Microsoft Cuts Support Options For Windows XP Users

Unsupported OS Can Be Tricky

Running an unsupported OS can be tricky, since users won’t be able to get patches and revisions. Although development on the XP OS ended long ago, Microsoft was still providing maintenance releases that closed holes and kept the system as up-to-date as possible.

According to Microsoft, Service Pack 3 can be applied only to computers running the 32-bit version of Windows XP. Prior to installing Service Pack 3, the computer must also have Service Pack 2 and Service Pack 1(a) installed. These service packs are still available from the Microsoft Web site.

If you’re not sure whether your computer is a 32-bit or 64-bit system, you can find out by taking the following steps.
Go to Start > Run
Enter sysdm.cpl and click OK.
This will open a dialog box that will provide additional information about your system. Within the dialog box, select the General tab. If your system is a 32- bit system, you’ll see the words “Windows XP Professional Version XXXX under System. XXXX will be a date, expressed as a year.
If your system is a 64-bit system, you’ll see a slightly different set of words under System: “Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version XXXX.” Again XXXX represents a year.

Service Pack 3 isn’t used with 64-bit systems, so it’s important to know whether you need the service pack or not. Do not install Service Pack 3 if you have a 64-bit system. Microsoft has provided a different method for patching and updating 64-bit versions of the XP operating system.
The installed user base for Windows XP is still quite large, however more users are adopting Windows 7. Importantly, many of the new adopters are Microsoft’s corporate customers, most of whom have been working with XP for nearly 10 years. In the coming year, Microsoft will likely examine its plan to drop support for Windows XP altogether.

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Why You Need Driver Detective

Driver Management Is Time Management

As a computer professional, one of the things I can say with certainty is that people simply want their computers to work. Most people don’t know or care how their computer system operates; they simply want their computer to work reliably when they need it.

Problems seem to crop up out of nowhere. This can be exceptionally frustrating for people who don’t understand the mystical inner workings of their computers or the Windows OS. Automatic updates to the OS are generally good, but people don’t seem to understand that the update process can change the way their computer operates, or require that other non-OS components be updated, too.

Security patches can shut down the normal operation of a working driver in a heartbeat. Users often don’t know that they need to look for updates regularly, or rely on the Windows Update mechanism to detect and deliver new driver updates.

Windows is good at a lot of things, but sometimes it chooses the wrong driver, or isn’t configured to pick up driver updates as “critical.” This can cause exceptional trouble for users who, in trying to do the right thing (update their OS), create problems for themselves outside of the OS.

That’s why I recommend Driver Detective as a way to automate driver maintenance on computers. Driver Detective is a trusted piece of software that has been downloaded millions of times. Driver Detective identifies and tracks all drivers installed on the computer. It automatically searches for, downloads and installs driver updates as soon as they are available. The correct driver for your particular system is downloaded every time. There are no mistakes and no missed driver updates.

Automating driver maintenance will save time and energy, too. Driver Detective an not only download updates, but it can also restore a driver that’s been damaged or deleted accidentally. This is a big help in terms of troubleshooting and problem-avoidance.

Some people like to tinker with their computers. For them, locating and downloading drivers may be the ideal way to spend an afternoon. On the other hand, if you simply want your computer to work the way it’s supposed to, you’ll want to add Driver Detective to your routine.

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Windows Doesn't Always Detect The Correct Drivers

Windows Gets It Wrong

Windows is often very good at detecting the correct driver for an installed piece of hardware, but occasionally it will select the wrong driver for your device or miss an update. You may, or may not, notice the problem right away, depending upon what functions have been lost. To correct the problem, you can download and install the correct driver manually, but this is a time consuming process. If you rely on the manual correction method, you’ll need to correct the mistake each time Windows errs in its driver choice. You may also miss out on updates from the driver manufacturer.

Maintaining computers takes up a large portion of my time, so I’m all for anything that works correctly and automates tedious manual processes like finding, downloading and installing Windows drivers. I’m also all for anything that can help prevent problems from arising in the future. Driver Detective helps on both fronts. With Driver Detective loaded onto your computer, you can be sure that you will always have the correct driver for your computer’s configuration. You’ll also have a backup copy of the driver handy in case something goes wrong. Driver Detective also maintains your drivers by watching for, locating, downloading and installing driver updates when they appear.

You don’t have to wait for Windows to pick up the correct driver and you never have to worry about using the wrong driver for your installed devices when you turn your driver management over to Driver Detective. Simply install Driver Detective and let the software do the rest. Any time a driver update is released for your installed hardware, Driver Detective will find it, download it and install it. Driver Detective provides a backup for your installed drivers to prevent problems from occurring should your installed driver become damaged, corrupted or accidentally deleted.

Driver Detective has been downloaded and used for years by people who want to take care of their computers but don’t want to spend hours doing it. It works well and that’s why I tell my clients to use Driver Detective as their driver management solution.

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Making A Bootable USB Drive

Not All Netbooks Are Created Equal

The major issue with netbooks is that the earliest models came pre-loaded with Windows XP and an upgrade to Windows 7 would require a clean installation – a neat trick when you don’t have a CD/DVD drive from which to boot. To be fair, you can attach an external USB CD/DVD drive to a netbook and get along just fine using the standard-issue Window 7 media.

One disadvantage of this method is that the data transfer rates between the netbook and the CD/DVD drive will be slow. Upgrading or performing a clean installation on a capable netbook may take up a lot more time than you thought it might. In fairness, reading media from any external device will seem slow. The USB stick uses faster data transfer protocols so the process moves along much faster.

One last consideration: not all BIOS support booting from USB drives or other external devices. You’ll need to go into your BIOS setup to determine whether you can boot from a USB drive. Even if your BIOS does support external booting, computers aren’t always configured to look for boot sectors on devices other than the hard disk. If yours can, you’ll need to activate this setting if it’s not already activated. You may have to change more than one BIOS setting to enable this function. You normally access the BIOS settings immediately after you turn on your computer. You’ll see a direction that says something like Press F(N) to Enter Setup. (N) will be a number. Press the corresponding “F-key” to enter your computer’s BIOS setup.

Now, down to brass tacks – making a bootable USB drive. You’ll need to start out with a USB stick that has at least 4GB of space to accommodate the Windows installation media. If you can use a dedicated stick, better for you. You’ll need to wipe the stick’s contents, so if you can’t permanently commit your USB stick to the role of being bootable, you’ll have to transfer the data you have stored on it somewhere else temporarily. You’ll also need to use a computer that’s running Windows Vista or Windows 7 and have administrator privileges to make the bootable USB stick.

1. Attach your USB drive to the computer. Select Start > All programs >Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.
2. At the command prompt, type DISKPART. (Press enter)
3. Type LIST DISK. (Press Enter) The disk number of your USB drive will be displayed. Note this.
4. Type SELECT DISK #. (Replace # with the disk number of your USB drive, noted in Step 3.)
5. Type CLEAN (Press Enter)
6. Type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY (Press Enter)
7. Type SELECT PARTITION 1 (Press Enter)
8. Type ACTIVE (Press Enter)
9. Type ASSIGN (Press Enter)
10. Type DETAIL DISK (Press Enter).
11. Type EXIT (Press Enter)

Note the drive letter of your DVD drive and the drive letter of your USB stick.

12. Type FORMAT #:/fs:fat32/q (# is the assigned drive letter for your USB stick. Press Enter)
Approve the warning that appears regarding the information on the USB stick (Press Y, press Enter.)

13. Enter a label name for your USB drive and press Enter.
14. Put your Windows 7 DVD into your DVD drive
15. Type xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f #:\

This command string assumes that d:\ is your DVD drive. If your DVD drive has a different letter, substitute it for d:\. Also substitute the drive letter for your USB drive for the # in the command string above.
Once the copying is finished, you should have a bootable USB drive loaded with Windows 7 media.

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Windows 7 And Netbooks

“Net” In Netbook May Limit OS Options

The original purpose of a netbook was to provide a small, highly portable device that could be used for basic functions like connecting to a network, checking email, and browsing the Web. They were not (and are not) meant to take the place of a full-sized laptop computer. Several of my technician friends use these devices for network maintenance, inventory control and other limited-use tasks that require network access.

Netbooks are not known for their upgradeability and initially posed a problem for users who wanted to upgrade the OS of the netbook, since there was no CD/DVD drive from which to load a new OS. Upgrades to the netbook operating system were/are supposed to come via network download. For the original netbooks (which run/ran Windows XP) loading Windows 7 requires a fresh install – a pretty tall order when you have no drive from which to read the new OS media.

Enter the USB stick. Today, USB sticks are large enough in most cases to hold all upgrade media for an OS install on a netbook. To be fair, you can connect an external DVD drive to the netbook and load your OS media that way, but having to collect a bunch of external devices to make the netbook work properly defeats the original design intent for the netbook – a highly portable device that can be used for basic functions like connecting to a network, checking email and browsing the Web.

Either way, if you want to upgrade an older netbook to Windows 7, you’ll need to make sure your netbook has at least 1 GB RAM and at least 8GB of storage space on your hard disk. You’ll also need a USB drive with the Windows 7 media previously installed. If you need to make a bootable installation device, your USB stick will need to have at least 4GB of available space, and you’ll also need the services of another computer to help you prepare the USB drive for life as a media installer. In my next post, I’ll continue this discussion.

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Driver Detective Can Save Time

Driver Detective Takes The Work Out Of Driver Management

I was reading about the cost of printer ink not too long ago, and it seems that no one knows exactly how much ink a cartridge contains or how many pages it will print. In tracking down more information on printer ink cartridges, I ran across a couple of articles on how to find drivers for your printers once you’ve switched to Windows 7.

After reading the articles, my only thought was that the tips the author suggested were rather time-intensive. If a person has enough time to visit the manufacturer’s Web site, locate the correct driver, download it, install it and then verify that the printer operates correctly, it’s one thing. Most people I know don’t have time to do this, or worse, repeat this step for every hardware device attached to their computer. Even worse, this method will need to be repeated periodically to check for driver updates – a notorious consequence of OS patches.

Who has time for that? I know I don’t and I make my living working on computers. What about the people who simply use computers or have them in their homes? I’m a big fan of doing things once – the right way. It saves time, money and aggravation. In the case of locating new drivers for your computer, “doing something the right way” means finding a program that will locate drivers for you – preferably with a high degree of accuracy. Even better, it means finding a program that locates, downloads and installs the correct driver, knows when updates occur, automatically fetches all updates and knows when an installed driver has been damaged or deleted.

Driver Detective is the best of the driver management software programs I’ve found. Windows comes with a load of drivers and can even find new driver updates if it’s properly configured. Unfortunately, Windows sometimes makes mistakes and loads the wrong driver. Driver Detective, on the other hand, has a database of millions of drivers and can easily locate the correct driver for your exact hardware configuration.

In terms of saving time, there’s nothing that beats Driver Detective when it comes to driver management. Unless, of course, you like spending a lot of time looking for drivers…

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Windows 7 Handles Some Driver Problems, Not Others

XP Has No Direct Upgrade Path

If you’re running Windows XP or an earlier version of the operating system, there is no direct upgrade path to Windows 7. That means you’ll need to do a “clean installation.” That involves backing up your data and reinstalling your applications. While this might seem like a daunting task, it will give you the opportunity to evaluate all of the software in your current load. My advice? If you don’t need it, don’t reload it.

For your hardware, you’ll need to do a little research to determine whether your manufacturer has released and updated driver. If so, Windows 7 will often (but not always) install it for you. In itself, this is a time-saver. Dealing with old or missing drivers can be exceptionally time-consuming. Even with the right drivers, things don’t always go smoothly.

The installation process has a few hitches in it, most noticeably one that places the computer in an infinite mid-installation rebooting loop under certain circumstances. This isn’t the universal experience by any means. I upgraded my computer at home (running Vista) in just a few hours with no real issues. Getting the remaining drivers installed and configured, which would have taken an additional evening, was handled by Driver Detective.

I always recommend driver management software. Driver Detective, which has been downloaded and installed by more than a million users, locates, downloads and installs updated drivers for any computer system. After installing the correct drivers, Driver Detective watches over the computer’s drivers, ready to replace old, outdated, corrupted or missing drivers instantly without additional assistance from you.

Finding and installing drivers is among the least-rewarding tasks associated with computer maintenance. Driver updates often sneak up on you, following upgrades and patches. If you don’t have the time to search for updated drivers for your computer, I recommend that you consider letting Driver Detective do the heavy lifting for you.

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Resolve To Spend Less Time Handling Windows Driver Problems This Year

Driver Management Has Never Been Easier

As any technician – they’ll tell you that one area in which they spend a lot of (mostly unproductive time) is in the area of driver management for Windows computers. Whether they’re dealing with an update that “breaks” a previously working driver, or a driver gets corrupted or lost, dealing with drivers can be an unpleasant task.

Finding the right driver is just one leg of the journey for a PC technician. Sometimes manufacturers make a number of different versions of a driver, so knowing what you need is the first place to start. Simply finding the right driver doesn’t always get you out of the woods. Installing a new driver can break another driver. You can also find out that what you thought was the right driver isn’t the right one at all. Sometimes new drivers have bugs in them that prevent them from working properly and occasionally, even though a driver is the right one and is installed and working properly, it becomes corrupted, gets uninstalled or accidentally deleted.

All of these things add up to hardware problems. Unfortunately, the driver isn’t always the first suspect. Technicians can spend hours diagnosing and correcting a driver problem. It can get worse when a user tries to do his own diagnosis and repair and ends up creating more problems or making the existing problem worse.

What’s the solution? For me, I always recommend using a driver management software package like Driver Detective. Driver Detective is designed to identify and download the drivers needed for the system it monitors. Anytime a driver stops working, is updated or gets corrupted, Driver Detective steps in to remove the old driver or replace it with a fresh, working copy of the correct driver.

Driver Detective can search through millions of known drivers to find the exact one your system needs. Once the new driver is installed, Driver Detective continues to work, monitoring the operation of your driver. Should anything happen to the driver that affects its performance, Driver Detective has you covered, automatically!

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Drivers For Your New Computer

Configure Your Computer Now

Especially if your new computer came with Windows 7 installed, you’ll notice that you’ll receive a bevy of updates and patches over the coming months. In addition to patches designed to keep the operating system working safely, many manufacturers will be updating Windows drivers for the hardware they support, and that may be installed on your computer, or attached by you at a later date.

Because many manufacturers are just bringing their updated Windows 7 drivers to market, you may find that the older piece of hardware you really want to keep requires an updated driver to work. If the driver for your hardware wasn’t submitted to Microsoft, Windows may not be aware of it. Check the manufacturer’s Web site for the latest information on the drivers your hardware requires.

In addition to providing information about hardware the manufacturer will support, many manufacturers are identifying older hardware models that they will not support, or whose support will be limited. It’s a good idea to keep yourself up-to-date on the status of support for older hardware. This may save you some anguish in the future and help you avoid an unpleasant surprise. It may also prompt you to start looking for replacement hardware, should it come to that.

One good maintenance habit to get into when it comes to your hardware drivers is to set yourself up with a good driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective has been downloaded millions of times and can track literally millions of drivers for updates. Driver Detective can be invaluable when it comes to managing your drivers. Not only does Driver Detective identify your drivers, it locates them, installs them and monitors them for updates and for proper operation.

If one of your drivers fails, becomes corrupted or requires an update, Driver Detective will locate the correct driver and install it on your computer as soon as the driver is available. You no longer have to check the manufacturer’s Web site for each piece of hardware you own. Driver Detective also keeps a backup of your drivers in case your installed driver becomes damaged or gets deleted accidentally. Ultimately, that means no more wasted time struggling with drivers that don’t work and more productive computer time for you!

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Stop Looking For Windows Drivers

Some devices made by a company may share a driver. Printers are good examples of that. A printer company may have multiple printers that use the same version or similar versions of a driver. On the other hand, even minor differences among the features of similar devices can require a new driver.

The Hunt For Windows Drivers,/h3>
Windows has been on the market for a long time, and to date, there are literally millions of device drivers out there. Some devices are no longer supported by a manufacturer. When a manufacturer cancels support for a device, it means they will no longer write a driver or keep its driver updated. This can put the user in a bad position because one change or update to the operating system could render your device useless.

This can be frustrating to users because it sometimes requires them to replace hardware that is mechanically sound but no longer has a working software driver. Without the driver, the device may be as useless as it would be if you dropped it down a flight of stairs.

Finding drivers can be difficult, too. Each OS upgrade may require you to visit the support sites for each piece of hardware attached to your computer, download a new driver and install it. Occasionally, installing one driver will interfere with another driver, and your computer (over time) can accumulate quite the collection of outdated drivers.

That’s why I recommend that users install a driver management program like Driver Detective. Driver Detective does all of the heavy lifting for you. It identifies the exact drivers your computer needs, downloads them, installs them and monitors them for you. Should anything happen to one of your drivers, or should it be updated by the manufacturer, you’ll always have the latest drivers along with a backup copy on your computer. Driver Detective takes the work out of managing updates for your computer hardware, and having the correct, updated drivers installed on your computer can mean less downtime for you!

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