Check PC Performance Details with WinSAT in Windows 7 or Vista
Since Windows Vista, including in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) has been added into the operating system. WinSAT is a free benchmarking tool that measures various computer performance ratings, characteristics and capabilities, and display the ratings as Windows Experience Index or WEI score.
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20.4.2009 Building a High Performance Windows 7 PC
With Windows 7 release candidate just around the corner, the other day I was asked to spec out a high performance PC suitable for Windows 7 64-bit, This system would also be a great Vista system.
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15.4.2009 Digital File Check
Music fans who want be safe and legal on the internet are today offered a new freely-available software programme that will help them stop their computer being used for illegal file-swapping of copyrighted music and movies.
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Windows Live FolderShare Beta Refresh for PC-to-PC Sync
Today, the FolderShare Team is shipping a Beta Refresh of both the Windows Live FolderShare website and client that offers some great improvements to the Windows Live FolderShare service at http://www.foldershare.com/.
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11.3.2008 What's New in Vista - File Select Check Box
Choosing multiple files and folders has been possible in Windows for as long as I can remember. Hold the CTRL key and choose the files and/or folders. Pretty simple, but there has to be an easier way right?
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1.6.2006 How to check software or hardware for Windows 7 compatibility
Microsoft has put up an extremely useful site that will allow you to check your software and hardware for Windows 7 compatibility.
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27.10.2009 Bypass and Disable Genuine Windows Validation Check
Microsoft has made it harder for illegitimate, or for whatever reason, your copy of Microsoft Windows couldn't be validated, users to retrieve updates via Microsoft Updates or Windows Update, and download programs from Microsoft Download Center.
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19.5.2006 Download everything from Microsoft without Windows Genuine Advantage Check
ghacks.net has found a workaround to bypass the WGA, wonder how long MS will take to fix this.
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8.9.2006 Check Out The New Windows Home Server Demo. But Why Is It In Flash?
Microsoft PR sent out a link to this slick new Windows Home Server Demo this afternoon. Nothing really notable about it (although I do want one)…except the demo is in Flash.
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27.10.2007 Windows 7 Performance Tools - Performance Tools Kit 4.1.1
Internet Explorer 8 will be not only an apex of performance, but also the next major iteration of the Windows client, according to Microsoft.
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1.9.2008 Microsoft pre-paid cards to check software piracy
Check piracy of its software, Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it would launch pre-paid cards in India before this year-end.
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17.9.2006 Check Out the Official Release Notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3
Mind blowing! Simply mind blowing! Shocking! And last, but definitely not least, a true revelation. Microsoft has published the official release notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3, and, boy, are you in for a treat! I bet you didn't see this coming in the least.
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4.12.2007 Check for RAM Error or Defect in Windows 7 and Vista with Windows Memory Diagnostic
Memory or RAM is one of the most important electronic hardware component on a computer systems, not only in term of speed or clock frequency and size, but also the reliability of hardware ecosystem of the RAM sticks or memory modules and its subsystem.
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1.10.2009 IE7 Virtual PC Image and IE6 Virtual PC Image Refresh
From the IEBlog: Hello! Just wanted to give you a quick update that we’ve dropped two new VPC images that you can use with the free copy of Virtual PC 2007.
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19.4.2007 Windows Performance Blog
As I said in yesterday’s introduction, my job as an engineer on the Windows Vista team is to improve performance. I wanted to look at a study that measure a key area that we focused on for Windows Vista – consistent responsiveness during the times that matter most to users (when starting up their machine, after being idle, and when you are under the gun running tons of apps, etc.).
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29.12.2006 Microsoft tweaks IE 7 for performance
Microsoft has quietly released a patch aimed at improving the performance of Internet Explorer 7's phishing filter ahead of the company's regular patching schedule, which occurs on the Tuesday of every month.
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8.2.2007 Microsoft IE 8 - Great Performance
This morning, my editor asked why I hadn't blogged about Internet Explorer 8. My response: "Who cares?" Do you? Maybe we both should.
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27.8.2008 Windows 7 Performance Pillars
Attempting to avoid the rather sluggish experience that has become inherently associated with Windows Vista RTM, Microsoft promised, through the voice of Steven Sinofsky, that Windows 7 would not set a single “bit” out of Redmond until it would meet a set of performance criteria.
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29.8.2008 Windows 7 Performance, Explained
From startup to the way it handles hardware resources available, power consumption and applications, Windows 7 has been applauded as delivering a level of performance superior to that of Windows Vista, even as early as pre-Beta Build 6801.
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29.11.2008 How Microsoft really does employee performance reviews
You don't need to ask your boss for a raise at Microsoft, because each year we have an annual performance evaluation where managers review employee accomplishments in a process used for deciding things like salary increases or bonuses.
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22.12.2006 Vista SP1 a Performance Dud
With the initial performance characteristics of Windows Vista leaving much to be desired (see our previous post on the subject), many IT organizations have put off deploying the new OS until the first service pack (SP1) is released by Microsoft early next year.
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20.11.2007 Another Vista Reliability & Performance Update
Vista’s performance is one of those topics that won’t be exhausted until Windows Seven hits RTM. It all comes down to trade-offs.
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12.12.2007 Windows Vista Performance and Tuning
Windows Vista and SP1 focus on delivering greater performance and overall system responsiveness. By striking a balance between speed and responsiveness, Windows Vista and SP1 deliver a level of performance that has the greatest positive impact on the system’s usability.
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31.7.2008 Windows 7 -- Approach to System Performance
Many folks have commented and written email about the topic of performance of Windows. The dialog has been wide ranging—folks consistently want performance to improve (of course).
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28.8.2008 Vista Performance Post SP1
Poor performance was one of the sins associated with Windows Vista RTM, especially in comparison to Windows XP throughout 2007.
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9.10.2008 Squeezing Every Drop of Performance Out of Windows 7
In the sense in which Microsoft is building Windows 7 as the evolution of Windows Vista, the next iteration of the Windows client will perform as if on steroids, compared to its precursor.
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17.12.2008 Windows 7 beta 1 performance test
How does Windows 7 beta 1 compare to Vista and XP in terms of performance? That’s a question that’s been hitting my inbox regularly over the past few weeks. Let’s see if we can’t answer it!
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2.1.2009 Windows Vista Imaging and Installation Performance
Ideally, installation of an operating system is two fairly simple steps. First, copy all the OS files to the hard disk.
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4.10.2006 Outlook 2007 Update focuses on performance
Microsoft Corporation has released an update to Outlook 2007 designed to speed up the communication software’s much-criticized sluggishness.
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15.4.2007 Vista Compatibility, Performance and Reliability Pack
Windows Vista Compatibility, Performance and Reliability Packs – SP1 Preview - Microsoft offers fresh Vista updates to testers.
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31.7.2007Windows Advisor Pilot v2.2
Windows Advisor is a self-help tool that notifies you about problems in your PC and helps you fix them. Windows Advisor scans your PC continuously,
notifies you about important issues, and, when possible, suggests an easy fix solution. Additionally, it provides a checkup function, so that you can
manually check your PC. This manual checkup displays information about additional, non-critical issues, such as suggestions and tips for improving the
way you use your PC. The checkup advises you about security, performance, networking, printing, and more.
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08.07.2008Deployed: Windows Vista SP1 RC on ALL of my PCs
Brandon LeBlanc: Today Nick announced the availability of the release candidate for Windows Vista SP1. I had a chance to get the RC build of Windows
Vista SP1 installed a few days ago. I decided to roll the RC out on all of my PCs which showcase a variety of device types and scenarios:
- My Main Desktop PC running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 - check.
- My Test/Work PC running Windows Vista Business - check.
- My Dell Vostro 1500 Laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate - check.
- My Samsung Q1 UMPC running Windows Vista Home Premium - check.
- My Digital CableCard PC running Windows Vista Home Premium - check.
In installing the RC on my PCs, I did a combination of
using the standalone installer and Windows Update. Before proceeding to install the SP1 RC bits, I first needed to uninstall the SP1 beta bits first.
Users looking to install the Windows Vista SP1 RC will need to uninstall any previous version of SP1 prior to the installation of the RC from either
Windows Update or the standalone installer.
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06.12.2007Tablet PC vs. Laptop: How Do
You Choose?
Columnist Jeff Van West
suggests you look at
performance and range of use
requirements when deciding
between a Tablet PC and a
laptop...
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04.01.2006How to monitor the health of
your PC
Columnist Mitch Tulloch
explains how to use the tools
in the Windows XP Help and
Support Center and third-party
programs to check your
computer's system health...
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04.01.2006What's Genuine About Windows
Genuine Advantage?
An article over at
Microsoft-Watch has been
posted about what Windows
Genuine Advantage is all
about. In short it was
mentioned that the first time
you run the WGA validation
check, Microsoft's servers
collect the following
information:
The Windows XP product key,
PC Manufacturer, Operating
system version, PC BIOS
information and User locale
setting and language.
In the past WGA
pinged your system everyday to
see if your notifications are
running, not if you're valid.
This changed on June 8th
where it now pings your system
every 14 days. According to
Microsoft, no identifying
system or user information is
sent to Microsoft as part of
this check.
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10.06.2006Hyper-V performance - feedback wanted
Tony Voellm (Principle Development Lead) is after feedback on Hyper-V performance:
Check his post "
Windows Hyper-V Beta" for more
details and a snippet is below
As the person responsible for performance inside the Hyper-V product team Im confident is saying
youll see the hypervisor investment is really paying off. As you use the product Id love to get your feedback on Hyper-V performance.
If youve got feedback,
get in touch with Tony =)
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07.12.2007Neowin Review: Asus Eee PC 1000
After years of owning what is considered a standard-size laptop (14.1"ť Compaq V1000), I decided to replace it and upgrade to something smaller,
lighter, with better battery life and about the same power. So clearly a netbook was the solution to my problem. I'm reviewing the Asus Eee PC
1000 - not to be confused with the 1000H, 1000HD, 1000HA or the 1000HE (for a full list of differences, check out Asus' comparison chart). The
biggest difference between the Eee PC 1000 and its sister models is that this is the only model that features a solid state drive and an estimated
six hours of battery life.
Read full story.....
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26.02.2009OCZ Acquires High-Performance System Builder Hypersonic-PC
OCZ Technology plans to acquire performance gaming PC system builder Hypersonic PC, suggesting that Hypersonic-PC systems may start using OCZ
components exclusively. Since its restructuring in 2002, OCZ has branched away from its core offerings of RAM and power supplies into peripherals like
and cooling components. OCZ and Hypersonic stress the new partnership will almost exclusively focus on high-end boutique notebooks and desktops.
Ryan Petersen, OCZ CEO says, “ OCZ’s goal is to deliver the highest performing products to consumers whether that is with
premium components or total solutions. We are delighted to welcome Hypersonic PC, a company and brand well known for their commitment to enthusiasts
into the OCZ fold. Together with the additional resources of OCZ Technology, Hypersonic-PC will be able to develop and infuse even more innovation and
cutting edge designs and features into the brand’s leading-edge enthusiast and gaming desktop and mobile offering .”
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26.10.2007Intel optimistic about future nettop performance
Although Intel is optimistic about the sales performance of Atom-based nettops, some PC vendors doubt nettops will be as successful as netbooks.
According to Intel forecasts, between 2008-2011 netbook and nettop shipments will together see annual double digital growth. Netbooks are expected to
see shipments of 47 million units over the three years, while nettops are expected to ship 60 million units.
However, some PC vendors think
that although Asustek Computer's Eee PC has sparked the netbook trend, it will be difficult to pass the same experience onto nettops
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26.06.2008Call of Duty: World at War performance in-depth
Considering the high expectations built around Call of Duty: World at War it will be interesting to see how the game stacks up against other competing
shooters, but perhaps most importantly how it compares or improves upon last year's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare which was an all-around success
on the PC platform. 'World at War' was built using an enhanced version of the CoD 4 engine which should come as great news for PC gamers. Not
only do we expect this game to look really good because of that, but it should also fair quite well on systems with modest specifications.
Read full story.....
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17.11.2008Ubisoft DRM snafu reminds us what's wrong with PC gaming
The PC gaming industry
likes to blame piracy
for
many of its ills, but
it's clear that no one has found a cure-all for this particular disease. Various forms of DRM added to the retail versions of PC games
are—at the very least—annoying for the gamer who bought a boxed or digital copy of a game. At the very worst, some methods of DRM
can make the game unplayable.
Ubisoft ran into such a glitch with the CD-check built into the PC version of
Rainbow Six Vegas 2; users who downloaded the game from an
official source didn't have a disc to pass the check, causing a new patch to break legally downloaded versions of the game. Ubisoft had a
novel—not to mention cheap—way to to fix this: a crack that allows the game to play without a disc in the drive. The issue? The crack
came from the "warez" group Reloaded, with no attribution
or notice that third-party code was used to fix the DRM issue.
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21.07.2008Hyper-V and slow guest OS installation
Ben Armstrong: I have seen a number of reviews and comments about the fact that while Hyper-V virtual machines appear to be quite fast once they are
up and running - operating system installation seems to take quite a while. The reason for this is relatively easy to explain.
With Virtual Server and Virtual PC we only had emulated devices to use - and as a result we spent a lot of time optimizing and tweaking the
performance of these emulated devices. When we implemented the emulated devices under Hyper-V we had to remove many of these optimizations due to the
entirely different architecture of Hyper-V. We did not, however, spend much time re-optimizing the emulated devices on Hyper-V because we had the new
synthetic device architecture where we have focused our attention for performance tuning.
This means that Hyper-V emulated
devices are slower than Virtual Server / Virtual PC emulated devices - but Hyper-V synthetic devices are much faster than Virtual Server / Virtual PC
emulated devices.
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27.02.2008Free 24-hour ZoneAlarm Pro 2009 download
Need a firewall freshener? Tuesday marks Check Point Software's 15th anniversary, and to celebrate, it's offering free copies of Check Point
ZoneAlarm Pro 2009 to all comers...
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18.11.2008Like having 2 graphics cards? How about 4? And why not add 4 CPU cores too...
About a year ago if you asked a PC building enthusiast what processor to use, he/she would probably have pointed you toward a slick 64-bit AMD chip
which at the time was some of the best performance at a sweet price, win-win right?
That all changed when the Intel Core 2 Duo
chips came out with better performance and even lower price points. The Intel fanboys rejoiced as the top spot had returned to the chip making giant.
To this day Intel has remained in the lead with multiple iterations of the Core 2 Duo architecture with increased speeds and even doubling the cores
(Quad Core chips) thus solidifying their top dog status.
AMD, however, has not given up... not by a longshot. While we all have
waited to see the results of their ATi acquisition, today I had the chance to check it out firsthand. That's right, folks, AMD has its own
triple-play to show off: new true quad core 64 bit CPU--the Phenom, a new Radeon 3800 series set graphic cards, and to support it all... a fancy new
chipset known as "Spider."
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19.11.2007Thief caught after stopping to check Facebook
A 19 year old Pennsylvanian man has been arrested after stopping to check his account on social networking website Facebook whilst burgling a house,
and then forgetting to log out again. According to The Journal of West Virginia, Jonathan G. Parker, of Fort Loudoun, PA, is alleged to have stolen
two diamond rings from the property, worth more than $3,500. The victim called police after noticing evidence of a break in through a bedroom
window and other signs that there had been an intruder looking around her home.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
19.09.2009Intel ships long-awaited graphics drivers
Owners of PCs with Intel's
965 chipsets can finally
download drivers that will
immediately improve the
performance of games running
on those systems.
The 965 chipsets were
supposed to be a dramatic step
forward for integrated
graphics performance. Most PCs
come with graphics technology
built right onto the chipset
that connects the processor to
memory and the rest of a PC.
Serious gamers opt for
discrete graphics made by
Nvidia or AMD's ATI division,
but most people save a little
money and get the basic
graphics.
Intel wanted to make an
integrated graphics chipset
with more powerful graphics
performance that would allow
basic PC users to play some of
the latest and greatest 3D
games when it shipped the 965.
But it has been unable to
write the drivers needed to
enable that performance until
now.
Windows XP drivers are
available
here,
but if you're on a Vista PC
with Intel's 965 chipset,
you'll have to wait a little
longer. Intel put together a
video
here
that shows the improved
performance of PCs with the
new drivers.
winbeta.org -
18.08.2007How to check your Hotmail in Safari (3 or) 4
Like a lot of other issues with Hotmail and non-IE browsers, you just need to change the User Agent string to fool Hotmail into thinking it is dealing
with a browser it knows about. In Safari, this is pretty easy to do. As far as we can tell, however, Safari doesnt remember the User Agent settings
from session to session, so you would need to reset the User Agent for each new session that you want to check your Hotmail account.
winbeta.org -
08.03.2009Gears of War PC Performance and IQ
Gears of War is coming to the PC Windows platform this week. It will hit store shelves in
North America Tuesday, November 6th 2007. Gears of War, developed by
Epic Games and
published by
Microsoft Game Studios, was released on the XBOX 360 platform one year
ago. It was confirmed back at E3 this year that Gears of War would indeed be ported to the PC and set to be released this November.
Gears of War is a third-person tactical shooter, yes third-person, not first-person as is typically expected for this type of game. As you play
the game it is as if there is a person holding a camera behind you, filming all the action taking place. This can create a slight learning curve for
players familiar with first-person shooters as it takes some getting used to controlling a player in a third-person view. We found it quite easy
though to adapt to this type of gameplay on the PC, as you will be zooming in quite a lot to take out your opponents and there is a clearly defined
reticle used to target the enemy. While not zooming there is no targeting reticle, and you must use the particle effects of the weapon fire to guide
your target positioning, which can pose a bit of a challenge for the novice. To get the lo-down on gameplay
check out our evaluation of the game on the
XBOX 360.
winbeta.org -
05.11.2007Performance Results Mixed with Vista Service Pack 1
Microsoft's newly released Service Pack 1 may solve some of the performance glitches that have annoyed Windows Vista users and discouraged others
from adopting the OS, but it doesn't appear from our initial tests to be a panacea.
In our first tests of the service pack, file
copying, one of the main performance-related complaints from Vista users, was significantly faster. But other tests showed little improvement and in
two tests, our experience was actually a little better without the service pack installed than with it.
winbeta.org -
07.02.2008Windows 7: Federated Search
In part one of our overview of Windows 7, we look into Federated Search: Windows Vista included the enhanced desktop search feature which helps users
to readily locate files, e-mail messages, and other items on their PC . With the release of Windows Search 4.0, the performance of the search tool
improved while adding much-needed manageability features for IT. Windows 7 along with the desktop search, introduces Federated Search in which the
scope of the search goes beyond your PC. You can now search for items in remote repositories from your PC. It is based on OpenSearch and the RSS
format.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
06.01.2009
