In
Tim Meddick said:
I take the point about the value of defragmenting the page
file, however, I'm sure there are certain circumstances
where it could become an issue. But that is BTP as the OP
wanted to know "how to" something, and all I'm doing is
informing him "how to" do just that.
No problem, Tim. I'd have directed it right at the OP if any of the prior
posts were still showing but figured addressing it to you would at least
give you a heads up that I was saying something a little different. 6 of
one ...
But about it being "another startup item from a third party"
Firstly, it is written by the same team who develop
Windows. Although, strictly speaking Sysinternals has split
financially from Microsoft, many of it's team members are
still closely involved with M$.
Actually, it was not; it was written prior to the acquision of Sysinternals
by Microsoft, by then Sysinternals employees. So, "many of its team members"
ARE involved with MS completely. It's just another example of Microsoft's
purchasing the competition whenever they can.
I think you have the MS/Sysinternals bit a little mixed up in your head:
Windows Sysinternals[1] is a part of the Microsoft Technet web site which
offers technical resources and utilities to manage, diagnose, troubleshoot
and monitor a Microsoft Windows environment.[1] Originally, the Sysinternals
website (formerly known as "ntinternals"[citation needed]) was created in
1996[1] and was operated by the company Winternals Software LP, which was
located in Austin, Texas. It was started by software developers Bryce
Cogswell and Mark Russinovich.[1] Microsoft acquired Winternals and its
assets on July 18, 2006.[2]
Also, it would not be classed as a "start-up item" like
other start-up items and does not have to compete with
other applications or the boot-up process itself, as it
uses the Win32 API and executes well before the [Windows]
shell is even loaded (i.e. well before the "Welcome" screen
appears).
You completely miss my point, though I really didn't want to dwell on it.
3rd party software adds another layer of things that can go wrong, must be
remembered for trouble-shooting purposes later on, and generally, most
importantly, does nothing that XP cannot do natively and often easily.
People pay money for nothing more than a compiled script that does nothing a
batch file couldn't do.
Windows in general has a lot of weaknesses, but it also has a lot of
strengths, and the majority of 3rd party programs don't address the actual
weaknesses; they address things neophytes might like to know, and would be
happy to know, when it turns out XP could have done the same thing in its
own native environment for zero cost.
Many of them do a disservice to their users because they spent $29.99 for
a program to issue a few commands that would accomplish the same thing in a
batch file or even by just running a command at the command prompt. Speaking
of the command prompt, very few users realize even a third of the commands
it has available; they think it's only for running old "DOS" applications.
And "help" and MS calling it a DOS window doesn't help the masses, either.
"Just one more won't hurt" until the pile of 3rd party apps gets so deep
and so mindlessly intertwined within the OS's activities that even an
experienced PC man can't make sense of it until he gets rid of them.
As for splitting hairs over "when" it loads "where", if the computer is
not 100% ready for use yet, then you are still in the startup portion of
time for the machine. Which of the 5 phases it occurs in doesn't matter to
the user; it's starting up that way so it's part of the startup.
Don't get me wrong; I use a lot of 3rd party apps; for things that windows
can't do for itself or for me. PowerDesk Pro for instance, instead of
windows explorer. If I copy 70 files and one refuses to be copied, it still
copies 69 files and tells me file.ext couln't be copied, unlike Explorer
which just stops copying and issues a terse error message.
I just don't use a 3rd party app when windows can do the same thing it does,
or worse yet, it's just a disguised batch file.
In the end, it's all opinion anyway, so no big deal, but you brought them
up, so I opined a bit on them. Ymmv is aiive and well!
Twayne`