I hate XP.

I'm so glad i've never installed it. That said i'm getting closer and closer to re-entering the Mac fray that i never would have left if they'd had decent 3D software..... but those times have a'changed.

I still don't understand where XP fits into the product line. If M$ is saying it's the next great thing, why is there only the 'consumer' versions of it?

I like the way in XP the only way you can find out a MAC address is from a command prompt.
not.

I second that motion.

What sparked this revoicing of concern?

Hmmm... for all the crap that XP gets, I've got to say I'm a big fan. Now, the disclaimer here is that I switched from 98 to XP, and skipped all that millenium/nt/2000 stuff. XP was a major improvement over 98 and the limited NT experience I had. Actual reliability in an easy to use package. My laptop gets rebooted once a month to fix things, other than that it just gets suspended. The number of crashes I've had is under 10, and hardware is painless for my to install... It's the best MS product I've used.

Now, I'm still keepin' my linux server in the closet. MS has nothing on it's uptime of over a year...

Matthew

What sparked this revoicing of concern?

3C509b.

I love XP.

No support of perhaps the most common NIC ever?

No support of perhaps the most common NIC ever?

EXACTLY. My thoughts exactly, in those EXACT words.

To wit:

XP drops support for ISA non-PNP network cards (never mind that this card can function in PNP mode). It took an act of Congress to get the card working under XP in my rebuild/test system.

If I understand the instructions at this site correctly, the OS actually has proper drivers for this card, they just left out the INF file on purpose. So by grabbing the INF file he supplies (swiped from a copy of Win2k), you can install the drivers that were there all along.

I HATE XP.

3C509b.

Presumably just because it's ISA.

My 3Com/USR ISA 56k modem doesn't exist according to XP. XP did, however, recognise a SB AWE 64 ISA card.

As a die hard NT4.0/W2k user it took me a while to 'settle down' into XP and regain (and even surpass) the productivity that I was previously accustomed to. I think that in time you will do the same.

Resistance (as they say) is futile*

*(c) BillG of Borg

The number of crashes I've had is under 10 ...

This is why I hate Microsoft. The fact that people are happy when their computers crash ``only a little'' is asinine. Of the computers I adminster, the only times they've gone down (except when I'm remarkably lazy) were due to power problems and hardware replacements and additions. And there were many hardware changes that didn't require any downtime at all -- even CPU replacements (Edit: even CPU upgrades, with processors running at mixed speeds).

MS products, almost unilaterally, suck.

Sorry for the rant, but that one gets me every time.

then why use it? I liked XP until I put in a new vid card. or tried to. I hate it too.

then why use it?

I don't use it on any of my desktop systems or servers. However, being a system administrator and a software developer means that I have to test things on it occasionally (as I must with every other Windows operating system). So I have to configure my "test box" (an extra system in my office with DriveImage on it so that I can reformat drive C with a new OS in minutes) with an XP image.

There are a lot of other things that irritate me about XP, but the fact that (as was stated before) the 3C509 is one of the most common NICs in existence, and it's not supported, is asinine.

Yeah, but it looks prettier than 2000...

Having moved from 98 to XP at home, I find it a great improvement, but at work the move from 2000 to XP hasn't shown me any noticable improvements, I have to say, but then I don't play games at work.

I really out to get around to re-installing Linux at home, oughtn't I? Shame I'm too much of a MS techie, really - I've just about got the hang of the limited knowledge I need to install things on my Empeg - I don't know if I could cope with it configuring it all at home. Mind you, XP works fine for me, so I am inclined to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach..!

Bry.

Yeah, but it looks prettier than 2000...

/me looks up "prettier" at Webster's...

...

Nope. The definition of this word has not changed recently. Since there's no one on the face of the earth who could possibly think that the garish garbage that passes for a UI in XP is even remotely pretty, I can only assume that you were forced at gunpoint by Microsoft to post that message. You have my sympathies.

So hard to imply irony in a post, isn't it?

I sort of prefer the appearance of the rounded edges to command buttons, especially on web pages, but otherwise I was being facetious and do agree with you...

Bry.

Just wanted to hop in this heated discussion. There are many thing about xp that i hate, but i do have to say that it is the best desktop os that microsoft has put out yet. That is of course after you disable all the new "xp look" and get back to the classic windows os.

One thing that is pretty annoying, i went through the disk clean up wizard, click advanced and deleted all my very very old restore points. This freed up around 4gb of space. I was glad to have the space, but it should even be taking up that much space to begin with.

Something i like about xp is i can have a million things open, and leave my computer running for weeks, and still be able to open up battlefield or unreal and have excellent fps.

Task bar grouping in the power toys is great, i group all program with 2 or more instances open at once.

When i do startup or shut down, it takes less than 10 seconds. Very Nice!

Well, those are just a few thoughts on the os I’ve run on this computer for over a year now with any major problems.

That is of course after you disable all the new "xp look" and get back to the classic windows os.

I just install Windows 2000 and get all the same benefits while skipping the step of needing to disable the XP look.

but otherwise I was being facetious and do agree with you...

Ah, sorry. Good to know Bill's mole-man-army hasn't located you yet. Keep up the good fight.

My roommate was a big XP fan until two nights ago. He was doing some organic chemistry homework and XP wouldnt allow him to paste something into word. Well I get a knock on my door at 4am "hey matt XP sucks my balls off can I borrow your computer" . He got it to work on my win2k machine no problem and has now since reverted to win2k.

I have it running on my headless media server purely for the remote desktop - which is WAY better than VNC. Surfing the web and browsing content from a Pro Gear over a wireless Remote Desktop is actually faster than using the Pro Gear to do it natively

The other main bonus is boot speed - sooo much faster than 2000.

No reliability problems so far (except for a flakey graphics driver - replaced) although I've heard it is risky installing it as an upgrade - best to start over. My machine at work is an upgrade, though.

I think it's a little ill advised to run XP on the kind of machine that has an ISA NIC - or conversely to put an ISA NIC in a machine which is modern enough to run XP. You know PCI NIC's are like $15? Of course I'm biased because I work for a software company - I HATE users who don't upgrade to the latest stuff, and make our development/support requirements a total nightmare

Rob

I agree on the boot speed, its insane compared to 2000. Other than that, I'm pretty much back to 98 for my Win box.

I have it running on my headless media server purely for the remote desktop

Okay, remote desktop is a nice feature.

The other main bonus is boot speed - sooo much faster than 2000.

Good point. I will give you that, XP does boot quicker than any of the other OS's on that test box, with the exception of MS-DOS.

I HATE users who don't upgrade to the latest stuff, and make our development/support requirements a total nightmare

May I remind you that Emplode still does not work properly under Windows XP.

Bill's mole-man-army

"All Microsoft ever wanted was love. That, and lots and lots of money."
"Yeah, that's good, too."

"So why are they poking him with sticks?"
"Ah, well, it's their lunch hour."

(For those not getting the references, this is Wes Borg of "Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie", the referenced piece is "Behind the Scenes at Microsoft", which can be found here.)

my favorite description is "fisher price like"

In reply to:

---

I like the way in XP the only way you can find out a MAC address is from a command prompt.
not.

---

Start > Connect To > Your Internet Connection > Support > Details

And that's actually fairly intuitive for anyone used to windows...

May I remind you that Emplode still does not work properly under Windows XP.

No, the USB driver doesn't work properly under XP. The fast solution breaks legacy operating systems, I rest my case

(Should have that fixed soon - although it took a trip to MS and lots of pain on Mike's part to do it)

Rob

The main reason I like XP can be summed up in one word.

ClearType.

A.

Why hate Microsoft's product for something that 3com hasnt done? "writes the driver". Microsoft doesnt write the drivers they go to the companys/OEMs and say what driver do you want to put on our cd, then from there it is also the MFG/OEM that build the drivers so the one you sould hate is 3com for not building a driver for Windows XP, not Microsoft. Sorry Im off my soap box now, I just wanted to say it because i hear it all the time. (I work for MS doing 3rd tier tech support for Windows 9X/ME)
"flame OFF"

The one reason I discovered I like it, and am now running it on my gaming box is due to the watchdog processes it has. Under 2000, ATI Driver locks would result in no good information. XP, something kicks off when it sees the driver stuck in an inifinite loop, and it captures all kinds of info and lets me know what happened on reboot.

I still despise XP, and have a long list of things I change on a clean install, but the evolutionary features have gotten me to switch. I'm still on track for an OS X migration elsewhere for my computing needs though.

my favorite description is "fisher price like"

OMG, that is so perfect. I'm now officially changing my nickname for XP from "AOL OS" to "Fischer-Price OS".

(Should have that fixed soon - although it took a trip to MS and lots of pain on Mike's part to do it)

Cool. So was it working on Rio Music Manager that prompted this?

The main reason I like XP can be summed up in one word. ClearType.

If I recall correctly, isn't ClearType just a special antialiasing system designed to work only on LCD monitors? And... more importantly... wasn't that available as a third-party product before Microsoft gobbled them up?

Or am I thinking of something different?

Why hate Microsoft's product for something that 3com hasnt done? "writes the driver".

Negative, that's not the case. It has nothing to do with 3Com. The driver is actually included in XP (I think it's the same as the NT/2000 driver), it's just that the INF file doesn't exist to locate it. They deliberately excluded it because Microsoft is trying to wean us off of ISA cards.

OMG, that is so perfect. I'm now officially changing my nickname for XP from "AOL OS" to "Fischer-Price OS".

I always call it "Teletubbies OS".
From the first time I saw that landscape desktop I always thought that any minute one of those 4 puppets would appear on the screen. The likeness with the teletubbies mountain is simply stunning.

No it has nothing to do with the application - as I said, it's the USB driver that has problems.

We experienced similar issues with drivers for various products, and it wasn't our bug

Rob

I always call it "Teletubbies OS".

Oh, that's a good one, too.

ClearType works on any monitor. I like it a lot. It really does look better.

Calvin

That's odd. On Microsoft's ClearType info page, they don't even mention traditional anti-aliasing. Perhaps XP doesn't support ``font smoothing'' and jumps right over it to utilize ClearType. If that's the case, then ClearType would certainly look better than aliased fonts. But it wouldn't have any advantage on a CRT over normal anti-aliasing, unless anti-aliasing didn't exist.

I think Clear-Type only really works well on CRTs under certain circumstances... Like proper ordering of the color phosphors or a high quality grill/shadow mask/whatever.

It looks pretty good on certain Trinitron based monitors, but we have a few older monitors it looks horrible on. Either way, it really needs an LCD to show it's stuff.

I guess I'm biased, because it looks without a doubt better on my Trinitron and Cornerstone tube monitors.

Calvin

Hmmm.. I thought it was the 3c905b, not 509.....

I thought it was the 3c905b, not 509

I think it's got issues with both models if I recall correctly. But in my particular case, the big issue was with a system fitted with a 509, as I originally stated. That was not a typo, I really did mean 509.

Well, the Trinitron tubes make sense, since the phosphors on a Trinitron are laid out much like the LCDs are laid out on an LCD screen. That is, red, green, and blue sit next to each other horizontally, instead of in a triangle, like in shadow mask tubes.

However, I seriously doubt that Cornerstone makes tubes. In fact, they use both Trinitron and shadow mask tubes in their monitors, so, without knowing what model you're talking about, I can't comment on your experiences there.

So, does anyone know if XP has normal fonts, anti-aliased fonts, and ClearType fonts, or only normal and ClearType?

It has three settings for font-smoothing:

Off
Standard
ClearType

Does this BBS software do .png in the "image" tag? Check the attachment, anyway.

Give Peter's info, does ClearType look better than Standard on all of your monitors? Or are you just saying that anti-aliased fonts look better than aliased fonts?

The reason I ask is that my personal experience is that ClearType looks bad. I've not used XP's implementation, but I've used it somewhere (I want to say MacOS X, but I'm not sure of that) on a laptop LCD screen and had to turn it off almost immediately because it looked so bad -- and I tried different color ordering and everything. It just looked rainbow-y whereas the normal antialiasing looked fine and grey.

Does this BBS software do .png in the "image" tag?

It didn't used to in the past, but I was under the impression that Tom had hacked it so that it would work. Let's try it.

[image]http://empeg.comms.net/files/117003-xp_font_smoothing.png[/image]

Damn. TOM ??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In reply to:

---

The reason I ask is that my personal experience is that ClearType looks bad. I've not used XP's implementation, but I've used it somewhere (I want to say MacOS X, but I'm not sure of that) on a laptop LCD screen and had to turn it off almost immediately because it looked so bad -- and I tried different color ordering and everything. It just looked rainbow-y whereas the normal antialiasing looked fine and grey.

---

It will look rainbowy if you don't run the setup tool which I don't think they actually tell you about. If you have it set up "too much" it will look bad.

I had a 15" TFT I was planning on using the car which was sitting in my room for *months* - I then got the empeg and finally used the TFT on my computer. It (ClearType) makes using the computer *so* much easier that I couldn't believe it.

I will second the point by Rob that installing it as an upgrade is a bad idea, though it pained me to reinstall from scratch I don't regret doing it. Also, switch of "system restore" - waste of time unless you really live "on the edge"!

Gareth
PS. www.grc.com has a neat font smoothing demo.

Tom fixed PNG (again):

what's all this about 'remote desktop'?
what's it for?
how does it work?

It's like having PC-Anywhere built in to Windows.

Does this BBS software do .png in the "image" tag?

It didn't used to in the past, but I was under the impression that Tom had hacked it so that it would work. Let's try it.

Damn. TOM ??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh, people want their titles, and PNG images. I suppose I can swing bown