Microsoft

Yes, it is Storm Codec again! I love this super codec pack mainly because of it's absolutely free and clean! Just have the Storm Codec installed, it peace my mind to have Windows Media Player to play almost all movie and music files!

Since then, I've forgotten the hassle of installing too many different multi-media players for different media file formats! The official site has released the latest Storm Codec 2007 Perfect Edition (version 7.02.

01) together with a confident call that say "Storm Codec will compensate you in Ren Min Bi if you're not satisfy with Storm Codec 2007!" Forgive that Google Language translator, but I suppose you still able to find the line that read ! If you can't read the translated page properly, here are the main points outlined in the download page: 1) Since its first appearance 4 years ago, 80 million copies of Storm Codec has been downloaded.

2) After 100 days of intensive development and over 50 major fixes, Storm Codec 2007 is deemed as a perfect full-function codec pack that confirm to work on most, if not all, Windows operating system, including Windows Vista! 3) In addition of 79 new media formats support in year 2006, Storm Codec 2007 Perfect edition supports a total of 189 media file formats. So Storm Codec 2007 is ideally to play almost all of the movie and music file formats that you've in your hard disk!

4) Storm Codec 2007 is crash-free, low CPU utilization, multi-channel tuning, subtitle support, screen-capture (via GNU-ware Media Player Classic), easy installation and setup, constantly adding support to new media file formats, etc! When the Storm Codec 2007 installation complete, you will see a green windows pop up with unreadable characters display (due to Chinese characters encoding problem), you can safely click the X button to close it. Clicking OK button will proceed to install another freeware used to watch movie and TV hosted in China mainland.

This additional program bundled with Storm Codec 2007 should be a good freeware too, but unfortunately I can't get the Chinese characters display properly in English version of Windows XP Pro. I guess that by installing Chinese Star or NJ Star could solve the problem. But, would it be nice to have a English version?

Windows XP performance has higher priority than its visual appearance. After all, Windows XP visual effects are not worth to mention at all, if compare to Windows Vista 3D Flip or Windows Aero look-through effects! In addition, all these Windows visual effects are costly for system resources.

After fine-tuning and regular maintenance, I am satisfy with my Windows XP Professional performance on 1GHz Intel Celeron processor and 512MB of SDRAM! Display Properties dialog box

• Right-click on the desktop, select Properties, click on Themes tab, select to use Windows Classic theme.
• Click on Desktop tab, select (None) to use plain Desktop.

• Click on Screen Saver tab, select (None) to disable screen saver.
• Click on Power button, click on Hibernate tab, untick Enable Hibernation check box to disable hibernation. This option has no meaning when run Windows XP on a Desktop computer.

• Click on Appearance tab, select Windows Classic Style in Windows and Buttons drop box, select Windows Standard in Color Scheme drop box.
• Click on Hardware tab, follow the guide of to remove all unused device drivers from Windows XP.
• Click on Advanced tab, click the Setting button in Performance section, then
• Click on Visual Effects tab, click on Custom option button, untick all the check boxes found in Performance Options dialog box.

• Click on Advanced tab of the Performance Options dialog box. Set both Processor Scheduling and Memory Usage to be best adjusted for programs performance. Obviously, these options should be turned to Background Services and System Cache respectively, when running Windows XP as a server.

• Click on the Change button in Virtual Memory section, select the C: drive, click the Custom Size option, and set both Initial Size and Maximum Size to 768. This is essentially fix the size of XP page file to 1.5 times of physical memory installed.

  For optimum performance, always set the XP page file (virtual memory) to reside on non Windows XP hard disk.

• Every files, icons, shortcuts, etc that found in the Desktop are taking up system resources. So, my Windows XP Desktop contains only My Computer and Recycled Bin!

• Every round of Windows Update completed, there are hidden backup files (file name initial with KB) left inside the Windows directory. These files not only taking up much of the hard disk space, but are also slowing down overall XP performance.
• Refer to the guide of and find out which XP services can be safely turned off, in order to save system memory and processor power.

  I only need to download either Vista Codec Pack or Storm Codec to play most (if not all) movie and music file formats. Best of all, both codec packs are absolutely clean, freeware, and yet support MMS/RTSP video streaming protocol! I have been using Storm Codec for more than a years, and I am satisfy with its performance and reliability.

  So, I thought you should also stop installing too many media players that will make Windows XP heavier in size and slow down XP performance!

  Forget about RealPlayer v10, Quicktime, Winamp, etc. Actually, all you need are various codecs that decode the movie/music formats, plus a Windows Media Players that bundled with your Windows XP, to get your movies and musics played.

  The 29MB heavy weight installer allows you to install/uninstall all or selected codecs, no file type association, and no media player. After installing Vista Codec Pack, launch Windows Media Player to open and directly playback RMVB, MOV, MPG4, 3GP, etc movie files. Next, the , or known as , is another clean freeware codec pack.

  Storm Codec comes with the Media Player Classic, Google Toolbar, and various codecs to play most of the well known movie and music formats! Latest version 7.01.

  19 upgrade RealMedia Codec to 10.5, Adobe Flash Player 9.0r29, RealMedia Splitter 1.

  0.0.1, etc.

  Storm Codec is lighter than Vista Codec Pack, which is about 24MB in size. When playback movie with Media Player Classic, you can pause the playback and take a movie screen-shot using the Save Image or Save Thumbnail option in File menu. So, you don't have to install SnagIt screen-capture utility just to capture the movie screen, if the normal print screen doesn't works!

  I always prefer a clean Windows installation rather than performing Windows OS upgrade. But, that will change after reading an article, which mentions about how does Windows Vista upgrade different from Windows XP upgrade. Next, the Windows XP will be totally removed from the hard disk, leaves only application, data files, and setting information.

  Then, Windows Vista will be installed to the hard disk and automatically configure itself according to the Windows XP setting (that's backup to disk before XP removal), as if it is a fresh Windows Vista installation!

  The same upgrade mechanism will be applied, when you upgrade from one Windows Vista edition to another. This upgrade mechanism is built on top of a concept known as component manifests, which is essentially a XML-based setting file used by the new Windows Installer to migrate data setting information.

  Related information:
  • Be prepare before proceed to upgrade Windows XP to Windows Vista
    1. It is always necessary to perform data backup before system upgrade, especially performing Windows OS upgrade. It's better safe than sorry, to safeguard valuable data from vanished.
    2. Take chance to housekeep unwanted archive and application, empty Internet Explorer cache, deleting temporarily files, etc.

    3. Uninstall anti-virus application, as anti-virus software will likely prevent Windows upgrade and XP removal.
  • When the Windows Vista installation screen shows up, you're prompt to select Check Compatibility Online or Install Now option. Click on the Check Compatibility Online option will bring you Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor 1.

    0, which will analyze the Windows XP installation, list out any components that are not compatible in Windows Vista, and suggests the . You should know that not all Windows OS are allowed to upgrade to Windows Vista.

    There are no Windows Vista upgrade for Windows 2000 or Windows XP 64 bit edition!

    If there is no Windows Vista upgrade option for your Windows OS, you have to backup your data, reformat the hard disk, and perform fresh Windows Vista installation! So, you've to find out what Windows XP edition you're running, and what Windows Vista editions are available to your XP edition:
  • Windows XP Home allows to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, or Windows Vista Ultimate.
  Related information:
  • You need a DVD-ROM drive to install Windows Vista.

    The Windows Vista DVD-ROM contains all the Windows Vista editions, but you're only eligible to install Windows Vista edition based on the serial number you've purchased. The advantage is that, you could use the same Windows Vista installation media to upgrade to any one of the Windows Vista editions, after buying the respective serial number from online store. Having say that, you don't have to manually change the time zone setting or access just to query local time.

    1. Double-click the time display (or right-click and select Adjust Date/Time menu option) at bottom-right hand corner,
    2. Click on Additional Clock tab,
    3. Tick the Display This Clock check-box, select the expected time zone, give new time zone display with a meaningful name, and click OK.
    4. Now, suppose you mouse point to and rest at the time display (the bottom-right corner of taskbar), Windows Vista will displaying additional time zone that you've just setup. I have lost track of information on Enigma Max Pro.

       It comes to my attention when I housekeep my archive folder. Enigma Max Pro is a tiny, standalone file encryption utility that is said 100% secure than other similar program. This is because Enigma uses every bytes of a "key file" to encrypt the target file.

       Having say that, the reliability of the encryption should be stronger if the key file is big enough, and keep the key file secretly and securely to yourself.

       CAUTION!

       1. Please make a backup copy of the target file before using Enigma to perform encryption or decryption.

          This is very important, as to prevent the target file becomes corrupted.

       2. If you lost the key file, you will not able to decrypt the Enigma-encrypted file. The key file could be any file, but it must not be an empty file or is smaller size than the target file.

          Ideally, you should use a binary file (non ASCII file), such as JPEG, WAV, MP3, EXE, etc.

       3. Click on the right-most button, only ONCE, to start the encryption/decryption process.

       Note, the encryption/decryption process could be very fast, if the target file is small enough.

       There is no indication that the process has completed. So, if you try to press the start button (right-most icon) again, the target file will be decrypted, as if nothing has been done. Enigma doesn't provide a different button for encryption/decryption process.

       In order Enigma to automatically decide encryption/decryption process, I believe the program has added extra data bytes as its indication during encryption process.

       1. Enigma will proceed to perform encryption/decryption even there is no key file provided. If this happen, Enigma encrypt the target file with random bytes, and ends up with an unrecoverable target file.

       2. If the key file is an empty ASCII file, Enigma will also randomly encrypt the target file, and ends up the target file becomes unrecoverable. So, I guess that Enigma encrypt/decrypt the target file with the key file on byte-map-to-byte basis in a sequential model. By the end of Jan 2007, Microsoft Corp will fully roll out Windows Vista to reach all home users.

          Windows Vista, Microsoft corp new flagship Windows operating system, has been operating in the corporate world since its debut at the end of November last year. Soon after that, appears in the Net that tracks all the Vista patches released in Microsoft Download Center.

          Before you proceed to Vista upgrade plan, you may want to read a checklist, that helps you to evaluate or justify the Window Vista migration plan.

          As a rule of thumb, it's better that your hardware specs is 50% above the Vista minimum hardware requirement.

          A Vista Capable workstation is only capable to run Windows Vista without cool visual effects such as Windows Aero. On the other hand, Vista Premium Ready workstation is capable to support all of the Windows Vista features and visual effects.

       3. Among the of Windows Vista available in the market, choose the right Vista edition that match your computing needs and budget. If you don't want to miss out any single Vista features, Vista Ultimate is the answer. Vista Ultimate version comprises all the features that declared in Windows Vista, and it is the most expensive edition among the rest.

          Second to follow is Vista Enterprise, which offers BitLocker Drive encryption and Unix subsystem support. Anyway, Vista Enterprise may not available to home users due to licensing issues. If you don't want to pay the price of Vista Ultimate, BitLocker or Unix subsystem support of Vista Enterprise, then Vista Home Premium should be the first choice to most home users who want to experience Windows Aero glass alike visual effects, Windows Flip 3-D, etc.

       4. Are your favourite legacy applications fully compatible with Windows Vista? Some of the application developed before Windows Vista may not running properly with the Windows Vista Users Access Control security feature. Although, You may able to run a Windows XP as guest OS in Vista, either with Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Server, in order to experience Windows Vista and running non-Vista compatible applications in virtual machine.

          One day, the development team comes to you, ask for a request of program update on all workstations, as soon as possible after they have fixed a critical bug found earlier. To save your life, you may want to automate the program update exercise, instead of remote access or physically access to each workstations. To automate the task, you may applying WMI with VB Scripts.

          For example, this block of VB Scripts coding is used to terminate all calc.exe progam instances that are running on local PC. This is useful, as a program must be stopped from executing ,before you could overwrite the program file.

          But, not everyone remember or actually bother to know that, Microsoft Word has built-in calendar making function. Although not a sophisticated one, but it is more than enough to serve the purpose of making hard/soft-copy 2007 calendar.

          1. Open Microsoft Word XP, click on File menu and then New.

             ..

          2. On the right sidebar, click on General Template.

             ..

          3. Click on Other Documents tab, and select Calendar Wizard.

          4. The rest of the steps with Calendar Wizard are quite straightforward. After completing your 2007 calendar template, you could either print it for hard-copy or touch up with your favourite photos, quotes, or colors. What?

             Windows Vista Service Pack 1 released before Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) starts to sell Windows Vista to home users? Huh! This is not an official Windows Vista Service Pack 1 from Microsoft Corp, but is meant to centralize all official Windows Vista Hotfix that cover Windows Vista security and upgrade.

             There are no binary hosted on Fiji site, but merely links that are pointing back to each of the Windows Vista official Hotfix at Microsoft official download site.

             For security reason, I think it is better and much convenient by visiting to Microsoft Windows Vista Hotfix download site, or running (if you're running genuine software) to update Windows Vista Hotfix automatically.

             I think, there will be more people visit to Fiji if it's offering Windows Vista crack tools that able to turn a pirated Vista to become a genuine copy of Vista :-) For those who want to experience Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Vista, now you could do so by visiting to a Windows Vista virtual machine that hosted online to run directly on Internet Explorer.

             The Windows Vista IE version, called , is developed by Microsoft Virtual Labs. Clicking on the Refer A Friend "button", a template email written as such

             Hello, I thought you might like to try Windows Vista Business for yourself! The Windows Vista Business test-drive allows you to try (or "test-drive") the latest operating system from Microsoft without having to install it on your PC.

             By simply logging onto our test-drive environment using your web-browser, you will be able to experience Windows Vista first-hand.

             This is believed first-of-its-kind service that Microsoft Corp offers to attract more potential Vista buyers.

             Like it or not.

             If business folks and general users switching to Vista, you should also grab 1 or 2 shares of Microsoft Corp, and waiting to bear fruits! Also, hopefully Bill Gates will donate more to help the needful communities!

             You may not able to test out all Windows Vista features with this Vista VM, but at least it lets you to learn more Windows Vista features than nothing.

             The site is upgraded now, and should be brought to online soon. Get ready your PC or laptop, that should running at least Internet Explorer 6 installed with Virtual Server VRMC plug-ins and Javascripts enabled, to test it out later. Do you know which edition suit your budget or work best for your requirement?

             These brief notes might help you to easily find out the most suitable Windows Vista edition, As its name imply, Windows Vista Ultimate is the best of all Windows Vista editions, as it completed with all Windows Vista features introduced by Microsoft. Don't get it wrong, Windows Vista Enterprise edition is not for running as Windows server operating system such as Windows 2003.

             Microsoft declares Longhorn as its new flagship Windows server operating system, that is built with Windows Vista core and functionality.

             Two main features found on Windows Vista Enterprise edition are BitLocker drive encryption and Unix subsystem support. This edition has similar features of Windows Vista Home Basic edition, except built with additional features to use as business workstation, such as Remote Desktop, ability to join domain, etc. This is the highest end of Windows Vista home edition, that is specifically designed for home users!

             Of course, it is lower end, as compare to Windows Vista Ultimate edition. Many of the attractive visual effects and functionality found in Windows Vista Home Premium edition are not attached with this edition, except of running with Windows Vista core, which is claimed (by Microsoft) safer, securer and more robust than Windows XP! Most of the desktop or laptop, such as those from Dell Inc (NASDAQ:DELL), are preloaded with Windows Vista Home Basic edition.

             This is a quite insulting edition, as Microsoft Corp claimed that, this edition is only available in non-developed or third-world countries! Although it is running on Vista core, most of the features that even available in Windows Vista Home Basic, are not available in this edition! It is not cheap to experience Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) next generation operating system, in term of both software and hardware costs.

             If your PC or laptop has just upgraded or bought last year, you might still able to run Windows Vista by tweaking Windows Vista settings, without squeezing more dollars out from pocket. By applying these Windows Vista tweaking guides, you will not able to experience all of the Windows Vista features, which most of them are related to Windows Vista fancy visual effects. However, main point is that you are able to experience Windows Vista improved functionality and securities as claimed by Microsoft, without having to put more dollars on hardware upgrade.

             Die-hard gamers have no choice to upgrade computer, at least half time higher than Vista recommended specification, in order to achieve satisfactory performance!

             • Windows Vista Sidebar (that make Windows Vista looks as pretty as Mac OS) provides instant access to gadgets.

               Gadgets are classified as a wide variety of customizable mini-applications, that offer information at a glance and provide easy access to frequently used tools.

               However, Windows Vista Sidebar is one of the top resource sucker! If your computer is lacking of CPU processing power or free memory, you have no choice to disable it, and replace with the old fashion Windows shortcuts! Windows Vista will auto disable Windows Aero if the computer system doesn't meet Vista recommended specification.

               Although, you may specifically turn off Windows Aero, in case your computer is just having the minimum Vista recommended specification.

             • Screen saver, desktop wallpaper, and Windows default sound scheme can be disabled to compare Windows Vista system performance, if your computer is not running with higher than Vista recommended specification! These tricks are applied since Windows 2000 to Windows XP, which are proved to improve overall Windows performance.

             • Similar in Windows XP, you may have to stick with Windows Classic theme instead of applying Windows Vista theme. This trick will essentially disable most of the Windows Vista related visual effects that are potentially sucking much of the system resources, such as CPU processing power and free memory.