Here’s a video overview I recorded showing the various improvements and comparing it to my current favorite browser, Google Chrome.

Be sure to watch the video in HD, full screen.

That’s a screenshot from my favorite free tool for testing hard disk performance–HD Tune (there’s a pro version you can buy, too). That’s from my Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1.5 TB SATA drive backup drive.

The Blue Line–Transfer Rate

First, the blue line is the transfer rate. That’s the speed which the hard disk sends data to the computer when a big file is lined up nicely–defragmented, in other words. Notice that the line starts high (at 126 MB/sec) and drops (to about 57 MB/sec). That’s because the test moves from the outside of the drive to the inside. Disk drives are round, like a record, and so the outside spins faster (in inches/sec) from the inside.

Windows starts storing data on the outside of your disk, and works its way towards the center. That way, your files will be as fast as possible. The fact that the performance drops by 65% from the outside to the inside of the disk helps illustrate that disk performance is WAY better for files stored on the outside of the disk. It also shows one big reason why, as your disk fills up, it also slows down.

The Yellow Dots–Access Time

The yellow dots show random access time. That’s the time it takes for the disk to jump from one part of the drive to the next. In other words, that’s how long it takes to jump from the end of one file to the beginning of the next, or to jump between two segments of a fragmented file. The average access time for this disk is 13.5 ms–but lower would be better.

USB Flash Drive Performance

The previous graph shows typical performance from a hard disk, but USB flash drives behave very differently. They don’t have spinning platters–data is read by sending electrical signals. If you think they’ll be faster, you’re right. If you think they’ll be slower, you’re right.

As you can see, the transfer rate is WAY slower. My Seagate had an average transfer rate of 100 MB/sec, but my USB flash drive was at 16 MB/sec–about 6X slower. The access time is 0.8 ms, though–about 17X faster. So, USB flash drives are faster at random access and slower at sequential reads.

ReadyBoost uses this to improve the performance of Windows by caching files from the hard disk to a flash drive. If it would be faster to read it from the flash drive (like, if it’s a small segment of data that would need to be randomly accessed), it reads it from the flash drive. Otherwise, it takes advantage of the hard disks high sequential read performance.

Many new mobile computers ship with flash drives instead of conventional disk drives. In some ways, performance is better, and in other ways, performance is worse. The transfer rates of flash drives will increase over time, however, and Windows 7 includes some major improvements that speed up flash drives.

How to Get the Best Performance

I do a great deal of photo and video editing with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II–that’s 21 megapixel pictures and 1080P video–and a really fast disk makes things much more efficient. When I bought a new computer, I set it up with a very fast disk subsystem. Not the fastest in the world, mind, you, but a good bang for the buck. I chose two EXPENSIVE 15,000 RPM disks and put them in a RAID 0 array, which reads and writes to both disks at the same time. Here’s the performance I got:

Overall, that’s about twice as fast as my 1.5 TB drive (though I might have expected better…)

On Laptop Performance

So far, I’ve been discussing the disk performance of my desktop computer (a Dell Precision T3400). The main reason I bought a desktop was to get better disk performance–laptops tend to be really bad, owing to the use of small disks. Remember my lecture about how disks perform best at the outside edge of the platter? Well, smaller disks have smaller outside edges, so performance drops. Laptop disks also tend to be optimized to reduce power usage, so they spin at a slower RPM. Here’s the disk that shipped with my Dell D820:

Abysmal, right? The average transfer rate is 3X slower than the cheap Seagate drive I began this discussion with. All hope is not lost, however. It’s not too hard to upgrade a laptop hard disk–just backup to an external disk, swap drives, and then do restore to the new disk. I upgraded to a newer, faster, 500GB drive and got this performance:

The new disk doubled the average transfer rate (though the access time actually dropped a bit). It sped up the computer noticeably. So, if our laptop seems slow, upgrading the disk might be the right choice.

Got a fast or slow disk? Need some advice about hard disk performance? Tell me about it in the comments.

The video above and the article below compare two free virtual machine applications designed for home users: Microsoft Virtual PC and Sun VirtualBox.

What is a Virtual Machine (VM)?

A virtual machine (VM) is a computer that runs inside a window on your host computer. VMs are also great for testing–you can test different operating systems, applications, and configurations without messing up your computer. For example, you could run Windows in a VM on a Linux or Macintosh computer, allowing you to run Windows-only applications. Or, you could test out Linux in a VM on your Windows box without committing to it.

In fact, even if you install spyware, adware, or rootkits in a VM, they won’t infect your host computer. Just shut down the VM, and your computer is as clean as ever. VMs are also a great tool for learning networking, allowing you to connect several different computers when you only have one computer available.

After the jump, my recommendations for home users who want to use VMs:

Microsoft Virtual PC

Virtual PC is the right choice for people who just need to test downloads or browse the Web with total privacy. It’s free with Windows 7–in fact, Microsoft even includes a license for Windows XP to allow you to run any old applications that aren’t compatible with Windows 7. It’s polished, fast, reliable, and (like VirtualBox) it can share USB devices and network connections.

It also has a couple of unique features: It can log you on automatically to a Windows VM, it’s integrated into the Windows 7 Explorer interface, and it supports the AERO interface in Windows 7. It’s biggest downfall? It can’t run Windows Server 2008 R2, because it doesn’t support 64-bit VMs. Your host computer can run 64-bit versions of Windows, however.

Sun VirtualBox

This is my favorite free virtualization software because it does several things Microsoft Virtual PC can’t do. First, it can run 64-bit VMs. That’s important, because Windows Server 2008 R2 is only available in 64-bit. Second, it supports multiple processors on the VM, which can improve performance.

Third, and most importantly, VirtualBox supports snapshots. With a snapshot, you capture the state of a VM. Later, if you mess up the VM, you can return it to the snapshot state–like instantly restoring a computer from a backup. With a snapshot, you never have to worry about messing up a VM. Snapshots are great when you need to test something repeatedly and you want the computer to be in a “clean” state when you do it.

Feature Comparison

Both apps support the following features:

• Run on 32-bit or 64-bit hosts.
• Install integration software on the VM so that you can move your mouse in and out of the window–though this must be done after the operating system is installed.
• Supports a variety of different operating systems on the VM, including different versions of Windows and Linux.
• Connect USB devices to the VM–though this isn’t working in VirtualBox on a Windows 7 host for me–I get an error when it attempts to install the driver.
• Automatically change the VM by resizing the VM window (this requires you to press a key in VirtualBox, but not in Virtual PC).

Microsoft Virtual PC has these unique features:

• Supports Aero in Windows 7. This is the pretty, glass-like user interface, along with Aero-features like 3D-flip. To get Aero in VirtualBox, you need to connect to the VM using Remote Desktop.
• Automatic login for Windows VMs. This saves you having to type Ctrl+Alt+Del and your password.
• USB device sharing works properly with Windows 7. VirtualBox offers this feature, but it’s not working for all USB devices–for me, at least.
• Integrated into Windows Explorer. VMs appear as files in a folder. Actually, I hate this feature–I’d prefer starting VMs from within an application.

Sun VirtualBox has these unique feature:

• Runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac hosts. I’m a Windows guy myself, but I suppose if you’re using Linux or Mac, you’ll need this so you can run all those Windows apps in a VM. Ouch! No hatin’!
• Run 64-bit VMs. This allows you to run Windows Server 2008 R2, which isn’t available as 32-bit.
• Seamless mode. Applications in the VM act as standard Windows on your desktop. In other words, you can start an application in the VM, and move it anywhere on your desktop, even outside of the VM window. In the figure below, notice that I’m running Internet Explorer in Windows 7 on the lower window, and Internet Explorer in Windows XP on the upper window.

• Remote display. You can use Remote Desktop (or any RDP client) to connect to a VirtualBox VM, even if the VM’s operating system doesn’t support it or the OS hasn’t yet been installed.
• 3D and 2D video acceleration. This might allow you to do some 3D work, though performance still won’t be great on games.
• Multiple processors. VirtualBox supports up to 8 CPUs in your VM–as long as your host has that many.

The Winner

VirtualBox is the clear winner–though I still need to use Virtual PC for those times when I need to share a USB device with a VM. I’ll also use Virtual PC for those times when I need the Aero user interface but Remote Desktop won’t do the trick.

Other Free Virtualization Software

I should also mention two other free virtualization products, even though they’re intended for businesses:

• VMWare Server. It’s free, and it works, but it’s a pain to setup and run compared to VirtualBox or Virtual PC. What you really want for home environments is the far more useful VMWare Workstation–but you have to buy that at $189.
• Microsoft Hyper-V.  It’s also free, but it’s intended for IT, so you’re going to have to read the instructions to use it. I say BOO to reading! Also, you can’t run it as an application on your existing computer.

Any of us who need to change the shape of an object or correct a lens’ chromatic aberrations will appreciate the new warping capabilities. Simply specify points on an image that can and cant move, and CS5 will allow you to move objects around while maintaining their shape. The demo below shows repositioning a referee’s arms into different calls. I just wonder how it would work with a real background instead of solid white–certainly it would require more work.

The demo also shows how to warp a picture to correct distortion at the edges of a wide-angle lens.

Hi Tony,

Is there a Windows Vista version of Windows Messenger (SIP Communication)? What version (minimum) of Windows Messenger will run on Windows Vista?

The Windows Vista Business version does not have a Media Center. Can this be added on to it? How?

Ilook forward to a response from you.

Thank you.

Answer:

To answer your first question, you can’t run any version of the standard “Windows Messenger” on Windows Vista, even the latest version (5.1). Instead, you need to use Windows Live Messenger. Windows Live Messenger does support both video and voice calls, including calls directly to landline phones. Hopefully, that meets your needs for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Oddly, I can’t find any documentation showing which protocol Windows Live Call uses, so I’m not sure if it’s SIP. Additionally, it’s not really configurable, so if you’re trying to use it within an enterprise, you might be out of luck. If I’m not answering your question, feel free to elaborate.

To answer your second question about running Media Center on Windows Vista Business, you would need to upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate.

Sometimes, an application gives you a generic error that a file or setting is missing or unavailable, but doesn’t give you enough information to identify exactly what it’s trying to open. With this free download from Microsoft, Process Monitor, you can monitor all activity on your computer, including the exact registry keys and files being accessed, and whether or not each access attempt was successful.

Process Monitor replaces FileMon and RegMon (tools made by the SysInternals guys, who are now part of Microsoft) by duplicating the functionality of each. To use it, follow these steps:

1. Download Process Monitor and extract the .ZIP file to a folder.

2. Double-click the ProcMon.exe file to run it. It doesn’t add a shortcut to the Start menu, but you can manually add one.

3. Run the application that’s having a problem, and duplicate the error.

4. Return to Process Monitor. Click the File menu, and then clear the Capture Events check box.

5. Browse the list of events. Right-click any entry with your process name, click Include, and then click Process Name. Now, you can easily see the events that your application created.

6. Look for events with a result other than SUCCESS. To hide the success events, right-click any successful event, click Exclude, and then click Result. Process Monitor shows just those events that had problems.

7. Once you determine the registry key or file that can’t be accessed, replace it (you might copy it from another computer) or, if it’s a security problem, change the permissions so that your application can access it.

If you continue to have problems, you might have more than one unavailable resource. Just repeat these steps to solve the additional problems.

Live Messenger 8.1 is finally out of beta. Hopefully, it won’t crash as often. Don’t forget to close Messenger and Outlook first (it’ll warn you if you don’t), and disable all those unnecessary components!

Interestingly, setup didn’t require a UAC prompt until half-way through setup…

Tip of the hat to Steve Clayton for cluing me in–not sure why Messenger didn’t notify me of the update automatically.

My server has been randomly freezing ever since I upgraded the memory. So, I wanted to run a memory test. For some reason, my bootable copy of Memtest x86+ wasn’t working… probably because it’s scratched from the awful way I stored it.

Anyway, off I went to burn a new bootable ISO. Vista can burn DVDs, but I don’t know of any way to burn a bootable DVD. Of course, the tool I normally use–Roxio (it was on my Dell when I bought it, with Windows XP)–wouldn’t work in Vista. So, I was off to find a new tool to burn bootable CD/DVD images.

I found three free tools that work with Vista:

• DeepBurner. The free version works great. This is the one I ended up using.
• ImgBurn. Another free tool reported to work.
• Magic ISO Maker. A more robust tool for coverting, editing, and burning CD/DVD image files.

If you prefer a different tool, add a comment to let us know why.

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and especially Windows Vista have greatly improved scripting. Now, you can do almost anything from the command-line or a script. Windows PowerShell takes those capabilities to the next level. If you’re in IT, I highly recommend reading up on it–you’ll save yourself time in the long run. If you have development or scripting experience, it’ll be that much easier to learn. If you don’t, it’s still very much worth your time.

Download the 32-bit version here, and the 64-bit version here. Also, check out the Windows PowerShell blog.

This isn’t the usual batch of security updates–these improve reliability when transitioning between power states (if you use HD audio, like me–whew), application compatibility (I couldn’t get to the KB article, so I have no more specific information), and some other more minor improvements.

Also, two Ultimate Extras are available for those of us who ponied up for Windows Vista Ultimate Edition:

• Hold Em Poker Game. Haven’t played it, I’m not much of a poker guy.
• BitLocker and EFS Enhancements. BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool (which partitions your drive for BitLocker, making these instructions obsolete), and Secure Online Key Backup, which stores your BitLocker and EFS keys on a Microsoft server in case you lose them. Losing encryption keys means you can’t access your files, so it’s nice that MS is offering to keep a copy for us. In business environments, you can do this internally with the Active Directory.

Still, you probably need it. Information Week points us to several vendors who are offering free trials of antivirus software: