WHY do you XP-users use XP?

[Arky]

I'm not winding anyone up here - this is a genuine question. I am bewildered as to why anyone would choose to run XP instead of Win2k. XP is WAY too "Big Brother" for my liking, it requires minimum of 128mb RAM, vs Win2k's min spec of 64mb. Personally, I buy my RAM to run my applications faster, NOT to waste on a bloated OS - one might very reasonably question WHY XP is running so inefficiently.

Please enlighten me, and like I said - I'm not looking for an argument, so flamers don't bother - I'm looking for genuine replies only - convince me, if you can, to downgrade ( ;) ) to XP from 2k!

Regards,


Arky ;o)

[gooki]

1) It comes on a bootable cd-rom (my copy on win2k does not) which makes for an easy install.

2) Winxp has a lot of the security patches that were released for 2k pre installed so the fewer time i have to visit the microsoft website the better.

3) XP pro does everyting win2k does an is just as stable as far as i am concerned.

4) I've stripped down the interface so it looks and operates exactly like my win2k install did (no flashy skins, fade effects etc).

5) When you sell a computer people prefer to have the latest OS and the general public precive winxp to be better/newer than win2k.

6) Mine doesn't chew up much ram. I've got 512mb installed, no page file and I still struggle to use more than 300mb of ram.

7) Remote desktop pre-installed. Very handy for those with home networks who are two lasy to move to another room to use the other computer.

However if you already have win2k waste your money on a winxp upgrade.

Thats about it for me.

[RadicalEd]

Cuz I had ME and the upgrade was only $30 since I bought my computer in August.

Besides, the balloonie skins amuse me.

[diji1]

main reason for me was cleartype. total eyecandy yes, but it makes a huge difference to me ( i have rest of purtifying features turned off ). everything on the desktop is AA and it really made a fundamental difference to me. i can remember visithing fave websites and being struck by how much better that appear with cleartype. other than that id be stickin to 2k to be honest, but that was a pretty big part of why i switched.

another reason is driver support ( at least for my hardware ). just seems better which is possibly the resons that games seem to run better under xp than 2k. may be only my hardware combo of course.

as posted earlier with a fair amount of work ( coupla hours ) xp can be trimmed/tweaked into 2k performance/hdd space levels. part of the slower performance is all new "features" to protect the more clueles users out there - turn em off, delete most of the program files dirs after installation ( "firewall", moviemaker, netmeeting etc. ) and u have something close to 2k. i couldnt tell the difference encoding wise.

the big brother comment is certainly apt - first thing to install after windows xp is a decent firewall.

no flames here at all :), but u say "I am bewildered as to why anyone would choose to run XP instead of Win2k" ...

well, let me say that i would ask the question the other way around! :). mind you,
1) i enjoy tweaking things, xp needs it ...
edit2) i run win98se , mainly for gaming but xp when i want to do anything serious ( encoding ;) or anything at the same time it's xp. we all know what a great multitasker win98 is don't we ;), but it still does cane along in games :)

[Arky]

lol - funny you should mention Win98 - ironically I dual boot it because my laptop hardware DVD decoder won't run under anything else, and Win2k also gives many older DOS problems a hard time. Still, I have to say that much as I appreciate the above replies, I nevertheless remain unconvinced as to the merits of XP to the POWER user (which most of us on this forum are, to at least a moderate degree - i.e. we use our systems to do hardware-intensive, and technologically-advanced, tasks, rather than Joe Bloggs who only surfs the net and types Word documents), over and above Win2k. There is a marginal arguement for the SMP brigade that XP (allegedly) offers superior support for dual/multi processors, but as a single CPU user, I'm sticking to Win2k for the forseeable future.

I still welcome anyone else's opinions on the matter though - I'm not closed-minded, I'm just gonna take a heck of a lot of convincing! :)


Arky ;o)

[cofferscuffs]

it looks pretty :P

[Arky]

what does?! lol


Arky ;o)

[cofferscuffs]

the themes :P

fisher-price luna xp!!!1!!

[Arky]

You encode video with the aid of a pretty view, do you??? :p

:D


Arky ;o)

[cofferscuffs]

yes.. and when i get bored of it i switch to my laptop with win2k and after encoding is done, i reboot my main comp and relive the bliss of win98 :D

fisher-price rules

[diji1]

i wouldn't consider 2000 -> xp worth it if i paid for it ...

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You only have to look at screenshot of programs running in XP with themes enabled to see why people use it. Ok, so many of the old fuddy duddies dont like the themes, but I myself love them.
Rounded groupboxes, cool buttons etc all add to the XP experience.
It is very stable (not that 2k isnt) and as mentioned earlier, has lots of cool stuff in it, like the remote desktop facility and basic firewall.
I think if people actually gave the themes a chance, they would really get to like them. I know when 98 came out, i turned off all the active desktop stuff and had windows opening in their own instances etc, but then I realised I was living in the past and that I'd better just get used to it! Needless to say, I now enable everything and have never looked back.
I work on computers all day and since I moved over to xp, it is much more interesting. I hated looking at grey buttons :(
Who cares about the slight performance drop, just go buy a p4. They are so cheap now, its not even worth thinking about!

Just my 2 pence :D

[ulfschack]

Since much of the XP code is rewritten I figured it might not be as slow as 2k on older machines. And alas! Like a vitamin injection on my old 350MHz PII, even faster than 98 ... maybe not 95B.

cheers

[Latexxx]

It gives better speed than win98. I have also turned all graphical widgets off.

[diji1]

Lightning UK! : has lots of cool stuff in it, like the remote desktop facility and basic firewall.

pls dont tell me ur serious about that :D

imo lightning is right about ( some ) interface things. skins / themes / sounds have never really appealed to me ( i bin using the "more windows" color scheme from win98 plus for about, oh 6 years now ), but theres a few small improvements that just make things convenient - taskbar window grouping is good, system tray program hiding, taskbar locking.

ill admit that i have been a bit of an anti-xp zealot in the past before trying it, but once it be tuned it seems to perform as well / better than 2k, be slightly more convenient to use and look better. not worth that asking price though and forget about the included apps, they are lame. in conclusion: a slight improvement but not one too gush about really.

[AudioVideoMaster]

I dual boot Win98se and WinXP. Added WinXP just recently so I could run NT only/coded programs that wouldn't run under win98se (DVDMaestro, Maya, etc.). Could have gotten the full install of Win2k a bit cheaper but just decided to make the leap to XP. I turned off most of the graphical stuff. But I have to say I like the themes. So I did keep them. I've been using computers since 1987 and I have to say XP has been the best OS I've used so far that runs everything and doesn't crash a dozen(+) times a day.

Forgot to say I didn't upgraded Win98se, I done a full install of XP on another partition, b/c my old CD-RW drive doesn't work under XP and Hewlett Packard wants $10 for a XP driver upgrade disk! Not going to get a new CD-RW drive or give HP $10. Waiting on cheaper DVD-R/RW drives, not DVD+R/RW. :D

[diji1]

howdy AVMaster - maybe u know but there is an update that fixes cdrw issues for xp ... maybe that is an issue with u drive ?

[auenf]

only a few things arky:

VMR (no 1 overlay limit)

capture (atimmc had issues with me and 2k and capturing till 7.7 came out, altho that brought out a solution in the faq, 7.7 refuses to capture with the VIVO)




btw, i find XP crashes a fair bit more than 2k

Enf...

[Arky]

I wonder if that might be due to inferior memory management? I'm not saying it IS, I'm just saying I wonder if it is.

Thanks to everyone for the replies. while themes and included firewalls etc. may appeal to some, I am a bit of a purist in so much that I will add a Firewall if I see fit, and be happy that I have a less code-heavy OS for the most part. On balance, having read the above, I think I will remain with 2k for the time-being.


Arky ;o)

[TheXung]

It runs slightly faster.

If you were a person who buys all of your software, and you don't have any for a particular machine, XP really is a bargain. It comes with a CD burner, firewall, remote connection, and there's a legal patch that will let you play DVDs on WMP.

To be honest, XP takes up as much memory as 2k, they're just being honest to you now about how much you need and it comes with a lot of software that is very handy and should you buy them separately, would sum to more than the cost of XP.

[AudioVideoMaster]

Didn't know there was an official XP update for cd-rw drives. I'll go check it out. But there's no guarantees b/c my CDRW drive is an old HP 8110i 4X/2X/24X drive, which came out in 1998! Just been spending my money on more important PC components like memory and larger hard drives.

Originally posted by diji1
howdy AVMaster - maybe u know but there is an update that fixes cdrw issues for xp ... maybe that is an issue with u drive ?

[Doom9]

http://www.doom9.org/winxp.htm
keep in mind the date that article was written.. in the meantime the hardware recommendations are outdated, and the shutdown slowdown with nvidia drivers is a thing of the past.
for short.. if you like w2k stability but are annoyed since you have to wait more than a minute every time your pc boots (and I do that several times a day) xp is a must. I could live without many of the gadgets but the fast boot is a true godsend. and of course remote controlling a pc that is 1.5 car hours away from here and managing my download queue there is pretty nice too ;)

[diji1]

speaking of ... bootvis is a little free app from ms that can make xp boot even faster.

[theReal]

I installed an XP system at work recently and I was surprised very positively!

It is clearly the successor of NT and Win2k, so it's not difficult to get into it very quickly. But also, it seems to be very fast and responsive. It installs easily and quickly, all devices were detected correctly, no problems at all.

I was impressed by XP Professional's performance, I consider using it in the next future. Of course I haven't seen much of it, but I have never installed a system so easily before.

[cyberef]

Win2k rules!

[Neo Neko]

Windows XP is a rip off. Especially if you have 2000. XP should have been provided as a service pack to 2000 users for free. 5.0 to 5.1. Yup that is a massive jump. I feal like paying full price all over again just to have them fix bugs they should have already and to introduce some new ones. Built in firewall? A joke. Remote desktop? That is hardly new. I have used citrix for quite some time. And VNC for quite a while as well. XP remote desktop is a gaping vulnerability. Along with universal network plug and play. MS passport is a gaping security joke as well.

The driver support is a bit better and it is the only real useable plus I see. Not that it could not have been given as a free upgrade to 2000 users as well. If you are using 9X Windows XP might be worth it. But 2000 is still a better value. XP is just Microsoft's excuse for a new OS release this 2 year period. And a vehicle to promote new computer and hardware sales.

If you just have to have XP get the PRO version. Stay the hell away from the home version. Bad news it is. And once you get XP PRO download the corporate ISO to eliminate that damn hardware fingerprinting and registration.

Oh BTW I run it with most the new features disabled just cause i can make it look like a Mac. :)

[theReal]

XP should have been provided as a service pack to 2000 users for free.Absolutely.

Stay the hell away from the home version
I would've done that anyways, but what's the difference between the home edition and the pro edition?
I guess the home edition is just ripped off of some features, has more stupid default settings and includes more spyware "features"? :rolleyes:

[sarahjh69]

i put XP on 5 of my pcs
its still on 1......but i wanted to use my older equipment
umax parallel port scanner
mm100 tv card
steering wheel controller

and they don't provide drivers.
so it was removed from 2 of my pcs

its very bad for burning (lots of smartburn being used)

so it got removed from my pc with dvd burner
and my pc with cd burner.

its only on my internet pc now.....

I don't like XP!
too many problems.....not enough solutions
Windows ME....completely stable for me, always has been!

[phamilton]

XP offers quite a lot over 2K, but you have to earn it! Yes it is bloated and, as installed, likes to spend a lot of time doing its own chores (like re-arranging the files needed for startup so they load quickly when you boot), but as one or two others have noted it can be tamed. The trouble is that it comes configured for non-power users - I guess they assumed that us guys would soon get under the hood and adjust things to suit us. In my experience:
- it is more stable then 2K
- error recovery is simpler, smarter
- the ability to roll the software configuration back to the point where it used to work (e.g. after installing a bad driver or badly-behaved software) justifies the XP upgrade on its own
- it is at least as fast and sometimes faster (after stopping unnecessary processes) than 2K
- it makes better use of memory than 2K
- it seems to make better use of 2 processors (tricky to measure though)
- it integrates better with Office XP than 2K if that matters to you
The only downside points I encountered were just teething troubles:
. collecting together all the XP-compatible drivers (a pain)
. finding where all my favourite 2K features are now hidden
. switching off all the unnecessary stuff
. the crazy activation stuff - will this last until the next version?
Give it a go - the 20th century has passed!

[ppera2]

One of M$'s 'genial' innovations in XP is System Volume Information in every partition. Made in tipycal M$ manner, very inefficient and resource hungry. Just look that huge amount of short exe files there ?????
And result is usually very bad, especially if you have multi OS.
And it costs speed too.

[theReal]

Isn't that the same crap like in Win2k? The System Volume information folder on every partition and an indexing-task is slowing down the HD on every access, only to make file searches a little faster...
That's why one of the first things I do in Win2k is I disable the indexing for all partitions.

[ppera2]

Not exactly - this is something intented for restore...
Fortunatelly it can be easy disabled.

[user44]

and talking of which:

I recently built a 1.3Ghz ThunderBird for a guy at work...

Intsalled win2k pro (the OS of choice for the decerning user) and then Office XP... then to avoid the stupid registering shit!! (and yes it is shit!) that MS want you to do before you can run Office XP more than 50 times!!!

I un-installed Office XP and installed Office 2000 SBE instead, the performance increase was very very visible, 'Word & Excel' open instantly and the PC's general performance increased too!!

BLOATWARE should be banned!

there, i feel better now!!

[DBaT]

For me the reason for switching to XP was quite simple,
new leaked and tweaked displaydrivers came allways first for XP.
Ok, nowdays you don't have to tweak anything with ATIs display drivers but last winter it wasn't just plug and play with R8500 if you wanted good performance.

To me XP looks and feels just like W2k after some tweaking and using Tweak-XP, I haven't had any problems with XP and there is no reason why you shouldn't use it if you have new hardware.

[rudeboymcc]

main reason i switched from 2k to XP was because 2K is not very compatible with printers and scanners, and just happened ot ignore my ones. XP has built in drivers for nearly all hp printers and i love the task manager. cleartype is also easy on the eyes.

[theReal]

win2k is not compatible with printers and scanners? And even with HP printers? I heard a lot about people having driver problems with XP, much more than with win2k...

What is better about the XP task manager? Does it have any new features? I'm sometimes using Taskinfo 2000 in Win2k because it shows more info than I would ever want to know, but usually I find the win2k taskmanager quite practical.

[rudeboymcc]

i said not very compatible. sure it works with some but it doesn't work with others and in my case it didn't work in 2k at all and worked perfectly in xp pro without any extra drivers.

from what i remember win 2k's task manager didn't show the CPU usage. i always have the CPU usage in my taskbar so i know what's happenning. i find it useful, i don't know if you would

[theReal]

The taskman in win2k shows cpu usage (user and kernel) in a diagram, in the tasklist for every task, and in the icon.
I wasn't sure anymore, but I think the taskmanager in XP was one of the things that made me think "ah, still the same" (I installed an XP system recently but didn't have much time to look around and try things out). Btw on that system, everything installed perfectly, also the HP Laserjet, but a few days later guy who uses it complained that most of his prints were garbage (wrong spacing between letters, really looked shitty). We installed the win2k/XP driver from the HP cd then, and everything was ok.

[twistee]

On 'my' computer i use win2k pro. I installed xp pro for a while, and didnt really like it. It was a bit slower, it wasnt as stable and the default settings were stupid (and then it took ages trying to find where to turn off some of the settings). The one plus that it had was that it was able to install my graphics/sound...etc drivers instantly (so i didnt need to install the drivers and restart). I liked the eye candy of xp for a while...but then it started to seem as if it was taking over the screen (even though i run at 1600 x 1200).

On my 'home/family' computer we run winxp home...all i can say is that its a piece of shit. A p4 2ghz computer and it runs virtually slower than my p3 800, especially when encoding...The amount of times i have begged my mum to let me format it and install 2k, but im not allowed. XP is probably good for the inexperienced user...and for people that have big problems with 2k...but thats it.

[cowboysfan]

i just built me a mean machine for ripping dvd's. amdxp2000,1024mb ddr2100 ram, 80gig special edition wd 8mb cache. anyways i have xp pro installed on it and i ripped my first dvd to svcd on it last night. it took between 5-6 hours to rip when harry me sally(only dvd i had laying around) using dvd to svcd with cce at 4 pass vbr. i don't know about u but i don't ever remember being under 10 hours before ripping a movie. i'm sure alot of this newer fancy equipment i'm using now has helped alot but i have used xp pro since last year and it has never rendered any of my performance while encoding.

[Alestrix]

I don't run XP on my computer, but when seeing the TaskManager on a friend's XP machine I noticed that for each process the owner was included in the list which is not the case with 2k's Taskman.

One other thing that REALLY annoys me with 2k (and might make me switch to XP) is the fact that 2k _restarts_ my box in about 80% of the times I select 'shut down' (or when I have some app like GNot 'shut down' the computer) - oh, and 2k can't access my FDD while Win98 has no trubbles with it.

- A

[ppera2]

If encoding on Win XP is significantly slower, something is not OK.
By me it goes with same speed (with 1-2 % diff) on Win 98 SE, ME, 2K and XP. 256 MB RAM.

[twistee]

it probably isnt win xp...my parents bought this computer from dell with xp home pre-installed. i tried to do a rip straight away and it was shit...i have done rips after that as well, and the speed hasnt improved. but i also have a problem with ripping from the dvd (half the time the dvd drive doesnt want to read the cd). so i think it might be the actual computer. but winxp 'home' still hasnt yet impressed me...i like 2k, and ill probably stick to 2k for a while.

[LordDethstar]

Okay, let's see...

- Windows XP starts faster, although that is not really an issue because I sometimes run it for days.

- Better WLAN support. That is mainly important for my laptop.

- An option that removes the colored box around the names of icons on the desktop. That's very important for me.

- Better support for some games like Need for Speed 4.

- The ability to hide all the System Tray icons.

- File sharing does not piss me off as much as in Windows 2000, because of simple file sharing.

- Integrated PPPoE support for my DSL modem.

- Sound support for DOS games (Duke Nukem 3D)

That's all I can think of now.

[mikemikez]

I run windows 98 because it's superresponsive!

With XP it's like there's 100 layers of software between you and the machine.

I use powerquest driveimage to restore my complete OS partition every few days. This only takes me 2 minutes as I store the image on another disk and I can select to restore my os straight from my XOSL bootmanager.

I laught my ass off with every OS discussion because I know that nomatter what Microsoft OS you use, it starts screwing you after a while of intensive use. I don't even have a virusscanner running in realtime mode, neither do I need to defragment my OS disk or use any other stupid maintenance tools. I always have a clean and superfast responsive machine!:)

Mike

[shindsh]

XP Boot time is faster than 2000
Its same core as 2000, no disadvantages in XP over 2000, unless u going internet firewall settings (dont choose these on XP home network).
If you are a Visual Studio.NET developer then lesser upgrades on XP than 2000.
Windows 2000 support will expire in 2004, and Windows XP will still be active at that time.
Windows XP will expire a year or to 2 later (TBD).
Windows LongHorn will take over in 2005 (TBD)........so it doesn't matter if you XP or 2000 unless you like faster boot time and require Microsoft support for other Microsoft products in 2004.

Last but not least XP is prettier.

[auenf]

Originally posted by shindsh
Last but not least XP is prettier.

prettier or uglier?

Enf...

[user44]

Uglier... deffinately! :D

[Infophreak]

Why do you keep pointing out that it boots faster? I let my win2k pro machine run for days or (preferably) weeks. If my ISP decides to disconnect me for some mysterious reason (sometimes I just think they don't like me - I must have bad BO...) I usually reboot because Windows (all versions) loves to be rebooted - apart from the very rare inexplicable crash (like today when I tried to burn a 1.5Mbps VBR / 224kbps 48kHz Joliet VCD with Nero (can it *get* more non-standard?) - Windows refused to kill nero.exe and soon after that explorer.exe crashed and taskman refused to kill that too, so I had to reach for the reset button ;_;. And of course, it worked like a charm when I burned it with VCDEasy...), that's the only times I reboot.

[theReal]

I usually boot once a day because I need some sleep at night and those three 45cfm case fans (plus two 27cfm fans plus the cpu fans and the 4 HD's...) are a bit annoying at night. ;)