. So Microsoft will just have to accept this and reinstate support. Better upgrade your older system to a bigger hard drive though because EIDE drives are almost gone!

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Excelent article. It also reminded me to do certain tasks that I had disregarded. I recovered over 490 Mb by deleting the $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files. What a great tip. Thank you very much.

There is a major space hog in which I also need help. Although I can still increase the size of the C partition, I would like to know if there is a better alternative.

Documents & Settings on my HP laptop is 18.4 Gb and has five User Accounts: ‘Administrator’, ‘All Users’, ‘Owner’, ‘rem Default User’ and ‘rem Guest’ (I did ‘rem’ the last two). My Dell desktop, which I use daily but less intensely only has 1.09 Gb and three user accounts: ‘All Users’, ‘Owner’ and ‘Guest’. I am the only user of these computers; my wife has her own.

All programs that I can redirect are stored in an external drive and most of my data is in a third external drive.

Windows MCE XP XP3 in the laptop is 4.59 Gb and Windows HE XP SP3 is 3.73 Gb in the desktop.

Any valuable hints on this subject would be very helpful. Thanks again.

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Excelent article. It also reminded me to do certain tasks that I had disregarded. I recovered over 490 Mb by deleting the $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files. What a great tip. Thank you very much.

There is a major space hog in which I also need help. Although I can still increase the size of the C partition, I would like to know if there is a better alternative.

Documents & Settings on my HP laptop is 18.4 Gb and has five User Accounts: ‘Administrator’, ‘All Users’, ‘Owner’, ‘rem Default User’ and ‘rem Guest’ (I did ‘rem’ the last two). My Dell desktop, which I use daily but less intensely only has 1.09 Gb and three user accounts: ‘All Users’, ‘Owner’ and ‘Guest’. I am the only user of these computers; my wife has her own.

All programs that I can redirect are stored in an external drive and most of my data is in a third external drive.

Windows MCE XP XP3 in the laptop is 4.59 Gb and Windows HE XP SP3 is 3.73 Gb in the desktop.

Any valuable hints on this subject would be very helpful. Thanks again.

Actually, for a computer with so many accounts, and the Media Center Edition, your space usages all look pretty good. Not much at variance from my own six-year old Windows XP Pro laptop. You are in good shape, unless you really want to get rid of any unused User Accounts.

-- rc primak

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Excelent article. It also reminded me to do certain tasks that I had disregarded. I recovered over 490 Mb by deleting the $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files. What a great tip. Thank you very much.

To admittedly stray a bit off topic here, does anyone know how to perform an analogous operation in Win 7.

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Posted 2010-08-16 17:47[/color]

Alvaro Mera, on 2010-08-14 05:45, said:

Excelent article. It also reminded me to do certain tasks that I had disregarded. I recovered over 490 Mb by deleting the $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files. What a great tip. Thank you very much.

To admittedly stray a bit off topic here, does anyone know how to perform an analogous operation in Win 7. [/quote][/size]
We may not be far off topic at all in pointing out some differences between Windows XP 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit maintenance. It is an under-discussed sub-topic, in my opinion.

As to your “$NTUninstall{xxxx}$” Files question, there may not be an analogous operation for Windows 7.

In Windows XP, these files can take up a lot of space, compared with the smaller hard drive sizes which used to be common on the computers on which Windows XP was installed. Also, Windows XP has had a much longer patching history than Windows 7. Hence, Fred’s advice.

But in my Windows 7 64-bit installation, I do not even find this type of Uninstall Information Cache, and I suspect it does not live anywhere where the end-user is supposed to have access to the information files, let alone delete them. Due to the much more disk-consuming sizes of WoW, WinSxS, and the Compatibility and resource cache areas, I doubt sincerely that tracking down 490 Mb on a 500GB hard drive would do any good whatsoever in reducing overall disk usage. System performance would certainly not be affected at all.

I am not sure why, but compared with many other 64-bit Windows users, my installation seems never to expand it’s disk space usage, or at least it happens only slowly. All I do is use a few standard (64-bit) cleanup utilities weekly. (And clean up browser residues nightly — Google Chrome mostly.)

In short, the advice Fred gives for 32-bit Windows XP does not necessarily apply to 64-bit Windows 7. The cleanup process may be very different between these two operating system versions. Anyway, that’s what the makers of all my 64-bit utilities keep saying when listing their features.

-- rc primak

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It may be that there is no solution to this problem of accumulation of whatever corresponds in some vague sense to the “$NTUninstall{xxxx}$” Files, but my concern isn’t performance or the space that might be taken up on a very large hard disk. It’s that I very frequently create image backups and somewhat frequently copy those backups to DVD. The number of DVDs required constantly growing is the source of my concern.

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It may be that there is no solution to this problem of accumulation of whatever corresponds in some vague sense to the “$NTUninstall{xxxx}” Files, but my concern isn’t performance or the space that might be taken up on a very large hard disk. It’s that I very frequently create image backups and somewhat frequently copy those backups to DVD. The number of DVDs required constantly growing is the source of my concern.

Most Image Backup software includes the option to Exclude what you do not want to back up. But I agree that we would need to find out where these sorts of files are located, if we want to add them to the Exclude List. And as for the size of Image Backups, this is related directly to the amount of space used on the disk by the C:Windows Partition.

As stated earlier, I have seen the used space in many 64-bit Windows installations grow alarmingly over time, and then shrink back to more reasonable levels. I do not know why this does not happen to me, but my installation stays pretty steady at about 35GB to 40GB used space, and Image Backup sizes also have not grown in about two months of use. As I said, maybe my “Keep It Clean” policy (using true 64-bit cleanup utilities) is a factor, but otherwise, I do not have an explanation for this difference in used space growth between myself and some other Windows 7 64-bit users.

Nevertheless, with Windows 7, so far there haven’t been so many updates as with Windows XP. So even backing up to DVD, the space savings might not be what you expect based on the large numbers cited in this thread. We would then have to look for other, much larger, sources of growth in Backup Image File Sizes. But I agree that it would be nice to know if these sorts of files are still cluttering up Windows 7, or if maybe Microsoft has a new scheme altogether which may have (hopefully) done away with this sort of wasteful Windows clutter.

I will leave open the possibility that someone else in the Lounge may be able to tell us where the Updates Uninstall and Updates Log files (if they exist) are located in Windows 7 64-bit (or 32-bit for that matter), and how we can delete the obsolete files.

-- rc primak

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just to add to the tips, as well as ‘careful’ use of CCleaner, remember to look at some of the other Piriform free apps such as Recuva (file recovery), Defraggler (disk defrag) and the recent Speccy, for monitoring/listing system specs and temperatures (if your hardware supports it). I find these tools handy, especially when working on a lot of ‘home’ IT fixes/jobs. I use the FILEHIPPO website (http://www.filehippo.com/) which has all this software, and also an Updater/Checker program, which scans and helps you update out of date apps, from Flash to Firefox to Quicktime or Java, its scans a lot of programs and then gives you a summary in a browser of your choice, to link and download from FH’s website – quickly.

Once you have cleaned up your XP system and before you image it, defrag the drive and optimise it (also with CCleaner’s reg checker/cleaner to sort the registry).

Treesize Free edition is also a good application (i use the Pro version in our IT dept.), this scans your system, and shows you the files and folders you have, their size and location. Also handy for spotting duplicates, you can see where all your disk space is and how it’s used – http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Iain.

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As somebody mentioned, the thread strayed from the original subject which was the clean up of Windows XP. I really did not get too many comments on how to clean the Documents & Settings folder, and once again I got the message that I was running out of disk space on drive C, so after running Easy Cleaner, CCleaner and MyDefrag, I went back to analyze the folder in more detail.

I used a very useful little program which is similar to the Treesize that Iain MacMillan mentioned above. It is called WinDirStat (http://download.cnet.com/WinDirStat/3000-2248_4-10614593.html) and provides an excellent analysis of the space occupied by all files. Very easy to spot the major hogs since the program sorts the files by size and even produces a map of how the space is allocated.

This program brought to my attention that I had duplicates of several of my pictures, songs and videos files, whose originals I have in my third external drive. I have no idea how they ended up in Documents & Settings, but after I deleted them, I was able to recover 10.2 Gb or about 35% of the space used and my space problems disappeared.

Thanks a lot for the thread and its contributions.

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Regarding deleting old $NtUninstall{xxx}$ files – is there a way to do that in batch mode? I tried selecting all the files by the Ctrl/Click or Shift/Click methods but I can only select individual files. Since there are about 100 of them that would be a very time consuming delete.

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Thanks for the info, very useful.

It seems to me if you’re not running SP3, the first thing you should do is upgrade to SP3 by downloading it or ordering the free CD (you pay postage) from MS.

I always wondered what $NtUninstall{xxx}$ referred to, my list goes back to 2005.

Does anyone besides me still run System File Checker? It can correct a lot of issues.

On the subject of Defrag. In the October issue of PC World, page 80, they again rate defragment as a waste of time. They go as far as to label it an outrageous myth.

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Thanks for the info, very useful.

On the subject of Defrag. In the October issue of PC World, page 80, they again rate defragment as a waste of time. They go as far as to label it an outrageous myth.

PC World must not own a stopwatch. I defer to the original Windows secrets article and the example of a single,large, heavily fragmented data file which is opened many times throughout the work day. The amount of application slowdown (as opposed to OS or System slowdown) is measurable with a stopwatch, compared with the time it takes to open or save the same file when it is not heavily fragmented. Multiply this by the number of application data files you open in a day, and the difference is significant.

I never argued that OS or System performance can in any way be improved by defragmenting. But this does not account for the 95% or so of computer operations which involve applications and data files, where fragmentation is a much more serious matter. Even with today’s fast hard drives and powerful hardware, defragmenting data files does make a measurable difference. Never argue theories over measured results (timed with a stopwatch).

And, one minor point about MS “free CDs” — I do not consider US $10.00 to be “postage”. They are charging for this “free” service.

-- rc primak

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