Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fineus on April 07, 2003, 03:09:37 am
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Hey all, if all goes well I'll soon have a copy of Windows XP Pro sitting with me, but thats where my problems begin - I know very little about any little things I might need to do to it before/during/after the install process. Has anyone got any handy tips for setting the computer/software up to run at its best? Any theme software for the GUI you'd recommend etc?
Cheers!
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bah, just be sure you have all the drivers. and I hope you don't have discontinued products :/
for exemple I found out my scanner can't run under XP since Plustek had discontinued drivers production for my scanner, and there's none for XP. bastards.
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service pack1 would be helpful :)
xp anti spy also
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Might be good oportunity to partition your harddrive, if you haven't already.
The install process is pretty painless. Just boot from CD, partition and format harddrive (I prefer NTFS).
Same install process as W2k. :)
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If you have below 256mb ram, I'd get some more. XP can run with as little as 128 but it really helps to have 256 or more, much more so than with 98. Besides that, XP is a pretty smooth operating system and I doubt it'll give you much trouble :)
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this kinda helps me too, as i've been thinking of migrating to xp
[OT] Kalfireth, what's happened to your avatar all i'm getting is a X [/OT]
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Be sure to have a good graphics card cause XP literally sucks out all it can from it. Of course that means better fps in games but meh... :p
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Just make sure you have all the drivers for your devices (even old NT drivers will work since its basically the same kernel). Then after you install, goto that site I gave you the link to in a PM a while back to kill those excess services that do nothing more than suck up RAM.
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Get 512MB of RAM. You'll need it. WinXP is pushing my 256 to the limit at some points.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
Hey all, if all goes well I'll soon have a copy of Windows XP Pro sitting with me
This must be an application of the term "well" I was hitherto unfamiliar with.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
Hey all, if all goes well I'll soon have a copy of Windows XP Pro sitting with me, but thats where my problems begin - I know very little about any little things I might need to do to it before/during/after the install process. Has anyone got any handy tips for setting the computer/software up to run at its best? Any theme software for the GUI you'd recommend etc?
Cheers!
3 things to remember:
1) Backup files
2) Format, then install XP
3) Don't change to NTFS. Keep FAT 32
. It is 30% faster and easier to format later if needed. :)
By the way, your avatar is a red x.
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Originally posted by venom2506
for exemple I found out my scanner can't run under XP since Plustek had discontinued drivers production for my scanner, and there's none for XP. bastards.
What model? I might be able to point you to the right direction for working XP drivers... Search www.driverguide.com for them - I had to dig there too to get my old Plustek scanner to work with Win2k. They talk about registering, but they just send a generic username and password: user = "all", password = "driver". Hope this helps.
(I myself use Win2k, won't touch XP - I like to have a working system. ;))
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Originally posted by Razor
3) Don't change to NTFS. Keep FAT 32
. It is 30% faster and easier to format later if needed. :)
Yeah, if you feel like running chkdisk everytime you have a bad shutdown, or higher file corruption rates. I'll stick with NTFS thank you very much. Its FAR more secure, and I can hit the power button right now and I won't loose diddly squat.
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I switched to NTFS and all I've noticed is that I have a few more security options. Not seeing a 30% loss in performance anywhere.
Whatever you do, DO NOT do the upgrade. Even if you have the upgrade, do a clean install (upgrade versions will ask for an old Windows disk for proof).
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Originally posted by Razor
3) Don't change to NTFS. Keep FAT 32.
It is 30% faster and easier to format later if needed. :)
Actually, it's the other way around: NTFS is faster than FAT32, particularly on larger (>32Gb) hard drives.
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since he hasent posted in a while i guess he installed xp:o
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This (http://support.premiopc.com/faqs/cluster.htm) illustrates the differences in cluster sizes in most versions of Windows.
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The NTFS table is wrong, at least for Windows NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP which use 4K clusters for all partitions above 2.0Gb.
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Originally posted by Admiral LSD
Actually, it's the other way around: NTFS is faster than FAT32, particularly on larger (>32Gb) hard drives.
Don't listen to them Kalfireth. Ihave consulted an expert and just to point out to you. If you use NTFS, and get a fatal error and loose all the data, you will NEVER be able to recover them. InFAT32, you have better chances to do that.
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Originally posted by Fetty
since he hasent posted in a while i guess he installed xp:o
No no, still here - just soaking in the info, thanks for that guys.. some proof on the whole NTFS/FAT32 thing would be nice.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
some proof on the whole NTFS/FAT32 thing would be nice.
If you plan to format your hard drive, it will be impossible to do that with NTFS, which I mentioned earlyer. And I also told you about the file loss. You won't make a mistake if you listen to me.
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I'm not rubbishing what you say - but a lot of people disagree with you. I don't know either way - so some research into the pros/cons of the two formats would be the best way to convince me.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
I'm not rubbishing what you say - but a lot of people disagree with you. I don't know either way - so some research into the pros/cons of the two formats would be the best way to convince me.
Hm..well do what you think is best. I just expressed my opinion.
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http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63
Another link.
Re: Cluster sizes. Scroll down to the bottom of these pages.
FAT32 http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/fat32.asp
NTFS http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/ntfs.asp
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both work
if you want the additional security features do it
otherwise there isnt realy and pro or con i expirienced
of cource if you want to hide your xp instalation from say 98 or another FAT based os go ahead
side note : in event of big f*ckup only ntfs sys can read/rescue no dos bootdisk
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Originally posted by Razor
If you plan to format your hard drive, it will be impossible to do that with NTFS, which I mentioned earlyer. And I also told you about the file loss. You won't make a mistake if you listen to me.
Oh how wrong you are. You can format your hard drive if its NTFS. But then again, what do I know? I've only been doing this for nearly a decade now. :rolleyes:
Maybe you never heard of this thing called the RECOVERY CONSOLE. Hell, even the Linux installer can format in NTFS. The only thing that CAN'T read NTFS is Win9x and thats only by default. There is third-party software available to allow Win9x to read and write to NTFS partitions. (It only allows you to read NTFS until you pay for it.)
NTFS is FAR superior in every way to ANY FATxx file system. Its FAR more stable, MUCH faster, and INFINITELY more secure. Unless he's going to dual-boot Win9x and XP off of the same partition (which I don't recommend) there is no excuse for NOT using NTFS.
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You don't even need the recovery console, you just pop the CD in, boot off it and as part of the installation you're given options to partition and format the drive as both FAT and NTFS.
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you will need a copy of Win2k Pro handy, for XP will inevetably **** up your HD sooner or later.
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Originally posted by demon442
you will need a copy of Win2k Pro handy, for XP will inevetably **** up your HD sooner or later.
Bull****. I've used XP for well over a year and in that time the only thing that ****ed my HD up was Partition Magic (and for the record, it was formatted with NTFS and I was able to get every single one of my important files back 100% intact).
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XP is pure, undiluted evil. It's sorta like that orange stuff they put on Cheez Puffs in binary. It will devour half your hard disk, drain your memory, refuse to open any of your software, and if it makes your computer start speaking in tongues and levitating it'd be no surprise to me. Plus, it's almost indistinguishable from Mac OS X, which means that it's the computer equivalent of dressing up in a frilly pink feather boa and midriff shirt and going out staring at guys crotches and lisping.
Trust me, if you want the XP experience, save yourself some trouble and install Satan directly onto your primary driver. It's a lighter download and you don't have to register it. Also, he's now offering great deals for your soul.
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And the bull**** keeps coming...
Perhaps we should have people handing out towels so people can clean up the brown stains on the sides of their mouths...
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You actually got somethin' to say, son, or are you just gonna stand around screaming "No it isn't! No it isn't!"
Return to your dark lord, foul excrescence. We have no need of your XP-spawned kind around here.
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As I said, I've been using XP day in, day out as my main OS for well over a year and I have yet to see even a fraction of the number of problems people are saying it has. What does that say to me? Quite simply, that these people are talking ****.
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And I used '95 day in, day out for four years, and never had an irreconcilable problem with it. That doesn't mean it wasn't a piece of **** written by a criminally incompetent bot and that I didn't trade out of it as soon as I realized that 98 and 2000 were at least marginally safer. If you're unobservant enough to not notice anything similar, when so many others already have- well, no skin off my back.
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The reason I didn't notice anything was that there was nothing to notice. The install went without a hitch, all my hardware was detected and half-decent drivers were installed out of the box, my system was no less stable under XP than it was under 2000 (which I'd been using for the same amount of time beforehand), none of the basic operating procedures I'd grown used to in 2k changed in XP and I felt no less patronised using XP than 2000. Apart from the aforementioned incident with Partition Magic I've had nothing but good experiences with Windows XP which is a lot more than I can say about Windows 2000.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
XP is pure, undiluted evil. It's sorta like that orange stuff they put on Cheez Puffs in binary. It will devour half your hard disk, drain your memory, refuse to open any of ...................... It's a lighter download and you don't have to register it. Also, he's now offering great deals for your soul.
At least OS X's base system is Darwin, which by itself as a Unix system, is acceptable. You can't say the same for XP....
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Originally posted by Admiral LSD
As I said, I've been using XP day in, day out as my main OS for well over a year and I have yet to see even a fraction of the number of problems people are saying it has. What does that say to me? Quite simply, that these people are talking ****.
:nod:
I've been using XP for almost a year and the only problems I've ever had is XP giving me blue screens upon bootup for some RAM reason (I had 128 mb RAM) but a simple upgrade made the OS worth the having. ;7
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
Oh how wrong you are. You can format your hard drive if its NTFS. But then again, what do I know? I've only been doing this for nearly a decade now.
Oh sorry sir. Please forgive me. I must say that you really sound like a really experienced expert even though you are only 22 years old. Aren't ya? Aren't ya? Hey is it true that it was you who developed that NTFS? You must have worked pretty hard on it. You know, removing bugs from oldies and all, adding new stuff... So you must know why it is so cool and even know how to format it in DOS and all and not even get that message: Partition format error or something like that. Yeah all those people who attempted that must be very stupid right? But not you. ;)
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Guys, stop it. Grow up.
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Typed format /? from command line in XP
[q]Formats a disk for use with Windows XP.
FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [ /Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system]
/FS:filesystem Specifies the type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS).
[/q]
This would seem to indicate that it is possibel to format to NTFS, provided that you have an xp/2k bootdisk.
But then again....
[q]From NTFS.com (www.ntfs.com)
Q: How do you format a blank hard disk drive to NTFS or NTFS5 ?
A: There are no standard utilities to format HDD to NTFS from DOS.
However there are solutions:
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Attach HDD to another machine having Windows NT installed if you want to format to NTFS, or to Windows 2000 / XP if you want to format it to NTFS5. Then format drive using Disk Manager utility that is included in OS.
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You can start Windows NT / 2000 / XP installation using bootable CD-ROM. On first steps of installation you will be asked about target location and you will be suggested to format the partition to NTFS. Go this way, and after format is completed, just cancel the installation process.
[/q]
Just FYI,
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Originally posted by THUNDER
Upgrading from Win98 to XP - Anything I need?
How about a CAT scan?
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jeez guys, give it a rest, i'll admit that OS's all have thier pros and cons, i'm also thinking of moving up to xp, because i've been on 98 for too long (it ain't SE) and i can't be bothered having 2000 pro ***** about the HCL, my machine is predominately a gaming machine and from what i hear, XP makes the best use of system resources... and besides, USB support is better in xp, and i'm getting sick of pulling my case out of it's cubby-hole removing the usb scanner plug, and putting it back in again, EVERY time i start the computer, just to scan a couple of images..
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Originally posted by Razor
Oh sorry sir. Please forgive me. I must say that you really sound like a really experienced expert even though you are only 22 years old. Aren't ya? Aren't ya? Hey is it true that it was you who developed that NTFS? You must have worked pretty hard on it. You know, removing bugs from oldies and all, adding new stuff... So you must know why it is so cool and even know how to format it in DOS and all and not even get that message: Partition format error or something like that. Yeah all those people who attempted that must be very stupid right? But not you. ;)
:D :D :lol: :D :D
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
You actually got somethin' to say, son, or are you just gonna stand around screaming "No it isn't! No it isn't!"
Return to your dark lord, foul excrescence. We have no need of your XP-spawned kind around here.
Stryke, all you're doing is going on and on about the same old crap that was rebuked many a time. I've been runnign XP for well over a year now and other than some problems with Gator (caused because I installed the adware version of DivX to try out the features of the pro ver) which royally ****ed it up.....I haven't had the first single issue. I haven't even had a single program crash on me ever since I installed 2k, let alone XP.
I've been saying this for years, and it appears I'll have to say it again. Computer stability immediately reflects the intelligence of the user. If its crashing all the time, then I suggest you stop what you're doing and actually take a course or two on how to properly use one.
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Vertigo: And whether or not a car crashes reflects upon the competence of the driver. If you think that's all there is to it, though, I recommend you stop wasting money on those unneeded brakes and steering adjustments. We'll all get to see just how competent you are.
A big part of understanding computers is knowing what **** not to put on it. Once again, if you're under the illusion that any reasonably competent user can operate their computer regardless of what's on it, I have several dozen software solutions for you. Most aren't even Trojans, but I can guarantee that they will crash your computer, and they will keep it crashed. Most programs are on a slightly lesser order of evil, but if you aren't crashing ****, you just plain aren't using your computer more than an hour a week, or for anything more complex than typing the letter "a" over and over again in Notepad. Ask any renderer, modeler, or progger here. ****, ask anyone who word-processes multiple pages a day. "Never touching your box" does not qualify as "treating it properly", and you aren't the better user for it. As demonstrated by the fact that you were dumb enough to let Gator adware on your hard disk, which is... say, two steps above chewing on the power cords.
Never mind that you obviously never even read a single ****ing post in here, because I never say that XP is particularly crashy. If anything, it's less so than 2K, 98, et al. But you wouldn't know that, because if you actually took the time to read before rebutting you'd go over your five-minute-a-day limit for computer use the nice man set for you and might experience some fatal crashes. Twit.
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Excuse me? I use it DAILY for several hours. Most of the time, I'm doing HEAVY rendering with scenes in the upwards of dozens of MILLIONS of polygons at once. But then again, what do I know? Maybe its because I actually bought DECENT hardware, keep everything up-to-date, and *gasp* actually check for virii and spyware! Gee, who would've thought? :rolleyes: Now shutup Stryke, and don't presume that you know a damn thing about me. Now unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that XP is unstable as you say it is, CONCESSION ACCEPTED.
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Yeah, you spend all those hours checking for viruses and spyware, and yet Gator, possibly the biggest ****ing spyware/adware package, with blinking lights and warning signs and klaxons all over it, got by you. Real good there. Maybe you should get a job with the INS, nyet?
And I don't really give a crap if you're rich enough to upgrade any software that does a simple bugfix or makes a new color interface and then adds a decimal point and $200 to the name. I'm not, and since I'm neither a snotty bastard (mostly) nor newbie enough to imagine that taking up more CPU cycles makes something better, I'm not gonna assume anyone else is. Once again, no good reflection on you, except that you're overpaid, which could be good or not, depending on how you look at it.
And millions of polygons? The most high-detail render of yours I've seen is this. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,11303.0.html) At maybe 2000, at the absolute most. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Yeah, you spend all those hours checking for viruses and spyware, and yet Gator, possibly the biggest ****ing spyware/adware package, with blinking lights and warning signs and klaxons all over it, got by you. Real good there. Maybe you should get a job with the INS, nyet?
It was a fresh install you moron. I knew it was adware, which is why I never even bothered to install anything of any importance just incase it DID furbar the OS. :rolleyes:
STILL no proof from you that XP is as bad as you make it out to be. I accept your concession.
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No proof? Here, I'll just get you to say it. Open up your C drive. That's right, the one under "My Computer" with the "C" and the picture of the hard disk. Now highlight your Windows file. You can find your Windows file, right? Check under "Properties". See all that space? All those millions of bytes that could be used for something beter, and in any other OS would be?
Now, any person who takes good care of their comp has a RAM counter. Open that sucka up. How much memory is being used, with you just idling? Specific numbers, please. See, that pretty Maclike interface has a price.
Finally, install a fresh new copy of Ray Dream Studio on there. Or most any black-box converter. Can't do it, can ya? Neither could I. So much for all that famed "compatibility". A good bit better than 2K, I'll give ya that, but 2K sucks, and it's still not half as good as, say, 95 in that regard.
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Windows folder: 1.32GB (which isn't much larger than the 2k install sitting on my "don't care" box right behind me.) That also includes the backup files when I installed SP1 (274MB). That brings it down to just over 1GB. Considering that a full Win9x install is just over 300 something MB, thats not too bad.
As for free RAM, I've got ~390MB free (out of 512). Thats with Miranda ICQ, WinMX, Mozilla, 3dsmax5, iTouch software (for wireless kb and mouse), AtGuard, and Volume Control running in the background.
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Ok, I'm a Win2k user that will never install XP, and can't be bothered to take part in this pissing contest, but I'd like to point out something. The evil (gasp!) features of XP include the whole activation philosophy, MS spyware that calls home reporting stuff and the XP-specific security holes (old ones including UPnP and that one remote helpdesk thingy (or whatever it was) exploit for example - and who knows how many new ones are to be found). I'm not claiming that w2k is the best either, but it's clearly the 'lesser evil' and as a bonus it doesn't sodomize the user every time you try to do something more experimental or tweak something a little.
I couldn't care less about eye candy, and FYI, the gaming usability comparison of w2k and xp isn't a clear case. Would you believe if I claimed w2k was superior? No? Why would you believe someone claiming likewise about xp superiority either? Both are very similar, based on the same NT kernel family - differences are in the fudge built upon it. Check the figures of comparison reviews again and use your brains. Arguments like Turnsky's "I hear xp makes the best use of system resources" make me chuckle (mildly). Also, his reasoning about his win98's poor USB support as grounds for choosing xp over w2k is simply... mysterious.
Both systems have their share of users claiming they never crash, both have people complaining about constant problems and BSODs. Try W2k first (it's by default the lesser evil), and if it doesn't work for you, go on to XP, but be sure to kill the spyware etc...
My two cents.
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It's taking up more than 100Mb, which is obscene. If I had 100Mb of RAM less, I'd probably never see the ends of some renders. To put that in perspective, WinAmp, the fattest program made for timesharing I have, takes up about 200Mb of RAM, and it's like ****ting a watermelon for the computer to play a song and run a 3D program at once. And I have two CPUs, and quite a lot of RAM. Windows 98/2000, with all the peripherals, takes up some 14Mb at a time on mine, last I checked. For shame.
And I don't know where you learned your counting, but 300 vs. 1000+ in one or two "upgrades" isn't just bad, it's horrendous, particularly when XP really doesn't do much of anything more than any of its predecessors, just sticks some fancy graphics and one of those horrible "intuitive" interfaces. It's all that recursive coding- they don't actually have people do this **** anymore, it's one of those AIs writing the code that ain't much smarter than the one making bad guys run into walls and keep walking into them when you're shooting at them in a game- the code's all snarled, with functions that never are needed or used going on and off over and over and over again, burning up your memory... About two months ago, someone installed Office XP on a five or ten-year-old box I've got access to, computer with a crotchety old motherboard/CPU hookup but a ridiculous amount of memory. The computer just stopped working. Like that. Took fifteen minutes to open any light program, like Notepad, could literally wait all day for it to open Photoshop. Took XP off, thing was running just fine, almost as fast as the average comp nowadays. It was like a virus.
XP isn't the worst OS ever, but it's an almost imperceptible improvement over 2000, and if you factor in the obscene price tag and all that tons of system resources it's hogging, it's worse- and since when you put them together, the cost really includes the cost of upgrading all your hardware right away for another thousand or so, it's just surreal. Why the **** would you ever blow all that money- hell, I haven't updated my graphics card or CPU in years, and my comp's quite a lot faster than any brand spanking new XP box I've run. It'd be nice if I could get it to accept any of the new memory cards I've got sitting around, let me do fullscreen minute-long animations like I'd like to (and which no stock XP setup can do without thousands of dollars of upgrades- and which you probably couldn't work out without tens of thousands in software to boot), but that's a hardware issue.
Basically, it's Microsoft suckering people into buying the more expensive product, because they can. Calls to mind Apple's "Ooh! Shiny!" campaign of a year or so back with the iMacs, except worse because iMacs actually served a function in being small, and XP does not except in being a Trojan.
Now, if you compare XP to the mythic Palladium, you might find some nicer things to say. But that's about it right there as far as things XP is actually preferable to.
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As regards the performance part of the above XP bashing, my box gives virtually the same 3D Mark score whether I be in XP or 98 (around 10K, for the benefit of those people with a lower score than me :))
*waits for Stryke to explain why either a) 3D Mark scores don't mean a flying ****, or b) I'm wrong*
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
but it's an almost imperceptible improvement over 2000
ROFL!
Upgrading to XP from 2000 was like Night and Day. Stuff that I'd struggled to get working under 2000 installed right off the CDs in most cases under XP. I was even able to get rid of my 9x dual boot because XP had a compatibility patch for the one game I'd never ever been able to get working under 2000. My hardware was also supported better, my USB steering wheel didn't kill my mouse every time it was plugged in. 2000 was the bees knees when the only alternatives were Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 but it's left eating serious digital dust by XP and will never, ever be installed on any of my machines again.
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You're wrong. Just because predictability might comfort some of the more "special" of those here.
Actually, I've heard of 3D Mark, and that's about it, so I don't have a real opinion about its accuracy. I assume it's a RAM counter, but that's where my familiarity ends and unlike a certain set of individuals here I don't like to make claims about stuff I don't know anything about, really. Plus, any claims I made I'd have to make would hence be entirely based on me making things up, which is fun but largely unconvincing.
3D Mark is made by Satanist death chimps! It will cause the electromagnets in your monitor to give you testicular cancer! Osama and Saddam are both fans of 3D Mark!
LSD: Yeh, I hear XP is compatible with a lot of games. That's good, I guess, but irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. I play games about twice a year nowadays, except when some addiction hits me for a time and I don't, technically speaking, sleep for a week or two. The current one is Deus Ex, but I'm parceling out the obsession. And XP is emphatically not compatible with much of any of the oldish graphics software, equipment, or abandonware games I kept because they happen to be really, really good. I tried, and it actually ate my CD on one occasion. Had to pry that sucker open with a screwdriver, and you'd better believe I wasn't gentle after the crap it'd given me.
And with a bit of work, you can get pretty much any program to run on 98. 2000, not so much, but then again I was always more than a little leery of NT suckage being introduced into an OS.
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It's not just games, XP automatically copied the registry entries for stuff like ICQ and GetRight into areas of the registry accessible to more than just Administrators. Previously, I'd have had to install the program seperately for each user to achieve the same result.
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Ahh, ICQ. Now I actually like XP, so long as it stays the hell away from my computers. Encourages ICQ patronage, which means easy hacking, so people'll naturally stop bothering with my more secure box and I can eventually take down this damned firewall.:D
And I have no idea why you'd need to install the program for every user, just because they can't access the registry on their own. Care to enlighten me? Everything seems to work fine on this machine...
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
:D :D :lol: :D :D
Hm, people just never learn. Over here (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm)
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I think he was aware of that. Computer-illiterates still get sarcasm these days.
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My accounts aren't given Administrator priveliges as a rule and the area of the registry where ICQ (and several other programs not designed with NTs multi-user, multi-file registry in mind) dumps its registry settings is read-only to non-Administrators. This means that configuration changes aren't saved between sessions. This can be ignored in a lot of cases, I don't change my FS2 settings often enough to make it a problem for instance, but with GetRight and ICQ it's particularly annoying. The solution is to install the programs as every user who needs them which will put the registry entries in the users own section of the registry giving them read- and write access. XP eliminates this (at least with GetRight and ICQ) saving me a fair amount of time and effort.
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I think you can set it up so that programs can write to the registry to an extent (as in, say, config files), but the folders are still no-access to the users directly. At least, my comp seems to store 'em just fine, and I have just about no accesses...
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hmmm
since im refusing to use xp with all that graphics n stuff cuz i hate it(using it with old style wherever i can disable the crap) xp aint slowing me down THAT much but its a tad bit slower (thankl god i got 256mb ram in my ol puter)
the diffrence i see betwen 2k and xp is aprox xp isnt *****ing about things 2k *****ed about
so its basicaly 2k with service packs n some other lil changes with a fancy look
but 2k and xp are memory hoggs
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The first time I saw XP/.NET without all the Luna GUI enhancements I ran screaming to the Themes service controls. Now, the Explorer look is butt-ugly to begin with (hell, even a command line looks better...) but XP and .NET take it to new depths of ugliness.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
I think he was aware of that.
I just had to do that. Some people may take me serriously. :rolleyes:
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http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/IhateMS.html
This site's kinda has to do with the topic, the name may be misleading so I'll tell you that this isn't just another arbitrary "MS is teh 3vil" article. It explains how MS products are flawed, how they're so popular (marketing) and suchlike.
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Originally posted by Razor
Hm, people just never learn. Over here (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm)
Actually I did get it, hense the smilies.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
You're wrong. Just because predictability might comfort some of the more "special" of those here.
Actually, I've heard of 3D Mark, and that's about it, so I don't have a real opinion about its accuracy. I assume it's a RAM counter, but that's where my familiarity ends and unlike a certain set of individuals here I don't like to make claims about stuff I don't know anything about, really. Plus, any claims I made I'd have to make would hence be entirely based on me making things up, which is fun but largely unconvincing.
3D Mark is actually more than just a 'ram counter'. It actually benches your system from a gaming POV. The only thing I don't like about it is that:
1. Its more CPU oriented.
2. They keep changing the damn ranking system with each release so results are never consistant.
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
It's taking up more than 100Mb, which is obscene. If I had 100Mb of RAM less, I'd probably never see the ends of some renders. To put that in perspective, WinAmp, the fattest program made for timesharing I have, takes up about 200Mb of RAM, and it's like ****ting a watermelon for the computer to play a song and run a 3D program at once. And I have two CPUs, and quite a lot of RAM. Windows 98/2000, with all the peripherals, takes up some 14Mb at a time on mine, last I checked. For shame.
Linux-Mandrake 8.x eats up more hard drive space than any Windows install. I suppose you consider that obscene as well? Lets face it, as the OS evolves the system requirements go up. Not everyone is running some POS p133 with a 2MB Cirrus Logic video card with maybe 32MB of SIMMs, so there is no reason to keep the OS so low-level anymore. Most businesses have systems atleast in the 600MHz range or more (which is where MS makes more of its revenue by comparison) with atleast 10gig hard drives so they can afford to plop in a few more things here and there.
And I don't know where you learned your counting, but 300 vs. 1000+ in one or two "upgrades" isn't just bad, it's horrendous, particularly when XP really doesn't do much of anything more than any of its predecessors, just sticks some fancy graphics and one of those horrible "intuitive" interfaces. It's all that recursive coding- they don't actually have people do this **** anymore, it's one of those AIs writing the code that ain't much smarter than the one making bad guys run into walls and keep walking into them when you're shooting at them in a game- the code's all snarled, with functions that never are needed or used going on and off over and over and over again, burning up your memory... About two months ago, someone installed Office XP on a five or ten-year-old box I've got access to, computer with a crotchety old motherboard/CPU hookup but a ridiculous amount of memory. The computer just stopped working. Like that. Took fifteen minutes to open any light program, like Notepad, could literally wait all day for it to open Photoshop. Took XP off, thing was running just fine, almost as fast as the average comp nowadays. It was like a virus.
Funny, I don't recall you ever working for MS so how would YOU know what they do? I seriously doubt you've had ANY programming experience WHATSOEVER. See, when you do programming as a job, there are these things called DEADLINES. You know, this thing where you have to be finished by a certain date or else? They write it as fast as possible, and with MS setting such tight deadlines, they don't have time to go back and refine/tweak the coding to slim it down. Why do you think MS is releasing patch after patch all the time? Why do you thing Outlook has more security holes than the MOAB has blubber? As for Office XP on an old system like that, what the hell did you expect? Even Office 2000 (which isn't near as bloated as XP, that I will admit freely.) would run rediculously slow on an old system like that. Thats like expecting a Geforce 4 to work perfectly in a 486. Its not gonna happen.
XP isn't the worst OS ever, but it's an almost imperceptible improvement over 2000, and if you factor in the obscene price tag and all that tons of system resources it's hogging, it's worse- and since when you put them together, the cost really includes the cost of upgrading all your hardware right away for another thousand or so, it's just surreal. Why the **** would you ever blow all that money- hell, I haven't updated my graphics card or CPU in years, and my comp's quite a lot faster than any brand spanking new XP box I've run. It'd be nice if I could get it to accept any of the new memory cards I've got sitting around, let me do fullscreen minute-long animations like I'd like to (and which no stock XP setup can do without thousands of dollars of upgrades- and which you probably couldn't work out without tens of thousands in software to boot), but that's a hardware issue.
Funny, I can get it for under $50 (legally mind you). I posted a link here a long time ago to a section of their site where you can order XP Pro for like $34 or so. Do a search. As far as XP being an improvement over 2000, XP has fixed alot of things that were frelled up in 2k. For one, in XP you can actually auto-dial out in anything other than a program that uses the IE shell as a base. You can't do that in 2k. Furthermore, the compatability modes work a hell of alot better. The memory management is slightly better (though with a dualy box, you won't notice that anyhow.) The loading time has been dramatically improved. On my 700MHz Duron, XP only takes 15 seconds to load, vs 45 with 2k (SP2). (For the record, I have half a gig of PC133.)
I dunno what your problem is, but I've had no problems at all with doing full-screen animations.
Now, if you compare XP to the mythic Palladium, you might find some nicer things to say. But that's about it right there as far as things XP is actually preferable to.
True, but you can bet they'll try to sneak Palladium in, in a future XP service pack. (not that it'll work without it enabled in the hardware mind you... If you plan on upgrading, I'd do it soon before intel or AMD has a chance to plop it in the current CPU lines.)
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Originally posted by Razor
Hm, people just never learn. Over here (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm)
Now, you brought this (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tit) entirely upon yourself.
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
3D Mark is actually more than just a 'ram counter'. It actually benches your system from a gaming POV. The only thing I don't like about it is that:
1. Its more CPU oriented.
2. They keep changing the damn ranking system with each release so results are never consistant.
The ratings system doesn't change, what gets tested does. Take for instance the new version, 3DMark2003. If I understand correctly, this is a DirectX9-based benchmark. Now with that it mind, it it plausible to assume that a DirectX8 accelerator will produce the exact same scores in a DirectX9 benchmark as it does in a DirectX 8 or 8.1 benchmark like 3DMark2001/2001SE? This is also the reason why 3DMark scores are such a useless indicator of performance, it's always a year or so ahead in API utilisation than most games and as such, the scores produced are useless for anything more than penis size comparisons.
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well kalfblmber ahh what the hell
katfish how system going ?
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3DMark is not exclusively a dx9 benchmark.
In the 4 Game Tests it uses varying DX7-9 tech. In this case GT 4 is a DX9 test. You have to have dx9 hardware to be able to run this test. Otherwise 3DMark just skips the test and you loose points.
Here's an article. http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/3dmark03/intro/
And another, though not about 3DMark, shows some of the differences between dx7-9.
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/nv30r300/
It's really a speculation article on the differences between R300 and , the then annanounced, NV30.
As I understand it, something written for dx9 HW can't be run on dx8 HW. Maybe some sort of software emulation will enable it to be run, but imagine the FPS. :shaking:
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I don't give a flying fig about the 3DMark scores. I just think they're cool to look at. :p
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Bloody hell!
I find myself agreeing with ZylonBane!
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
Linux-Mandrake 8.x eats up more hard drive space than any Windows install. I suppose you consider that obscene as well? Lets face it, as the OS evolves the system requirements go up. Not everyone is running some POS p133 with a 2MB Cirrus Logic video card with maybe 32MB of SIMMs, so there is no reason to keep the OS so low-level anymore. Most businesses have systems atleast in the 600MHz range or more (which is where MS makes more of its revenue by comparison) with atleast 10gig hard drives so they can afford to plop in a few more things here and there.
:rolleyes: Why the hell should you make an operating system that CAN'T operate on old systems? Does it offer any advantage? Nope. You can set up a working, nice server with linux on a 100Mhz range computer. Try it with windows, it CRAWLS. There isn't much reason to make us buy more and more expensive parts. (supposedly hardware vendors actually quite like this in windows, makes people buy more stuff for their crap)
Also, Linux actually installs things you need and you tell it to (unless you go for some uber-beginner package) and usually the base install is 50 megs to 100 megs. (i.e. the root mount) The rest of the system is optional stuff. Note that the system critical parts are stored on a different mount or at least in a totally different part of the system than normal applications so as not to contaminate anything.
Windows jams everything into the same place and installs useless junk without asking you anything (y'know 3d pinball? that's megabytes of data that it puts on your system without telling you. There're lots of these useless packages stuffed in windows).
Funny, I don't recall you ever working for MS so how would YOU know what they do? I seriously doubt you've had ANY programming experience WHATSOEVER. See, when you do programming as a job, there are these things called DEADLINES. You know, this thing where you have to be finished by a certain date or else? They write it as fast as possible, and with MS setting such tight deadlines, they don't have time to go back and refine/tweak the coding to slim it down. Why do you think MS is releasing patch after patch all the time? Why do you thing Outlook has more security holes than the MOAB has blubber? As for Office XP on an old system like that, what the hell did you expect? Even Office 2000 (which isn't near as bloated as XP, that I will admit freely.) would run rediculously slow on an old system like that. Thats like expecting a Geforce 4 to work perfectly in a 486. Its not gonna happen.
Erm, you don't know anything. MS largely steals other peoples programs (or buys them) and so writing actual programs is reduced somewhat. (I've heard on the word '97 thing there're still files with "copyright wordperfect corporation" on them :lol: ) Oh and deadlines aren't an excuse for anything... do you accept games that are rushed to productions lines and released as "special" builds (remember that one walmart game?) or turned into bastardized convolutions?
Oh by the way, there've been office applications like Office available since back like in the 1970s/80s.... just without all the blubber and prettification..... so why does MS need to make it so slow?
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
:rolleyes: Why the hell should you make an operating system that CAN'T operate on old systems? Does it offer any advantage? Nope. You can set up a working, nice server with linux on a 100Mhz range computer. Try it with windows, it CRAWLS. There isn't much reason to make us buy more and more expensive parts. (supposedly hardware vendors actually quite like this in windows, makes people buy more stuff for their crap)
Probably because:
1. Not everyone is going to use the same POS 486 all the time, nor should they code everything for the lowest common denonimatorl That would be rather stupid, don't you think?
2. As hardware evolves, the OS must evolve with it to take advantage of it. To have an OS take full advantage of the SSEx and 3D Now!x instructions and have it run on some hunk of junk from the stone age would take FAR too long to code. They would have to actually release two versions of the OS, and that would cost them more money that they'd make in sales.
3. Most programs and comp hardware require atleast a 200 - 300MHz chip in your PC *bare minimum*. Why shouldn't the OS require a little more horsepower in order to do more for the user?
Also, Linux actually installs things you need and you tell it to (unless you go for some uber-beginner package) and usually the base install is 50 megs to 100 megs. (i.e. the root mount) The rest of the system is optional stuff. Note that the system critical parts are stored on a different mount or at least in a totally different part of the system than normal applications so as not to contaminate anything.
Windows jams everything into the same place and installs useless junk without asking you anything (y'know 3d pinball? that's megabytes of data that it puts on your system without telling you. There're lots of these useless packages stuffed in windows).
There are lots of useless packages stuck in everything, your point? Not every OS is perfect, that I'll agree with any of you on without hesitation. Sure MS slaps a few extra things here and there. They even slap "Online Services" on your comp when installing 98SE even though you de-select it in setup.
Erm, you don't know anything. MS largely steals other peoples programs (or buys them) and so writing actual programs is reduced somewhat. (I've heard on the word '97 thing there're still files with "copyright wordperfect corporation" on them :lol: ) Oh and deadlines aren't an excuse for anything... do you accept games that are rushed to productions lines and released as "special" builds (remember that one walmart game?) or turned into bastardized convolutions?
Yeah, actual coding is reduced somewhat, but a large ammount of it is still done in-house. As for deadlines not being an excuse for everything, that is true. However, from what I gather they are rather strict on them. As for unfinished games, they've been released like that in the past. Remember that one Ultima game that never worked right and had dozens of patches?
Actually, that rumor about Office 97 is false. Thats something I would've heard about if it were true.
Oh by the way, there've been office applications like Office available since back like in the 1970s/80s.... just without all the blubber and prettification..... so why does MS need to make it so slow?
Because most users are stupid? Why do you think that damned paperclip was there for so long till they "ditched" it? (they really didn't get rid of it, its just not installed by default.)
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
Because most users are stupid? Why do you think that damned paperclip was there for so long till they "ditched" it? (they really didn't get rid of it, its just not installed by default.)
Actually at first that paperclip actually was rather "intelligent" and only appeared when needed (I've heard it used bayse nets and such to show up at proper times) but MS decided to "dumb it down". Kinda shows the policies they adopt for qualtity doesn't it?
And as for the server/business market... I don't think Windows is fit for that at all. I saw a report in which three systems (linux, linux and windows) were all set to be servers (with equal traffic and such) for a few months. Windows had to undergo 30 minute maintenence (a system critical problem each time I think) every three weeks or something like that. Neither linux system went down at all.
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Give it up. This cockbrain's entrenched now, he ain't never gonna give up and admit he's wrong. If a big glowing pentagram just appeared on the top of his case and Satan and all his demons who all looked like Bill Gates leapt out of it with Microsoft logos on their foreheads and started anally raping him while reciting the names of all the Fatal Errors he'd say it wasn't any fault of his or any product he owned, or that Microsoft was including it as a special feature that anyone who didn't suck had.
See, this is what happens when people get so insecure that criticism of their ****ing operating system starts to equate to a direct insult to their dick size. It's incurable, but I always prescribe a good thrashing just because it's cathartic to anyone who's stuck with such a putz for extended time. In this case, I suppose it's impossible to literally knock some sense into him, so there's really no point in carrying this on any farther.
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
Actually at first that paperclip actually was rather "intelligent" and only appeared when needed (I've heard it used bayse nets and such to show up at proper times) but MS decided to "dumb it down". Kinda shows the policies they adopt for qualtity doesn't it?
It was 'intelligent' in 97, but it became rather annoying in 2000 (where it was 'dumbed down'). Thats why they "ditched" it in XP because people kept complaining about it. (like its that hard to turn it off anyways).
And as for the server/business market... I don't think Windows is fit for that at all. I saw a report in which three systems (linux, linux and windows) were all set to be servers (with equal traffic and such) for a few months. Windows had to undergo 30 minute maintenence (a system critical problem each time I think) every three weeks or something like that. Neither linux system went down at all.
I wouldn't use a 9x system as a server either. However, a friend of mine did have an NT4 server running for I think was 3 or 4 years non-stop. (Its been a while since he's talked about it. If you're wondering, you can ask him yourself. He posts as Russ on Spacebattles (http://www.spacebattles.com/).) It only quit when the hard drive died in it from all the frequent disk access. :D
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
*snip*
Aww, what's the matter? Was the poor wittle baby not able to back himself up so he has to resort to insults a third-grader could out-do? You poor thing! Here, let me get you a chair. You must be awefully tired from exerting yourself with those big words. :p
Face it Stryke. You weren't able to prove me wrong. I asked you for specific evidence and you weren't able to provide it. I accept your concession.
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Uh huh. Is this like Dorothy? Say "I accept your concession" twenty times, click your heels together and suddenly everything I said is invalidated? I can't be arsed to put up more reasons XP is far from an improvement because you never dealt with the first few- saying that anyone who can't pay for the massive hardware upgrades needed to support such an overblown, inefficient piece of bloatware just sucks and that that doesn't matter doesn't qualify as stunning rebuttal. Hell, you basically agreed with what I said then and there and then called it discrediting the original statement. In other words, you aren't around to deal with actual facts, you're here to screech on and on about how great XP is and how you wish the hole in the middle of the install CD was a little less sharp so you could make sweet love to it. That, combined with your arrogant newbiedom, makes you supremely not worth the effort of treating like a regular human. You don't understand your computer? Fine, everyone starts at the same place. You should learn how it works, not sit around posturing self-consciously, particularly when you suck at covering up how little you actually do know. And so why bother? It's much more entertaining and productive to deal with your rabid defense and silly pretense of being "l33t" or whatever the hell you think you are on the psychological front- after all, there's no rationality in any of your overly defensive, incoherent, insulting posts, so it's time to explore the cause of the irrationality and be a little insulting right back while I'm at it.
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Originally posted by Vertigo1
I wouldn't use a 9x system as a server either. However, a friend of mine did have an NT4 server running for I think was 3 or 4 years non-stop. (Its been a while since he's talked about it. If you're wondering, you can ask him yourself. He posts as Russ on Spacebattles (http://www.spacebattles.com/).) It only quit when the hard drive died in it from all the frequent disk access. :D
:wtf: well, I'm not exactly too willing to believe it (Netware servers run 1 or 2 years non-stop, but windows?) but since I haven't checked it out, I won't refute it.... However, does one occurence really show any sign of a good operating system? I mean, depending on conditions and that evil thing called fate, I suppose you could run a 9x for a year or two.... <-- not willing to try. Anyhow, linux/unix is considerably more consistently reliable, so I still say windows doesn't equate to much worth on the business market. (Not that I think it's a viable personal system if you want to do anything but type a few letters and calculate 1 + 1)
Oh and a lament. I tried installing windows the other day (tried win2k, NT and 98) but I found that the freaking thing wouldn't accept a logical partition as usable.......... very, very annoying. (I have to rewrite the whole or most of the partition table to be able to get windows running well, and I have to reinstall debian and openBSD in that case)
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
*snip*
Concession accepted.
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
:wtf: well, I'm not exactly too willing to believe it (Netware servers run 1 or 2 years non-stop, but windows?) but since I haven't checked it out, I won't refute it.... However, does one occurence really show any sign of a good operating system? I mean, depending on conditions and that evil thing called fate, I suppose you could run a 9x for a year or two.... <-- not willing to try. Anyhow, linux/unix is considerably more consistently reliable, so I still say windows doesn't equate to much worth on the business market. (Not that I think it's a viable personal system if you want to do anything but type a few letters and calculate 1 + 1)
As I said before, the stability of an OS relates immediately to the intelligence of the user. If you properly maintain it (keep drivers up-to-date, scan for virii & spyware, keep the OS up-to-date, etc..) then it should theoretically last as long as the hardware its being run on. However, there is the unknown factor to consider. Script kiddies, hackers with a grudge, DDoS assholes, windows rot, etc.
As for the server market, you would be suprised how many servers are out there running NT, 2k, or even XP. Granted, the number of Unix/Linux servers is rising steadily (already past the point where it would rival Windows). Why do you think so many worms target flaws in IIS and the like? (Code Red rings a bell.)
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Never mind that all files in Windows systems, regardless of how "well" you keep them, slowly degrade and corrupt over time, including stuff that's pretty critical to the running of the computer and which is liable to mess a lot of **** up when it goes bad. Hell, I've had computer systems I'm fairly sure I never touched go bad on me, and I've never met anyone who didn't have the same issue (so unless you're the only computer-literate person in the world, I recommend you shove your "proper treatment" crap where the sun don't shine).
So sure, if your little maintenance list involves regularly reformatting your disks and reinstalling everything not a Microsoft product (to the extent where complex **** you use a lot, like, say, MAX, requires it once a month), you could do that, but once again I find your claim specious to say the least.
What's odd is that I've never seen file corruption on anything close to a similar scale in Macs, and Mac OS X was in almost every other regard evidently designed by chimpanzees.
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~sniff~ I've got an old 386 'laptop', turbo button n' all, plasma amber screen, all that, 200mb HD... Now it's been left for about 1.5 years without use, and Win 3.1 has freaked out; corrupted, core parts lost, the lot. I realise that this could be due to HD problems, but I seriously doubt it, since I was able to get a minimalist 1.39mb (fits (and runs, if you feel like it) on a floppy) Linux distro running on it, GUI inclusive. And from there I can access the old Win 3.1 files themselves fine, seemingly no corruption, just when copied out and introduced to anything run by Microsoft products, the files mysteriously get 'corrupted' again.
Maybe Windows is suicidal when bored?
Note: Not that I care in any way that Windows has disappeared from it. It's more the cool old games I had on it. I love classics.
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'S what abandonware sites are for.
I think it's just lazy coding that makes it go all funky, though I've never looked into it enough to be sure. The way Windows works, it basically tries to control everything, so when it opens and closes programs and files, it messes with their code a little and every once in a while does it in such a way that the coding fouls up. Not so bad, normally (the vast majority of corruptions are non-critical, there's lots of code in the average program that's redundant or unnecessary or just plain not used by the user), but pile on error after error after error, and soon things aren't working. But that's just a guess on my part, based on what would make sense...
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Now, you brought this (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tit) entirely upon yourself.
Excuse me...do I have to care about your opinion? Actually, I laugh at your total stupidity and I am sure that this (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=asshole) fits your personality perfectly. Enjoy and feel proud. :)
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Never mind that all files in Windows systems, regardless of how "well" you keep them, slowly degrade and corrupt over time, including stuff that's pretty critical to the running of the computer and which is liable to mess a lot of **** up when it goes bad. Hell, I've had computer systems I'm fairly sure I never touched go bad on me, and I've never met anyone who didn't have the same issue (so unless you're the only computer-literate person in the world, I recommend you shove your "proper treatment" crap where the sun don't shine).
ie: Windows rot, which I mentioned earlier. However, thats not always the case. (ref: My earlier post mentioning a certain NT4 server.)
So sure, if your little maintenance list involves regularly reformatting your disks and reinstalling everything not a Microsoft product (to the extent where complex **** you use a lot, like, say, MAX, requires it once a month), you could do that, but once again I find your claim specious to say the least.
I haven't had to reformat in over a year thank you very much, and my system is as stable as the day I first built it years ago. Just goes to show you that buying the cheap POS crap won't get you anywhere. ;) *pats his old Asus A7V* Like a ****ing rock! :D
What's odd is that I've never seen file corruption on anything close to a similar scale in Macs, and Mac OS X was in almost every other regard evidently designed by chimpanzees.
Ohh, don't get me started on how ****ty previous Mac OS versions are. I haven't touched OSX so I'm not going to say anything one way or another about it.
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Yeah, it WOULD go to show... except that my main box is top-of-the-line, best of everything from a couple years back. Hell, it's still faster than most computers nowadays (partially thanks to a certain OS's tendency to eat your computer's memory with warm beer and a side of ham), and that even though it gets tremendous abuse from a certain sysop I could mention... And it was crashy long before he started ****ing it up, so none of that.:p
And I ain't gonna argue that about Macs. Never could stand 'em.
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I just want to know one thing....how the FRELL did we get from the pros and cons of NTFS to a pissing match on WinXP vs. whatever?
You and I are obviously not going to agree on this. Lets just agree to disagree, eh? (I'm suprised this thread wasn't closed long ago.)
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Because you insisted on defending XP to an unsuspecting innocent, which is unconscionable.
And fine. I accept your concession.:p
:D
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...by the way, macs are great - they do "just work". Haven't used them myself, but I hear about one happy user's experiences on daily basis, and have investigated a little because of that... Don't bash something just because you happen to use windows/linux systems instead.
If you'll excuse me now, I'm going to run - fingers plugged to my ears and humming real loud - to avoid the flames of rabid mac haters.
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Originally posted by Terorist
...by the way, macs are great - they do "just work".
Is that "just" in the sense of "barely"? :p
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Actually, Macs do work pretty nicely- it's just that that doesn't get you much.
It's sort of the same thing as comparing those giant colorful lego blocks with twelve tons of scrap and a welding torch- sure, the play blocks are relatively easy to learn to use, and you're not so likely to cut or burn yourself using them, but you can't make a lot with them, and you don't have a lot of options- you can put the red one on top of the green one, or vice versa, or put one on top of the other so that they only link by two pegs. Whereas welding's nasty, dirty, dangerous work (well, the analogy's hyperbolic there, the biggest "danger" can be averted by burning a backup CD), but you can do practically anything with it, control the size, shape, and configuration of the parts you use, and in the end have a lot more fun anyway. Macs are great if you don't need much- you're just gonna Photoshop a little or maybe word process- or if you didn't really grow up a nerd and hence aren't comfortable with interfaces that are less than user friendly. PCs, and particularly Linux/Unix PCs, are for serious computer users.
Honestly, I'd recommend most people use a Mac- after all, hardly anybody makes use of their computer beyond very basic functions such as typing up papers and gaming, and it would mean I wouldn't be flooded with regular whines about how someone reformatted their hard disk and now for some reason can't find any of their files. They're pretty simple. Personally, there's a special place in my heart for the little bastards, and it's in the middle of where all the hate goes, but then, that's me, and while I can't do most of what I do on my PCs on a Mac nearly so efficiently, the stuff I (and many of the graphics people here) do represents less than the 1% of what computers are used for.
Yeah, it's nice and cool and l33t and all to have a computer that can do practically ****ing anything and that you can take apart and put together on the most elemental stage (and that has a friggin' FLOPPY DRIVE!!! Urgh. Damn them.), but all in all the whole computer-potential-equals-dick-size thing is pretty damn immature and lame now, and it's much more intelligent and capable a move to spend money on a computer that does what you need it to do, and does it well. Me, I need a computer I can beat up on, modify heavily, install all sorts of freaky **** on, and generally fiddle with without getting some big colorful menu giving me every option but the very basic one I want to use.
This in no way means I don't have a deep, seething hatred of all things Apple, it just means that even the epitome of evil has its uses at times.
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well some of us do use thier computers for more than gaming and the occaisonal document, take myself for example , i use photoshop almost constantly, and yes, i know macs could do that sort of thing as well, but i prefer not to have just one machine for one purpose, my machine is becoming quite the multipurpose machine... it's all a matter of choice... people prefer to use macs as well as i prefer to use my athlon box..
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Like I said; we don't exactly represent the majority, here.
Oh, except for Styxx. He's pretty mundane.:D
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do you want to incur the Wrath of Styxxtm again?
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Call it negative reinforcement. I don't have a water spritzer handy, and can't rub his nose in it, so...
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i see
*continues sketching next installment of foxfire*
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Er... does it not happen unless you type it down? I post, therefore I am? Or does the act of typing it enable you to do so, whereas if you had not posted that you were going to do such-and-such action, you'd have to stay at your computer, bound to your keyboar until you wrote about action?
Really changes the whole real life/forum dynamic, doesn't it?
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it's just that i felt i had to type a bit more in than "i see"..
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Ah. I think my interpretations were more interesting.
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ohhh i see, "i type therfore i am"
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Because you insisted on defending XP to an unsuspecting innocent, which is unconscionable.
And fine. I accept your concession.:p
:D
You mean you're accepting one of yours back. :D
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
Is that "just" in the sense of "barely"? :p
Hardly. :p
(Seriously though, Apple really does provide a great system that doesn't suffer from PC world's difficulties, like million different hardware systems that cause different bugs with the same software.)
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(It just has its own problems, and is limited in use besides)
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Mac hardware is generally good but I don't really like the software. Having an Imac probably caused much of my bias away from mac....