TO-Tech Blog

One of the things I hate about Microsoft Windows is how the various required security applications (anti-spyware, anti-virus, etc.) slows my system (no matter how fast or how much RAM I have) to a crawl when they are running.

I’ve been running ESET’s NOD32 Antivirus System (Amazon Affiliate link) on my Vista desktop for a while now. I’ve been running various Beta versions of Microsoft’s OneCare on my XP system for well over a year. However, having become increasingly annoyed by it, I decided to replace it with NOD32 on my XP system as well.

After installing it, I decided to run a full system scan to confirm that the PC is clean. I popped up Windows’ Task Manager expecting to see the usual near 100% CPU usage bringing my system to a crawl. Imagine, my surprise when I saw how little impact NOD32 had on system performance while running a full scan. In fact, I took the screen snapshot (performance graph on the right), cropped and resized the screencap, and created this blog entry while NOD32 was running a full system scan in the background.

PC World has it listed as the #4 anti-virus performer (out of with OneCare nowhere in the list. So, I feel pretty good about the switch from OneCare to NOD32 so far.

I guess HP finally got around to releasing printer drivers for Windows Vista in April. I got around to taking a look to see if my old Photosmart 7760 was finally supported and, yet, found it has both a new driver (April 2007) and an uninstaller for, I guess drivers installed in 2000/XP previous to an upgrade (May 2007). However, take a look at this note from HP regarding this driver…

This download includes a Print Driver only. This driver makes it possible to use the basic functions for the printer. HP will not be providing a Full Featured Vista Software and Driver for this product; therefore, some functionality may be lost when you use this product with Windows Vista.

I can see why a lot of people are choosing to stay with Windows XP where they have full driver support.

I wrote a little PDF book for O’Reilly Media last summer (2006) titled Windows for Intel Macs. This Short Cuts series book was written with a focus on Mac users who also need to or want to run Microsoft Windows on an Intel based Mac running either Apple Boot Camp (dual boot) or Parallels Desktop for Mac (virtualization).

It is amazing how much has changed since the book was released last August. Microsoft released Windows Vista to replace XP. Parallels went from version 1 to version 3 (which was released just this week). Apple released a couple of minor point releases of Boot Camp (1.3 is the current release). But, I’m not going to talk much about that since I prefer virtualized platforms vs. dual-boot.

The old book (10 months is apparently forever in computer time) is still in the Short Cuts Best Selling list. But, with all the changes in both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Windows Vista, I thought I’d provide some updates to the book’s topic area in this blog. I don’t know how regularly I’ll post Parallels/Vista information here. But, I’ll try to post at least a couple of items per week for the next month or two.

The standard Stand By, Turn Off, and Restart options presented by both Windows XP and Windows Vista aren’t the only options we have to shutdown the PC. The other option is Hibernate. And, it works surprisingly reliably with both Windows XP and Vista. Startup seems to be faster since it restores all processes that were running eliminating many of those annoying slow start-up processes. And, since the application windows last run are popped right back up, you can get back to work faster than if you started from a blank slate.

Hibernate doesn’t require a trickle charge like Suspend. So, you can turn off a power strip and completely remove power to your PC, its display, and other peripherals. This means that the power wasted on your various giant power bricks is removed and also cuts down on waste heat generation. I’ve started following Green Technology items as it relates to techies on my new blog GreenTechies.com too.

Getting Hibernate to appear in Windows’s shutdown window has been hit and miss for me. So, I just have the hardware power button assigned start the Hibernate process. You can find the Windows XP procedure listed below. You can still force a shutdown by pressing and holding the power button for 5 seconds or more if you run into a problem. And, of course, pulling the A/C cord or battery works in an emergency.

• Start
• Control Panel
• Power Options
• Hibernate (tab)
• Enable hibernation (check box)
• Advanced (tab)
• When I press the power button on my computer: (list) Hibernate