This is how much memory my laptop is using...WITH NOTHING RUNNING

Windows update and other things dragging it's ass is nothing new on any machine. I'm just frustrated most of it is my own fault. I get anxious and jump the gun on too many things. ALL I had to do was turn windows update off.

anyways I did a 2nd restart and update is working just fine now cept it's not downloading anything.. uGH that's Microsoft not me. FUCK THEM

 

Not even 10% of the machines I see on a day to day basis use SSDs.

 

I would LOVE something with an SSD.But they aren't retardedly huge or cost effective yet.

 

Buy a small SSD as your OS drive. You'll thank me.

 

When I get a PS4 I was thinking of getting one of those 1tb hybrid dirves

 

Are you on wireless? Windows Update works insanely slow over wireless for some reason. I remember I downloaded the Windows 8.1 update on wireless and it took 18 hours.

 

240gb ssd is like £100 for a top end one, its the most impressive speed increase you can give your PC.

If on a laptop, just remove the optical drive and put in a large storage hdd. For the odd time I need a DVD driver, just use a USB one or something. But its very very rare.

 

as a matter of fact I am.

As I said I am so fed up with this bullshit I am looking into installing Linux. Leaning towards Mint as most of you suggested

 

Wireless works fine for windows update.

You are probably using 2.4ghz wireless, which is congested as all hell these days. Its no surprise it takes ages to download if your wireless connection is shit due to congestion and interference.

Make the switch to 5ghz, things magically get better.

 

I'm not sure I follow. the router I have is from my ISP and kind of required....

 

BadAd said that if you're in a crowded area with lot of standard Wi-Fi, it could be slow because of interference. A switch to a 5GHz router would fix that in this case. If the ISP gives you a modem+router apparel, you could still connect a router to it and have 5GHz Wi-Fi.

 

wifi, cordless phones, microwaves, bluetooth.... all cause problems for 2.4ghz

 

My boss fondly talks about 2k, talked a fair bit with me about how active directory, as odd as it is was a god send. I knew the Novell alternative was a bit crap but not as badly as he says it was. I wish I'd be able to use it at the time if it was such a radical change.

5 machines here out of ~170 every single one of them REQUIRES fast speed and thats the only reason we have them [it's either IT department, print monitoring or the workstation that does all of the work tickets]. looking more towards a VDI setup for the general users here, probably using a server with SASS drives

 

Small-ish SSDs are not very expensive. All you really need is a drive big enough to hold your OS and all of your applications. It gets a little difficult if you plan on playing games on the same machine, but there are workarounds for that. The difference in speed is pretty significant.

 

First, its SAS

Active directory was a huge improvement from user and server manager. It basically stole all the good bits from netware, with its hierarchy system, being able to install applications etc. Netware was pretty amazing, its only crap to compared to modern AD. But you have to remember, when Netware was around, there was no AD at all.

 

If it's a regular sized laptop, put a hdd instead of the dvd drive, as badad suggested. Else buy a big-ish ssd (240 GB) or a small one with a usb3 external hdd. You don't play games on the bus anyway don't you?

 

They also make a drive now (I forget who manufactures it) that combines an SSD and a 1TB hard drive - but it's not a hybrid drive. The SSD and the HDD show up as separate drives on your computer, and can be used separately. It's in a 2.5" form factor, so you can easily fit it into a laptop.

 

That's quite clever and useful!

Though I prefer my SSD-only, as if forces me not to have too much games on the laptop -> Less distractions from serious stuff (except this board... hmm... let's call it serious stuff)!

 

I was running out of 4gb ram all the time on my last machine, so I put 16gb in my new one and the only reason I check RAM usage for nowadays is to see if I can actually push it past halfway.

However, I do tend to run Photoshop, 2-3 browsers with multiple tabs, ftp/http/php/MySQL/bubbleUPNP servers, foobar, Skype, and sometimes a full Windows XP Virtual PC, all at the same time. I actually had to close one or the other on my old machine, now they can run fine simultaneously.

 

Honestly this is so embarassing, i make basic errors like this and other terminology on an almost daily basis but have moderate knowledge [still a long way to go] that makes errors like that seem ridiculous to make.

I wish I'd been at an age where I could experiment with stuff when it was relevant and experienced active directory when it was new and everybody was learning it. active directory and the idea of domains and group policy seems like a obvious thing since I've but I imagine for people moving from netware these were amazing.