Among my friends, I’m pretty much infamous for not upgrading my operating system. It’s not that I don’t patch like I ought to, because I do. It’s that I don’t change the core system unless I’m forced to. While the original change from DOS 6.1 to Win’95 was a case of simple stubbornness and elitism “Windows is for the DOS-incompetant!” based on that experience, I’ve developed an ironclad policy of not upgrading to a new Windows O/S until at least the first major patch is released, and a strong desire to put it off as long as possible.

Unfortunately, most casual users don’t understand that when it comes to Microsoft, newer isn’t necessarily better, it’s just bigger. Which is how I ended up spending my weekend dealing with a 900Mhz system with 256MB of RAM and Windows XP, instead of upgrading the website like I planned. “The system runs slowâ€? was the complaint. You bet your bippy it runs slow, even without any programs on it — it’s like Nancy Kerrigan running the 100 immediately after her kneecapping.

Supposedly, XP requires only 128MB of RAM. Well sure, if all you want your computer to do is boot eventually and look pretty, sitting there. If you actually want to DO anything, you’re screwed. (The actual minimum spec is 64MB, which I think of as being almost as funny as a root canal.) On top of that, the minimum system requirement for Windows Office is 128MB, plus 8MB for each program you actually have running. 128+128+8… see where this is heading? Then install Norton Anti-Virus 2006, bearing in mind NAV is notorious for installing and running multiple programs in the background, whether you need them or not. At rest, fully 2/3 of the system memory was in use.

On top of that, let’s get some crappy spyware program called TimeSink stuck in there. It’s outdated (the servers it reports to aren’t there anymore) and hard to uninstall, but hey, those are its good features. Its bad feature is that if it’s balked in reaching the internet, it thinks a firewall or router has blocked it and goes crazy—it starts a net-storm. (For the un-initiated, it spams the local network, looking for a route to the Internet.)

Now have it on a system that has a network card installed, but because the owner didn’t have broadband, he had a modem and used dialup. (Not his fault; it was given to him, after the prior owner screwed it up.) And TimeSink doesn’t “get� modems. Which means, anytime he got online, TimeSink would go, “Aha! Your firewall is no match for my l33t spamming ability!� and tie up the processor as it used the network card to spam the network that wasn’t there. (Cheap modems and network cards will offload much of the work to the CPU. Remember that when you’re looking for a bargain.) Fully 35%+ of the CPU’s cycles were getting tied up by this crap.

Yeah, the system was slow, all right. Forget it; Nancy-with-a-bad-knee could beat this system like a red-headed stepchild. (Apologies to all red-heads and step-children out there).

I briefly considered just wiping the whole mess and re-installing with Win2K, but that would mean an hour or two of downloading patches and then I’d have to re-install all the software he had on it. I had no idea if the CD’s were even available, so I just decided “Screw that� and looked at upgrading the memory. No joy. It’s an old HP Pavilion, and once again, I discovered why I build my own systems.

You have to dismount the power supply to reach the motherboard. No, I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. You have to dismount the power supply and the drive bay to reach the motherboard. (“Dear HP: would you do me the favor of introducing me to your case designer? My foot is itching to meet his nuts. Thank you.â€?) I further note that there is a hood and a fan meant to direct cool air from an intake on the back of the case onto the CPU. Said intake is located directly above the power supply exhaust. (“PS: I’m wearing steel-toed boots.”)

So, once I dismantled the case, I got online and looked up the specs on this motherboard. Hm, will accept up to 3 x 256MB PC100 modules. Cool. Except there’s only slots for two. Say what? Look more closely at the documentation & confirm the model of the motherboard, then search for HP Pavilion +upgrade online. Well, guess what? I have an undocumented variant MB. And some Pavilions don’t accept 128 or 256MB modules, which means that’s actually the norm. Well, maybe that explains why the old module I’ve got laying about doesn’t work in this system. Or it may just be a bad module; it’s been sitting in a junk system in the garage for 2 years, after all.

So, not wanting to change O/S, I was left with only two things to do. One of them was to get rid of the damn spyware, of course. The other was to go into the administration panel and shut down unnecessary services.

D-COM+? You’re outta there!
ASP.net? We’re not programming, get lost!
Indexing service? Sayonara, you resource hog!
Norton GoBack? GoAWAY!
NVIDA update? Take your buggy self elsewhere!

I went from nearly 50 running processes to the mid thirties.

The system is much peppier now. And then I read this today, about the new Windows Vista:

Microsoft has issued two sets of specifications — a set of minimum specs to run just the basics of Vista, without any of its slick eye candy or advanced features, and another that can run all of Vista’s features.
You can basically throw out the first set. Running Vista on a computer with just 512 megabytes of memory, an 800-megahertz processor, a 20-gigabyte hard drive and a basic CD-ROM is something I’d only recommend to masochists.

Serious masochists. Me and Win2k, we’re an item for a long time to come….

Update:: Shamus relates his own experience with an HP Pavilion, and displays the patience of Job. I’d have reached for a baseball bat — or the O/S disk for a reinstall. He chose to storm Cemetary Ridge and make the damn thing work instead.