[Virtualacorn-list] Self-build PC

[Alan Adams]

In message <54226cafd4j.mccartney at blueyonder.co.uk>
          John McCartney <j.mccartney at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> In article <54211c4ce6j.mccartney at blueyonder.co.uk>,
>    John McCartney <j.mccartney at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>> If I can stand recalling it all, I'll post a link to it.

> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4528321/TheSaga.pdf

> You have been warned!

Interesting reading, though not much of a surprise.

Vista and Win7 both need at least 2Gb of RAM. If you have the RAM, 
Win7 is then faster than XP, and massively faster than Vista.

Be aware that multiple CPU cores consume additional memory.

You could have saved qquite a bit of download time on the patches by 
manually downloading and installing the service packs. They replace a 
lot of the patches, so doing patches followed by service packs repeats 
a lot of downloading.

Once the have installed the latest service pack, enable automatic 
downloads.

You have probably also discovered that .NET updates insist on being 
done on their own, so a single monthly update can require at least two 
download/install/reboot sessions. (.NET 1, 2, 3, and 4 are separate, 
not replacements for lower numbered versions, and you can get updates 
for all of them.)

Good strategy for the swapfile, although when I can, I create a 
separate partition for it. Allow at least 20% free space or Windows 
will keep prompting you that a disk is almost full. I would hesitate 
to put it on an SSD, because of the intensive activity in that file. I 
don't know that it would shorten the SSD life, I just don't feel 
comfortable about it.

> John



-- 
Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire
alan at adamshome.org.uk
http://www.nckc.org.uk/