This is a valid question and one you should strongly consider asking yourself as you weigh the pros and cons or upgrading to windows 7.

Its no secret that windows vista has received a bad rep and for good reason. This has left a bad taste for many including myself. I won’t get into many details of the pitfalls of Vista but let all agree it was a disaster! Its made me even more skeptical of upgrading to Windows 7. Lets say I think Microsoft got the hint and learned from their mistakes.

So before considering the big move, I will give you legitimate reasons why you should upgrade your PC to windows 7.

Reason 1 to upgrade my PC to Windows 7:
Compatibility is better in Windows 7.

Do you remember all of those unrecognized devices after installing Windows Vista? This was a prominent issue when Vista was released. As time went by more and more drivers and updates were rolled out for compatibility issues and eventually Vista was stable.

Fear not Windows 7 is essentially Vista on Steroids and upgrading has never been easier. No driver updates will be necessary sine Windows 7 will take care of everything for you.

Operating systems become more stable as they age primarily because there will be more service packs and upgrades released that fix major bugs. Since windows 7 uses the same code as Vista that’s been tweaked and nearly perfected, it proves to be a very stable OS. When was the last time someone complained about XP ?

Reason 2 to upgrade my PC to Windows 7:
Performance is Much Better in Windows 7!

Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 runs very smoothly and is built better to optimize your hardware on your PC meaning quicker load times, less hang time and lag as well as no freezes! In addition if you use a laptop, you will notice a big increase in battery life. I can’t tell you what a blessing its been to work on my PC without any annoying interruptions. If you are a gamer, I can’t think of a better reason to upgrade to Windows 7 on your PC.

Reason 3 to upgrade my PC to Windows 7:
Windows XP compatibility mode!

Windows 7 professional offers an XP compatibility mode that you can switch on and off for programs they run better in a windows XP environment. If you’ve been using XP since its release, this is a great opportunity to slowly transition into this new OS.

If you have any other reasons you should or shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 7 feel free to share!

Keeping this information in mind, we have provided our blog readers with a very useful recycling link which lets you sell your used working electronics to be recycled. Let’s all play a part in protecting the environment and the future of our beautiful planet by going green!

The link can be found below.

It is hard to tell what is scheduled for the major release date of the latest conficker strain on April 1st but one thing is certain – it will not be no April fools joke. Attacks can range anywhere from taking over users pcs, sending mass spam, to stealing credit card and account information.

Precautions to take to protect your PC

As mentioned previously you MUST at the bare minimum have virus protection software and a firewall enabled on your PC.. Once you have downloaded this or purchased the software it is essential to get the latest updates. Symantec puts out an update every 5 minutes just to give you an idea of how important updates can be. It is recommended that you leave the automatic update feature enabled on the software you choose.

Secondly, make sure you refrain from clicking on any pop up messages that say “click here” or anything that says “click here” for that matter. This includes messages from friends at social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Linkedin. These messages could say something like “check out this funny video, check out this site, ect” It is imperative that you get confirmation from your friends and family that they did indeed send this message before you click on it. It is a good practice to send them a follow up message or a quick phone call. It may seem silly but worth it for such a big price to pay.

See the diagram below for a useful overview of the virus and other preventative measures.

As part of your PC maintenance I encourage all you PC users out there to defrag your PC! It can speed up start ups of applications by over 20 percent in addition  to the initial start up.

Ok ok I’m getting there relax! For all you instant gratification seekers who skipped through the entire blog post to get this far, here are the simple steps you take to perform a defrag on your PC.

1. Go to start
2. Programs
3. Accessories
4. System tools
5. Disk defragmenter -

   At this point you want to analyze your hard drives for fragmented files (if you have multiple partitions or hard drives you will see them listed).  Perform the analysis on all the drives and see which ones need a defragment. Once you found the culprit that’s slowing down your pc – click the defragment button. Sit back and wait (yes you actually have to wait). It could take a few hours in some cases, depending on how long your previous defrag was. I recommend defraging at least once every couple of weeks.

Ahhh relief…

More PC advice, information and PC how tos to come.

Disabling start up services on your PC can be the most beneficial action you can take to speed up your PC. It is also one of the easiest things to do. Let us begin!

• Click on start
• Click Run
• On the box that pops up type in “msconfig”

This will bring up a new window with multiple tabs on it. I wouldn’t suggest tweaking any other settings unless you are familiar with the way they impact your PC.

The tab you are looking for is the “Startup” tab. This tab contains all of the programs that are running in the background of your computer as it boots up. As you can imagine the more programs that you have running the slower your computer goes. I would suggest disabling all of them except your virus scanning software, as well as anything that pertains to Microsoft or windows. If you are unsure what each “startup item” does and you do not want to disable it, you can actually research each one the web by Googling the startup item.

Once you are done apply your changes and close the window. You can then restart your pc and the next time it comes on you will notice how much faster it started up.

Don’t be alarmed when you see a new box that pops up when windows restarts that says you made changes to your system – Just check that box so you don’t see that message again.

That will be all for today – stay tuned for more pc advice, pc information and pc how to’s!