Scott McNealy says it's not his goal to unseat Microsoft. I think McNealy actually hopes to put Microsoft in Netscape's position, and Sun in Microsoft's. StarOffice and indeed Sun's whole giveaway gambit is the focus of my column this week at InformationWeek Online. I mentioned that it's a good idea to make note of the system BIOS settings. Many BIOS settings can be changed.
Some settings are users-configurable, too.
My rule of thumb is that if I know what a BIOS setting does, and if I have a record of what the original setting was, it's OK to try a change. After making a change, you reboot to see the effects. If a setting doesn't work or makes your PC perform less well, simply reboot, re-enter the BIOS setup program and restore the setting to what it was before. OK, by now you know I'm a firm believer in poking around your system. It's really the only way to really know what's there.