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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

PC operating system question


Chris Wilson

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There has just been a thread about backing up hard drives with Windows on, and it was mentioned repalacing Windows as an OS is not simple as its registry contains vital programme information. Now I am not PC savvy at all, but I remember Windows 3.1 didn't have a registry, and 99% of applications stored their settings in .ini files that stayed with the app. What modern OS's enable you to remove and renew the OS, and, conversely, an individual application, without disturbing the other, or is that not possible?

 

As an aside, is anyone familiar with the e-mail app I use call The Bat? http://email.about.com/cs/winclientreviews/gr/the_bat.htm I have used it for years and have got used to its power, and its complexity, is anything similar available for Linux?

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Do you use this? I can't see any means of making and using message templates, which is vital to me? Anyone know if it has this? I also need to have threaded messages, which it has, and to have filters to highlight messages based on subject, content or poster in different colours. Thanks

 

A long time ago yes, certainly has templates and advanced filtering support http://sylpheeddoc.sourceforge.net/en/manual/manual-13.html

 

Not sure about threaded messaging.

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What modern OS's enable you to remove and renew the OS, and, conversely, an individual application, without disturbing the other, or is that not possible?

 

On Linux you can replace the core part of the OS (called the kernel) without needing to reinstall any of your applications. I use Linux a fair bit but I wouldn't say I'm an expert.

 

You can't do that with Windows because Windows comes as a big monolithic lump, rather than kernel + other stuff.

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Have a word with Ian C. He's a Windows user and he has his system set up so that he can rebuild the OS in next to no time. No idea how he does it or to what extent it affects the other installed apps. I think its something to do to with having a separate drive with only the OS on it and absolutely nothing else.

 

I'm PC savvy enough to know that doesn't explain it at all, but I know it works for him.

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I'd be interested in this too: always good to know new techniques. Hopefully Ian C will post it up here. Maybe he has a ghost image stored on a 2nd hard disk, but I might be way off. And of course that would bring both OS and apps back.

 

+1

 

Having a ghost image will allow you to rebuild a machine within 30 minutes! All the apps etc will be installed. I used ghost images while working in Deloitte. We use to deploy hundreds of laptops over the weekend with only 3 of us working!

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That's similar to what I do. I have my OS and installed apps on a separate hard drive, and all my data on another. I also keep a gohst image of the "system" drive, which I refresh every so often. Its not an instant rebuild, but it means I can usually rewind to my last major hardware / software upgrade without too much hassle.

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Hmm, I am interested in this Ghost image thing since I might be trying out W7 but can't risk loosing what I have in Vista atm. I presume you need to buy some kind of software to do this?

 

Also, does dual booting OS actually slows down your overall system performance? Could be just me thats paranoid but I think my machine ran slower when I had XP and Vista on it. It's not the boot up time since I can adjust the OS selection thingy at start to zero seconds its just the overall performance. Could be just me though...

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Dual booting shouldn't slow your system down at all. The only thing you'll lose is spare hard disk space, but as long as your partitions aren't nearly full then you shouldn't have a problem.

 

Running virtual PCs will slow your system down, but they're somewhat different.

 

Scott M on here said that Vista comes with its own image backup utility that he's used successfully many times. There's a recent thread about it.

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