making this laptop faster

[MxPhenom 216]

What does she do with this laptop ? What type of work or activity ? Maybe a linux distro or other alternate OS's would work fine if she is only facebook and web browsing.

she owns a hair salon and its like the server for it kind of. she does all the transactions on it and records

 

[Thatguy]

she owns a hair salon and its like the server for it kind of. she does all the transactions on it and records

Point of Sale on a laptop ?

this is a recipe for fialure, first off she should have a SQL box running somewhere in the salon where everything gets backed up to. She should be doing a automated weekly back up as well.

Linux has a bunch of Point of sale software,

Also you could run WINE under linux and then use quickbooks" which I am assuming shes using"

Not to mention as the quickbooks database grows quickbooks slows down.

This is not a good data setup for anyone.

she needs to invest in 2 cheap desktop machines.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Point of Sale on a laptop ?

this is a recipe for fialure, first off she should have a SQL box running somewhere in the salon where everything gets backed up to. She should be doing a automated weekly back up as well.

Linux has a bunch of Point of sale software,

Also you could run WINE under linux and then use quickbooks" which I am assuming shes using"

Not to mention as the quickbooks database grows quickbooks slows down.

This is not a good data setup for anyone.

she needs to invest in 2 cheap desktop machines.

yep she uses quick books

 

[95Viper]

Does she use the "Remote Assistance" or "Remote Desktop"?
If not, disable them:
Does she use any sidebar gadgets?
If not, disable the sidebar.
Same for Windows Media Center Stuff.

For some decent info on this, go here>www.BlackViper.com and look around Category:Windows Vista Services
And, us some trial and error(testing), make a log of what you have done to redo it...
In case it turns out she does use\need the service\s.
Make a back-up of the registry before starting and, maybe, even, a hidden folder to place the back-up stuff and needed files.

 

[Thatguy]

yep she uses quick books

This is a bad system, laptop drives are prone to fialure and quickbooks is a drive writing whore. To the point where I clone my drive 2 times a year and replace it along with dialy server backs up and weekly hard media DVD backups.

you cannot reliably run your bussiness on a laptop.

there simply isn't enough data security. The big issue is no one makes quickbooks for linux unless you run wine. If shes running a version newer then 2007 wine won't work right.

So your best bet is to get her to stop hosting here quickbooks database on her laptop, downgrade her laptop to windows XP "if the dirvers are available and they often are" build her a cheap server box out of a old pc for like $150.

Laptop hard drives are not robust or reliable enough for this type of use.

 

[silkstone]

So your best bet is to get her to stop hosting here quickbooks database on her laptop, downgrade her laptop to windows XP "if the dirvers are available and they often are" build her a cheap server box out of a old pc for like $150.

Or, you could recommend she buys a good ghosting program and an external hard-disk and runs daily backups.

 

[Thatguy]

Or, you could recommend she buys a good ghosting program and an external hard-disk and runs daily backups.

thats going to make the disk wear problem worse. you can run quickbooks in a server/client setup for Point of sale. best to do that.

 

[dustyshiv]

As Kreij said, If u notice too much disk thrashing i.e system continuously paging to the Hdd, adding RAM is a must. Make sure u choose same memory as in the system so as to enable dual channel feature.

Windows 7 and 2GB of ram will do wonders. Its from personal experience. Make sure u have disk defragmenter schedule set up so there is regular defragmentation.

I assume u will update all the drivers to their latest versions.

Lets know how it goes!!

 

[Thatguy]

As Kreij said, If u notice too much disk thrashing i.e system continuously paging to the Hdd, adding RAM is a must. Make sure u choose same memory as in the system so as to enable dual channel feature.

Windows 7 and 2GB of ram will do wonders. Its from personal experience. Make sure u have disk defragmenter schedule set up so there is regular defragmentation.

I assume u will update all the drivers to their latest versions.

Lets know how it goes!!

I have 2gb on my wifes win 7 machine. Runs like a bowl of dogshit next to me winxp box regardless of hardware.

windows eats hardrives to.

 

[dustyshiv]

I have 2gb on my wifes win 7 machine. Runs like a bowl of dogshit next to me winxp box regardless of hardware.

windows eats hardrives to.

That guy, it depends on also on what programs are running in the background and wht programs are configured to run at boot. Most laptop manufacturers load the new laptops with so much bloatware that these make the system slow. Removing these and defragmenting the drives certainly has worked for me....

 

[Bo$$]

That guy, it depends on also on what programs are running in the background and wht programs are configured to run at boot. Most laptop manufacturers load the new laptops with so much bloatware that these make the system slow. Removing these and defragmenting the drives certainly has worked for me....

i must admit even with 1gb of ram this PC in my specs was running fine, gaming stuttered a bit, but it was really managable on the desktop and for browsing it was incredibly fast.


remove all excessive startup crap using msconfig, that really helps....