Have you seen the price of PC memory these days?

I was looking to possibly update my desktop from 1GB to 2GB after performing some recent benchmarks. What I found was that the memory in my current desktop runs slower than in my previous one (DDR2 is slower than DDR, and this is the issue).

Anyway, I found that my current memory was rated at 533, whereas I could actually go a lot higher with my system board. I found that 2GB of 800 memory was just £32. Wow. So I ordered it.

Now, I’d like to say it’s made a huge increase but it hasn’t. Humbug. Benchmarks have shown it to be better but not hugely so.

What I did find, though, is that a simple tweak to XP’s swapfile makes just as big an improvement. If you’ve not done this, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the Advanced tab, then the Settings button in the Performance frame. Once the Performance Options window opens, click on the Advanced tab and then the Change button under the Virtual Memory area. Click on the entry for your system disk, check the Custom size radio button and enter the same number in both the Initial Size and Maximum Size fields. The general rule of thumb is to make the swapfile 1.5 times your physical memory size – 3000Mb in my case.

Having heard that the Windows Transforation Pack has been updated, I was keen to investigate WinFlip, which is part of it.

WinFlip provides the Flip3D facilities that you find in Vista. And… it’s very, very good.

There are other improvements in the Transformation Pack, such as windows transparency, but, to be honest, I’m interested in improving my XP, not just making it look like a Vista copy (and probably bogging it down as well).

I also came across a Start Menu replacement, but wasn’t keen on that either.

Oh, and I’m Beta testing Windows Live Messenger 9 at the mo. It adds Vista style minimise/maximise/close buttons, as WMP 11 does as well. Anybody aware of some simple software that will change this on all windows (and just the buttons)?

A number of friends have recently had problems with their PC’s – more specifically related to Windows. And I know why. They’re all running dodgy copies of XP, and suffering as a consequence. One even tried to resolve the problems with their dodgy SP1 copy of XP by wiping their hard drive and installing an even dodgier SP2 version of XP. It also came with a number of other applications that they didn’t want. Or were able to uninstall.

My advice is always simple. Buy it. eBuyer currently sell oem copies for less than £55. It’s above board, it won’t come with any unexpected surprises and you shouldn’t get any messages from Microsoft telling you that your copy is hooky.

An oem copy of Vista can be bought for the same money but buying a Windows OS before the first service pack is not recommended. In fact I’d recommend waiting until the second service pack – OS’s generally have a 10 year shelf-life, so waiting a year or so isn’t a great problem.

Other than XP, I have little commercial software installed on my PC – most of it is open source and freeware. Exceptions I can think of are Paint Shop Pro and PowerDVD (both cheap oem copies) and DBPowerAmp (it’s the fastest CD ripper I’ve come across). Oh, and Office 2007. It’s expensive, and most people will find the free OpenOffice just as good. In my case, though, the less than 100% compatibility was causing me issues so I had to open my wallet.