A Hint for "Home" Operating System Users

A hint for those people who have purchased a Windows XP Home machine with Microsoft Office2007 pre-installed by an OEM ...

I went to a site the other day because the client had an unstable laptop. It wasn't recognizing thumb drives, often disconnected the printer, was experiencing a lot of unexpected shutdowns of applications, etc. The machine was 4 months old.

Teaser: Microsoft Office2007 was designed to run on Vista. It does run on XP, but matching the "intended" operating system requirements and features is important when troubleshooting performance issues.

The first thing I noticed was that this was a Windows XP Home machine. While all critical updates for that OS (operating system) were installed, there were a number of items expected by Microsoft Office 2007 (also OEM installed) that were in the "optional" list -- not installed. XP Pro would have installed IE7, in example (unless the owner had blocked it), and that is really needed for smooth operation of Office2007 ... this client was using IE6.

We spent a few hours downloading (thank goodness for DSL) and installing Internet Explorer 7, DotNet Framework 3 (because Excel, Access, and Small Business Accounting were active as part of the Office2007, these would help stabilize it), Office2007 updates (these are not "turned on" by default), and the other optional XP updates through Windows Update and Microsoft Update.

We also updated the BIOS and Chipset to ensure that was not contributing to the thumb drive problem. This is easy if you have Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc machines but takes a bit more technical savvy if you are using a "white box".

This user had been very careful to keep anti-virus/anti-spyware protection current. Good procedure called for cleaning up temp files and running a defrag, etc.

The machine is now booting much faster, the programs stopped crashing (one browser dump in the last week is less than the usual number for a heavy user of MS products), external devices are attaching and removing smoothly.

Morals of the story:

1. "Home" versions of operating systems do not necessarily load everything needed to run applications smoothly. This does not mean they are a bad choice, it simply acknowledges that they are constructed for a different target audience.
2. Just because a program loads, does not mean it is running properly. I've run into sites where applications would not load because "home" OSes had not updated certain files by default. That it is usually the "home" user who is stuck with sub-optimal performance because of this, and is least likely to know how to fix it themselves, is unfortunate.
3. To avoid this problem, consider buying "business" or "professional" versions of operating systems. These, historically, assume you will need the "higher-end programming components" sooner, and place these in the critical updates script -- translation, they are loaded automatically. The $100 or so in added cost may well be saved in professional fees to get the machine running properly. This is particularly important if you plan to run a "business-level" application on the machine or attach "business-level" printers, etc.
4. Whatever operating system you buy, check (or have your computer-saavy friend check) the requirements of any new program you want to install and download the requisite patches BEFORE you put the program on your machine. You might even check every 3 to 6 months for these yourself as a precaution. It will save a lot of grief.
5. Never forget to backup! Consider imaging your system (Acronis, Ghost, etc). Do it before any installs so you have a current, working "fallback" position if the install fails. System restore does not always accomplish this.