Computer maintenence

L

Luto

Hi All,

Since I am a new trader and not much to offer in that realm, I thought I would offer some expert advice on something I do know. After 9 years at MSFT as software tester lead and manger here is what I do. Of course this just my opinion :cool:

1) Every 6-9 months completely reformat your disk and rebuild your machine's OS amd apps from scratch.

2) Try not to install any application that is not clearly professionly created by a major company.

3) Use Windows Update.

4) Run MSConfig and remove all unnecessary startup items.

Here are the reasons. When application are developed and tested, SETUP is one of the lowest priority. Uninstall is even worse. It is very common for a lacky app to install and then uninstall improperly. I could go on about MTTF (mean time to failure) butsuffice it to say your machines are mission critical so some maintenace is important.

Just some annecdotal data. On my new Dell 8300 out of the box, boot time was 48 seconds and HD usage at 13 GB after removing everthing except Windows and Office. After reinstalling OS from the disk and installing Office: Boot time 26 seconds and 2.3 GB usage.

Hope this helps. Escape the bloat ware!

Cheers,
Luto

BTW: I don't use any virus software and have never had one. In fact in my time since my IBM AT, I have only seen about a dozen. Becarful of buying into the "fear". You don't go and lick the handles and knobs on a public bus because you know better. Likewise you don't open any .exe, .bat, .src that comes along willy nilly.
 
its insane waste of time to perform a perfunctory reformat every 9 months ..

the rest of your advice is so blatanly obvious ..

tell us something "insider"

(and useful)
:-/
 
LongShot,

By all means don't bother if you don't want to. But if you have a regular back routine, it wont take much time. I have refurbished the software on about 20 machine for people who were about to buy new machines because of performance. This fixed it.

Most people don't realize how much bit rot occurs. I just consider it like changing the oil in a car. Of course, it is a pretty simple routine for myself.

Cheers
 
Quote from Luto:

LongShot,

By all means don't bother if you don't want to. But if you have a regular back routine, it wont take much time. I have refurbished the software on about 20 machine for people who were about to buy new machines because of performance. This fixed it.

Most people don't realize how much bit rot occurs. I just consider it like changing the oil in a car. Of course, it is a pretty simple routine for myself.

Cheers
More...

what is "bit rot"? is there a factual basis for this process?
 
Bit rot is what we would call the gradual corruption of the a shared DLL, the registry hive or the actual coruption of a binary.

The reason I suggest caution is simple that all the software I have seen for trading is not that robust. I consider WORD robust, but of course over 70% of the code is error handling and correction.

BTW did the required upgrade in the JAVA API of an IB user make anyone more comfortable with it? I had 2 video memory corruptions after installing the new API and rebooting. That type of stuff does not make me personally that confident. IT seems to be working okay now but I am alert. Would hate to have it malfunction during a trade.

Cheers
 
any good way to auto tune the registry since I want it to slim down but I don't want to touch it :D
edit: the way I heard it even a msft secretary is a millionaire, is is true or just urban legend.
 
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