Tag: windows xp

USB Selective Suspend – Turn On or Off

USB Logo

The USB selective suspend feature allows the hub driver to suspend an individual USB port without affecting the operation of the other USB ports on the hub. Selective suspension of USB devices is especially useful in portable computers, since it helps conserve battery power. Many devices, such as fingerprint readers and other kinds of biometric scanners, only require power intermittently. Suspending such devices, when the device is not in use, reduces overall power consumption. More importantly, any device that is not selectively suspended may prevent the USB host controller from disabling its transfer schedule, which resides in system memory. DMA transfers by the host controller to the scheduler can prevent the system’s processors from entering deeper sleep states, such as hibernate.

 

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off USB selective suspend to automatically power down idle USB devices in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

 

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/147369-usb-selective-suspend-turn-off.html

How to avoid installing bundleware with the help of Unchecky

Installing third-party programs isn’t the minefield it was during the good old days of Windows XP. But every now and then, some desktop apps still try to sneak annoying tool-bars and other software past you during installation.

Known as bundle-ware, the options to not install these additional programs can be easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. That’s where a utility called Unchecky can come in handy, by watching over third-party installations so that you don’t have to. It should work with most software and is well worth using when it does.

Checking in with Unchecky

Visit the Unchecky website and click the big, orange Download button on the front page. Install the program as you normally would—it should be a quick process.

 

Watch Unchecky in action

Do Not Install XP Patches For Embedded XP

By now, you probably know about the registry hack trick to get updates for Windows XP. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but that’s a really bad idea, one you should not do, and both Microsoft and at least one security firm are saying not to do it.

Initially, I thought they were enabling XP to use Windows 7 updates, which wouldn’t be that far-fetched. XP and 7 have considerable overlap and common code. But I learned these are not Windows 7 patches, they are in fact for Windows Point of Sales (Windows Embedded) machines, which run a custom version of the regular XP.
Redmond is warning everyone to not use a workaround that claims to solve the Windows XP security updates problem. The hack is making a small registry change that will let XP receive security updates, and tricks Windows Update into thinking that the XP version is an embedded point-of-sale OS that Redmond supports through 2019.
Here is the Official Response from Microsoft.

“We recently became aware of a hack that purportedly aims to provide security updates to Windows XP customers,” Microsoft tells Tom’s Hardware. “The security updates that could be installed are intended for Windows Embedded and Windows Server 2003 customers and do not fully protect Windows XP customers.”

“Windows XP customers also run a significant risk of functionality issues with their machines if they install these updates, as they are not tested against Windows XP,” the company adds. “The best way for Windows XP customers to protect their systems is to upgrade to a more modern operating system, like Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.”

 The normal XP and embedded XP are are similar but not identical. The updates would only partially protect XP simply could break things, the Microsoft experts claim.