Bad information has been spreading

I've just come across another misleading bit of information for Windows on a web site that looks like it is run by a large corporation that would likely have the right information. So much of this goes around in the tech media that it almost disgusts me. No, maybe it DOES disgust me.

Here's a 99 tips/tricks how-to guide for tweaking Windows XP:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1590&page=3

Actually that's just the page of it that has the first misinformation that I came across. The article is portraying to us that System Restore "by default" takes up a whopping 12% of each drive it runs on. *AHEM* ...this is simply wrong. If they had known what System Restore DOES, they would know that on any modern system its highly unlikely that it could fill up even 2% of the drive. Another mis-nomer here, which this article seems to also encourage is that System Restore actually does something useful in the event that your computer is screwed up.

Let me make something perfectly clear: System Restore is only useful if you know what you're doing and you happen to make a mistake in tweaking your Windows registry. Thats IT. People think it is a whole backup of their system and that if something goes wrong they'll get everything back. Now if you'll look - it doesn't say anywhere that it will do that. However, the wording that it uses DOES imply this functionality, it just simply is mis-understood and does not achieve this by a long shot.

My recommended advice on System Restore: TURN IT OFF. There is nothing worse when dealing with today's modern spyware and viruses than a tool that brings the dang things back when you use it just "thinking" that it will take them away. Turn the stupid thing off because in all reality you'll never use it for any good anyway.

I'm not saying this article at PCStats is all bad. In fact it also talks about restoring the BIOS defaults if anything goes wrong. I would note however, that restoring it from the CMOS jumper on the motherboard isn't recommended for a "beginner" as this article says it is written for. The best way is to enter into the CMOS/BIOS Setup and use the Reset BIOS Defaults feature and save the settings. This may be a bit difficult to achieve for some beginners though, because it involves learning how to enter the Setup of your system and how to navigate it. Many motherboards that are designed for a brand name like Dell or Compaq/HP have the "Press [x] key for BIOS Setup" hidden and therefore you won't know what key to press. Its likely that it is one of the following keys: DEL, ESC, F1, F2, F12, listed in the order of likelihood. The most commonly used is first, the least commonly used is last.

Is it a good idea to be mucking around in the System's BIOS Setup? If you feel you're more than a beginner in tech capability, then maybe. I find that many times I need to use the BIOS Setup to fix or check on something. I do this for a living though and know what I'm doing. The best thing if you're not sure, is to go in and learn how to navigate the Setup and just look around and see what options are available but leave the settings as they were. Leave setup without saving any changes and you'll be well off.

I haven't read through the whole guide here, so I'm not recommending it or saying that it shouldn't be recommended. Its simply something I'm pointing out which has some bad info and potential for a lot of good info. How about letting me know if it has any truly useful tips? I usually don't sit and read through a lot of information....sort of like just scan through for useful things or look for a particular topic I'm interested in at the moment.