Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 May 25

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May 25

Windows Vista Bit Editons

What are the different types of Windows Vista Bit Editions and which one is better? —68.193.151.240 (talk) 01:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming your question is referring to the 32 and 64bit versions of the Operating System. Up until recently the majority of computer processors made ran with a 32bit instruction set, that is, the computer would be able to accept commands up to 32bits (4bytes) in length. Recently there has been a push to 64bit processors which can handle longer instructions. The 32bit version will work on both 32 and 64bit machines and the 64bit only 64 bit machines. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics of vista 64 bit but i don't think it'll run 32bit programs without emulation and likewise the 32bit version will not run 64bit programs (even though the processor can accept them). For now i'd probably stick to 32bit as this is what the majority of windows programs are written for (if you're using linux however the majority of programs are compatible with about 15 architectures!). I also i think the 64bit version has little performance gain over 32bit but in the future it's likely all programs will move over to 64bit, but for now stick to 32bit. -Benbread (talk) 11:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with instruction length; the main point is to increase the size of pointers so that they can refer to more than 2³² bytes (4 GiB) of data at a time. The easiest way to do that (and the way they did it) is to double the pointer size and the CPU register size from 32 to 64 bits. Various other things also get doubled, but only if there's some reason to double them. It doesn't make sense to double the length of everything across the board, because all of these increases hurt performance; you have to move twice as much data around and hard drives and RAM don't magically double in speed. 32-bit x86 instructions can be anywhere from 1 byte (8 bits) to 15 bytes (120 bits) long, and I don't think that changed in x86-64. The DEC Alpha architecture has 64-bit CPU registers and pointers, but all instructions are 32 bits long. The "16 bit" SNES had 16-bit CPU registers, 16/24-bit pointers, and an 8-bit data bus, while the "16 bit" Sega Genesis/Mega Drive had 32-bit CPU registers, 32-bit pointers, and a 16-bit data bus. I don't think that "128 bit" gaming consoles had 128 bits of anything. It's better to just think of "N bit" as a marketing term.

Practically speaking the only advantage of 64-bit Vista is that it supports more total memory (physical RAM plus virtual memory). But you pay for that with a lot of compatibility problems. So it really depends on whether you expect to need more than 3-4 GiB of memory in the near future. -- BenRG (talk) 14:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually a number of programs have been released in 64 bit editions and these sometimes perform better then their equivalent 32 bit versions. For example, Rybka is about 60% faster in 64-bit mode. Some software encoders also gain a bit, although generally not so much. SHA512 and some other hashing algorythms also gain quite a bit from being run in 64-bit. Of course, with all things it obviously depends on how good the implementention is and a well tuned 32-bit implementation may be better then a poorly optimised 64-bit one. And some programs are slower when run in 64bit mode. However with anything more then 2gb, you do gain an advantage to using a 64-bit edition of Windows. The compabitility problems are IMHO overrated with any decent modern computer without funky/crappy hardware. They do exist, but they are not as bad as people make out. The biggest issue is perhaps the requirement for signed drivers which is on by default in 64-bit Vista, but not 32-bit, however it can be turned off. Nil Einne (talk) 16:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Changing computer

I recently sold my old laptop (powered by Windows XP) to my father, who understandably is changing the settings to how he wants it. When I bought the computer new, I registered it in my name. When he goes into Control Panel and opens System, the General tab lists it as "Registered to" [my name]. Anyone have an idea how to change it to his name? 24.95.74.161 (talk) 01:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Click ‘Start’ , Click ‘Run’ , type regedit.
2. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion node.
3. Look for the values RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization. Edit their values to you username and company name of choice.
4. Exit the Registry Editor

WARNING you could mess up your computer. Be very cautious in the registry editor. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 03:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

How to disable file locking in Windows XP?

Is there some way to completely prevent Windows XP from locking files anymore? Just to disable it so it won't happen? William Ortiz (talk) 09:10, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Why are you trying to do this? File locking is a very important security measure in software, preventing 2 processes from writing to the same file and corrupting the whole thing. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

File locking in Windows seems to be kind of broken. Opening a file which someone else is writing will sometimes succeed and cause the other process to lose its write access on the already open handle. This has happened to me many times, most recently a few days ago when I was converting a long audio file from wav to ogg and opened the partially-written ogg file in WinAmp. WinAmp started playing the file; a few seconds later the encoding process failed with a write error. I don't know what combination of access flags causes this behavior, but I'd love to know a way to disable it. -- BenRG (talk) 14:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, file locking in Windows is buggered. Get yourself a linux 79.76.173.176 (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes files just get stuck locked for no reason after months of reboots, 0-byte files that nothing is using. I use a program called "unlocker", though sometimes that fails and it just says "explorer" is locking them and shutting down explorer doesn't help. But anyway, I've come to the conclusion that file locking is just bad and my computer would run better without it. I tried hex editing FileLockEx out of kernel32.dll but that just gave programs complaining when they were looking for it so it'd be nice to make the programs think the locking succeeded when it didn't. William Ortiz (talk) 19:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

OR, but Microsoft Word documents are terrible for this. So bad in fact I only use RTF now. Think outside the box 19:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

There's a program that I use called Unlocker. It adds itself to the context menu and works like a charm. I use it mostly when I need to delete something. It only works on one file at a time, though.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

What archive type is "webpages.ez" ?

Hello all,

the above named file is included in the firmware file of my router. What packer format produces these files and what are its magic bytes?

Thanks,93.104.119.43 (talk) 15:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: The router in question is an Eumex 800V aka BinTec T800v, hope that helps...

You sure it's not "webpages.gz", which is a gzipped archive? If you have Linux you can easily find out what type of file it is by using file (Unix). --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the firmware file is a 4MB big custom stuff, file says "data" for it. And yeah, it is webpages.ez; the name of the file is in the firmware (I ran it through "strings"). 88.217.52.232 (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

flow chart and flow diagram

what is the difference between flow chart and flow diagram? explain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.225.30 (talk) 15:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

You should do your own homework, but have a look at process flow diagram and flowchart. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 16:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

totally confused about wireless service

I have tried to make sense of information regarding wireless service..specifically, I want to let go of my landline and still have an ISP...what exactly are my options?Rubymae (talk)

You can log into somebody else's unsecured network (illegal in UK). You can buy a dongle at a cost of about GBP 50 and pay a monthly rental to an ISP (in UK). Or you can retain (or rent a fresh) landline and broadband package. MilkFloat 20:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Can someone in the US tell me what do I need to do to get a wireless ISP connection. Could I get ISP thru Direct TV satellite? What is a 'dongle'?

See dongle. Dismas|^(talk) 05:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There's Mobile Broadband, Satellite Internet access, Wifi, and radio-based internet access where you aim a fixed antenna at the provider (an article for which I can't find). Why do you want to do this though? A cable, DSL, or fibre internet connection is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. 24.76.169.85 (talk) 07:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Passwords and such

Hello, Computing. I am rather clueless, so I need one thing explained in detail: How come for, say, a Winrar that has been password protected, one needs to rely on crackers that utilize bruteforcing/dictionary attempts? Can one not boot one's beloved PC into some rather primitive state, and access the information from there? Shouldn't it be rather straight forward, looking at a lengthy table of things that compile into 0s and 1s, to eventually find the strings that detail the winrar and its belonging passwords, and from there shut that off, or change it? Surely, somewhere, something says... access: if is "pw123" = 1...? I would love to know just what it is that keeps us from looking at what one might refer to as 'source code', and simply alter material through there.

Thank you in advance! Scaller (talk) 21:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Winrar doesn't work as you imagine. It encrypts the information in the file. William Avery (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that sneaky-...! But still, the password function and my question related to -that- remains unanswered, still, right? Scaller (talk) 21:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Well including the password in the source code would be a very stupid thing to do, see this dailyWTF article. --antilived^{T | C | G} 22:33, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

winRAR encrypts the data with the password. So without the password you have no meaningful data at all, just useless 1s and 0s. Then the password itself acts as a parameter to the decryption function. The only reason you even know if you have the correct password is that it checks the checksum of the decrypted data against an unencrypted hash stored with the RAR file.. if they don't match then the data wasn't decrypted correctly and you must have gotten the password wrong .froth. (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that was what I imagined to be the problem! Password is the key, then. Roger doo, thank you very much. :) And, in reply to the dailyWTF, that was amazing! Thank you for your help. Scaller (talk) 12:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Call Centre setup

Thanks for giving me chance to ask question. I am very much interested to setup a call centre. But before that i want to know about details about that. So could you tell me the details procedures of a 20 seated call centre setup including technical and financial details and instruments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khalid21 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, have you tried Google? [1] --70.167.58.6 (talk) 23:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not a small task-- you really should hire someone to do this for you. Get input from different individuals with experience in this area.

VisionLab Studio crash

I was using FXhome VisionLab Studio, and it crashed while rendering a large (about 1 GB, estimated) file, and it crashed, and now when I try to open up the document to re-render it, it only opens up the application, and not the document. What should I do? Should I just redo everything or is there some kind of solution? Thank you very very much. Ilikefood (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, i fixed it. Ilikefood (talk) 23:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)