Win XP

[Jff24Gordn]

I installed Win XP on my computer yesterday.

It seems to be stabler than win2k. It has alot of addons. It runs dual moniters better than win2k. The tweak programs for video cards havent caught up to the new os yet, but it supported my OLD 28k ISA modem. I have yet to crash it hard, yet. I am very hard on computers. I am the only person I know of that has blue screened NT4 setup.



Here is a BIG screenshot. I did say that I run dual moniters

shot 1

You can see the new taskbar, start menu, New folder views (yes I bought those mp3's on CD), my computer view, the system properties view, and windows explorer. I like the new default colors to the old windows standard.



Here is a shot of the new medis player

shot 2

I edited the pic to remove the good words. Media player has alot of new visulations. Havent used it except to see what it looked like. I prefer . winamp



Here is a shot of some of the new user friendly control panel.

shot 3

As you can see they grouped the panel by what each item does.



Here is a shot of the classic view.

shot 4

You should be able to guess what all the fun thigns to tinker are.



This is a detailed view of the start menu.

shot 5

You can figure most of it out, there are some new games, and the yellow titles are newly installed programs.



And this is the new search page.

shot 6

There is a "new" helper. If anybody rembers MS BOB, you might rember the dog. I am suprised the dog came back. He might have been in office. I dont even install the helpers, so I dont know.



you are probably tires of downloading pics, so Ill have more pics later.



BTW, this is a 100% leagel copy of XP. Its the final version given to beta testors.

 

[Todd G]

I installed it today too on a laptop. It took about 40 minutes to upgrade 2000 Pro to XP Pro. It looks to be a good thing. I did notice that if you have Easy CD Creator loaded, XP will not load its' version of CD burning software. I think I'll have to get used to the new menu system.



I do love my MSDN subsciption.

 

[Jff24Gordn]

I be darned, the law did work. MS aint getting rid of the cometition by default.

 

[SlyBones]

Jff24Gordn,



Ever try writing device drivers for NT before? Didnt see the blue screen much, but headed for the Power Button plenty of times.

 

[Jff24Gordn]

I'd rather not write drivers. I suck at programming.

What were you doin that made you restart alot?

 

[SlyBones]

Well on NT/2000 you cant talk directly to the parallel port. You always have to go thru the OS.



My limited understanding. Take printers for example. There are hundreds. Each has some driver software that knows how to operate its companies printer. However their printer drivers cant talk to the port, they have to use another layer. - ParPort. sys - I believe its an NT Service. You should be able to find this in control panel under devices.



I manage a Windows app that talks to hardware on the parallel port. However we have very custom hardware. The default windows NT ParPort. sys knows nothing about our custom hardware and our unique protocol we want. So had have to make our own equivelant to ParPort. sys. We called it ParProg. sys



So if its our app that has bugs and crashes on NT were fine. Only the app crashes. But when ParProg. sys has bugs in it and we crash it, we are crashing NT itself. At least thats the way the expert explained it. -- I had to hire contractor for this piece. When he got the main implementation done, I took over the final testing and debugging. I got into it some, but not really enough to be an expert, only dangerous.

 

[pnwradar]

Originally posted by Jff24Gordn

I have yet to crash it hard, yet. I am very hard on computers. I am the only person I know of that has blue screened NT4 setup.

Geez, you haven't lived until you've crashed a few LPARs, or core'd the VTAM. Some of us even had to learn why there's a Molly-Guard on that tasty-looking wall button.



-jon-

 

[The patriot]

XP came on the new computer I bought a few weeks ago.

I like it.

From the time I boot it up, until the time I'm in windows is under 25 seconds. This includes typing my password. Guess this has to do more with the hardware though.....

Eric

 

[paccool]

My new Dell that I got about 6 months ago has WindowsME. I think the ME stands for many errors I am considering going back to Windows 98, seemed to be less problems.



Stan

 

[SlyBones]

ME does stand for more errors. More errors than even Win98 has. At home I went back to Win98 after trying ME for about a week.



At work, I have Win 2000 and have been very pleased so far. Not perfect but solid. I hear XP is doing very well. Several I know are using it and very happy.



Gonna go there myself. Both home and work.

 

[Todd G]

Where I work we are putting ME on 800 computers. The people there are having no more problems with it than with W98. On my home computer it gave me fits. I went to Win2000Pro and 2000Server and have had next to no problems.



Just put in XP a few days ago and think I'll like it. Time will tell.

 

[dmurdock]

or you could download a REAL stable OS, Office Suite, and other goodies..... for FREE



www.mandrake-linux.com

 

[SnoKing]

pnwradar



Do you work in my data center. LPAR & VTAM, you missed the NCPs. SNOKING

 

[Forrest]

What about memory requirements for XP? Is it true you better have 128mb min?

 

[RHARVEY]

Before the Office systems analysts here at the county upgrade my laptop. . it will be getting over 256mb of memory. . I am running 98 now and soon XP.



Rick

 

[Cooker]

Aybody know where I can get XP with spending any money, if you know what I mean . (Some of the more "techie" people on this sight know what I'm talking about).



Shoot me an email. I'm sure it not a good thing to post this info.



Thanks

 

[SlyBones]

"with" spending money you should be able to get it about anywhere, how much is the thing to look for. "without" any money will be hard due to the new registration process.



I would like to hear from a few how the new registration worked?



Forrest,



I have always thought that with 98 it says 32MEG on the box, 64MEG was the real minimum and 128MEG worked well. NT/2000 really do need 128MEG as the min and 256MEG gives nice performance. ON XP if they state 128MEG is min, then I would not have less than 256. ( means I need another 64MEG )

 

[Todd G]

With memory so cheap now (I saw 512M for $29 yesterday ), I would go out and get some. Your computer will thank you.

 

[Forrest]

Sources for memory

I found CDW to have good prices on memory. What other sources do you have?

 

[icarus33]

Here's a good hardware shop bot for computer hardware http://www.pricewatch.com/



ic