Posted on 11/19/2001 1:10:08 PM PST by damnlimey
In the case of Win2K, sp2 solved a lot of annoying problems, especially with drivers and Plug 'n Pray.
Carnival like? More Fisher-Price like to me. The default color scheme is AWFUL. It reminds me of the buttons on my 3 year old's toys.
I converted from Win2K Professional a few weeks back, and other than the default color scheme, I can't find a whole lot about it I don't like. Startup/Shutdown is much faster, the wife and I can switch logons effortlessly and save what we were working on, in the state it was in when we do it, and I had no problems getting it running on my home network.
Don't know what the author's problem was with home networking, but overall a pretty well (and accurate) written article for the masses.
Sometimes you wonder how much money Bill Gates would have made if he had become a lawyer . . . .
Built-in CD-R software: It's about time; XP finally does away with the need for third-party tools for basic CD-R burning. You simply drag files to your CD burner's drive letter, and XP caches the files and then burns them to a blank CD-R with good reliability. If you do encounter underrun problems, XP ratchets down the write speed of the next CD-R burn and keeps doing so until you get 100% verified writes. It couldn't be simpler to use.
In the mean time, your CD Writer is temporarily assigned the job of "pretty coaster dispenser".
Indexing: XP's Indexing Service just might be a candidate for the most inefficient piece of software ever written. I've never seen any indexing tool run as slowly or as resource-hungrily as does XP's.
So disable it. It shouldn't be that hard. I mean, you had to manually activate it, correct?
On my primary system here, even with XP-certified video hardware and drivers, I get an unreadable, scrambled screen on resume from hibernation. Working from memory and navigating blindly, if I log off and back on, the screen clears and everything's fine. But this is dangerous and annoying. Clearly, hibernation still has some rough edges. See the next item for a guess as to why this is.
I have the same problem in Win2K. It doesn't bother me, though, since I leave my PC on all the time anyways.
For example, I naturally suspected my hibernation troubles above were video-related, but I was using drivers supplied by Microsoft itself, with all proper certifications and signings. I then visited my video-card vendor's site (Nvidia) and downloaded its "designed for Windows XP" drivers, but things only got worse: Not only would hibernation fail, but even ordinary suspend/resume generated a system error. So, even with all the proper checks, branding, and certification, XP's drivers may still be problematic. This is a situation that probably will improve rapidly with time, but it's a major pain now.
Ahh yes, and did it tell you that the drivers weren't signed? Just because it says "Designed for Windows XP" doesn't mean it's signed.
Another mixed-bag networking item is XP's built-in firewall. It's a great idea on the surface, but it's anemic.
Well duh! Since when do you expect a security solution from Microsoft to actually work?
"For example, I naturally suspected my hibernation troubles above were video-related, but I was using drivers supplied by Microsoft itself, with all proper certifications and signings."
So wise but clearly unable to read an article properly
You seem to be a very angry young pixie.
After my box melted down a few weeks ago, I upgraded to a new MB and processor. Part of the deal was I got XP pro software.
My, it sure is fast and the desktop is pretty, but it won't run my printer or my modem!
Talked to the store that sold me the MB with onboard modem, they gave me the latest and greatest driver.
It won't work either.
Either I 1)replace the modem chipset, which is all of two weeks old, or 2)buy cable access, or 3)go back to '98.
Right now option 3 fits my budget, so XP will gather dust on the software shelf for now.
For me, this is a "deal killer" all by itself. I hate it when processes attempt to access the network without asking. The first time I saw a program doing this was when I was helping a neighbor with his system. We were next to the computer talking when all of a sudden, the modem lights up and AOL is trying to connect. I went to see what it was doing and AOL was downloading new files. What files or why wasn't explained. At that point, I started to see why some of the screwy things he'd seen might be happening on his system. When I bought an HP system for work, I disabled the "phone home" junk it came with. I figured that if the reason for phoning home wasn't important enough to notify me about, then it wasn't important. The last thing I need is Zone Alarm going off every five minutes with another process wanting to use the network. No thanks!
I then visited my video-card vendor's site (Nvidia) and downloaded its "designed for Windows XP" drivers
Now figuratively, Nvidia's drivers are not supplied by Microsoft, and with the exception of the Detonator 6.50, 12.41, and possibly the 21.81 drivers, they are not signed drivers. If it comes up with a warning upon driver update that the drivers are unsigned, and he glossed over it and installed them anyways, then that's his problem.
I then visited my video-card vendor's site (Nvidia) and downloaded its "designed for Windows XP" drivers
Now figuratively, Nvidia's drivers are not supplied by Microsoft, and with the exception of the Detonator 6.50, 12.41, and possibly the 21.81 drivers, they are not signed drivers. If it comes up with a warning upon driver update that the drivers are unsigned, and he glossed over it and installed them anyways, then that's his problem.
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