It is hard to believe that Windows XP is only just coming up to its one year anniversary; it feels like it has been with us for a lot longer than that. Perhaps it is due to the long running beta that took place before its release or maybe I have just managed to settle down with Windows XP far quicker than I have done with any of the previous Windows operating systems. Read the rest of the editorial at ActiveWin.
Windows XP One Year On
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
As of late last month Windows XP has sold millions of copies world wide and it is still going strong. It has obviously sold very well…
———
Speaking of which, what ARE the sales figures? Only MS knows, and something tells me they’d say it was the most popular Windows ever, to get people interested. So nobody knows beyond some overhyped PR, or do they?
First and easily the most important improvement that Windows XP has given us over previous releases of the Windows Operating system is reliability and stability, sure there are still times when a few of us get problems with crashes, but on the whole, Windows XP has massively improved stability
———
Massively improved stability? I don’t think massive is the right word. Debatable with Win2k sp1 and sp2 (and NT) already coming before it. Compared to Win9x/ME, hell yes.
Service pack 1 for Windows XP was released earlier this month and has offered a lot of bug fixes and some speed improvements for a number of users…
——–
Speed improvements? Imagined, I’d suspect.
There are some bad points though, even if not all of them are Microsoft’s fault. Lots of stuff that some users won’t want are still installed by default, there are programs like Windows Messenger and Windows Media Player installed when a large number of people believe that they would like to have the right to choose what chat or media player programs they would like to use from scratch instead of having Microsoft programs forced on them. No matter how good either program is in our opinion, lots of users prefer to choose what they want.
———
That and the wonderfully expensive DOJ ‘remedy’ of pretending to remove the programs from the OS in SP3 of Win2k and SP1 of WinXP, which really cannot be uninstalled by the average user? Taxpayer money well spent!
There is a lot to shout about here, Windows XP has made using Windows a more colourful and enjoyable experience, and hey, even activation hasn’t turned out to be as bad as expected has it?
——–
Or has it?
Windows XP has 19% of the market in less than a year. Considering the steep price of XP, that is quite a feat.
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/aug02_pie.gif
Win98 of course is the bigest of all still and it will continue to be for one more year or so.
Eugenia, who put out those market share figures? Win95 on such a low %age? Unbelievable.
>>>Windows XP has 19% of the market in less than a year. Considering the steep price of XP, that is quite a feat.
If you read the court transcripts of the anti-trust trial, Microsoft offers Windows XP to OEM’s for the same price as Windows ME.
That is google’s own research.
My sister is using it for more than 9 months, and she didn’t have any single problem. Before she was using Windows 95 and she is saying that with Windows 95 she had millions of errors.
Obviously Windows XP is a great improvement. Computer manufacturers are reluctant to include the new service pack, because of the reliability of XP.
Google’s research is merely what people use to access google. I would imagine that those numbers are skewed.
1 – Not everyone who is on the internet goes to google.
2 – Not everyone who has a computer has access to the internet.
3 – The majority of people with newer systems are more likely to access the internet, as opposed to the people with older systems (ie win95) who are less likely to be internet connected.
What does this mean? – The numbers should be taken with a lump of salt. They are in no way scientific. Windows 95 has a lot more than 4% market percentage.
I totally agree with Mark that this statistic should be taken with a grain of salt, BUT, I must say it actually seems to represent what I’m interested to. I mean that I don’t care to know how many active 386 still run with MS-DOS 5. I barely considere those as PC in 2002. The Google statistic clearly touch mostly the “top-half” of the PC chain. And that’s the numbers I really care.
I’m still trying to figure out what WinXP has to offer over Win2k. Windows Media Player 8? (laughs) Shitty CD burning capabilities? A more bloated UI (the Fisher Price look) and Explorer (does anybody actually use the new views anyway)? Product Activation? lol
Probably about the only real advantage that comes to mind is support for USB 2.0, but I understand you can find some ‘beta’ drivers for Win2k if you look hard enough? As far as stability goes, both of them seem rock solid (for me anyway) so it seem slike a non-issue.
Well, XP doesn’t have that crappy CD player.
I’m not being mean here, but just pointing out that as far as I’m concerned, Google’s stats are just as good as anyone elses. For instance…
1 – Not everyone who owns a computer has a PC.
2 – Not everyone with a PC will be polled as to what OS they run.
3 – Some people with PCs don’t run any flavor of Windows.
4 – Not every install of XP is legal (so there could be more installs than MS knows or they could be inflating their own numbers based on piracy projections).
I’m sure I had a point here.. Anyway, the basic idea that I’m trying to say is that no matter what you use as a sample it will never be “true” so Google is just as good as any (especially considering that they don’t go looking for people to call, the people call them). Or something.
“I’m still trying to figure out what WinXP has to offer over Win2k”
The two gains XP bring over 2K that really matter to me is :
– Lot better handling and stability of DirectX
– Faster boot
The first reason being the one that really make me switch (two of my games were crashing under 2K, and became 100% stable under XP), and I got a faster boot time as a bonus.
So actually, if the games you play are stable under 2K, don’t even bother switching to XP 🙂
I love that opening quote: “It is hard to believe that Windows XP is only just coming up to its one year anniversary; it feels like it has been with us for a lot longer than that.”
That’s BECAUSE IT HAS. NT 4 and Windows 95 came out in, what 1995? Seven years ago?
Christ, the control panels are the same, the taskbar is the same, the start menu is little different, and on and on. DLLs still there. The directory still there. Reinstallling all your apps when you reinstall the OS, yep, still there.
Go the MS’s XP page. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.asp
You will find NO desktop screenshots (only a tiny icon-sized artist’s drawing of luna on the left side). None of the links on that page lead to any desktop shots either.
I get dell and gateway catalogs in the mail. Same thing — literally NO shots of the XP desktop.
The desktop, the GUI practically IS the computer. It’s what you intereact act with. Why is Wintel afraid to show what they are selling? Obviously, it’s fear consumers will see no difference and be turned off from the get go.
Go to Apple’s OS X tab. There’s 5 desktop shots and direct links at the top to over 20 more. http://www.apple.com/macosx/
I would not be surprised at the marketshare numbers from google. They are probably quite right.
However, my understanding of XP “Sales” is that it is mostly new computers preinstalled with XP not actual sales to someone who already has a computer. The same thing happened with 98 and 2000. Actual Sales were low but computer sales are high and you don’t get a choice of OS unless you demand it.
XP is much better than anything MS have produced before.
I have had absolutely no trouble with mine which is a stark contrast to previous MS efforts.
That said, for personal use, I always fire up a Mac.
First some qualifiers.
Hated DOS.
Hated Win 3.1 and 3.11
Liked Win95 a little better but still not there.
Liked Mac OS’ prior to X.
Liked WinNT 4 Workstation for work – sucked for anything else.
Blew through 5 versions of Linux (2 RH, Caldera, Corel, SuSE) – as a desktop OS, I hated the CLI and the incompatible UI (is it Cancel, Exit, Dismiss, or Close?). My last distro was indeed my last – a KDE app locked the system and crashed so hard that I had to reboot to recover – and bye-bye to boot partition (fschk could not find an OS on the boot partition). The Linux gurus I consulted locally and on-line said I would have to reinstall the distro. I said goodbye instead. That said, I think Linux (any flavor, prety much) is a helluva server OS for most applications (database, communications, Web, etc.).
Loved the BeOS. Now here was an alternative OS! Too bad it died a sad death.
Windows 98SE worked okay – games were pretty solid on it and I only had to reboot once or twice a weekend.
Windows ME sucked bilge.
I picked up a copy of XP Beta at a conference and then got RC 1 and 2 last summer. I was impressed but they still had some minor bugs. By January of this year I was sold on XP. I purchased a second copy for my wife and the first thing she noticed was that she didn’t have to reboot anymore after using Photoshop or some of the other programs she runs. A few tweaks (shut down non-essential services such as the indexing and system restore) and she’s happy with the performance of her 400MHz box. I’m happy because all of my apps (including games) seem solid now. I’m a programmer and I have Borland Delphi and C++ Builder running on it along with a copy of VS.NET Pro and the just released “Everett” beta (.Net 2003) for handheld/smart device development. I play lots of games (just finished Dungeon Siege, still playing GTA III, Civ III and The Thing while waiting for UT2 and NFS:Hot Pursuit II) and use three USB game controllers with little problem. I write, perform and record music on XP using ACID, Vegas Audio, and Cool Edit Pro 2 (however, the PC in my studio I’m keeping on Win98 SE because of the hard disk recording system I use).
I’ve switched my station at the office over to XP and so have several co-workers (most everyone else is getting Win2K). My mother-in-law was so impressed (and hated WinME so much) that she upgraded to XP and several people at the Red Cross chapter where she volunteers have switched as well (one switched from a Mac).
This will do until the real desktop OS that we should be running comes along. I mean really – this is 2002. Shouldn’t we be thinking of using something better than derivatives of Unix technology that while still solid was old twenty years ago?
Microsoft has a contract with Dell, HP, and everyone else that requires them to sell all computers with a operating system. They then give them a copy of Windows for a price thats very close to being free.
Try to buy a computer with an operating system other then the one the manufacture has pre-installed. I do a lot of programming and needed a Windows NT/2K machine; I had to buy a computer with Windows 98SE installed and a copy of Windows 2K and then install 2K my self. I still beleive MS owes a refund for the 98SE.
After the last update from MS, my Win 2K system would freeze about 30 seconds after booting. The system now only runs Red Hat.
>>> I’m still trying to figure out what WinXP has to offer over Win2k. Windows Media Player 8? (laughs) Shitty CD burning capabilities? A more bloated UI (the Fisher Price look) and Explorer (does anybody actually use the new views anyway)?<<
WMP is nicer then previous in far as i’m concerned. I like the burning setup. It doesn’t do everything but thats not the point , its for seamlessly saving stuff to cds I use it all the time. I like the UI way more than the old. And I use the new explorer views all the time. Thumbnail and the picture viewer are great. So yes many people can see alot of reason to upgrade. If you want to keap doing everything the same as you do in 2k and not take advantage of new features well maybe upgrading is not worth it to you.
I have to support and work with WinXP where I work.
First the positives.
It is more stable…basically
It is multiuser…if configured correctly
It does handle multiple apps…for the most part
It does start faster and shutdown faster
What I have found wrong with it…so far
It does not handle ISA devices very well (ISA modems)
It does not handle serial mice very well
It has compatibility problems with Office 2000 Pro (and probably other variations of Office2000)
It needs an incredible amount of memory and processor power to run with anything equaling Win98/95 on a much weaker machine.
It has several blatantly obvious annoying bugs (set default printer for example)
It has problems with USB on older motherboards
It has problems with certain video cards
It has an inadequate admin interface that requires you be logged in as admin rather than the “su” that can be used in Linux/Unix operating systems. (You more experienced users out there will know what I mean)
It requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions and configurations
It is far too expensive
It is far too proprietary
Its licensing is far too restrictive
It is far too invasive with regards to privacy and civil rights
And most important of all the dollars you spend go to a company judged guilty of criminal offences in the USA..of course if you have no conscience maybe you can sleep at night.
Other than the above working with it is no worse than…..a visit to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.
Its quite simple if XP 2000 98SE 95 3.11FWG 3.1 2.0 1.01 CE 2.0 CE 1.0, and the many other versions of windows did not major flaws there would be no reason to buy the next one.
Microsoft in every release promises to have everything fixed, but they never do? Do they have the money to? absolutly, can they hire the man power to? you bet, would they make money in the long run if they did not? Definatly not. Bugs and Security problems and BSOD and
other major flaws are part of Microsoft key buisness strategy
Its that simple.
Travis wrote: and the many other versions of windows did not major flaws there would be no reason to buy the next one.
You mean that, once everything is fixed there will be newer versions.
Similary do you also claim that, every new linux distribution or a newer linux kernel, or next Mac Os version mean that they actually had lots of flaws and they didn’t fix it.
Obviously, in any product you think that the prevous version is flawed, like Photoshop 6 is flawed and so Adobe created the new version.
There is only one important flaw, and that’s your (nonexisting) logic.
Its that simple.
Microsoft has a proven track record of unscroupulus buisness practices. What really makes you belive that they don’t leave things unfixed? They can peddle you the next version promising trouble free computing it happens every time. No bugs.
Why I remember a young Bill Gates Gloating on CNN that windows 98 will be bug free before its release, after it crashed on live TV.
The article a few articles down from us already
outlines that Microsoft has another release planned for 2004, what makes you think that there won’t be one to fix the bugs in Win2004 in 2008? Microsoft has almost limitless fincial reasources.
Hey guess what, if Microsoft, did not leave bugs in there software
then why do they charge for customer service?
If they made the bug free OS that they promised you would not need to upgrade its that simple.
Why are you raising microsoft to have better ethics then taking your out of warrenty car in for repair at the local autoshop.
kreechah: Speaking of which, what ARE the sales figures?
They released the numbers for their stock holders, they are obligated to. They, however, didn’t release the numbers that are upgrades, full versions or OEM versions.
And if it has to do with PR, trust me – they are bad at it 🙂 Plus, most people don’t buy a product because a lot of people buys it. Most people buy it because they want it.
kreechah: Massively improved stability? I don’t think massive is the right word. Debatable with Win2k sp1 and sp2 (and NT) already coming before it. Compared to Win9x/ME, hell yes.
I notice explorer.exe in XP is less stable than in Windows 2000, but I think he is comparing between Windows 9x and Windows 2000. Because two paragraphs above (one, if you consider a line not to be a paragraph), he talks about the Home Edition.
kreechah: Speed improvements? Imagined, I’d suspect.
I noticed huge increase in speed in boot time comparing with Windows 2000, certainly not imagined.
Plus, I noticed Windows Explorer is more responsive than the one in Windows 2000.
kreechah: That and the wonderfully expensive DOJ ‘remedy’ of pretending to remove the programs from the OS in SP3 of Win2k and SP1 of WinXP, which really cannot be uninstalled by the average user?
It doesn’t say it would remove these middleware, which BTW is used by a lot of third party apps (except for Movie Maker and Messenger). It is only the brainless media that says that.
kreechah: Eugenia, who put out those market share figures? Win95 on such a low %age? Unbelievable.
Google, who is runned by Linux fanatics, BTW.
sam: If you read the court transcripts of the anti-trust trial, Microsoft offers Windows XP to OEM’s for the same price as Windows ME.
Considering the weak demand in PCs these days, you can safely say that upgrades accounts for a lot of Windows’ sales.
Besides, Windows ME’s price isn’t that cheap either, which is why there isn’t great demand, and it is the reason why it is generally considered a flop.
Sergio: Obviously Windows XP is a great improvement. Computer manufacturers are reluctant to include the new service pack, because of the reliability of XP.
I don’t really understand you, but most, if not all, big OEMs use Windows XP with SP1.
Mark: 1 – Not everyone who is on the internet goes to google.
It is the most used search engine, and also used in Yahoo! which accounts as the 3rd most visited site.
Mark: 2 – Not everyone who has a computer has access to the internet.
MOST computer owners, especially consumers, have access to the Internet
Mark: What does this mean? – The numbers should be taken with a lump of salt. They are in no way scientific. Windows 95 has a lot more than 4% market percentage.
No OS statistics for the PC is accurate and scientific. And that includes IDC’s. It is because nobody really knows how many people is using things like Linux and BSD.
Darius: A more bloated UI (the Fisher Price look)
I prefer this one a thousand times over Windows 2000’s looks, which is why I use Windows XP more. The default is butt ugly with its colour scheme, but a change of colour scheme makes it *beautiful*.
Darius: and Explorer (does anybody actually use the new views anyway)?
Me, for one.
Darius: Product Activation? lol
Only would affect someone who is stinggy enough to download a warez copy. Then again, may not affect you very much, now does it?
But Darius, you forgot faster boot time and better stablity of DirectX.
Another matthew: Well, XP doesn’t have that crappy CD player.
You can make WMP7 and WMP9 Beta to play CDs automatically instead of that crappy player
appleforever: Christ, the control panels are the same
Are you some kind of fucking retard that is blind enough to see the difference between Windows 95’s control panel and Windows XP’s control panel? Windows XP control panel is SOOOOOOO different to Windows 95.
appleforever: the taskbar is the same
Proven: you are a blind retard. Sure, it has things in common with Windows 95 because it doesn’t have to change that much, but if you compare Windows 95’s taskbar with Windows XP’s taskbar, they are VERY different.
appleforever: You will find NO desktop screenshots (only a tiny icon-sized artist’s drawing of luna on the left side). None of the links on that page lead to any desktop shots either.
Go to http://www.apple.com/macosx
there is NO screenshots of their OS. Last time they have a Threater showing off Mac OS X – what happened? Besides, I gave you a direct link to a screenshot of Windows XP, your refusal to see it is your problem, not Microsoft’s.
appleforever: I get dell and gateway catalogs in the mail. Same thing — literally NO shots of the XP desktop.
I get catalogs from Apple (as well as Dell, gateway, HP etc.), none of them show screenshots of their OS.
appleforever: Go to Apple’s OS X tab. There’s 5 desktop shots and direct links at the top to over 20 more. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/tours/tour.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/tours/tour.asp
Are you THAT blind?
Junkman: My last distro was indeed my last – a KDE app locked the system and crashed so hard that I had to reboot to recover
Perhaps you should try other desktops available for Linux. Besides, you don’t have to reboot. Press Ctrl+Alt+backspace.
Only time you have to truly reboot is when the kernel crash.
Joe Powers: I still beleive MS owes a refund for the 98SE.
If you live in the US and Canada, you can demand it 30 days before purchase.
I’m trying desperately not to enter the anti trust debate.
Microsoft doesn’t make products filled with bugs so people would buy the next version. Windows 98 had more serious issues other than minor bugs. The entire architecture is flawed and very dated. It is based on 16-bit technology, trying to run like a 32-bit OS.
Besides, what OS on earth doesn’t have any bugs? Linux has them. Mac OS X has them. Thousand other OSes have them. Microsoft, like any other software company, isn’t stupid enough to stop development of future versions of Windows just to create a bug free enviroment, which is impossible on the marketing point of view. Notice the only OS’s that strives to be bug free, like Debian and OpenBSD, aren’t commercial entities.
Then on your point on its bad business ethics, I would say Microsoft is victim to bad double standard anti-capitalist laws. ALL of Microsoft business decissions being in question now at the DOJ would be COMPLETELY legal for any of their competitors.
Microsoft competitors are just being sourgrapes for Microsoft success. Balmer is a fanstatic businessman. i ebt he could sell airconds and ice creams to Eskimos, and cntreal heating for a Mexican house.
For example, Be forgot the fundamental marketing strategy: make something to sell, not sell something you made. If first tried to sell their OS via BeBoxes. Yet they forget that nobody would buy a computer – an expensive one at that, when it won’t run any apps. It did what all failed startups did: he focused on expansion rather than bottom line.
Another example is Netscape. Netscape’s browser is so bad that they had to do a 4 year rewrite that just ended. I was once a Netscape user, never willing to try anything else, especially IE, because I thought Netscape was killed mercilessly. Then I tried IE 4.0, it was SOOOOO much better than Netscape. Then I tried Opera, and I was hooked ever since.
Plus, Netscape is a case where geeks act like businessmen. Many of Netscape decissions lack foresight.
It is very obvious that, you are not capable of understanding issues here.
First of all, there is no single OS which doesn’t have any bugs at all. You don’t have a point at all in your post. Is your point, Microsoft produces products with bugs on purpose? Then all I can say is that, you are not capable of understanding anything at all, but you have a mind which is easy to manipulate.
Does Microsoft use not etchical tactics? Yeah, probably. But as far as I see, almost anybody uses it. Even you, for example you are clearly lying about Microsoft’s intentions, even though you have no proof, you just make a simple claim which you can not prove, and which I believe is a lie. So you are as guilty as Microsoft for that sort of stuff. But being guilty in one issue, doesn’t automatically make you guilty of others. For example just because I believe you are lying about Microsoft’s intentions, doen’t mean that you are a lier. It just means that you are lying about this particular issue, because you are made to believe that microsoft is evil, and you constantly think that Microsoft should be stopped, so you simply lie something against Microsoft. It doesn’t mean that you will lie about Oracle too. Because we have no idea about it. We can not prove that, you are a general lier, you may be, but we don’t know. All we know is that you are lying about Microsoft.
Is Microsoft intentionally producing buggy software. It could be very well true, but you have to put a perspective to what you are saying. Obviously they are not going to do such things just for the sake of it, or to force people to upgrade for the next version. They may knowingly release an OS with bugs, but then they are obligated to release fixes for those bugs free of charge later on. But in the history I have never seen such a case, as a matter of fact if someone could prove beyond doubt that this is the case, then I would hear about it.
Overall, again you just mention Microsoft, say some stuff, but everything you say can easily be applied to almost any company, especially Apple. You either don’t think, or as I said you lie, because you hate Microsoft.
In general, Microsoft produce better products. Office can not be compared to any other product. I mean it is just excellent. Especially Office XP. It is so smooth. How about Star Office, it sucks, it sucks badly.
I have read articles which were comparing Mac OS 9 and Windows 95. Once this OS X came in, I have realized that, even Windows 95 which was far away from being perfect was far more better than Mac Os 9. Until I was 22, I have seen Macs 5 or 6 times, and out of those 6 times, the Mac resetted itself 2 times. Both of the reset was due to a diskette. Today I tried Os 10.2 and guess what, even resizing a window makes you wait for the computer to respond. There is no perfect OS, but when people are talking about Windows or Microsoft I realize that they are not talking about the truth, but some of their stupid biased ideas most of the time.
Critizing Microsoft is ok, even hating them is ok, but provided that you are objective and fair.
BeOS was marketed towards developers and geeks that wanted to develope from the ground up, Netscape is a non profitable buisness that shipped free software. exactly why the first 6 years of BeOS
life span were under developer and preview releases.
You said it yourself, “Notice the only OS’s
that strives to be bug free, like Debian and OpenBSD, aren’t commercial entities.”
They are not commercial, they make no money by having bugs, and no one will use them if they do
Microsoft is a Billion Dollar corporation, with a god awful amount of reasources, if they can’t be expected to deliver a bug free platform. Then why are you defending them? why are you buying there products? Because they have locked you into a cycle.
Apple is not any different the way they lock people into propriatary
hardware, that isnt that upgradeable, if you want to fully enjoy the next version of our software, you have to buy the next version of hardware. Its that simple.
belive it or not. The Carrot on the String makes Microsoft a lot of money
Im not jealous of Bill Gates buisness success, Because I would have done the same thing
Travis wrote: “Microsoft is a Billion Dollar corporation, with a god awful amount of reasources, if they can’t be expected to deliver a bug free platform. Then why are you defending them? why are you buying there products? Because they have locked you into a cycle”
Show me how to solve the halting problem, then I will show you how Microsoft can do what you want.
Software verification is a very hard problem. If open source can get a nice, stable systems which can compete with Microsoft products, then you would be right about one thing, which is Microsoft should be ashamed of itself. But right now open source is not as good as Microsoft products. They have still lots of problems, actually they have more bugs than Microsoft has.
“This will do until the real desktop OS that we should be running comes along.”
Boy that’s a stunning endorsement.
” I mean really – this is 2002. Shouldn’t we be thinking of using something better than derivatives of Unix technology that while still solid was old twenty years ago?”
The problem is that anything completely new doesn’t leverage the experience of all of the people out there that already know a LOT about what we already have, such as unix OS’s.
Apple could have written something completely new, but it’s better they did OS X (based on unix) because it’s not so “outside the mainstream” like it was before. It’s not so much an island.
Windows provides the same thing as unix – a common language, lots of people with experience, lots of code, etc. But the problem is one company owns it.
It seems to me the best thing is a common language that’s not owned by one company, like unix OS’s. There’s also a thing called evolution, you know, where something old evolves into something better over time.
Rajan,
You accuse me of being blind? Go to http://www.apple.com/macosx. The screenshot you vehemently assert “is not there” is in the middle column, just to the right of the column called “Mac OS X New Features”. It’s a full screenshot with the menubar displayed, the dock at the bottom, iChat running, Sherlock 3 running, quicktime player with one of the switchers (that DJ chick). OK, that’s a screenshot. Jesus! There’s also desktop shots of other app windows (not full desktop, but parts of it).
You don’t dispute there is no screenshots at the first page of the XP home page, nor any links on that page that when pressed take you to a shot.
As for this address: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/tours/tour.asp — it’s what, 3 layers down, and loads (very slowly, even with DSL) a slow playing “tour”. How many people with dialup aren’t going to wait to look at that? Look, I’m not saying there’s zero XP shots at the MS site. I’m saying they are buried, whereas at apple they are right out front. That is simply true and you should just admit it.
You say: “Are you some kind of fucking retard that is blind enough to see the difference between Windows 95’s control panel and Windows XP’s control panel? Windows XP control panel is SOOOOOOO different to Windows 95.
And “Proven: you are a blind retard. Sure, it has things in common with Windows 95 because it doesn’t have to change that much, but if you compare Windows 95’s taskbar with Windows XP’s taskbar, they are VERY different.”
OK, maybe it’s the control panels in 98 that are the same as those in XP. I haven’t used 95 in a while. But my basic point is true, isn’t it? There’s not a whole lotta difference in XP compared to previous windows. The changes are marginal at best. I am not saying they are not good changes, they are.
Oh boy, here’s a statement from someone who knows nothing about the subject: “I would say Microsoft is victim to bad double standard anti-capitalist laws. ALL of Microsoft business decissions being in question now at the DOJ would be COMPLETELY legal for any of their competitors.”
Have you ever studied antitrust law? Have you closely studied the facts of the case? If not, there is no basis for your statement.
Look at this link for an intro: http://www.procompetition.org/research/bork.html
It’s a piece by conservative jurist Robert H. Bork, you know that judge that anticapitalist Ronald Reagan nominated for the Supreme Court.
Junkman: My last distro was indeed my last – a KDE app locked the system and crashed so hard that I had to reboot to recover
Perhaps you should try other desktops available for Linux. Besides, you don’t have to reboot. Press Ctrl+Alt+backspace.
Only time you have to truly reboot is when the kernel crash.
When I said it locked up the system, I meant LOCKED UP the system – no mouse, no keyboard, no virtual sessions, no exit to CLI – locked tight. The only solution was to reach for the reset button. Little did I know that I was flushing two weeks of tweaking the OS down the toilet. Kernel crash? I thought Linux was perfect…
For anonymous and his list of XP experiences, in over 25 installations here at work, at home and among friends and family, I have had a consistently good experience with XP.
I have to support and work with WinXP where I work.
First the positives.
It is more stable…basically
…than what?
It is multiuser…if configured correctly
So is Linux – if configured correctly.
It does handle multiple apps…for the most part
Smelling like a troll here…
It does start faster and shutdown faster
Agreed.
What I have found wrong with it…so far
It does not handle ISA devices very well (ISA modems)
I’ve had no problem with the few legacy ISA devices left among our boxes.
It does not handle serial mice very well
Just how old is this hardware?
It has compatibility problems with Office 2000 Pro (and probably other variations of Office2000)
Ummmm, no, not really. About a dozen of the XP boxes I work with have Office 2K running with no compatibility problems to speak of. But I’ll grant that this may not be a universal experience – we are talking Office after all.
It needs an incredible amount of memory and processor power to run with anything equaling Win98/95 on a much weaker machine.
I wouldn’t try to run it on anything less than a 400MHz box with 256MB memory minimum if you plan to run any apps at all…
It has several blatantly obvious annoying bugs (set default printer for example)
Granted it has its share of problems. So does Linux or Mac OS X. Show me perfect software.
It has problems with USB on older motherboards
Again, not that I’ve noticed. You know, expecting a new OS to run flawlwssly on old hardware (ISA slots, serial mouse, etc.) is just foolish. Go run Mac OS X on a Classic and see how much luck you have…
It has problems with certain video cards
So did BeOS. And OS/2. And Linux. That’s a driver issue.
It has an inadequate admin interface that requires you be logged in as admin rather than the “su” that can be used in Linux/Unix operating systems. (You more experienced users out there will know what I mean)
Repeat to yourself – XP is NOT Linux and everyone is not a sysadmin.
It requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions and configurations
Thank God…
It is far too expensive
Granted, but as a wise man once told me: “Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.” Here where I work, our “free” Linux has cost us over $500,000 in consulting fees to a certain high profile Linux vendor (not the one wearing the blue hat)…
It is far too proprietary
Oh pleeze. Do Linux apps run natively on Windows? Do Mac apps run natively on Linux? While Linux might be more open, I’d argue that this is one of its weaknesses if it is looking for more market share. How many distros are there in the Linux world? 700+ and growing? Every Tom, Dick and Hairy can tweak some features, recompile the kernel and offer a new TDH Linux distro. And how many desktops? I’d argue that every day brings more fractures in the Linux community. Today Red Hat is being touted as the “Microsoft” of the Linux community. Tomorrow it’ll be Sun…
Its licensing is far too restrictive
It is far too invasive with regards to privacy and civil rights
And most important of all the dollars you spend go to a company judged guilty of criminal offences in the USA..of course if you have no conscience maybe you can sleep at night.
I personally feel that the whole antitrust mess was instigated and pushed along by a) Microsoft competitors and b) overzealous litigators. I’m sure that there’s more than one /. zealot out there who thinks that the movie “Antitrust” (made with the assistance of Sun and some other open-source groups) is a true story…
Subsequent events in the corporate and software world have rendered their supposed “criminality” somewhat moot, I think…
Other than the above working with it is no worse than…..a visit to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.
Hmmm. If you’re having a tooth pulled it’s because you failed to keep up with you own dental hygiene – don’t blame the dentist. Likewise, if you’re having problems running XP I’d also look at what you’re doing wrong. If my 60 year old mother-in-law can install, configure and run XP with no problems (ok, I did have to help her configure her broadband access…) then I have nothing else to say to you about this subject…
Travis: They are not commercial, they make no money by having bugs, and no one will use them if they do
My point is that Debian nor OpenBSD don’t have any release schedules to follow. They can release their software anytime they like and not loose too much money.
Travis: Microsoft is a Billion Dollar corporation, with a god awful amount of reasources, if they can’t be expected to deliver a bug free platform.
No matter of how much resources they have, they can’t be expected to release a bug free software on schedule. Their only product isn’t Windows – it is many other software. they need money too. Plus, Microsoft spends a lot on R&D for products they never release. And like any other smart companies, they don’t spend all their money on development of their products – this won’t make any economic sense.
Travis: Then why are you defending them? why are you buying there products? Because they have locked you into a cycle.
I’m not defending them. I’m defending logic. If you want something bugfree, or close to bug free, go download OpenBSD or Debian stab;e. Don’t whine if you don’t have as much features as other OS.
Besides, you are talking to a person who spent most of his life on Linux. I’m using Windows now, but only until my exams finish and a boxed set of Red Hat Linux 8.0 comes out.
I’m not locked into any cycle.
Travis: Im not jealous of Bill Gates buisness success, Because I would have done the same thing
So tell me, why aren’t you as rich or richer than Bill Gates? Besides, the real business brain behind Microsoft is Steve Balmer, Bill Gates from all the biographies I have partially read, is just an lucky overglofied geek.
appleforever: Apple could have written something completely new, but it’s better they did OS X (based on unix) because it’s not so “outside the mainstream” like it was before. It’s not so much an island.
Then they should license Windows and be more mainstream, no? 🙂 Apple bought NeXTStep because they wanted something to replace OS 1-9 FAST. Look at how long Microsoft took to develop NT to what it is today, and how much money they spent on it.
Apple took a shortcut, and they didn’t take it because it was a better choice, they did it because it was a shortcut.
appleforever: There’s also a thing called evolution, you know, where something old evolves into something better over time.
And NT doesn’t deserve the right of evolving? When NT evolves, you says it doesn’t.
Or at least implied it doesn’t.
appleforever: You accuse me of being blind? Go to http://www.apple.com/macosx. The screenshot you vehemently assert “is not there” is in the middle column
No, I made that statment to counter your statment that there isn’t any screenshots of Windows XP on Microsoft’s website.
I obviously know there is screenshots on Apple’s site. It was a sacarstic comment.
appleforever: You don’t dispute there is no screenshots at the first page of the XP home page, nor any links on that page that when pressed take you to a shot.
That is because there is two different versions of Mac OS X, Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. Both of them have completely seperated pages, one at http://www.apple.com/macosx/ the other http://www.apple.com/server/
Windows XP’s page host a number of versions, some with different looks, like Media Center. Besides, there is a link to the tour of Windows XP on the main page, and people wanting to know how it looks like would know where to find it.
Microsoft also designs its page to show information in different pages, rather than displaying a summary of them on the first page like Apple.
appleforever: As for this address: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/tours/tour.asp — it’s what, 3 layers down, and loads (very slowly, even with DSL) a slow playing “tour”.
I use the slowest DSL service in Asia, and it takes 30 seconds to load. You either have a problem with your browser, or you seriously need to switch ISP.
Secondly, there is an plain text and pictures tour that isn’t using Flash. This is made for dial up users. When you arrive at the URL you supplied, you are given two choices, High-speed connection, and Standard Connection.
appleforever: Look, I’m not saying there’s zero XP shots at the MS site.
To quote: “You will find NO desktop screenshots (only a tiny icon-sized artist’s drawing of luna on the left side). None of the links on that page lead to any desktop shots either. ”
appleforever: OK, maybe it’s the control panels in 98 that are the same as those in XP. I haven’t used 95 in a while
Windows XP’s control panel is way different that previous versions of Windows. if you read any reviews, you would either heard praises (mostly) and critism (rarely) about the new control panel.
Windows XP changed the UI significantly from Windows Me and Windows 2000. But it isn’t as significant as Mac OS X. This is because Windows’ UI evolves between different versions, bombard the user with a completely different (well, almost) UI.
But having change doesn’t mean it is good. Sure, Mac OS X is easier to learn than Windows XP, but it is significantly harder to use than Mac OS 9 – coming from a KDE user.
rajan:
kreechah: Speed improvements? Imagined, I’d suspect.
I noticed huge increase in speed in boot time comparing with Windows 2000, certainly not imagined.
——–
I was responding to the fact that he claimed some people experienced speed improvements after installing sp1 on winxp. Not xp compared to win2k.
junkman:
You missed a couple of points.
Rajan said:
It has an inadequate admin interface that requires you be logged in as admin rather than the “su” that can be used in Linux/Unix operating systems. (You more experienced users out there will know what I mean)
junkman said:
Repeat to yourself – XP is NOT Linux and everyone is not a sysadmin.
I say:
There is “runas” in 2000 & xp. It is the equivalent to “su.”
Rajan said:
It requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions and configurations
junkman said:
Thank God…
I say:
I read somewhere that something like 75 or 80% of the admin tools have a CLI equivalent in 2000 (server?, I forget now). Don’t take that as gospel because I don’t remenber where I read it and cannot provide a link. In any case, the “requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions” claim is incorrect.
“This will do until the real desktop OS that we should be running comes along.”
Boy that’s a stunning endorsement.
It wasn’t meant to be an endoresement of anything. It was just a statement of fact – for me. It’ll do until someone finally realizes that we’re in the 21st century and we should have an OS that’s not mired in antiquity.
” I mean really – this is 2002. Shouldn’t we be thinking of using something better than derivatives of Unix technology that while still solid was old twenty years ago?”
The problem is that anything completely new doesn’t leverage the experience of all of the people out there that already know a LOT about what we already have, such as unix OS’s.
So let’s not strive to rise about that? The CLI as the ultimate user interface? Look I have a lot of respect for the work put into UNIX and Linux, but it is not the end-all and be-all. It doesn’t even come close.
So Apple stuck UNIX into the middle of OS X. Big deal. What does that buy me? The ability to run vi or some other arcane CLI app? Best of bost worlds? That assumes that they were best to begin with – and I don’t.
I thought that Next was on the right path – back in 1995. But I don’t think that just because they managed to squeeze some of it into OS X along with UNIX means they’ve managed to break new ground. And it only took – what? – seven years?
Apple could have written something completely new, but it’s better they did OS X (based on unix) because it’s not so “outside the mainstream” like it was before. It’s not so much an island.
Windows provides the same thing as unix – a common language, lots of people with experience, lots of code, etc. But the problem is one company owns it.
So you think that OS X will attract more of the common folk than they used to because it has UNIX?! Maybe it’ll draw some Linux people in and some Windows malcontents and some BeOS orphans, but mainstream? Not a chance. I’d love to see someone ride in and knock Windows off the top of the heap with a radical new computing experience – not rehashed technology that’s a clone of a clone (Linux->MINIX->UNIX) whose proponents feel compelled to mimic Windows every step of the way. I thought that the BeOS might be it, but it wasn’t…
I also agree that Windows provides a common platform but it also allows me to access other systems easily. I am working on a project that uses a thin Windows client to access COM objects in a middle tier (Windows 2K) that access a Sybase database running on a Linux data tier. These same COM objects access data from our DB2 databases on the IBM mainframe and update SQL Server tables on another server. And we did all this pretty easily all things considered (like Sybase on Linux).
It seems to me the best thing is a common language that’s not owned by one company, like unix OS’s. There’s also a thing called evolution, you know, where something old evolves into something better over time.
These are not “languages” either in the communicative sense or in the programming sense. They are platforms for doing tasks. Apple is a company that owns OS X. If OS XI comes out and it suddenly doesn’t have a UNIX CLI because Jobs didn’t think it was a selling point, that’s their business. They are a closed shop selling software and hardware for a profit.
There is also mutation where there is a radical shift in the paradigm that forces everyone to “think different”. That’s what I’m looking for…
Have you ever studied antitrust law?
No, I haven’t *studied* the anti trust laws, but I have read it, and read enough books about it (all, except one, of them advocating them) to understand it.
I was also a proponent of antitrust laws before I actually understood it and what it stands for. If you dig deep enough in osOpinion’s forums, you may find my posts under the nick “remaja” (find those before december 2001) and read them.
Look at this link for an intro: http://www.procompetition.org/research/bork.html
I have read this, and other reading materials from procompetition.org before I knew you even existed.
Besides, Apple has more than 70% of the PowerPC workstation market, and the acts they’ve done in the past 6-8 years are of greater antitrust implications than of Microsoft.
If you really want to know views that are similar to mine
http://www.capitalism.org/faq/antitrust.htm
http://capitalism.com/editorials/index.shtml (scroll down till you see “Microsft: Individual Rights on Trial”
I have other links, but I don’t have them offhand.
What disturbs me is that actions previously legal for Microsoft pre-monopoly is now illegal. That for me is a double standard.
Okay, now I understand. Never had such a problem like that since I started using Linux. All the crashes I had was caused by KDE, a simple Ctrl+Alt+Backspace did the trick. Though since KDE 2.2, I have never seen a crash.
And on the rest of your points, I agree (it is nice to have someone who thinks relatively the same as me).
kreechah: I was responding to the fact that he claimed some people experienced speed improvements after installing sp1 on winxp. Not xp compared to win2k.
Oh, if in that case, I noticed windows Explorer more responsive, while the Start button opens faster.
Anonymous: Rajan said:
It has an inadequate admin interface that requires you be logged in as admin rather than the “su” that can be used in Linux/Unix operating systems. (You more experienced users out there will know what I mean)
I never said this.
Nor did I said anything that junkman replied except his first quote.
junkman: I thought that Next was on the right path – back in 1995.
I though NeXT was in the right part. It had a super easy UI that isn’t bogged down by legacy stuff. The only problem was Jobs at that time didn’t know how to market his product until it was too late.
“For anonymous and his list of XP experiences, in over 25 installations here at work, at home and among friends and family, I have had a consistently good experience with XP.”
Junkman, I work with hundreds of systems, my experience with XP is consistant across all systems.
It is more stable…basically
“…than what?”
Than previous versions of Windows, but I thought that would be obvious.
It is multiuser…if configured correctly
“So is Linux – if configured correctly.”
Linux comes configured out of the box as multiuser. All OEM loads of XP I have seen have been configured to make the user comfortable with in the manner of a single user Win98 machine thereby destroying the multiuser effectiveness of it. Not Microsofts fault totally. It a cross between multiuser and single user without the true benefits of a multiuser system like Linux.
It does handle multiple apps…for the most part
“Smelling like a troll here…”
No, for the most part it does a better job of multitasking than preious Windows versions, it is not as good at it as Linux.
What I have found wrong with it…so far
It does not handle ISA devices very well (ISA modems)
“I’ve had no problem with the few legacy ISA devices left among our boxes.”
Good for you, I have had several problems with it even seeing ISA devices YMMV.
It does not handle serial mice very well
“Just how old is this hardware?”
DFI K6BV3+, MD K6-2 400, not ancient but completely useable.
It has compatibility problems with Office 2000 Pro (and probably other variations of Office2000)
“Ummmm, no, not really. About a dozen of the XP boxes I work with have Office 2K running with no compatibility problems to speak of. But I’ll grant that this may not be a universal experience – we are talking Office after all.”
Yes…really. Heres a list
Shortcuts for Icons do not work unless you get them directly from the directory path. If you use them from the “Start” menu it takes over a minute for them to start the apps
Some apps, especially Access, seem to have a hard time starting files from the file icon forcing the user to start Access and use file/open to start the same file.
Users in domains will get “error 1706” cd needed errors in some cases like the above. Use file/open and no errors…obvious bug.
That just some of the joys of using XP. Interestingly a lot of these are gone when you use OfficeXP…funny how that works.
It has several blatantly obvious annoying bugs (set default printer for example)
“Granted it has its share of problems. So does Linux or Mac OS X. Show me perfect software.”
Thought we were talking about XP here.
It has problems with USB on older motherboards
“Again, not that I’ve noticed. You know, expecting a new OS to run flawlwssly on old hardware (ISA slots, serial mouse, etc.) is just foolish. Go run Mac OS X on a Classic and see how much luck you have… ”
Well I notice it damn near every day. I am glad your company has the money to spend of needless upgrades to support your choice of XP, mine doesn’t. The USB issue exists, when you get a little more experience on a wider variety of hardware that might be used in the real world you see the same thing.
It has problems with certain video cards
“So did BeOS. And OS/2. And Linux. That’s a driver issue.”
Funny, it seems like XP was supplying the driver in all the cases I remember!
It has an inadequate admin interface that requires you be logged in as admin rather than the “su” that can be used in Linux/Unix operating systems. (You more experienced users out there will know what I mean)
“Repeat to yourself – XP is NOT Linux and everyone is not a sysadmin.”
Repeat to yourself “XPs admin interface is inadequate” and BTW I AM A SYSADMIN.
It requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions and configurations
“Thank God…”
And YOU are obviously NOT a sysadmin.
It is far too expensive
“Granted, but as a wise man once told me: “Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.”
Here where I work, our “free” Linux has cost us over $500,000 in consulting fees to a certain high profile Linux vendor (not the one wearing the blue hat)…”
And YOU are obviously NOT a sysadmin.
It is far too proprietary
“Oh pleeze. Do Linux apps run natively on Windows? Do Mac apps run natively on Linux? While Linux might be more open, I’d argue that this is one of its weaknesses if it is looking for more market share. How many distros are there in the Linux world? 700+ and growing? Every Tom, Dick and Hairy can tweak some features, recompile the kernel and offer a new TDH Linux distro. And how many desktops? I’d argue that every day brings more fractures in the Linux community. Today Red Hat is being touted as the “Microsoft” of the Linux community. Tomorrow it’ll be Sun…”
Huh????
Its licensing is far too restrictive
It is far too invasive with regards to privacy and civil rights
And most important of all the dollars you spend go to a company judged guilty of criminal offences in the USA..of course if you have no conscience maybe you can sleep at night.
“I personally feel that the whole antitrust mess was instigated and pushed along by a) Microsoft competitors and b) overzealous litigators. I’m sure that there’s more than one /. zealot out there who thinks that the movie “Antitrust” (made with the assistance of Sun and some other open-source groups) is a true story…”
Well you ALMOST sounded normal above but its hard to keep that second personality bottled up for long eh.
Other than the above working with it is no worse than…..a visit to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.
“Hmmm. If you’re having a tooth pulled it’s because you failed to keep up with you own dental hygiene – don’t blame the dentist. Likewise, if you’re having problems running XP I’d also look at what you’re doing wrong. If my 60 year old mother-in-law can install, configure and run XP with no problems (ok, I did have to help her configure her broadband access…) then I have nothing else to say to you about this subject…”
THANK GOD!
I just read some of your additional posts and also found myself in agreement.
Like you, I do not consider myself “locked in” but I do have to look at what is paying my bills and right now that’s working with MS systems and tools.
Rajan,
I am sorry if I suggested you didn’t know ANYTHING about the antitrust law issues, but consider this:
The decision of the U.S. District Court finding Microsoft guilty of antitrust violations was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A whole panel of judges (I forget how many) upheld the District Court’s finding of vioations (but reversed the remedy ordered). MS appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. They upheld it by not accepting it for review. This is a court with “anticapitalists” justices like Scalia and Rehnquist.
The appeals court judges and supreme court justices (and their personal clerks) that reviewed the finding that MS violated the antitrust law are some of the smartest people you will find on the planet. They KNOW antitrust law. They looked at the voluminous paper making up the record in the case. AND THEY DECIDED THAT MS VIOLATED THE ANTITRUST LAW. You are going to have to do a lot more than make a few offhand comments and point to a few websites to establish that somehow MS didn’t really violate the law and some zealous litigators or attorneys hired by competitors somehow bamboozled the really smart judges and justices I am talking about. Believe me, these people don’t get fooled.
On the desktop screenshots, I have never said or meant to say there were no screenshots of XP at MS’s XP website. I said there were none on their XP home page (first page). Look, my bigger point is such shots are plastered all over Apple’s site (OS X tab) and the same is simply not the case for MS. It’s a difference that anyone (not biased) can acknowledge.
On the “double standard” point. I am not an antitrust expert, but my understanding is that the antitrust law treats monopolies different than nonmonopolies. If you have 20 percent of the market, you can’t make exclusionary deals (ie force third parties to do things that hurt competitiors) to perpetuate a monopoly (remember, you don’t HAVE A MONOPOLY). In general, the law recognizes that if you have 20 percent of the market, you can’t do a lot of damage to competitors or consumers. Your competition makes sure you can’t go to far. Whereas, a near total monopoly like MS, it’s a different story. This is common sense, not a “double standard”
then I have nothing else to say to you about this subject…”
THANK GOD!
Sorry – you don’t get off that easily…
“For anonymous and his list of XP experiences, in over 25 installations here at work, at home and among friends and family, I have had a consistently good experience with XP.”
Junkman, I work with hundreds of systems, my experience with XP is consistant across all systems.
Okay, I’ll go out on a limb here – are all of these “hundreds of systems” running WinXP?
It is more stable…basically
“…than what?”
Than previous versions of Windows, but I thought that would be obvious.
Maybe not since posts in this thread have ranged across Linux and Mac OS X as well. But I’ll maintain that it’s significatly more stable than any of its predecessors. I have yet to see it crash across gaming, programming, sound production and other general application usage on my desktops. YMMV indeed…
“So is Linux – if configured correctly.”
Linux comes configured out of the box as multiuser. All OEM loads of XP I have seen have been configured to make the user comfortable with in the manner of a single user Win98 machine thereby destroying the multiuser effectiveness of it. Not Microsofts fault totally. It a cross between multiuser and single user without the true benefits of a multiuser system like Linux.
Huh? Maybe I’m missing what you mean by multiuser. You’re talking about how some vendor preconfigured the OS out of the box? Gee, how hard is it to configure WinXP for multiple users? I took me about a minute if that long. But the point is why would someone want a multiuser desktop OS out of the box? Same PC used for 2nd and 3rd shifts? Multiple people using the same PC in a cubby? Sure on our lab floor we setup up OS’ for multiple users, but it’s neither difficult nor terribly time-consuming.
“Ummmm, no, not really. About a dozen of the XP boxes I work with have Office 2K running with no compatibility problems to speak of. But I’ll grant that this may not be a universal experience – we are talking Office after all.”
Yes…really. Heres a list
Shortcuts for Icons do not work unless you get them directly from the directory path. If you use them from the “Start” menu it takes over a minute for them to start the apps
Some apps, especially Access, seem to have a hard time starting files from the file icon forcing the user to start Access and use file/open to start the same file.
Users in domains will get “error 1706” cd needed errors in some cases like the above. Use file/open and no errors…obvious bug.
That just some of the joys of using XP. Interestingly a lot of these are gone when you use OfficeXP…funny how that works.
Sorry to disappoint you but I just had some folks using XP and Office 2K do exactly what you described with Access and Word and Excel – with none of the problems you mentioned with loading or speed issues. Sounds localized to me…
“Granted it has its share of problems. So does Linux or Mac OS X. Show me perfect software.”
Thought we were talking about XP here.
Again the threads have ranged across many OS’ – mea culpa, but the point still stands. What else would you use?
“Repeat to yourself – XP is NOT Linux and everyone is not a sysadmin.”
Repeat to yourself “XPs admin interface is inadequate” and BTW I AM A SYSADMIN.
It requires a GUI for nearly ALL functions and configurations
“Thank God…”
And YOU are obviously NOT a sysadmin.
My, my. Inflated with self-worth aren’t we? Well, mr. sysadmin in all caps, as a reformed sysadmin who’s now a full time programmer, I’d have to point out I’ll take the few points and clicks that it takes to do most *common* admin chores in a Windows server OS to filling my brain with the arcana necessary to do it from the CLI. Knowing the difference between the -i and the -iu parameter in some seldom needed command line program is not a badge of superiority.
So yeah, I’m not a sa anymore and I’m proud of it. And as long as I have an easy to configure OS on my desktop, I will never need to be again (I reiterate – Thank God!).
“Again, not that I’ve noticed. You know, expecting a new OS to run flawlwssly on old hardware (ISA slots, serial mouse, etc.) is just foolish. Go run Mac OS X on a Classic and see how much luck you have… ”
Well I notice it damn near every day. I am glad your company has the money to spend of needless upgrades to support your choice of XP, mine doesn’t. The USB issue exists, when you get a little more experience on a wider variety of hardware that might be used in the real world you see the same thing.
Here, they are standardizing on Win2K primarily and they are realists. I don’t think they thought it would be a good idea to deploy either Win2K or XP onto hardware that might not be capable of running it. Sounds like the useless upgrade in question here might be putting XP on hardware that has problems running it. But as a real sysadmin I’m sure you pointed that out to your management before they sprung for XP, right?
If by living in the real world you mean trying to shoehorn a brand new OS onto old hardware and then complaining because it doesn’t work well, then indeed I don’t have to live in that world. Too bad, so sad…
As to my personal opinion about the antitrust business, it’s no more hair-brained than the anti-MS zealots out there who believe that MS is Satan and Gates the anti-Christ.
And another thing…! 😉
I swore to myself my previous post was the last thing I had to say about this subject but I’ve had lunch to think about it. But I swear to you Eugenia, this is my last comment on it.
Okay, anonymous, I will conceed the fact that Windows has problems and that given an OS that I could determine was better, I’d go for it.
But, I have to take issue with your assertions about XP (and I guess Windows in general).
You cite problems with XP on older hardware naming USB problems, legacy ISA problems, modem problems and video problems.
Did you do any research on these boxes before deploying XP?
Did you contact tech support at the company that sold you the boxes?
Did you contact the OEMs for updated drivers?
Did you contact MS for info on whether these devices were supported?
Did you check DejaNews to determine if others were having problems with specific hardware?
Did you have a compelling reason to upgrade these “hundreds” of older boxes without foreknowledge of how they might react?
In other words, sysadmin, did you do your job? Failure to support some old legacy device is NOT XP’s fault nor should it be. It wasn’t the fault of the BeOS when it wouldn’t work with my video card. I had a choice – find a supported card or not use the BeOS.
I’ll give MS and the Windows teams credit for this: they have produced an OS that will handle a large pool of varying hardware from hundreds of vendors across hundreds of hardware/driver iterations OUT OF THE BOX. I’ve had it running on video cards from a TNT to a GeForce 2MX to my current GeForce4 Ti, integrated Intel video (at work and on my wife’s PC), to what ever ATI card my my mother-in-law has. USB support on my wife’s 3 year old PC is superb while I have three USB game controllers and the USB link to my PDA plugged into the 4 slots I have. I have an older SB AWE-32 ISA sound card in another PC in my studio and an ISA SCSI card to support the Zip drive. I had no problems with any of these XP installs because I had the drivers in hand or knew that XP supported the devices before I started.
In addition, my XP box at home runs almost every application I’ve thrown at it from some older games (the Win95 version of Command & Conquer runs fine as does Mech Warrior II) to newer games (GTA III, Civ III, etc.), hardware intensive applications like Cool Edit Pro 2 and PhotoShop, home productivity apps like Office and Quicken and programming tools like VS.NET and C++ Builder.
All that for ~$99 (~$189 for Pro). I’d like cheaper, but you know what? I make enough to afford not to have to spend my time tweaking a free OS that features a much more limited set of applications…
What you fail to understand is the following:
When a monopoly does something which is legitimate to others, you consider the monopoly as evil. That’s a double standard obviously. If that particular action is evil, then almost everyone is evil. Apple is also evil for example.
But your decisions are not based on logic, and they are not objective at all.
Let’s assume that Microsoft changed its business, and they decided to bundle their software with their own hardware. Well obviously at least for a while they will make lots of money.
Consider the same example for Apple. Apple makes lots of money by selling its own hardware. Is Apple evil? Well according to you, maybe, but for me it is a business decision to make lots of money. There is nothing wrong about it.
So if Microsoft does something which is a business decision, you can not automatically say “Oh this is outrageous, they can’t do that”. Otherwise it would be a double standard.
What you can say of course is that, considering that they are a monopoly, you need to show that they can not take that action, because that action violates the anti-trust laws.
Also never forget the fact that, Microsoft become monopoly by their own success. So you should respect them for that at least.
appleforever: I am sorry if I suggested you didn’t know ANYTHING about the antitrust law issues, but consider this: […]
I’m sorry, but you misunderstood me. Microsoft IS guilty under antitrust laws, never suggested otherwise. What I AM against here is antitrust laws.
appleforever: On the desktop screenshots, I have never said or meant to say there were no screenshots of XP at MS’s XP website. I said there were none on their XP home page (first page). Look, my bigger point is such shots are plastered all over Apple’s site (OS X tab) and the same is simply not the case for MS.
It is a completely moot point. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp is a product home of 2 different versions of Windows, and in a while, it would turn to 4. http://www.apple.com/macosx shows ONE desktop.
Besides, following web site usablity (like those suggested by guys like Jeff Raskin – and yes, I was once a web designer, grew bored of it), Microsoft’s website makes much more sense usablity wise than Apple in this regards.
appleforever: It’s a difference that anyone (not biased) can acknowledge.
I’m not biased (especially not against Apple), I absolutely don’t see your point.
appleforever: If you have 20 percent of the market, you can’t make exclusionary deals (ie force third parties to do things that hurt competitiors) to perpetuate a monopoly (remember, you don’t HAVE A MONOPOLY).
Funny, cause Microsoft had this exclusionary deals with its OEMs (Compaq, notably) and IBM (especially) way before Windows got 20% of the market.
appleforever: In general, the law recognizes that if you have 20 percent of the market, you can’t do a lot of damage to competitors or consumers.
Microsoft did a lot of damage to new upcoming stuff (like Norton Desktop, DR-DOS etc.) before it came a monopoly with the deals I said above.
appleforever: Your competition makes sure you can’t go to far. Whereas, a near total monopoly like MS, it’s a different story. This is common sense, not a “double standard”
For me it is an double standard. All three Sun Java, Be and Netscape killed themselves. I had an opinion Microsoft killed them before I actually studied what is publicly known about them. For example, Be made two major mistakes, the first one being violating the most important marketing rule: make something to sell, not sell something to make; as well focused on expansion rather than bottom line.
So to me punishing Microsoft for its competition’s failure is bad, Facist and double standard. Why? I wonder why WinAmp is growing strong even though WMP with built in capablities like WinAMP have been in Windows for so long. Then again, I wonder why Real still owns the market, only loosing marketshare with Apple mostly; especially since NetShow have been bundled with Windows for more than 2 years (Netscape “died” faster).
Examples like that shows me you CAN compete with Microsoft without help from some overzealous litigators pushing to break up Microsoft or break its’ flagship product.
Sergio: Obviously Windows XP is a great improvement. Computer manufacturers are reluctant to include the new service pack, because of the reliability of XP.
I don’t really understand you, but most, if not all, big OEMs use Windows XP with SP1.
There were reports in Cnet that computer manufacturers were reluctant to include SP1 nowadays, because they are receiving very small number of technical question phones from the customers. That is they think that XP itself is quite stable, so they do not include SP1 right away.
According to the news, Sony for example will include SP1 in 2003.
That’s what I was talking about. This news is from News.com, it is relatively positive about Microsoft so it should be probably true, but I am not sure of course, because it is from Cnet news.com