Quesstion on XP

[Nelly]

hi all,
i was just tinkering around with XP that i have on another computer. i have to say i was impressed with how easy it set up. i didnt have to install one driver! it's on a asus p3v4x, 1ghz p3, maxtor hd's- 20 as master, 40 as slave. creative dvd and cdrw. radeon 64mb ddr, and the kicker...an old aureal vortex 2 superquad...also a linksys nic. anyway no hardware issues thus far but am i missing something? i can't see anywhere to check dma or auto insert notification on my drives. also, how can we get rid of those little white checkboxes next to the icons? i used to use tweak ui for that but i dont think it will work. i also can't get my network going again with this puter. it's just not able to see it. i thought i followed the inst. (i have 2 puters set up thru a switch and i own 3 ip addy's) i used to network thru netbui but alas no more.
any ideas?
Thanks all!,
Nell

[DrZaius]

Hi Nelly,

Those are all good questions, I've been using XP for a few weeks now and have been asking myself too. Here's what I found so far:

• To enable DMA mode go to Device Manager (right click on My Computer->Properties->Hardware->Device Manager) and look at the properties for the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers (primary and secondary). Under the "Advanced Settings" tab you can select "DMA if available" for the "Transfer Mode" option.
• I know this works in Windows 2000, so I'm assuming it works in XP as well. To disable the CD auto run run regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom. Set "autorun" to "0".

As for the network part, I'm still working on that. Trying to get my Win98 machines to see it, and vica versa. Hope that helps.

[Nelly]

Thanks Doc,
i have a few other questions-thoughts...
1, my friend let me try his beta copy of winxp pro.he said that pro does not need to be "activated" and therefore will not expire in 30 days. is this true? i don'yt remember having to activate it when i installed it (i was very tired) just put the cd key in.

2, given my experience with my aureal vortex 2 sound card...anyone think my v5 5500 will work? are there drivers there for it? i don't care about the 3dfx control panel really. just like i lost the aureal control panel. i am surviving without it. when it states that hardware or software is not compatible does that mean it that it has no native drivers for it or that it won't work?

3, will tweak ui work? and if not how do i get rid of that annoying little arrow pointing to the icon?
mind you i am in the process of trying these things out now and i'll post when i know more. so far my gravis gamepad pro installed without the need of gravis drivers and my easy cd creator platinum works fine although i had to update my software to support the drive. next i'm trying counterstrike 1.3 and nhl 2002.
Man this is fun... how do "I" get to be a beta tester. my friend got the copy and he didn't have "time" )is he kiddin?)
Nelly

[Nelly]

also,
how do we check how much memory is used? i can't tell if i have 80% or 90% or what memery available.
also when we install the OS, should we use the ntfs or fat32? which one is faster? i used ntfs.
Nelly

[DrZaius]

Nelly,

• As far as I know, you can use Windows XP Pro for up to 14 days without activating it. After that time is up you must activate it. I am running the beta version as well and I activated it when I installed it, it was not a complicated processs, all I had to do was click "Next" and it activated it. To make sure, go to Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Activate Windows and it will tell you if it is activated or not.
• For me Windows XP has been great in detecting drivers. It detected every component, including onboard sound and LAN, so I didn't have to install anything. the VooDoo cards where popular so I can only assume that there is some driver support for the card.
• I am not sure if Tweak UI works with XP or not. I'll give it a try and let you know.
• To find out pretty much anything about system resources press Ctrl-Alt-Del and go to the Performance tab. You will see a graph with Processor usage and below it a table with memory information.
• I would use NTFS with any NT based OS (NT, 2000, XP) because it has some advantages over FAT32.

Hope that helps.

[reboot]

TweakUI does work with XP.
To figure out your network (internet), go to Control Panel, Network connections, and if you don't have one, make one. If you do have one, select the properties for it, and you'll have the option to enable it, as well as setting up your personal firewall, etc.

[Nelly]

hi guys,
well, i went to start-acc-syst tools etc. and i have no option to "activate Windows"...maybe i did. dunno. anywho, i also just installed tweak ui and was excited to see it still worked. reboot beat me to the punch tho. ;-) i also installed nhl 2k2 and that seems to work great. and half life and gamespy seem to work also. i'm just waiting to finish my d-load of CS 1.3. i may go buy another video card anyway to do my part for the economy. :-) anyone lnow any usa based companies that sell good video cards?
Nell

[python134r]

Try tweak-xp,gives you 30 days then u gotta buy.

[Nelly]

hi all,
well i ran into a big problem last night. i "think" that when i switched the power scheme to "always on" xp started to do just that and would not shut the puter off, ever. i would hit the turn computer off button and it would log off and reboot everytime. well, even when i changed it back, the puter still did the same thing. the only other nmajor thing i did was to disable system restore. but, i found that a better performance increase can be seen by switching that in the system performance tab and customizing the look of the os that way. well, after fooling around with it for hours last night i just said f-it and reinstalled the os( took me 1hr) i only had installed 4 proggies on it so....now it works fine, so it was definitely my doing(live and learn hehe) when i reinstalled this time i was never asked to "activate the software" ever.is this because it is XP Pro? also, is XP Pro going to be more buggy because it has all thos ex-tras? i think i'll just buy the xp home when it come s out(or maybe not ;-) anyway, i still can't figure out how to see how much of my ram is being used. i have another 256 in my shop that i'll throw in to total 512 and i'll see how that does.
let's keep the discussion going so we can share all the info/probs we have. should i start new posts when i find out new things or just keep this one going?
Nelly

[Nelly]

hi all,
well, it wasn't what i thought after all. it's really silly actually. the program stopping my puter from shutting down was roxios directcd. otherwise this is running great. i can use easy cd creator but not direct cd. so it will cost me 50 cents if i want to transfer a file...until i figure out this networking situatiuion....
Nell

[Nelly]

Hi all,
well, wrong again....east cd creator 5 doesn't work either :-(