Should I or Shouldn't I...
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...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
Michael Martin wrote: Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. It depends on your machine, make sure it is well over min. req, of course. Are you upgrading? or Clean install? or on another partition? If you are interested in making XP your main OS then go for it, simply because you can set system restore points, In-case of weird OS behavior(installing a bad driver or crapware that f-up your system) you can easily convert back. It is highly customizable so you can get the interface you like. I use Office 2000 on XP with no problems, and MSC++6.0 sp5, no probs. I use Virtual PC for my other OSs to test my software in and other boxes while I am at my "real job". Are you developing any software that needs to be tested on dif. OSs? Then you might want to use partition magic (tip:make sure to to one task at a time in pm) and shrink your win2k partition to get as much space as possible for the XP install. or whatever I am babbling, you know what you want to do:-D :-D ps. don't for get the windowsupdate for the service packs and hotfixes. Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^] -
...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
XP is great. If you don't like the new interface, you can always make it look like Windows 2000. I haven't ever had a stability problem with it. The only thing I can think of is that Explorer sometimes forgets its settings. You'll have it sized and positioned a particular way, then close it, and when you open it again, it's in the default size. Kind of annoying, but very minor. I say go for it. VS6 worked well for me on XP, though I never tried Office 2000. Jon Sagara Hi! I'm Melanoma, Moley Russell's wart. -- Uncle Buck
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If you're going to be wiping out the box that offen, don't activate the copy since you can run the OS for 30 days without activation.
You are right Terry. The thing is I never "intended" to change the bios so often. Its just some of the stuff I was playing with was "BIOS" hungry. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
I'm guessing the concept of a 2 hour movie showing two guys eating a meal and talking struck them as 'foreign' Rob Manderson wrote:
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...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
I vote with Christian - XP sucks, but if you are running into it on customer systems, you really should learn it thoroughly. There's no way to escape the heap of excrement M$ has decided to ram down our throats. I've used it a while longer than Christian, though, and can promise that it will not get any better. It starts out bad, and stays that way. Specifically, it doesn't network worth a damn. The first thing to do is kill that useless simple sharing mode. It forces all network connections to shares to be authenticated using the Guest account, which is disabled on all machines for good reason. Most applications I've tried to run (admittedly few) work badly if at all on XP, even though they work perfectly on Win2K. Accessing shares also often requires mapping the target folder as a drive on the local machine, and the mapping is forgotten after a few hours of operation. Printers also get lost, and all machines in the workgroup have to be rebooted periodically to keep the group printers available. Wireless support is built in to XP, but it doesn't work without a lot of tweaking, and remains problematic (this may be specific to ORiNOCO products). Overall, I consider WinXP to be the Win3.x of the 21st century, but it's unlikely to be going away as it should. Bite the bullet and support your customers, but don't expect to enjoy it. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003 -
...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
What you have not yet switched to XP! XP is the best OS developed by Microsoft. Most people think that XP is just some UI improvements but there are a whole lot of other stuff esp. so much fun with developing with new API additions.
Welcome to India! We love the three "C"s: CP Cinema Cricket
Rohit Sinha - The Lounge (2/14/2003) -
J Cardinal wrote: - It's the only OS that supports hyperthreading CPU's if that's an issue for you. Not true - W2K Server supports our hyperthreaded CPUs (edit: support == sees 2 processors instead of 1) cheers, Chris Maunder
Hmmm...well Intel says only XP and says if you have 2k you should disable hyperthreading in the bios and I'm guessing they would want to say it works on as many os's as possible so there might be some sort of technical issue there. I researched that pretty carefully before I upgraded my box because I really didn't want to switch to XP at the time. Ref: http://support.intel.com/support/platform/ht/os.htm[^]
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Hello, the CPians around the world;) I'm curious of what kind of machine do you use? -Masaaki Onishi (eCoolSoft)- ASP.NET Web and Windows Application Development by C# and MFC. eCoolWebPanelBar(BETA) is availabe now. http://www.ecoolsoft.com
It's a "Touch" brand, basically a clone with an Asus chipset and MB. I've found the to be extremely reliable over the years and don't really want to take a risk on anything cheaper than that. (i.e. build your own etc) And name brand (tier 1 as they used to say, maybe still do, IBM, HP etc) systems are just way out of touch in their pricing relative to what you get.
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I vote with Christian - XP sucks, but if you are running into it on customer systems, you really should learn it thoroughly. There's no way to escape the heap of excrement M$ has decided to ram down our throats. I've used it a while longer than Christian, though, and can promise that it will not get any better. It starts out bad, and stays that way. Specifically, it doesn't network worth a damn. The first thing to do is kill that useless simple sharing mode. It forces all network connections to shares to be authenticated using the Guest account, which is disabled on all machines for good reason. Most applications I've tried to run (admittedly few) work badly if at all on XP, even though they work perfectly on Win2K. Accessing shares also often requires mapping the target folder as a drive on the local machine, and the mapping is forgotten after a few hours of operation. Printers also get lost, and all machines in the workgroup have to be rebooted periodically to keep the group printers available. Wireless support is built in to XP, but it doesn't work without a lot of tweaking, and remains problematic (this may be specific to ORiNOCO products). Overall, I consider WinXP to be the Win3.x of the 21st century, but it's unlikely to be going away as it should. Bite the bullet and support your customers, but don't expect to enjoy it. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003Interesting post. I haven't read your or Christian's posts about XP. I haven't had to much experience with networking XP. But I did try and network a Win98se with XP with Virtual PC and I gave up. We haven't "officially" approved WinXP at my workplace yet so I haven't had to network any XP machines yet. But I am curious to find out exactly what version of XP (service pack and hotfixes) you were working with? Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^] -
...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
I like Windows XP and think it is a good upgrade. The default skin is a bit clunky, but get Watercolor or similar minimalist skins and the interface becomes a treat. It crashes exactly as often as Windows 2000, which is hardly ever. Only app I have ever had a problem running was AutoCAD 2000, a quick Compatibility Wizard tweak later and it was working perfectly. Never had driver problems, but then my hardware is pretty standard stuff. All in all, if you want to have a go then have a go. If you don't, stick with Windows 2000. Not much difference.
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaMacbeth muttered: I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er
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...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
I started using WinXP Pro last June and I really like it. Some of the stuff is a little funky to use at first but once you learn it, it's pretty cool. I hear a lot of CD burning software doesn't work on WinXP but I haven't really checked into this because it has burning software similar to DirectCD already built in. I guess the main reason that I like it over previous versions of Windows is that you rarely have to manually install drivers for hardware, just plug the device in and let 'er rip. Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
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Interesting post. I haven't read your or Christian's posts about XP. I haven't had to much experience with networking XP. But I did try and network a Win98se with XP with Virtual PC and I gave up. We haven't "officially" approved WinXP at my workplace yet so I haven't had to network any XP machines yet. But I am curious to find out exactly what version of XP (service pack and hotfixes) you were working with? Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^]JoeSox wrote: what version of XP (service pack and hotfixes) you were working with? They were three brand new, identical Dell PCs, with WinXP Pro SP1 installed at the factory. Although I tried to disable the automatic update feature horror on all of them, I must have missed one. The machine that is most brain damaged and utterly unreliable at this time indicates no updates available, while the other two indicate sixty or so waiting to be installed, and are far more reliable. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003 -
JoeSox wrote: what version of XP (service pack and hotfixes) you were working with? They were three brand new, identical Dell PCs, with WinXP Pro SP1 installed at the factory. Although I tried to disable the automatic update feature horror on all of them, I must have missed one. The machine that is most brain damaged and utterly unreliable at this time indicates no updates available, while the other two indicate sixty or so waiting to be installed, and are far more reliable. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003So I understand what you are saying, you think you disabled the updates on two of the machines, which have not been updated and work fine. But the one machine has been getting updates and you have problems with it? Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^] -
I vote with Christian - XP sucks, but if you are running into it on customer systems, you really should learn it thoroughly. There's no way to escape the heap of excrement M$ has decided to ram down our throats. I've used it a while longer than Christian, though, and can promise that it will not get any better. It starts out bad, and stays that way. Specifically, it doesn't network worth a damn. The first thing to do is kill that useless simple sharing mode. It forces all network connections to shares to be authenticated using the Guest account, which is disabled on all machines for good reason. Most applications I've tried to run (admittedly few) work badly if at all on XP, even though they work perfectly on Win2K. Accessing shares also often requires mapping the target folder as a drive on the local machine, and the mapping is forgotten after a few hours of operation. Printers also get lost, and all machines in the workgroup have to be rebooted periodically to keep the group printers available. Wireless support is built in to XP, but it doesn't work without a lot of tweaking, and remains problematic (this may be specific to ORiNOCO products). Overall, I consider WinXP to be the Win3.x of the 21st century, but it's unlikely to be going away as it should. Bite the bullet and support your customers, but don't expect to enjoy it. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003Are you using WinXP Home Edition? I have found that networking is a pain under this version but it's much nicer under Pro edition. They're both really dumbed down but more so in Home edition. X| Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
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I've been having the same conundrum for the last 12 months. I have W2K Server on the laptop and most things work - but enough things don't *quite* work well enough that I'm getting to the point where installing XP will, I hope, fix the little niggling things. Having said that I can't stand the way XP tries to hide stuff from you. I hate being treated like the lowest common denominator. cheers, Chris Maunder
Yep, I hear you there. I had to tweak the death out of it before I was satisfied with the way everything worked. Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
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I havent had any problems with vs 6 on xp. It loads alot faster then any of the older versions of windows and is alot more stable. If you do decide to install it, you may want to shut off indexing and many other items that are not needed. You will notice a huge performance gain. You can switch the windowsxp theme to classic and it looks exactly like win2k. This is the first thing that gets taken care of after an install. Like many others the child color scheme just hurts my eyes.
Like many others the child color scheme just hurts my eyes. The childish color scheme was the main reason I was reluctant to upgrade. Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
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So I understand what you are saying, you think you disabled the updates on two of the machines, which have not been updated and work fine. But the one machine has been getting updates and you have problems with it? Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^]None of them work as well as Win2K; the one that is fully updated is less reliable than the others, however. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003 -
Are you using WinXP Home Edition? I have found that networking is a pain under this version but it's much nicer under Pro edition. They're both really dumbed down but more so in Home edition. X| Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
This is the Pro version. The Home version is so bad I wouldn't recommend it to a home user that only checks email with a PC. Anyone that actually plans to use a computer for anything useful would be better off with a Mac than WinXP Home Edition. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003 -
This is the Pro version. The Home version is so bad I wouldn't recommend it to a home user that only checks email with a PC. Anyone that actually plans to use a computer for anything useful would be better off with a Mac than WinXP Home Edition. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003Buying a Mac is pushing it IMO, but I do agree that WinXP Home sucks donkey b...whoops can't say that here:-D. Brad Jennings "if the golden arches shut shop, where else are the VB people going to get work." - Colin Davies
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None of them work as well as Win2K; the one that is fully updated is less reliable than the others, however. It is ok for women not to like sports, so long as they nod in the right places and bring beers at the right times.
Paul Watson, on Sports - 2/10/2003Roger Wright wrote: None of them work as well as Win2K; I have had problems on Win2k machines but I think it was more of a hardware issue. But I agree Win2k is hard to beat for use in the business world. Roger Wright wrote: the one that is fully updated is less reliable than the others, however. Now that's weird, I never use the recommended driver updates because they never work and I only do the critical updates, and service pack updates and my machines seem to do just fine. Later,
JoeSox
www.joeswammi.com
Constitution Party[^] -
...Install Windows XP on my computer over the weekend. I am currently running Windows 2000 Professional. While I am not having any problems with it I am finding myself exposed to Windows XP more and more. Whenever I get a side job to fix a computer or network it is invariably Windows XP. Which I then have to find my way around to get to the tools I need. I have a legal copy of Windows XP Professional, though I only have Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6. Will I have any problems running these together? Any other gotcha's I should know about? What about tweaks to get it in working order? I also have several other programs, both commercial and shareware. But to the best of my knowledge they are all fine with Windows XP. If your answer is 'Windows XP sucks, don't use it', can you please explain why you feel this way. Michael Martin Australia mjm68@tpg.com.au "I personally love it because I can get as down and dirty as I want on the backend, while also being able to dabble with fun scripting and presentation games on the front end." - Chris Maunder 15/07/2002
Office 2000 and VS6 will run fine on XP Pro. XP usually runs fine (the only issues I know of is weird USB stuff - it's less tolerating, and might do cr*p on isochronous transfers) Last year I upgraded my dev env from W2K to XP, and I can't really complain (after disabling the fisher price look) There are some nifty niceties you don't have on W2K (go discover!), and I'm rarely missing something (the "lock workstation", and the missing CPU indicator of the task manager being the most notorious). But XP sucks, and you shouldn't use it :cool:
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