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For those that use or work on Windows boxes I would suggest TuneUp Utilities 2007 which they give you for free at the link I just posted in the hopes you'll like it and buy the latest version. It gives you a ton of tools to customize and control Windows and works on 98-Vista. To turn off Autoplay on any drive you desire(you can keep CD/DVD autoplay or pick and choose with this tool) simply go to Tuneup Systemcontrol/Administration(4th one from the top)/Drives/Autoplay. This will let you turn on/off autoplay for individual CD/DVD drives, removable media, floppy, network drives, RAM drives, and unknown where you can choose by drive letter which to allow or disallow.

This is a great little free tool to have in your toolbox if you have to work on Windows machines. Pretty much everything you could want to change you can from this tool. It also has a nice process manager and reg editor built in. After the last round of these flash bugs hit I started disabling all autoplay from removable drives for all machines coming across my desk. I have to agree with you that the braintrust at MSFT that set autoplay as default for removable drives really should get fired. It is just too easy to pass bugs through autoplay. I'm just glad I stumbled across a tool that makes it trivial to disable it while leaving the autoplay for DVDs that my customers want.

Hard drives are cheap and Acronis is your friend. Just buy and install Acronis and have it set to do weekly differential backups. If they bork their PC you can just send them back a week and all is good. Two bits of advice though: One keep their My Documents folder on a separate partition, as 90% of your apps will save their and it keeps them from losing anything. I just put a second drive(remember HDD=cheap) and move My docs there. If you want to get fancy you can use Junction Magic to create a junction point where you want it, and that way if you ever do need to reinstall Windows the My Docs folder will automatically be one the new drive on startup.

Number 2- do NOT mix the new Diskkeeper and Acronis! I found that out the hard way from a customer who had both. Diskkeeper kept trying to kick in while Acronis was backing up and it borked several of his files. Luckily he listened to me and backed everything to flash automatically until it got full enough to burn a CD, but if he hadn't it could have been nasty. But if you have relatives with PCs you don't want to have to work on Acronis home with the hidden restore partition and weekly differentials is the way to go. If they bork it you can walk them through a restore in under 10 minutes by phone. Hell of a lot nicer than having to keep working on them IMHO.

I think the reason that shareware pretty much died out on Windows is too many went for the adware/spyware model back when Gator and Bonzi Buddy(remember that bit o' evil?) were pushing their crap. That and many apps that were shareware simply got whipped by the deluge of freeware apps that did the same job. Remember when folks actually paid for media players for Windows?

Now if you are wanting cool little apps that do a specific job and runs on Windows I can point you in the right direction. No shareware though, all 100% free goodness. And the best thing about Freeware World Team is their excellent search engine. You simply type into it what you need the app to do and they find you a nice little freeware app to do it. They have over 36,000 apps listed to date and also have them broken up into categories if you just want to browse and see if you spot something you might like. Working here in the repair shop I often have need for a niche app to solve a particular problem and so far FWT hasn't ever let me down. For anybody who has to work with/on Windows you really should have it bookmarked IMHO.

Have you tried changing chipset drivers? I have found working PC repair that sometimes a "downgrade" on the chipset drivers will often do more good than an "upgrade". That said,I have noticed that Intel chipsets seem to be of the suck when it comes to file I/O. I have found,in order from best to worst,Nvidia,ATI(although they often switch back and forth)SiS(yes,I know they are cheap,but they seem to have decent I/O) followed way behind by Intel and finally Via.

While I haven't had much call for SAS(mainly SMB and home users) I can give you a nice tool to check your I/O. Simply use PC Wizard which is free and will give you a good benchmark which you can use to see if a chipset upgrade/downgrade will help you out. But if it doesn't and nobody here can give you the answer on SAS that you seek I would look into a good PCIe RAID card to help bypass the bottleneck. I hope this helps,good luck!

Were you using one of those onboard RAID setups? Working PC repair I have seen more of those things bone installs than I care to count. Do yourself a favor and if you want to run RAID get yourself a decent RAID card. Those built in RAID setups can be quite flaky. Or better yet,do as I tell my gamer clients and simply don't use RAID. The increased risk simply isn't worth it. I get them a Raptor for response time,along with a larger 7200.11 RPM drive for their music/vids/etc and they are quite happy with the performance.

Finally don't keep anything you care about on the C: drive. Have a second drive that keeps your stuff or use a second partition if you only have one drive. Might I suggest a nice freeware tool called Junction Magic which will allow you to create symlinks,or junctions in Windows terms, to folders on any drives and still have it behave as if they were on the C: drive. I often do this with My Documents and it allows you to keep your stuff safe and simply nuke the C: drive if something goes bad. Thanks to the junction links when you reinstall Windows will read the junction links from the separate NTFS drive and restore the links at first boot. A much better solution than having to remap your folders after your annual Windows reinstall to clear out the bitrot.

If you follow this advice along with a disk imaging of a clean install on your machine and monthly incrementals,you'll find that Windows failures only mean a 20-30 minute downtime,as opposed to the all day affair I get with those that simply dumped everything on the C: drive.

If you want something fast that will tell you if there is any trouble reading the disk go here, or if you want something more complex that'll go by sector go here.

Oh and in the future if the software needed can be Windows software,allow me to suggest Freeware World Team. FWT have hands down the best freeware search engine I have ever seen. You simply type into the search box what you want the software to do and they'll find you a piece of freeware that does it. I use it here at the shop all the time when myself or a customer has a job that needs filling. No spyware,no trialware,just great freeware with a truly great search engine to find it with.

Just go to Freewareworld Team. I work in PC repair and am always needing a piece of freeware to do a specific task. Freewareworld Team has an excellent search engine. Simply type what you need the program to do and they find you a freeware program that does it. And I have never run into spyware or trialware there. So enjoy and I hope this helps.

Glad to help. I've been running Junction Magic for a year now,it is really stable and couldn't be simpler. Once launched it brings up an easy to use GUI that displays a list of the junctions on your PC,and adding them is as simple as choosing "add" and giving it the path. It is also great on a desktop,as it allows me to keep a small 20Gb for an OS drive while document and program files are kept on a separate larger drive. Makes disk imaging super quick.

Have fun,and if you happen to go by the EEE forums,do me a favor and post a link to Junction Magic,would you? I bet there are a lot of EEE users in the same boat as you that could use an easy tool like Junction Magic. And any time you need a free Windows tool to do a specific job just go to Freeware World Team. I have been using them in the repair shop for years. No spyware and they have one of the best freeware search engines around. Just type what you need the tool to do and they find you a freeware that does it! Enjoy and I'm glad I could help.

For those that don't want to run Vista but want to do the same trick,try Junction Magic. Works beautifully on 2K,XP,and 2K3 and it is really nice not having to have a giant C: drive.

How sad is it that I know very little about the inner workings of filesystems and I found an error in that link in like 2 seconds. It says that only Windows Vista allows for soft links and before that NTFS could only create junctions and only on the same partition and it couldn't create them for files. Either that is wrong or my entire filesystem is an illusion because I've been using Junction Magic for awhile and while my Win2K and XP think the folders in My Documents are on the C: drive,in actuality the audio folders and pictures are on D: while the Video and VB Code folders are on E:. The authors of the software have a link to a program on their site that will do the same thing with files. You can also do the same trick if you have purchased the Windows Resource Kit from MSFT with the LINKD tool.

On the subject of Hans I pretty much figured he was guilty when he tried to lose the cops and went to the "lost" car,which had a soaking wet interior and the passenger seat gone. I figure he got into an argument with her,she threatened to take the kids back to Russia,he killed her and then panicked. The shear sloppiness makes me think he didn't really plan this,as I think we can all agree that the guy wasn't a dummy. So in the end he gets the same time he would have if he would have just called the cops and told them what happened. And as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Well,you are very welcome. Just be sure to spread the love and when someone needs a good piece of Windows freeware to do a specific task point them to Freeware World Team. As a pc repairman I'm always needing a tool for a specific task, and the FWT search engine is a Godsend. It is so much nicer being able to type what you need the program to do and having FWT find the program for you, instead of searching through categories for hours trying to find just the right tool. So enjoy your flv conversion and spread the word!

Just go here and take you pick. Anytime you need a freeware program in Windows to do a specific task,just go to good old freeware world team. Just type in what you need the program to do in their search and they'll find a free program that'll do it for you. For your particular needs they have 38 to choose from,that'll convert flv to anything from iPod to avi. So just follow the link and pick the format that best suits your needs and enjoy!

They are also a great bunch of guys and are quick to respond to outdated links and new submissions, which is pretty remarkable considering they have over 26,000 freeware titles. Oh and lastly for those whose native language isn't english they currently support 48 different languages and you can easily define your search to only include your language if you like. So from someone who build computers all day and is always finding some other weird function I need a tool for, Freeware World Team has never let me down. Try them and I bet you'll like them.

I believe this is what I used.I can't tell you for sure as I'm on my single cpu laptop up the side of a mountain right now at my uncles farm.Anyway if that isn't the right program just go here.I heartily recommend this site for anyone who needs a nice free tool for a specific task.They have IMHO one of the best search engines out there.Simply type in the search box what you need the program to do and they'll find you a freeware program that'll do it.Really takes the guesswork out of finding freeware.

I know it isn't the fault of Linux,but you don't know how many times I have wanted to switch someone only to give up after seeing a Lexmark printer.There is just too damn much hardware out there right now that the manufacturers will NEVER support in Linux,and good luck telling someone they need to buy $200-300 worth of hardware to run a "free" OS.Maybe if the companies will start supporting the cheap stuff I will try again.But after trying for ages to get the damned Lexmark all-in-one to work before giving up and going back to Windows on the desktop I can tell you that if your hardware simply won't run it kinda is a deal breaker.So I will stick with Xandros Business Pro on my laptop and Win2K Pro on the desktop.Maybe one day the cheaper hardware will be supported and I can go all Linux.But that day simply hasn't arrived yet for me.

The best thing about DVD is not only the ability to make cheap hassle free backups, but also the ability to just toss one to whomever needs one. A lot of folks here are still on dial-up and it is a LOT easier to give them a DVD filled with freeware (along with the patches I need to update their pc) than it is to expect them to download the files. And if they lose it, or their kids break it, who cares? 8 minutes and 25 cents later I can have them a new one if needed. I have been backing up to DVD since the days of 4X writers and 1X media and so far I've never had a problem. I just hope that HD-DVD gets cheap burners and media out there so I can backup ever larger files without splitting. I could not care less about which format Hollywood likes, I would much rather burn my own content than watch "Meet the Spartans" or "Dukes of Hazzard" in high def.

Plus if a friend needs files for his pc I can simply burn him one of my "specials" which consist of all the drivers for his hardware,both current and the ones that were released with the pc (in case the newer ones suck,like some of the newer Dell wireless drivers I've dealt with) along with my "Pick a better browser" folder containing Firefox, Seamonkey, Kmeleon, Opera, Flock, and Safari. Add to that free antivirus from AVG, Outpost Free and Comodo firewalls, both 1.1.5 and the latest Open Office, full media codec support thanks to Klite and VLC, and finally whatever files he needs to fix whatever bug he has.

To me this is the beauty of DVD and why HD-DVD could still take off if they get the burners and media cheap enough. While I can't afford to be handing out 4Gb flash sticks or HDDs, it takes little more than a few minutes of my time to put together a freeware "special" DVD for a friend or valued customer. And at 25Gb HD-DVD would be great for loading up with freeware, Linux Live cds, etc.

And for those that need to find a certain file on their backup DVD there is always Catfish. I have archived more discs than I can count and with catfish I can instantly know which spindle to look on. And since it doesn't need to be installed I can simply carry it on the flash along with my tool spindle when I need to make a housecall. Great little piece of freeware to have in your toolkit.

The greatest source I've found for freeware replacements is http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/links.php. The great thing about Freeware World Team is its Google-style search where you simply type what you need to program to do and they find a freeware program for you. For example,I needed a program that would sync a USB HDD folder to one on my pc and work on multiple versions of Windows.After typing "sync folders" it led me straight to this which was exactly what I needed-http://www.allwaysync.com/. I hope this helps anyone looking for a freeware replacement. With more than 32,000 programs and more added every day Freeware World Team is a great first stop when you need a program for a specific task.

And for all those /.ers out ther,Try freeware world team.All the great freeware apps you could ever need+a GREAT search engine.Just type what you need the app to do and they'll find it for you.Wonderful site.

Try looking at free games. You'd be surprised how many there are. Of course most aren't worth playing, but that still leaves quite a bit.

Here's a few places to get started:
Remakes.org - remakes of many many classic games.

Freeware World Team - many categories including games.

Freestle freeware - small but good.

fullgames

world of free games

Feel free to suggest more / better resources.

P.S. So many console games drop to $20 if you're just willing to wait a year. The sports games are even cheaper if you don't absolutely need this year's updated roster. If you don't want to buy games at $50, just wait a bit.