Tip-Of-The-Week

February 2, 2007

From the Free Computer Consultant

http://www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

Save Money on Vista; Daylight Savings Time

I decided on 2 topics for today's newsletter because I know some of you could care less about Vista and have no plans on leaving XP (or maybe 2000) any time soon.

As you may or may not be aware, our favorite Uncle decided we needed Daylight Savings Time earlier this year.

Great. Now how do we let our PC's know that?

• Vista: No update needed.
• XP: Update available, will soon be upgraded to high priority or critical. If you installed KB924840 as a test version, you will want to uninstall it. I presume Media Center is the same since it's really just XP Home with some toys added.
• 2000: Manually edit - instructions provided by Microsoft.
• NT 4: Not supported. Good time to justify that upgrade.

If you are into some heavy reading, help yourself:

Preparing for daylight saving time changes in 2007

bottom line is further down the same page

How to configure daylight saving time for the United States in 2007

2007 time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systems

Vista, as cheap as it gets

If you have decided to buy Vista and it's not a brand new machine, the upgrade path is obviously cheaper than forking over retail even at online prices.

And by doing an upgrade, you save yourself time & effort by not reinstalling applications on your PC and redoing all the little tweaks you've made.

(And this is all presuming your PC really is capable of running Vista, you checked, right?)

Never, well, only when you're desperate do an upgrade

Folks that have known me for some time know that I preach clean installs of operating systems. Especially since Windows sort of corrupts itself over time anyway, a fresh start is the way to go. Upgrading, while saving time, many times will preserve problems as well. And it's guaranteed to carry all of your excess baggage forward.

But with your upgrade copy of Vista you can't do a clean install, can you?

YES! you can. Various experts have already posted how to do this, and it is an extra step or two, but the money you save by buying an upgrade copy of Vista instead of a full retail is probably worth it for you.

Here is Marc Liron's how-to. Hope this information is of use to you, that's it for this week.

When was the last time you backed up YOUR PC?

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