Don't pay for software you don't need — Part 3

[Tracey Capen]

TOP STORY Don't pay for software you don't need — Part 3 By Woody Leonhard Few Microsoft publicity efforts have ever drawn as much attention as last week's 20-minute Windows 8 sneak preview. If you've heard that Windows 8 is for the dogs or that it will look like a phone, you haven't heard the whole story. The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/top-story/don't-pay-for-software-you-don't need-—-part-3/ (opens in a new window/tab). Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

[brrrknee]

Woody, I found that in my win 7 explorer upper right "search" it failed to find any of a large number of files I know matched. If I go to the Start search, it
kicks off and does find these files. it does work as expected in 32b win 7, but the 64b wrinkle had caught me by surprise.

[Medico]

Have you done a complete index of files. This article, and many more similar articles, from Windows Seven Forums shows how to index for better search results.

[jan.didden]

I would like to react on 'Don't pay for a version of Windows you don't need'

At home we have a Windows Home Server v1 that contains all our data.
We have 2 desktops that are running Win7 Home Premium.
We also have 1 portable for our eldest daughter that included Win7 Home Premium when we bought it.

Because she has to take the portable to school, she couldn't access her documents there, because they were only available on our home network.

At work there are several colleagues who are constantly on the road and have the same problem. Therefore they are using offline files.

When I tried that on our daughters portable it didn't seem to work. All menu-items are visble in Win7 Home Premium but they are not working.
Therefore I have upgraded the portable to Win7 Pro, and we are using offline files now.

So 'offline files' are another reason to upgrade from Win7 Home Premium to Win7 Pro.

Jan Didden

[jnewmarch]

Microsoft would also have you believe that you need Pro to run as a server (a puppeteer) in a Remote Desktop session. It's true that Windows Pro lets you do that, but other products (including LogMeIn) also work well.

This may well be true in the USA where Internet access is fast and reliable, but it is most certainly not true in countries such as South Africa where few people can afford high speed access. I provide desktop support and I have tried a large number of remote login systems including LogMeIn, various flavors of VNC etc and they are so slow as to make it almost impossible to use them, with the sole exception of Microsoft's Remote Desktop. For this reason I insist that my clients run Windows Pro. I cannot understand why only Microsoft seems to have got this right.

[eikelein]

It just irks me to chime in on two levels.

1. Technically IMHO Woody is 100% correct. I had used his basic idea in my own blog and my extensive experience with everyday mom and pop home users confirms Woody's statements in many ways.

2. People can believe anything and they will believe what they want to believe and/or have have become used to believing. That seems to be true for NASA's moon landings being a fake, German concentration camps never having existed and Registry hacks shaving 50% off of Windows 7 boot time as well as many other things.

Woody, the more "hate mail" you get over this issue the better you have stirred the pot! Congratulations, well done!

[aoz]

re: Windows Search
rather than tell us that windows search is great, how about pointing to some links that show how to do SIMPLE searches for file names, and how to search across the WHOLE drive, including system files, etc
I have given up on the Windows 7 search, adn I don't have time to do queries.
I just want to search for file names across all my indexed drives.

I have downloaded "Everything" search program, and it is great.
type in names, it assumes "and" concatenation, partial words can be entered, and it finds what I want.

any links to HOW to do simple searches in windows, JUST to access file names, NOT to access what is in the files,etc?

thasnk
Nick

[ruirib]

The big issue with these articles is the one size fits all mindset. Popular as they may be, they tend to annoy me for their overall generality and simplification.

I will take just one hit at Windows Search - the preconfiguration that makes the indexer run after each boot must be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Everybody complains about how Windows is slow to boot and some illuminated Redmond brains decided to start one of the most disk hogging apps ever, at a time where the disk is used intensively. That is sufficient for me to have stopped using it.

[jtilden]

I rarely am moved to comment on Woody's stuff or WS in general, but I'm pretty sure that Windows Firewall CAN be configured to be an "outbound" firewall if you are willing to play around with its ruleset. I thought of it when the article was first published and was reminded of it again with this Part 3. Seems to me it would be a better recommendation if it was reworded to "sure, you can do it--but it's not worth most people's trouble." Can someone confirm that Windows Firewall does have that capability? Thanks.

[ruirib]

Can someone confirm that Windows Firewall does have that capability? Thanks.

You are absolutely correct. It is an outbound firewall too, and I think it is configured by default to be an outbound firewall. There are a number of pre-existing outbound rules and you can add to those too.
I also think that, by default, when a program tries to access the network without being allowed, you are asked if that is to be allowed. I think I have seen it happening a few times, at the time my favorite paid firewall had no version for 7 x64.

Anyway, I will add that I use a 3rd party firewall, that doesn't deal just with network connections. Malware, these days, can overcome Windows protections with some ease, even if Windows 7 is the most secure Windows ever. A decent firewall will add aditional protection against malware, as well. Forgetting this is just another consequence of the oversimplification that these articles suffer from, as I wrote in my previous post.

[WarningU2]

I'm sure there is validity to your article(s) but I'll stick with my paid for anti virus and firewall solution because I'd rather not trust MS with my PC's security. The old adage ... of putting all the eggs in one basket. Otherwise though thanks for some though provoking ideas.

[LibertyGuy62]

Re: "Don't pay for a version of Windows you don't need"
XP Mode is great. I use it alot. But as far as I can tell, the link that was provided for VMWare isn't a very satisfactory replacement. First, it calls itself trialware. Hardly free. Second, you have to have (and presumably pay for) a copy of Windows XP. XP Mode gives you XP for free.

[jonathan.pottervilla]

In my channels, 7 Pro is about $40 more for a bundled copy of XP. I don't see VMWare offering that. Plus, it's a whole lot easier to setup.

"Bob might have jumped up faster, or Clippy could have offered his helpful admonitions a fraction of a millisecond more quickly." I find this hilarious, but I'm not sure your "target" audience would. A single usage model will rarely work for your average power user, let alone the majority of them. And I doubt your average vanilla user would remember Bob.

I really like the idea behind this series, but I'd like to see more options--particularly in areas that are still relevant, like backups. Windows 7's backup utility doesn't offer offsite storage or realtime protection--two keys if you really value your data.

[buggsy2]

This is a great series of articles...but I find that Win7 search, like Google Desktop search, overlooks files. OK, maybe it could find them but its indices are wrong. So what, the result is the same, it doesn't find what I know is there.

I've found, repeatedly, the only reliable file search is Agent Ransack. It doesn't store indices so they can't get out of date. It has an optional advanced search that lets you use regular expressions for both file names and text strings within files. And, it's free!

[dpiller]

Right On Woody

I will admit to being a Windows 7 junkie. I use it in many places and find it to be a great piece of software. Not perfect but at least Best of Class. I also teach for a 50+ organization where I have a class called Wonderful World of Windows 7. I take my students through many of the topics that Woody, Fred and the entire Windows Secrets crew discuss each week. You can discuss with IT professionals about "outbound" fire walls and registry tricks all day long, however for the average home user not wanting to spend his/her life in customizing an OS, Home Premium is very closew to a home run.