Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 13th May 2008 07:08 UTC
Windows Windows XP SP3, the final service pack for Windows XP, was released to manufacturing a few weeks ago, and popped up on Windows Update about a week later. Even though the service pack is rather light on actual new features, it still caused a few problems for some users. Despite these problems, some benchmarks show that while SP3 delivers better performance compared to XP SP2, Microsoft seems to have solved many performance issues with Vista, turning the company's latest OS offering into the better choice for gaming - according to ExtremeTech.
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RE[6]: HP's lack of testing
by kaiwai on Tue 13th May 2008 17:07 UTC in reply to "RE[5]: HP's lack of testing"
kaiwai
Member since:
2005-07-06

Hear hear. One new Dell laptop I did some support work on had 3 separate media player/library apps pre-installed, not counting WMP.


I understand what you mean. I don't mind a DVD player, but when there are three different types, it draw's a line from being convenient to simply pushing stuff onto a machine to get more dollars from the vendors.

And the trialware, gah. I can't count how many phone calls I get along the lines of "I bought a new computer and I thought I had Office/some AV suite/etc installed, but it just stopped working and says I need to register it..." I'm sure some companies would load trial versions of Windows, if they thought they could get away with it.


I know what you mean; I've seen customers conned into purchasing software on their computer they don't need - they think they need to purchase it because it keeps popping up and reminding them - I swear that some of them are so deceptive I'm surprised these companies haven't been taken to court yet.

It's good to hear that Leonovo has kept with IBM's relatively crap-free default OS installs on the Thinkpads. My aging x31 came with a mostly-stock install of XP Pro, with a few IBM helper utilities (IBM's power mgmt app, OSD for the volume controls, etc).


There is a premium however, compared to other vendors. If you're willing to pay the premium, its worth it. I'm just have to say, I'm really chuffed about the build quality of this thinkpad; I can see why they're so coveted by so many business users. This one has full roll bar protection, built like a tank, black and sexy. Its definately a great laptop - too bad they don't see them through more outlets in NZ.

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