I am probably going to be stoned for this...

[fred]

I am probably going to be stoned for this, and admittedly I have not installed it in a big way yet, but I have been running on a few machines, and has been, for me, even more stable than 98SE, and a thousand times better than ME, ( which lasted about twenty minutes before the first trial machine trashed itself ). Even better than 2000!
So! After years of bitching about MS, I would actually, for the first time EVER, like to say I am impressed! Of course, I am talking about XP.

[Hpro]

every new thing has it's enlightenment as long the colors aren't scratched - may after a few weeks or so or looking into this you will find some very huge backdoors - where your machine is phoning home - in the background of course - without let you know of course again - and then your new toy - have to get a facelift - starting with the mediaplayer which is the first one of dialing billies number...

[Statica]

Fred:
I gotta ask you this .. what are you basing your conclusion on? I mean it sincerely, am interested in knowing why you consider XP to be superior to 2K. As far as I am concerned the only thing that XP has above 2K is the ability to have multiple users on the system simultaneously. & the boot time.

Actually that is the reason why I chose XP over 2K for my M$ OS.

There are glaring issues with XP, but all of that unfortunately must be ignored in the name of progress..

[fred]

It is not so much what it has, what particularly impressed me is that I have never had so few problems with an OS before. Only 98SE came close.

So far, I have found XP amazingly stable and almost every attempt to break it has failed ( Er, barring the deliberate ones! Ha ha!). ALL my software works...even the old stuff that no one else uses anymore! Everything I install either works, or has been cleanly removed without screwing the system. All the hardware works too. Everything I throw in the machines, it handles.

That's why I would use it - not because of what it gives in features over 2000, but just because in my case it is proving to be extremely stable.

I have spent years criticising MS, so this is a real turn around for me!

Anyway, don't spoil my fun. Soon I am going to try installing it on different hardware - I can sense by your scepticism that I will probably change my mind!! Ha ha!

[Strider]

Although generally I'm generally impressed with Windows XP for I have been running it for a couple of months now. I have found some quirks, the one major one and the one I would recommend NOT to install is Norton Internet Security Software, for it wouldn't work on one computer and it trashed my other computer so bad that I had to re-install Windows XP. Nothing I did could save me from re-installing, I even had a backup of my computer. It is the only program so far that would not stop running and it would cause my computer to do a hard lock up forcing me to hit the reset button. This might be a combination at who is at fault (Symantec and Microsoft), my point being while yea Windows XP is a vast improvement over Windows 98/Me, it does have it's flaws and I suspect some more flaws in the future.

[Hpro]

Fred - no this wasn't my intention - was just to warn you what it does in the background.. there are some utilities to get rid of those "nasty" features - some member placed it on the boards here.. takes a few seconds and then WinXP will be just that much as it has to be - a follower in users hand and not a SPY...
to get this anyspy software you can DL it here.Here it's in german - but it takes only a few clicks anyway - so nothing can be done wrong..

[Confused]

I agree with you Fred. I loaded this one as a dual boot last Tuesday (98) and Thursday (XP) with the intention of having 98 for the problem software. So far I haven't booted up in 98 except to install the PRT sharing software for the printer hooked to my SMC Router with printer port.

Hpro I guess I agree and wish I had the knowledge to fully understand what you and others have talked about. Pointed had a post and a link about something to do with "Sockets", didn't understand it either. I just stumble along hoping Bill keeps the patches coming before something drastic happens.
Chas

[Alfie]

Actually XP is okay.
It runs stable,but is lousy at upgrading a previous OS,sometimes it works,but a clean install is far better.
Microsoft states that although it works on Fat32,they reccommend using it on NTFS.
I'm begiining to learn the ins and outs of it and if you want a crash course in recovery just delete NTLDR
The very name(NTLDR) gives me nightmares!
Thanks to Hpro's knowledge,I was able to install WinME after XP had been installed.
The dual boot is kind of cool and gives one the opportunity to compare the two OS's.
XP is the clear winner against WinME.

[Paul Victorey]

I've found XP about as stable as 2K. Personally, I'm not moving to XP for a while; 2K works just beautifully, and with nary a problem.

WinMe is terrible, it's less stable by far than 98. I'd never use that. For my dual boot with 2K, I use Win95b. So far, I've only used that for the ability to shut down to pure DOS.

[Statica]

Fred:
Thats where I find most MS users comparison bad. They're comparing 98 vs XP .. 2K vs XP is the real comparison to be made. and other than those sparse features of XP over 2K, there is no real reason that XP is better; but tons of security reasons why 2K is better.

Most people who are in praise of XP are 9x users who have their first taste of an NT kernel and NTFS, over the nonsense that 9x and FAT32 represent, to them they are going to be wowed by the stability.

[bailey]

I did a clean install of xp on a new second hard drive on my system, have w98se on the other drive, all went well except I had to get new xp drivers for a lot of my hardware, both systems working great and solid as a rock, never had a crash or problem with 98, but wanted to learn xp is why I did it.
anyway at first I hated it, but the more I use it and learn all about it , I love it.
I also put w2000 on my server computer duel booting with w98se too, and for the same reasons, so far I realy love both systems, and found them to be much better than 98se for the way it installs ans functions,

ofcourse I got several big thick book on both systems to help learn them.
very happy with both

[Hpro]

I did post this once before about a hour ago - but it never showed up - OK again here..

There are only two reasons for me to use WinXP and WinME..the first reason is the same for both OS's
First - To get it known including the bugs..So I have more opportuninty to give out help here - help which will work out if reproduced..
Second for WinXp - because My Wife and my Kids like it..
Second for winME - is because it does a better job of burning CDR's than all other Windows stuff - at least on the computer I use..

[lil Jimmie]

Originally posted by Hpro I did post this once before about a hour ago - but it never showed up - OK again here..

Look in the General forum

[Hpro]

So then I had to really to press the wrong button that time - hehe thanks Jimmy..LOL - Sorry If I double posted - got up to early this morning I guess..

[AlwaysUp]

Most people who are in praise of XP are 9x users who have their first taste of an NT kernel and NTFS, over the nonsense that 9x and FAT32 represent, to them they are going to be wowed by the stability.

Statica? I resemble that remark, except....you forgot one NT Kernel OS that we all can agree on to hate! That's what I use everyday at work....... NT4.0 service pack (2,3,4,,,,whatever). My wife likes to mimic that gal from Saturday Night Live who used to say "Luv it! Luv it! Luv it!", well; when it comes to NT4; I.... Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!

[Paul Victorey]

Originally posted by Statica Fred: Thats where I find most MS users comparison bad. They're comparing 98 vs XP .. 2K vs XP is the real comparison to be made. and other than those sparse features of XP over 2K, there is no real reason that XP is better; but tons of security reasons why 2K is better. Most people who are in praise of XP are 9x users who have their first taste of an NT kernel and NTFS, over the nonsense that 9x and FAT32 represent, to them they are going to be wowed by the stability.

Hey Statica, do you know of any good websites/resources comparing the security of 2K to XP? I primarily use 2K; I only have one XP machine under my juristiction at work, and I haven't had a whole lot of chances to play around with it. I'm interested in knowing the specifics of what is different in XP.

[Statica]

Originally posted by AlwaysUp Statica? I resemble that remark, except....you forgot one NT Kernel OS that we all can agree on to hate! That's what I use everyday at work....... NT4.0 service pack (2,3,4,,,,whatever). My wife likes to mimic that gal from Saturday Night Live who used to say "Luv it! Luv it! Luv it!", well; when it comes to NT4; I.... Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!

AlwaysUp:
You know for its time, NT4 was really superior. I know for me at least it was a boon, getting admins who could understand the interface of a Windows rather than a UNIX. Mind you, NT4 was borne off NT 3.5xx stables, and it did have the now familiar 9x interface with some powerful tools. To top it off, it had a killer filesystem, and was as close to POSIX as M$ was ever going to get. Sure it needed a lot of service packs, and sure it had really bad hardware support, but basically from a technology standpoint personal computing and Plug n Pray really took off AFTER NT4 was released. Cant fault NT4 for that. For example, During the time NT4 was the M$ flagship product, the 2GB limit on HDDs was plenty.

Originally posted by Paul Victorey Hey Statica, do you know of any good websites/resources comparing the security of 2K to XP? I primarily use 2K; I only have one XP machine under my juristiction at work, and I haven't had a whole lot of chances to play around with it. I'm interested in knowing the specifics of what is different in XP.

Paul:
There are a ton of sites, but I havent really seen XP vs 2K in comparison, its possibly because, most security minded installations have stayed away from XP and will stay away till at least the first or second service pack. Then there are the usual suspects for security information
www.cert.org
www.ntbugtraq.com
www.aumha.org
this was an interesting read: http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20011004S0009
www.jsiinc.com/

Will post some more resources as soon as I can get to my bookmarks (these are prolly the ones you've already gone through.

[fred]

Hpro,
Thanks for the info! I had already discovered some of the things, like the auto-updates, but I am glad you came up with a way to disable the bug reports!!


Alfie,
AAAH! I wouldn’t notice that because I never perform upgrades. I always start again. Experience has shown this to be the best plan in may case, and, besides, the machines deserve a clean out once in a while!

Statica,
I understand your point of view. Don't you think the most amazing part is now we have NT users and 9X users sitting in the same room having a conversation? That never happened before!

[Goog]

I just recently switched from 2000 professiona to xp professional, and althought I don't like to admit it, I am impressed.

However, my viewpoint may be biased, because my 2k install was about 8 months old (and using fat32 filesystem), and of my 30gb harddrive, I had about 3gb left..

When I went to xp I formatted my harddrive with a simple recovery disk which put me back on 98, then I immediately did an upgrade to xp.. I have to say, I would've gone for just a clean install, but the only way I know of how to format my harddrive is with the recovery disk, which also installs 98...so I did that, then did the upgrade to xp..

My computer is working much better now, but its not just because of xp, its also because of the format.

[Statica]

Originally posted by fred Statica, I understand your point of view. Don't you think the most amazing part is now we have NT users and 9X users sitting in the same room having a conversation? That never happened before!

Its a double edged sword, Fred. As long as every sysadmin realizes that, and yet learns to sleep comfortable, its a good thing
On the one hand yes its great:
because, there no longer are 2 standards of operating things. Tools get universal, standards get universal.. a user no longer has to call up your ISP, and then have to be put on hold, because the 1st level tech guy has no idea why 'winipcfg' doesnt work on Win2K. Eventually there is going to get a trend of doing away with FAT32. Have grown hoarse over the years of trying to tell people that FAT is a much better standard than is FAT32. Was tired of telling people to use NTFS on Win2K. This was what M$ originally set out for when it diversified from the Win 3.xx issues. There was talk of merging the kernels down to one thread, but in all the money making schemes, it took this long to get it down. Of course, I have to laugh at people who ran out and bought ME (I am a lot more sympathetic to those who got it bundled )
I can also understand where it took them so long to come down to the NT way of looking at things. Having to get rid of legacy support, getting rid of DOS loaders and all of that. If this keeps up, the next version of Windows might actually be worth going out and buying. Cos it will have weeded out a lot of users who want to use dual boots and archaic filesystems, and complain about incompatible hardware and software.

On the downside, I liken the whole situation to being an ISP whose clients use Corel Linux. Its an ill-conceived plan at the core of it, its only pretty, and contains more holes in it than Bin laden's plans of longevity. Its basically a disaster waiting to happen for people who don't know anything about computers. The worst part of the situation, as it stands right now, M$ and others are not even aware of the flood of security flaws it will be vulnerable to. The one major flaw with UPnP was huge!
The other reason why I dont like the XP standard is because I don't like standards being shoved down my throat. & every step of the way, XP is establishing its own standards. I may be bullheaded enough not to care whether M$ formats are better, but I do care about flexibility. And to that end, I know I will shudder when the next OS to M$ comes out.