Windows XP

[ssahl]

Can anyone tell me a little about Windows XP. Between 98, ME, 2k, NT, it's hard to keep track. How does it compare to 98_SE and 2K PRO? I know how Microsoft is but I cant believe that they would put out yet another piece of crap like ME. I also heard that they were going to start charging a monthly fee! Makes me want to check out Mac OS X. not that I would pay for software, (especially an OS) but it's the principle. Anyway about XP, how is it? What can it do? ect...

[HAL9000]

Personally, I find WinME crap only if it is installed on crap systems, other than that, it's much smoother than 98. WinXP is the next step up from NT/Win2K. It's using the NT/2k kernel, but it has brought along more of the compatability of Win9x along with it. Like WinME running faster than 98, WinXP seems to be running much more efficiently than Win2K as well.

[ssahl]

Wow, you like ME, what do you do if you want to change your CONFIG.SYS
or AUTOEXEC.BAT? or did they fix that problem of ME always changing it back.
Back to XP though, how much memory and how fast a CPU do you need for it to run good? ex. Win2k min. is 32MB RAM and 2GB hard drive, but is not worth running unless you have 64-96MB RAM also how much space on the hard drive does it take up after a clean install? Do 98, 2k, ME, programs (any) run on XP or is it like another whole new thing?

ME is not that bad, it runs all right, but if (when) something does go wrong, it's harder to troubleshoot, at least for a pee-on like me. no pun intended.

[HAL9000]

I don't ever find a need to change anything in the AUTOEXEC.BAT or the CONFIG.SYS with my ME systems. I have one on a PIII 800 (512Mb) and one on a Celery 850 (256Mb), but have run it running on my brothers system which originally was only a 233MMX with 64Mb, we recently added another 128Mb as it's dirt cheap now.

As for XP, we have the demo at work running on a Celeron 800 with 256Mb of RAM. It runs very smooth and quite fast. For our demo machine, I have my account that runs real player for music in the store and I run the distributed.net RC5 program in the background. I then switch user to the guest account in which the customers can play on and they don't notice any slowdowns with the programs running on my account.

I do believe that MS is recommending a minimum 2Gb free hard drive space and a PII 300Mhz or equivilant processor. They say XP will run on 64Mb, but 128Mb is highly recommended as the minimum. With RAM prices the way they are, I can't justify running any less than 256Mb anymore.

[Hpro]

Sorry Minimum requirements of Win2k is 64Mb and a 133Mhz processor..

WinMe - Ok it depends what you are using it for there is some "update utility" to get the MS-DOS mode back for it but I'd rather don't use it if your Win98FE or SE system is running fine..

Win2k is the OS of the OS's
WinXP is overcrowded with a lot of trash -
It will whatsoever NOT install with only 650Mb disk space it will ask for about980

WinXp System Requirements
1.1 Meeting Hardware Requirements
======================================================================

Before you install Whistler Professional, make sure your computer
meets the following minimum hardware requirements:

* 233 megahertz (MHz) Pentium or higher microprocessor (or
equivalent)

* 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB of RAM recommended
minimum; 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM maximum)

* 650 MB of free space on a 2-GB hard disk
If you're installing over a network, more free hard disk
space is required.

* VGA monitor

* Keyboard

* Mouse or compatible pointing device

* CD-ROM or DVD drive

[python134r]

First of all, This is my first post at this forum,greetings! Ive been using xp since beta release and have signifigant experience of administering all win9x and nt operating systems and I just want to say that Me is by far the worst piece of crap that microsoft released in a few years. If you heard NT was stable reguardless of other flaws win2k(all versions) was a definite improvement over nt but xp pro corp is a bit better. It is basically a improved version of win2k pro. It is very stable,fast and has a much better driver database and improved administration tools. It boots up fast like Me. The default gui is different but you have options to switch to the classical windows gui too. Also improved are remote assistance and inclusion of msconfig which win2k lacked.
I would also say if possible get the corporate version for it is more inclusive in features. Yes, you can game in XP and it has the compatability feature for software to emulate all win9x and nt/win2k. With the corporate version you do not have to use product activation which is no big deal anyway
I run win2kpro/win2k adv.server/win xp pro corp on my test bed machime and they integrate flawlessly.

[DrZaius]

Hi ssahl,

I've been using Windows XP for a few weeks now and I am pretty impressed. There is nothing radically new, it's basically a more "user-friendly" version of Windows 2000, almost like Windows ME was for Windows 98. There is more bundled software which reduces the need to download 3rd party apps, like built in zip file support, movie maker, and a few other things. It is more of a system hog than Windows 200 though, so I wouldn't recommend it with less than 256MB of RAM.

I also heard that they were going to start charging a monthly fee!

Windows XP has no monthly fee. What you're probably thinking of is .NET, which still has a long time before we see that. Also, it does have WPA which activates your version depending on your hardware, but if you're using a legit copy (which you should be) you don't have anything to worry about. If you want a free OS and have the time to learn, take a look a Linux. Hope that helps.

python134r: Welcome to the PC Mech forums!

[ssahl]

Ok thanks, now I want to check it out. 256MB RAM wow! How would it run on 128MB? (468Mhz Celeron CPU, 41GB IBM Deskstar HD) My computer only has 2 memory slots, the computer I'm building (just need the CPU & thats it) has 3 slots but dont want to wait untill then to try XP. I probably would not use it much for networking (aside from 3-4 home computers) I'm guessing that since XP runs 98 and other OS programs within it self that there is no dual, or multible boot set up. Last thing, Win2k pro goes for almost $300 I think, and Win2k advanced server for $900 or so, and what does 98 go for now $70-$90.
What does XP cost for one copy?

[DrZaius]

ssahl: CompUSA has Windows XP Profession Edition for $300 and Home Edition for $200.