Separating Windows and Programs from "Dynamic Data"
Managing and backing up the PC can be made very fast and efficient by separating the operating system (i.e. Windows) and programs from dynamic files or folders (data that is constantly changing)
In the example below, you can see five drives.
Drive C: This is where Windows, system drivers, trading applications and office applications are installed. This drive remains unchanged unless an update is installed.
Because the amount of data on Drive C is relatively small (less than 60 GB), "backing up" by creating a system image via Windows takes only minutes. Only after a new program installation or a program upgrade should a new backup be required.
Should a re-installation or repair of Windows and all the programs be required, the process is completed in about 15 minutes due to the small size of data.
For safety, Drive C has been backed up to two drives, Drive G and Drive H
Drive D: This is where dynamic data such as trading price history and documents are stored. Moving folders such as My Documents etc is covered below. In addition, "portable" versions of programs such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers, Mozilla Thunderbird email client and Skype are installed on this drive. These programs all feature data which is constantly changing. Portable versions of programs are available from portableapps.com
Drive E: This is an exact duplicate of Drive D, updated automatically or manually using a program discussed below. Should Drive D fail, or files or folders be corrupted, the data can be copied from Drive E.
Although five drives are displayed, only three physical drives exist. Both Drives D and E have been partitioned to create drive space for backing up Drive C. This is a very simple process, and easily reversed or modified when using EASUS Partition Master, free for home users.
Relocating Personal Folders
It's good practice (for data integrity) to separate your Operating System and Programs from your Personal Folders Data (My Documents, My Pictures, Trading price data etc) which are typically the folders where dynamic data is stored. Within Windows 7 these folders can be easily relocated to another location (i.e. separate drive), without changing how you use the computer.
The link below the simple steps to relocate your personal folders
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/moving-your-personal-data-folders-in-windows-vista-the-easy-way/
Maintaining an Exact Duplicate of your Data
Hard disk drives are relatively inexpensive...so rather than having to make constant backups (which take ages!) it's much easier and faster to duplicate a drive to a spare drive. FreeFileSync will update the spare drive in minutes and in the event the master drive fails or data is corrupted - files and folders can be replaced with those stored on the spare drive.
The image below displays the master drive on the left, and the spare drive on the right. Synchronising the drives will create an identical duplicate of all the folders and files on the master drive.
Synchronisations can be automated or made manually. There is also an option for the computer to shut down on completion.
The software is open source and therefore is no charge. Users are free to make a donation.
software available http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/
click on image to enlarge
Making Multiple Monitors Easy to Use
As Windows is only designed to run multiple windows on one monitor, using Display Fusion:
- provides numerous additional "title bar" buttons to move a window to a specific monitor, re-size or relocate a window within a monitor...and when viewing larger periods of historic data: via one button, maximise a chart to span across 2, 3 or 4 etc monitors - example below
- extends the taskbar across all monitors, so you can see which chart
is minimised to which monitor. With the "extra long" taskbar, there is no
"squashing-up" of minimised windows so the name of each minimised
instrument is clearly visible.
software available from www.displayfusion.com
Creating Taskbar Links to your most commonly used Folders
1. Via the desktop, right click and select New>Shortcut
2. Browse to the location of the folder you want to access to select it. Importantly, type in explorer followed by one space before the address (as per below).
3. Name the shortcut
4. Finally, right click on the new shortcut and choose "Pin to Taskbar"
Disable unnecessary programs from starting
CCleaner is excellent for quickly cleaning your PC, fixing the registry and disabling programs from using valuable resources when your PC starts up. Screen shot below illustrates 20 plus disabled applications which otherwise would be using the PC's resources
Click on image to enlarge
