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IE9 is still problematic.

1) Issues with using Facebook
2) Issues with printing
3) Issues with losing Favorites after installation
4) Issues with certificate management / handling
5) Issues with compatibility mode
6) Issues with the display, which requires adjusting the setting to overcome the GPU setting.

There are likely others but the above are the most common. While a couple of the above have work arounds, IE9 is in my opinion problematic and experimental.

Woody ~

Interesting article you wrote.

My take on buying software versus using some of the built in utilities provided by Microsoft, is that third party software is engineered to do a better job than the built in utilities. They are more robust, user friendly and have dedicated customer and technical support for free.

In regards to partitioning, it is my firm opinion that partitioning disks is absolutely essential and should be a rule of thumb for managing data. Partitioning disks is not unlike having drawers of a file cabinet. Even if computer savvy people buy additional and larger / super-sized hard drives for their computers, partitioning them only makes good sense.

In any case, it is essential to have an additional place other than the system drive, i.e. the drive C where windows and programs are usually located, is to keep personal data off of it. The reason being is that if the event comes when the system drive is inaccessible or attacked by an infection or needs to be reformatted, personal files will not be forfeited because they are not stored on the system drive. I wrote an article on the subject: http://pcsmarties.wordpress.com/spare-partition/

In regards to registry cleaners, I have been using them since Microsoft first invented them. Admittedly, i have been burned by malware posing as registry cleaners. But life as it is, it is also a process of learning from ones mistakes. But some people that have been burned or admit they have been a victim, will prefer to simply dismiss the viability of registry cleaners as a whole.

Part of the problem with dirty registries is due to third party software that is poorly written and inadvertently add bad or illogical keys when installing “or” leaving behind orphaned keys when they are uninstalled.

Therefore, removing unnecessary keys is as essential as removing bad entries from our credit reports at the credit bureaus. Further, the rule of thumb for databases is to remove bad or useless data or archive outdated data altogether. Therefore, it is unclear if people think the registry is a database, why the database is exempt from the rule of thumb. As a former database programmer, the registry is not exempt. But admittedly, most people prefer to ignore it instead. In my view, the ultimate reason why the registry should be lean and mean, is to keep it from crashing and making windows un-startable.

Like all files on the disk, the registry hive also lives in a state of fragmentation. If by chance, one of the dozens of fragments comprising the registry hive becomes corrupted, the entire registry hive crashes. What is not realized by many is the insult added to injury if that one itty-bitty corrupted fragment was storing a dirty key – a key which could have been removed by a registry cleaner.

So while many believe that leaving the registry dirty is ok and not consequential, then one wonders how they will feel when the the infamous error screen pop-up at boot time citing:

“Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM ”

or

“Windows Vista could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM ”

Although the above message pertains to XP and Vista, it is likely there is one for Win7 as well, since Microsoft hasn’t re-engineered the registry hive and its sub-system.

In any case, interesting article Woody. Looking forward to Part 3.

~db