Rather than re-inventing an explanation, AutoRuns has a great “elevator pitch” on their website:

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

Typically Sysinternal tools are awesome, and this program is no exception. Even better, there is a command line version which allows you to easily output your system information to a text files. For hard core tweakers and power users, this is a must have utility.

One tool I have found to be very valuable is the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. In a nutshell, this tool scans your computer for common security problems (settings) and checks installations of data applications (SQL, MDAC, etc.) for updates and vulnerabilities. From the article “How To: Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer“:

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) checks for available updates to the operating system, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), MSXML (Microsoft XML Parser), .NET Framework, and SQL Server. MBSA also scans a computer for insecure configuration settings. When MBSA checks for Windows service packs and patches, it includes in its scan Windows components, such as Internet Information Services (IIS) and COM+. MBSA uses Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) technologies to determine needed updates. This Microsoft Update data source is obtained either directly from the Microsoft Update Web site or, if offline or in a secure environment, from an offline catalog file named Wsusscn2.cab.

It is not feasible for me to be an expert on all things Windows security, so this tool is very helpful in making sure servers are reasonably secured. The utility works on all versions of Windows Server and Windows Vista and is recommended for any Windows system administrators.

So, it is a given you need to back up your data. The question is: how?

You can go the free, more manual way - something similar to what Jason outlined when he provided his batch script. You could go the open source route using something like Cobian Backup. Cobian will get the job done, but there is no support whatsoever. Or you could go the commercial route. There are several commercial options out there, but I am going to take a look here at Backup Platinum, by SoftLogica.

Backup Platinum is a Windows-only utility that makes it super easy to have automated backups. You can back up to pretty much anything, including a network drive, a remote server (using FTP) or recordable optical mediums and USB. The program’s notable features include:

• Built-in CD engine which allows for automated CD burning, automatic erasure of optical media as well as spanning several discs
• Integrated ZIP compression
• 128-bit encryption for secure backups (requires a password to unlock a backup)
• Built-in scheduler to run automatic backups at any time. Uses a Windows service, too, so it doesn’t depend on being logged into Windows to function
• Multi-threaded engine so that it can function without slowing down your system
• Command line interface (if you want to use it in batch scripts)
• Ability to backup registry as well as certain keys in the registry
• Email notifications
• Ability to start or shut down programs when executing backups

In short, this thing more or less does it all.

I went to their site and downloaded the 30 day trial. Install went through without hassle. Upon starting the program, I went through a wizard which walked me through creating an “item”. An “item” is the name for a particular set of files/folders/settings that I want to back up. I can have as many items as I want and execute each on its own schedule.

I was running this application in a virtual machine on my Mac (Windows XP running under VMware Fusion). So, my Mac looks like a network drive as far as Windows is concerned. I set up an item to back up my Quickbooks data (which is on the virtual disk) and back it up to the host disk. I was impressed that it easily allowed me to keep multiple versions of the data file on the system and it automatically timestamps the backups. Nice. So, I set it up to back up Quickbooks, storing up to 4 different versions. I executed it and it worked and did so quite quickly.

My Conclusions

I get asked to review a lot of things. Sometimes those things are just a real stretch. I always call it like I see it. In this case, it isn’t a stretch at all.

Backup Platinum does exactly what it is supposed to do. It is clean software and easy to use. It is fast and they also threw some “kitchen sink” features in here to boot (like encryption and email notifications). Backup Platinum is a powerful backup utility for Windows.

My only thought was that, well, I’m on a Mac. Of course, on the Mac, I have Time Machine built right into the operating system. Now that VMware has fixed the conflict between Time Machine and VMware Fusion, my entire Windows session is backed up. But, most definitely, if I were still using Windows as my primary operating system, I would certainly use Backup Platinum.

Cost of the software is $67. Last I looked, this was right in line with other comparable backup software for Windows.

NOTE: The preceding review was a paid review. But, trust me, as always, I don’t mess around with reviews. There is really nothing bad to say about Backup Platinum.

With Vista, emphasis was on security. And, yes, compared to Windows XP, Vista is indeed a more secure operating system. But, that left us with a LOT of bloat. Vista is slower than Windows XP and is a beast in system memory. If you downgrade any PC from Vista to XP, you almost feel like you’re using a brand new computer again. I know. I’ve done it.

In a press release issued by Gates in Tokyo, Japan, Gates makes some comments on Windows 7.

We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

Obviously we’d all love it if people had more PCs per average, and so making that simple is important. Also the effort to upgrade, I think that’s an area we got a lot of feedback in Vista, that we need to invest in that, and we’re going to make that very, very simple for people. So Vista is doing well, and we’re hard at work putting even more investment now in the version that comes after that.

So, he is speaking right to my heart. This also comes after Gates all but admitted Vista sucked at the last CES show in Las Vegas.

I’m hoping Windows 7 is better, for the sake of the brand. I’m a Mac guy now (and Vista played a large role in my conversion). However, Windows is still king and will be for the foreseeable future. I really do want it to do well.

But what if you’re building a box? Is there any way to find out what hardware will work best?

Yes. It’s called the Hardware Compatibility List or HCL for short.

Most new Linux distro users have heard about Ubuntu and choose to use that distro first (and sometimes stay with it.) All well and good. And maybe that new Ubuntu user likes that OS so much that they want to build a better faster dedicated box.

Some will opt for buying a Dell with Ubuntu already on it (in which all the hardware is guaranteed to work.) But everyone else is going to build the box instead.

The best site I have found for everything Ubuntu HCL is, appropriately titled, UbuntuHCL.org.

What makes UbuntuHCL better than most is that it won’t list particular hardware as “works” or “doesn’t work.” If particular hardware is labeled as “works,” it goes on to rate how well it worked by using a rating scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best) with included commentary detailed any/all good or bad experiences encountered when testing.

UbuntuHCL is very basic, very easy to use and I strongly recommend anyone who’s building a box for Ubuntu to go here first before anywhere else.

For example, you can start right where it all begins - the motherboard. Here’s an example search using Asus motherboards as the search criteria. Most got ratings of 5 but some dipped below and went to 4. This one is a 4 and notes problems using RAID0 and Enhanced IDE. It is important to know this stuff before building your Ubuntu box.

What about printers? For example, do HP printers work well in Ubuntu? Most do.

What about wireless stuff (like wireless routers)? Some don’t do too well in that category.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As stated above, I strongly recommend reading up on the HCL first. After that you can pick/choose the hardware you know is going to work the first time without any problems.

And that makes for a very happy *nix user.

One very handy trick I found is that you can copy virtual hard drives (.vhd) files and instantly get another environment. For example, you could build a new virtual PC hard drive and load XP with all the updates and then simply copy the VHD file to a new file name and, whola!, you now have two ready to go environments. All you have to do is just run through the virtual PC creation wizard and set it to use an existing hard drive (your copied VHD file) and you are ready to go.

If you have to deploy several environments quickly, this is a great trick to know.

Why Command Line Scripts?

Having experience with both commercial and free backup programs, I always find command line scripts to be, by far, the most effective tool for the job. Here are a few reasons why:

• Native Commands: What better way to backup data than by using the functions made available through the program which creates the data. Whether this is the operating system itself via a simple file copy command or a database command to produce a restorable binary file, the source program knows how best to back itself up.
• Ultimate Control: Since a command line script follows a simple step-by-step procedure, you know exactly what is happening and can easily modify the behavior.
• Fast: Since everything is a native command, nothing is subject to interpretation. Again, you are using commands provided by the program itself, so overhead is kept to a minimum.
• Powerful: I have yet to see a backup task which cannot be accomplished through a command line script… and I have done some funky stuff. Albeit, some research and “trial and error” may be required, unless you need something incredibly unique, typically the built in functions and features of the scripting language you are using is more than sufficient.
• Free and Flexible: Obviously, a command line script does not cost anything (outside the time to develop it), so the emphasis I want to make is command line scripts can be copied to and implemented on other systems and quickly adapted with little to no time or cost. Compare this to the cost of purchasing licenses for backup software on several servers and/or desktop machines.

A Quick Overview Of The Backup Batch Script

Since a lot of people do not have the need/time/desire to learn command line scripting, it is considered somewhat of a “black art”. So to demonstrate the power of the command line, I am providing a simple Windows batch script to backup your important data. This configurable and customizable script does not
require any knowledge (or willingness to learn) of the Windows batch scripting language.

What the backup script does:

1. Creates full or daily incremental (see below for a definition) backups of files and folders you specify in a separate configuration text file (see below).
   • When a folder is provided, that folder and all sub-folders are backed up.
   • When a file is provided, just that file is backed up.
2. Compresses (zips) the backed up files. After all files to be backed up are copied, they are compressed to save space. 7-Zip is required to be installed on your system for this to work.
3. Dates the compressed file and moves it to a storage location. After the backup files are compressed, the resulting archive is given a file name according to the current date and then moved to a configured storage location, such as an external drive or network location.
4. Cleans up after itself. After all tasks are completed, the batch script cleans up all the temporary files it created.

Requirements:

Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista,
7-Zip (it’s free).

Configuration file:

The configuration file is simply a text file which contains files and folders to backup, entered one backup item per line. This file must be named “BackupConfig.txt” and be located in the same folder as the backup script. Here is an example of a BackupConfig.txt file (note, the first line is always ignored):

# Enter file and folder names, one per line.
C:\Documents and Settings\Jason Faulkner\Desktop
C:\Documents and Settings\Jason Faulkner\My Documents\Important Files
C:\Scripts\BackupScript.bat

The example above would backup the Windows user Jason Faulkner’s desktop (and all folders on the desktop), the folder called “Important Files” inside of My Documents (and all folders inside “Important Files”) and the file “BackupScript.bat” inside the C:\Scripts directory.

Types of backups:

The Data Backup Windows Batch Script

I want to emphasize this script is very basic, as all it does is create backups by a utilizing a simple file copy. There are some configuration options you can set:

• The backup storage location where the resulting compressed backup files are stored.
  
• The day of the week the full backup is run (any other day would run an incremental backup).
• Location of where 7-Zip is installed on your computer. The script is automatically set to look in the default location.

If you have any suggestions or feature requests, please comment below. I would really love to do a follow up article to this post which features an updated script based on reader input.

If you need instructions on how to “use” this script or set up a scheduled task, take a look at the links below the script source.

Without further ado, here it is:

@ECHO OFF

REM BackupScript
REM Version 1.0, Updated: 2008-04-19
REM By Jason Faulkner (articles[-at-]132solutions.com)

REM Performs full or incremental backups of folders and files configured by the user.

REM Usage—
REM   > BackupScript

SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

REM —Configuration Options—

REM Folder location where you want to store the resulting backup archive.
REM This folder must exist. Do not put a ‘\’ on the end, this will be added automatically.
REM You can enter a local path, an external drive letter (ex. F:) or a network location (ex. \\server\backups)
SET BackupStorage=C:\Backup

REM Which day of the week do you want to perform a full backup on?
REM Enter one of the following: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, *
REM Any day of the week other than the one specified below will run an incremental backup.
REM If you enter ‘*’, a full backup will be run every time.
SET FullBackupDay=*

REM Location where 7-Zip is installed on your computer.
REM The default is in a folder, ‘7-Zip’ in your Program Files directory.
SET InstallLocationOf7Zip=%ProgramFiles%\7-Zip

REM +———————————————————————–+
REM | Do not change anything below here unless you know what you are doing. |
REM +———————————————————————–+

REM Usage variables.
SET exe7Zip=%InstallLocationOf7Zip%\7z.exe
SET dirTempBackup=%TEMP%\backup
SET filBackupConfig=BackupConfig.txt

REM Validation.
IF NOT EXIST %filBackupConfig% (
  ECHO No configuration file found, missing: %filBackupConfig%
  GOTO End
)
IF NOT EXIST “%exe7Zip%” (
  ECHO 7-Zip is not installed in the location: dir7Zip
  ECHO Please update the directory where 7-Zip is installed.
  GOTO End
)

REM Backup variables.
FOR /f “tokens=1,2,3,4 delims=/ ” %%a IN (’date /t’) DO (
  SET DayOfWeek=%%a
  SET NowDate=%%d-%%b-%%c
  SET FileDate=%%b-%%c-%%d
)

IF {%FullBackupDay%}=={*} SET FullBackupDay=%DayOfWeek%
IF /i {%FullBackupDay%}=={%DayOfWeek%} (
  SET txtBackup=Full
  SET swXCopy=/e
) ELSE (
  SET txtBackup=Incremental
  SET swXCopy=/s /d:%FileDate%
)

ECHO Starting to copy files.
IF NOT EXIST “%dirTempBackup%” MKDIR “%dirTempBackup%”
FOR /f “skip=1 tokens=*” %%A IN (%filBackupConfig%) DO (
  SET Current=%%~A
  IF NOT EXIST “!Current!” (
    ECHO ERROR! Not found: !Current!
  ) ELSE (
    ECHO Copying: !Current!
    SET Destination=%dirTempBackup%\!Current:~0,1!%%~pnxA
    REM Determine if the entry is a file or directory.
    IF “%%~xA”==”" (
      REM Directory.
      XCOPY “!Current!” “!Destination!” /v /c /i /g /h /q /r /y %swXCopy%
    ) ELSE (
      REM File.
      COPY /v /y “!Current!” “!Destination!”
    )
  )
)
ECHO Done copying files.
ECHO.

SET BackupFileDestination=%BackupStorage%\Backup_%FileDate%_%txtBackup%.zip

REM If the backup file exists, remove it in favor of the new file.
IF EXIST “%BackupFileDestination%” DEL /f /q “%BackupFileDestination%”

ECHO Compressing backed up files. (New window)
REM Compress files using 7-Zip in a lower priority process.
START “Compressing Backup. DO NOT CLOSE!” /belownormal /wait “%exe7Zip%” a -tzip -r -mx5 “%BackupFileDestination%” “%dirTempBackup%\”
ECHO Done compressing backed up files.
ECHO.

ECHO Cleaning up.
IF EXIST “%dirTempBackup%” RMDIR /s /q “%dirTempBackup%”
ECHO.

:End
ECHO Finished.
ECHO.

ENDLOCAL

If you need help getting started with implementing this script, here are a couple of links to help you out:

• How to create a Batch file.
• How to create a Windows Scheduled Task.

This is the same script I use to backup my computer daily (with a couple of modifications of course), so I know it works very well. I hope you find it useful.

Enjoy.

The author explains their experience in upgrading both ways as well as the benefits and drawbacks to each. Having done two Ubuntu upgrades myself (5.10 to 6.06 and 6.06 to 7.04), I found a clean install each time was what worked best for me. Of course, the decision is yours to make and you probably cannot go wrong with either choice.

Of course, the #1 thing to do before any upgrade is to make sure your data is backed up!

Aside from the native Mac support (no more running X11), OO3 is going to support the OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard as well as be able to open Office 2007 documents (however, InfoWorld is reporting problems with opening Office 2007 docs). Also, according to the OpenOffice site:

The most immediately visible change to OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the new “Start Centre”, new fresh-looking icons, and a new zoom control in the status bar. A closer look shows that 3.0 has a myriad of new features. Notable Calc improvements include a new solver component; support for spreadsheet collaboration through workbook sharing; and an increase to 1024 columns per sheet. Writer has an improved notes feature and displays of multiple pages while editing. There are numerous Chart enhancements, and an improved crop feature in Draw and Impress.

I downloaded the version for Mac OS X (a 168 MB download) and installed it. I got a nice little start screen (as they said I would). The interface also looks more professional than does NeoOffice at this time. The app does seem a bit heavy at times, however.

I will, of course, be exploring it further.

This utility simply “tricks” your computer into thinking a program is no longer installed on your computer, so you can then go back and reinstall it. In my case, it worked perfectly as after the “reinstall” I didn’t have to activate my copy of Office 2007 again.

Usage is simple enough, just install the program and then run it. You are presented with a list of all programs which were installed using the Windows Installer Service and you just select which ones to delete the installation information for. Once you have done this, you should be able to reinstall the program with no problems.