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Letters to the Editor

 

I feel compelled to comment on April Miller Cripliver's article "Windows 98 Startup and Shutup" in the January 2000 dacs.doc. It contains what I feel is very unfortunate advice in the last item, to "select the option for Disable Scandisk after bad shutdown." As someone who used to provide support for PC users, this advice really pains me. I used to have to rebuild machines of user's who consistently turned off their machines without properly shutting down.

Some users might use the excuse, "but I do this all the time, and never have a problem." To use the analogy of a secretary I once supported, you might drop a glass on the kitchen floor ten times without it breaking, but do you really want to keep taking the risk? Eventually the glass will break.

Providing for an automatic scandisk on the next boot is one feature that Microsoft got right in Windows 95 and 98. Disabling this feature does nothing to speed up startup, unless you didn't shut down successfully last time. In which case you'd better run scandisk before you chance corrupting your file system due to files that weren't properly closed. That's the whole point of the feature. If the boot-time scandisk occurs with any frequency, you should investigate what's preventing you from shutting down. Please don't shoot the messenger, even if she reminds you of your mother!

Richard Corzo

Ms. Cripliver responds:

Dear Mr. Corzo,
For those of us who build, repair, and maintain PCs for a living and must reboot a computer dozens of times in a matter of minutes, the option to turn off Scandisk on Startup is a Godsend.

Not all of us use PCs only "in production" but spend hours fixing them. If you are repairing the PC for the secretary you described, employ the option to turn off Scandisk on Startup-a feature Microsoft provided, by the way, for a reason. After the secretary's PC is repaired, don't forget to reset the Option before you place the PC back into production. By all means do whatever is necessary to repair a PC effectively and responsibly.

Tips given in my articles should be applied to individual situations and should not be "cast in stone." Please don't disconnect your brain when reading any PC article.

April Miller Cripliver
MCSE, MCP+I, MCT, A+
userfriendly@bigfoot.com

www.cripliver.com


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