XP and a New Puter ... It's a Whole New World ...WOW

vanity | 01-01-02 | mercy

[mercy]

It sorta just snuck up on me. My old nanao monitor started winking at me, the ole gal felt like dropping by Comp USA and the next thing I know I'm rolling out the door with a new VAIO tower, a Samsung syncMaster flat screen LCD and a Canon bubble jet (there goes my buy American bluster).

I wasn't going to do it. Really. The thought of venturing past my garden path was too scary. The ole Dell XPS 200 and windows 95 was so .... well, familliar. I was afraid taking the leap would be just too painful. Boy was I wrong. Mama was in the mood to spend money and ya just can't go against that flow. Might not happen again in a coon's age.

Been hearing not so good things about Dell and the prices have been plunging so that one has to wonder about what they're putting in those things these days. Besides I wanted the security of just being able to walk the box into the service dept. if I had a prob and actually getting the thing back in days rather than weeks. The Sony seemed like a solid machine and not a conglomeration of god knows whose parts. The flat screen just knocked my eyes out. XP made my old OS look like a cheep 40's cartoon. So I jumped.

Despite my desire to get in a dig at Bill Gates whenever possible I'm going with 'internet exploder' for now. doesn't seem so bad and I'm not really missing Netscape ... yet. (I may pinch him a bit by dropping Office and going with Corel) I haven't had any trouble with XP whatsoever. I've deleted some junk they had in the box and I've added several programs. I'm all over the net and not a glitch. ON THE FIRST DAY. I can't believe I waited so long. I love the whole package. AND for some unknowable (for me) reason my internet connection is chunking along at twice the speed of before though my dialup connection is the same lame ole 28k and I already had a new top line modem in the ole box. Go figure.

So if any of y'all out there are like me and afraid of the change .... don't be. It's wonderful.

[Bogey78O]

BTW...My next major upgrade may be buying a DVD burner. But I'm saving that till the end of this year.

[HairOfTheDog]

Sure you have clicked Apply and OK instead of cancel? Try the system clock in control panels somewhere....

[Jack Black]

I bought XP this week and am totally satisfied. Not one crash in a week of use. THat compares favorably with the 1 per HOUR with win98.

My only gripe is it should have been free ... Win98 was a defective product. But $99 isn't much so no biggie.

If you don't have it consider getting it if your having lots of CRASHES on windows 98.

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Also a note for those that don't know the security patch is also called for to download for WINDOWS ME as well.

[Howlin]

Say, perhaps now you can DESIGN the kitchen on your NEW COMPUTER??????????

[peabers]

Can any of you puter wizards out there give me a simple way of getting my ole bookmarks into my new 'favorites list'?

The easiest way is to start IE, click File | Import | Favorites, and point to your floppy when you are prompted to browse for the file.

[Howlin]

It'll make a new man woman outta ya...

If only that was true, I'd by a couple!

[Petronski]

Seems to me you might have a bad battery. There's a little watch battery on the motherboard designed to keep the clock running when the computer is off. If the computer is still under warranty, you'd better call them.

[Prodigal Son]

Sure you have clicked Apply and OK instead of cancel? Try the system clock in control panels somewhere....

Yep. I just tried it again. For instance- the clock said 10:48 although it's almost 3 AM here and January 6, 2002. (Not too far off I guess ;-) I reset it to the proper time and date, cut it off, had a cigarette and cut it back on. The clock was already twenty minutes fast. Maybe the thing is doing some quantum computing on the side and has opened up a portal to a different space/time dimension :-)

[Dallas]

Yes I did.

I had a (spare) Sony with 98ME on it, and wanted to experiment with XP before I loaded it on my Dell. I guess I wasn't paying attention during the install, and ended up with two operating systems on the HD(98ME/XP).

Anyway, I couldn't be happier with the results. I can still use the old programs on the old system, and yet have the XP for multimedia. I was lucky the Sony had a 60Gig hard-drive, so there is enough for both to live side by side.

The downside, I registered XP on the Sony, so I will have to buy another copy of XP for the Dell if I go that route....

[Incorrigible]

Amelia,

I would recommend something like Linksys Cable/DSL Routers & Modems.  They're easy to set up and provide some hardware firewall functionality.  I'm assuming you have a Cable/DSL link to your house.  If not, you can use a computer with a modem to provide outside access to all PC's in the house.  See Set up and Use Internet Connection Sharing to learn how to do that.

[runningbear]

On bookmarkings, favorites and your address book, if you have current saves, best way I think is import/export files. It leads you thru the how to stuff when you link on it. Or follow you ISP tech support on how to.... On Windows XP. I have the upgrade home version. I could install it on one machine but not the other. One machine was least upgraded in OEM programs, Windows ME, hence XP, took the upgrade. On the other machine, loaded with maximum programs, and hardware. XP tells me I can't upgrade until I uninstall all listed conflicted programs and hardware, and then do an install. Not willing to compromise on losing data and time. So, one machine is XP, and the other is 98SE. Both were easily home networking to each other with ethernet hubs, and internet. Only thing on the XP and the ISPs out there, they should have patches too, per their IE programs. On Earthlnk's Total Access 2.3, no patches and you have to do some tweaking to resolve some OLE conflicts. And yes, faster loading of tasking on programs, and easy loading on IE links. On Win98se, gads, do I have recurring lags or hangups.... Constant errors when fast linking on and off urls on a dial...(I am now logging a error notepad file to send to Microsoft) Still tweaking with the XP program stuff, and I love it..."and yes, please update any patches, upgrades ASAP" Never know who could be lurking! :o)

[HairOfTheDog]

hmmm!!... sounds like petronsky in #68 may win the prize for the right answer today!

[gcraig]

"Anyway, everytime my wife cuts her computer off and back on the clock displays the wrong time."

You will have to change your CMOS battery on the system board to fix this. Be sure to get the correct part number before changing it.

"The other thing: The little icon on the tray that shows you're connected to the internet has gone missing."

Right click the connection object in the Dial up Networking folder and locate the setting to display in the task bar. I'm not sure about WinXP, but Win2k has this option.

[gcraig]

"I've been using NT at work for four years and to my knowledge, the server hasn't had to be rebooted once."

You are saying that you've got a production Windows NT Server that hasn't had to be rebooted for 4 years? So, this thing still has SP3 on it? Nobody bothered to install the NIMBDA server patches, or any other software fixpacks? Now, if you have been using a WinNT workstation, and you are utilizing the services of a UNIX server then I can readily believe that you haven't rebooted that UNIX server for 4 years.

[IoCaster]

Control panel--->network connections--->click on the name of your connection in the main window and a menu in the left pane will display a list of options. Click on (change settings for this connection) and you'll see a check box (show icon) at the bottom of the dialog box that opens.

[gcraig]

"Any hints on setting up the home network?"

Use TCP/IP as your transmission protocol, but fallback to NetBIOS over IP. Configure the workstations with non-routable IP Addresses -- normally 192.168.0.1 - 254 or 192.168.1.1 - 254 are used. If you are going to use a Cable Modem or DSL circuit then buy a LinkSyS router -- they are awesome for the price -- and config all workstations to use the router as their default gateway. If you are dialing up then you'll want to use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) so that the other workstations can use the primary dial up workstation's outbound route.

That assumed that you would want to stick with Windows operating systems. You can have even more fun custom hacking the source code of some linux workstations -- but after much pain...

[jackbill]

Thanks for the thread. My new puter should be on the porch tomorrow. It also has XP (and I can finally get rid of W95). I'll bookmark this for reference and for questions that I might have.

[tjblair]

are you sure your "real time clock" is set right(in the BIOS)?

[SamAdams76]

Any hints on setting up the home network? As soon as I get a new computer, it's what I have to do, so that both PCs can share the internet connection.

If your new computer has XP, it will be wicked easy, especially since you have Cat5 cable already wired through the house. Simply ensure each computer has a NIC (networking interface card) installed. Most new systems have them built in. Otherwise, you can pick one up for about $20 at CompUSA. Then get a hub. You can pick up a decent five port hub for about $30 and that is usually all you need for a home network. Since your home is already wired, the hub will go where the cables terminate (usually called a patchdown panel). Simply ensure that the cable from each computer is plugged into the hub (and of course that the other end is plugged into the NIC of the respective computer).

Right click Network Neighborhood and ensure that you have a unique name for each computer and that you have the same workgroup name for each computer on the network. Keep it simple and simply name the workgroup "WORKGROUP."

Fire up your XP computer and it should recognize the other computers. It's that easy. You can then share drives, folders and printers across the network by right-clicking the resource in Windows Explorer and clicking on the "sharing" option. If that option is not available, you need to go back to the Network Neighborhood icon and activate "print and file sharing."

Printers can be a little tricky. In order for a printer to have it's own "node" on the network, you usually need to get a JetDirect card for it and have it plugged into the hub. You don't have to go through that trouble however, I simply hooked the printer up as a local printer on my main computer and shared it. Of course, I need to keep that computer on all the time in order for the other computers to use it.