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1. Once the SSD becomes the system boot drive more on that below you can move the extra files back to the old hard drive A Faster Simpler and Relatively Cheap Solution With a smart drive cloning program you shouldn t have to bother with moving your files to an external backup drive I know of only one program adept enough to do this properly Paragon Migrate OS to SSD 20 more info The program s wizard walks you through the steps The really impressive options are found on the Change copy options page There you can select specific files and folders to transfer or not to transfer NOTE Paragon Migrate OS to SSD isn t perfect When I booted the newly cloned SSD for the first time Windows Explorer failed to launch and Windows put up a Server execution failed error It Windows was looking for the default library folders in now nonexistent locations Fortunately the fix was easy as I ll explain below I can t say whether this is acommon problem Setting Up the SSD as Your New Primary Drive With cloning over it s time to make the SSD your boot drive On a desktop launch BIOS setup and change the boot order so that the SSD is higher on the list than the old HDD I won t tell you explicitly how to make the change because it varies with the brand and version of BIOS If you need a refresher the PC s manual should have instructions With laptops you re going to have to perform a hard drive transplant Remove the old drive2. To add to the confusion in mid January Microsoft s Malware Protection Center announced in a TechNet blog that it would continue to provide updates to MSE for XP machines for another 15 months The blog states To help organizations complete their migrations Microsoft will continue to provide updates to our anti malware signatures and engine for Windows XP users through July 14 2015 That s certainly a customer friendly development although I m still scratching my head about blocking MSE downloads on XP It s possible that somebody at the Malware Protection Center ran a simulation of the fallout from some nasty virus compromising half a billion XP machines after April 8 That could cause something of a hiccup on the Internet That MPC statement is noteworthy because Microsoft will not only update MSE signatures but the MSE engine too Bravo In a more recent development Computerworld broke the news in a Jan 26 story that Microsoft will update the Malicious Software Removal Tool MSRT for Windows XP through July 14 2015 MSRT isn t a first line of defense AV tool but it s effective at removing existing infections It s also delivered via Microsoft Update so most XP machines will get it Some Safe Assumptions Some Wild Speculations If Microsoft s backpedaling were limited to just those two AV products I d not be very impressed Many third party vendors offer better anti malware protection and have publicly stated that they ll conti
3. but I m obligated to say it anyway With that done you re ready to connect the SSD to your PC On a desktop install the SSD into a spare drive bay and connect the data and power cables If you have a laptop connect the new drive with your SATA to USB enclosure Use the laptop s USB 3 0 port if it has one Next if the SSD came with cloning software give it a try But keep your expectations in check the app included with my Samsung SSD 840 EVO more info was for the most part useless It would not let me select specific folders just file types and only a limited number of those If the SSD s bundled software proves inadequate to the task try one or more of the following options The Free Method with a Spare External Drive This process requires paring down your old hard drive so that what remains will fit on the new SSD To do that you ll need an external hard drive with enough spare room to store all files removed from the primary drive Plug in the drive and create folders with names such as Extra Documents Extra Music Extra Pictures Extra Video etc Now open your Windows library and move the extra files and folders see Figure 1 to the folders you created on the external drive Don t move the library folders themselves e g C Users user name My Documents C Users user name My Pictures and so on just move their contents or more precisely the parts of their contents you don t want on the SSD On my sy
4. The ASCUlriber ot e THE JOURNAL OF THE LOWER BUCKS COMPUTER USERS GROUP o Volume 33 e Issue 3 March 2014 Ure usse Gone again and a free book NEXT MEETING Once again I have to travel to corporate HQ in Raleigh and will have to miss the meeting SUND AY March 2 2 P M Hopefully this will be the last time this will happen ER fests fora few months but who knows Staying with XP Thinking about getting a solid state drive Need a media player Jim McGorry s articles have the In the past we ve talked a lot about Lightroom What information you need would be nice would be an easy to read and understand user s manual to help when the program is new to you Even better if it was free Last reprieve for XP PC Backups Trading up to SSD s VLC Media Player It s here http www lightroomqueen com free downloads quickstart Ir5 The author Victoria Bampton is a Lightroom expert and the author of Lightroom books since the program first appeared I hope you enjoy it and P Il see you in a month Weekly Download Section from Jim McGorry From The Desk of Jim McGorry Excerpts taken from the Windows Secrets Periodical A LAST REPRIEVE FOR THE ENDURING WINDOWS XP By now every Windows XP user and his third cousin should know that on April 8 the clock runs out on the venerable OS But recent developments might give XP users a bit of a reprieve When and how Microsoft will blink are the open question
5. from the laptop and replace it with the SSD Then put the old drive into the external enclosure that formerly housed the SSD Assuming that goes well the SSD should boot on powerup and the old drive with your excess files will be available on the external drive Once you re booted from the SSD and recovered from the speed rush make sure that your libraries are where they belong Try opening Windows Explorer If it opens follow the instructions below On the other hand if you get the aforementioned Server execution failed error open Notepad press Ctrl S and follow those steps inside Notepad s Save dialog box Click Libraries in the left panel Right click Documents and select Properties The Documents folder on the SSD which should be C should have a checkmark next to it If the new C drive isn t listed click Include a folder and add it to the list If it doesn t have the checkmark select that folder and click Set save location which basically means Make it the library s default location You might want to add your old Documents folder now on the old hard drive to the list But don t make it the checked Save location folder the default Documents folder You can add a folder on an external drive to a library but you should never make it the default location Repeat with all of your libraries For the time being you can keep your old hard drive as your secondary drive either internal or external You mi
6. ght one day want to remove Windows from it or even reformat it But you can save that chore for another day Weekly Download Section from Jim McGorry Can t Play A File VLC Player Saves The Day Have an audio or video file that you can t seem to open on your computer Let me tell you about a great free program that can make your life a whole lot easier VLC Player is the answer to your codec error problems What s a codec you might ask My flip answer is that codecs are the devil but the more technically correct answer is that a codec is a device or program that compresses data for faster transmission and then decompresses the data You ll see a codec error when the programs on your computer don t recognize the program that compressed the data in the file you re trying to open B A codec is required to play this file To determine if this codec is available to download from the Web click Web Help I worked for many many years in television and codec errors were the bane of our existence A commercial made on a particular editing system would refuse to open on another one Sometimes a file would refuse to open on the same system running a different version of software Where it really caused problem was when we tried to open surveillance video provided to us by various law enforcement agencies Every single one of them used a different format Good luck finding America s most wanted when you can t open the video Thankful
7. gularly recent photos and possibly a few favorite songs are all good candidates for the SSD Files rarely accessed should stay on the original hard disk drive My work habits made this file reorganization fairly easy I keep my current and recent projects within the Dropbox folder in My Documents I also keep recent and favorite photos in Dropbox It s the only folder I really need to have with me at all times Any file stored elsewhere is one I rarely need to access Once you ve decided how to divide up your files it s time to get to work on your SSD upgrade The Basics of Transferring Files to a New Drive So you ve got a brand new SSD what else do you need A screwdriver is probably the only physical tool you ll need If you ve got a desktop you might need an adapter bracket to fit the drive into a full sized bay If you re lucky an adapter came packaged with the SSD On laptops you ll need a SATA to USB enclosure or docking station or connector kit to set up the new SSD as a temporary external drive With an enclosure you can turn the old hard disk drive into a more or less permanent external drive You can buy an enclosure for as little as 10 to 20 Whether enclosure or connector kit be sure it supports USB 3 0 You might also need an external drive but we ll get to that later Your first step before anything gets transferred of course will be to make a full image backup of your current system It should go without saying
8. igh degree of automation Con Slow Could Incur Significant Secondary Costs and Depends on Middleman Services As you might expect cloud backup can be extremely slow especially when moving large numbers of files It can take literally days to fully restore a PC from cloud based backups Moving large amounts of data via the Web also can choke your local Internet connection Moreover if your ISP or cloud service provider imposes data transfer limits backing up your entire system to the cloud can lead to substantial surcharges Using a cloud based service also makes you dependent on middlemen If your ISP or cloud service provider goes down for any reason technical criminal financial or some other cause you ll lose access to your cloud stored backups Next Up Real world Timing Tests and More Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series In that article you ll see how the above five major backup types compare in live timing tests using small medium and large file sets You ll also receive advice on the types of backups to use for different file types multimedia images documents and so forth and under different circumstances Stay tuned From The Desk of Jim McGorry Excerpts taken from the Windows Secrets Periodical GOING SMALL ER TRADING SPINNING DISKS FOR SSDS Solid state drives can give a significant boost to system performance but at the cost of storage space Here s how to sort out the data on a big spinning platter drive a
9. is usually just a matter of plugging it in It s hard to imagine a backup medium that s easier to set up All major Windows based backup programs can write to USB attached storage and Win8 s built in File History can automatically use external drives for near continuous archiving See the July 11 2013 Top Story Understanding Windows 8 s File History USB 3 0 drives usually give excellent high speed data transfers USB 2 0 drives are slower but still acceptable for most backup needs A good 1TB external drive currently costs about 80 and up Con Mixed Data Security Backups to a USB connected external drive should be highly secure if after a backup is made the drive is disconnected from the PC and stored in a safe location But USB drives are rarely used that way and Win8 s File History requires that the drive be more or less permanently attached When a USB drive is left attached it s vulnerable to many of the same events that can take down the primary drive including malware mechanical or electrical malfunctions theft and other disasters Back Up to a Networked Drive or Second PC Storage sitting on the local network can make backing up multiple PCs easier The newest network attached drives such as the Western Digital My Book Live more info also let you share media and access their contents from the Web Pro Generally Easy to Set Up Acceptable to Good Speed Moderate Cost and Complexity and Some Resistance to Si
10. l networks and gigabit Wi Fi will become more widespread in coming years but they re still minor players today So now that we have the context of this backup discussion here are my capsule summaries of the five commonly used options Back Up to a Secondary Internal Hard Drive In this setup your system files and data reside on the primary typically C drive your backups live on a second physically separate drive inside the PC Pro Fast Easy and Inexpensive A secondary internal drive offers the fastest form of backup and restoration The backup process is easy to set up all standard backup programs can read and write to a secondary hard drive A second internal disk drive is relatively cheap A 1TB desktop class drive costs as little as U S 60 Con Low Data Security Secondary drives share the same physical electrical and operating system environment as the primary drive so anything that compromises the primary drive malware mechanical or electrical malfunction fire flood theft and so on might also compromise the secondary drive Storing backups on a secondary internal drive is a better than nothing approach Back Up to Optical Discs DVDs and CDs Most desktops and laptops still have optical drives PCs without an optical drive can be connected to an external DVD CD drive but there are few viable reasons to bother Pro Can be highly secure Once written optical discs are immune to new malware infectio
11. ly a very wise engineer introduced me to VLP It s free and I ve yet to find anything it won t open VLC Play was developed by VideoLAN organization a non profit the promotes free open source multimedia solutions You can choose to donate if you wish but it s not required LC media pl Take a look at the video formats it supports gt ex a MPEG 1 2 v v v DIVX 1 2 3 v v v MPEG 4 ASP DivX 4 5 6 XviD 3ivX D4 7 v v H 261 v d v H 263 H 263i v v v H 264 MPEG 4 AVC v v v Cinepak v v wv Theora v v v Dirac VC 2 v v v MJPEG A B v v v WMV 1 2 v v v WMV 3 WMV 9 VC 1 w Sorenson 1 3 Quicktime v v v DV Digital Video v y s On2 VP3 VP5S IVP6 v v7 Indeo Video v3 IV32 v v o Indeo Video 4 5 V41 IV51 X x x Real Video 1 2 v v v Real Video 3 4 v v v And the audio formats Whether you re using MAC Windows Vista Windows 7 or Windows 8 This is especially great for Windows 8 since it doesn t come with a built in DVD player To learn more about VLC and to download it for free http www videolan org
12. mple Malware Nearly all Windows PCs have networking abilities built in and almost all homes with PCs have networks with Wi Fi and or hard wired Ethernet So it s usually not hard to back up files over the network to an attached storage device or a second PC s hard drive You can for example put an old PC back to use as a sort of poor man s file server Backup speeds over a network can be good especially with 100Mbps Ethernet which often yields real world throughputs about 10 times faster than 802 11g Wi Fi If used properly network backups can also be resistant to some forms of spreading malware more in the Con below Con Requires Extra Steps for Good Security Ideally a networked drive should be far away from the system being backed up It should have separate physical security and be powered by a separate electrical circuit Otherwise the networked drive might be lost along with the backed up client PC in the event of some accident theft or disaster Networked drives are usually accessed two ways drive mapping assigning a drive letter such as Z and Uniform Naming Convention UNC more info assigning a network name such as name of drive or PC Drive mapping is less secure because relatively simple malware on the client PC can access the mapped networked drive as easily as a local drive To help thwart such malware it s better to use UNC for accessing networked drives Back Up to a Subscription based Cl
13. nd fit what you can onto a smaller SSD Migrating down to a Smaller System Drive Install a solid state drive and it s love at first boot The minutes it took to load Windows suddenly become seconds Everything is faster you ll never want to go back There is however a cost to that extra speed SSDs cost far more per gigabyte than hard drives and typically come in smaller sizes As I write this a 120GB SSD typically goes for U S 90 to 100 a 256GB drive will set you back about 200 A 512GB SSD from one of the well known drive manufacturers could cost you 400 By comparison you can buy a traditional 1TB hard drive for just 70 So unless you re rolling in cash or need only a small amount of storage space trading your primary spinning disk drive for an SSD requires making some hard decisions about which files you ll keep on the new drive Moreover the simple task of cloning your old drive to a new one probably won t work you can t clone 500GB worth of files onto a 120GB drive Bottom line Migrating to an SSD will probably be more complex than you might at first assume Along with those hard decisions the process of transferring Windows and data to a new SSD will require a few more steps I ll discuss those steps below Using an SSD on Desktops vs Laptops In most cases adding an SSD to a desktop system is considerably easier than upgrading a notebook Technically speaking the issue isn t really desktop versus laptop it s whethe
14. nd of life means precisely has been redefined by Microsoft at least three times in the past couple of months And there s a strong possibility that the definition will change again before April to the confusion of most XP users So what did end of life mean Back in the good old days say three months ago Microsoft s description of the April deadline suggested nothing less than the complete end of any XP support no tech support help no new enhancements and no security updates That as it turns out isn t quite correct As I ll discuss below Microsoft will no longer give away updates but businesses with corporate licensing plans can pay for them after April 8 Then in early January Microsoft altered its official XP obituary page adding that Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP That certainly sounds threatening Backpedaling a Bit on a Hardline Stance To date I ve not seen an official clarification of what stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials precisely means For example it could mean that you can t download MSE using an XP based browser If so it s silly you just download MSE on a different machine and install on XP Or perhaps MSE s installer might simply block XP In that case what happens if you reinstall XP Microsoft will require XP activation even after EOL You can t reinstall MSE either Even Microsoft wouldn t be that callous I hope
15. ns Optical discs can also be very long lived If you store optical disc backups away from the main PC in a climate controlled location that s fire and theft proof your backups can last for decades safe from just about all the misfortunes that can affect a PC and its data For more on accessing files over decades see the Feb 21 2013 Best Practices story Preserving files for the generations Con Slow Labor Intensive Expensive Bulky and Requires Careful Handling Backing up files to optical discs is an inherently slow process often requiring disc changes labeling and careful storage which makes automated backups effectively impossible A single full system backup could span large numbers of discs adding to the cost and complicating the task of storage and eventual disposal Without good climate control i e constantly cool dark dry storage optical discs can degrade fairly quickly see these National Institute of Standards and Technology publications Also to protect them from unintended destruction such as fire or theft the discs need to be stored in a fire proof safe or at another site Back Up to a USB Connected External Drive The explosive growth of space consuming media such as digital music videos and digital photos has made one or more external drives a must have addition for many if not most Windows PCs Pro Easy to Use Good Speed and Low to Moderate Cost Installing an external USB attached drive
16. nue support for XP But I am impressed by Microsoft s willingness to soften its XP end of life stance The company has nothing to gain and everything to lose if it completely alienates its millions of XP users Many believe XP deserves to die because it s been around for 12 years I take issue with that XP was first released in October 2001 so technically it s 12 years old But it was rewritten for Service Pack 2 which appeared in August 2004 And Microsoft sold XP through its System Builders program until Jan 31 2009 That s just five years ago During the unfortunate Vista era many PC buyers went out of their way to get XP So as far as I m concerned XP hit the bit bucket only when Windows 7 shipped in July 2009 That makes XP by my admittedly jaundiced reckoning a sprightly four and a half years old That said there s no doubt that those running XP are living on borrowed time Windows 7 and 8x offer enhanced security and better compatibility with modern software and peripherals Most XP users should be planning to replace XP But it s also a bit disingenuous to effectively force Windows users to buy Win7 or Win8 then force them to line Microsoft s coffers once again a few years later when those operating systems are made obsolete Here s a parting tip If you work for a company that has a Microsoft volume license and a suitable Windows retirement contract you can buy Custom Support for XP as reported in a Computerworld story That
17. oud Service Cloud storage backup services are now extremely common Depending on your computing needs they can be either the primary backup system or supplementary backup Pro High Security Low to Moderate Cost and Easy to Set Up and Use The primary benefit of cloud backup is offsite storage Even if your PC and all local backups are lost you ll still have copies of your files in the cloud Most cloud services use reasonable safeguards password protection and encryption to prevent unauthorized access to your stored files But you can make your cloud storage virtually hack proof through the use of free or low cost third party tools See the Dec 12 2013 Top Story Pre encryption makes cloud based storage safer Cloud storage costs are low to moderate depending on the size of your data sets Most general cloud services offer some small amount of free storage typically 2 15GB Microsoft s SkyDrive soon to be renamed OneDrive site costs about 0 50 per gigabyte annually above its free 7GB So 107GB of storage will run 50 per year Google Drive site gives you the first 15GB free then charges about 0 60 per GB per year 115GB for 60 yr Fees for backup specific services such as Mozy site and Carbonite site are in the same general ballpark Setting up cloud based backup is usually easy For example Microsoft s OneDrive SkyDrive is built into Win8 Third party apps such as Mozy and Carbonite install easily and offer a h
18. pcoming issue Part 2 will provide additional details plus a Windows Secrets exclusive real world timing tests that show how long it takes to back up file sets of various sizes using each of the five backup types Combined Parts 1 and 2 will help you decide the type of backup technology that best fits your needs Five Ways to Archive Windows and Your Data Personal computer backups are best grouped by where the backup files are stored The five mainstream options I ll review are these Internal drives Optical discs typically DVDs and CDs USB connected external drives Networked drives such as in another PC or a standalone network attached storage device Cloud based data storage services There are of course variations of each type For example networked drives can be accessed either via Wi Fi or by hard wired Ethernet Wi Fi can be more convenient especially in the home but a wired connection is typically about 10 times faster than wireless so there s a huge speed difference Some other forms of backup don t warrant coverage here For example USB flash drives might be fine for backing up selected files and folders but most commonly used flash drives are too small to hold a complete whole PC backup It might be hard to believe but tape drives and floppies about as old school as it gets are still in use But they re far far out of the mainstream and are typically not up to the needs of modern personal computers Optica
19. r the system has room for two internal drives But practically speaking the vast majority of desktop PCs have extra drive bays and most laptops don t With multiple drive bays you can easily keep all files within the computer Whatever doesn t fit on the SSD stays on the old hard drive which remains in the computer The performance boost will be almost as good as having everything on an SSD With most laptops the files that won t fit on the new SSD will have to be kept on an external drive This can be clumsy especially when you re on the road And if your laptop doesn t have a USB 3 0 port you re going to suffer a major performance hit when you access big files or large batches of files from the external non SSD drive If you re upgrading a laptop keep in mind that the new SSD needs to fit completely within the hard drive enclosure Check the SSD retailer s return policies so that you re not stuck with the new drive if it doesn t fit Also check out Fred Langa s July 5 2012 Top Story Some ugliness installing an after market SSD What Goes to the SSD What Stays Behind Assuming you can t fit all your data on the new SSD what should you transfer and what should you leave behind on the old drive That decision could be based on several factors such as your work habits the ease of separating current projects from older ones and or the size number and type of files Documents associated with current projects files you open re
20. s Microsoft s Original Stance The End Is the End The folks in Redmond continue to insist that XP is well and truly done on April 8 But there could be half a billion XP computers still out there humming away depending on how you count them and what assumptions you re willing to make Getting an accurate count is exceptionally difficult because many of them aren t connected to the Internet via a browser Consequently they don t appear in independent Internet stats But whatever the precise number a huge number of PCs are officially end of life in just over two months Contrary to what some XP users believe end of life doesn t mean that XP computers will stop working that XP can no longer be installed or that existing security patches will be pulled from Windows Update It means that officially on April 8 Microsoft will no longer support XP there will be no more updates for the OS Regular Windows Secrets readers have seen numerous stories on living with XP for the long term See for example Preparing Windows XP for the long haul Aug 12 2010 Top Story Building your own XP Service Pack 4 Dec 1 2011 Top Story PC security after XP s official end of life Sept 19 2013 LangaList Plus Securing XP PCs after Microsoft drops support Dec 19 2013 Top Story If you ve been reading this newsletter you know that XP s end is coming But you probably didn t know that Microsoft s moved the goalposts repeatedly What e
21. service costs U S 200 per PC per year and includes updates to XP itself Rather than cut off individual XP users I think Microsoft should offer a personal Custom Support option for say 20 or 30 a year That would do a lot of good for the millions of XP users and earn Microsoft some much needed customer loyalty Hey I can always hope From The Desk of Jim McGorry Excerpts taken from the Windows Secrets Periodical SORTING OUT THE REVOLUTION IN PC BACKUPS PART 1 Over the past few years backup technology has improved so much that you re virtually guaranteed you ll never lose important files or other data But with so many good options available it can be difficult to settle on the backup method or methods exactly right for you Today s mainstream backup options range from Windows built in tools and an internal hard drive to automated applications that archive files to the cloud In between are old school backups on optical discs and new school network attached drives that let you access your data from anywhere locally and over the Web Each backup option brings its own particular mix of strengths and weaknesses In this two part series I ll sort out the differences in both use and speed In Part 1 I give an overview of the five leading types of backup technology available today for Windows users These capsule summaries should help you quickly sort through the benefits and limitations of each option In an u
22. stem for example I would open My Documents press Ctrl A to select everything in the folder then hold down Ctrl and click the Dropbox folder to deselect it Next I would drag the highlighted folders and files to the external drive s Extra Documents folder You can also use Ctrl X and Ctrl V on smaller batches of files if you have difficulty with drag and drop Repeat the process with the other libraries Once the total data content on the primary drive is small enough any decent cloning program should let you migrate Windows apps and data to the SSD I recommend EaseUS Todo Backup Free more info which clones as well as backs up At this point to be completely safe you might want to make an image backup of the slimmed down primary drive Once the program is up select Clone Disk Clone Select your old HDD as the source and the SSD as the target as shown in Figure 2 At the bottom of the drive selection window check Optimize for SSD but leave Sector by sector clone unchecked If you click Next and get an error message you need to move more files off the HDD and try again P Ease Todo Backup amp Disk Clone Selectie source disk Clone source x Disk 2 Basic MER aa 111 79 GB 111 79 GB Target location 3 a lt Diski Ga Basc MBR CANTES 465 76 GB 465 76 GB Option Optenee for SSO Sector by sector clone Figure 2 EaseUS Todo Backup Free is an easy to use cloning tool and it s completely free
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